The Deep, Deep Snow

by Brian Freeman

  “Exactly.”

  “Even live-in care wasn’t enough. You can’t watch someone 24/7, and Paul was a wanderer. If I went to take a shower or cook a meal or read a book outside, he’d be gone. I’d literally have to lock him in his room at night, and I’d wake up and hear him rattling the doorknob to get out. It was awful. Sometimes I still hear that noise at night. It haunts me.”

  He looked behind us at the cages where the raptors lived. The cages kept them safe, but a cage was still a cage.

  “So finally, I made the decision to put him in that facility in Stanton,” Lucas went on. “Believe me, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The fact that I didn’t have a choice didn’t make it easier on either of us.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I won’t tell you not to feel guilty, Shelby. If it comes down to that for you and Tom, you will feel guilty. All you can do is find a way to live with it. And any time you need to talk to someone who knows what you’re going through, I’m right here.”

  “Thanks, Lucas.”

  “Are you at that point?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, and I didn’t. I had no idea. “Most days, he’s functional. I mean, he can do basic life stuff. He has periods where he seems entirely normal, but then he can be gone just like that. If he’s going to start disappearing, I need to do something. I don’t want him ending up on the side of the river like your grandfather.”

  Lucas gave a sad little laugh. “You know, Grampa Paul probably preferred it that way. He went peacefully, and he wasn’t locked away in some room when he did. That’s not so bad. But I hear you. It could have been much worse, and no one wants a loved one to pass away alone.”

  I checked my watch. “Well, I should go. I appreciate the talk.”

  “Of course.”

  “I made an appointment this morning to visit the facility in Stanton where your grandfather was. Just to see what it’s like and get some of my questions answered. I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “Do you want company?”

  “Really? Could you do that?”

  “There’s nothing on my schedule that I can’t cancel.”

  “Well, that would be so helpful. Thank you. It won’t take much time, I promise. I have to get back to Everywhere soon. I need to check on the FBI search at the resort.”

  Lucas gave me a puzzled look. “The FBI are back in town? Did something happen?”

  “Haven’t you seen the news?”

  “No, I hardly ever read the paper or watch television. I usually don’t know what’s going on in the world. You’d be amazed how little difference it makes to your life on most days.”

  “Well, it’s about Jeremiah Sloan,” I told him.

  “That boy who vanished years ago? Is there new information in the case?”

  “Yes, we found evidence that he was taken to an abandoned resort outside Witch Tree after he disappeared. The FBI is searching the area to see if there’s anything that would help us figure out what happened to him.”

  “You mean, like a body?”

  “That’s what we’re afraid of.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Lucas stared into the trees, and I watched his brow furrow with memories. “Witch Tree. Wow. That takes me back. I don’t suppose it’s the Mittel Pines Resort, is it?”

  “Yes, it is. Why? Do you know it?”

  “Sure. I was there for a couple of weeks every summer before we moved away. Grampa Paul used to take me there. That was one of the things I really missed about being in Kansas City. I couldn’t visit the resort with him anymore.”

  “Hang on, your grandfather used to stay at the Mittel Pines Resort?” I repeated, just to make sure I had it right.

  “It was his favorite place in the world,” Lucas told me. “He loved it out there. He was so upset when it closed. I bet he stayed there practically every summer of his life. I remember sometimes when I was in the facility with him in Stanton, he’d talk about the days we spent there. He’d tell me that when summer came, we really had to go back and stay in the cabins. That was so sad. In his mind, the resort was still open, and I was still a ten-year-old boy.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Lucas and I stood outside the nursing home in Stanton where Paul Nadler had spent the last months of his life. I had an appointment to talk to the administrator about my father, but instead of going inside, I stood on the sidewalk and found myself unable to move. Yes, I was hesitating because I was scared to even think about my dad in a place like that. But I also couldn’t get Lucas’s story about his grandfather out of my mind.

  “Shelby?” Lucas said, when I stayed frozen where I was. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Should we go in?”

  “Not yet.”

  I looked up and down the street that ran past the three-story apartment building. I drove past this location every month when I had errands to run in Stanton, but I’d only stopped here once, after Paul Nadler’s body was found by the river. From where we stood, I could see the Oak Street bridge a few blocks away. I thought about Mr. Nadler wandering out of this facility when no one was looking and taking a stroll past the neatly mowed lawns until he reached the bridge. He climbed down the slope and sat underneath the bridge deck, and at some point on that summer Friday, his heart stopped. When the rains came the following night, the river rose up and carried his body away and left him on the grassy bank outside town.

  That was what had happened to him.

  And yet.

  I walked across the street, and Lucas followed me with a puzzled expression on his face. The parking lot of the McDonald’s on the corner was crowded. I sat down on a cold bench beside the bus stop and tried to make sense of it.

  “Shelby?” Lucas said, trying again. “Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking?”

  What I was thinking was crazy, but I said it anyway.

  “I think your grandfather was the one who took Jeremiah to that resort.”

  Lucas shook his head. His expression made it clear that he definitely thought I was crazy. “Grampa Paul? Come on, that’s impossible.”

  “Maybe, but hear me out. Over in the national forest, we’ve got a ten-year-old boy on his bicycle. He misses his grandfather so much that he won’t even take off his Sunday suit. And now over here in Stanton, we’ve got a nice old man with dementia who loved taking his ten-year-old grandson to the Mittel Pines Resort. An old man who wandered away from his nursing home on the same morning that Jeremiah disappeared.”

  I watched Lucas struggle with what I was saying.

  “Yeah, it’s a weird coincidence, but that’s all it is.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, it doesn’t make sense, Shelby. Grampa Paul’s body was found by the river here in Stanton. Not in Everywhere. Not in Witch Tree. Here in Stanton.”

  “You’re right.”

  “The national forest where that boy disappeared is more than an hour away from here. And Witch Tree is, what, another hour past that? How on earth did Grampa Paul get there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, even if he took somebody’s car, it doesn’t add up. You’re saying he drove to Everywhere, picked up Jeremiah, went out to this resort, came back to Stanton, dropped off the car that apparently nobody realized was gone, and then went walking by the river, had a heart attack, and was carried away by the current? Doesn’t that sound absurd?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Plus, if Grampa Paul really was the one who picked him up, what happened to Jeremiah? I hope you’re not suggesting that my grandfather harmed that boy. Because he didn’t, Shelby. He would never, ever hurt a child. He was the nicest man I’ve ever known.”

  “I’m sure he was, Lucas.”

  “Then how do you explain Jeremiah never turning up?”

 
“I can’t.”

  “Well, see? There’s no way it happened like that. No way.”

  I was ready to agree with him, because everything he said was true. My theory didn’t make sense. It left me with too many questions that seemingly had no answers. And yet I couldn’t give it up for one simple reason.

  I was right.

  I knew I was right. I knew it had happened exactly that way. Paul Nadler took Jeremiah Sloan to the Mittel Pines Resort. I didn’t know what happened next, but I was sure that somehow their two lives had intersected that day in the national forest.

  As if to prove I wasn’t really crazy, the universe took that moment to send me a sign. A real sign that helped explain everything.

  We sat on the bench across from the nursing home, and a regional bus rumbled toward us from the center of town, the way it did every hour of every day, serving Stanton and Mittel Counties. I saw it coming, and I looked at the destination on the electronic sign on the front of the bus.

  It said Martin’s Point.

  I got up immediately and flagged the driver to stop. “Want to take a ride?” I said to Lucas.

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s what your grandfather did.”

  Lucas didn’t argue with me. The two of us got on the bus. Ten years ago, I was sure Paul Nadler had done the same thing. He’d walked out of the retirement home and crossed the street just as the Martin’s Point bus was pulling up to the stop. He’d climbed the steps, probably said a polite hello as he paid the driver, and taken a seat. He was dressed impeccably in his blazer, checked shirt, tan slacks, and wing tips. No one looking at him would have given him a second thought or wondered if this old man wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

  Lucas and I had no trouble finding a seat. In summer, the bus would have been crowded, but not in January. We made a handful of stops in other towns as we made a zigzag route south, leaving Stanton County behind and crossing into the lower half of Mittel County. I saw the city limits sign as we neared Martin’s Point. The road descends as you drive into town, and below us, I could see the huge swath of white marking the lake that was frozen from shore to shore. Lake homes dotted the breaks in the bare trees. We rumbled along the main street past shops and inns that were mostly shuttered for the winter. When the bus pulled to the curb, I said to Lucas, “This is our stop.”

  “Is it?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  We got out of the bus and let it pull away in front of us. When it did, we were immediately across the street from Bonnie Butterfield’s ice cream parlor. Unlike many of the other Martin’s Point shops, Bonnie kept her store open year-round, because people here eat ice cream no matter how cold it gets outside.

  “I know this was a long time ago,” I said to Lucas, “but do you remember what kind of car your grandfather used to drive? Back when he would take you out to the resort on summer vacations?”

  Lucas thought about it. “A white pickup, I think.”

  I pointed down the block. “Like that one?”

  He followed the direction of my finger, and his eyes widened in surprise, as if I were a magician performing a trick. I realized he was beginning to think I might not be crazy after all. “Yes, just like that one.”

  Ten years later, Bonnie Butterfield still owned a white F-150, parked in the same place where she’d always kept it, half a block away from her shop. I wondered if she still left her keys inside. I imagined Paul Nadler getting off the bus from Stanton and seeing that truck. It was his truck, or at least that was what his mind told him. Mr. Nadler got in that white F-150 and headed off for the Mittel Pines Resort, where he’d spent some of his happiest days with his grandson.

  But you know, every dirt road looks like every other one around here, and it’s easy for an old man to get confused. I was pretty sure Mr. Nadler had made a wrong turn on his way to Witch Tree and wound up on the dead-end road that leads into the national forest.

  That was where he met Jeremiah.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Dad was right about the snow coming. As I made the long drive back to Everywhere late that afternoon, it began to fall, like sand tapping across my windshield. Soon a thin white layer covered the highway, and my tires kicked up a cloud that I could see behind me in the mirror. I drove carefully to avoid slipping off the road.

  Darkness was already setting in as I arrived in town. Everywhere looked like a fairy land, covered in swirling snow and lit up with the Christmas lights that we kept on through most of the winter. I parked outside the Carnegie Library. Across the street, I could see the early bird crowd at the Nowhere Café. The evening special was Swedish meatballs, and the lingonberry sauce was famous. I could see several members of the FBI team filling the booths, but not Agent Reed. He was waiting for me in the sheriff’s office.

  I climbed the concrete steps that fronted the century-old library building and let myself inside through the massive oak doors between two Corinthian columns. The stairs to the basement were on my left. I was about to head down to the sheriff’s office when I heard a voice call to me from the darkness of the library.

  “Shelby, over here.”

  It was Agent Reed. The library was closed, but he was wandering among the shelves and lighting up the spines of the books with his phone. I do that sometimes at night, too, if I’m working late. There’s something about being alone with all those books that makes you think the characters will come to life.

  Reed had a book in his hand, which he returned to the shelf. “You know, I’ve never asked you, Shelby. Why is the sheriff’s office in the basement? It seems like a strange location even for Mittel County.”

  I smiled. “Oh, it was a temporary fix that became permanent. We used to have our own building, but it burned down about fifteen years ago. We moved in underneath the library while the county board debated what to do about a different space. Eventually, my father told them we’d just stay where we were. He always thought we should be out on the roads anyway, not stuck in an office.”

  “Smart man. What started the fire?”

  “An overnight deputy was smoking.”

  “Ah. Not Sheriff Twilley, I hope. I can tell he likes his cigars.”

  “Fortunately not.”

  The two of us made our way to the front of the library where chambered windows overlooked the street. We sat down in overstuffed chairs that had been here my whole life. The air inside had grown cold. You could hear a pin drop in the quiet, and when we talked, our voices had a faint echo on the stone floors.

  I explained to him my theory of what had happened between Paul Nadler and Jeremiah. I expected him to dismiss it out of hand as impossible. He didn’t.

  “I remember the old man,” he replied when I was done. “I couldn’t have told you his name was Paul Nadler, but I remember the body by the river. He had a peaceful look about him.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And you’re convinced that Jeremiah went off with this man?”

  “I am. I can’t make all the details fit yet, but I believe that’s what happened.”

  Reed knitted his hands on top of his bald head. “Yesterday, I said the boy seemed to be having fun out at the resort, not that he was some kind of prisoner. That’s consistent with your theory.”

  “It is.”

  “Did you check with the police in Stanton about Nadler’s background?”

  “I did. He had no criminal record. Nadler’s grandson, Lucas, says his grandfather was never abusive. There’s no reason to think he planned to harm Jeremiah. Frankly, I don’t think this was a kidnapping at all. I think it was completely innocent.”

  “Did you get a DNA sample from the grandson?”

  “I did. I told him we’d need to run familial comparison on any DNA samples found at the resort.”

  “And what do you know about the grandson?”

  “He’s a local ve
terinarian. Solid guy.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I felt an urge to defend Lucas. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “His grandfather was missing, and the two of them had history at that resort. It’s at least possible that he went out there looking for him, Shelby. I can tell you like him, but we have to cover all the bases.”

  “I know we do. And I already checked. Lucas was with a friend of mine, Jeannie Samper, most of that Friday and Saturday. They were searching for his grandfather. Plus, I saw him myself late Saturday night at the raptor center in Stanton. He wasn’t involved.”

  “Well, that leaves us with several mysteries,” Reed said.

  “I know. If this was an innocent accident, I can’t understand why we never found Jeremiah. This case should have had a happy ending.”

  “Unfortunately, the fact that it started out as innocent doesn’t mean it ended up that way. It’s possible that the wrong kind of person found them and took advantage of the situation. After all, we know that a third party got involved at some point. This wasn’t just Paul Nadler and Jeremiah Sloan. Someone else wound up in the middle of it.”

  “Because of the F-150.”

  “Yes, exactly. The truck was wiped down and abandoned on the other side of the county. There’s no way Paul Nadler did that. Somebody else did.”

  “I feel like we’re back at square one.”

  “Oh, no, we’re not. Thanks to you, we may well be a lot further along than we were before. However, our suspect pool just got bigger. Any alibis people had for Friday don’t hold up anymore. We’ve looked at this whole case through the lens of Jeremiah’s disappearance on Friday afternoon. But that may no longer be the relevant timeline. If Paul Nadler was the one who took Jeremiah to the resort, then the real question is, what happened between Friday afternoon and the discovery of Nadler’s body by the river in Stanton on Sunday morning?”

  I thought about the people we’d considered suspects.

  Will and Vince Gruder.

  Keith Whalen.

  I’d seen all three of them on Friday afternoon when there wasn’t enough time for them to have taken the boy to the resort and made their way back to Everywhere. But Reed was right. Things had changed. We didn’t know where they’d been for the next two days.