Cold Wind

by Paige Shelton

  The shed never felt too small with a guest or two. But when Gril and Dr. Powder joined the girls and me, the space became cramped. Gril talked to the girls first, asking them the same questions I had. Neither of them said a word. They didn’t cry or seem frightened. They were strangely calm, alert but silent. Gril grabbed some paper and pens from my desk and handed them to the girls, asking if they could write down anything.

  The brown-eyed girl wrote “Annie.” The blue-eyed girl wrote “Mary.”

  “Your names?” Gril said.

  They nodded.

  “That’s great. Can you tell me more? Your last name, parents’ names, address?”

  The girls looked at each other and then back at Gril before they both shook their heads and put the pens down. Were they deciding not to write anything else, or were they not able to? Gril didn’t push them. Soon he stepped back and let Dr. Powder perform an examination as he made a call to the state police.

  As I listened to this end of the call, I determined that two girls, no matter what their names were, hadn’t recently been reported missing. Gril told the person on the other end as much as he could—he didn’t really know ages or hair colors, just that one girl had blue eyes and the other brown. He promised he’d get pictures sent as soon as the girls’ features weren’t hidden under so much mud.

  “Doc, do you recognize them at all?” Gril asked after he ended the call.

  “I don’t, Chief. Not even a little,” Dr. Powder said. “I can’t even tell you if they’re from around here.”

  Probably sixty years old with strong, broad shoulders, Dr. Gregory Powder had been the picture of calm every time I’d seen him. I wondered if anything ruffled his feathers. He’d once inspected the scar on the side of my head and proclaimed, “Nicely done.”

  Though he was our resident doctor, I’d told him the same lie I’d told everyone but Gril: that I’d fallen off a horse—back in Colorado. He hadn’t questioned me further, but I knew he wondered what my real story was. Benedict was one of those kinds of places, though, and it could be presumed that many folks had a real story they weren’t telling.

  He checked the girls’ vitals, saying aloud that they seemed to be okay other than slightly dehydrated, and probably hungry, but it would be good to give them clear liquids first, just in case their stomachs were sensitive. He warned about potential nut allergies but said they should get something in their systems. Neither of them was frostbitten, but they’d been outside for longer than they should have. He looked inside their mouths and nodded at Gril. I saw the girls’ tongues and I wondered if the doctor was letting Gril know they still had them. He suggested that Gril call Viola to ask if she would help get them cleaned up. He would examine them again afterward just in case all the grime was hiding something that needed medical attention, he said, but he didn’t think he’d find anything new.

  Gril said he wanted to step outside to make the call. He asked me to come with him.

  I followed and noticed that he made sure to close the door tightly behind us. We had to walk to the back side of the building, where the phone coverage was strongest.

  “Why does the doctor want you to call Viola?” I asked.

  Gril shrugged. “She’s the closest thing we have to a female official. Those girls are going to need some cleaning. They might be more comfortable with a woman.”

  “Of course.” I didn’t mention that Viola might have her hands full with Ellen. She’d let him know if she couldn’t help.

  I hadn’t really looked at his eyes until that moment. He was upset, but the girls were, for the most part, okay, so I didn’t think that was what was weighing on him.

  “What do you think is going on?” I asked.

  “Beth, something else has happened,” he said.

  My heart both fluttered and sunk. “Something about my case?”

  Gril blinked and then put a hand on my arm. He was an old, grizzled man with unruly gray hair and a beard that never looked quite right. His bent and dirty glasses magnified his eyes to owlish proportions. I’d become fond of him over the last few months. He’d been my confidant, a friend and an authority figure I could trust. He’d even given me names of therapists in Juneau I could talk to about the trauma I’d lived, if I wanted to. He was also in touch with the St. Louis detective on my case, Detective Majors.

  “No, no, Beth,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  I shook my head. Not everything was about me and my bag of ugliness. “No, Gril, my bad. Apologies. What happened?”

  Gril took his hand from my arm and rubbed his chin. He swallowed and then looked farther into the woods, down the road Donner had been traveling when I’d seen him earlier.

  “Donner found something out there,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to tell you, but I need to ask you a couple more questions about those girls first, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “They haven’t said a word?”

  “Not one.”

  “Do you know from which direction they came?”

  “No idea. I didn’t ask. I didn’t see them coming. I just answered the door. They knocked.”

  “Did they seem in distress?”

  I thought a moment. “No, not scared. They seemed in shock, maybe. They still kind of seem that way; alert, but not all the way aware.”

  “But calm?”

  “I guess.” I paused. “Thirsty. They were thirsty.”

  “Okay.”

  When Gril didn’t ask another question, I did: “What did Donner find?”

  He hesitated a moment. “A body.”

  “Oh, shit.” I hadn’t expected that answer.

  “Yes. Female. Middle-age. He didn’t recognize her, but she wasn’t … Well, he has no idea who she is.”

  “That’s what Randy heard last night?”

  He blinked at me, seemingly surprised. “No, the woman had been deceased awhile. When did you talk to Randy?”

  “This morning. He told me what he heard. I heard a strange noise when I didn’t answer the door right away. It sounded like what he described. That’s actually why I answered the door at all. I might not have.”

  “Was the noise from one of the girls?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think they have something to do with the body?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Is it still out there?”

  “Yes. Donner secured the scene as best he could, but we need to investigate. I called in some Juneau people. They’re on the way.”

  “How … Where is it?”

  “After Randy called in what he’d heard, Donner went out to his place and didn’t find anything. However, just beyond it, the mudslide you’ve probably heard about has exposed some land, a road, too. It’s not easy to travel, but it was wide enough for Donner’s truck to maneuver down. He’d never been out there before. I haven’t either. It’s been blocked off for years. He went to see what he could see. He came upon a shelter of sorts, and the body was inside.” He cleared his throat. “Frozen. I’ll see it for the first time when the Juneau crowd gets here.”

  Thoughts batted around in my mind. Donner must have had to leave the scene because he had no cell phone coverage out there. The idea that the body could be gone by the time anyone else got to it also ran through my mind. It was cold outside, but it wasn’t currently freezing. The body might be thawing.

  “Deeply frozen? Like it had been in a freezer? It’s not cold enough outside to deeply freeze anything, is it?” I asked.

  “Donner thought it was frozen. It might have only recently been moved to the shelter. I just don’t have the answers yet.”

  “Jesus. That’s terrible. I wonder if it was the girls’ mother or something.”

  “It could be anybody, but so far, none of us knows these girls.”

  I pulled my eyes from the woods and looked at Gril. “Let me come out there with you.”

  “What? Are you kidding? No!”

  “Gril.�
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  “I was just letting you know, a courtesy as to why people would be in and out around here. It could get busy, and I wanted you to stay out of the way.”

  “Gril, you know what I can do. Think about it—I might be able to help.” I paused. “Do you trust these Juneau people?”

  He paused. “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it.”

  “I haven’t met them.”

  “See, you trust me. You know I can see things others don’t always see right away.”

  “You’re good at math, Beth. You have a knack for understanding distances. Real crime scene investigators have some of those skills, too.”

  “Yes, some. But maybe I can help. Remember Linda Rafferty? You should have shown me the scene much sooner. I might have … understood it better, at least.”

  Gril was a good police chief. Better than good. But he’d made a mistake at the scene where Linda’s body had been found back when I’d first moved to town. She and her husband had moved to Benedict for the same sort of reason I had—tragedy. Unfortunately, their tragedy followed them, and Linda couldn’t escape a second time. I was able to help Gril better understand the scene where her body had been found.

  I would have worked for my grandfather forever, as a receptionist, a crime scene technician, whatever he’d wanted or needed, if only Gramps had lived. I’d been really good at it, instinctually accurate beyond the numbers. Once Gril had shared all the Linda Rafferty crime scene details with me, I’d been able to notice a measurement mistake and help solve the crime.

  He rubbed his hand over his ever-present gray beard. “Donner says it’s gruesome.”

  “I can handle that.”

  I could. Beyond my own three-day nightmare, I’d seen lots, researched even more. I wrote gruesome, and I wasn’t bothered by it when I wasn’t a part of it.

  I continued, “Maybe it’s a terrible thing to admit, but having someone else’s problems to solve helps me think less about my own.”

  He shook his head slowly, inspected my eyes with his, and finally said, “All right. I hope I don’t regret this, but all right. Let’s call Vi first.” He pulled out his phone.

  I stepped away as he talked to Viola. The other body crossed my mind again, that white dress shirt, but I wasn’t going to ask about it yet. I thought I would have heard if it had been identified, and it seemed a stretch that the new body had anything to do with the one on the shore.

  I looked down the road and into the woods again. How far away was the dead woman? Would she still be there? If not, who would have moved her?

  I was about to find out.

  Five

  I went with Gril and the girls back to the Benedict House. Once the girls were introduced to Viola and seemed comfortable enough with her, Gril left, saying he’d be back to pick me up in fifteen minutes. It occurred to me that he could change his mind and not come back.

  Viola didn’t seem inconvenienced to be given the extra duty of cleaning up the girls. She had help. Her sister, Benny, gathered food and clothing, and Maper, a Tlingit woman I’d met only once at the Glacier Bay Lodge, joined in to help, too. Maper worked at the lodge when the tourist season was going strong, but also had some experience as a nurse. I couldn’t understand if that meant she’d been educated as a nurse, or if she’d taken care of someone in particular. Either way, she was gentle and kind, so it would be fine.

  “Hello, Annie and Mary,” Viola said again as she smiled at them, their still-wide eyes looking up at her. “We’ll get you taken care of.”

  They nodded, but didn’t smile back, and continued to remain silent. I was surprised by this other side of Viola. Yes, she was friendly to me most of the time, but I’d never witnessed this much warmth.

  “You two okay?” I asked the girls. “I’ve got to leave, but I’ll be back.”

  For an instant, I thought I saw concern light their eyes, but it didn’t last long. They would be fine. I’d gone from freaked out to concerned to pleased that they were out of the elements.

  Finally, I nodded at Viola. She told me that Ellen was safe in her room and could fend for herself for a little while. I hoped that was true.

  I heard Gril’s truck pull up and, with one more smile at Annie and Mary, I left the Benedict House again.

  Gril wasn’t driving it this time. Donner was. He came to a stop, and I opened the passenger-side door and got in. He was on the phone, so I didn’t interrupt as I buckled up and listened.

  “Nothing?” he said. “Okay, well, stay in touch. The girls are getting cleaned up. You know Viola, right? Okay. Yes. She’ll take care of them. Got it. Bye.”

  He ended the call and looked at me. “There are still no reports of two girls missing in Alaska. Nothing.”

  “Maybe their people haven’t noticed yet,” I offered.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they aren’t considered missing,” he said.

  “My mind has conjured a story that connects them with the body we’re about to go see,” I said.

  Donner frowned. “Mine, too. We don’t have to be fiction writers to connect those dots, though, do we?”

  I looked at him, but he had his eyes on the road. It seemed to have been an offhand comment—he didn’t know my secret.

  “No, it all seems pretty obvious. The dots are right there,” I said.

  “But it could be coincidence,” he said.

  The mud wasn’t too challenging as we turned down the road that would take us past the Petition, presumably past Randy’s, and out to the body.

  “What do people do when they live so far out in the woods?” I asked. “Doesn’t everybody need civilization sometimes?”

  “Some people just want to get away and get off the grid. It’s doable, but it isn’t an easy life, particularly in the winter. Fishing, hunting, and gardening. Not everyone sees a doctor, takes medicine. But there are ways to make money out here, if you choose not to have a ‘real’ job. Trapping can bring an income.”

  “Oh. Well, that sounds terrible,” I said.

  Donner shrugged. “It’s not for me, but it’s reality, Beth. I try to be open-minded about it.”

  “I hear you.”

  We were silent as we passed the Petition and continued down the road for a couple of bumpy miles before we came upon a cabin.

  “Randy’s?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Donner put the truck into park.

  It wasn’t as far away as I might have guessed. I’d never ventured this direction. Doing so had never crossed my mind. It was a jarring trip over ungroomed road, and that was obvious just by looking.

  Randy’s cabin was a small, simple, square home with a chimney and a peaked roof. There were lots of places just like it in these woods; Randy’s seemed to have an upper floor or a windowed alcove or attic. It was stark amid the winter scene. Even though the inside of the truck was warm, a chill ran along my arms. I sensed I was moving out of my comfort zone.

  It wasn’t until then that I realized how I had assigned mental borders, a perimeter, to my world. The Benedict House, the businesses nearby, the Petition shed, the library. Those places and the people in them made up my perfect world. I wasn’t “over” what had happened to me, but I’d convinced myself that I was getting better, that I was safe, particularly if I stayed inside those lines.

  It was ridiculous to feel those borders crumble a little only two miles down the road. I was still in Alaska; I was still far away from Missouri. I was safe.

  I couldn’t help it, though. My sense of security wavered.

  “Beth?” Donner said. “We’re not getting out here.”

  I looked at him as he nodded at where my fingers were wrapped tightly around the door handle. I pulled my hand away as if the handle were a hot burner on a stove.

  “I know,” I said.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine. Sorry about that.” I forced my attention to the cabin. “Is that circular window part of a loft, an attic?”

  “Yes, a bunk loft. Probably just beds up there.
I can’t remember the last time I visited Randy at his house.”

  “Are there other bedrooms?”

  Donner thought a moment. “Yeah, one other one on the main level. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “We’re headed farther down that way.” He nodded. “It’s even bumpier but not for long. We’ll exit out and onto another road.”

  “What prompted you to explore?”

  “It looked different.” Donner put the truck back into gear. “The mudslide moved a lot of earth, but I didn’t realize it had impacted this area. I thought I should get eyes on it and report back to Gril.”

  “I guess it’s good you listened to your instincts.”

  “We’ll see. Out here, I had no way to let Gril know what I found. I had to leave the body where it was.”

  “Could it be someone who died of natural causes?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think so. Even though she was frozen, there was some … distortion. Maybe from time. It could be any manner of things, Beth.”

  “Do people get stranded out here? Die because they have no way out or no way to get help?”

  “Sometimes. Usually, though, they know what they’re getting into. There’s plenty of opportunity to be off the grid, but if you aren’t prepared, it’s hard not to think your troubles are your own fault. Some people are okay with the idea of dying out here. Civilization, even small Benedict civilization, can be hard for some folks. They’d rather die than face the world. I get it.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure.” He sent me a quick look. “I’m not going to live that way, but I understand how the world can be very tiresome for some people.”

  The road was jutted and rocky and muddy and wet. I would never have tried driving it on my own. I couldn’t believe Donner had made it the first time. I was so distracted by holding on that I couldn’t focus on talking. A part of me acknowledged, though, that I was glad that I hadn’t found the world completely tiresome yet. I wasn’t ready to stop hiding, but I wanted to do it on the grid, at least on as much grid as Benedict offered, and I wanted my borders well in place.