Cold Wind

by Paige Shelton

  Gril walked out of the house and noticed me.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as I stepped out of my truck.

  “I asked for a tour of Randy’s house. He invited me over.”

  “Invitation’s been rescinded. Go home, Beth,” Gril said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing that’s any of your business.”

  I stood beside my truck, thinking about confessing my earlier trespassing.

  “Gril…” I began.

  But I was interrupted as Donner and Randy came out of the house together. Randy wasn’t handcuffed, but there was no mistaking the terrified and confused look on his face as Donner held on to his arm. Randy didn’t want to go with Donner; he had no choice. I didn’t think he even noticed I was there.

  “Gril?” I said again.

  He looked at me, hesitated a moment, and then said, “You’ll hear soon enough anyway. The dead body might be Randy’s wife, and Christine confirmed that the woman was murdered, strangled.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “Might be his wife?”

  “Fits her description. We need Randy to … confirm. Christine came to get him; she’s taking him back to Juneau.”

  Christine followed the others out of Randy’s house. She pulled the door closed and then stood on the porch, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the scene. She hiked up her snow pants and sent me a distinct frown.

  My earlier trespassing didn’t matter. They weren’t here for that.

  “He lives alone?” I said.

  “As far as I know, he’s been alone since his wife ‘left.’” Gril didn’t make finger quotes in the air, but I heard them in his voice.

  “That’s horrible. But wasn’t the body frozen? Has it been that way for six years?”

  “How do you know how long his wife has been gone?” Gril asked.

  “Believe it or not, just this morning I was talking to Randy about her. She came up in conversation.”

  “Maybe she’s been on his mind.”

  “You think he killed her?” I asked.

  “Unknown at this time.” Gril turned away.

  I interjected, “Where has the body been? Where was it frozen?”

  “We’re working on that,” he said over his shoulder.

  “So, he put her body in Lane’s storage shed recently?” I hurried to catch up to him.

  “Again, working on that.”

  “You let Lane go.”

  Gril shrugged. “No choice right now, but he’s not going anywhere.”

  “He was coming out of the mercantile late last night.”

  “Yeah?” Gril stopped walking.

  “Yes.”

  “Good to know. Thanks.” He looked back toward where Lane lived, bit his bottom lip, and then turned back to me.

  “Why do you think it’s Randy’s wife?” I asked.

  “The tattoo.” He looked toward Christine, still observing the scene from the porch. “Christine did some research.”

  “She researched tattoos?”

  “I believe so.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Christine stepped off the porch and walked toward us as Donner deposited Randy into the passenger side of the van and then stood next to it. He crossed his arms in front of himself and waited.

  I didn’t mention my visit to Brayn. I thought about my conversation with Randy in front of the mercantile, when he’d first told me about the strange noise he’d heard, the one I was now sure had come from the girls. He’d seemed bothered by it. Maybe upset, but mostly just bothered. In my mind, now I superimposed a different concern over the one he’d claimed he’d had. Instead of being worried about the strange noise he’d simply heard, maybe he was worried that the person or persons who made it might have seen him moving his wife’s body. My imagination was certainly cranking on high.

  “May I ask why you’re here, young proofreader?” Christine said as she approached.

  “I told Randy I was considering building a home. He said I could look at his floorplan.”

  Christine turned and looked at the house and then back at me. “Well, well, well, of all the cabins in all the woods … You’ll have to have a gander another time.”

  “So I understand.”

  Christine squinted at me. “No, really, who are you?”

  “She’s a new resident, Christine. She has nothing to do with this. Yes, she’s done some work for me, but she used to work for her grandfather, a longtime and well-respected police chief.”

  “Oh? That’s interesting. His name?”

  I suddenly realized that no one had asked that question before. Donner knew I’d worked for my grandfather. So did Orin. Neither of them had asked for my grandfather’s name. I hadn’t prepared a lie.

  I opened my mouth to say something, though it wasn’t going to be the truth.

  “I hate to break this up, Christine, but you need to get to the airport before the storm keeps the Harvingtons from flying tonight. Unless you want to stay?” Gril said.

  Christine rocked on her bootheels and then puckered her lips as she looked at me. I felt guilty just being in her line of vision.

  “No, as much as I love your little hamlet, Chief, duty calls and I must get myself and Mr. Phillips back to Juneau,” she said. “We’ve a body to identify, after all, perhaps a murder confession to take, you just never know. It could be a lucky night. Well, for everyone but the dead woman, I suppose.”

  Christine turned and made her way to the van. She got into the driver’s side and started the engine.

  “She scares me,” I said.

  Gril laughed once. “She’s smart and strong-willed, but you have nothing to fear.” He put his hands in his pockets as we watched the van leave. “You might want to be ready with a name next time.”

  “I will be. Is there anyone else with them? Is she in charge of Randy by herself?”

  “Yes. She wouldn’t let anyone join her. I tried.”

  The light had dimmed some with one less vehicle’s lights. Donner joined us, but it was impossible to see his face.

  “Do we know when last he spoke with his wife, Gril?” Donner asked.

  “Unfortunately, they haven’t spoken for years. He doesn’t have a working number for her, either. When she left, she didn’t want to ever speak to him again, or so he says that’s what he concluded. He hadn’t realized it would be so literally, but she never returned his calls, and then her number quit working. He didn’t think it meant she might be in trouble. He claims she’s had divorce papers for years, too, but just never signed them. He said he didn’t much care, thinking she was just ignoring him to irritate him. He just went about living his life, says he hadn’t really thought about her for a long time.”

  “So bizarre,” I said.

  “That can happen out here sometimes,” Donner said. “You forget there’s another world out there. Benedict can insulate you, in bad ways as well as good.”

  “We’ll do our due diligence. I will know more later tonight,” Gril said. “Go home, Beth. Get out of the cold.”

  There would be no rechecking the toothbrushes tonight. I hopped into my truck, watching Gril and Donner as they walked back to each of theirs. I led the way away from Randy’s house, but the two of them followed close behind. I slowed and came to a stop outside the Petition shed. I stepped out of my truck and waved as they each passed by. It was reasonable to think I’d stopped at the shed to get some work done.

  However, after their taillights were no longer visible, I jumped into my truck and headed back toward Randy’s. But I didn’t stop there—the toothbrush questions would definitely have to wait to be answered.

  I’d been around killers before. My grandfather had arrested two brutal serial killers in Missouri. I’d been in the same police station where they were being held inside a cell, locked up, but not muzzled. I’d heard them, watched them, observed them. I’d used some of their words, chunks of their personalities in some of my books.

  They behaved li
ke killers, said things that killers would say. They were obviously evil.

  I also knew some killers could fake it. I wasn’t oblivious to their skills or that impressed by my intuition, particularly in its new incarnation, the one that had been influenced by Travis Walker.

  But Randy wasn’t a killer. I was almost one hundred percent sure he wasn’t.

  Someone was, though.

  I was drawn back out to the scene where the body was found, not because I suspected Lane (though I didn’t not suspect him), and not because I didn’t think Christine and her crew had done a good job, but because I’d helped my grandfather enough to know that, yes, I did have something—a way of seeing things that few people had. The first time at the shed, I’d only glanced in briefly and neither Gril nor Christine had shared any pictures with me. I just wanted a look inside, a chance to take my time and see if anything struck me.

  My headlights glimmered off the wood planks, seemingly even more dilapidated than they’d been before. I stopped and looked at the shed through my windshield for a few minutes.

  I left the truck running but threw it into park. The light from my headlights would help but wouldn’t be enough. Fortunately, I had a flashlight in the glove box. I grabbed it and was grateful to find it still had battery power.

  Thankful again for all my winter gear, I high-stepped in my boots through the snow. I swung the flashlight out toward the gravestones. They were far enough away from the road that I didn’t think I’d explore them tonight.

  I stood in the shed’s open doorway and shone my flashlight inside. Things, boxes, traps were still there, but better organized. The boxes had been lined up, some of them stacked. I didn’t understand what steps had been taken to gather evidence, but my grandfather would have had everything taken in for closer looks. Where would this stuff go here in Benedict? Or would it be shipped back to Juneau? Maybe that’s what was going to happen at some point. Is that why everything had been semi-organized?

  Nevertheless, I carefully stepped inside and looked for the box of baby clothes. It wasn’t hard to find; it had been placed on top of three other boxes. My glove-stiff fingers lifted the flaps.

  I stuck the flashlight under my chin and aimed it inside the box. The baby clothes were clean and folded. I saw lots of blues and yellows. There was no way to know what gender of child these clothes might have covered, but I got the impression they’d been for a boy. I looked for sets of matching things, similar items, but didn’t find any. If these clothes had been used for fraternal twin girls, the parents hadn’t cared that the clothes weren’t feminine or that the girls wouldn’t be dressed to match each other.

  I packed the box up again and closed the flaps. I shone the flashlight around the shed. Nothing else struck a chord. There was nothing unusual or special about the size of the space. There was no indication that a body had been on the floor, stuck up against the wall. The light from my flashlight didn’t glimmer off even one strand of hair.

  I had to come to the realization that my trip out to the shed had been only for me, something to satisfy a curiosity even I didn’t understand completely. There was nothing new to see here.

  I sighed and shook my head at myself.

  And then the world fell apart.

  Cracks and crashes, too-loud booms sounded as the shed fell in and on me. Instinctually, I covered my head; and a good thing I had, I thought, as a plank came down hard on the forearm that covered the scar. The pain seared up through my elbow and all the way to my ear, but my head hadn’t been hit. I yelled.

  But no one would hear me out here. I was pinned in place. I couldn’t move any part of my body, except the toes in my boots.

  I was completely trapped.

  Twenty-Three

  Once I got past the initial shock, I decided I probably wasn’t badly injured, except possibly for my forearm. I didn’t immediately know if I’d broken it or just bruised it badly, but I couldn’t move my fingers—maybe they were just immobilized from the debris. I couldn’t tell if I was bleeding from anywhere, but I didn’t sense that I was.

  I was pinned to the floor of the shed, which was made of the same old wooden planks that had fallen on top of me. It was cold on that floor, but thankfully not as cold as the bare ground would have been. I couldn’t turn my head enough to see exactly what was on top of me—every time I tried, something sharp stabbed into my neck. It didn’t seem that any of the heavy metal traps had either landed on me or jabbed into me; I had enough sense to realize that was lucky.

  I wasn’t dead, I wasn’t badly hurt, but this wasn’t good.

  “Help?” I tried. My voice was muffled by all the elements of this disastrous equation. No one would hear me, even if there had been someone around to hear me.

  I was a good quarter mile from Lane’s house, and as far as I knew, no one else lived out here. But then again, maybe someone did. Maybe that someone would come save me.

  “Help?” I tried again.

  I wasn’t freaking out yet, but I knew that was coming. For a moment I held still, listening to the quiet, noticing the sounds of the falling snow. Snowflakes made the tiniest crunching noises when they landed. Was it the weight of the snow or a big gust of wind that had taken down the shed? Had I done something to help the elements along? Either I had, or my timing was spectacularly bad.

  I was going to have to make some moves, but I was very aware of sharp edges and splinters, of the teeth on traps.

  I forced one foot. I could move it a little; I tried more force. It ran into an immovable object. At least there was another foot. Unfortunately, not much good there, either.

  Then it quickly became time to freak out, maybe just to flail and hope for the best.

  I was scared; I could feel tears start to burn at the back of my eyes. Come on, Beth Rivers, you’re still you, just with a few more layers. Figure this out.

  “Hello?” a man’s voice said from outside.

  “What?” I exclaimed, wondering if my silent pep talk had conjured an auditory hallucination. “Hello! I’m here, under all the wood. Can you help?” Those tears I’d been holding back started to pour out of my eyes.

  “Yes, I can help. Be still. It will only take a minute.”

  “No problem. I can’t move.” I still wasn’t convinced I was hearing something real.

  “All right, here we go.”

  It was a puzzle being dismantled. The weight on my body released a little with each plank. Light came through; I’d forgotten I’d left my truck lights on.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “Hang on.”

  I waited as the man continued to clear the wood away. He was quick and efficient, but it still seemed to take too long. Because of the way my headlights were angled, I couldn’t make out his facial features even once my view was cleared and he was looking down at me.

  He extended his hand. “If you’re not hurt, just grab my hand and I can probably pull you up.”

  I wiggled the fingers that wouldn’t wiggle before. They moved. My arm was sore, but not broken.

  “Deal,” I said as I reached upward. “Whoa. Hang on, my toe is caught.”

  He turned and lifted another piece of wood. My foot came free as he reached for me again. I grabbed on and he heaved, and a few clatters of wood later, I was out. The man was covered in bearskin. He held tight to my hand as he led me to flat ground.

  He turned and looked at me, the light from my headlights now illuminating more than backlighting him.

  I let go of his hand as my insides crumbled just like the shed had. A scream made its way up my throat, but I was so hollowed out, I couldn’t find my voice.

  Travis Walker had pulled me out of the rubble.

  Finally, I managed a scream mixed with a yell. And I swung my fist. I wasn’t aware that I was swinging toward his face, but my punch landed firmly. He was so caught off guard that he stumbled backward a step or two as his hand went up to his jaw.

  I thought hard, trying to remember what Cecile Throc
kmorton had taught us. I could get away from him. I could flip him. I could hurt him. I just had to remember what to do, but I couldn’t remember a thing.

  “What the hell?” he said as he looked at me.

  I blinked hard. Yes, it was snowing, and yes, it was dark outside, but the lights from my truck were bright. As I looked at Travis Walker, he transformed. He wasn’t Travis Walker at all; he was Lane, the man with the kill room in the back of his house. He’d saved me.

  “Oh no,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I … oh, shit.”

  I don’t know if I looked crazed or afraid, but whatever my expression was, Lane’s face relaxed from anger into disbelief. He kept his distance.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

  I shook my head and collapsed onto the snow-covered ground. I wasn’t hurt, but I wasn’t okay. All I could do—again—was cry, and cry hard.

  I hated it when that happened.

  Twenty-Four

  “Here, drink this.” Lane handed me a cup of hot chocolate.

  I sat on his homemade couch, wrapped in a crocheted quilt, in front of the large fireplace. The fire had already been blazing when he brought me inside.

  “Thank you.” I took the mug, but not without noticing the bruise spreading up from his jawline. “Oh, Jesus, I can’t believe I hit you. I don’t even know what to say.”

  His eyebrows came together. He didn’t attempt a smile. “It’s okay. You must have had your reasons.”

  He turned and went back toward the kitchen area. He poured more hot water from a kettle into a mug and then opened a bag of hot chocolate mix. He dumped it into the water and stirred.

  I’d stopped crying shortly after I’d started. Lane had made it clear that it was important for us to get out of the elements. He guided me to the passenger side of my truck and then drove us back to his house. He said he’d found me because he’d heard the truck’s engine. He had waited for the vehicle attached to it to pass his house. When it didn’t and the engine rumble didn’t seem to move away in the other direction, he thought someone might have gotten stuck. He set out on a search.

  I’d wiped my cheeks, snorted once, and told him that “stuck” was putting it lightly. He wasn’t much of a talker and didn’t laugh at my poor attempt at dark humor.