Eggs on Ice

by Laura Childs

  “It’s really gorgeous when you get out in the open,” Toni said.

  “Look at the stars,” Suzanne said.

  Toni glided to a stop with Suzanne pulling up right behind her. “So many stars,” Toni said as she tilted her head back. “That really intense portion . . . in the middle. Is that what they call the Milky Way?”

  “It sure is. With so much ambient light from cities and highways, it’s usually impossible to see. But in this crisp, clear sky the Milky Way really stands out.”

  “It makes you feel small, doesn’t it? I mean, compared to the entire universe.”

  “It sure does,” Suzanne said.

  “This sky, with all the stars, reminds me of one of Petra’s dark blue cashmere shawls, strewn through with silver thread.”

  “She’d love that description,” Suzanne said, still admiring the night sky.

  “I overheard some of what you were talking about with Missy and Amber,” Toni said. “She could be the one, you know. The killer.”

  “Amber?”

  “If she hated Allan Sharp enough and then had a really bad breakup with Hardwick. Both of those things could have put her over the top.”

  “You could be right,” Suzanne said, though she hoped Toni wasn’t.

  “I’ve heard of women who murdered for a whole lot less,” Toni said. She shoved off, digging hard with her ski poles. “Of course, most of the killers were married women who’d had it with the jerks they were married to.”

  They skied along the top of a ridge until the trail started to dip.

  “Get ready to pick up some speed. There’s a downslope right ahead of us,” Toni said.

  “Is it steep?”

  “I’ll let you know,” Toni called back.

  But the hill wasn’t too steep. Not steep enough to cause any falls, and in no time the trail evened out again and they were swooshing through a stand of oak trees. Bur oaks, very gnarled and picturesque, with a few crumpled leaves doggedly hanging on.

  Twenty minutes later, Toni was seriously pooped. Her stride shortened as she bent forward, trying even harder. Finally, she coasted to a stop and leaned on her ski poles, breathing heavily. “Getting tired,” she wheezed. “I’m not used to this much exercise. The most I’ve been doing lately is a little cardio at the shopping mall over in Jessup. Running from Baker’s Shoes to Fashion Bee.”

  “You know what?” Suzanne said. “We haven’t yet seen one of those hot cocoa stops.”

  “Probably just up ahead,” Toni said. She grabbed her wineskin, took a glug, and offered it to Suzanne, who shook her head no. Then Toni pushed off, skied about twenty feet, stopped, and veered off to the right. “It’s this way.”

  Suzanne followed in Toni’s tracks. They skied for another fifteen minutes and then Toni stopped again.

  “What’s wrong?” Suzanne asked.

  “I’m all itchy,” Toni said, wriggling her shoulders. “I wore that sweater Petra gave me and I think the yarn was spun from musk ox tails or something.”

  “Knowing Petra, it could be.”

  “Plus this trail is kicking my butt. And on top of that, I think I’m getting frostbite.” Toni turned around. “Is my nose red? Do I have the deadly warning signs of frostbite?”

  “If you had frostbite, your nose would be turning white. And then black.”

  “Eew.” Toni touched her nose. “I guess I’m okay.” She glanced around. “Don’t you think it’s kind of strange that we haven’t run into any other ski groups?”

  “They were starting groups every five minutes, so there should be one on our heels anytime now.”

  But there wasn’t.

  “I hope we didn’t miss a turn or something,” Toni said as she poked along.

  “Toni! You were supposed to be watching for trail markers.”

  “I thought I was.”

  “When we made that last turn back there, was there a marker?”

  “I’m not totally sure.” Toni was beginning to sound panicked.

  “Okay,” Suzanne said. “Let’s ski a little bit farther, and if we don’t see a marker, we’ll turn around, okay?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  But two minutes later, Toni let out an exuberant whoop. “I see the warming house just up ahead!”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “We can rest up and warm our tootsies,” Toni said. “Maybe even get a ride back to the starting point.”

  But when they pulled closer to the small wooden structure, there weren’t any lights and they didn’t see any other skiers.

  “That’s strange,” Toni said. She sidestepped up to the door and rattled it. The door slid open a few inches. “This has to be it.” She knelt down, released her bindings, and stepped out of her skis. Suzanne did the same thing, thankful for the break.

  But when Toni slid the door all the way open, she said, “It’s awfully dark in here and not a bit warm. That’s strange. Do you think the event is over? That everyone packed up and went home?” She threw her ski poles down. “Jeez, some luck we’ve had.”

  Suzanne poked her nose in. “This is strange.” She looked around at the rustic wood floor, the unfinished walls, the lack of windows. “There’s not even a heater in here. Just some crates and . . . oh no!”

  “What?”

  Suzanne gave a shiver. “You see those long boxes over in the corner?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve got bad news for you. We definitely took a wrong turn and missed the trail.”

  “Doggone it,” Toni said.

  “And skied way too close to the cemetery.”

  “What!” Toni cried.

  “This is the shed where they keep the dead bodies.”

  “What!” Toni screeched again.

  “You know, where they store the coffins over winter because the ground’s too frozen to bury them.”

  Toni raised her arms over her head and let loose a horrified scream. “Whaaaaa!”

  Suzanne tried to keep her wits about her. “Come on, let’s just get out of here.”

  But the words had barely popped out of her mouth when the outside door slammed shut on them!

  “What the . . . ?” Suzanne said. Did the wind do that? She rushed to the door, tried to shove it open, and was met with firm resistance.

  “Is it stuck?” Toni screamed. “Man, I gotta get out of here. You know how creeped out I get by dead bodies!”

  “The door’s not opening.” Suzanne was leaning into it hard, trying to shove it open.

  Toni, in a blind panic, began pounding on the door with her fists. “You’re telling me we’re locked in here? Who would do that?” She spun around in a tight ball of fury and gave the door a hard kick.

  “I don’t know,” Suzanne said. This adventure had suddenly turned serious.

  “Was somebody following us?” Toni screamed. “Is this their idea of a joke?”

  Suzanne was about to reply and didn’t. She thought about Sharp and Hardwick being murdered. All the strange things that had happened recently. Her mind didn’t want to go there, but . . . could the killer have come after them because they’d been snooping around?

  Toni remained in a state of complete hysteria. “We gotta get out of here or I’m gonna lose it completely. No, I have lost it. Suzanne . . .” She clutched at Suzanne’s jacket. “What are we gonna do?”

  “Cell phone,” Suzanne said, fumbling in her jacket pocket. “We need to call for a rescue.”

  “Here, I got mine,” Toni said. “But who are we gonna call?”

  “Not Sam,” Suzanne said. “He’s busy at the ER. Besides, this could be strike three. This time he really might kill me.”

  “Junior. I’ll call Junior,” Toni babbled. She punched in Junior’s number and, when he came on the line, screamed, “Junior, I need you!” She put her p
hone on speaker.

  “I’ve waited a long time to hear those sweet words come out of your mouth,” Junior cooed. He sounded like he was half in the bag.

  “No, I mean it. We need you to come rescue us!” Toni cried.

  “What’s up sugarplum? Somethin’ wrong?” Junior asked.

  “Has he been drinking?” Suzanne asked. She leaned toward the phone. “Have you been drinking, Junior?”

  “I’m sober as a judge.” Junior burped. “Only had two beers. Well, heh heh, maybe two and a half.”

  Suzanne figured that amount was acceptable. Junior was still compos mentis.

  Toni explained about the ski loppet and their accidently going off the trail and ending up in the cemetery shed. It took her a couple of tries to get Junior to fully comprehend their plight because he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. But in the end, Junior finally got it and promised to come immediately.

  “Please hurry!” Toni begged.

  CHAPTER 23

  JUNIOR was as good as his word. Fifteen minutes later they heard what sounded like a strangled tractor chugging its way toward them; then the noise petered out. A few moments later the door to the shed rattled and then slid open. Junior peered in.

  “Looks like somebody threw the outside latch,” Junior said. “Locked you girls in here.”

  “No kidding,” Suzanne said. She was shaking with anger as well as from the cold, but hugely relieved that Junior had come to their rescue.

  Toni ran full tilt toward Junior and flung herself into his arms. “Somebody did lock us in,” she wailed.

  Junior looked puzzled as his arms encircled Toni and he gently patted her back. “Jeez. You guys were in here all alone with the coffins and stuff? Kinda like Tales from the Crypt? That’s way too creepy. I wonder who’d do a rotten thing like that.”

  “I don’t know,” Toni blubbered. “But I was scared, so scared!”

  Suzanne, on the other hand, thought she might have an idea about who locked them in. Possibly someone who’d seen her and Toni ski off tonight—like Mayor Mobley or Ethan Jakes. Here was something she could take to Sheriff Doogie. Maybe help point him in the right direction.

  “I’m so cold,” Toni whimpered as they walked outside. She fumbled around, trying to pick up her skis, but was getting nowhere.

  “Let me do that,” Junior said. “You just crawl in my old Blue Beater and get nice and warm.” He hastily gathered up both sets of skis and threw them into his backseat. “My amped-up heater’s like a blast furnace in a Pittsburgh steel mill. I could smelt iron if I felt like it.”

  Suzanne started to climb into the backseat of Junior’s car, then hesitated. “I can’t sit next to these stinky tires,” she said. Junior hadn’t bothered to move them since the fire.

  “Come sit in front,” Junior said in an agreeable tone as he scrambled into the driver’s seat. “Toni, scrunch over toward me and we’ll all be nice and cozy.”

  “Don’t count on getting too cozy,” Toni said. She’d not only warmed up; she’d calmed down.

  “Gimme a break, will you?” Junior said. “I crawled out of a nice warm Barcalounger to come rescue you guys.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a can of beer. But before he could pop the top, Toni grabbed it and tossed it into the backseat. “No brewski while you’re driving,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Spoilsport,” Junior muttered. Then: “Suzanne, you want me to take you right on home?” He’d turned his heater on high, hitting them with a blast of hot air that carried the piquant aroma of engine sludge and motor oil.

  “Just drop me at the park reserve so I can pick up my car and drop off our ski equipment,” Suzanne said. She was anxious to see if Mobley and Jakes were still hanging around there.

  “Works for me,” Junior said.

  “By the way,” Suzanne said as Junior bumped through the snow and cut onto the cemetery road. “When are you gonna come fetch your tools from my car?”

  Junior sniffled, then wiped his nose on his sleeve. “All in good time.”

  Toni let loose a little shiver. “I can’t wait to get home and jump in the bathtub,” she said. “Make the water so gosh-darn hot you could cook a lobster.”

  “Sounds like the Maine event,” Junior snickered.

  “But not for you,” Toni said.

  * * *

  • • •

  SUZANNE picked up her car, glancing around to see if Mayor Mobley or Reverend Jakes was still there. They weren’t. In fact, the half-dozen people who were still there were busy packing up equipment and taking down banners.

  Then, on a whim, Suzanne decided to head over to the hospital. She drove through town, circled back behind the hospital, and parked in one of the reserved ER slots. She jumped out, hit the button for the automatic door opener, and hurried inside.

  “Is Dr. Sam Hazelet available?” Suzanne asked the woman at the desk.

  The woman looked up. “Do you have an emergency?” she asked. The woman was young, maybe twenty-two, and wore pink scrubs. Probably one of the techs.

  “Not at all. I’m Dr. Hazelet’s fiancée. I thought I’d just pop in to see him, but I don’t want to interrupt anything if he’s busy with a patient.”

  “Oh, well then.” The woman smiled. “Luckily nothing major is happening right now. In fact, I just saw Dr. Sam, like, one minute ago. Let me run and grab him.”

  “Thank you.”

  Suzanne waited all of thirty seconds before she heard two sets of footsteps coming down the hallway. Then she saw the tech, smiling, followed by Sam, looking slightly concerned.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Sam said. He put an arm around Suzanne’s shoulders and led her over to a padded bench by the window. “Everything okay? How was the cross-country skiing? Do you feel better now? Did you blow out all the carbon?”

  “Toni and I just experienced a weird . . . well, I guess you could call it a detour. We somehow took a wrong turn.”

  “You should have left a trail of bread crumbs behind you,” Sam joked.

  Suzanne had been about to tell Sam about the incident at the cemetery shack, but something stopped her. If she told Sam about being locked in, he’d be hugely upset. He might even put his foot down concerning her freelance snooping. Instead Suzanne said, “What time do you think you’ll be coming home tonight?”

  “Mmn, it’ll probably be a little after midnight. Why, are you planning to wait up for me?”

  “I might do that.”

  Sam leaned forward and kissed her forehead just as his pager beeped. “That would be great. I can’t think of a better way to top off the evening.”

  When Suzanne walked in the back door to her home five minutes later, Baxter and Scruff were sitting on the tile floor in the kitchen, waiting for her.

  “What’s up, guys?” Suzanne asked.

  Looking like a pair of sphinxes, they gave her their best doggy stares.

  “I know, I know, I’ve been gone most of the day. But I’ll tell you what. Let me pull on a warm pair of boots and we’ll take a nice walk, okay?”

  “Walk” was the operative word. Baxter and Scruff trailed after Suzanne as she grabbed a warm pair of mittens, then pulled on her Ugg boots.

  Finally, leashes were clipped, Scruff had on his red sweater, and they were all three on their way.

  Baxter, an older dog, was a contented loper. Scruff, on the other hand, was a frenetic charger. Every two feet, Scruff darted off the sidewalk into someone’s yard or onto the boulevard, jerking the leash in Suzanne’s hand, practically pulling her after him. She’d tried very hard to teach Scruff the fine art of walking beside a human companion, but so far that skill set had eluded him. After all, there were squirrels to be investigated, scents of other dogs to be pondered.

  After four b
locks of being jerked around like a marionette, Suzanne finally unclipped the leash from Scruff’s collar. They were directly across the street from Founder’s Park and there were no cars on the street. So why not let him run?

  This was the question Suzanne was pondering thirty minutes later when she still hadn’t found Scruff. She’d whistled and called him, she’d discovered his erratic trail through the snow, but there was still no sign of her pup.

  “Baxter,” Suzanne pleaded. “Let out a bark or something, give me a hand, buddy. Let Scruff know that we’re looking for him.”

  Baxter just stared at her with placid brown eyes. He knew it had been a major mistake to let Scruff run around on his own. Why hadn’t she known that?

  “Scruff! Scruff!” Suzanne called again. She’d caught a sliver of red up ahead. “I see you, you little monster. Get over here.”

  But when Suzanne and Baxter ran to where they thought Scruff had been, he was already gone.

  “Doggone,” Suzanne said. “Dog gone.” Now she understood how the phrase had originated. It had first been screamed by some crazy dog owner who’d had the bad sense to let her pooch run free.

  Suzanne darted into a grove of birch trees, calling Scruff’s name. Just as she heard a slight flutter—was it Scruff?—she glanced up and saw a large owl take off from a branch above her head. The bird flapped as it flew skyward, silhouetted for a moment in the sky, looking powerful and magnificent, and then it was gone.

  Suzanne knew that the Native Americans regarded the owl as a spirit animal, a messenger of change. And wondered if something was about to change in her life.

  She pushed through the grove of trees out into a clearing and stood there, hoping for the best, thinking that if she stopped chasing Scruff, he might come to her.

  And just when Suzanne was about to give up on Scruff—or possibly call out the National Guard—there he was, running toward her. Scruff’s pink tongue hung out; his eyes were bright and shining. He looked as if he’d been having the time of his life.

  CHAPTER 24

  BACON popped and sizzled, oatmeal bubbled, and French toast turned golden brown on the griddle this Saturday morning at the Cackleberry Club.