Winter Watch

by Klumpers, Anita;

  “After the wedding, she threw herself into being a good little wife and saving up money and clipping coupons so Ezra could go to graduate school. Then she found out she was pregnant.

  “That’s when we learned the selfish streak hadn’t disappeared at all. It was waiting in the wings while she played the role of perfect wife for a season. She complained about gaining weight. She complained about being sick, and how much work a baby would be and how messy and stressful, but what I think she really dreaded was sharing attention with anyone. Ezra adored her, but he was excited about the baby, and so were both families.

  “She went into labor during a blizzard, about a month and a half early. Ezra had planned for everything but that. He bundled her onto the snowmobile and rushed her into town. We have a small clinic, and the doctor opened up. There shouldn’t have been any problems. But Melody had a stroke, the baby was stillborn and Melody ended up with Bells Palsy. One side of her face was paralyzed.”

  Ann’s own pretty little face darkened.

  “Turns out she hadn’t felt the baby move in days and she never went to the doctor to figure out what was wrong. Ezra was heartbroken but he had to take care of his wife. And he did it beautifully. He treated her like a queen and kissed her poor, sagging face and wiped drool from her mouth, and I swear he still saw the pretty, lively girl he had married.”

  “Doesn’t that come under the ‘in sickness and in health’ heading?”

  “Of course. Ezra honored his vows, but he did it with his whole heart, Claudia. He yearned after his wife. He wanted her happy, and he didn’t care, he really didn’t care, that her face was paralyzed. Then the miracle happened. The palsy went away. She was back to pretty, lively, not-pregnant Melody. And the first thing she did on the first day she looked completely well and beautiful was to ask Ezra for a divorce so she could leave with her physical therapist.”

  Claudia sipped her cool tea and hoped there was no caffeine in it. She didn’t want to lie awake thinking about Ezra and his sordid marriage. “You just gave me one more reason to not consider any relationship with him. He’s too perfect.”

  Ann grinned. Her color had improved, her ankles looked less swollen, and she seemed relieved by Claudia’s reaction.

  “Ezra isn’t perfectly perfect. He talks too much and he’s nosy and he gets cranky. But as far as the big things, the things that matter, he is pretty amazing. Please get to know him better, Claudia. He’s a man worth knowing, even if you just become pen pals.”

  Claudia got to her feet. “If it makes you happy, my future pen pal invited me to his house for dinner tomorrow, and I accepted. Good night, Ann. And thank you for clearing up a few things for me.”

  When she reached the stairs the kitchen door opened. Peter walked into the hall. It must have quit snowing because his hair and coat were dry. He saw her, started, and swore.

  “Sorry,” she said, surprised, and glanced at the clock. It was after eleven-thirty. “It took you longer to walk back than I would have figured.”

  “Nobody offered me a ride,” he snapped, and veered into his room.

  Claudia checked the back door. He hadn’t locked it. Frowning at this breach of etiquette and responsibility, she twisted the latch, pulling to make sure the lock held. She wished Peter wasn’t in Barley. Up in her room, she washed, brushed her teeth, and pulled on her nightgown.

  Caffeinated tea or not, she tumbled into bed and, as she had every other night, fell asleep almost immediately. She slept untroubled until Ann knocked at her door long before sunrise, bringing a cup of coffee and the news that Roi Lily’s body had been found, and Felix Rich had been arrested for his murder.

  TWELVE

  Claudia hurried through her shower and pulled on her clothes. The night before, she had told Ann she wouldn’t mind a simple breakfast of cold cereal and toast, but the offer was waved away.

  “It would throw me off my groove. I’ve been making inn-style breakfasts for so long now I don’t dare break routine. You’ll be on your own for lunch, but please make free use of the leftovers.”

  Peter wasn’t up yet and neither was Philip. Bud stood by the dining room table talking to a woman he’d introduced as Tabitha, editor of the weekly paper. She looked directly at Claudia’s scar for a split second before extending a hand.

  “Welcome to Sodom and Gomorrah,” she said. “We haven’t had this much crime in Barley since Prohibition. What a field day for a newspaper.” Tabitha was kissing distance from six feet tall. Her brown hair, losing the battle to gray, snaked to below her waist in a scrawny braid. She wore a full patchwork peasant skirt, a fisherman knit turtleneck sweater and—Claudia had to look twice—plastic wraps over a pair of very high-heeled cowboy boots. She looked like someone who would have danced in the rain at Woodstock several decades earlier. Her face had the lines and rough skin of a chain smoker, and her sea-green eyes were rimmed with inch-long sable lashes.

  When Bud told her breakfast included spinach quiche, blueberry muffins and a secret recipe Waldorf salad, Tabitha folded herself onto a chair. On cue, Ann pushed out of the kitchen with a tray.

  Claudia experienced a stab of guilt. “I’m supposed to be helping today!”

  “Not with breakfast,” came Ann’s unruffled response. “That I like to do on my own. Never fear, I’ll work you into a lather soon enough.”

  She sat next to Bud and told Claudia they were waiting for Tabitha to fill them in on details of Roi’s murder.

  “Ira is the truck driver who delivers the newsprint. He’s sweet on Tabitha.” Ann ignored the editor’s snort. “He was there when Lem made the arrest. Tabitha knows we’re up before dawn so she came from collecting the newsprint and calming down Ira in hopes of breakfast. I told her I’d feed her in exchange for giving us the scoop. We don’t know any more than you yet.”

  They all looked expectantly at the editor. She snorted again. “You don’t really believe I’m telling you anything until I’ve eaten, do you?” And they had to wait for her to have two helpings of everything.

  “This story better be good,” Ann said, peering into the empty quiche plate, “because it looks as though I’ll need to make another entire breakfast for Peter and Philip. You know, my paying guest and my blood child.”

  Tabitha had the grace to look ashamed and Ann patted her powerful hand.

  “I’m teasing. Philip can practically eat one of these quiches by himself. I have another one ready to pop in the oven.”

  Over coffee and muffins Tabitha told them what she knew.

  “About three this morning, Ira parked his truck off that little dead end road east of town to nap, update his log, and um—heed the call of nature. He heard the most ungodly screeching and thought for a minute it was two wildcats fighting. But when the screeching sounded like ‘Help! Murderer!” he got on his radio and called Lemuel.”

  Claudia interrupted. “You’re kidding. Lem’s name is Lemuel?”

  “Well,” Ann said reasonably, “his brother Ezra’s name is Ezra.”

  “It took over twenty minutes for Lemuel to get there, and the screeching didn’t let up for a minute,” Tabitha continued. “Lemuel asked Ira to back him up, and by this time Ira was curious as he—as all get out. He followed Lem down the little service drive that leads to Bernice’s house.”

  “You know where that is, right Claudia?” Ann interjected. “On the way to Amos’s house?”

  Claudia nodded and Tabitha continued.

  “They came closer and saw the most remarkable thing. Bernice sitting smack dab on top of a squirming, wheezing man, and howling ‘Help! Murderer!’ at regular intervals. Ira couldn’t help but notice another man lying next to the road a little past her.

  “Ira said he could tell from the way the guy was sprawled that something was seriously wrong.

  “He helped Lemuel haul Bernice off the first guy, who turned out to be Felix Rich. Felix couldn’t talk. Besides squashing the breath out of him, Bernice had given him a good wallop upside the head when she found him
in on her property.

  “She said she’d heard his snowmobile. You can hear that thing of Felix’s clear across the lake into Canada, and nothing else sounds like it. Anyway, she heard it coming up the main road, down the service drive, onto her driveway. That’s where it stopped. You know not a blessed thing is along that little stretch but Bernice’s house. She got up and watched out the window. The snow had stopped, but the low clouds meant good visibility. Someone came dragging something. She tiptoed out the back door of her trailer and pretty soon could tell that the something was another man. The first guy dropped the body about forty feet from her house, grabbed a pine branch, and started to smooth out his tracks.

  “That’s when Bernice made a fist and caught him behind the ear. He went down, and she climbed aboard and kept squalling until Lem and Ira got there.”

  They had been listening in enthralled silence. Now Ann spoke. “What on earth? Why would Felix kill Roi?”

  “That’s the thing. Once his lungs expanded back to working order, he told Lemuel and Ira that he wasn’t the one who killed Roi. He’d had trouble falling asleep, he told them, and wanted a cigarette. Since he doesn’t smoke in his grandma’s house even though she no longer lives there, he went outside. He saw the body next to his sled and panicked. He figured that since the whole area knows Bernice murders everyone and their brother, he would drop the body off by her. For all he knew, she had been the one to kill Roi in the first place.” Tabitha looked at the last blueberry muffin with longing.

  “Go ahead, dear,” Ann said. “You earned it. Did Felix really believe Bernice, or half the town, for that matter, wouldn’t hear him?”

  Tabitha shrugged, said her farewells, and left with her muffin. Claudia changed into sweatpants and an old work shirt Ann lent her. Out her still-dark window the sky showed surly red in the east, indicating the sun was on its way and bringing along some nasty weather.

  At the kitchen table, Ann showed her how to fold the towels and washcloths so they looked almost like origami art. She explained which rooms needed to be dusted, vacuumed, and supplied with fresh towels and linens. If the snow and wind held off they would open the windows to freshen the air.

  Bud disappeared into his workroom. Philip appeared, muffled like a chrysalis, prepared to blow the fresh snow from the parking lot, sidewalk, and steps. “We couldn’t have bought an inn on the Florida Keys,” he grumbled as he headed out the door. “No, it had to be in the land of a thousand snowfalls.”

  “Why does he say that?” Claudia asked. “You’re from around here, right?”

  “Yes. Both of us. Our dream had always been to live someplace warm. We kept saying we should buy an inn down south. Then the babies started coming, and our families begged and bribed us not to take their grandchildren away, and when the owners of this place offered to sell it for a song, we knew there was nowhere better than Barley to settle down and raise a family.” She looked at Claudia from under her eyelashes.

  “Were you this ruthless with matchmaking for your kids?”

  “Oh, much worse. And every married child is a happily married child.”

  They finished freshening the rooms by lunchtime and went down to the kitchen. Philip and Peter sat at the table. Peter, Claudia noted with exasperation, still presumed he could treat the inn like home. But Ann greeted him politely and asked if he had slept well.

  He appeared no happier than he had the previous evening, but answered just as politely. “Yes, thanks. I thought I was an early riser but I can’t hold a candle to you folks. By the way, I made a plate of sandwiches and heated up some chili for everyone. Bud said it was OK. I didn’t use anything you needed for brunch tomorrow.”

  “Thank you Peter, I appreciate that. You did get the breakfast tray I left outside your door?”

  “Yes, thanks. It was great.” He hesitated. “I told Philip I would help shovel. I guess I worked up quite an appetite.”

  Ann had eyes on a long list and absentmindedly thanked him again.

  “Actually,” Philip chimed in, “Peter did more than just help me. He had the whole parking lot shoveled, with the shovel, mind you, by the time I got out there!” Philip sounded unsure whether to admire Peter’s incentive or scorn his methods. “If you wanted to do that much you could have used the snow blower.”

  “Ah, but that wouldn’t have provided the workout I need.”

  “Peter is pretty devoted to his workouts,” Claudia told Philip. “He gets cranky without an hour of exercise a day.”

  Again Philip looked unsure whether to be impressed or contemptuous. “Got a six-pack?”

  “You bet,” Peter smirked, less tense now. “Try to punch me in the gut, and you’d sprain your wrist.”

  Bud came in to gather sandwiches and a bowl with chili.

  “I hope our guests arrive before the next storm hits. We get quite a bit of lake effect snow and you’re here at its peak season,” he told Claudia and Peter, and left the kitchen for the dining room.

  “He must be anticipating a doozy of a storm to actually make conversation about it. At least it’s supposed to blow over quickly,” Ann said.

  “Chicago doesn’t typically get a huge amount of lake effect snow. Thankfully most of it gets dumped on the other side of Lake Michigan,” Claudia responded.

  Something she said got a reaction from Philip, who had just crammed half a sandwich into his mouth. He looked up quickly as if a thought had hit him, and was about to speak when he caught his mother’s threatening eye and chewed frantically.

  He had barely swallowed when he announced that the huge icicle outside of Peter’s room had broken off sometime in the night.

  Their blank faces were less than the reaction he seemed to think the news would generate.

  “It was enormous! They never break off!” he said defensively. When the response continued lukewarm, he mumbled, “First time it ever happened since the last earthquake up here, which was—let me think—never, and everyone acts like it’s as exciting as a puddle freezing. Did you hear anything, Peter?”

  “No,” Peter responded shortly. The pleasant mood hadn’t lasted long. “I don’t hear much except whipping ice pellets and snowmobiles. After I leave, I’m heading straight to the sunbelt.” He took a sandwich and excused himself. The door to his room shut sharply.

  “Goodness, that bordered on rude,” Claudia said. “Peter usually has perfect manners, no matter his emotions. If he hates Barley this much why he doesn’t tell me we’re leaving? Or just go? He isn’t under any obligation to me.”

  “He’s got you—ta dum—under his skin,” Philip warbled in a pleasant tenor.

  “Gracious! That song is ancient! How do you know it?” his mother asked.

  “Song? There’s more? They sing that line on a commercial for flea and tick collars. I thought it applicable to the feelings Peter must still have for Claudia.”

  While Ann sputtered and Claudia’s blood worked its habitual way into her cheeks, Bud came back in the kitchen and prodded his gangly son out of his seat. “Hush up and shovel.” He pointed Philip in the direction of the back porch.

  Unabashed, Philip donned coat and gloves, humming the flea and tick song under his breath.

  Ann began clearing the table and Claudia helped load the dishwasher.

  “I do like your Philip.”

  Philip’s mother responded with pride. “He is priceless, isn’t he? Which means some days I’d let you have him at no charge.”

  For no discernible reason, Claudia found this hilarious. She laughed until her sides hurt and her eyes were streaming. Ann took her by the shoulders and guided her to the door.

  “You were a great help and a greater audience. Thanks for laughing at my antiquated sense of humor. Now you and everyone else are banished from the kitchen so I can start getting organized for tomorrow. Bud will run errands and Philip will be off to the dance recital again and I’ll have this entire room to myself. Which is just how I like it. I turn on country music and sing loud and off-key and don’t
get embarrassed. I don’t know if I told you that besides the regular breakfast for our guests, we open the dining room for a Sunday brunch in the off-season? Lots of folks eat here after church. It gets busy but two of my daughters come help me serve. I hope you’ll be here for it. But you have to let me know because it’s on a reservation basis.”

  “I’ll come. Don’t bother with early morning breakfast for me. Enjoy your afternoon!”

  Ann had already reached for the radio. Claudia, suddenly somber, called back.

  “Ann!”

  Ann turned.

  “Does anyone feel badly about Roi Lily? Or Felix Rich?”

  “I wish I could say we are too stoic to show our deep emotion. But in the case of those two, the truth is that life goes on and will close right over them.”

  Claudia headed to her room in an odd mood. Seized by a whim, she swung back to Peter’s room, knocked on his door, and waited.

  It took him almost half a minute to respond. He stood with arms akimbo and raised eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “Peter, you don’t need to stay here anymore. I can rent a car, or my dad will come for me when they get back from Vail.”

  “Or your boyfriend, the dogcatcher, could give you a ride back. Come on, Claudia, by this time you must know I’m no longer here for you.” He let his eyes linger over her scar, and on cue, the blood rushed back to her face.

  “Then why are you staying?”

  He shifted and looked over her head. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

  “Bud has some unusual antiques, including old jewelry he said was left by the previous owners. I think I could get a good price from selective buyers. But, of course, I don’t want to pay him full market value. I’m taking a risk saying anything to you because you’re so tight with the family they’re ready to name a room after you.”