Wed To A Stranger?

by Jule McBride

  When she opened the door, she gasped. “Sheriff Tanook?”

  The cheerful red of the sheriffs bright parka seemed at odds with his grim countenance. He nodded, stamping his snowy boots on the welcome mat. “Mind if I come in?”

  He wore the same official expression as the government man who’d told Fritzi her parents had been killed, so she stepped back, her throat feeling tight. Had something happened to Hannah?

  “Please, make yourself at home.” Fritzi’s eyes scanned his for clues as he pushed back his parka hood, exposing short black hair. He had a kind face—square and honest. But his wide-set, slanting black eyes were scrutinizing her house—darting up the stairs and into the living and dining areas—as though he were looking for signs of a disturbance.

  Instinctively she snuggled Malcolm closer. “What’s wrong?”

  Looking uncomfortable, the sheriff searched her face. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come to the morgue.”

  Morgue? Where in a town the size of White Wolf Pass was the morgue? Fritzi pressed her cheek protectively against the baby’s. “Hannah?” Had Hannah come back for some reason? “Has something happened to—”

  “No, ma’am.” He shook his head. “But we found a body in the No Name River. And I need you to identify—”

  Panic welled within her. “But I don’t know anyone here!”

  His steady eyes held hers. “We have reason to believe the man’s name was David—”

  “David?” she gasped.

  “I heard your husband’s name was David. It occurred to me that you might have kept your maiden name. Is his last name Frayne?”

  The whole world seemed to stop. Fritzi’s heart ceased beating. She felt cold inside, as if she’d died of shock and all the blood had frozen in her veins. And then suddenly she was breathless—her heart pounding too hard, too fast. “Frayne?” she repeated. Only holding Malcolm kept her from falling. Staggering a pace, she sagged against a wall. Her heart fluttered and her words came brokenly. “You—you think—my husband…”

  “Yes,” the sheriff said. “I believe so.”

  Fritzi was barely aware of what happened next. Joe Tanook took care of everything—bundling up Malcolm, searching the house for Fritzi’s parka and pocketbook and Malcolm’s diaper bag.

  Even after they’d dropped off Malcolm with Abby, Fritzi could only stare through the car window, overcome by shock and denial. Was she really going to identify her husband’s dead body? The steep, icy winding road that led from Hannah’s to town was squeezed between a rock face and the No Name River, and the sheriff’s Blazer inched around the curves while fat snowflakes melted against the windshield.

  Somehow, everything seemed heightened, shadowboxed and surreal. Against the gray-black marbled sky, Fritzi could see a crane, perched like a mammoth metal spider in the middle of a low-slung, one-lane bridge. A suspended chain dangled above the river, swinging like a pendulum over the massive ice floes, seeming to stretch downstream to where black waters churned with swift currents. That very same chain had hoisted up her husband’s dead body.

  “He was found early this morning.” Sheriff Tanook leaned forward, peering at the barely passable road and speaking softly over the thump of the wipers as he trained the heater vents on Fritzi’s knees. “He was on the ice in the river.”

  Ice, her mind echoed numbly. Her own heart was breaking apart like the churning ice in those inky black waters. She had so many questions: Did David slip and fall from the bridge?

  But she couldn’t bear to ask the questions yet. All she knew was that her husband had been in her arms again. But now—just as suddenly—David was dead, lost forever. And Malcolm would never know his daddy. “He was here…here last night,” Fritzi finally managed to say in shock.

  “He got here last night?” The sheriff glanced at her. “I was told he’d been in town a few days.”

  Tears welled in Fritzi’s eyes. “Yesterday or a week, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Did he take his bags last night when he left the house?”

  Fritzi stared unseeing through the windshield, tears splashing her cheeks. She would never know the truth about David now…or about their relationship. “His bags?”

  “I didn’t see any suitcases.”

  “I—I don’t know where he put them.” And she couldn’t answer these questions. Not now. Maybe never. She wouldn’t even know where to begin, or what to say about David. All she knew was that she loved him.

  Wordlessly, the sheriff parked in front of an ornate totem pole that marked the entrance to the detention center on Main Street, then he led Fritzi across the street. As they entered the town medical building and the room that served as the morgue, Fritzi barely felt the interior warmth. She recognized Dr. Lambert, though, an elderly white-haired man in a lab coat to whom Hannah had introduced Fritzi before she’d left. The doctor was seated on a stool in front of a stainless steel counter.

  “A jagged laceration.” the doctor murmured into a tape recorder. “Type AB blood…”

  Fritzi’s heart wrenched. David’s blood was type AB. She’d found that out when they were tested for their marriage certificate. The marriage certificate that vanished into thin air, she thought numbly.

  Turning off the recorder, Dr. Lambert glanced at the sheriff. “Is she prepared to do this?”

  Joe Tanook nodded.

  Fritzi’s eyes burned from her tears and the antiseptic smells as she stared at the bank of steel drawers that lined the far wall. In one of them lay the love of her life, the father of her child. And he was dead. Something fierce welled inside her, some power she didn’t even know she possessed. “I’d like to see him now,” she said, sounding calm.

  As the doctor crossed the room, she followed, saying, “How did he die?”

  “Didn’t Joe tell you?” As Dr. Lambert gripped a handle and pulled, a drawer rolled from the wall on well-oiled ball bearings. “He was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Fritzi echoed. It was impossible. Unthinkable. Not David.

  Who killed him? Pressing a fist to her mouth, she stifled a moan. She was too shocked to even cry now, too scared to move. How could she possibly force herself to stare down into that open drawer, into the dead, vacant eyes of the murdered husband she loved?

  For an instant she wanted to die. And as if she really were dying, her life with David flashed before her eyes. As if it were yesterday, she saw herself leaving a bookstore, heard steps pounding behind her, then felt a strong, restraining male hand on her shoulder. She’d turned, looked into those warm brown eyes and melted. He was breathless and grinning.

  “Sorry,” he’d said, “but I think the clerk switched our bags at the counter. Did yours happen to have lots of flowers and lace on the cover?”

  She’d laughed, glanced into the bag she held and read the title. “Cooking for One?” she’d said with a smile.

  But already something had passed between them—a glance and a spark that said he wouldn’t be cooking alone that night. He’d be eating with her.

  “Ms. Fitzgerald?”

  Fritzi blinked, then realized she hadn’t yet moved. She wished she could run and hide. That she’d never come to this horrid, godforsaken wilderness. And that she didn’t have to look down into David’s dead, expressionless face—at the tender mouth that would never kiss her again, at the warm eyes that would never spark to life when she entered a room, at the bold hands that would never again touch her in the darkness.

  “Please…” the sheriff urged.

  Fritzi forced herself to stare down. And then, gasping, she sagged against the gurney. “I-I’ve never seen this man before in my life.”

  SHERIFF TANOOK GLARED across his desk. “What do you mean, you’ve never seen him?”

  Fritzi glanced around the detention center—at the two cells, the fax machine and coffeemaker. The sheriff had already grilled her for what felt like hours. “I mean exactly what I said. That man’s a complete stranger.”

  “Are
you sure?”

  Of course she was sure. “He is not my husband. Not unless he magically became someone else. Or suddenly grew a whole new face.” Fritzi sighed. “Why don’t you want to believe me? You asked me to try to identify him and I did my duty. You terrified me, making me think my husband was dead. I’ll never forget what I saw in there.”

  The dead man would haunt her forever. Apparently some maniac had stabbed him on the bridge, then pushed him over the rail. Or else he’d fallen. Either way, his legs were broken and twisted, his jaw and teeth crushed, his face disfigured. Blood had frozen around the knife wound on his chest; otherwise, his skin was chalky white, like ice.

  Even worse, he was David’s basic height and build, with the same hair and eye color. For an instant Fritzi had actually thought he was David. Maybe it was no wonder Joe Tanook still did.

  The sheriff’s hand swept across his desk. “So how do you explain this?”

  Fritzi stared at the leather wallet next to one of Joe Tanook’s decoy ducks. David used to carry the wallet in D.C., and it contained his ID—credit cards, museum and library cards, a license marked Valid Without Photo. Nothing with a picture. Swallowing hard, Fritzi glanced guiltily down at her brown wool skirt and pretended to pick off a piece of lint.

  “The wallet was on the ice with the body,” the sheriff continued.

  Fritzi tried to looked unaffected, but her heart was beating double time. Her first fleeting thought had been that David killed the man and accidently dropped his wallet. Her second was that her husband was no murderer. Whatever had happened, David was definitely in White Wolf Pass, though—and she was prepared to go to any lengths to find him.

  “If the man in the morgue’s not your husband,” the sheriff said, “then I’d like to question your husband.”

  “I told you, I don’t know where he is.”

  “But in the car you said he was here last night.”

  As much as Fritzi wanted to confide in the sheriff, she couldn’t until she talked to David and found out what was going on. “When we were in your car…I thought he was dead. I was just so confused….”

  “I know he’s here,” Joe Tanook returned. “Half the people in town have seen a man up at Hannah’s place.”

  The words made her feel uneasy. David’s behavior seemed so strange. Why was her husband creeping around Hannah’s house in the dark? Fritzi cleared her throat. “Look, there must be another way of identifying that poor man. I swear he’s not my husband.”

  Joe Tanook’s voice turned terse. “He lost most of his teeth in the fall from the bridge, which means dental records will be useless. And most of his fingerprints are missing, probably burned off in the past with acid. That means it’ll be hard to get a match—and that the odds are he was a career criminal.”

  Fritzi stared at the sheriff. “Do I look like the sort of woman who would marry a career criminal?”

  After a long moment the sheriff said, “No. And Hannah did say your husband was an embassy worker.”

  “So that man can’t be my husband.” Tears suddenly welled in Fritzi’s eyes. “I do wish I could help you….” But she’d been through hell, thinking David was dead. And if a criminal had been murdered last night, it wasn’t her problem—it was the sheriffs. “I want to try to call Hannah.” And pick up my son from Abby’s.

  The sheriff leaned forward. “Hannah’s traveling. Besides, the phones are down, which means the fax is down. And that means if you don’t start telling me the truth, I’ll have to lock you up.”

  “Excuse me?”

  A loud clunk sounded on the desk. Glancing down, Fritzi found herself staring into a transparent plastic bag. Inside was a blood-smeared hunting knife with a serrated edge and the letters FF monogrammed on the cherry-wood handle. “Daddy’s knife,” she mur mured. “It’s been missing….”

  “Your daddy’s name is Fritzi Fitzgerald?”

  She stared at him, not comprehending. “Fritz,” she said. “Fritz Malcolm Fitzgerald. I named my baby Malcolm because of Daddy’s middle.”

  Her voice trailed off when she realized that Sheriff Tanook thought the knife bore her initials, not her father’s. And that the man in the morgue really was her husband, not a stranger. And that she had stabbed him with this knife before he’d fallen—or she’d pushed him—off the No Name Bridge.

  “That knife was the murder weapon?” she managed to say.

  “Yes. And the phones are down. There’s no way in or out of here in this storm, so the only thing I can do is call an investigative jury hearing for tomorrow.”

  Fritzi jumped to her feet. “What? And put me on trial?”

  He nodded. “I’ve got a murder weapon that you admit belongs to you. You have no alibi. And although you say you’ve never seen the man in the morgue, your husband happens to be missing.” Sheriff Tanook rose. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got no choice but to arrest you for murder.”

  “You mean, you want me to go to jail?” She couldn’t believe it. All the breath left her body. “But—but Malcolm,” she sputtered.

  “He’ll be fine with Abby.”

  Fritzi’s eyes darted wildly toward the door. She thought of how David and her parents had left her—vanishing in a heartbeat—and she knew she couldn’t leave her baby with a stranger. She had to get Malcolm back. And she had to find David. Her eyes pleaded with the sheriff’s. “I didn’t kill anybody!”

  “Maybe not” Sheriff Tanook circled his desk, gripped her elbow firmly and nodded toward a cell. “But that’s for a jury of your peers to decide. You’re under arrest.”

  Chapter Three

  “I told you, I don’t know where my husband is.”

  Fritzi’s eyes panned the detention center’s back room—lighting on the jurors, then on the curious townspeople who were seated on fold-out chairs or leaning against the walls. In the sea of coats Fritzi thought she glimpsed a gun-metal gray parka with a thick white fur ruff, but no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find it again.

  Outside, snow was still falling, pushed by driving winds. All night, lying on her hard jail-cell cot, Fritzi had stared into that sheet of snow, trying to analyze what was happening to her. But everything seemed so illogical. A year ago her husband, David Frayne, had vanished. After that Fritzi had found out there were no official records of the man or their marriage. Now her missing husband seemed to be in the vicinity. A dead man had turned up, too—and Fritzi was being accused of the murder.

  It was all too much.

  Fritzi’s eyes returned to Frank Laramy, nicknamed Lanky Frank because of his tall, rangy build. The lawyer was seated behind a metal table next to Joe Tanook. At least Abby was here, Fritzi thought. She’d brought Fritzi fresh slacks and a sweater—as well as Malcolm. He was beside Fritzi, asleep in his stroller.

  No one had said anything, so Fritzi continued, “You can’t prosecute me. You haven’t even correctly identified that man’s body.”

  Frank Laramy stared her down. “This is not a criminal trial. It’s an investigative hearing to decide whether or not to take you to trial, and I assure you we’re well within our rights. Why didn’t you report that items were missing from your home?”

  Fritzi fought not to roll her eyes—or exercise her Fifth Amendment rights. “I was supposed to fill out a police report because I thought I was missing beans and cans of soup?”

  “A knife was missing,” the lawyer corrected coldly. “A knife bearing your initials that was used to kill a man.”

  Given how Frank was grilling her, Fritzi was glad she hadn’t yet mentioned the lost.38 revolver. “I—I thought I had misplaced the knife.”

  The lawyer smiled. “Play with knives often?”

  Fritzi’s blue eyes flashed fire. “You’re way out of line.”

  “Maybe he is,” a woman from the crowd called out, “but this is clean country, God’s country. And we’ve never had a murder—”

  “Joe,” a man interrupted, “you’d better lock her up until the storm passes and the state police
can get here. Or else—”

  “C’mon, Joe,” someone else cut in. “We can’t let her continue to teach our kids.”

  “Please.” The sheriff shot a warning glance over his shoulder. “Let’s just hear what she has to say.”

  From the front row of chairs, Abby’s eyes met Fritzi’s in a show of solidarity, making Fritzi wish everyone would be as reasonable. But they were all snowed-in, trapped in the mountains with a murderer in their midst. Fritzi was the main attraction—mostly because she was an outsider, she thought glumly, nestling back in her seat against the new blue GoreTex parka she’d bought for the Alaskan weather.

  The lawyer continued. “Why did you refuse to cooperate with the sheriff yesterday?”

  “I didn’t refuse.” But it was a lie. For right or wrong, Fritzi had kept her mouth shut because she wanted desperately to protect David. Now she considered telling the lawyer the whole truth, beginning with David’s mysterious disappearance. But who would believe it?

  Frank said, “On the way to the morgue, you told the sheriff your husband was in town. So where is he now?”

  Fritzi shifted uncomfortably on her seat, her back still aching from the hard cot in the cell. “I said I don’t know.”

  “I saw a man up at Hannah’s chopping wood the other day,” someone from the crowd offered.

  “A little over a week ago,” Brownie Mulray added, “I saw tracks coming from the airfield through the woods. They were protected from the wind by a cottonwood grove.”

  Fritzi dipped a hand inside Malcolm’s stroller, and her son curled a tiny supportive fist around her index finger. “Look—” She raised her voice. “I’m as confused as everyone here.”

  Joe Tanook looked over his shoulder. “Julia?”

  The owner of the town’s bed-and-breakfast glanced up from a basket of knitting. “About a week ago I couldn’t sleep and I saw what appeared to be a man’s shadow in one of Hannah’s upstairs windows. It seemed odd because I knew Fritzi was supposed to be alone. So I kept watching the house, then about an hour later I saw a man leave.”