by Mary Logue
She sat at her desk and stared down at a small mole on her arm. It was about the size of a ladybug. Wouldn’t it be cool if it started to move around her arm? She could have a pet mole. She laughed at her own joke just as Mr. Turner walked in the door.
“Can you let me in on your joke?”
Meg freaked at the thought of trying to explain to him the way her mind worked and the pun she had created. “Just remembering something from TV last night.”
“Meg, what are we going to do with you?” he asked.
Her mind, at times like these, could be her own worst enemy. It was still trying to make jokes, and was coming up with answers like: Give me an A and send me home for the day, A crown might be a nice choice of headwear, Let me be the teacher and you can be the student. She had to bite the inside of her mouth so that she wouldn’t start laughing again.
“Meg, can you answer me?”
These were trick questions. It never did any good to try to answer them. She knew that Mr. Turner had an answer all ready and was dying to tell her what he had thought up to do with her. So she just shook her head.
“You didn’t finish your work on time, and you fell asleep during class. I had such high hopes for you when you started this class, Meg, but I can see your bad attitude is getting in your way. Since you are so sleepy, I think we should let you have a little nap so you can stay awake for the remainder of the day. So while the rest of the class is outside playing, I want you to put your head down on your desk and close your eyes.”
Meg looked at him in disbelief. She needed to get out and play with everyone else. This meant she would be trapped at her desk for the next half hour, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. “Mr. Turner, I will try—”
“No, Meg. It’s too late. I must show you that I am the boss in this classroom. You don’t know what’s best for you. I do. Please put your head down.” He stared at her, his eyes boring into her like laser beams.
She put her head down. At least she didn’t have to look at him. But she could feel him standing there, watching her. He did have complete power over her. He could make her do anything he wanted her to do. She hated him. She hated school. She hated life. She felt the tears backing up behind her eyelids. She bit the insides of her mouth again, trying to hold them back. She would not let him see her cry. She knew that he would like that.
Claire had been given the call from the Bank of Alma to handle. Janet Stone, the bank manager, told her that it appeared that someone was forging signatures on one of their customer’s checks. The account had been overdrawn, which had called it to their attention.
“This woman, Mrs. Tabor, is in her eighties and not in good health. I’m worried that someone is taking advantage of her. The checks were written out to cash and then cashed at our branch down in Alma. Mrs. Tabor has her account with us here in Pepin. As far as I know, she never does business down at that branch. They wouldn’t know her there. When we examined the two checks against the signature we have on file, it was not a match.”
“How much money are we talking?”
“Each time the check was written for one hundred dollars. Not a lot, but for Mrs. Tabor it probably equals groceries for the month.”
“I’ll check into it.” Claire got Mrs. Tabor’s telephone number and called the woman. After talking to the older woman for a few minutes on the phone, Claire decided it might be better to handle this case in person. The woman seemed confused and distraught. She had told Mrs. Tabor that she would drive over to see her. It was about seven-thirty in the evening, but Mrs. Tabor assured her that she didn’t go to bed until nine at the earliest.
One night every two weeks, Claire worked late. She traded with another deputy, Billy Peterson, who was taking a night class. It suited her fine. Gave her a chance to fill out all those never-ending forms that she meant to stay on top of, but often didn’t. And she hoped it helped her be more like one of the guys at work. It was hard to be one of the guys when you were the only woman and the only investigator.
Being investigator meant that she mainly worked a regular day shift. The sheriff had decided they needed someone to oversee their higher-profile cases. There weren’t many—mostly burglaries and once in a while a little fraud.
Mrs. Tabor’s case sounded like it might involve some fraud. Claire drove out into the country, down a dirt road that wound through the coulees. Finally she came to Tabor Lane. County roads, if they were dead ends, were named after the last farm on them. Claire drove another half mile, until the road ended in a farmyard. It looked rather deserted, but there was a light on over the front door. No dog barking, which was a relief. She liked dogs, but feared them in people’s yards. Just last month Ted Schultz, another deputy, had been badly chomped by a dog.
Claire got out of her car and went to the house. She knocked on the door loudly and waited half a minute before pounding again. Then the door popped open, and a very small, severely bent-over old woman stood in the doorway.
“I heard you, it just takes me some time to get out of my chair and all.”
“Sorry. I just wanted to make sure.”
“Making sure is good. My goodness, you really are a deputy?” Mrs. Tabor looked at Claire’s uniform.
“Yes, ma’am, I am.”
“What a good idea to have women working as police. I always think they are more sensible.”
“Sometimes.”
“Would you follow me into the living room? It’s warmest in there.”
“I won’t take up much of your time, Mrs. Tabor.”
“Time is all I have right now, so don’t worry about that.”
They sat down—Mrs. Tabor in a small stuffed armchair that had an old flowered chintz fabric that looked out of place in the farmhouse, Claire across from her on a plain brown couch.
“I stopped by the bank and picked up copies of the checks.”
“There was more than one of them?”
“Yes, there were two. Each made out for one hundred dollars. Supposedly signed by you. Let me show them to you. You might recognize the handwriting. Does anyone else write out your checks?”
“Oh, my, no. I would never allow that. I’m on a very tight budget.”
Claire brought out the checks, and Mrs. Tabor pulled a magnifying glass out from under the cushion of the chair. She stared at them, turned them over, and looked at them again. “That’s not my signature. My handwriting’s gotten awful bad. It’s hard to read, but the bank knows it’s mine.”
The signature on the checks was easy to read: it was more printing than writing.
“Who has access to your checkbook, Mrs. Tabor?”
“Well, there’s my daughter, and then there’s Lily. She comes in three times a week to straighten up around here and makes me a nice meal or two.”
“Do you think either of them might have done this?”
“Not my daughter. She doesn’t need the money. Her husband’s got a good job.”
“What about Lily?”
“I can’t think she would do this. It’s not like her at all. She makes the best meatloaf. She’s coming tomorrow. Should I ask her?”
“Do you feel safe doing that?”
There was a pause that made Claire feel uncomfortable. “She has a bit of a temper,” Mrs. Tabor said.
“Let me come back and talk to her. It might be better if the questions came from me.”
“I’m sure she didn’t do it.”
Claire nodded. “You’re probably right, but it’s good to check.”
They agreed that she would come the next day and speak with Lily. Mrs. Tabor showed her to the door and turned the porch light on to light her way to her car. She stood in the doorway until Claire drove off and waved as she turned onto the road. Claire left with a strong sense of a lonely woman, dependent on others.
When Claire got back to the sheriff’s office, she searched out Scott Lund. He lived in Pepin, which was one town down from Fort St. Antoine, and was in the know about a lot that went on in that area. She
wanted to ask him about Stephanie Klaus.
She found him sitting next to the coffee machine, watching the coffee filter down.
“Not quite enough for a cup yet?” she asked him.
“I try not to do that. Take that first cup. I think it weakens the whole pot.”
“Thoughtful of you.”
“My middle name.”
“Hey, do you know a woman named Stephanie Klaus?”
Scott tapped his empty coffee cup on the counter as he thought for a moment. “Don’t think so. Where’s she live?”
“She lives in Fort St. Antoine on the highway. I think she’s lived there a year or so.”
“No, doesn’t ring a bell. Why do you ask?”
“She got badly beat up the other day, I think. Remember when I was asking about any news of a domestic? Well, I think she might have been the one who called me. I saw her at the post office, and she did not look good.”
“Stephanie Klaus. Doesn’t sound familiar. I’ll ask around.” He pushed his hair back. “Man, I hate domestics. They are the worst. One time I went out to a place. The woman had called. I go out. The kids are crying, the husband’s drunk as a skunk, holding a baseball bat. I try to get him, and the next thing I know the woman has a hold of me and is biting my arm. Biting me. I got out of there and called for backup, and we hauled them both in. I had teeth marks in my arm for a month or two.”
“Did you need a rabies shot?” Claire asked.
Scott sputtered a laugh. “Naw. She wasn’t a bad woman. Just completely goofed up. She wouldn’t prosecute her husband, but I did get an assault on her. She had to go and see a counselor. Hope it did her some good.”
“You never know.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Stephanie?”
He nodded.
She thought of the dark bruises flowering on Stephanie’s cheeks. “Not yet. I’m going to try to stop by and see her this week.”
Claire had wanted to do some checking on the computer to see if Stephanie Klaus had ever reported getting beat up. It might give her a handle when she went to talk to the woman. When she went into the computer she found nothing in the county and nothing in the state. But she knew that didn’t mean squat. She didn’t know the exact figure, but most domestic abuse cases went unreported.
Claire leaned back in her chair. If her middle-of-the-night call had come from Stephanie Klaus, Claire had to take it as a good sign. It meant Stephanie was reaching out. Maybe she was ready to turn this guy in. Claire decided to go and talk to her the next day.
Buck felt something cold splash on his feet. His head hurt, but he knew he needed to wake up. Something was very wrong.
Water was on his legs. He opened his eyes. Where the hell was he? He could tell that he was in his car, but where was the water coming from? Where was the dog?
His head wouldn’t work. But he hadn’t had that much to drink at Shirley’s. He remembered walking outside. Then it all went black. What had happened? He tried to get out of the car, but found he was tied in. There was something around his neck. He couldn’t pull free.
Then it came to him. He was in the lake. His car was floating half in and half out of the water, but it was filling fast. Water was up to the seat, and it was pouring in through the top of all the windows, gushing on top of him, drenching him. Ice water.
He struggled with whatever was fastened around his neck, tying him to the car. He couldn’t get it loose. His hands were freezing. The water was up to his chin. The car was tilting back.
He strained his head up, trying to keep it above the water.
The whole car was pulling him down. He thrashed around trying to get free and let out a roar. Who had done this to him?
He tried to breathe, but the water came in his mouth, and he was choking on it. He couldn’t hold his breath. He reached his hands up as high as they could get, but the water covered everything.
Cold beyond thinking, he took in his first lungful of water. It was his last.
4
A FEW minutes after midnight, the end of her shift, Claire climbed into her car to go home. She fumbled with the key and made several attempts to get the cold car started before it roared to life. By this time the inside of her windshield was fogging up. Claire held her breath, swiped at the patch in front of her eyes with a paper napkin, and then turned the defrost up to high. A small hole of clarity appeared in front of her, enough visibility to begin her long drive home.
As she was leaving the building, Scott had told her that the temperature was only three above zero and dropping. Another brittle cold night.
When she was nearly to Highway 35, Claire heard Lorraine issue a call over the radio that a car had been reported going through the ice at Scottie’s Point on Lake Pepin. Claire answered her and said she’d respond to the call, as it was on her way home.
Every year this happened. Claire couldn’t believe how stupid men were when it came to driving out on the ice. The siren’s call, it must be, all that clear expanse of smooth frozen lake, just waiting to be driven on. Add a little alcohol to their system, and they didn’t even try to resist the impulse. But it didn’t happen too often on Lake Pepin. Maybe the men had more respect for the huge body of water, were a little more aware of the dangers of a lake thirty-two miles long and in some parts two miles wide.
Since she’d worked for the sheriff’s department, the only incident had been last year when a couple of snowmobilers had gone through the ice, at the spot where the Rush River fed into the lake, and the warmer, flowing water had kept the ice thin. The snowmobiles were lost, but no one had gotten hurt.
By midwinter the ice on the lake would be frozen so solid that it could be used as a road to drive across the lake to the Minnesota side. People who commuted there daily saved a good twenty minutes cutting across the lake, but now it was still too early to venture out on the ice.
Scottie’s Point. Claire knew where that was, out past Shirley’s Bar. She was becoming familiar with that lowlife place; she had had to haul a guy out of there twice when she was working the late shift. She accelerated past sixty. She was about five miles away from the scene.
As she turned off the highway and drove past the bar, she saw two vehicles down at the point. She drove down the dirt road that led to a natural bay in the river, pulled up next to a pickup truck, turned her brights on aimed at the lake, and stepped out of her car.
The car was quite visible in the white stream of her headlights, half in, half out of the dark water, held up by a jagged rim of ice. It looked like an old Chevy Nova.
Two men were standing side by side, staring out at the lake. They turned their heads toward her at the same time, then back to the dark hole. The back end of the car stuck out of the ice, the trunk and a portion of the window above water.
One of the men said, “I was out back of Shirley’s and heard the ice crack, and then I saw the car drop in.”
“Is there anyone in there?”
“Not sure,” one of the men said.
“Probably,” the other chimed in.
“Somebody had to have driven it out there,” the first man reflected. “How else would it get there?”
She leaned back into her car and radioed the department. “We need an ambulance here. And I need some help. Contact the fire department.”
“Ambulance is already on its way,” Lorraine told her.
“Thanks, Lorraine.”
“Whose car is it? Any idea?” Claire asked the two men.
“Not sure. Might be that one guy’s, works out at the W.A.G. factory. Forget his name. You know who I mean, Stewy?”
Stewy shook his head. “Don’t think I know that guy.”
“Probably not. He’s only been in to Shirl’s a few times. You might not have been there.”
“How long ago did it happen?” she asked them.
“Dunno,” they both said in unison.
Claire took a tentative step out onto the ice. It had been cold the last few nights; the ice wou
ld hold her. She pulled down her hat and turned up the collar of her coat. A wind blew off the lake. She hoped no one was still in the vehicle. Whoever it was had already been in the water far too long to survive—although she had heard weird tales of what submersion in cold water could do. A few years back, a young boy was pulled out of a lake up by Fargo after fifteen minutes under, and he survived. The cold had slowed his metabolism down so far that he didn’t have much damage. Lost a few toes. But they said such a recovery was more apt to happen in the young.
What idiot would drive out there?
She heard a car pull in and turned to see Scott jumping out of his car. “I wasn’t far behind you. Decided to join the party.”
“Thanks. I think I better try to get out there. They think there might be someone in the car. You got a rope in your car?”
“Yeah. What’re you thinking of doing?”
“Let’s tie it around me, and I’ll inch out there. If you hear the ice crack, or if I scream, you can pull me in.”
“I’ll go out on the ice,” Scott offered.
“Forget it. What do you weigh?”
Scott laughed. “A little more than you.”
“Might make a difference.”
Scott pulled a heavy rope out of the trunk of his car. He tied it around Claire’s body, up high under her arms.
Claire held her arms up in the air as he finished and said, “I don’t want to go in the water.”
“I won’t let you go in.”
“Good.”
Scott patted her shoulder and looked her over. “You’ve done this before?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay, this is what you want to do. First get down on your hands and knees. Take this with you.” Scott handed her a standard flashlight. She stuffed it in the pocket of her parka. “Go slow and steady. Stop dead if you hear anything.”
Claire felt hugely undignified, crawling out on the ice on her hands and knees. But no one was laughing. She slid her hands forward slowly, trying to keep the weight evenly distributed on all four points of contact with the ice. She could feel the cold coming up through the thin leather gloves she was wearing. She needed to start carrying her heavy choppers in the car.
