by Mary Logue
Rich wondered if maybe what his mother needed wasn’t less responsibility, but more.
“Where’s Claire?” Beatrice asked.
“She had to stay and do some work.”
“Work?”
Rich didn’t want to say more. “Yeah, finish things up.” Snooper’s head came popping out of the jacket. “Oh, I brought a friend home.”
“For me?” Meg jumped off the couch and ran to see the dog.
Rich unzipped his coat and said, “No, Megsly. I’m sorry, but this dog has an owner that he loves very much. He’s just visiting. But could you take him into the kitchen and get him a drink of water?”
He put the little dog down on the floor, and Meg and the dog touched noses. He had guessed they might be friends.
“Snooper is his name,” Rich told her.
Meg called the dog, and the two of them ran off to the kitchen. Rich heard her turn on the faucet.
“Why is he visiting?” his mother asked.
“Because his owner had to go to the hospital.”
“What happened, Rich?”
“A woman was beat up. It was bad.” He thanked the Lord that he had never seen such a sight before. He hoped he would never see anything like it again.
His thoughts went to Claire, walking around in the snow. He wondered if he should think about asking her to quit her job.
The yellow tape was looped across the bottom of the driveway. Scott Lund had come from Pepin and taken as many pictures outside as he could, his flash lighting up the falling snow. She had been on the phone to the sheriff several times, coordinating how to handle the scene. He had agreed that the crime bureau could meet her there tomorrow morning. The snow kept falling, and it wasn’t helping anything.
The snow was silently, constantly covering everything up—one of the attributes she most loved about it. The first snow coming in late fall, early winter, hid the damped-down weeds, the empty trees, the trash along the roadside, the dirt on everything. But now she was fighting it.
She tried to reconstruct the scene. She had gone into the house and walked through it carefully, touching nothing. It was hard to tell whether Stephanie had been leaving for good, but Claire guessed yes. She had packed the essentials. The car was stuffed to the brim. The crime lab could come into the house tomorrow, but she doubted that they would find anything. Claire didn’t think any of the fight happened in the house. It was too neat; nothing looked thrown around.
In reconstructing the action, she imagined Stephanie down by her car, the man arriving on the scene, immediately guessing what she was up to, and going at her right there by the car.
That’s why Claire was walking around outside. If she was going to find anything, it would be out here. It was dark, the only light coming from the porch. The snow gave off its own glow. Claire had a huge flashlight that she was flicking around the edges of the scene. Suddenly, something snapping in the wind caught her eye.
She walked a few steps into the forest. Caught in a pine tree was a paper bag. She lifted it up carefully and peeked in. A green bottle, smashed. As Claire examined it more carefully, she saw that it was a bottle of champagne, the price still on it—$12.99. Not a big spender, but maybe he couldn’t get a more expensive bottle down along the river.
She carefully carried the bag with the champagne bottle to her car and put it in a box in the backseat. Then she sat on the edge of her seat with the car door open and watched the snow come down.
This wasn’t really a storm. Maybe an accumulation of four to five inches. Nothing that significant. Enough to get Stephanie stuck, but not enough to slow down the man who had come to court her with a bottle of champagne. What went on between the two of them that he had turned the bottle on her? How afraid must she have been, to pack up what she could stuff in her car and try to flee? How was this all tied into Buck’s death? Was Stephanie covering for someone else, or had she killed Buck, and was she trying to get away before they figured it out?
Claire hoped she would get these answers the next time she saw Stephanie.
Her son was in love.
It was obvious. He wore it on his face whenever he looked at Claire, whenever he talked about her.
And she seemed like a good woman. She was raising a lovely daughter, had a devoted if slightly wacky sister, a nice house. She seemed like an average housemaker and a decent cook.
But she was a cop.
Beatrice tucked her head under the edge of the flannel sheets on the bed in the room where Aunt Agnes used to sleep. Rich was so careful about everything in his life. He made a good living at raising pheasants, he had his house all paid off, he kept everything simple and clean. How had he come to let this woman into his life?
Beatrice was happy for him, but also scared. This was the woman he wanted, and she wasn’t sure they were a perfect match. Claire carried so much of the world on her shoulders. It might turn out to be too much for Rich to compete with.
13
CLAIRE called the hospital from her house before she left for work. Late the night before she had gotten the news that Stephanie was still unconscious, but stable. The doctor who came to the phone to talk to her in the morning assured her that Stephanie was doing as well as could be expected, but that they were going to need to do some repair work, probably surgery, on her face.
“What happened to her?” he asked.
Claire thought it was quite clear. “Someone beat her up.”
“With what, I mean? It might help us know the nature of the damage.”
“A champagne bottle wrapped in a paper bag.”
She heard a loud sigh on the other end of the line. “What a way to say Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Exactly. What might she need surgery on?”
“I’m concerned about her eyes. It’s hard to know how well she’s seeing right now, but it doesn’t look good to me. And her nose needs to be reset. I don’t think she’s breathing very well out of it right now.”
“Is she coherent?”
“Minimally. We’ve got her pretty doped up. She suffered a concussion, but that’s the least of her problems.”
“She’s still in intensive care with restrictions on visitors?”
“Yes, and she’ll continue to be there for at least the rest of the day, and I’m guessing the next day or two. The good news is she has no internal injuries other than the concussion that I can determine. The assault was focused on her head and face.”
“That’s the way the loved ones beat you up. Make you look bad to the rest of the world.”
She had used the phone in her bedroom so Bridget and Meg wouldn’t overhear her talking to the doctor. She didn’t want them to know what had happened. Both of them were still nervous from their own traumas. Bridget had a nasty scar on her arm from a bullet hole; Meg still had bad dreams at night. They didn’t need to be reminded that evil men roamed the world.
When she came downstairs, they were busy making oatmeal. Meg was teaching Bridget. “Keep stirring until you turn the heat down. That way it won’t stick,” Meg told her.
“Where’s the wonder child?” Claire asked.
“She’s fed, she’s dry, she’s yonder sleeping. I think she likes all the noise of people moving around her. Maybe it’s too quiet at my house.” Bridget pointed to the bundle of baby curled up on the couch between two pillows. “She just doesn’t seem to like to go into her bedroom and sleep in her bed. She reminds me of myself—never wanting to miss anything that’s going on.”
Claire walked over and knelt down by the dark-haired infant. She hadn’t had much time for her yesterday. Rachel pursed her lips, then made quiet smacking sounds, but kept sleeping. Claire felt the urge to reach out and touch her soft white cheeks, but resisted. A sleeping baby was just what they all needed right now. Bridget had a little more color in her face than when she showed up yesterday afternoon.
“So you’re sure you don’t mind being here today?”
Bridget looked at her. “Are you kidding? I’ve just h
ad the best sleep since before the baby was born. Meg is teaching me how to cook. My husband is gone for another day. My darling child is sleeping. And the roads still aren’t much good. You better believe I’m happy to stay put.”
“So how did you think it went yesterday with Rich’s mom, the noble Beatrice?” Claire asked.
“I would say you made an impression.” Bridget laughed.
Claire couldn’t argue with that.
Bridget walked into the living room to talk to her, leaving Meg to attend to the oatmeal. “Claire, I wanted to ask you about that woman yesterday. Was her car stuck in her driveway?”
Claire looked up at her sister. “How did you know?”
“I stopped and talked to her just before I got to your house.” “Why?”
“Because I saw her car was stuck.”
“Was anyone there?”
“No. I asked if she needed help, but she said that she had called someone and they would be there shortly.”
Claire left the two of them planning to make chocolate chip cookies in the afternoon. She had a strong desire to stay home and play house with the three favorite women in her life, but then she thought of Stephanie’s face, grabbed her keys, and was out the door before she could think again. A.M. When she parked down the road, she saw that the snowplow had already been by. If there had been any remnants of tracks left by the assailant’s car, they were gone now.
She reached into the back of the car and lifted out the box with the bagged champagne bottle in it. Perhaps they could lift prints off the bottle unless he kept his gloves on in the store when he bought it.
Clark Denforth parked right behind her car. She carried the box back to him. “An early Christmas present. Smashed champagne bottle.” She put the box in the back of his car.
“Oh, champagne gives me a headache,” he said, peering into the box to see what it contained.
“Assault weapon. I don’t know what you’re going to find here. We had quite a crew at the scene yesterday.”
“How many?” Clark looked at her.
She counted. “Seven besides the assailant. Seven that I know of. Eight including the victim.” Then she remembered Scott coming after everyone else had left to take photographs. “Oops, I mean nine.”
“Then there is the snow.”
“And the plows, which already wiped out the car tracks.”
“Don’t you just love winter.” He walked up to the car that Claire had locked last night. She didn’t think Stephanie’s mess of possessions were worth much, but it was her job to secure them.
“I think they fought by the car. She was trying to leave, and he decided to clobber her,” Claire told him.
Denforth walked around the car, then leaned under and patted the snow by the driver’s side. “There’s something under here. I can see the darkness through the snow.” Carefully he wiped the snow away and uncovered a scarf, a dark brown scarf.
“A man’s wool scarf,” Claire said. “That’s what it could be. It could belong to the assailant.”
Looking it over carefully, Denforth corrected her, “A man’s cashmere scarf.”
Sven loaded his snowblower into the back of the truck and brought it down to the end of the park. His wife used to tease him that he’d be out blowing the snow off the sidewalk before it had even quit coming down. He did like his machines. Gave him something to do now that he was retired. He couldn’t shovel—too much strain on his heart. But he could run the snowblower and watch it do all the work.
Near the shore the water had frozen into smooth glare ice. He knew this because he had been down checking on the ice every day. He had decided the town skating rink would be his project this year. But now the ice was covered with about a half a foot of snow. It would be a pleasure to clear it off—like watching his wife iron a tablecloth smooth of any wrinkles.
Sven stopped the truck close to the lake, walked around the back, dropped the tailgate, and pulled out his ramp. Then he climbed up into the truck and carefully pushed his snowblower down.
The wind was picking up across the lake. If it started blowing this snow around, he could be at this job all day long.
He could make out the shoveled outlines of the rink from when he had done it before. Pushing the snowblower in front of him, he aimed it at the far western corner. He’d start there and blow all the snow out of the rink. It took some strategy not to make this too much work.
Starting up the machine, he felt tired suddenly. He hadn’t slept at all well last night. The face of that young girl, Stephanie, kept coming to him. She could be such a nice girl when she wanted to be. There was a rough side to her sometimes too—he knew she went drinking at the local bars and hung out with a tougher crowd—but she had always been real nice to him.
He had done a couple of rows when he stopped to take a breather. The sun was just glinting through the skim-milk-colored sky. Getting close to the shortest day of the year. Boy, he’d be glad when they got over that hump. He didn’t mind cold, and he liked the snow, but he hated the darkness. It seemed to make it harder to get up everyday and easier to climb into bed on the early side.
He was getting ready to start the snowblower again when he heard a car coming down into the park. He turned to see, and recognized the car right away—the deputy sheriff’s car.
He walked up the shore to greet her. Maybe she had news on Stephanie. She stopped the car next to his truck and rolled down her window.
“What do you know, Mrs. Watkins?”
“Sven, you’ve picked a cold one.”
“I didn’t pick it. You can’t let the weather stop you from doing things. I’ve lived through many a winter, and you gotta keep moving.”
“That is the secret, isn’t it? Keep moving.” Claire looked professional today, dressed in her uniform. “I wanted to give you the news on Stephanie and ask you a few more questions. Could I offer you a seat in my car? It’s all warmed up.”
“Sounds good. I figure I’ve got another hour out here, getting the rink cleared.”
He walked around the car and pulled the passenger door open. The warmth of the car made his cheeks feel like they were burned.
“I’m sure glad you’re doing the rink. My daughter is very excited about skating this year.”
“I’ve seen her out here. She sure is persistent.”
“Oh, that’s the word for my Meg. Persistent.”
“I worry about that spring on the other side of the park. It weakens the ice. Someone’s going to go through if they’re not careful. You tell Meg to stay away from there.”
He pushed back the seat on the passenger side of the car so he had a little more leg room. Claire pushed back her seat too. “Wish I had some coffee to offer you,” she said.
“Don’t mind about that. Tell me how Stephanie is doing.”
“She has regained consciousness, but I don’t think she’s doing much talking. The doctor I spoke with thinks she’ll need some surgery for her nose and maybe her eyes.”
“Jeez. That poor girl.”
“Yeah. Now I wanted to ask when you got the call and when you got there.”
“I listened to my machine again last night. Stephanie called me while I was at a friend’s eating dinner. She left a message. I got there about five-forty-five. So somewhere in between.”
“That jibes with what my sister said. She saw Stephanie stuck just before she got to my house. That gives us a three-hour window. I need to find out if anyone saw the car parked alongside the road.”
“I wish I would have seen that guy.” Sven had thought about what he could do with a shovel. His doctor told him to take it easy, but it would have been a pleasure to give that guy a licking.
“From a distance, Sven. We’ll get him.”
“I think they’re linked.” Claire told the sheriff. “At first, I suspected that Buck had been beating up Stephanie, even though everyone assured us he was gentle as a lamb. But now it’s obvious that he wasn’t the man.”
“So who is?”
/>
“I have work to do.”
“Do it. I want this figured out before the poor woman gets out of the hospital.”
Claire didn’t tell him that might give her plenty of time. Stephanie’s prognosis was not great. From the way the doctors were talking, she wouldn’t be out for quite a while. “I’m on it.”
Claire went into the computer and pulled all the information she could on Stephanie. She found Stephanie had parents in Eau Claire and a brother down in Winona, as Sandy the postmaster had thought. And then she found that she had been married once about five years ago, to a man named Tom Jackson. They hadn’t been married long, and he lived in Eau Claire, which was only about fifty miles away.
Claire tried the parents first, the Klauses. A man answered the phone. “Is this Mr. Klaus?”
“Yeah. Whadda you want?”
Claire explained who she was and then said, “I’m calling about your daughter, Stephanie.”
“She in trouble?”
“She was badly beaten up yesterday.”
“How bad?”
“She’s in the hospital, probably having surgery on her face right now.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Claire was rather nonplussed. “Well, I’d like to know if you have any idea who could have done this to Stephanie. We found her badly beaten and don’t know who did it to her.”
“Stephanie doesn’t really keep in touch with us. We haven’t hardly known where she is for the last few years. She probably had it coming.”
This man showed none of the normal parental reactions to a daughter being hurt. This was more than the stoical Scandinavian type that Claire ran into in Wisconsin. His lack of reaction went far beyond that. “Do you know her ex-husband?”
“Not really. We weren’t invited to the wedding. I don’t know that they even had one. Didn’t last long. My wife could tell you more. She’s sleeping at the moment. Late night. She works nights.”
Claire gave up. She was going to get little from this man. “I’ll try back later.”
