Glare Ice

by Mary Logue

  Her brother thought she was going to go and stay with him, but she would not do that. Then there was the women’s shelter in Durand. But they would never let her have the dog there.

  She would leave before they thought she was ready. She would bolt. She had thought it all out.

  Sven would come and get her. He had helped her out before. She needed to thank him anyway for coming to her rescue on Thanksgiving. Deputy Watkins said Sven had been quite upset when he found her. Stephanie couldn’t remember a thing.

  She would have him drive her right to Rich Haggard’s and pick up Snooper. She would ask Sven to dig out her car before she got home. It was still all packed. The deputy said they hadn’t touched anything. She was ready to go. She would put Snooper in the car and drive westward as long as she could, and then she would get a hotel room and sleep.

  That was the plan.

  There was another one.

  She could tell Deputy Watkins what was going on. This plan had been growing stronger in her mind since Watkins had been in to see her. Points in her favor: she was a woman, she had taken care of the dog, and she promised that she would personally see that Stephanie was not hurt if she would just tell her who had beat her up. Stephanie believed her.

  The only thing that worried her was that no one understood how hard Jack would fight to get at Stephanie. No one except herself.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the police this time, it was more that she didn’t think they were up to the task.

  And she had Snooper to think about.

  A few days after Mrs. Tabor had discovered her brooch was missing, Lily had come to work wearing it.

  Mrs. Tabor couldn’t believe her eyes. Lily had the beautiful garnet brooch, as plain as day, pinned to her chest.

  Mrs. Tabor couldn’t help herself. She had to say something. The words flew out of her mouth without her thinking about it. “Why are you wearing my brooch? I’ve been looking for that everywhere.”

  Lily gave her a look and laughed. “Oh, Mrs. Tabor. I told you you might forget. You gave it to me. It was such a nice gift.”

  The laugh was not a very nice laugh. Mrs. Tabor did not believe her. She would never, even if she had completely lost her mind, give her brooch away to anyone. And, of course, if it went to anyone, it would be her daughter. But Mrs. Tabor had planned on being buried with it pinned to her chest.

  “I gave it to you?” she said back to Lily.

  “Yes, don’t you remember? I always told you how much I liked it. Then, for my birthday, you gave it to me. Took it off your dresser and handed it to me. I thought I’d wear it so you could see how much I appreciated your gift.”

  Mrs. Tabor felt as if her head was about to fall off. Would she do such a thing and then not remember it? How scary a land was this growing old—filled with land mines and booby traps. Not being able to trust your own memory. It was too much.

  She had to get out of the room before she said something that she would regret. Truth be told, she was afraid of Lily.

  “I don’t think I want to go out today, Lily. If you don’t mind going to the store for me, I think I’ll just have a lie down.”

  “Sure thing, Mrs. Tabor. You look a little tuckered out. You didn’t sleep good last night?”

  “Sleep is very elusive when you’re my age. Sometimes it wraps itself around you and won’t let you go, and other times it runs away from you. Last night was one of the bad ones.”

  Mrs. Tabor went to the bedroom, stretched out on her bed, and pulled a thin blanket over her legs. A little nap. She crawled back under the covers only when she was sick. For a nap in the afternoon, she slept on top of the bedclothes.

  When she heard Lily leave the house, she pushed herself off the bed and went to the phone. She had marked the number in the phone book, and she punched it in carefully.

  “Pepin County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Is Deputy Watkins there?” she asked the pleasant woman who had answered the phone.

  “Hold a moment.”

  “Hello, Watkins here.”

  “You sound like a real deputy.”

  “I am. Who am I speaking with?”

  “Sorry, this is Mrs. Tabor. Do you remember me?”

  “Yes, of course. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, she’s at it again. That Lily. She can be nice when she wants to be, but I think she’s got a bad side to her. First it was the checks, but I let it slide. That was a mistake. And now she’s taken my brooch. Well, I’ve had enough of it.”

  There was silence on the other end. Maybe she had said too much.

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “Get back my brooch.”

  “How have you been, Claire?” Dr. Lynn Potter asked as she ushered Claire to a seat on a couch and took a chair close by.

  Claire should have known she wouldn’t get away without talking about herself even though she had made it clear when she called that it was a business meeting; she would be asking advice on a case. Claire had persuaded the sheriff to pop for the half-hour fee. “Basically fine.”

  “Covers a lot, doesn’t it? Fine.”

  “I do a hard job. It stirs things up. But I feel like you helped me figure out ways to cope better. Is that what you want to hear?”

  There was a pause while Dr. Potter looked her over. Claire realized her answer had been a little sharp.

  “What I want to hear? You called and asked to see me.”

  “Sorry. I’m having trouble with a case, as I explained to you on the phone. Abuse. A battered woman. I just don’t get it. How can women let men do that to them? Grown-up women.”

  “Tell me about the case,” Dr. Potter suggested. She leaned forward in her chair and tucked her brown bobbed hair behind her ears.

  So Claire did. Without giving any names, she told the doctor about Stephanie, Buck, the dog. She told her about the phone call, the car-through-the-ice murder of Buck Owens, the last battering on Thanksgiving Day. She felt her heart race as she talked about it and tried to calm herself down.

  “You sound pretty angry, Claire.”

  “She won’t give me anything. She won’t let me help her.”

  “That has to be very frustrating. But you need to come to understand her and have compassion for her situation before you are going to get her to talk to you. That’s what I think.”

  “Makes sense. Can you help me with the compassion part?”

  “I can’t give it to you, but we can talk about it. Why don’t you start by telling me what you don’t understand?”

  “Well, I’ve never let a man hit me and get away with it. Once, when I was at the academy, a guy I was dating grabbed me too hard and shook me. That was it. I was out of there!”

  “Did you love him?”

  “No.”

  “Did you want to marry him, live with him the rest of your life?”

  “No.”

  “Makes it easier to walk away. One thing that might help is to think of someone you love. Think of what you would do if they hit you. Think how hard it might be to give up all that is good between you and walk away.”

  “So like if Rich hit me?”

  “Good, you’re still seeing Rich.”

  “His mother came over for Thanksgiving.”

  “Great, how’d it go?”

  “A bit of an ordeal, but at least we’ve met.”

  “So what would you do if he hit you?”

  Claire tried to go there, but it seemed impossible. “He wouldn’t do that. I’m with him because he wouldn’t do that.”

  “What about your husband?”

  Claire remembered Steve getting really mad. Once he had broken the dining room window. She couldn’t even remember why he had been so mad. It had been just before Meg was born. Claire had been frightened, but as soon as he broke the window, he calmed down. He laughed. He apologized. What if he wouldn’t have done that? She was pregnant. Would she have left her husband if he had slugged her? “I don’t think I could have le
ft right away. I would have warned him that I would leave if he ever did it again. I would have given him another chance.”

  “Fair enough. And then four months later, he hits you again. And he’s sorry afterward, really sorry. Promises he’ll never do it again.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s hard to know unless it happens to you. I do think you’re a pretty healthy woman and you have learned to walk away from what hurts you, but we all have our weaknesses.”

  “I suppose.”

  “What if you were in love with a man and he loved you, and in order to have you he killed someone? Would you turn him in? Would you let all the world see what kind of man he really was? Or would you protect him? Cover up for him? Because you loved him.”

  Claire sat still. She felt like she had been slugged in the belly. She couldn’t look at Dr. Potter. How could she have used that against her? How could she have pulled it out of the closet and stuck her with it?

  “I know this is your job, but that hurt,” Claire finally said.

  “I bet. But maybe it will help you understand this woman better. We all have our weak areas, as I said before. You have yours. You have begun to forgive yourself. You have some compassion for yourself. Carry it over to this woman.”

  Claire sat and took in what Dr. Potter was saying. Dr. Potter uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other way. Claire was sure if you could read body language that this movement meant something. Then Dr. Potter asked, “What else is bothering you about this case?”

  A feeling washed over Claire, strangely close to sorrow. She tried to describe it. “I feel so helpless. It’s my job to help people, to protect them. Stephanie lives in my town. I know her. But she won’t let me help her. I can’t seem to protect her. We were eating turkey, and she was getting beaten to a pulp. It makes me sick.”

  “I bet. It should.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Just feel it. Just know you’re feeling it. It makes you a good deputy. You care about people.”

  Claire was surprised that Dr. Potter’s words made her feel better. She hadn’t told her anything she could do to get over the feeling, yet her words were still reassuring. “Can you tell me anything else that will help me reach her before it’s too late?”

  “I have worked with several abused women. It isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but what I’ve learned is that they usually have something in their lives that they will fight for. It often isn’t themselves. Often their children, sometimes friends, family. If you can find out what that is, you can get them to stand up for themselves. The other thing I’ve seen is that they do need to stand up for themselves. They might suffer immediately, but eventually it is the only way to end the abuse.”

  Claire thought about Stephanie and finding her lying in the snow in her driveway. One thing that had struck Claire was that the dog hadn’t been hurt. The dog was so small and defenseless. What had Stephanie done so that the dog hadn’t been hurt?

  “I think the dog is the answer.”

  17

  IT’S grown four inches in the last three days,” Meg told her mother after carefully measuring the amaryllis plant.

  The plant was shooting up a thick green stalk with a bud on the end. The stalk was as big around as two of her fingers put together. Meg was hoping that it would bloom on Christmas Eve. A present for everyone. That would be perfect. Every morning she checked it. Beatrice had told her only to water the amaryllis every few days, but not to let it go bone dry. “The nourishment comes from the bulb,” Beatrice had told her.

  “That is one amazing plant.” Her mother was making oatmeal for the two of them. “I thought I’d drive you to school this morning.”

  Meg ran and got bowls and spoons and handed them to her mom. “Yay! That bus ride is too dang long.”

  “Where did you learn to say ‘dang’?”

  “Everyone on the school bus says even worse. Especially the boys. They swear all the time. The bus driver just ignores it.”

  “Well, you might want to follow suit.” Claire dished out a big bowl of oatmeal and handed Meg the brown sugar in a plastic bowl. Meg’s theory was, put enough brown sugar on anything and it was edible.

  After three spoonfuls, her mother decided to put a stop to it. “Hey, leave some for me.”

  Meg handed back the brown sugar.

  “We didn’t get a chance to talk about my conference with your teacher last night. I thought we could talk about it today before school.” Her mom handed her the milk in a small white pitcher. It was nice and cold from the refrigerator.

  Meg made a face. She had worried about that dang conference last night before bed. It had even kept her up for a while. But she hadn’t wanted to bring it up.

  “What do you think of Mr. Turner, Meg?”

  This had to be a trick question. “Truthfully?”

  “Yes, you can say how you really feel to me.”

  “But I know I’m supposed to be respectful of my teachers.”

  “I’m glad you’ve learned that. And I don’t want you to forget it, but people also have to earn your respect.”

  “I think he’s a meanie,” Meg told her. “Why?”

  Meg made a well in the middle of her oatmeal and poured in the milk. “Hey, I’m just a kid, and he likes to push me around. And I’m not the only one in class that he does it to. But I think he picks on me more because I’m smarter. I think that’s one of the reasons he doesn’t like me.”

  “I think you might be right. Do you think you are smarter than him?”

  Meg looked at her mom to see if she could figure out what was the right answer to that question. Her mother’s face was a blank. Meg decided to just say what she thought. If it got her in trouble, at least she would get her mother’s honest reaction. “I’m not much dumber than him right now, and when I’m his age, I’m going to be a lot smarter than he is, that’s for sure.”

  Her mother nodded. “I think you’re right again. You are smart. Now let me ask you another question. I don’t think you and Mr. Turner are getting along very well. Do you think there’s anything you can do to change that?”

  Meg was afraid of this. Now the lecture was coming. She said what she knew her mother would want her to say.

  “Do what he says,” she said reluctantly. Then she started to eat her oatmeal.

  “Yes, you could do that. But I think you’re smart enough to figure out a way so that Mr. Turner thinks he’s getting what he wants, but you also get what you want. I think you need to work on this problem. You’ve had nice teachers up till now, and I’m glad. But there are a lot of Mr. Turners in this world. I don’t like him very much, but he is your teacher. I’d like to see you try to win this battle with Mr. Turner without getting into more trouble. To do that, you need to make Mr. Turner think that he has won.”

  “Wow, Mom. That’s really complicated.”

  “Do you think you could try?”

  “Sure, I can try.” She was nearly finished with her oatmeal. Mom would drive her to school. Everything was possible. “It might be kinda fun.”

  “That’s my girl. I did ask Mr. Turner to let you read in class if you got all your work done. I think he’s agreeable to that.”

  Meg looked up at her mom. She felt relieved that they had talked about Mr. Turner and her mother hadn’t yelled at her. But there was something else that had been bothering her. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. “The kids on the bus are saying that the woman who got beaten almost died. They said she doesn’t have any face left. Is that true?”

  Her mom picked up her bowl and brought it to the sink. Then she turned and leaned against the sink and said, “She was badly beaten, but she’s doing pretty well. Her face is going to be fine. I would prefer you not talk to the kids about the work I’m doing.”

  “Oh, I know that, Mom. You already told me. But I can’t help it if they talk about it to me?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I’m worried about the little dog.”
/>   “You don’t need to be, sweetie. You know Rich will take good care of him.”

  Then Meg brought up her real concern. “But what if that man comes to our house?”

  “I know it’s hard to understand, but that man is only after Stephanie. It’s like he thinks he owns her, that he can do what he wants with her, but he can’t.”

  “Are you going to stop him, Mom?”

  “Yes, whatever it takes, I will stop him.”

  “Is Tom Jackson there?”

  “Yeah, let me try his desk. I saw him walk into the office a few minutes ago. Give me a sec.”

  Billy had called the Eau Claire police department to give Tom Jackson a heads-up on the Stephanie Klaus case. He hadn’t really told Watkins the complete truth the other night. He wasn’t sure why, except that he wanted to hear what she had to say first before he revealed how well he knew Tom. Then when he heard what it was about, he decided he should keep quiet.

  He and Jackson had been good buddies when they were at the academy. He had stuck pretty close to the truth. Jackson was ahead of him at the academy and was very serious. But Jackson had helped him out on assignments a number of times, and Billy felt like he owed him. This phone call would barely begin to pay him back.

  Jackson came on the line. After exchanging greetings, Billy got right to the point. “A deputy from here is checking up on you for an assault case.”

  “Thanks for calling about that. She stopped by the other day. What was her name? Watson, Watkins? Man, she’s a looker. I’d like to do mouth-to-mouth on that deputy sheriff any old day.”

  “Yeah, Watkins is all right.” Billy never liked the cracks guys made about Claire. Some women played the babe part, but Claire never acted provocative in any way. She did her job straight on.

  “She think I have anything to do with Stephanie?”

  “We went out for a drink the other night. She really didn’t say too much. Just was asking about you. Thought I’d let you know.”

  “Hey, I appreciate it. I’d like to be kept abreast of the situation.”

  “So you were married to this Stephanie Klaus? I don’t think I even knew you’d been married. You’ve been staying in touch with her? Still friends?”