by Mary Logue
“You came to get me at the hospital. Thank you so much. I hope someday I’ll be able to repay you.”
“Just get better. I need to see your smiling face around town.”
He had hoped she would invite him in, but he could tell she wasn’t going to. She had stopped to tell him all this a few feet in front of her door. She stood on her tiptoes, leaned in, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thanks, Sven. Bye-bye.” She turned, walked to her door, and let Snooper run in the house before she followed.
He hated to let her stay in the house by herself. Watching the door shut, he gave up for a moment. He headed back to his car, thinking there was nothing he could do. She wanted to be on her own, that’s the way it would be.
He stood and turned his face up. The sky was as soft a white as the underside of an old wool blanket. It looked like it was going to start snowing hard pretty soon. He could feel it in the air and in his bones. Then he’d have an excuse to call her and come over. She’d need her driveway cleared out again. Maybe he’d bring her something. Some flowers, or something to eat. She looked thin to him.
He climbed into his car and had a laugh at himself. She was a young woman. Why would she want to have anything to do with an old codger like him? He was close to sixty, with a bad heart. A lonely man who had to work hard to keep busy. He hadn’t a thing to offer her but his kindness.
But he figured she needed that as bad as she needed anything. She didn’t look like she had gotten her share of kindness in her life.
He drove out onto the highway, thinking he’d bring in some wood for a fire. Heat up some soup and settle in by the window for a good storm. He would read, but mainly he would stare out the window. He had become more reflective as he aged. When he was working full time for 3M, he never had time to do much serious thinking, just worried about the business. Now he thought a lot about philosophical questions, like what life was all about. He wondered what Stephanie thought about life.
Driving back to Durand, Claire felt itchy. It was a feeling she got when something wasn’t sitting right with her. John Klaus had given her such a feeling. And his wife, his self-effacing wife.
Eugenia seemed to be holding tenuously onto her life, her small hands working constantly to protect her face. Timid and threatened, she tiptoed around when her husband was there in their perfect house. What was the story with the two of them?
Maybe that strained relationship was why Stephanie hadn’t wanted to stay with them. Maybe her brother did take after their father and was abusing his wife. Maybe Claire was reading too much into everything.
But as she remembered the way Eugenia had moved through the house, had held her hands in front of her body, had reacted to any movement from her husband, Claire was reminded of Mrs. Tabor. Cowering. She became certain that Eugenia was being abused by her husband.
At first, she had thought she was leaving Winona with nothing, but now another fact that she learned was pricking her. Stephanie and John had lived together recently, after Stephanie’s divorce. Claire decided she needed to do more checking on John Klaus. Maybe he resembled his father in more ways than looks.
The snow started to fall just as she pulled into the lot by the sheriff’s department. Big thick flakes fluttered down, covering the dark spots on the street. The world would go white again. She didn’t want to stay in the office long. It was time to head home. But she wanted to check on John Klaus before she left. In her background checks on Stephanie, she hadn’t looked at her brother.
Scott was walking out as she came in. “Stewy says we’re all to go home if we’re not on duty tonight. Storm coming in doesn’t look good.”
“Shoot. I heard we might be getting something.” Claire said good night to him and walked to the communication center and got on a computer.
She pulled up what she could on the databases. Everything seemed to be working slow. She hated it when the machine ground on, not spitting out the information that she wanted. Finally she found the right John Klaus. John Klaus, no criminal record, speeding ticket four years ago. Father, James Klaus, mother Ginnie Klaus. That name sounded wrong. That wasn’t the name of Stephanie’s mother.
She pulled out her file on Stephanie. When she compared the two sets of information, she realized John and Stephanie weren’t really siblings. Stephanie’s father was not James Klaus. Her mother had married him when Stephanie was six and John was ten. James Klaus had adopted Stephanie, and she had taken his name.
Stephanie and John were not birth brother and sister. They had lived together a few years ago. Their father abused his wife and Stephanie. What had John learned from all this?
There was one other thing that had been bothering Claire. John Klaus had walked in to his house impeccably dressed, but one item had been missing from his ensemble. He hadn’t worn a scarf with his coat, which was open at the collar.
On a hunch Claire made a phone call.
Eugenia answered the phone in her quiet voice, “Klaus residence,” sounding more like a maid than the lady of the house.
“Mrs. Klaus, I’m sorry to bother you again, but when I was leaving your house, I found a brown cashmere scarf on the ground by my car. It was buried in the snow. Did you lose one?”
“Oh, thank goodness.” Genuine relief sounded in Eugenia’s voice. “That’s my husband’s. He’s been so upset about losing it. I’ll tell him you found it as soon as he gets back.”
John Klaus had told Claire that he hadn’t been to see Stephanie in months. But the scarf had been only lightly covered with snow. He had known that Stephanie was hit with a champagne bottle, which was not common knowledge.
“Where did he go?” Claire asked, afraid she knew the answer.
“To get Stephanie.”
Rich walked down to the road to watch the snow fall out of the sky. He couldn’t see across the lake; he couldn’t even see the lake. The snow quieted the world. There were a few cars driving slowly by on the highway—people trying to get home before the snowstorm shut everything down. The plows wouldn’t be out for hours. They would probably wait until morning to attack the streets. No sense getting caught out in the middle of the storm.
Last he heard, they were saying they might get over a foot of snow. On top of what they already had on the ground, it would make an impressive pile.
Maybe he should go and pick up Meg. He knew she was at the house of Ramah, her baby-sitter. It would be one less thing Claire would have to do when she got home. He felt lonely in his house—no dog, no women. He’d rather be snowed in at Claire’s than alone at his own home.
He’d filled a Crock-Pot full of the makings for chili in the morning, and it was starting to smell pretty good. He could just bring that in the car, and dinner would be ready. He and Meg could make some cornbread, heat up the house. A perfect night at home by the fire. It was becoming more common for him to spend most nights with Claire and Meg.
As he was walking into his house, he heard the phone ring, but he didn’t get to it in time to answer it. He should get an answering machine or something, but he couldn’t be bothered.
But the unanswered call made him think of his neighbor—Stephanie. He wondered how she was doing back in her house. He picked up his phone, looked up her number, and dialed it.
After a few rings, her tentative voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Stephanie. It’s Rich. I just wanted to be sure you were doing all right. Have you got enough food and everything?”
“I’m fine.”
“‘Cause it’s starting to come down pretty hard.”
“The house has warmed up nicely.”
“How’s Snooper?”
“He’s curled up in a ball on his favorite blanket.”
“Good.”
“Thanks for your concern. Don’t worry about me.”
22
STEPHANIE usually loved a winter storm. Always a good excuse to curl up inside and work on her weaving. But she wished this one would hold off for a while. She looked out the
window and saw the flakes coming down. She wanted the car warmed up before they left, so she threw on her down parka and ran out to turn on the car.
The cold took her breath away. She couldn’t really run in it. She hunkered down inside her jacket, pulling the hood over her head and breathing through the fur ruff like a wolf.
When she got to the car, she had trouble opening the drivers-side door. It was frozen shut. After trying all the doors, she finally was able to pull the back left door open and crawl over into the front seat. She put the key in the ignition, said a short prayer, and cranked it. Nothing. Stone dead. Not a whisper of a growl. When it was this cold, she usually plugged her car in. It had sat for days with no one starting it, and it sounded like the battery was drained.
She slammed her hand against the steering wheel and said, “Shit.” Then she stared out at the windshield. The snow was already covering everything so completely, she could hardly see out of the car.
No one could get to her in all this weather. She would be safe in her house for a while. She would wait out the storm, get her car’s battery charged up, and be off before Jack came to find her.
She slammed her shoulder against the car door, and it popped open with the sound of a tree branch breaking under a weight of ice. The wind took the door and blew it back, almost to the point of snapping it off the car. No one would be on the road in this weather. She grabbed her small carry-on case and brought it back into the house with her. It had all her neccessities. She was sure there was a can of Campbell’s bean with bacon soup in the cupboard she could heat up. Snooper was fine for dog food. They would have a good rest tonight and start out tomorrow morning, bright and early.
As she trudged back up to the house, she wished she would have done something more for Sven Slocum. He was such a nice older man. Kept himself in pretty good shape and always had a kind word to say to everyone. She might need to call him about the battery. She could try to bring it into the house and warm it up. She had heard that worked sometimes.
She hustled back into the house and found Snooper sitting watching the door. She rubbed the little dog’s head. “Don’t worry. You won’t be rid of me so easy this time. We’re sticking together like glue.”
Stephanie put on her moonboots and found her heavy leather choppers. After scrounging through her junk drawer, she found a small screwdriver and stuck that in her pocket. She wrapped a big long red scarf around her hood and over her face. Snooper started barking at her.
“I have to go outside one more time. Then we’ll snuggle in here. Don’t you worry.”
She braved the wind and cold again. After releasing the hood latch inside the car, she lumbered up to the front of the car and pulled open the hood. She looked down at the battery.
What did she know? It looked fine. She was scared to do this, but thought it was her only chance to not involve someone else. She always hated to ask for help.
She had watched Jack work on his car. He had shown her how to do things, like change the oil. He had replaced batteries for her. He had done so many good things for her. What was really weird was that once in a while she still had the impulse to call him for help. He had always been there for her. Her whole life.
He had stepped in between her and her stepfather and saved her from a beating. With that action, Stephanie had fallen in love with him, although she had loved him for a long time. He was her big brother and so handsome. Coming home in his uniform, he looked like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman.
After they had started to sleep together, he wanted to take her out to a dance one night. When she saw that he had put on his uniform, she laughed. No one wore a uniform out in public anymore. That was the first time he had slugged her. Crack, right across the mouth, right while she was still laughing. One sharp smack. It left bruises on her cheeks, but startled her more than hurt her. “Don’t ever laugh at me,” he had said.
She pulled her mind away from Jack and back to the problem of the battery. The removal looked pretty straightforward. She unclipped the two battery cables from the posts and loosened the clamp with her bare hand, finding the choppers too clumsy to manuever. Then she carefully lifted out the battery.
A roar came up behind her and she almost dropped the battery.
She thought someone had driven into her driveway and quickly turned to be ready to confront them, but it was only the wind and a gust of snow. The storm was strengthening. She took a deep breath and carried the battery up to the house.
Snooper growled and barked at the battery, but she just laughed at him and set it down on the plastic mat that she had next to the door for her boots. Then she found a big cardboard box and covered it so that Snooper couldn’t get at it.
“Stay away from that. Not good for you.”
Snooper danced around her until she swooped him up in her arms. “How about some soup?” she asked and he licked her face.
Rich didn’t answer the phone. Maybe he had gone to get Meg. He often did that for her. Meg loved hanging out with him. Claire wished she were there right now. She longed to go home and sink into the family setting with Meg and Rich, but she had a very bad feeling about Stephanie. Claire was afraid her so-called brother John was after her.
Claire tried to call Stephanie, but she didn’t answer the phone either. No answering machine. Where could she be in this weather? Maybe she had gone over to Sven’s to stay. That would solve everything.
Then a horrible thought struck her. What if John Klaus was there already? What if she had been badly hurt by him?
The office had just about cleared out. Judy, who lived close by, was manning the phones. “Judy, could you try to get Scott and ask him to meet me at Stephanie Klaus’s house, in Fort St. Antoine?”
“Does he know where it is?”
“Yes. Keep trying until you get him. I’ll check back in with you on my way home.”
“Good luck getting there.”
Claire stepped out of the courthouse, and the wind slammed into her.
“Man alive,” she whispered under her breath. Visibility was already bad. She could hardly see across the street. She got into her patrol car and was glad she had used it so recently and it was all warmed up. The windows dripped From the snow falling on them. She cleared the windshield and started down the road.
Driving in this heavy snow was bad enough, but what made it worse was that a small slick of ice was forming beneath the snow on the road, which made it really slippery. She had to drive slowly to avoid spinning off the road. Her headlights punched two small holes in the swirling whiteness. Car headlights came upon her moments before they passed her. There was no room for mistakes in this white world.
It took her twenty-five minutes to reach Highway 35. Usually she made it in fifteen. The snow was coming down heavier, and it was piling up on the roads. The wind was starting to drift the snow across the roads. At least she was driving down in the valley and not up on top of the bluffs, where the drifts could shut the roads down in no time at all.
She stopped to call in to Judy to ask if she had been able to get through to Scott. She was going to ask her to call Stephanie also, but when she got through, Judy told her the phone lines were down around Durand.
“This is going to be a bad one,” Judy said and added, “Let me know when you get home.”
Claire told her to keep trying Scott on his car phone and signed off. She started to inch her way northward. She was very conscious of being in a little metal box on wheels while the wind buffeted her around. All that was protecting her from the elements was this vehicle.
Finally she drove into Pepin. The faint lights of the town were welcoming, but she had to keep going. She swung by Scott’s house, but there was no patrol car out front. She wondered if he had stopped for a drink on the way home. She didn’t have time to find out where he was. She had to get to Stephanie’s.
Back into the dark whiteness. Night had fallen. If she turned her brights on, it made the visibility worse. The snow became a huge swarm of w
hite insects peppering the darkness. She kept her low beams on and tried to follow the road. It was exhausting to watch for the faint trail of tire tracks in the white snow.
Jack rode the storm up the river. His anger fizzed in his arms and legs and sparked in his head. Stephanie was trying to get away again. He knew it. What was the matter with her? She knew as well as he did that they belonged together.
She had given herself to him when she was only fifteen and a virgin. He and Stephanie had grown up together since she was six and he was ten. They were told they were brother and sister, but he always knew better. He always knew there was something between them that was explosive.
She had been such a pretty little girl, blond hair a halo around her head. His real mom, the one who had run away and left him with his father, had called him Jack, and he had liked it. Everyone else called him John. But Stephanie knew how much he liked to be called Jack, and she had always called him that. Even when she was mad at him.
When he was seventeen, he had dropped out of high school and enlisted in the marines. All his life, his father had told him that he was a worthless piece of shit. So Jack knew that his father wouldn’t help him go to school. His father took every opportunity he could to tell Jack just how stupid he was. He was sent to basic training and had not returned to his home for a couple of years. He knew the marines was the only way he was going to get ahead, that he would never have the resources to go to college without the extra training he would get in the service.
A couple of years later, he had come back to stay with his family while he was on leave, and there was Stephanie, all grown up and beautiful as a beauty queen. No one had ever even kissed her. Then he found out his dad was slapping Stephanie around.
One night Jack had stepped in and told the old man to lay off Stephanie if he knew what was good for him. His dad had come at him, and the many hours of working out stood Jack in good stead. He dropped his father with a right punch and then kicked the shit out of him. Stephanie cried and threw herself in Jack’s arms. He had wanted to take her right there.
