Acts of Malice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  ‘‘Can you stand up?’’ said one of the men. He and Bob each took an arm. Slowly, she got up.

  ‘‘Incredible,’’ said one of the men. ‘‘She’s just banged up a little.’’

  ‘‘My husband,’’ she whispered, leaning on Bob. The snowshoes were long gone. The smooth soft snow had been replaced by a field of blocks of snow, many taller than she was. She had fallen almost to the valley floor.

  ‘‘I can see the rescue squad coming across the valley,’’ one of the men said. ‘‘They’ll find him.’’

  ‘‘There was a snowmobile. A man set it off,’’ Nina said clumsily through frozen lips.

  ‘‘I told them,’’ Floyd said.

  ‘‘He’s long gone,’’ said the man. ‘‘I saw him move off to the side. I don’t know where he went. I saw the whole thing from the other side of the valley. You were down there less than ten minutes.’’

  She shook her head dumbly. ‘‘Bob? Did you see where Collier fell?’’ He stroked her hair.

  ‘‘No. I couldn’t see him.’’ The snow on her hair was melting, soaking her. Bob helped her take off her jacket and gave her his to wear.

  A few minutes later, many people came. She was wrapped in a blanket. The mountain crawled with people.

  Two hours later they found Collier about two hundred yards away from where she had been buried. Floyd called from the mountain to the Bronco, where she was still sitting, refusing to go anywhere.

  ‘‘I’m so sorry,’’ he said. ‘‘I blame myself.’’

  ‘‘Don’t let him die! Work on him! Do something!’’

  ‘‘They are. But—’’

  ‘‘No! No!’’ She clutched at Bob. ‘‘Work on him!’’

  He was frozen, ice-coated, broken and hurt. She refused to believe he was gone.

  They tried to revive him long past the time they should have quit, and then they brought him down and rushed him to Boulder Hospital.

  She waited in the hall, disbelieving, huddled in the blanket, shaking her head and protesting that he couldn’t be dead, he could come back. She kept ordering them to do something, until an ER doctor came out and gave her a shot.

  Later, she would be told that he had died long before he came to rest.

  Soon after that, Andrea and Matt took her away from Collier, and put her to bed in the room with the yellow spread where she had spent her first night at Tahoe.

  When they had all gone to bed, when she was lying there with her eyes open looking at the ceiling, a wind came into her room, to the bed, and entered through the top of her head and traveled down her spine so that she shivered deeply. She felt that he had come, that he was still with her.

  She began talking to him, asking again, how could you leave me? How could you go? Am I responsible? It seemed to her that he was above her, looking down. Her center of gravity moved up, uncertainly, toward him. Now it seemed to her that he was there with her mother.

  Grief shook her. She spread her arms wide on the bed, and begged them to take her. She wanted to be drawn up to them and be reunited with them.

  She was aware of the solemnity of her decision. She was asking to die. She meant it. She gave up and lay there.

  But death did not take her. Her heart did not stop as she had thought it would. Collier and her mother faded away. She was left alone.

  No one ever to love her again. No one to call her my darling. No one beside her when she woke up.

  One tear came after another then, stately, slow tears, tears of surrender.

  She slept.

  The next day, leaden, she told the police about Jim. Not everything, just the part about the threats and the distinctive parka. They said that Jim had definitely left the lake, driven to Reno and flown to New York City, where his track, so far, had evaporated.

  Time passed. Andrea helped her make funeral arrangements. Collier’s mother would be flying up to take his body back to the family plot in San Diego. Collier’s ring would stay on his finger forever, just like hers.

  She would never remember much of the funeral service. Her heart had frozen. She moved like a zombie.

  After the service, many people came to Collier’s apartment. Floyd Drummond cried, and everyone from the police department and the D.A.’s office came. Barb looked drawn, as if she’d been crying too. She came up to Nina and said, ‘‘I wish he’d never met you.’’ Henry McFarland, beside her, said quickly, ‘‘She doesn’t mean it, Nina. No one blames you.’’ He led Barbara away.

  Her father came up from Monterey, and Collier’s law school friends from San Diego. Paul flew back again for the funeral, but he only talked to her briefly, his face like stone.

  People seemed to need to touch her. She suffered that because it gave them comfort. Collier had so many friends she’d never met. He had been loved and appreciated by many.

  Philip Strong came up to her as she was saying good-bye to Floyd.

  He had lost a lot of weight and looked emaciated, every year of his age now weighing heavily on him. It was hard to believe that this was the man who had stolen his son’s wife and precipitated so much terror.

  ‘‘May I speak to you?’’ he said humbly. She let him take her aside.

  ‘‘I came to tell you that I recognize my fault in what happened. I am deeply sorry. I’ll never be able to make up for any of it, or—or show you how much I regret it.’’

  ‘‘I don’t blame you, Mr. Strong.’’

  ‘‘I won’t rest until Jim is stopped. If he ever comes back to Paradise, I will turn him in. But he’ll never dare come here again. He’s gone forever, and I pity the world with him roaming in it. But still—forgive me— I’m still his father—I can’t help but pity him too. He must be suffering like a wolf in a spring trap wherever he is. He can’t be so far gone that he doesn’t realize he’s failed completely, that there’s no hope left. Please don’t be angry. I know—it must seem incredible to you that I can say I pity him. You hate him, of course.’’

  When she didn’t answer, or turn her back on him, Strong seemed to take courage. ‘‘It struck me that between Jim’s lies and my silence, you might not really understand some of the things that happened. I’d like to explain.’’

  She sighed.

  ‘‘Or perhaps I’m wrong. I would understand it if you never wanted to hear Jim’s name again.’’

  ‘‘Go ahead. I want to hear what you have to say.’’

  Looking at his shoes, Strong said quietly, ‘‘He was an aberration, even as a young child, so different from my other children. An aberration—that’s a cruel word, and I’ve never used it until now, but that’s what he was, even as a baby in diapers, with those blue eyes that had some frightening light in them.

  ‘‘He was always aggressive, pushing things out of the way, smashing things—my wife tried to talk to me about the things he did, but I found an excuse for everything—his cruelties, his lying, his truancies. Alex was the only person Jim could tolerate, I suppose because Alex looked up to him. Alex was happy. Jim was angry from the start.

  ‘‘When he entered his teens, my wife became very alarmed and took Jim to several psychologists. Jim hated them and complained to me. I took his side. I was his champion in the family, you might say.

  ‘‘Then our dog died. Alex told my wife that Jim had boasted that he ran him over. I chose to believe Jim’s denials. I just felt that he would come out of it someday, if we could just hold on.’’ Strong looked at Nina. ‘‘He was my son. I wanted to protect him.

  ‘‘Then something very frightening happened. Kelly, who loved to ski more than any of us, had an accident on the mountain. She was seriously injured. And she said that Jim had come up behind her and pushed her into a tree.’’

  ‘‘And you believed Jim over Kelly. I know how well Jim lies, Mr. Strong.’’

  ‘‘Yes.’’ He hung his head again. ‘‘My wife insisted that we institutionalize Jim, and he begged me not to. I couldn’t do it to him—couldn’t believe he was capable of such a thing. Other events o
ccurred. Over a period of years, the family cracked up, you might say. Like a car wreck in slow motion. My wife moved with Alex and Kelly to Colorado and divorced me. I stayed at Paradise and tried to control Jim.

  ‘‘I think, when the family left, Jim became frightened of himself. He took the loss of his mother very badly. She had cut off all contact with him, and this affected him so deeply that he seemed to start to turn around completely. He graduated from high school, got some college in, and started working with me at Paradise.

  ‘‘My wife died just before Alex finished college, and he wanted to come here and work. He and Jim were both on the Ski Patrol, and they started up again as if they’d never been apart. Alex put up with Jim’s moods. They went around together, double-dated—I thought Jim was going to make it.

  ‘‘Alex took over the lodge and Jim ran the ski operations for a few years. They both got married. Jim was completely taken with Heidi, and for the first time in his life he seemed happy.

  ‘‘But about a year ago, Jim came into my office and accused me of favoring Alex. He had that old look on his face. I was very concerned.

  ‘‘He wanted Alex’s job. Eventually I gave it to him. He was no good at it. He was no good with people, with details, with paperwork. He kept at it, but there were incidents, and I knew I was going to have to do something soon.

  ‘‘Heidi began coming to me, knowing how well I knew Jim. She told me that Jim had become so abusive to her that she was planning to leave him. I was very alarmed for her safety, for Jim’s stability—I wasn’t sure what to do. I tried to talk to her, to try to persuade her to stay, and somehow, we—we—’’

  ‘‘Fell in love,’’ Nina said. She was listening intently, looking for understanding even if there was to be no comfort for her.

  ‘‘I will carry the guilt for the rest of my life.’’ He closed his eyes.

  ‘‘Go on, Mr. Strong.’’

  ‘‘I’m not sure how Marianne found out.’’

  Nina said, ‘‘She overheard Heidi calling you from the equipment rental room one day. She didn’t know who Heidi was talking to.’’

  ‘‘Marianne had dated Jim before Heidi and was still interested in him. I have thought sometimes that she married Alex just to stay close to Jim.’’

  ‘‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’’

  ‘‘So, of course, she told Jim about Heidi. She wanted Heidi to leave him. Out of spite, or because she thought she could turn him toward her—she’s a—a—’’

  Nina nodded.

  ‘‘When Heidi got home he made her tell him who it was. He threatened her and bullied her into staying with him. And he made her promise not to tell me that he knew. He was deciding what revenge to take, I suppose. I knew nothing except that Heidi suddenly wouldn’t even talk to me. Jim acted perfectly normal. Can you believe anyone could do that?’’

  ‘‘Jim could.’’

  ‘‘Alex died a few days later, and I thought it was an accident. I thought it was an accident! Why on earth would Jim hurt Alex? What did Alex have to do with Heidi and me? Then Heidi ran away. She thought that Jim had killed Alex. But I had my head in the sand one last time. I told her we would wait and see what came out of the police investigation. I looked into Jim’s eyes, and I couldn’t tell. I thought I was going crazy myself. I had to get out, but I was afraid to go to Heidi.

  ‘‘I could have saved her. And Alex.’’

  ‘‘How?’’ Nina said.

  ‘‘I could have. I could have sent Jim away when he was sixteen.’’

  ‘‘I doubt you could have,’’ Nina said softly. ‘‘I couldn’t save my husband. I tried, just like you tried, to control someone who was completely out of control. Even if—if you and Heidi hadn’t fallen in love, Jim was going to kill someone eventually.’’

  Strong’s shoulders slumped. He looked old. ‘‘Please don’t be so kind,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t deserve your kindness. It’s just another blow. Why don’t you despise me? Even when Jim was arrested for Alex’s murder and I knew there was evidence of it, I looked the other way. The truth was too horrible for me to face. And so my bright beautiful Heidi was lost too.’’

  Nina put her hand on Strong’s shoulder.

  ‘‘Thank you for listening to me,’’ he said. ‘‘I realize now I did even this for myself, subjected you to this selfish and maudlin confession. You’re a fine lawyer and fine person, and I am so sorry for what my family has done to you.’’

  Nina nodded.

  ‘‘If there is anything I can do for you at any time—’’ She nodded again. He took her hand. He frowned, as though he hadn’t been able to say what he meant at all.

  Something deep and sad passed between them. ‘‘So sorry,’’ Philip Strong mumbled as he moved away.

  Collier was gone forever from contact, but in the sense of an impenetrable wall between them, not in the sense that his spirit was finally extinguished. The wind and the shivering came every night. She left her window open to make it easy for him.

  Maybe our spirits can intertwine

  Til there’s no more of yours and no more of

  mine

  Her spirit shrank from the world. It felt as though she was looking at it through a keyhole. None of it mattered. She was still clinging to him.

  The grotesque became normal. The day after the funeral she went back to work. Collier’s body still lay in the snow of her mind while she looked at her phone messages and spoke to the court clerk on the phone. Sandy held most of the incoming calls while she read through the cards and letters. Ginger wrote, ‘‘Don’t give up. We need you.’’

  She opened a card from Mrs. Geiger. Inside was a check for thirty thousand dollars. Her note said, ‘‘I got a job doing the accounts at Cecil’s market. That’s what I really needed, a job. It wasn’t right of me to take your money. God bless you for what you did.’’

  ‘‘Send it back to her, Sandy,’’ she said.

  ‘‘But—’’

  ‘‘Just send it back.’’

  An investigator named Sean something called to say he was coordinating the search for Jim. There had been a possible sighting in Miami. He told her that they figured Jim had left the jurisdiction before Collier had even been found.

  The newspaper lay on her desk. The buyout of Paradise Ski Resort by a German corporation had attracted a lot of attention.

  So Marianne and her stepbrother had forced Philip to open the family business, and Philip must have given up and sold out completely. Marianne and Gene would be on their way to the Alps with a million dollars in their pockets. Paradise would never be the same.

  Toward five o’clock, Sandy came in and said, ‘‘Time to go.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’ She put on her coat, picked up her bag and walked outside, following Sandy.

  It was already growing dark. She could see Christmas decorations in the trailer park behind the parking lot. It was very cold.

  ‘‘The wind’s gonna let loose tonight,’’ Sandy said. ‘‘You watch yourself.’’ She turned to go, but then came back to where Nina stood alone in the lot and said, ‘‘You gotta be brave.’’

  ‘‘I know. I’m trying.’’

  ‘‘Okay then. See you tomorrow.’’ Sandy stood beside her car, watching until Nina turned the Bronco on and drove out of the parking lot. The stars were coming out one by one, and the cold was deepening.

  28

  Snow falls upon this dream of mine

  This dream we had together

  Oh why can’t happiness endure . . .

  THE WIND STARTED with a soft hush, then accelerated into many small whirlwinds. Cold began to grip the night and everything in it, a chilling hand.

  Driving on Pioneer Trail, completely unexpectedly, Nina began to have another panic attack. She felt again the terror spiraling up in her from the place she had tried to hide it. It was like a pressure against her heart.

  And still the wind increased in intensity, until the sky filled with the snowless gale, cold and clean and pure and d
eadly, penetrating every crevice. The killing cold, merciless, rode with it.

  As she drove, her mind fighting its own whirlwind of shock and fear and loss, she could barely keep the car on the road. The gusts pushed the Bronco around on the road like a toy.

  She finally remembered to turn on the heater, but the cold had already infiltrated and she began to shiver. At the same moment, Jim came into her mind again, somehow mixed up with Bob.

  At last she had it, what Kelly and Marianne and Heidi had been telling her if she’d only been able to understand.

  He takes the thing you love the most, she thought. Panic made her weave over the center line.

  He’d already taken Collier. He should be long gone by now, to Belize or some other faraway place where he could hide. He’d taken her love.

  Had it been enough for him?

  What did she know about his mind? She grabbed the car phone and called home, heard the useless buzz.

  ‘‘Oh, my God,’’ she said aloud. Oh please God, no. She gunned the car to race home.

  In the clear night, she felt she could see all the way to heaven, the stars so close you could almost hear them sizzle. Wind tore across the lake, creating cresting dark currents, picking up moisture.

  I’m so cold, thought Nina. I can’t believe how cold I am. She swung around the corner of Natoma too quickly, nearly sliding into an old green Travelall hidden in the darkness under some trees.

  He’s got to be all right. He has to. She couldn’t bear to think any other way. The shivering became uncontrollable. Clenching the wheel, she turned onto Kulow Street and pulled into the driveway.

  No lights. A stillness that looked like death to her. She jumped out, hair slapping at her face, almost falling, and pounded on the door. No answer. The bone-numbing wind blasted her. She called, ‘‘Bobby! Bobby!’’ But her voice trailed off in the wind.

  Trembling, she fumbled the key into the lock, feeling an awful fear of what she might find and a new sense of danger.

  As if something were behind her . . .

  She threw open the door and yelled, ‘‘Are you in here?’’ Then, overcome with terror, she ran down the hall to Bob’s room.