A Short Time to Die

by Susan Alice Bickford

  Denise was right. Marly almost never smiled. She didn’t scowl, but she had a fixed stare. Was that Beanie’s humor behind those hazel eyes or grim determination? It must have been hard to smile at the people she knew had murdered her father.

  “Marly looks different here.” Jack pointed to a picture. “She doesn’t seem very happy.”

  Denise leaned in to look. “Oh, that’s not Marly. That’s Laurie Harris. Laurie Rasmussen, I guess, to be accurate. Louise’s daughter. Laurie and Marly were the same age. When they were little we couldn’t tell them apart. So sad when she died.”

  “She was killed,” Vanessa said. She looked through several more binders searching for Laurie and Marly. Denise was right. As younger children they could have been twins, but as teenagers, Laurie was taller and plumper. And angrier.

  “We’d better go, Vanessa. The snow has started up again,” Jack said, pointing with his chin toward the window.

  * * *

  The sloping driveway was a slippery toboggan run with new snow. Jack backed up the car and raced for the road several times before they broke free of the driveway.

  “So much for snow tires,” he said when they gained the road at last, the car fishtailing back and forth.

  As they rolled into the village, a building caught Vanessa’s attention. “Stop at the library. The lights are on. It must be open.”

  Jack stomped on the brake and turned the wheel. The car performed a delicate pirouette on the empty road, turned around in place, and stopped. Vanessa swore in Spanish until she had to stop and gasp.

  “Jesus, Jack. You are so lucky there’s no traffic.”

  “Okay, okay. We’re both lucky.” He inched the car into a half-plowed parking spot.

  The snow topped Vanessa’s boots as she climbed out of the car and she winced. The two detectives slogged their way through a slushy mix up to the door of the library.

  The wood-paneled foyer offered a classy spot to shed coats and boots. Vanessa considered it the nicest mudroom so far.

  To the left of the foyer, they found a comfortable reading room with the librarian’s desk at the far end. A large fireplace dominated the interior wall, trimmed in carved wood that matched the wood trim around all the doors.

  A middle-aged woman with short gray hair glanced up, peering over the nameplate on the counter that read MRS. NANCY HAAS.

  “Are you visiting?” she asked. She stood, revealing a gray boiled-wool jacket, trimmed in green and red over a black turtleneck. She slid her red reading glasses from her face to dangle against her thin chest from a beaded chain. “We don’t often get visitors here in Charon Springs.”

  “We’re sheriff’s detectives from California,” Vanessa said. “The remains of Louise and Troy Rasmussen were found there in November. We’re here to investigate why they went to California so that we can determine what happened to them.”

  Mrs. Haas pressed her lips together before she answered. “They didn’t come in here very often, I can tell you that much. Not big readers. I can’t say I’m sad to hear they won’t be back.”

  “Did you know them?” Jack asked. He gazed around the reading room and took in the walnut paneling that covered the open walls. Long library tables stretched end to end.

  “My family were Judsons,” Mrs. Haas said. “Judsons settled this place. This house was my family’s house before it became the library. I know everyone.”

  “And that’s why you still live here?” Vanessa waved her hands toward the frigid exterior.

  “It’s a beautiful place once you appreciate winter and can see with a clear mind. Do you know “The Snow Man,” by Wallace Stevens? No?” She led them to a framed poem on the wall.

  Vanessa leaned in and recited:

  One must have a mind of winter

  To regard the frost and the boughs

  Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

  And have been cold a long time

  To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

  The spruces rough in the distant glitter

  Of the January sun; and not to think

  Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

  In the sound of a few leaves,

  Which is the sound of the land

  Full of the same wind

  That is blowing in the same bare place

  For the listener, who listens in the snow,

  And, nothing himself, beholds

  Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

  Jack cleared his throat and backed away. Vanessa said, “I thought it meant to have a frigid heart of winter, but it’s just the opposite. Sort of like Zen. Be in the moment and see the beauty.”

  Mrs. Haas rewarded her with a slight bow. “Even in summer, I try to feel like the snow man.”

  Jack went to a side window to study the large, half-built extension in back. “I hear that’s called Marlyfication.”

  “Marly and Elaine both gave, but Marly was key,” Mrs. Haas said. “This place was a refuge for her and I was happy to give it to her, and to many other children, by the way.”

  “You didn’t feel that way about Elaine?” Vanessa asked. She had found the section with all the old elementary and high school yearbooks and pulled one out, from forty-five years back.

  “I have those all digitized now, by the way, thanks to Marly. In any case, Elaine didn’t need help in the same way. She had a good family and they made a respectable living. Don’t get me wrong. She was a very nice girl and smart. When she hit trouble, she did need help. But her parents wanted to be from Avalon. She didn’t need this place the way that Marly did.”

  “You gave Marly a lifeline. Elaine as well after her beating,” Vanessa said.

  “In a job like this and in a little town like this, you hope you make a difference, but more often than not you don’t know what to do. Some kids come through okay, but a lot don’t. All those sweet little faces. Marly was sweet and bright. She needed a place to get away from her family.”

  “What about Laurie Harris?” Vanessa pointed to a third-grade picture. Marly and Laurie stood like twin bookends at either end of the middle row.

  Nancy Haas’s face darkened in a soft scowl. “She had a chance, briefly. By the time she got to eighth grade, I could no longer reach her. That was very sad.”

  “Too bad that nobody tried to get her help.”

  “ ‘Somebody’ did try to help once,” Mrs. Haas said, her eyes angry.

  “Oh?”

  Mrs. Haas plopped her hands down on the table. “It came to nothing. Laurie was at the bottom of a deep well. ‘Somebody’s’ arms were just too short and we were out of rope.” Mrs. Haas continued to fix her dark stare on Vanessa.

  Vanessa blinked first. “That would be hard for a listener in the snow. I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “You said that Marly wanted to get away from family. Did you mean Louise and Troy?” Jack asked.

  “I was talking about Del. He was a conniving little boy and later he was mean underneath. I was about six years older, and I remember him from school. My younger sisters had crushes on him. Larry was nasty but so dumb you could see him coming. Louise always wanted to be as tough as the boys, but she couldn’t run things like Del did. Besides, Rosie and Zeke believed that Del was their anointed prince.”

  “I gather that Del did not have a mind of winter,” Vanessa said.

  “More like a heart of winter.”

  Jack thumbed through the yearbooks. “We were told that Del and Larry ran things for Zeke.”

  “Larry and Louise did what Del told them to, even though Del was a couple years younger. Del was smarter and almost as vicious as his father, Zeke, just in a smoother way. He got other people to do most of his dirty work. In many ways, he was amazing. When he died, that was when things began to change here.”

  “Rather convenient that they died together,” Vanessa said. “Do you think that was planned?”

  “Doubtful. More like a happy accident. They went after someone who didn’t roll over a
nd die. The coroner said that Zeke had a heart attack right after he fired a wild shot from his gun that hit Del.” She burnished the tabletop, erasing the smudges and fingerprints. “I call that just desserts.”

  “Do you know who their intended victim might have been?” Vanessa asked.

  Mrs. Haas gave a dignified snort. “Definitely not and I am not going to indulge in idle speculation.”

  “Anyone from the Springs you could eliminate?” asked Jack.

  “Only the ones who were already dead.” Mrs. Haas walked stiffly back to her desk.

  Vanessa wandered around the library. She used the bathroom, now half torn-up for the upgrade. She studied the exposed hole in the wall where the tampon dispenser had once provided feminine products.

  “What about Carl Harris?” she asked when she returned to the main reading room. “It seems like he was out of the picture for a long time. Would he have had problems with Louise or Troy?”

  “Carl was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but I saw through his clever waiting game. I know he didn’t get along with Louise and Troy, but they didn’t get along with anyone, so that’s a low bar.”

  “Did either of them ever come in here?”

  Mrs. Haas licked her lips. “Right after Del died, Larry and Louise tore this place apart for Rosie. I don’t know what they were looking for, but they didn’t seem to find it.”

  Jack scowled. “They broke in?”

  “Hell no! They walked right in on a Saturday late afternoon and made me close the library while they searched. I was terrified. They kept saying that if they found anything, it would be my fault.”

  Vanessa put her hand on the woman’s arm. “That must have been terrible. Did you call the police?”

  Mrs. Haas stared at the two detectives. “You must be kidding.”

  Winter twilight was closing in outside. Mrs. Haas helped Jack and Vanessa make copies of selected pages from the yearbooks and agreed to email them a link to the digital versions, which they could order for a small fee.

  “I see that Del was a football star in high school,” Vanessa said.

  “Del had quite a run as a football player. But in his senior year, he missed some practices and got into an argument with Coach Pasco. Zeke beat up Coach. End of high school for Del.”

  * * *

  The car didn’t want to leave the library parking spot and spun its wheels. Vanessa agreed to drive while Jack pushed from the front until they were free.

  Once on the road back to Avalon in the dark, the snow flew straight into their windshield. Vanessa thought that perhaps the car had shown good sense in its desire to stay put someplace safe.

  “Don’t drive with your high beams on,” Jack said.

  “Shut up.” Vanessa rested her forearms on the steering wheel and peered into the flying snow. She did as he suggested. Several seconds later, they agreed to go back to high beams.

  “How could they rent us a car without all-wheel drive at this time of year?” Jack asked.

  “We didn’t pay much money for this heap and it does have snow tires. We’ll be fine. Just remember, you must have a mind of winter.”

  They climbed up the steep slope out of the Springs and inched ahead less than a mile, when Vanessa caught movement along the right shoulder.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a man!” Jack said. “He’s flagging us down. He must be in trouble.”

  “Jack, something’s not right. He’s wearing some sort of mask.”

  “It’s just a scarf. Look at your dashboard. It’s not even five degrees out there. He could die. Stop the car.”

  Vanessa pulled over, about one hundred feet beyond the man, and put on the flashers. “Do you have your gun?”

  “What? No. I left it in the hotel safe.”

  “Shit. Did you leave your brains there too?”

  Jack opened his door and got out as the figure trotted up to the back of the car.

  “Jack. Be careful. If you’re worried, raise up your arms and wave them around. I’ll be watching. If we do give him a ride, he sits in front and you sit right behind him with my gun.”

  Vanessa watched in the rearview mirror. She unzipped her jacket and hoisted her sweater to pull out her warm gun from its shoulder harness. She made sure it was ready to fire. She eased out her LED flashlight from her right pocket. A quick glance at her cell phone showed no bars. Calling for Chip’s cavalry was not an option.

  The man appeared to be gesticulating off to the right. What was taking so long? What were they talking about? Vanessa could feel her pulse build and throb in her temples.

  She thought Jack was raising his arms. His hands were about shoulder height.

  Vanessa opened her door and slipped out. She left her door open and stopped just short of the trunk. She flipped on the flashlight, flinging the two men into bright light.

  Jack didn’t turn. He kept his eyes fixed on the other man, who now blinked into the light. A ski mask covered the man’s face. Traces of a goatee and bushy eyebrows pushed out through the openings, collecting snow.

  “This is Terry,” Jack said. His voice was a flat monotone.

  “My car is stuck, just down that road there. I think I need a jump,” Terry said.

  “I’ve been explaining to Terry that this car isn’t very sturdy. But we can give him a ride into Avalon.”

  “It would just be a moment,” Terry said.

  “I like that idea of Avalon,” Vanessa said. “Tell you what. I’ll show you my ID and you show us yours.”

  She pushed the gun in front of the halo from the flashlight so that Terry would be certain to see it. Jack started to reach into his left armpit. Vanessa knew there was no gun there, but both gestures appeared to catch Terry’s attention and he froze.

  In the corner of her peripheral vision, Vanessa noticed a bright flicker in the field to her left, but she kept the light and her focus on Terry. There was a roar of an engine from the field, followed by a cocoon of headlights glowing in the dense snowfall.

  “Well, hey. Looks like my car is okay after all,” Terry said. He backed up, turned, and charged over the snowbank into the field.

  “Get in the car, Jack.” Vanessa’s voice crackled with relief. Jack needed no additional encouragement.

  Vanessa drove the rest of the way to Avalon with her eyes fixed on the road ahead as Jack stared out the back. No lights behind them, he reported.

  * * *

  Chip and Paul were still in the office.

  Chip flushed and slapped his desk at the news. “Shit. Of course it’s hard to tell for sure, but it doesn’t sound like this Terry was up to any good. Paul, do we know anyone named Terry in the Springs?”

  Paul turned so pale that Vanessa was glad he was already sitting down.

  The four of them studied a paper map to pinpoint the location.

  “Not much there. Here’s a track that used to service some limestone quarries. No houses,” Chip said.

  “Schwarzer’s quarry. Down that road about a mile,” Paul said.

  “Who owns that?” Jack asked.

  “I’m thinking Carl must own that part now. But that doesn’t tell us much substantively,” Chip said. He rubbed his jaw, his brow furrowed. “Lots of people know about that road, and it’s not like it’s patrolled or anything.”

  “Maybe you could go down there and look for tire tracks,” Vanessa said.

  Paul twitched his shoulders. “Eighteen to twenty-four inches tonight. No one’s going down there.”

  “Shut up, Paul,” Chip said. He turned back to Vanessa and Jack. “We’ll go check tomorrow. We have a snow emergency for tonight. There will be critical situations here and on Route Twenty.”

  * * *

  Back at the hotel, Vanessa noticed that items in her room had been moved around. The contents of her drawers had been shuffled. Some of the furniture had been shifted, although everything was still neat and organized. A prickle lifted the hairs on the back of her neck.

  Jack waited for
her in the hallway. “Funny thing about my room,” he said. “Things have been moved.”

  In the lobby the manager, Rob, squinted at them over his desk.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m sure we did not give out any keys. It must have been the cleaning staff. I’ll check with them. It’s odd that happened to both of you. You’re sure you’re not missing anything?”

  Vanessa pinched the bridge of her nose to keep from snapping at Rob. The residual tension after the confrontation on the road had settled into her gut and threatened to bubble over into a full-scale tantrum.

  “Not that I can tell,” she said between clenched teeth.

  She cut the discussion short and dragged Jack to the beer cellar to soothe her anger with food and a good brew.

  “This is spooky, Jack,” Vanessa said. “Do you buy that it was the cleaning staff?”

  “Only if their last name is Harris,” Jack answered.

  “Maybe it was Terry and his pal in the car,” Vanessa said. “Very reassuring that Chip was so concerned about that incident. His support is wonderful.”

  “They’re still scared of the Springs.”

  “So am I, Jack.”

  “These hamburgers are growing on me,” Jack said after a long pause. “How’s your salad?”

  “Between you and me, not very good. But I don’t want to go outside.”

  Vanessa leaned forward and snatched a couple of French fries off Jack’s plate.

  Jack stared into his soda as if it were fine wine. “I’m thinking Carl knows more than he’s saying.”

  “Duh.”

  “Maybe Larry will be more forthcoming. Still up for the trip to see him tomorrow?”

  “If the snow lets up a bit, yes. Chip said Paul would drive us and I assume that cop cars have good snow tires. Man, I hate visiting prisons.”

  “I don’t know which is worse, the cold or this snow. Or Paul. He sets my teeth on edge.”

  “I thought you were the one who loved skiing in the Sierras.”

  “In the Sierras it snows like crazy but the sun—warm sun—comes out, the roads clear, and you need sunscreen.” Jack added a dramatic groan. “I won’t forget this place, that’s for sure.”