Dead of Winter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Last week at the hardware store, she’d overheard a couple of avid anglers discussing how the unseasonably warm weather would keep the lake from freezing any time soon.

  “Too bad I dry-docked my boat,” the owner, Mitch, had said. “Then again, there’s nothing out there now but a whole lot of puny perch.”

  “Muskies, too, if you know where to find ’em,” his friend Virgil Barbor claimed. “Ten, fifteen pounders.”

  “Illegal in December.”

  Virgil merely shrugged.

  Is he out there tonight, sneaking muskies?

  Or did Bella imagine the light in her exhaustion?

  That’s more likely because there’s no sign of it now.

  She turns away from the window, picks up the caulk gun, takes aim, and presses the trigger.

  * * *

  He’s no saint, but he’s never shot anyone before, unless you count a squirrel with a BB gun. He sure as hell hasn’t killed anyone. Not with a BB gun and not—until tonight—with the real one tucked into the glove compartment of his car.

  He’ll dump the weapon elsewhere. “First, I need to get rid of you,” he tells the tarped bundle lying in the bottom of the rowboat.

  He almost expects a reply. Around here, people talk to the dead, and the dead talk back.

  But he hears only his splashing oars, his own wheezing breath in the chilly night air, and the gunshot that echoes in his head even now.

  Most people who own a pistol might expect to use it sooner or later, but he never did. He bought it years ago because his idol collected guns—just like he eats fried peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwiches because they were his idol’s favorite food.

  But there’s no satisfaction in waving a sandwich around when you find yourself in a bad neighborhood or bad mood. A sandwich is only loaded with calories and fat, and they take years to kill someone, while a bullet . . .

  Again, the gunshot reverberates in his head.

  He still can’t quite grasp that he pulled the trigger.

  This wasn’t target practice. He didn’t shoot for sport, or by accident, or even in self-defense. He wasn’t trying to scare off a predator. His life wasn’t at stake. It wasn’t about that.

  “Don’t you ever let anyone take what’s yours, boy.”

  His father’s voice floats back to him.

  He’d been talking about the new Star Wars lunchbox snatched by a couple of third grade bullies.

  “You go back to school tomorrow, and you get it back.”

  “How?”

  “That’s up to you. Come home without it, and you’ll be sorry.”

  He had, and he was.

  He’d cried himself to sleep that night, lying on his stomach because of the painful welts on his sides and back.

  His father had put them there, and smashed him in the head so hard his skull had felt as though it would never be the same. After that, his father methodically handed over his nebulizer mask. “Here, breathe. Guess you learned your lesson. Next time someone tries to take something from you, you’ll make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  Yes. Tonight, he’d taken careful aim, and he’d shot to kill.

  The experience has left him oddly emotionless, as if the frigid air has numbed his brain along with the rest of him. His only regret is that he isn’t sitting by a roaring fire with a glass of single malt scotch.

  Reaching the center of the lake, he stops rowing and checks his phone again. He’d silenced it when he got out of the truck in case someone had been lurking along the wooded path to the shore. But the spot was deserted, as he’d anticipated. He’s the only fool out on the lake tonight, and all is quiet on the opposite shore.

  When it stirs to life again, he’ll be a world away. Lily Dale is a summer community. He’d spent miserable childhood Julys in bat- and bug-infested cabins nearby, shuttled off to sleepaway camp by parents who couldn’t be bothered with him.

  The screen glares in the darkness, its light catching on the thick, bejeweled gold bands stacked in pairs on both of his ring fingers. Still no texts or missed calls, but he’s expecting to hear from her any second now. When he does, he’ll act as though everything is status quo. By the time she figures out what happened, he’ll be long gone—with his priceless bounty.

  He puts the phone back into his pocket. He should have worn gloves, and not just to keep from leaving prints on the oars. His fingers are so cold that they seem to have shrunk a size or two. He can’t have the rings slipping off out here. He musters the breath to blow on his frozen hands, wishing he’d grabbed his inhaler from the console of his truck parked back on Glasgow Road.

  Wishing, too, that he’d picked up heavier rocks to weigh down the corpse. He’d been worried about sinking this barely seaworthy vessel, borrowed from a row of upended fishing dinghies on the opposite shore, but he should have been more concerned with sinking his hefty cargo. Dead men do tell tales, and he needs to make sure this one won’t surface before the lake freezes over to entomb it till spring.

  He sets aside the oars. A stiff wind ripples the water, piercing his parka and his lungs. Even the exertion of rowing can’t warm him in this weather, and it sure as hell isn’t helping his asthma. At this moment, he’s pretty sure there’s no other place on earth as cold as Cassadaga Lake.

  Eager to dispatch his passenger, he bends over to grab the bundle and hoist it onto the seat, where he can weigh it down with the rocks before sending it into the water.

  The movement is too quick; the little boat swoops starboard. Icy water sloshes in, swamping his ankles. With a yowl, he hurls himself back. The hefty bundle comes with him. He clenches the tarp in an effort to keep the rings from sliding off his slick, cold-constricted fingers as the boat undulates like a carnival funhouse, now dipping low on the port side. Doused in a mighty arctic splash, he cries out, falling backward with the corpse atop him.

  For a long, terrifying moment, he seems to hang suspended upside down over the water, certain he’s about to be washed overboard. He can’t breathe, crushed by the dead weight on his chest. At last he relinquishes his grip, and gravity pulls his dead companion over the edge with a tremendous splash.

  The boat bobs wildly, and he braces himself for the inevitable. But when it rights itself, he’s still on board.

  He attempts to inflate his aching lungs, drawing in the cold with a keening whistle. He checks for the rings. One, two on his left hand; one, two on his right. Yes. Good. Good.

  Terror subsiding, he sucks another frigid breath, wiping slushy droplets from his face and hair. The tarp is rapidly drifting away on churning black water. Should he retrieve it and attempt to weigh it down as planned?

  It will sink eventually, won’t it?

  What if it doesn’t?

  What if someone heard him cry out and comes to investigate? Voices carry across the water at night, and not every cottage on the eastern shore is dark and deserted. He sees lights in a couple of homes, and . . .

  Is that a person?

  Yes. In the window of the largest house, he can make out a human silhouette.

  Valley View Manor is easily recognizable. Its turreted Victorian roofline towers over the others along Cottage Row.

  As he watches, the light is extinguished. But someone is still there, looking out over the lake.

  Mouth set grimly, he grabs the oars and rows toward the Dale, chilly detachment giving way to a heated rush of anger.

  * * *

  Bella turns away from the wall switch. With the kitchen dark and the glare eliminated, she has a better view of the lake. There’s no sign of the flicker she spotted a few minutes ago, but she’d heard a distant shout just as she set the kettle on the stove.

  She didn’t imagine it. Chance and Spidey stirred from slumber. The little black kitten went right back to sleep, but Chance is alert, ears rotating like antennae trying to catch a signal.

  As Bella searches the dark waterscape, another shout reaches her ears. Max, in the front room.

  “Mom! Someone’s
here!”

  “What do you mean?” Frowning, she turns away from the window.

  “There’s a car out front.”

  There shouldn’t be. She’s not expecting guests to check in until the day after tomorrow.

  What if she got the date wrong?

  She could swear that Lauri Wierzbicki, the woman who made the phone reservation last week, said she and her friend Dawn Tracy were coming on Friday afternoon. How could Bella have mistaken that for Wednesday night? Exhaustion must have gotten the better of her again. She really needs to start getting more rest. She hasn’t yet made up the rooms upstairs, and the first floor is a shambles.

  She can only hope Max is mistaken. Maybe someone is visiting Odelia, or the Ardens, who live two doors down, or—

  The doorbell rings, and she groans. No such luck.

  “Hey, it’s Dr. Drew!” Max shouts. “Can I open the door?”

  “Oh, no!” An unexpected visit from Drew Bailey is even more disastrous than unanticipated overnight guests—not because the place is a mess, but because she is.

  “No?” Max sounds puzzled.

  “I mean, yes. Go ahead. Let him in.”

  She quickly flips on the light, checks her reflection in the window, and groans again.

  “I didn’t know you were coming over!” she hears Max say and then, “Hey, are you a pizza guy now?”

  Drew’s chuckle drifts in from the hall, along with the mouth-watering aroma of fresh-baked crust and molten mozzarella.

  “Nope, I’m not a pizza guy.”

  “Then why are you delivering it? Mom is making spaghetti without meatballs and cheese, and I didn’t want that. I wanted pizza. Well, first I wanted spaghetti with meatballs and cheese, but then I wanted pizza.”

  “Guess I read your mind, then.”

  “Are you a medium?”

  “Not a medium either.”

  No, Drew is a veterinarian by day and . . .

  All right, maybe he’s slightly more than a friend by night, though Bella keeps reminding herself—and Drew—that she can’t possibly consider dating anyone so soon.

  Still, she’d prefer that he didn’t see her with her long brown hair tucked up beneath Sam’s old Yankees cap, wearing a grout-smeared baggy sweat shirt and even baggier jeans. They fit a little too snugly in the waist after Thanksgiving, but she’s since lost five pounds she needed to and another five she did not. This morning, pulling her belt in another notch, she’d seen in the mirror that her face looks gaunt with dark circles under her eyes.

  Oh, well. This is me. I’m not trying to impress anyone.

  She takes off the cap and leans toward the window, finger-combing her hair and making sure she didn’t smear caulk on her nose.

  “Hey, Bella.”

  She turns to see Drew standing in the doorway, holding a large white box. He could have stepped out of a sportsman’s catalog, square-jawed, handsome, and wearing a waxed cotton khaki field coat over an untucked red flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots.

  “Oh, hi!” she says a little too brightly.

  Chance strolls over to greet him, affectionately rubbing against his legs, her tail straight up and hooked at the tip.

  “There’s that candy cane tail Max talks about. Guess she likes me.”

  “She loves you,” Bella assures him. “If it weren’t for you, she and her babies wouldn’t have survived.”

  He flashes a rare smile.

  When they first met last June, Bella had mistaken his stern demeanor for hard-heartedness. Watching him gently examine Chance in his office, she’d quickly amended her first impression. Drew Bailey may not be easygoing, but he’s one of the kindest men she’s ever known, with a passionate concern for all living beings.

  “So what are you doing here? Not that I’m not thrilled to see you,” she adds, lest he feel unwelcome. Then not wanting him to get the wrong idea, she tacks on, “I mean, I’m not thrilled, I’m, uh . . .”

  “Surprised?”

  “Very.” She resists the urge to pat her hair into place. “Surprised. Definitely.”

  “Guess you didn’t get my message again.”

  “Message?”

  Balancing the box on his hip with one hand, he bends to stroke Chance’s striped tabby fur with the other. “I texted that I was going to drop by with a pizza.”

  “I didn’t get it. My phone is so old the battery keeps draining.” Ordinarily she’d have connected it to the charger that she keeps plugged into the outlet above the countertop, but she’d moved it to install the backsplash. “Sorry. Everything is such a mess around here.”

  One night last week, Drew had popped in unexpectedly with a bottle of wine, a Scrabble set, and red-frosted donuts with green sprinkles for Max. He told Bella he’d sent a text and left her a voice mail to say he was coming, but she’d never got them. She was a lot more presentable that night than she is on this one.

  “I figured you’d be too busy with the backsplash to cook a decent meal,” he tells her, “and you’ve been wasting away with all you’ve got going on here.”

  She’s as touched by his kindness as she is disconcerted that he noticed her weight loss. Embarrassed that he caught her primping, she points at the window behind her. “I was just . . . I, uh . . . I thought I saw something out there.”

  Which is true.

  “And I heard a scream, too. So did the cats.”

  Also true—and unnerving.

  Drew nods. “I heard one, too.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. Not here but back at home. It’s that time of year.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was a great horned owl. Courting season starts about a month before nesting. On cold, clear December nights, the males and females hoot at each other.”

  “Sounds romantic.” She smothers a yawn, looking around for a place where he can set the pizza box. The counter is cluttered with backsplash supplies, the table with everything that usually sits on the counter.

  “Actually, it is romantic. Great horned owls are a monogamous species.”

  “Unlike cats. According to Pandora Feeney, Chance was quite the trollop back in the day.”

  “You mean eight kittens weren’t a virgin birth? Good thing I spayed you, huh, girl?”

  The cat purrs and butts her face against his hand.

  “Don’t feel bad, Chance. You aren’t the only trollop in town.” Bella pushes the toaster, coffeemaker, and canisters into a corner of the table. “Pandora blames her ex-husband for destroying their marriage with his affairs, but she was just as guilty of cheating—according to Odelia, anyway.”

  “Odelia enjoys airing other people’s dirty laundry, doesn’t she?”

  “Only Pandora’s. Sorry, go on. You were talking about . . . owl monogamy, was it?”

  “Right. They’re among the few species that mate for life unless something happens to one of the pair. When it does, the survivor finds another long-term partner.”

  At that, Bella fumbles a ceramic canister. The lid falls off, and sugar spills onto the table. Face flaming, she reminds herself that Drew was talking about owls and not . . .

  Well, he can’t be thinking that she wants to find another long-term mate, can he? She doesn’t even want pizza. She just wants to finish the damned backsplash, crawl into bed, and pull the covers over her head.

  She wipes up the sugar as he chatters on about their fine feathered friends.

  “They can swivel their heads almost all the way around, and they have excellent vision in the dark, although they’re farsighted. They can see a great distance ahead, but they have a hard time with things that are close up.”

  Hmm. Kind of reminds Bella of Odelia and some of her cronies. Sometimes they’re so caught up in channeling that they miss details right under their noses.

  Yes, and sometimes Bella won’t allow herself to see anything beyond the here and now.

  When you’ve lost just about everything and everyone you ever cared about, that’s the only way t
o get through a day. You live moment by moment, not looking back at the good times, not looking ahead to a life devoid of them.

  “. . . strikingly beautiful,” Drew is saying as he sets the pizza box on the section of table she’s finally managed to clear.

  “Pardon?”

  “Great horned owls.”

  Of course. Great horned owls.

  “Powerful, too. They can attack prey several times their own weight and swoop it away in their talons. And they’re enormous. Their wingspan is almost five feet across. You’d know one if you saw one, but I bet you haven’t. They’re nocturnal creatures.”

  “Lately, so am I. Only I’m not out looking for owls,” she adds around another yawn.

  “Sorry—am I boring you?”

  “No! Not at all. I’m just tired.”

  “You look it. When was the last time you got a decent night’s sleep?”

  Two summers ago, when she was living contentedly in the New York suburbs teaching middle school science, and she and her husband were raising their son.

  Drew reaches out to push some strands of hair back from her eyes.

  Unnerved, she blurts, “Tell me more about the owls.”

  “They live in the woods. Some night when the moon is bright, we’ll go for a walk.”

  “I’d love that. I mean, you know, because I’d love to see one. An owl.”

  “Really? At least someone around here doesn’t buy into ridiculous folklore.”

  “Wait, what?” Caught up in imagining herself and Drew in the moonlit woods, she must have missed something again.

  “Haven’t you ever heard the superstitions?”

  “About what?”

  “Great horned owls.”

  “No.”

  He shrugs. “Some people believe they’re harbingers of doom and death.”

  * * *

  Coughing, lungs whistling with the effort to breathe, he drags the dinghy onto the grassy shore. He’s careful to keep his icy fingers bent, gold rings in place. The light is on again at Valley View Manor, and whoever was in the window has vanished.

  The logical part of his brain keeps insisting that he flee, in case whoever it was called the cops. There’s no way he can outrun them, especially without a shot of albuterol.