Dead of Winter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Jiffy always hates remaining silent, but Dad bet him five dollars that he couldn’t, and of course he could, so he had. He’d gotten five dollars and a fancy chocolate dessert with whipped cream and sprinkles.

  He’d forgotten all about gingerbread until they got to Lily Dale, which was not full of disappointment even though their cottage wasn’t really made out of gingerbread, and it didn’t have frosting on the roof, just plain old shingles.

  At first, he’d thought that only old people lived there because of all the grandma ladies he met the first day. But there are kids, too. They just don’t come knocking on the door bringing food and telling you “Welcome to town” and “If you need anything, just call.”

  Not all the kids who live there are even alive. Some are Spirit, and they don’t have moms or rules like Max Jordan, the only alive Lily Dale kid who’s Jiffy’s age. His mom, Bella, is nice, but she doesn’t let Max do most of Jiffy’s fun ideas, and she likes to keep an eye on people when they do stuff like walk home from the bus stop. Especially Max, but also Jiffy.

  Except for Max and Bella, the alive people who live in Lily Dale can talk to the dead ones. No one thinks Jiffy just has an active imagination, like they did back on the base, just because he had friends no one else could see. Around here, everyone has invisible friends, only they’re called Spirit.

  Spirit is everywhere, if you pay attention. It used to be harder for Jiffy to tell if someone was dead or alive, but he’s getting better at it.

  Like, at first he’d thought the pilgrim guy might have been dead because this wasn’t 1620, but Mitch couldn’t see Spirit, and he’d said, “Joe Yo, how have you been?”

  When Mitch had gone to get the man’s order, Jiffy told Pilgrim Joe Yo that he liked his name, and Joe Yo had thanked him with a smile in his beard.

  “Did you get your name because it rhymes with yo-yo?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I once had a yo-yo, but only for a few minutes because I bopped a lady on the head by accident, and my mom took it away, and then she lost it. By the way, I’m learning all about you guys from my teacher. Say cheese,” he’d added and snapped a picture with his new cell phone to show Mrs. Schmidt.

  To his shock, Pilgrim Joe Yo had started yelling at him and tried to grab the phone. Jiffy ran away so fast he’d left his bike behind, parked by the horse. He didn’t go get it until after his mother had gone to bed that night.

  Even though he’s super brave, he’d thought he might be afraid out there alone in the dark. But it turned out that he hadn’t been alone, because his friend Albie and his little black cat, Sanchez, had tagged along to keep him company.

  They’re both Spirit. Albie likes to whistle, and he smells like vanilla pipe tobacco. He wears a suit with a skinny black tie and a brimmed hat. Sanchez is a little black guy with eyes that are round and green like Granny Smith apples, and he meows a lot more than a regular cat. Sometimes it seems like he’s trying to say something important. Too bad Jiffy doesn’t speak cat.

  He enjoys chatting with Sanchez anyway. With people, too, including alive ones, although Bella says talking to strangers is dangerous.

  Jiffy has yet to meet a dangerous stranger.

  He thinks about the coughing man he met in the bushes behind Valley View last night when he was outside looking for Sanchez.

  Jiffy hadn’t gotten the feeling that he was Spirit at first. But why else would a guy have been out there alone in the dark? For a minute, Jiffy worried that he might be a kidnapper. But then he’d gotten a closer look, recognized him, and known he was wrong.

  The coughing man wasn’t a kidnapper, and he wasn’t alive.

  He was Elvis Presley.

  * * *

  The cellar is Bella’s least favorite spot in the house, and not just because it’s damp, musty, and full of mice, spiders, centipedes, and who knows what else. Last summer, Leona Gatto’s killer imprisoned Max and Jiffy down here.

  Bella pushes that from her mind now, along with thoughts of Misty’s school bus vision and the corpse in the lake. Keeping an eye out for creepy critters, she crosses the dirt floor, stepping around household castoffs from Leona Gatto’s time and likely long before.

  When she first moved in, she’d imagined antique treasures hidden in plain sight down here. She’s long since lost interest in pillaging the tangle of outdated small appliances, pottery, and rusted garden tools. But as she reaches for the stepladder, a handwritten label jumps out at her from a row of dusty boxes on a shelf behind it.

  CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

  When she and Max left Bedford back in June, they’d taken only what they could fit in the car. Christmas lights and ornaments were the least of what she was forced to leave behind in the move. She’d kept only the stockings she’d made of quilted calico after Max was born, embroidered with three names. She has yet to hang them because she isn’t sure whether to put up two or three. She can’t bear to think of leaving Sam’s packed away. Yet nor can she stand the thought of it displayed, empty, another reminder of what might have been.

  Forgetting to worry about creepy-crawlies, she tugs the box from the shelf and peeks inside. There are, indeed, lights. They’re packed in vintage cardboard boxes and have opaque, elongated bulbs in deep colored hues, just like the ones in the old movies that she used to watch with her father.

  Another box on the shelf is labeled CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. Opening it, she finds spools of tinsel garlands, ornaments covered in jewel-toned satin thread, and the most delicate gold filigree tree-topper star she’s ever seen.

  She leaves the ladder behind for now and carries both cartons up to the kitchen table. Avoiding the window, she removes her white cell phone charger from the outlet and grabs one of the light strings.

  “Three . . . two . . . one.” She plugs it in gingerly, braced for a zap. The only shock is that it still works perfectly well. So do the others, with only a few burned-out bulbs that she can easily replace with extras from the bottom of the box.

  There are enough strings for a Christmas tree and the front porch. Imagine Max’s delight if he comes home to find the place bathed in a merry glow. She just needs to get some extension cords and—

  Hearing a knock on the back door, she looks up to see Lieutenant Grange through the glass.

  Her Christmas cheer disappears like prey snatched by a great horned owl’s talons. She opens the door and sees a couple more police officers out back. One is setting up a camera on a tripod.

  “We need to finish our conversation,” Grange tells Bella, gesturing with the clipboard in his hand. “Mind if I come in?”

  She shakes her head and steps back.

  “Has he—or she?—been out in the lake for a long time, do you think?”

  “The DOA?”

  “Yes.”

  “Twelve, maybe fifteen hours tops.”

  So much for her theory that it’s an old cold case. She gulps. “Do you know who it is?”

  “We have a pretty good idea.”

  “Someone local?”

  “Local? You mean someone you might know? No.”

  “What happened to him? Or . . . her?”

  “Him.”

  “Did he drown?”

  He levels a look at her, and she shrugs. Yes, she’s well aware that drowning victims aren’t delivered to shore neatly bundled in tarps, but doesn’t she deserve to know what happened?

  Apparently not. Grange goes back to questioning her, far more interested in what she saw and heard the other night than in sharing information about the case. Again, he asks for details about the flash of light on the water and the scream.

  “And you thought it was an owl because . . .”

  “My friend said that’s what it sounded like. I described what I’d heard and he”—she stumbles over the word and feels her face grow warm like a middle schooler with a crush—“uh, he said it was probably an owl because they’re nocturnal, and it’s . . . I don’t know, I guess it’s mating season?”

  Ignoring that and�
�mercifully—the fact that she’s blushing, he asks what her friend’s name is.

  “Wait, why? Are you going to question him?”

  “If necessary.”

  “He wasn’t even here when it happened.”

  “What time did he arrive?”

  “Later.”

  “How much later?”

  “I don’t know, five, maybe ten minutes?” For some reason, that feels like incriminating information.

  Pen poised, he repeats, “And his name?”

  She tells him, reluctantly, also forced to supply Drew’s occupation, address, and phone number. “But you probably won’t get a hold of him this morning. He has a medical emergency.”

  “Oh?”

  Resenting his raised eyebrows and the lack of compassion in his expression, she explains about the injured dog in labor. “He’s trying to save her and her babies.”

  He nods disinterestedly and moves on to a new question. Ten minutes later, she’s left alone in the kitchen with her Christmas decorations and the chilling awareness that she might have heard someone’s dying scream last night.

  Chapter Four

  It’s been a few hours since Bella watched from the porch as the medical examiner’s van pulled away, corpse on board. Odelia, hair still damp from her bath, had stood with a snug arm around Bella’s shoulders, shaking her head sadly.

  “Do you have any idea who it might have been?” Bella had asked her. “Or how he died?”

  “No, but my guides are making me feel as though it was an act of violence. This was not a natural death.”

  Bella doesn’t have guides, but her trusty gut instinct is making her feel the same way.

  This was, in all likelihood, a homicide. With the tarp, Grange asking so many questions, yellow crime scene tape stretched along the shore, the CSI team snapping photos and taking measurements, a sheriff’s boat trolling the lake . . .

  It’s still out there now, blue lights flashing, divers in the water. Bella can see it through the kitchen window as she washes her untouched lunch down the garbage disposal.

  Odelia, whose “early” client had been scheduled at noon, insisted on bringing her a hot sandwich.

  Bella peeled back the foil. “What is it?”

  “Macaroni and cheese croquette on French toast. Now I know what you’re thinking . . .”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “You can stand to put on a few pounds, my dear, and anyway, it’s not that fattening. I used hummus instead of mayo.”

  Bella had thanked her and sent her on her way, then brewed some coffee and went back to waiting for either Drew or Luther Ragland to return her texts. To both, she’d simply written, Can you please give me a call when you have a chance?

  At one, Drew texted back that he was prepping to do a C-section on the injured dog and would call her shortly. He asked if everything was okay.

  Max and I are fine, Bella responded, not wanting to go into detail. How about the poor mama dog?

  Touch and go.

  At that sad news, Bella told him not to worry about getting back to her. A stranger’s body in Cassadaga Lake is the least of Drew’s problems.

  Luther’s, too. But the retired detective is her go-to person at times like this.

  Bella met him last summer through Odelia, whom he’d befriended years ago when she’d given him an unsolicited tip on a case. He’d been skeptical, but it panned out, and he’s used her psychic assistance on investigations over the years.

  Luther had helped Bella solve Leona Gatto’s murder last summer and the Maynard case last fall. He maintains local law enforcement connections, and she has a feeling he might be able to shed some light on the latest crime to strike uncomfortably close to home.

  As she washes the last flecks of deep-fried macaroni and cheese down the drain, she hears someone try to open the front door.

  It’s probably Hugo Munson. The electrician was tied up today with another job, but maybe he finished early and came back to work on the wiring. Or it might be Odelia again. She’s still not used to finding the front door locked.

  A few months back, Bella had hosted a destination wedding here at the guesthouse. Sadly, the bride had been targeted for murder and wasn’t meant to live happily ever after with her groom. After that, Grant Everard had upgraded the security at Valley View. He’d had a locksmith install electronic keypads on all the guest rooms and a combination box on the exterior doors. Now Bella gives guests and workmen a code to open it.

  “No more worrying about duplicated keys floating around out there,” Grant had told Bella. “You can change the combination every night if you want.”

  She doesn’t. Now that the Maynard-Langley wedding fiasco has fallen into the past, she doesn’t always even bother to keep the doors locked during the day.

  Today, however, has jarred her back to vulnerable reality.

  She hurries into the hall and sees a familiar figure through the glass door. Not Hugo, or Odelia, or even Drew.

  She throws the door open, so relieved to see Luther Ragland that she wants to throw her arms around him. “I can’t believe you’re here! I was trying to reach you.”

  “I saw.” He indicates the cell phone in his hand. “And I had a good idea why. Figured I’d better come right over.”

  “I’m really glad you did. Come on in and have a cup of coffee.”

  “I won’t argue with that. Late night last night.”

  Finally, something to make her smile. “All your nights are late nights. Out with a lady friend?”

  “A gentleman never tells.”

  Luther Ragland is movie-star handsome. His skin is the same rich mahogany as the grandfather clock ticking beside the grand stairway, his presence even more commanding. No sweat pants and five-o’clock shadow for this retiree. He’s clean-shaven, wearing dark jeans and a tweed sport coat over an open-collared dress shirt.

  In the kitchen, Bella pours him a cup of coffee and refreshes her own.

  “This place is really shaping up,” he says, running his fingertips over the new subway tiles she’d installed. “You did a great job with this.”

  “Thanks. Once I got used to the wet saw, it wasn’t as difficult as a lot of other stuff I’ve been doing around here.”

  Like getting out of bed every morning for the past year. She still doesn’t have the hang of that, but somehow she’s made it through 359 days without Sam.

  A year ago, she couldn’t imagine ever smiling again, let alone laughing or . . . living. She’d clung to him that last day in the hospital, terrified of losing him, of being alone.

  “You have Max. You have . . . me,” he’d reassured her with every bit of strength left in his failing body. “I’ll be with you, even when . . . Promise me you’ll . . . stay . . . strong . . .”

  “I promise.”

  Those were the last two words she’d ever said to him.

  Somehow, she’s kept that final promise.

  She is strong.

  And she isn’t alone. Not here in Lily Dale. Far from it.

  She sits across from Luther. “So you know what happened?”

  He nods. “Heard it on the scanner earlier, and I called my buddy Fred right away to see what was going on.”

  “Is he the one who works for the sheriff’s office?”

  “Yes, Fred Donohue. He’s with the forensics investigation team.”

  “So it’s . . . it’s a homicide, right?”

  “Right. They’ve got an ID on the victim. He had some identifying tattoos.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “Not unless you’re dabbling in organized crime on the side. His real name is Yuri Moroskov.”

  “Real name?”

  “Guys like him like to use aliases.”

  “So he’s, what—a mobster of some sort?”

  “Of the worst sort.”

  Mobsters have families, too, though. She thinks of Yuri Moroskov’s loved ones, how they’re going to get a terrible phone call, how they’ll have to lea
rn how to go on without him.

  “Does his family know yet?”

  “No family. Not the kind you’re thinking, anyway.”

  “What was he doing in the lake here?”

  “Floating.” He smirks a little, then sees her face and stops. “Sorry. But Bella, this is not what you think it is.”

  “A human being wasn’t murdered?”

  “We’re not talking about another Leona Gatto here, okay? Yuri Moroskov was not a nice guy. In fact, he was a pretty lousy guy.”

  “You knew him?”

  “I knew of him. He’s part of the Amur Leopard, an international organized crime network. They’re involved in smuggling, money laundering, illegal gambling, jewel theft, art forgery, you name it . . . all kinds of fun stuff. This guy was trouble, Bella.” He pauses, allowing that to sink in.

  He wants her to see this his way, but she isn’t a retired detective hardened after dealing with a career’s worth of corpses. Nor is she a medium who chats daily with the dearly and not-so-dearly departed.

  To her, death is harsh and tragic and permanent and yes, dead is dead.

  “Luther, look, I know this is all black and white to you. A dead good guy is bad. A dead bad guy is good.”

  “Death is never good.”

  “But sometimes you take it so lightly. Not just you. All of you around here, and I just . . . can’t.”

  “I don’t take it lightly, I promise you. And I’m sorry if it seems that way,” Luther says gruffly. He sets down his coffee mug, and his sturdy hand closes over her chapped, scraped, ragged-nailed, bare-ring-fingered one.

  She swallows hard. “Some days are just still really . . .”

  “I know.”

  She sighs and looks up at him. “Tell me about this guy.”

  “He’s been wanted for a while.”

  “By the police?”

  “This is bigger. The FBI and Interpol, too. Anyway, he’s got some very distinctive tattoos that allowed him to be identified pretty quickly at a glance. Do you remember the Easter Egg Heist five, maybe seven years ago?”

  “Someone stole an Easter egg?”