Dead of Winter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Come on, Bella. The clock is ticking.” Luther pulls a parka from the coat tree and holds it by the shoulders, lining toward her. “For Jiffy’s sake.”

  “I’d never let anything happen to Max, Bella. I’ll go guard him, sit right on his bed if you want, and lock the bedroom door. We’ll play Old Maid.”

  “He’ll love that. And he’ll cheat,” she says as she shrugs her arms into the sleeves and follows Luther out the door. She hesitates for a moment, thinking of Lauri and Dawn. It doesn’t seem fair for her to lock them out, but Pandora’s readings run long, and Calla is here to let them in if they return before Bella does.

  The blizzard attacks like a guerilla as they battle their way toward the SUV, heads bent against the cold wind, snow drifting past their knees. Luther holds her arm, guiding her along, tall and protective beside her. She wonders if he’s carrying a weapon and finds herself hoping he is.

  The SUV is already cold and entombed in snow. Luther starts the engine, turns the vents on full blast, and presses the button for the seat heaters before grabbing the brush and scraper. Closed into the dark, she breathes in the scent of new leather and aftershave, teeth chattering as she assures herself that Max is safe with Calla.

  But who’s protecting Jiffy? And his mom?

  When Misty had left the house, she hadn’t known there was still an armed murderer in the area. Or maybe she’d sensed it, and that’s what had sent her out into the storm alone on a desperate mission to find her child.

  Luther gets behind the wheel and turns on the wipers. Top speed isn’t fast enough to keep the windshield clear as he drives painstakingly toward the gate. Bella leans forward, scanning the narrow road as they go, looking for any sign of Jiffy, troubling lyrics echoing in her head.

  A child, a child, shivers in the cold . . .

  “Do you believe in coincidences, Luther?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “So two homicide victims turn up in the same quiet, safe little corner of Chautauqua County, both shot . . .”

  “By the same gun, they think,” Luther puts in.

  “And now Jiffy’s missing. He must have . . .” She can’t even say it aloud, sick at the thought of a vulnerable little boy swept into it all like a hatchling in a cyclone.

  Gruff with emotion, Luther says, “Let’s just hope and pray he didn’t, and focus on what we know.”

  She nods, regaining her composure. Now is a time for logic and facts, not emotion.

  “I saw Virgil at Mitch’s yesterday afternoon. So he wasn’t murdered the same night as Yuri Moroskov.”

  “Right.”

  “And it means Yuri didn’t kill Virgil. And he didn’t hurt Jiffy, either. But I keep going back to the Amur Leopard gang. They’re involved in smuggling. I read about the Easter Egg Heist and how they operate. Could there have been a woman involved, maybe?”

  “Of course. Anyone who has some street smarts and has no scruples about who’s signing his—or her—paycheck. Why?”

  “There was a woman the other day. She was here from Canada for a reading with Misty, but she was using a fake name, Barbara, and she talked about wanting to do something illegal in order to get something or find something.”

  “Wait, back up. What happened?”

  Bella recounts the overheard cell phone conversation.

  Luther nods thoughtfully. “If we can piece this thing together, we might be able figure out where Jiffy is.”

  “And Misty, too.”

  “What did she say, exactly, about Virgil?”

  “Nothing other than that he was supposed to be coming over today. Do you think he was involved with the Amur Leopard somehow?”

  She can’t imagine that Virgil, in his flannel and denim, might be a mobster. But . . .

  Things aren’t what they seem.

  “Doesn’t seem to be anything professional about the killing,” Luther says. “It sounds messy. Fred said there were multiple wounds.”

  “Overkill? Crime of passion?”

  “More likely failed attempts to get that fatal shot. I’m guessing the killer is fairly inexperienced.”

  “Isn’t it true that most first-time murderers seem perfectly ordinary leading up to it? Like, they come across to others as regular people until they just snap and lash out?”

  “A lot of times that’s true,” Luther agrees as they roll past the gatehouse, tires crunching on the snow-covered road. “You know your stuff, Bella.”

  “When Sam was sick, we spent a lot of time watching TV. He liked crime dramas. Now I seem to live them.”

  “And solve them.” He brakes as they reach the deserted intersection and glances over at her. “I see the wheels turning. What are you thinking?”

  “That the best way to find a killer is to find the motive first.”

  “You’re right. And the vast majority of murders come down to only a few.”

  She nods, ticking them off on her fingers. “Love, money, revenge . . .”

  “Self-defense,” he adds and something clicks in Bella’s brain.

  “Luther, when I saw Virgil yesterday, he was worried about a squatter. He thought someone had spent the night in his barn and riled up the livestock. He said if it happened again, he was going to get his shotgun.”

  “That sounds like him, but he’s all talk. This is a lifelong bachelor who hangs lights so that the local kids can skate on his property at night. It’s his neighbor, Al Katz, who used to yell at anyone cutting across his property to get to the pond.”

  “He’s the guy they call Alley Cat, right? The one who found Virgil’s body?”

  “You know him?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Everyone knows everyone around here.”

  “Then do you think Virgil knew the person who killed him?”

  “Hard to say, but at this time of year, there aren’t many people passing through.”

  Bella thinks of Jiffy’s secret friend, Albie. Max said he’s Spirit, but maybe he’s mistaken or Jiffy was. If a seasoned medium like Calla can’t always tell whether something she sees or hears is coming from the Other Side, a little boy must get it wrong sometimes, too.

  Glasgow Road has been plowed more recently than the Dale, allowing Luther to drive a little faster. In a matter of minutes, they see flares on the road and law enforcement taillights and dome lights beyond—splotches of red piercing the swirling pristine backdrop like blood.

  * * *

  If the hike into Leolyn Wood had been a monumental task for Misty, the reverse trip is nearly impossible. Straining beneath sheer fatigue, shoved along by a gun in her back, she retraces her steps into the woods along with the ones that led to her son’s disappearance.

  If this man—this fake Elvis—is the missing piece to the puzzle, how on earth does he fit in?

  “Hey! What are you doing? Walk!”

  She hadn’t realized she’d stopped.

  “Give it to me!” he shouts, his voice so close and loud it’s as if he’s slipped into her brain like Spirit.

  “Give what to you?”

  “What?”

  “You just said—”

  “I said, walk! That’s what I said! Do it, or you’ll be sorry!”

  This time, his voice shifts behind her again—until he adds, “I’ll shoot you!”

  Those three words thunder from the past and present, punctuated by a gunshot.

  Her guides once told her that when a person leaves their physical body in a violent way, the soul is wrenched instantaneously to a place where there is no pain.

  That isn’t what’s happened to her, though.

  He didn’t fire at her. The gunshot was a part of the vision, as was Elvis’s voice inside her head. She’s still standing in the frozen woods where everything aches—her body, her brain, her heart . . .

  An image blasts into her head like a bullet.

  Nighttime.

  Dark. Cold. Outdoors.

  Elvis and another man.

  He’s lanky with blond hair. His n
ame is . . .

  Harry? Maury? Rory? Something like that.

  His sleeves are rolled up, and his forearms are covered in elaborate ink designs.

  She sees the man crumple to the ground, a red stain spreading across his white dress shirt.

  A voice roars at her—right here, right now, right behind her. “I said, let’s go!”

  The gun is no longer poking at her back. She feels it, cold and deadly, against the back of her head.

  She starts moving again.

  She needs to find her son. She can only hope this creep is leading her to him, one way or another.

  * * *

  Buffeted by the wild white wind, Bella stands in a clearing alongside a two-story farmhouse. It appears to have been enlarged several times over the years with no regard for architectural style or scale. On one side, neat rows of grapevines stretch into the snowy distance. A large gray barn sits behind the house. Somewhere beyond, a pond awaits January’s hard freeze, neighborhood kids with skates, and new light strings Virgil Barbor had planned to hang in the old orchard trees surrounding it.

  Bella thought she’d steeled herself to see what lies on the ground, surrounded by a wide perimeter of yellow crime scene tape, its ends flapping in the incessant wind.

  But as she gazes down at Virgil’s bloodied remains, it’s all she can do to stay on her feet. Feeling herself sway a bit, she notes that she wouldn’t have far to fall, keeling into deep snow that resembles a cushy featherbed. It wouldn’t cradle her with comforting warmth, though. Quite the opposite.

  She stares at Virgil, surrounded by vivid scarlet stains. His eyes gape in shock, jarred by the harsh, cold finality of this violent plunge into a snowy grave. Had he recognized his killer? Had the last face he ever glimpsed been a familiar one?

  Cops, sheriff’s deputies, and the forensics investigation team are busy all around her, voices calling out to each other above the howling gusts. Lieutenant Grange is off to one side, conferring with two other officers. He glances over at Bella and Luther, frowning, then focuses again on his conversation.

  Luther introduces her to a middle-aged man with a bushy black mustache and very little hair poking from beneath his dark snow-dusted, broad-brimmed hat. “Bella Jordan, this is Officer Donohue. He’s with FIT.”

  “That’s the forensics investigation team,” Fred explains, removing a rubber glove from his hand to shake hers, then gesturing down at his stocky frame. “As you can see, I’m not exactly fit in other ways—unlike God’s gift to women here.”

  Bella likes him right away, appreciating the friendly jostle he gives Luther, who rolls his eyes, and the dose of self-deprecating humor that helps her breathe a little more easily.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you in person, Bella. I’ve heard good things about your deductive skills.”

  “From Luther?”

  “From Luther, from the deputies, and the local force, too.”

  Surprised to hear that, she glances at Grange. Making brief eye contact, he all but glares at her. If the compliment came from him, then things really aren’t as they seem.

  “Bella has information that links Barbor to the missing boy,” Luther says and asks her to tell Fred what she knows.

  When she does, his eyes widen. He asks her a few more questions, none of which she can answer. She doesn’t know about Misty’s working relationship with Virgil or much of anything else, other than that he thought someone had trespassed in his barn the night of Yuri Moroskov’s murder.

  “They found some evidence that someone might have broken into the barn, so that makes sense.”

  Bella shudders and gazes at Virgil. “We have to find Jiffy, because if he crossed paths with the person who did that . . .”

  Noticing something other than Virgil’s expression of frozen horror and the frozen blood, she says, “He’s not wearing a coat. Do you think he’s been out there since before the storm started?”

  “No. There’s at least a foot and a half of snow underneath him,” Fred tells her.

  “And he died on this spot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there hasn’t been a lull in the storm since it started. So if he didn’t put on a coat, then he wasn’t planning to leave the house for any amount of time.”

  “Not in these temperatures,” Luther agrees, and Fred nods.

  Bella thinks of Misty Starr, out by the lake wrapped in a poncho, frantically searching for her son.

  “Something or someone must have lured him out here,” she says, looking from the house to the barn located a hundred yards away at most. Virgil’s corpse lies between the two, either struck down while crossing from one to the other—or perhaps while confronting someone who was doing just that.

  She asks Fred if Virgil had been armed.

  “No. Not carrying anything other than a handkerchief and a wallet.”

  “Is there money in it?”

  “A couple of twenties.”

  “So the motive wasn’t robbery,” Luther notes. “The perp could have easily taken the wallet.”

  “Right, and then helped himself to whatever he wanted from the house,” Fred says. “Back door was unlocked.”

  “Is anything missing?” Bella asks.

  “A theft in a case like this where the victim lives alone can be hard to detect. It hasn’t been ransacked. The place is neat as a pin.”

  “Maybe he looked out the window, saw someone in the yard, went out with his hunting rifle, and whoever it was got it away from him.”

  “No, he was shot with a pistol. Multiple times.”

  “Was there any evidence of a struggle?”

  “Hard to tell. A sloppy kill leaves all kinds of trace evidence, but the weather wreaks havoc on a good day. It’s almost impossible for our team to find anything outdoors on a day like this.” Fred shakes his head. “The sheriff’s in the house, and he’s going to want to hear what you have to say, Bella. Come on in and talk to him.”

  “Go ahead,” Luther tells Bella. “I’m going to have a word with Grange about Jiffy.”

  Grateful to leave the grisly death scene, she follows Fred through the swirling snow along a crudely shoveled path around the side of the house. Out front, the black wrought-iron railing is wrapped in shiny red and gold garlands. They climb snow-caked, boot-printed steps to a concrete stoop.

  “We think Virgil came out the back way, so we’re dusting that area for prints,” Fred says, opening the door hung with an artificial pine wreath.

  Inside, they’re greeted by several uniformed officers with paper coffee cups and squawking phones and a whiff of mothballs that suggests elderly residents.

  So does the outdated decor—blue floral wallpaper, drawn venetian blinds overlaid with sheer curtains, and furniture upholstered in a nubby-looking brown-and-navy-plaid fabric. Vinyl runners travel the wall-to-wall carpeting like boardwalks, leading from living room to dining room and kitchen beyond.

  A framed photo sits on the mantel: Virgil clad in hunting camouflage, proudly holding a rifle and a slain buck. Its antlered head is mounted above the fireplace. The artificial eyes seem to regard Bella calmly, spared the eternal distress now reflected in those of its slain human hunter.

  A small artificial tree sits in the corner by the window, decorated with tinsel, shiny gold balls, and multicolored pinprick lights. The coffee table holds outdoorsy magazines fanned just so, and an arrangement of fake red poinsettias in a white wicker sleigh.

  In the background, she hears the radio—WDOE running down a list of cancellations and closures. In her head, she can hear Virgil: “Around here, we don’t let a little bit of snow stop us.”

  Oh, Virgil.

  “He was a bachelor, right?” she asks Fred, trying to blink away the image of him lying in the snow. “Virgil? Lived alone?”

  “Yes, ever since his mother died a few years back.” He gestures at a tall handsome man talking quietly on a cell phone. “That’s the sheriff. We’ll wait till he finishes his call, okay?”
/>   Bella nods, wondering how long that will be.

  Eager to get back to Max, she decides to check in with Calla and reaches into her pocket for her own phone.

  Uh-oh. Did she remember to grab it before she left? She peels off her gloves, the knit fabric catching on her rough skin and a torn fingernail. Feeling around, her bare hands encounter only a crumpled old tissue and lint.

  When she gets back outside, she’ll borrow Luther’s phone to call Valley View or text Calla. For now, acutely aware that her child is beyond her immediate reach, she tries not to dwell on the thought of an opportunistic killer prowling around the Dale with pistol.

  Virgil may have been the kind of man who decorated his house for Christmas and hung lights by his pond, but that doesn’t mean he hadn’t been involved with the international gang of smuggling thieves.

  That must have been what Spirit had been trying to tell Calla. Virgil had not been just some random citizen who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There had to be a reason he had been targeted by the killer. Had to be because Bella needs to know that the same thing won’t happen to Jiffy or his mom.

  The house had felt warm and cozy after being out in the gale. Now the forced heat blasting from the baseboard vent seems suffocating. She steps away from it to stand beside a shelf lined with photos displayed in colorful frames. Each one is stamped with a year.

  The bygone holidays aren’t in chronological order, and the set isn’t complete, discontinued a few years back. But at a glance, the pictures are identical: Virgil and an older couple, obviously his parents, posed in the corner beside the tree. It’s the same backdrop year after year: same couch, wallpaper, curtains, perhaps even the same wiry tree with the same lights and decorations, and . . .

  Bella leans closer, spotting a macabre addition to the festive tableau.

  In every photo, a tall shotgun sits propped in the corner behind the tree.

  Today, in a house frozen in time, with everything neatly in its place . . . the shotgun is missing.

  * * *

  Trudging through the woods where her father appeared to her years ago, Misty wonders whatever happened to the girl who’d inherited his gumption, the one who could get through—as Great-Aunt Ellen said—whatever any lifetime might throw at her.