Frozen Stiff

by Mary Logue

  Claire thought of Rich, who always seemed so content doing what he had always done—raise pheasants—but doing it well, improving on it if he could. In the same way, he had never given up on her, staying steady and strong as she sometimes struggled with her life. “Sounds like a hard way to live.”

  Sherri had nodded. “It is. I hated it. But, surprisingly, I think it is hard on Dan, too.”

  “How so?” Claire had said.

  “Well, he’s not getting any younger and he can’t go at everything as strongly as he used to be able to. I think he feels that sometimes and he gets down about it, feels he has to prove himself.”

  Now watching Sherri attentively leaning over her husband, trying to urge him back into the world of the living, Claire questioned her original take on the woman. Plus, as Amy had pointed out, why would she have told them about the dead bolt being locked if she was the one who had done it. Otherwise, they might have assumed it was an accident.

  “I think he saw me,” Sherri said, “He was trying to say something. Did you see that?”

  The woman had such a hopeful look in her eyes that Claire hated to do anything but agree. “Yes, that’s what it looked like.”

  “I’m just going to stay here with him. If that’s okay,” Sherri said, reaching out to touch her husband’s cheek.

  “I can’t leave you alone with him,” Claire forced herself to say.

  Sherri turned, her eyes widened, her mouth stretching tight as she seemed to realize the implications of Claire’s words.

  CHAPTER 8

  New Year’s Day: 6 pm

  Clyde sat in a lounge chair next to his daughter’s bed, sipped the lukewarm coffee and pretended it was full of flavor. Bonnie was sleeping. She was still recovering from her blood loss and seemed very weak. She drifted in and out of being. Sometimes she would jolt awake and ask for the baby. At the moment, her eyes were closed but he wondered if she was really sleeping or just avoiding being awake.

  He couldn’t help remembering what had happened two mornings ago. After his wife left for work, he had hollered down the stairs to wake Bonnie. He was surprised that she wasn’t dressed and sitting at the table, eating some sugary cereal. She was usually up bright and early for school.

  When Clyde still didn’t hear her moving about in her room, he went down to make sure she was awake. He knocked on her door, and that’s when he heard the groans. “Bonnie?”

  She yelled through the door, “Dad, help me.”

  When he pushed the door open, he couldn’t make out what he was seeing. Bonnie looked like she was struggling with something in the bed. She was groaning and crying and pulled at something that was between her legs.

  At first he had thought there was a small animal in bed with her, a squirrel that had maybe come in the dryer vent. As he walked closer, he saw the small creature was still attached to his daughter by the umbilical cord. A huge pool of blood had soaked into the mattress.

  “Dad,” she sobbed, her face red with exhaustion and smeared blood. “I’m having a baby.”

  His heart stopped and he couldn’t figure out how this could be. They hadn’t even known Bonnie was pregnant. She was only seventeen. She didn’t even have a boyfriend. Yes, she had been putting on the pounds lately, but not bad. She had always been a little chunky. How could this be?

  “I’d say you’ve already had it.” He had to do something. Unfortunately, his wife had already left for work.

  “But I won’t stop bleeding,” Bonnie said faintly.

  From birthing many calves he knew what to do. He lifted the small form and that was when he realized it wasn’t breathing. As long as the baby was still attached to its mother it would be okay, but they needed help.

  He handed the baby to his daughter and then asked, “Who did this to you?”

  “Don’t tell Mom.”

  He nodded.

  She whispered a name and then he went to call an ambulance.

  7:00 pm

  Meg slumped down into the seat in the movie theater. A handful of kids and their parents were sprinkled around the seats behind her. She liked to sit close to the front. That way she felt like she was part of the movie, she could fall into it, not know where the film began and she ended.

  Curt understood this feeling. But, at the moment for whatever reason, he wasn’t sitting next to her.

  She had waited for him for a half an hour at her house and then she left for Red Wing, but not in time to catch the first show. She wasn’t going to call him, track him down. She was pretty sure she knew where he was—with Andy. Curt was a big boy and he could take care of himself. Or not.

  But Meg was really mad. How could he do this to her? After all they’d been through. He was like her soul mate, her perfect match, and now he was changing into someone she didn’t even know.

  She grabbed a handful of popcorn and started eating it, but even that reminded her of Curt. He called her style of eating popcorn, pecking. With her lips she would pluck one popped kernel out of her hand and eat it—like a chicken eating feed. She told him it was just her way of enjoying every single bite.

  The trailers started. She loved trailers, those teasers of coming movies. She even liked the ads that showed in front of the movies. The movie she had picked was a new one, just out: Coraline. She didn’t know what it was about but she knew it was animated, which Curt loved, obviously, and rather creepy, which they both loved.

  Meg sunk deeper into the seat as the movie started. This odd scrawny girl had just moved into an odd scrawny house with a geeky boy living there and his odd scrawny smart cat. So far so good. And the girl’s parents didn’t understand or pay attention to her. Sometimes Meg felt that way, but not too often. Then the girl, Coraline, started yelling at the geeky boy and Meg really relished that part. Stupid boys!

  Suddenly two hands covered her eyes. She let out a small peep.

  Curt’s voice whispered in her ear. “I found you.” He climbed over the seat back and slid in next to her.

  She gave him a glare. “I wasn’t lost.”

  “You mad?”

  “I’m watching the movie.”

  “It looks good.”

  “Sh-sh.”

  “Can I have some popcorn?”

  She was tempted to tell him to get his own, but decided that would be silly and result in more disruption and so she shoved the box at him, causing a few precious kernels to fall on the floor.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  It was hard to focus on the movie with Curt sitting next to her. She kept having imaginary conversations with him in her mind: ones in which she told him off, ones in which he begged her forgiveness and promised never to see Andy again, even one in which he told her he had been in a bad car accident and almost lost his life, but had managed to crawl out of the wreckage and come and find her. Most of them ended with the two of them kissing.

  At least Curt didn’t try to hold her hand. They always held hands during movies, but he seemed to know not to even try that. When he went to give her the popcorn back, she just pushed it away. She wasn’t really hungry anymore.

  In the meantime, Coraline was having a rough time. She had found a secret door in the wall, which led to a parellel world that at first appeared to be perfect, but then the cracks started to show. With the help of the scrawny cat and the geeky guy, she managed to thwart the evil witch-type lady, Belle Dame, and get her real life back, spacey parents and all.

  Meg wondered if something similar was happening between her and Curt—she had thought he was perfect and now she was seeing his warts. Maybe what she needed to do was kiss him more often so he wouldn’t be such a frog, but she sure didn’t feel like doing it now.

  When the movie ended they didn’t stand up immediately. They sat there as the lights came up.

  Curt said, “Cool animation.”

  “I didn’t like the tunnel between the two worlds. It looked like an old dryer vent tube,” Meg blurted out, even though she usually had a rule—no comments on the movie unti
l they were safely in the car.

  She stood up and started walking out of the theater. Curt followed her. When they got out to the hallway, he tried to swing his arm onto her shoulder, but she shrugged out from under it.

  “Hey, listen,” he said. “We need to talk. Why don’t we go get a cup of coffee at the Jenny?”

  “I need to get home.”

  “Meg, don’t do this to me.”

  She felt her anger burbling inside of her. She turned on him and yelled in a quiet voice, “Excuse me. Who did what to whom?”

  “Whoa. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I don’t like being stood up.”

  “The time slipped away...”

  “I can guess where you were,” Meg said, hoping he’d tell her differently.

  But he didn’t say anything. Just looked down and shuffled his shoes.

  “I gotta get home,” she said and turned toward the parking lot. “It’s a school night.”

  “Too bad we can’t drive together,” he said.

  “You should have thought of that a few hours ago,” she said and walked away.

  He didn’t try to stop her; he didn’t come running after her. She climbed into her car and was happy when it started on the first try. She sat and let it run, but didn’t even bother to turn the heat on yet. It would just blow frigid air at her.

  She watched Curt walk to his truck, his shoulders hunched inside his thin jacket. He never wore enough clothes. She had knit him a scarf for Christmas and she could see that he had that wrapped around his neck.

  What was the matter with boys? Don’t they even know enough to say they’re sorry when they mess up? That’s all she had wanted to hear from him, but he hadn’t known enough to apologize.

  7:30 pm

  “Where’s Meg?” Claire asked as she walked in the living room and saw only Rich sitting by the fire.

  “Well, hey to you too.” Rich laughed. “I think she went into Red Wing to see a movie with Curt.”

  Claire walked over and tilted his head back and gave him a just-came-out-of-the-cold kiss on the lips. “Those two. They’re so serious. Makes me nervous.” Then she tried to slide her hands down the neck of his flannel shirt to warm them up.

  “Don’t you dare put your cold hands on me.” Rich grabbed her around the neck and pulled her down for another, deeper kiss, then said, “Curt’s a nice kid. Relax. It’s always intense at that age.”

  “I guess. How about our age? I’m freezing here. You need to warm me up.” Claire wrapped her arms around him.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about that. As I recall you propositioned me the other night.”

  “Correction. Let’s get it straight. After much consideration, I proposed to you. Just wanted to make you an honest man.”

  “Yes, and after equally careful consideration, taking into account all your hard work and effort in bringing some couth to my simple life, I’ve decided to take you up on it. My answer is yes.” Rich pulled her down into his lap.

  Claire felt something inside of her grow warm and sank into his kiss. Finally, she pulled away from him and said, “Good. Should we set a date?”

  Rich snuggled his head into her neck and whispered in her ear. “Sure. When would you like?”

  “Something easy to remember. How about Valentine’s Day?”

  “I think that can be arranged.”

  “Let’s keep it simple. Not too many people.”

  Rich laughed. “What’re you talking about? We’ll do it just like all the other weddings around here. We’ll put a notice in the paper inviting everyone in the county and see who shows up.”

  “I like it.”

  “Hey, how’s your abominable snowman?”

  “Daniel Walker?”

  “You have more than one?”

  “He appears to be out of danger,” Claire rested her head against Rich’s chest and put her feet up next to his on the ottoman. She could feel the fire’s heat on the bottom of her feet. “But when I left the hospital, he still hadn’t come around yet. Did you hear that he and his wife were separated?”

  “Suspicious.”

  Claire looked over at Rich, his face lit by the fire. He was wearing the red skullcap that Meg had knit him for Christmas pulled down to his ears. Claire thought he looked like a lumberjack, but a cute, good-hearted one. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “So is it true that someone locked him out of his house? And was he really naked?” Rich asked.

  “How’d you hear all that?”

  “Donuts,” he explained.

  Claire shook her head, then let it fall back on the chair. “After all these years, I still can’t get over how news travels around here.”

  “What else have we got to do but talk about each other?”

  “Point taken. As far as Walker goes, all we’ve got is his wife’s word for it that the dead bolt on the back door was locked. But I can think of no reason why she would lie about that.”

  “How can someone do that? Freeze and then come back to life.”

  “How they do it is very slowly, by what I saw today in the hospital. And very carefully. They cut a hole in his stomach, then gently washed his innards with warm water.”

  “Really? A hole in his stomach? Amazing. Is he going to lose anything to frostbite?”

  “Hard to tell. The doctor said he might lose part of an ear and a couple toes. I can’t believe he is coming through this as well as he is.”

  “The body is a remarkable machine.” Rich thought for a second, then added, “Course I’ve seen piglets come back to life after they were frozen. I guess it might have helped that Daniel Walker was a bit of a pig.”

  “Rich, you don’t like the guy?” Claire asked, not a bit surprised that he didn’t like Walker, but surprised that he would express it so clearly. Even with her, he didn’t usually say much negative about anyone.

  “He doesn’t care for anyone but himself. Anyway, anyhow. I bet there’s ten people right in Fort St. Antoine that wouldn’t mind getting rid of him if they thought they could get away with it.”

  “Could you give me that list?”

  He slid his hands under her shirt and said, “Maybe we can strike a deal. I might need some warming up myself.”

  CHAPTER 9

  2 January: 9 am

  I tell you what, that man must not have the sense that god gave geese. Who’d a guessed that a sauna needed to come with operating instructions,” Sheriff Talbert said as he sat stuffed into his swivel chair.

  Claire was worried about the sheriff. He had gained weight over the holidays—just like everyone else in the department—in the county for that matter—but those extra pounds on top of the others that he had been accumulating for the last few years were not looking good. His face was constantly flushed and he wheezed. He was approaching sixty-five years old and his age wasn’t sitting well with him. But she couldn’t imagine the sheriff’s department without him.

  “We just about lost Mr. Daniel Walker,” Claire said. “If that new woman doctor up at the hospital hadn’t known how to handle hypothermia, he would have been a goner for sure.”

  Sheriff Talbert winced. “How’d his privates come through the ordeal?”

  So like a man to worry about such things. Claire had to cough to keep from laughing. “Well, the doctor didn’t mention them. I’m sure they had burrowed deep into his body and were protected.”

  “Hope so. Makes me shiver just to think about it.”

  “What I’m concerned about is, well, it’s looking like someone tried to kill him. I’m wondering how we should handle this.”

  “I guess handle it like an attempted homicide.”

  “Yes, but his wife is, at the moment, number one suspect and she’s also the one making decisions about his medical care.”

  “Well, that’s gotta stop. Is there anyone else who could step in?”

  “His daughter’s there.”

  “How old is she?”

  “I’d guess early twenties.” Claire thoug
ht about Danielle’s attitude. “But somehow I don’t trust her even as much as his wife. They seem cut from the same cloth. Skinny women who need to be kept in high style.”

  “Well, talk to the doctor and keep a close eye on what’s going on with him. So you think the wife might have locked him out? That’s cold.”

  “I don’t know. She’s the logical suspect. She has the most to gain. According to Daniel’s daughter, who by the way is named Danielle, if they divorced Sherri wouldn’t get a penny, but if Daniel died before the divorce went through she might inherit most everything.”

  The sheriff pouched his lips, then nodded. “That’s certainly a darn good motive. Money’ll do it.”

  “Yes, but something just doesn’t feel right to me.” Claire had been thinking about this as she drove to work, going over and over what had happened to Daniel Walker in her mind. “First of all, Sherri has no alibi for New Year’s Eve. You’d think she’d have planned something if she was going to try to off her husband. Secondly, she was the one who told us the house was locked up with a dead bolt, which could only have been done from the inside or with a key. If she hadn’t let us know that, we would have assumed Walker had just had an accident—letting her off the hook. Third, why would she have been the one to find him?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “So who did it?”

  “Well, as I told you, when Sherri got there the house was locked up tight. I think it all comes down to who had a key.”

  “To get in and then lock the deadbolt.”

  “Right. So my mission today is to track down all the keys.”

  The sheriff tilted back in his chair and Claire worried that he might tip over, but he caught himself. “Better than a needle in a haystack.”

  9 am

  As always, Curt was waiting for Meg when she got off the bus at school. He smiled up at her as if nothing was wrong. His light brown hair was still damp from his shower and he looked happy to see her.

  “Hey,” he said, bumping her gently with his shoulder. “Good movie last night. I’ve been wanting to see that one for a while.”