Snow is not the Time

by Wendy Meadows

  Snow is not the Time

  Alaska Cozy Mystery #4

  Wendy Meadows

  Copyright © 2017 by Wendy Meadows

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Thanks for reading

  Be the First to Know

  About the Author

  Also by Wendy Meadows

  Chapter One

  Conrad knocked on the back door of Sarah’s cabin as a hard wind rocked him back on his heels. As he waited for Sarah to answer the door, his eyes studied the snow-covered landscape. “So peaceful,” he said in a low voice. Winds howled through trees dripping with ice and dusted with snow. The trees swayed back and forth in the dream-like snowscape. The trees, Conrad thought, surveying the white world with watery eyes, seemed to be waving at the cold, gray sky looming over the cabin. “No creepy snowmen... no mafia... no lousy British intelligence agent... everything at peace...”

  He heard the back door open. “Conrad?”

  “Hey,” he said, turning to look into a pair of beautiful, intelligent eyes. “Mind if I come in, Sarah?”

  Sarah glanced down at the pink robe she had pulled on after a relaxing hot shower. The hour was early and she was busy working on her next novel. But the expression lurking on Conrad’s face told her something was wrong. “Please, not another murder,” she begged, feeling the cold winds reaching for her through the open door.

  Conrad shook his head with a smile. “Not here in Snow Falls. Not even a traffic ticket,” he reassured her. Pulling up the collar of his black coat, he lowered his head against the wind. “Really cold out here, Sarah.”

  “Oh, sure, come inside,” Sarah said quickly. She backed away from the door and stepped into the kitchen. The room smelled of fresh coffee and hot, freshly baked muffins. “I was writing.”

  Conrad stepped into the kitchen and closed the back door. As he kicked snow off his boots, he drew in a deep, appreciative breath. “And baking,” he added. “I could use some of whatever you baked. And you know how much I love your coffee.”

  Sarah nodded her head at the kitchen table, suppressing a smile. “Sit down,” she told him.

  Conrad sat down at his usual spot and watched Sarah walk over to the kitchen counter and take a muffin from the batch that sat cooling on the top of the stove. She placed the muffin on a white plate and then filled a brown mug full of hot coffee. “Blueberry muffins,” she announced, carrying it over to the table.

  Conrad took the plate and mug with grateful hands. “Thanks, Sarah. I’m a bit late getting started this morning. I was up most of the night talking with a friend in New York.”

  Sarah sat down across from Conrad and decided to let the man have a few breaths before interrogating him. “It’s been quiet these last couple of weeks. I’m not complaining, either. For a while, I felt like I was living back in Los Angeles.” She shook her head wordlessly.

  “Yeah, it got crazy there for a while,” Conrad admitted. He picked up the still-warm muffin and took a bite. “Feels like we got caught up in a stampede. I think we did okay, though.”

  Sarah nodded her head. “I still expect to see a snowman waiting for me every time I pull into my driveway,” she confessed. “But behind every creepy snowman is a human being — a human who’s monstrous on the inside.”

  Conrad took another bite of his muffin. “Yeah,” he said. He was silent, reflecting. “Amanda has been great through it all.”

  “June Bug has been incredible,” Sarah beamed, as she though proudly of her best friend. “I don’t know where I’d be if Amanda hadn’t stood by me. Well... I do know; I would be dead.”

  “Yep,” Conrad agreed, “Amanda sure saved our butts a time or two. She’s something special. You both are, Sarah. I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be impressed by our bravery and spur-of-the-moment thinking,” Sarah replied. “Whenever I took a case in Los Angeles, I gathered evidence, analyzed, questioned suspects, formulated theories and opinions, followed up on leads, followed my gut, consulted forensic experts, the works. Maybe all that training has helped me, but the last three cases we worked on, I shot from my hip most of the time, just hoping to hit my target.”

  Conrad took a sip of coffee. “I know what you mean,” he agreed. “We’ve been running against the wind lately, to say the least.”

  “You can say that again,” Sarah said, nodding her head toward the outside world through her back door. “People are nuts out there, Conrad, and their insanity doesn’t stop at the Alaska state line. Even in small towns like this, we have to deal with the criminally insane. Maybe not as much as they would have to in Los Angeles or New York, but a dose of bad medicine always manages to creep into small places.”

  Conrad stared at the back door, musing on the stormy scene outside. “We were lucky last time, Sarah. We had two teenage troublemakers show up who turned out to be a blessing in disguise, helping us distract Bradley at a crucial moment. It was a gamble and a lot could have gone wrong. I didn’t expect the female agent to eliminate Bradley’s two men, either. Her actions alone saved our butts. I was preparing to dig in for a firefight. The tide turned in our favor... but we both know the tide could have just as easily turned red.”

  “I know,” Sarah acknowledged, reaching for her own cup of coffee and wrapping her fingers around its warmth. “Sometimes I still wonder what would have happened in the case before that if Amanda hadn’t shown up and slugged that psycho model in the face when she did. And what about the mafia?”

  Conrad looked at Sarah, shaking his head in amazement. “You saved my butt that time.”

  “But Amanda saved me,” Sarah pointed out with a fond smile. “And that’s the way it is, isn’t it? When the unknown rears its ugly head, we human beings jump into a dark hole and start feeling our way around, hoping to find a way out before the darkness swallows us whole. And somewhere in the darkness—sometimes—a friend or two jumps in and saves you.”

  Conrad took another sip of coffee. They both sat in silence and listened to the wind howl outside. At least it wasn’t snowing, Conrad thought. “Sarah... speaking of jumping into a dark hole, I’ve been talking to a friend in New York.”

  Sarah leaned back in her chair and slowly folded her arms. “It’s a good thing I decided to get in some writing time instead of opening my coffee shop today. Not that any of the locals will complain about me not opening my shop. Maybe my coffee isn’t the greatest. But,” she said with a smile slowly returning to her pretty face, “my cinnamon rolls are.”

  “I love your coffee,” Conrad assured her, then felt surprised that he had used the word love. “You make good, strong coffee. That’s what people need. I don’t care for all the jazz people fill their coffee cups with today. My grandfather drank his coffee strong and black, and so do I.”

  Sarah smiled at Conrad even though her gut was waiting for him to spill bad news into her lap. “Thank you for the compliment, Conrad.” She liked hearing this from him. “It means a lot, coming from you.”

  Conrad stared
into Sarah’s eyes. He wanted nothing more than to forget about the business at hand and ask this beautiful woman out to lunch. The skies were cold, icy, and gray, but the roads were clear. He knew the diner in town would be open and serving delicious food. It would be nice to sit with Sarah and talk with her over coffee and apple pie. It would be nice to hear her laugh and see her smile. It would be nice to take her hand and walk down to her coffee shop and watch her bake cinnamon rolls. Something in him ached at the thought of all this, just within reach. Instead, he had to ask for help. He looked away from her eyes briefly and gazed out at the snow again. “A friend of mine was killed.”

  Sarah nodded and felt her smile slip away. “In New York?”

  “In Minnesota,” Conrad answered. “In a town called Winneshabba, about an hour north of Saint Cloud.” He took another sip of coffee and then said hopefully, “Up for another road trip, Detective Garland?”

  Sarah knew that she needed at least six to eight months of serious writing time in order to complete her latest novel. Every second counted. And not only did she not have the time to write the way she needed, but she barely had time to open her coffee shop, which bothered her.

  And yet, there was also the prospect of a road trip with Conrad, and another case to work on. She tried to tell herself she was most excited about the case, but what also warmed her was the idea of spending time with this man who she had come to care for, perhaps more deeply than she realized.

  “Conrad, I’m torn...” she started to say. “I’m really behind schedule on my latest book and I don’t want to put my deadline on your investigation.”

  Conrad heard the strain in her voice. “I understand,” he said, trying not to sound disappointed.

  But the instant she saw the look on his face, Sarah felt her heart twinge. She tried to cover her tracks by switching back into investigative mode. “Who was your friend that was murdered?” she asked.

  “Mickey Slate,” Conrad replied.

  “Was that his real name?”

  Conrad nodded his head. “Mickey and I grew up together. Mickey,” Conrad said in a tired voice, “Mickey had a tough old man who liked the bottle, you know? The kid became familiar with a hard fist before he was even five years old. Sometimes he’d show up at school with a split lip or black eye or some bruised ribs. But hey, it was Brooklyn, and no one said jack. You learned the hard way that opening your mouth and getting involved in someone else’s business meant bad news for you.” Conrad reached into his jacket pocket and took out a battered photo of his friend, evidently from a number of years ago. Sarah could see the toughness written on Mickey Slate’s face in the picture.

  “I understand,” Sarah said.

  “Do you?” Conrad looked into Sarah’s eyes. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

  “Keep talking,” Sarah pressed.

  Conrad sipped on his coffee. “Mickey was always getting into fights as he grew up. In high school, he joined a gang called the Back Alley Blades... a deadly bunch of greasers.”

  “Greasers?”

  Conrad nodded. “Don’t let the term fool you. We’re not talking about a bunch of guys singing in a musical, here. We’re talking about guys who carried switch blades, guns, pipes, chains, broken bottles, anything they could get their hands on, to a fight. We’re talking about guys who chewed pain like it was candy and ate punches for breakfast.” Conrad put down his coffee. “One time, I watched the Blades go toe to toe with another gang, the Red Widow Killers.”

  “Colorful names.”

  “The Red Widow Killers were lethal. Those boys ruled the streets of Brooklyn. The street cops at that time didn’t dare say a word to them... nobody did.”

  “Except the Back Alley Blades?”

  Conrad nodded again. “The Blades and the Killers went at each other like two vicious pit bulls.” He closed his eyes. “I was seventeen at the time, in my senior year of high school. By that time, I thought I had seen some pretty bad stuff go down in my life... I was wrong. By the time the fight was over, there were fourteen dead bodies lying in the street. The guys who didn’t get killed had been beaten or stabbed or shot too badly to even walk... a bunch of kids filled with rage.”

  In her mind, Sarah imagined the brawl taking place. She saw two gangs prowling down a dirty, wet alley yelling threats at each other, surrounded by run-down buildings and rusted cars. She saw the members of each gang brandishing weapons that gleamed in the darkness, sharp and deadly. And then she saw the gangs clash. The picture of it made her shudder with fear.

  “Did your friend’s gang walk away victorious?” she asked.

  “That’s right. The Blades were outnumbered that morning, but when the fight cleared, more Blades were standing than Killers.”

  “I see.” Sarah realized Conrad was telling her about this gang fight for a reason. “So your friend Mickey was a pretty tough guy.”

  “Tough isn’t the word,” Conrad said. “Mickey didn’t like anyone, not even the guys in his gang. But he and I grew up in the same building, and we were buddies from when we were about five years old.”

  Sarah studied Conrad’s eyes. The truth hit her and she drew in a sharp breath. “The only person Mickey liked in his gang was you, then, right?”

  Conrad took a bite of his muffin and wouldn’t meet her eyes for a long moment, lost in thought. “I regret being a member of the Blades, Sarah. I regret... what I was back then. I regret what Mickey and I both were.”

  “Is that why you became a cop?”

  “Let’s just say that I wanted to make amends for all the damage I caused.” Conrad paused. “Good muffin.”

  “Thanks.”

  Conrad took his last bite of muffin. “Mickey wouldn’t have gone down without a fight,” he stated, staring out the kitchen window as the wind picked up outside. “And Mickey wasn’t the type of guy to ever ask for help, even from me. On the day when we tangled with the Killers, he was stabbed twice in the gut and beaten pretty badly. But he walked all the way to the hospital by himself.”

  “That sounds more like stupidity than bravery,” Sarah said doubtfully. “I understand what you mean, though.”

  “At the time, I was impressed. The hospital was miles away.”

  In her mind, Sarah watched a wounded kid struggling down one dirty block after another, holding his stomach, determined to remain tough to the end.

  Sarah rose to get herself another cup of coffee. She had a feeling it was going to be a very long day. “What did Mickey do for a living?”

  Conrad finished off his coffee. “You’d never believe it, but that tough kid grew up to became a corporate lawyer. The guy had brains as well as guts.”

  Sarah poured coffee into her green mug and brought the coffee pot back to the kitchen table and refilled Conrad’s mug. “Who did he work for?”

  “McCallister Security.”

  “I’ve heard of them. McCallister has offices scattered all the way from the East Coast to the West Coast. The McCallister family is pretty rich and successful, I gather.”

  “McCallister is the second biggest security firm in America,” Conrad said. “Anderson and Stewart are the biggest, apparently.”

  “When I was living in Los Angeles, I heard rumors that Anderson and Stewart were considering selling out to McCallister,” Sarah replied. “I wonder whatever happened with that? Well, what kind of security do they do, exactly?”

  “McCallister deals with everything from overseas private security operations to small town bank guards. McCallister makes the National Security Agency look like small potatoes.”

  Sarah gave Conrad a strange look. “The NSA is an agency of the Department of Defense, run by politicians whose only intentions are to control info while violating the privacy of American citizens,” she retorted drily.

  Conrad was surprised to hear Sarah talk like a crazed conspiracy theorist. “Next you’re going to tell me the CIA created Facebook to monitor people’s lives?”

  “People post their personal information and photos all th
e time. They update their status about what they’re doing, might do, have done. Facebook and Twitter are a dream come true for the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the IRS, and all the rest of those agencies that have to take a peek every now and then...” Sarah trailed off as she focused on Conrad’s eyes, which were twinkling mischievously. “Very funny, Conrad. I’m serious,” she protested.

  “Hey, I’m right on board with you,” Conrad promised. “The American people are controlled and manipulated through a social engineering program that is allowing politicians to become richer and richer while they gain more and more power and the American public loses more and more of its freedoms. But we’re cops, and our duty is to chase down the bad guys.”

  Sarah sighed. “Too bad we can’t get all the bad guys,” she said. “Okay, so forget about my personal feelings toward the NSA. We know Mickey worked for McCallister. That means it’s possible he was killed over something he knew.”

  “Yep.”

  Sarah sipped her coffee. “Mickey was killed in Minnesota, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But you said you spoke to someone in New York?” Sarah asked, confused.

  “That’s the thing. Before he died, Mickey called me from New York,” Conrad explained. “My friend back in New York later told me that someone took a few shots at Mickey the day he called me. Mickey slipped through the bullets and ended up in Minnesota somehow. That’s where he died.”

  “I see,” Sarah said. “This friend of yours knows Mickey personally?”

  Conrad sighed. “No. My friend once belonged to the Killers, the gang we tangled with in our earlier days. He never forgave Mickey for putting his brother in a wheelchair. It’s a long story, okay?”

  “I bet it is,” Sarah said, shaking her head with a sigh. “People never cease to amaze me. So how did your ex-Killers friend know what had happened to Mickey?”