Death of a Dapper Snowman

by Angela Pepper

  I shook my head at my childhood foolishness as I slowly opened the bathroom window. The window creaked. Of course.

  I heard Pam say, “Stormy? Is that you, dear?”

  I grabbed Jeffrey and tossed him out the window first, then I dove after him. We both landed in the bushes, he with a lot more dignity than me. My robe wasn’t even tied shut, and there I was, mostly naked in the snowy bushes, for anyone to see.

  Nobody screamed at the horrifying sight of me in the nude, so I had to assume I hadn’t been spotted by a neighbor… yet. I pulled the robe shut, gave the belt a quick tying, and grabbed Jeffrey in my arms.

  I walked quickly between the two houses. This was the opposite side of Mr. Michaels’ house, but the windows of this neighbor’s place were just as dark as the empty home.

  After a few more steps through the snow, I realized the uncomfortable feeling in my feet was from the crunchy, cold snow on my bare skin. To my surprise, it wasn’t to painful, probably thanks to my elevated temperature from the hot bath, plus the adrenaline from realizing my father’s ex-girlfriend was trying to drown me.

  I ran up the steps to the neighbor’s house and rang the doorbell. Nobody came. I rang it a few more times, then noticed the pile of flyers by the door. The family was out of town for the Christmas holidays.

  I looked up and down the quiet, dark street. It was late, and the nearest homes were all dark.

  Jeffrey meowed at me that he was bored with this game and wanted to be set down. I didn’t dare let go of him, though. Any minute now, Pam would be figuring out I’d escaped. In fact, it was possible the only reason she wasn’t outside chasing me down already was because… because she was punching in the combination for my father’s safe, where he kept the service revolver he’d hung onto for sentimental value.

  Did she know about the gun? Did she have his combination?

  Jeffrey jumped from my arms and raced away, running toward my car.

  “That’s right,” I exclaimed as I chased after him. The fancy, expensive car I’d been embarrassed about having was now my salvation. It was outfitted with keyless entry. You could open and start the engine with an app on your phone, or by punching in a code.

  I crouched down by the driver’s side door, so the keypad was at eye level, and so I couldn’t be seen when Pam came out of the front door.

  What was the code? I hadn’t used it since I’d bought the car a couple years earlier. The guy at the dealership told me most people use something hard to forget, like the name of a child or a pet.

  I didn’t have a pet growing up, but as I recalled the conversation at the car dealership, I remembered making the salesman laugh.

  What did he find so hilarious? Me using my imaginary childhood friend’s name.

  I punched in the code: JEFFREY BLUE.

  The door unlocked, and the engine purred as it came to life. Now I just had to grab the cat I’d also named Jeffrey, because I couldn’t leave him there with crazy Pam. Not after he saved my life.

  I whisper-yelled, “Jeffrey. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  A dark form flitted against the snow as Jeffrey ran up the porch steps. I kept calling him, but he ignored me and started pawing and scratching the front door instead.

  I clucked to get his attention and pleaded, “Come here, little man. We’re not going to the vet again, I promise. Come to the car. I’ve got catnip and all sorts of goodies. I’ve got salmon, and tuna, and… you don’t believe me, do you?”

  He kept scratching the front door, trying to get let into the house. The curtains on the living room window were drawn, but I could see the shadows shifting inside as Pam moved around inside the house. It was only a matter of time before she opened the door. The smart thing for me to do would be to get into my car and drive to the police station, but I couldn’t leave him.

  Ignoring all my self-preservation warning bells, I cinched the bathrobe tighter around my waist and walked toward the house. Jeffrey let out a happy chatter as I approached, then showed me what he desired by giving the front door an epic scratching.

  The door swung open, and there was Pam.

  “Stormy Day!” she sputtered angrily. “What the devil are you doing outside in the middle of the night in my bathrobe?”

  Jeffrey rubbed up against her legs to thank her for letting him into the warm house. She ignored him and kept glaring at me. She was backlit, the front of her face only dimly lit by the street lamps, but I could see the muscles of her face contorting as she worked through what was happening.

  Here I was, awake, which meant her sleeping pills hadn’t worked, and I’d heard her whole confession.

  My only option was to lie, so I did.

  “Pam, you’re going to laugh at this. I fell asleep in the tub, so I opened the window to get some fresh air and the cat jumped out. I heard something outside, and I was worried a dog had cornered him, so I went out to rescue him. Silly me, right?”

  She wasn’t laughing.

  “Stormy, get inside before you catch your death of cold.”

  Obeying her, I walked up the steps slowly and then stopped.

  “Actually, since I’m already outside, I think I’ll go run an errand I forgot to do. I think I left the stove on at my duplex. Would you hand me my purse?”

  She looked like handing me my purse and letting me get away was the last thing she wanted to do, but then she slowly backed up, toward the hallway table and my purse. As she moved, I noticed that she kept one hand behind her back the whole time. What did she have?

  I leaned to the side so I could catch a glimpse of her hidden hand in the hall mirror as she passed it. Something metallic glinted as it came into view: a gun. It was probably my father’s service revolver, taken from the safe. Did Pam know how to load it with bullets? Take off the safety? Shoot me?

  My heart pounded louder than my thoughts. I held still, trying to keep my face neutral. She didn’t know that I’d seen the gun. As far as she knew, I was just going to run an errand and return.

  “That wine was good,” I said with as much casualness as I could summon. “I’ve got a nice bottle at the duplex that I’ll grab when I’m there. And I’ll come right back and pop it open while I help you pack.”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Sometimes I get a second wind late at night. At my old job, I’d work through the night all the time, especially with international deals.”

  She retrieved my purse with her free hand and brought it over to me.

  “Let’s just make sure I have everything,” I muttered as I reached into the purse, playing up my role as a scatterbrained woman who leaves the oven on. I hummed a tune in the tense silence, then said, “Wallet, granola bars, cat treats, but where are my house keys?”

  She leaned against the doorframe, watching me with narrowed eyes. Something clicked. Was it the safety latch on Dad’s gun? My heart raced, my pulse whooshing in my ears.

  While I pretended to search for my house keys, I tapped the screen on my phone to pull up the program that recorded memos, and clicked the button to start a new recording.

  “You look tired,” she said. “Why don’t you come inside and lie down on the sofa? You need some rest. I’ll take care of you.”

  I started stepping back, moving away.

  “No, I wouldn’t want to slow you down. I’ll just zip out, check on my stove, and come right back.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding very reasonable and not at all like a murderer.

  I stepped down one step and stopped. I had the audio recording, and all I was getting was a record of her being reasonable. The only evidence I had of Pam killing Mr. Michaels was my word and the decoration on a ceramic mug. I needed more.

  I tightened the tie around the bathrobe once more, nodded over in the direction of the victim’s house, and said, “You know, I’m glad someone finally got rid of him. I know it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, but he was… a real jerk, don’t you think?”

  Pam was very still for a moment, then re
laxed visibly, leaning her weight against the doorframe as she peered over at the neighbor’s dark-windowed house.

  “He was a dirty old fool, and I’m glad.”

  “Glad for what? Pam, did you have something to do with it? I won’t tell anyone if you did. He did terrible things to me and my sister.” My voice was shaky from my nerves, but I hoped to disguise it by pretending I was upset about something from the past. I felt awful making up things about a neighbor whose only crime was being cranky and difficult, but it would be worse to let his murderer go unpunished.

  “I’m not surprised,” Pam said. “He had a thing for young women.”

  I choked up a sob and sniffed loudly. My nose was running from being outside with freezing cold feet, so it wasn’t hard to fake that I was crying. The worst part was imagining Pam’s arm jerking out at any moment to shoot me.

  I went on for a moment, sniffing and sobbing while painting a picture of a man who deserved to be choked to death. None of it was true, but Pam bought it because my story confirmed what she wanted to believe. If anything, she began to look more and more relieved. Less guilty.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” Pam said. “I took care of the dirty old fool, so he won’t harm another innocent girl.”

  “You took care of him?”

  She glanced from side to side, checking to see that we were still alone on the quiet residential street.

  “He went peacefully,” she said. “I tried pills a few times, but he was on so many other medications for this and that, he just kept on going. Finally I had to wrap a scarf around his neck and finish the job myself.”

  A wave of calm washed over me. I had her confession. I imagined how proud my father would be, and it made me grin. Jeffrey came over to me again and rubbed my bare shins with his sleek fur.

  Pam cocked her head to the side. “Why are you smiling like that? You look like your father when he’s telling his detective stories.”

  I dropped the grin immediately, but it was too late. She’d seen something on my face, and she knew.

  “You little brat,” she growled.

  She knew, but she wasn’t pointing the gun at me yet. I lurched into action. First I reached down and scooped up the cat. He meowed in shock at the rough treatment, but didn’t struggle. I turned and raced down the steps on bare feet.

  I don’t know if I heard the gun click, or it was just my imagination, but I knew she was aiming at me. Rather than run in a straight line, making myself an easy target, I darted to the side, running through the snow of the lawn rather than across the clear walkway.

  The night cracked with the sound of Pam’s first shot. That was my cue to change directions. I staggered in the opposite direction. Another shot rang out as I pivoted again.

  Breaking glass tinkled. She’d hit a back window of my car.

  I dodged and crouched down low as I put the car between me and Pam.

  She screamed, “Stormy! Get back here!”

  I huddled behind the back tire and listened as she fired off another shot, which shattered the window of another car, two vehicles over and across the street. Her aim was getting worse.

  “Get back in the house right now!” she screamed.

  Jeffrey squirmed in my arms and looked up at me, his green eyes wide with fright. He didn’t know what a gun was, but he knew better than to come to the house when Pam was screaming for him. So did I.

  She stopped screaming, and my skin prickled all over, warning me she was coming down to get so close she couldn’t miss.

  I dove for the driver’s side door, which was thankfully already locked. I tossed the cat in first and followed, keeping my head down low.

  The engine had been running since I’d punched in the code, and was warm and ready to go.

  The crack of another shot rang through the night, but missed the car.

  I threw the car into gear and punched the gas. The car accelerated with a purr, and I sailed through three stop signs before I even considered touching the brakes.

  I turned in the opposite direction of the main road, thinking this would help me lose Pam if she was chasing me in her car.

  There was no sign of her, or of anyone else, on the road.

  My heart was still racing, but the wave of calm returned, helping me slow my thoughts so they were somewhat coherent.

  My first clear thought was: Dad will be so proud of me.

  Me second was: I’m an awesome getaway driver, considering my bare feet are completely numb and I can’t even feel the pedals!

  Jeffrey moaned from his hiding place under the seat. Not the vet again!

  Chapter 34

  I kept checking the rear view mirror. My feet were thawing out, but my whole body felt strange and jittery.

  The picturesque town streets were nearly empty, but I kept looking, first in the mirror, and then over my shoulder.

  What was I expecting?

  I’ll tell you what my imagination had cooked up: Pam, whipping out from behind a building, roaring after me in a monster truck, leaning out of the driver’s side window with a roaring chain saw. She would be screaming about giving me a real short haircut, too.

  My imagination kept seeing her in every shadow. It was working overtime, making up for all the time I’d spent with Pam and not suspected she was a murderer. I’d actually felt sorry for her. I ate the french toast she made with her murder hands.

  The idea of sharing a meal with her made me gag.

  I kept driving and checking behind me.

  Jeffrey was also on edge, and for this emergency car ride we didn’t have his pet carrier, so he was free to act out his anxieties.

  He’d started off hiding underneath the passenger-side seat, out of sight but howling. After a few blocks of that, he emerged and scaled the back of my leather seat, all the better to meow loudly, right in my ear.

  Cold air whistled through the car, thanks to the broken rear passenger window Pam shot a bullet through. It was hard to believe she’d tried to shoot me, but I had the broken window to prove it, and probably a bullet lodged inside the vehicle.

  Jeffrey howled in my ear again. Either he was picking up on my panic, or he thought we were going to the veterinarian clinic to remove more of his little furry body parts. He was not happy, in any case.

  “We should have grabbed that snowman mug,” I told him.

  He responded by singing me the song of his cat people.

  “Jeffrey! What if the bullet and the recording on my phone aren’t enough evidence? Why didn’t I grab the mug when I was throwing things out the window?”

  He let out a chilling howl, then jumped onto the dash interior and wedged himself against the windshield, meowing about the evening’s horrible ordeals.

  Beyond his body, I noticed a red light up ahead.

  Either there were a lot more traffic lights in Misty Falls than I remembered, or I was driving in circles. I stomped on the brake pedal with a bare foot that felt prickly.

  Jeffrey looked out the driver’s side window with wide eyes and switched from yowling to hissing.

  The car lurched to a stop, just a few feet into the crosswalk. Another vehicle pulled up next to me and stopped. I turned my head slowly to the left, following Jeffrey’s fearful gaze. I fully expected to see Pam with the gun, or a chainsaw, or perhaps both.

  Much to my relief and sanity, instead of seeing Pam dressed up like a road warrior, I found the handsomely bearded face of Logan, my new tenant.

  Logan lowered the passenger-side window of his SUV, and he must have put the vehicle in Park, because he slid over to the passenger seat and leaned out to yell at me, “Hey, cat lady!”

  “Who, me?”

  He smirked at my response. “Do you see any other cat ladies around?”

  I looked at the miserable-looking cat wedged in above my steering wheel, then I looked down at my current outfit, which was a colorful terry-cloth robe.

  The light ahead turned green, but there was no urgency for us to drive, since we were the o
nly two vehicles at or near the intersection.

  Logan yelled, loud enough for me to hear him clearly through my closed window, “You look like you could use a drink, cat lady!”

  I lowered my window enough to talk to him, but not enough for Jeffrey to leap out and escape.

  “Hello.” I gave Logan a wave with one hand. “I can’t get that drink right now, because I’m on an important errand.”

  He leaned further out of his window, getting a better look at me in my bath robe.

  “Do you need chocolate?” he asked. “I had a massive craving for junk food myself, but the grocery stores in this town close early. It took some driving around, but I’ve located all the town’s gas station and convenience stores. I am currently in possession of five kinds of chocolate, plus potato chips, pretzels, and something the gas station clerk recommended personally.” He held up a bag of gummy worms.

  “I’m sorry, Logan, but I have to go to the police station right now and turn in my father’s girlfriend for murder.”

  “For real?”

  I looked around nervously, but we were still the only vehicles in sight.

  “In case something happens to me and I don’t make it, tell the police to get the recording from my phone, plus the snowman mug from the bathroom, and compare the face to the snowman from the crime scene.”

  His eyebrows raised higher and higher. “You figured out who killed the snowman?”

  “I did. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I should get to the police station to give a statement.”

  “That could take all night.”

  I shrugged. “We’ll have to get that drink some other time.”

  “Do you think you’ll need a lawyer? I do criminal defense, among other things.”

  “Me? I didn’t kill anyone, but I can pass your card along to Pam, if you’d like.”

  He rubbed his scruffy brown beard thoughtfully. “I have a better idea. Why don’t I come along with you to the police station right now? As the town’s newest lawyer, I should get better acquainted with the local law enforcement, and what better way than by coming with you while you give your statement?”