Cover of Snow

by Jenny Milchman

I zipped my coat and tied my muffler, then emerged into the freezing afternoon sunshine. A series of decrepit nineteenth-century houses sagged against one another. I longed to stop, observe paint-choked details despite the cold. But I hurried along toward number 61.

  The front door was unlocked. A makeshift penciled sign—SOS meeting today—pointed the way to a room down the hall.

  I’d expected a funereal gathering of members dressed all in black. But when I peered into the ground-level room from the doorway, it was streaked with silvery winter light, and clumps of men and women stood chatting and laughing, drinks in hand.

  Someone appeared beside me. He was young—terribly young—and held a can of soda in one fist. I noticed that his nails were bitten.

  “First time?” he said, offering a smile.

  I nodded.

  “That’s the hardest,” he said. “Come on.”

  I followed him to a table. The people hovering around it crossed the age spectrum and other spectrums as well, their clothes both designer and brandless, hairstyles chiseled to ragged.

  A few people smiled at me, then an older woman, small and hunched over, indicated that everyone should head for a circle of folding chairs.

  I sat down beside the boy.

  The shrunken gargoyle of a woman took the lead. “Why don’t we start with introductions while we wait for any latecomers?” She looked around the circle. “We’re still short one regular.” There were nods all around. “And I see we have someone new with us today.” More nods.

  I wasn’t sure what to say—if I should say anything at all—but luckily someone else began to speak. He was heavyset with a hairy froth of beard. He wore overalls, and his hands were hidden, thrust into the pocket on his front bib.

  “I’m Gary. My daughter, Emily, killed herself two years ago. Swallowed pills, we still don’t know where she got ’em, her stepmother and me. My wife Judy already done it, twelve years before, when Emmy was just a little girl.”

  Silence spread over the last of the chitchat.

  Two family members? This man had been through it twice?

  A tall, glamorous woman spoke up next.

  “I’m Peggy,” she said. “My son, ah, came out to the family. It was about a year ago, I think. And my husband had some trouble with the news. He had a young lady he wanted my son to meet, the daughter of somebody he worked with, really quite lovely. But my son—our son …” Peggy half turned in her seat, pressing two sharp, jewel-tipped fingers against her eyes. “He shot himself the night that was to be their first date. Before he’d even met her.” Tears ran freely down her made-up cheeks now, but she no longer tried to stop them. “My husband still won’t come to these meetings, but I find they really help.”

  A woman touched Peggy on her cascade of hair.

  “I’m Betty,” said a stout lady in a plain dress. She was crying without seeming to be aware of it. “I still haven’t said why I’m here yet.”

  A second reassuring soul patted that speaker’s arm, and I swiftly shut my own eyes. How much pain could one room hold?

  The door banged open, and from the way everyone immediately looked up, you could tell they’d been waiting for this person to arrive. I looked over, too.

  It was Ned Kramer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  We left the meeting early. A bereavement expert had come to speak about how the five stages of grief are altered in cases of suicide, and Ned and I were able to sidle out.

  I stopped as soon as we got out to the street. “So much for being straight with me.”

  Ned had the courtesy to look away. “Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

  “Yeah, right?” I echoed.

  “Maybe there’ve been some things I wasn’t straight about.”

  “Some things?” But then I sighed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to be the pot, or the kettle. This business of being straight isn’t the easiest.”

  Ned laughed. “No. It’s not.”

  A truck went by, spraying twin waves of salt. Ned and I both jumped back.

  “Remember I told you how my house is a twin to the one I grew up in?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, that’s only one of the reasons I bought, on my own, a seven-bedroom home in need of a massive overhaul.”

  “It’s true you’re not exactly the prototypical client,” I agreed.

  Ned eyed me. “It’s also almost an exact replica of the house my wife had her heart set on in Connecticut. We couldn’t afford it there. And then she died.”

  I sucked in my breath. “Ned, I’m—”

  “—sorry,” he said. “I know.”

  “Sorry,” I said again, and we smiled wryly.

  But then Ned seemed to gather breath. “Five years ago, my wife and four-year-old daughter joined a church,” he went on. “It was supposed to be religion for a different age, liquid, gatherings online, all of that. I stayed mostly on the outskirts, I’ve never been one for organized religion. But Sue got very involved. She’d lost her father young, and this guy was charismatic, I’ll give him that. He began preaching about the rapture; he identified a date from Scripture. When he got it wrong, he had another revelation.” Ned paused. “They had to give the punch to the children first.”

  “Oh, Ned!” I was dislodging a clump of snow with my boot. Another clump followed the first, a small avalanche begun with my foot.

  He ducked his ruddy head. “That was my first big story—an exposé of the pastor who called himself Pater Iesus. I rushed it to press after the mass suicide. I think that’s all I did for the first three months—investigate and write. That’s right—I’m a reporter, but I didn’t sense the story under my very own roof until it was too late.”

  I opened my mouth, then shook my head. There wasn’t a single thing I could think of to say.

  Ned went on, his voice sharp as a blade. “The good pastor didn’t drink anything himself, by the way. But he did get convicted on thirty-seven counts of fraud and extortion after my story ran. He’s serving sixteen years.”

  I continued to stare at Ned through the brittle air. The cold scarcely penetrated in the wake of his words.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” he said finally.

  “You’re sorry?” I said. “What for?”

  Ned angled his head back toward the building. “One of the first things I learned in there is to stop elevating my tragedy. It doesn’t matter how many people died with Sue and Tracy, or what kind of attention the event got. Your husband’s—Brendan’s death is just as important, even if it wasn’t part of anything larger.” His mouth compressed in a way I’d seen it do before.

  “Maybe Brendan died as part of a larger thing, too,” I muttered.

  “What do you mean? I thought—are you talking about the ice-fishing accident?” Ned took a step forward, his eyes alight. “Did you find something out?”

  “No!” I said. “No. I don’t know anything about what happened twenty-five years ago besides what you told me. And I don’t know much of anything else, either. Except that I might not have been quite straight with you myself.”

  Ned stared down at me. “Look, I’ve had a really shitty day so far. I didn’t think I was going to make it to this meeting.” He scrubbed his gloved fists together. “Do you think we could go somewhere and warm up? You can tell me anything you have on Brendan.”

  “Anything I have?” I repeated, distracted from what Ned had said about his day. “My husband’s not a source, you know. His life wasn’t material for a story. And neither is his death.”

  “No, of course not—” Ned broke off. “I’m sorry. I told you, my day’s been from—”

  “And why do you always look like that when you talk about him anyway?”

  Another frown transformed Ned’s features. “Like what?”

  I pointed. “Like that. Your eyes do a funny thing, they kind of drain. And your mouth gets all tight.”

  Ned didn’t answer and it occurred to me how closely I must be examining him to see all of that. Unaccusto
med heat filled my face, a strange partner to our surroundings.

  Ned turned around on the sidewalk. “Look, Nora, I don’t speak ill of the dead, especially when the dead person was married to someone I happen to—to someone I’m with right at that moment. But Brendan and I didn’t get along especially well, okay? He just wasn’t my favorite person, and I’m sure he’d have said the same of me.”

  “Why?” I asked smally.

  He gave a hard jerk of his shoulders. “The few times I had questions to ask him—a story to do—he just didn’t seem all that interested in helping. Onward and forward, he told me once. Don’t look back. It was hard to get information out of him.”

  “He didn’t like hashing over the past,” I said, still in a small voice. “I guess his work and yours are kind of at odds.”

  “Right,” Ned said. “We clashed a few times, and that’s probably what you were reading in my face. So I’m sorry. I’m sure he was a wonderful husband to you.”

  Before I could figure out how to answer, someone ran up and grabbed my arm.

  “Nora?” the woman said as I swiveled.

  I instantly recognized the voice of my mystery caller.

  Ned took a step back, observing the two of us.

  “There’s a coffee shop over there,” she went on hurriedly. “Can we sit and talk?” She was already heading in the direction she’d indicated.

  Ned held up his hand in a wave. “I’ll, uh, see you. Or I could wait—”

  “Yes, do,” I said, the words awkward and stupid on my tongue.

  I turned to follow the newcomer along the sidewalk.

  She paused as soon as we were alone.

  She was dressed in the sort of long wool coat I had dispensed with during my first winter in Wedeskyull, after learning they were no better than a windbreaker against the cold. The one this woman wore was slightly threadbare, its hem frayed and a piece of lining torn at the collar. A dull brown muffler snaked around her neck and lower jaw.

  “I don’t really want any coffee,” she said. “Mind if we just walk?”

  I was beginning to feel the cold, but I turned in the same direction she did, and we went down a side street.

  “Sorry I interrupted you with your friend,” she said, from several paces ahead.

  “That’s okay,” I replied. “He’s not exactly a friend.”

  She stopped and looked back at me. “Who is he?”

  I was unsure how to describe Ned. “Well, he’s a reporter—” Before I could go any further, the woman’s face blanched and she started walking again.

  “I was told not to talk to reporters. That they wouldn’t help me. But it didn’t seem like friendly advice to keep me from wasting my time, if you know what I mean,” she added darkly. She drew me forward with a pull of her hand. “And it’s not like anyone else has helped, either.”

  “Helped with what?” The woman was starting to sound a little paranoid.

  She continued urging me along, away from the lighted houses. The weave of her silver gloves was ratty, threads springing loose, like a woman’s first gray hairs. We traversed two streets and came to stand by a lone copse of trees at the edge of some woods.

  “Look,” I said, before we could go any farther. “It sounded like you might have some information about Brendan.” At the woman’s blank look, I added, “My husband.”

  Understanding crossed her face. “I hope I didn’t mislead you,” she said, and I felt something plummet beneath all the heavy layers of gear I wore.

  “I’m not positive I know something about your husband,” the woman went on. She raised her shrouded face to mine. “But mine has disappeared.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  A halfhearted snow had begun to fall, ceasing periodically as if even the weather lacked the will to collect itself into a storm. I felt thick with disappointment, movement coming only with great difficulty. I realized I’d been holding out hope—for what I didn’t know.

  “I heard about what your husband did,” the woman began. Then she paused, moving forward into a denser stand of trees. I noticed she was no longer saying what happened to your husband, instead making Brendan into a far more active participant. “And it seemed like there might be some connection.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why did it seem like that?” Then I burst out, “Who are you?”

  Now that we were hidden away, the woman turned and faced me. Snow dusted her bare head. “My name is Melanie Cooper,” she said. “We moved up here four months ago.”

  She still wasn’t telling me anything—certainly nothing to justify my abandoning Ned on a sidewalk and walking off into the woods with a stranger as a storm was taking root. But maybe she did have something to offer. Maybe bringing things down a notch, speaking easily and congenially, would get this woman to open up.

  “Ah,” I said. “Newcomers.”

  “And you are …” she responded.

  I gave a laugh of assent. “Slightly less of a newcomer.”

  God only knew when I’d earn any other status. Maybe after three generations of my family had been born here? Sadness shifted over me. There’d never be another generation of my family now, in Wedeskyull or anywhere. Not without Brendan.

  Melanie and I began to walk apace, into the deepening woods.

  “Moving up here was the worst mistake of our lives,” she went on. “I’m afraid—” Blindly, she reached for my hand. “Oh, Nora, I’m afraid it was the last mistake we made!”

  I stopped on the path we’d been forging. “You think your husband’s dead?”

  Stupid, I told myself, or Teggie did. Of course she thinks that. Was that the connection she saw between her husband and Brendan? That wouldn’t help me at all.

  Melanie’s gaze twitched, taking in all sides, although dark was beginning to descend and the falling snow added a curtain of concealment. Bare, black branches swept over our heads, and Melanie was shivering much as they were, her body trembling as if it were being jolted by electricity.

  “I don’t know what to think,” she said, starting forward again. “John went to work one day and never came home. He didn’t answer his cell. Eventually it must’ve run out of charge, because now it just clicks right to voicemail.” She glanced sideways at me. “We have kids. Can you imagine how hard it is to come up with something to tell them?”

  I couldn’t really imagine that, and I looked away.

  Melanie’s head was ducked low, droplets of water making tiny divots on the new layer of snow.

  “What kind of work does your husband do?” I asked softly.

  We stepped between more trees into a few lilting snowflakes. They were disorienting; I didn’t know where the street was anymore.

  “That’s why I thought to contact you, after I heard your husband was a police officer. Because of the work my husband does,” she said, and I nodded, thinking, antiterrorist plant near the border, organized crime spy, drug mule.

  “He’s in concrete.”

  I almost laughed. The draining of tension, the pinnacle of anticipation I hadn’t even realized I’d been on, then the sudden skid back onto my plateau left me weak in the knees. For a moment I forgot the cold, that I was out here in a burgeoning blizzard with a woman I had no good reason to meet.

  Melanie noticed my reaction. “Seems pretty mundane, right?”

  The echo of Brendan’s voice far away. Mowing is big business up here, Chestnut.

  “There’s a lot of work here, though. All those big-box stores going up on the Northway. John saw an opportunity to get in by taking on some of the overflow. But he didn’t win a single bid. In the end he had to give up and go to work for Paulson’s.”

  Lenny Paulson was the only show in town, as far as I knew, the only one I ever used anyway. If the foundation on a house was bad, I’d have to get it reinforced first off, and Lenny was a good friend of Vern’s.

  I remembered something then. “On the phone,” I began. “You said you were afraid to meet in Wedeskyull.” In the way of storms in t
he north country, which disappear as quickly as they start, the snow had suddenly become sparse, and the woods had gone very dark.

  “The policemen I spoke to—” Melanie looked down for a moment, and I saw she was crying again.

  “It’s okay,” I said softly. “You said they weren’t very helpful?”

  “I wasn’t allowed to file a missing persons report for two days. That might be protocol, but once I did file one, I wouldn’t swear that report was put where it was supposed to go.” She paused. “I wouldn’t swear it was put anywhere at all.”

  “Who did you talk to?” I asked.

  She hesitated. “An Officer Mitchell and one named …” Her gaze flit away briefly, then she handed me a small gray card, its paper slick and familiar. Gilbert Landry was the name on it.

  I wondered why Brendan wouldn’t have been with Club when they spoke to Melanie. Gil was ex-military, a firecracker, always ready to go off. Brendan had said that he’d never liked him, even as a kid, and that he was worse once he joined the force.

  “They were more than not helpful, Nora,” Melanie went on. “They gave me instructions. What I should and shouldn’t do. And while he was talking, Officer Mitchell kept reaching for his gun. Not taking it out, of course, but it was—” She broke off, leaving me to think what that gesture would look like to someone not accustomed to it, to someone who was looking for help.

  “What do the police think happened to your husband?”

  Melanie averted her gaze. “They say he must’ve run off. Just left me and the kids.”

  I was trying to tease out the possibilities of her story, the things she wasn’t saying from what she was.

  “But he wouldn’t have done that, Nora, you have to believe me!” Melanie cried. “If John didn’t come home, it means something terrible has happened. And they must know about it! Anything that goes wrong, at the plant or on a job, has to be reported!” Her voice disturbed the silence. “And then I learned your husband killed himself!”

  Her words were as stark as a splash. My mind instantly shot to the night of January sixteenth. “When did John disappear?”

  “Only two days before,” she said, her gaze burning into mine, eyes like two embers, red-rimmed and fierce.