A Wicked Snow

by Gregg Olsen

  “I’m fine,” Hannah said. She kissed him and snuggled in his arms. For a second, she no longer seemed unsettled. She even appeared to relax. Hannah was somewhat adept at hiding her feelings. It came with practice.

  This time Ethan wasn’t buying it completely. “You don’t look fine. You look like you’ve been drained. I’m half expecting that you’re going to keel over from stress or something.”

  Hannah forced a slight smile. “You’re more likely to go into cardiac arrest than I. Twenty-to-one chances I’d say.”

  “I’m worried, that’s all.”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  Chapter Three

  Hannah could no longer wait. She threw on her favorite white terry bathrobe and, without slippers on her feet, went down the hall. She flipped on the coffee pot, and went out to her Volvo. It was not the Garcia case that brought her from a warm bed with her husband, though the abused little girl weighed heavily on her mind. The contents of the car trunk had been gnawing at her like a mosquito bite that wouldn’t go away despite the pink crust of calamine that had been dabbed on to soothe it. It was there. It was outside, and tossing and turning and avoiding it wouldn’t do a damn thing about getting it out of her thoughts. Though she doubted anything could wipe it from her mind, she knew confrontation was the answer. She moved quietly across the garage, opened the driver’s door, and flipped the lever that released the trunk latch. Her breathing quickened. Beneath a Pendleton wool blanket she kept in the event that she was ever stranded on a chilly night, she found the box loosely wrapped in the grocery sack. She held it close to her thumping heart and returned to the kitchen.

  The box sat on the table in front of her, and just as she’d done when it was delivered to her office, she fell back in time; the memories began flickering by. Even to think it was to conjure the worst images a brain had ever captured in the gray and pink folds of its tissue.

  It was black, very black. And cold. The temperature had dipped well below freezing, a heavy layer of talc-like snow had tucked in all but the largest of the Douglas firs that marched up the mountain from the little house in the valley. Ice daggers hung from the corners of a farmhouse. A wisp of smoke, then a raging storm of fumes spiraled into the sky, then downward to the shed and the pump house to the carport. God had said never to forget, never to forgive. In the window, two little boys cowered in fear… the images flashed like old 8-mm film. Scratches of light cut through the images and in time, tears ran down her face.

  “Hannah!” Ethan rushed into the kitchen, grabbing a hand towel off the oven door handle. A river of brown was flowing from the Krups coffeemaker down the face of the lower cabinets. He dropped a towel to the tile floor and it turned from white to brown.

  “You forgot to put the pot under the filter,” he said, his words slowed as he noticed his wife hadn’t turned around despite the commotion.

  “What’s that?” he asked, moving closer and looking over her shoulder at the box.

  Hannah remained mute. Her eyes were fastened on what was in front of her.

  “What is it?” he repeated.

  “Shoes,” she finally answered. She looked up at Ethan and then back down at the table. She’d been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red. “I think they are Erik’s and Danny’s.”

  Ethan was astonished by the sight of the scorched boys’ shoes. “Shit,” he said, because no other word came.

  Erik and Danny Logan were Hannah’s little brothers and they had been dead far longer than they had ever lived. Even though their lives had been short, they had made their marks in ways that history’s footnotes often are constructed—through stories told by friends, family members, and in a handful of photographs that had survived. They’d become legend (a pop group from the UK called “The Dead Boys” had a string of hits in the late ’70s). But because of who his wife was, Ethan also knew what kind of boys they had been. Erik was somewhat bookish for a little boy; Danny was more of a cutup. Though the boys were twins, they were not identical in appearance at all. Most people who discussed the twins’ role in the tragedy assumed they had been identical boys when, in fact, they were fraternal. Erik was fair like his sister and Danny was somewhat swarthy and dark eyed. The boys had just turned six when they left this earth for what their Aunt Leanna would call “their great reward in heaven.” Leftover angel-food birthday cake from their party was still in the refrigerator when their young lives literally went up in smoke.

  Hannah’s attention stayed on the small shoes: Buster Brown oxfords. One pair had survived the fire better than the other; its laces were intact and its leather still showed hints of the oxblood color that had once covered the surface with a mirror-like luster.

  “Jesus, Hannah,” Ethan said. “Those can’t be the boys’ actual shoes?” He set the coffee-soaked towel in the sink and slid next to her.

  “I think they are,” she said. She cradled the pair with the intact laces. Inside was a notation made in ballpoint pen. It read: “JB/12/25.”

  Ethan put his arm around her.

  “I don’t know for sure,” she continued. “I never saw them except for the times when Erik and Danny wore them. They look like their shoes… and the…” Her words fell flat. “They could be.”

  “Where in the hell did they come from?”

  “Someone sent them to me. At the office.” Her words came slowly.

  “Who sent them?” Ethan asked again, rephrasing the question for which he most wanted the answer.

  Hannah shook her head. She didn’t know who or why. She thought she’d call Veronica Paine, the prosecutor who’d guided her through the courtroom so many years ago. “I’ll ask her,” she said, her characteristic resolve finally kicking in. “I need to know if these are from the evidence vault and, if so, who took them and sent them to me.”

  Ethan noticed the Life magazine that held the photo spread that inspired their annual photo of Amber in the flower fields was open to the story about “the incident.” There was a photograph of a burned-out farmhouse, the skeletal remains of a family’s life stuck in the mud and scattered across the black-and-white images. Smoldering rafters and floor joists jutted from an earth that had been soaked with water and melted snow. The headline read: HOLIDAY OF HORROR: OREGON MURDER FARM DIES A SMOLDERING DEATH. A second photo, inset into the two-page bleed of the burned building, depicted a volunteer fireman. Stuck on the butt of his axe was a little boy’s shoe.

  “I think that’s one of Danny’s shoes,” Hannah said as she took the magazine and placed it on the top of the refrigerator, out of view.

  Ethan put his arms around his wife’s shoulders. She seemed so small and very frail. She didn’t make a sound, but she sobbed.

  “There’s something else,” Hannah said, finally, pulling away and reaching for her purse. She unzipped a side pocket. “I got this from the receptionist handling the phones during the lunch hour.” She held out a slip of pale pink paper folded in half.

  Ethan fixed his eyes on Hannah and unfolded it. Across the top were the familiar words: WHILE YOU WERE OUT. Underneath were the date, Hannah’s name, and a box with “Called” checked. The message was only two words, but they were heart stopping.

  Your mom.

  Chapter Four

  Despite her worries, unfounded as she knew they had to be, Hannah Griffin was about to find out that hell had frozen over. And that was a good thing.

  Ted Ripperton hadn’t done anything right since 1993. And most of the observers in the Santa Louisa County Courthouse who were not related to him readily conceded as much. Ripp, with his leathery tan face and eyes popping from white rings of flesh left by tanning goggles, had his head so far up his ass that he needed a snorkel to breathe. At least most thought so. Hannah kept her opinions to herself, but she never defended him when others complained about his work ethic (as lax as could be), his personality (boorish and cocksure), even the way he dressed (Hush Puppies with black socks, khakis, white shirt, and a navy suit coat). Ripp was tolerated because he had to be. But a
few days into the Garcia investigation he surprised them all, including Hannah. He stopped her in the hall on her way to the cluttered warren of cubicles and minuscule offices that were supposed to support the functions of the DA’s office, but really kept people apart like eggs in too-tight cartons.

  He held up a manila folder. “Did you know Mimi Garcia had a little brother?” he asked. Coffee rings on the folder and powder from a bakery donut on his navy sleeves indicated what he’d had for breakfast.

  Hannah didn’t know what he was talking about. Police interviews hadn’t disclosed anything about a son. Her brown eyes fixed on the white goggle-rimmed eyes of the county’s best, worst, and only full-time gumshoe.

  “Here it is,” he said. Ripperton handed over the file slowly as though he was passing it on to a co-conspirator. He looked around. “And that’s not all. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yeah. Died of SIDS two and half years ago over in Landon. I found mention of it—I mean found mention of the kid—when I ran a DMV search on Berto Garcia. Came back that’d he’d been stopped for speeding and was cited for not having his son in a car seat.”

  “His son?” Hannah fanned the pages and set her purse on the floor. “Jesus,” she said, “Joanne never said a word about a son.” Her mind flashed to the Tonka truck on the room divider. Too new to be Berto’s childhood relic; not played with enough to belong to Mimi. The toy, she thought, must have been the little boy’s.

  “Nope,” Ripperton said, a smug smile now in place. He’d found something good and he knew it. “I guess she had reason to keep her mouth shut on that.”

  Of course she did. Hannah Griffin had worked another case at the beginning of her career with similar facts. A child had been beaten up and hospitalized with a broken collarbone. X-rays revealed a previous fracture of the tibia that had healed long before, despite the fact that it hadn’t been set properly. The child survived, but further and long-overdue investigation by Hannah and her paralegal indicated he hadn’t been the first to suffer in the household. It turned out that the child’s older brother died three years before. Parents told friends and family members their son had died of SIDS. The hospital had been told the boy fell from a tree fort while playing in his backyard. No one—not the police, not the caseworker assigned to the family—bothered to check out the family’s residence. They lived on a treeless lot. There was no fort. Besides, what parent would allow a three-year-old to play in a fort off the ground in the first place? Furthermore, a SIDS case involving a three-year-old?

  The little boy’s body was exhumed; charges were filed, and six months later, both parents were on paid vacations as guests of the California Department of Corrections.

  Hannah sighed and read the report Ripp had given her. The little boy’s name was Enrique Garcia.

  “The mother says her son turned blue and she was unable to revive him. Father was at home and made the call for emergency aid. Both parents reported that such an incident had never occurred previously…”

  Hannah felt her arms draw closer to her own body. More than anything in her job she hated the prospect of an exhumation. Plowing the earth for the remains of the dead made the bile rise into her throat.

  “I’ll get Judge Newell to issue the order,” she said stiffly. “We’re going to exhume Mimi Garcia’s little brother.”

  By the end of the afternoon, Judge Bernice Newell lived up to her reputation as the DA’s best friend in the judiciary. Judge Newell almost never turned down a request for a warrant. It was true she dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, and could seldom be faulted. Lawyers for the defense despised her. She was hardly impartial. She had a statue of Lady Justice on her desk. Super-glued across its eyes were reading glasses instead of a blindfold. It was kitschy and jokey, but it spoke volumes.

  Hannah Griffin didn’t notice her as she left for the day. But a woman waited in the lobby of the Santa Louisa courthouse drinking a cup of black tea from a paper cup. She pushed her long, dark hair behind her ears and tapped her pointed shoes in time with the Muzak undulating over the marble floors. A Helen Reddy song, she thought. Maybe Cher? She smelled of White Shoulders perfume and spearmint gum. When Hannah walked by, the woman smiled and raised a hand as if to wave. But the friendliness of the gesture was not returned.

  Hannah, of course, had no idea who she was. She had no idea of the hope the woman had for her. The hope that she’d bring her close to the one she’d loved and lost.

  The next day before work, Hannah dropped Amber off at school, as she did nearly every morning at half past eight. She handed Amber a tissue from her purse as she drove.

  “You missed a spot,” Hannah said.

  Amber had worked the entire evening on an oil pastel of a lioness and her cub; smudges of rust and tan colored the bottoms of her palms. Hannah handed her a Wet-Nap left from a drive-in chicken place. She kissed her daughter good-bye as she pulled up to the bus turnaround. A school crossing guard opened the passenger door to let the girl out.

  “I love you,” Hannah said with a warm smile.

  In a habit she picked up from her mother, the eight-year-old rolled her eyes, more for the benefit of the crossing guard than any real statement of her affection for her mom.

  “Love you, too,” she said.

  As she watched Amber run off, her pastel drawing fluttering in the morning breeze, Hannah felt satisfied about her daughter in a way that she knew she had missed for herself. She was safe, without fear, and she was loved. Later that afternoon, like all the others, Ethan would take a late lunch break from the precinct and pick up their daughter for dance class.

  And Hannah Griffin, lab coat over her linen suit, would do what she hated more than just about anything in the world. She was going to peer inside the dead body of a child.

  Chapter Five

  The exhumation at Green Lawn Rest Memorial Park in nearby Landon was delayed from two to three that afternoon because another family was burying their grandfather six plots down from two-year-old Enrique Garcia’s grave. Hannah arrived ten minutes late and parked by the chapel. The memorial park was a ten-acre emerald patch in the middle of an industrial compound adjacent to a ticky-tacky apartment complex that had sprung up around it. It was an old-fashioned cemetery with headstones that rose from the ground, instead of being flush mounted in that style the penny-pinching owners of such places prefer for easy mowing. A gentle breeze blew through the rows of granite markers. Crows called from the phone lines strung from the road to the apartments abutting the west side of the patch of green.

  By the time Hannah joined the others gathered around the backhoe, Joanne Garcia had arrived. She bolted from her VW bug and ran toward the group of police officers, lawyers, and cemetery personnel. She didn’t even take the keys from the ignition or shut the car door.

  “You’ll rot in hell for this,” she yelled at a cop blocking her from the grave site. Her veins popped as expletives convulsed into tears.

  “Why would she want to be here?” muttered Ripperton. “Why would any mother want to see her kid after he’d been planted for a couple of years?”

  “Ripp, you’ve got to be kidding. Haven’t you done this job long enough to know?” Hannah shot him a chilly look. “Because she’s his mother.”

  Ripperton said nothing more. He smoked and kept his hand on his pager, as if holding it would make someone call and he could leave. There were a lot of things that could be said about Ted Ripperton. Strong-stomached, however, was not among them.

  A yellow backhoe gently scooted a headstone affixed with Enrique Garcia’s name and a faded photograph of a sweet, but somewhat sullen, little boy. Hannah stood close to the wound in the lawn as the wheelbarrow-sized claw peeled off the sod. A few feet down, the big machine backed away, and a couple of cops felt the top of the cement liner with their shovels. A half hour later, the tiny casket was chained and strapped in preparation for its removal from the hole.

  “I want video,” Hannah said, “every step of the way.” An of
ficer with an overly eager-to-please manner framed the scene with the camera lens as he ambled closer to the slash of soil.

  “As long as I have juice in the battery, you’ll have your video,” he said.

  The casket had been flocked with a pattern of daisies, but groundwater or runoff from the sprinklers had weakened the glue. Sheets of fabric hung like a little curtain around the grimy edges. The box dripped fluid as it hung in the air for ten minutes. The county arranged for a hearse to take Enrique Garcia’s remains to the coroner’s office in Santa Louisa, but it never showed. In- stead, after scrambling about, a cemetery pickup truck was loaded with the box holding the boy’s body. Hannah nodded to Ripp and walked to her car. A police escort blared sirens and flashed blue lights, and two hours after they arrived at the cemetery, they were gone.

  Joanne Garcia yelled from the other side of the parking lot as Hannah got into her car. Her blue eyes flashed hatred and her mouth spewed vulgarities that had been absent from her exceedingly coarse vocabulary when they met at her mobile home. Joanne also looked older; her blond hair seemed white, almost gray.

  “You have no fuckin’ right to do this!” Joanne yelled. “You have no idea what you are doing!”

  Hannah felt a jolt of adrenaline and looked over at the red-faced woman with the battered daughter in foster care and the dead son just plucked from the earth like a turnip.

  “We have every right to do so. The judge’s order says so. You’re making this more difficult than it has to be— and it’s damn difficult.”

  “How would you like to have your baby pulled from his rest with God? You don’t know how this feels!”

  Hannah shook her head. “But I do,” she said quietly, more to herself than to Joanne as she clicked the shoulder harness of her seat belt. In a few moments, she turned to look, maybe even to say something, but the woman with the dead baby was out of view.