A Wicked Snow

by Gregg Olsen

  “I don’t know if you’ll see this as good or bad news,” he said, but the caution in his voice indicated whatever he was about to tell her was, indeed, bad news.

  “Talked to Warden Thomas yesterday afternoon. Wheaton’s in the infirmary again. It looks bad for him. Doubtful that he’s going to make it to his parole hearing after all.”

  “Oh no,” she said, feeling puzzled by her empathy for Wheaton. “What is it?” In a weird way, she had wanted to find her mother for Wheaton as much as for herself. He’d been stupid and devoted to her, and that needed to stop. She felt a little shaky and put her hands on her lap to hide the slight tremor of her shattered nerves.

  “He couldn’t breathe on his own,” Bauer went on. “His emphysema, you understand. He’s a big guy. His lungs can’t support what he’s become, size-wise. They brought him back, but he’s not going to get out of the clinic alive. At least the warden doesn’t think so.”

  While Bauer waited for more information from S.A. Ingersol in Portland, Hannah spent most of the earliest part of the day finding out how much Louise Wallace was loved by members of the Kodiak community. If anyone had deserved a park statue for selflessness, it appeared it was Louise Wallace. She’d been on this and that committee. She donated to the homeless. She even worked once a week at a food bank. But if it was an act, atonement for sins too dark to be measured, all of her good works were suspect. Hannah knew she had to face Louise Wallace herself, and there was no time like the present.

  Without telling Bauer of her plans, Hannah got directions to the Wallace address from the motel clerk, a man of about forty who shook his head at the mention of the old woman’s name. With utter certainty, he said that Wallace was “getting a raw deal” and was being ha- rassed by the Feds for “something she didn’t do.” Like half the island, it seemed, the motel clerk went to church with Wallace.

  “I love that lady,” he said. “We all do.”

  Hannah didn’t want Bauer to know where she was going, though she knew once she was gone he’d probably figure it out. She rented the last car available from Island Rentals and it was a beaut, a pink sedan that once had been the conveyance of a top Mary Kay cosmetics sales representative. So much for traveling unnoticed, she thought, giving in to a brief smile. With all that was going on in Kodiak and at home in Santa Louisa, a smile felt welcome. Brief, but welcome.

  The drive to Louise Wallace’s home was one of the most beautiful Hannah had ever experienced; trees of the deepest, nearly black, green, marched along the side of the roadway. Ferns spilled down the hillside to the crackling white waters of rushing rivers. Every now and then a break in the wall of green revealed blue, icy waters and an occasional cabin or ragtag mobile home. It was a gorgeous day, and if her business hadn’t been so grim, Hannah Griffin would have stopped to savor the moment. Alaska, she thought, is rugged, rough, but stunning at every turn. She looked to the west and saw ridge tops covered in snow, and it chilled her. Her mind started down the path toward the lady with the coveralls and down vest, and she fought it. As if in answer to a prayer, her cell phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She reached for it and looked at the display. It was Ethan. For a split second, she debated whether or not to answer. He was always worried. He’d tell her the same thing Bauer had—that she ought to go home. On the third ring, she gave in.

  “Hi, honey,” she answered. When Ethan didn’t respond, she repeated herself, thinking the connection was bad. Kodiak had only three cell towers.

  “Hannah, I have something very important to tell you.” Ethan was using what she always thought of as his cop voice. His words were steady and calm.

  The sound of his voice frightened Hannah. “Oh my God,” she said. “Is it Amber? What happened? Did that woman come back?”

  “God, no. She’s fine,” he said. “Amber’s fine. This isn’t about Amber. It is about you.”

  “You just about caused me to crash. Don’t do that.”

  “Are you driving?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Better pull over. This is important.” Ethan was glad his wife couldn’t see his face just then. Tears brimmed at his eyelids. In a moment, he knew, they would fall quietly down his cheeks. But she wouldn’t see them.

  Hannah found a clear spot on the shoulder, slowed down, and pulled in front of a wide dirt driveway flanked by an outcropping of mailboxes. She worried it was her uncle. Someone must have died, the way Ethan sounded.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ve parked. What is it? You’re scaring me.”

  Ethan drew a deep breath. He had agonized over how he would tell her. He knew this was the kind of information one should give in person, but that wasn’t happening, given where his wife was and what she was about to do.

  “Veronica Paine called, honey,” he began. “She told me something very upsetting.” Ethan was running out of momentum, and he knew it. He didn’t know how to couch what he had to say. He blurted it out:

  “Claire wasn’t your mother, Leanna was.”

  At first the words didn’t compute. How could they? “What?” Hannah sat in her pink rental car, her mouth agape, her heart a jackhammer. A car passed by. “You don’t know what you are saying.”

  Ethan told her what Veronica Paine had said, his tone bouncing from concern for his wife to anger toward those who’d held the secret about her. “Leanna had you when she was fourteen. Your mother and your father,” he hesitated on those two words, unsure of amending them or going with what they’d always been to Hannah, “adopted you.”

  Hannah’s jackhammer heart beat faster. “I don’t think so,” she said. She flashed on Aunt Leanna, her pretty eyes, full of love. The smell of citrus came to her. The gentleness of her hands as she brushed away tears from a nightmare. She was so gentle. So unlike her mother.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said. “It was a private adoption. The adoption papers were found in one of the bank deposit boxes. They were sealed by order of the court. Since Leanna was your only relative, and was coming to get you, those who knew figured she’d tell you one day.”

  “How could they—she—do this?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Think about your aunt. She was just a kid when she got pregnant. It couldn’t have been easy for her. Think of the times. Her older sister offered to take you…”

  Another car whizzed by, snapping Hannah back to where she was and what she was about to do.

  “Are you okay? Do you want me to come up there?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Hannah said. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

  She turned off the phone and stared at the road in front of her, and she cried.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The yellow house was aglow as morning sunlight poured over it like honey from the sky. Slowly pulling into the gravel driveway, Hannah could see a woman by the gazebo, setting a hose with an oscillating sprinkler among plantings of three-and four-foot spires of fox-glove and delphinium. Her nerves sparked and adrenaline pumped. She tried to shake off the uneasiness. As the sprinkler swirled, the woman turned around and noticed the car. And for a minute Hannah stared and wondered why she had even bothered to search for her mother in the first place. Why did she care? What had she wanted from a reunion? All of that had been made all the more confusing with the extraordinary revelation that Ethan had just provided. Not only where was Claire Logan, just who was she? Was she her mother at all?

  “Mrs. Wallace?” Hannah called out across the yard. Her voice was a little timid, and she cleared her throat. The sprinkler clacked and sprayed a ribbon of mist. When the woman didn’t respond, though she looked right at Hannah, she called out once more.

  “Hello?”

  Marge Morrison looked over and smiled. She hadn’t worn her glasses and she squinted at the visitor emerging from the pink Mary Kay car. Morrison might have been wary at the sight of a stranger, given the incident at the sheriff’s office, but it wasn’t her nature to be unfriendly or indifferent. “I didn’t hear you, dear,” she said, removing a s
traw garden hat and letting her silver ponytail swing freely. “Louise is inside. Are you a friend?”

  “Yes,” Hannah replied without thinking. She was more nervous than she’d ever been—and she knew she had good reason to be. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. She’d waited for this moment a long time.

  “I’m not surprised,” Morrison said. She dusted off her hands. “They’ve been coming in droves. Lou has more casseroles and salads than a supermarket deli.”

  Hannah forced a smile. “I didn’t bring anything. I actually came to talk with Louise.”

  “That’s all right,” Morrison said, stepping over a little sprinkler-made stream running across the front of the flowerbed. “Let me turn the water down and I’ll be right with you.”

  Two minutes later, they had their shoes off, borrowed slippers on, and were inside. Morrison led Hannah to the room with the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the icy-blue waters of the bay. Hannah searched the household bric-a-brac as if there would be a clue from Rock Point. A hint of the past. The place was beautifully appointed with matching furniture in striped and checked fabrics, but strangely cold. Nothing hinted at the owner’s personal interests. It had that distinctly Pottery Barn ambience, matchy matchy, but completely soulless. Nicely done. Neatly done. Baskets of pinecones and framed oil paintings of lighthouses and the like, but nothing seemed to be culled from some-one’s real life. Amid all of that was an elderly woman. Hannah’s eyes fixed on her. Louise Wallace sat in the blue wingback chair. Her ashy blond and gray hair was pulled back. She was not the woman who had accosted Amber back in Santa Louisa. Her hair had been black. Good, Hannah thought.

  Her eyes were hidden behind the glare of eyeglasses. A combination magnifying lens and light fixture swung over her lap where she was working on a counted cross-stitch pattern depicting a basket of red apples.

  “Lou, someone…” Morrison looked a little embarrassed because she hadn’t bothered to ask the younger woman’s name. “Someone’s here to see you.”

  Hannah’s heart was beating like a sparrow’s. “My name is Hannah Griffin.” Perspiration rolled down her side.

  Louise Wallace looked up to meet Hannah’s eyes and offered a friendly smile. Hannah froze the image and ran it through her mind like a computer in search of a matching file. What about her face? What about her eyes? Her teeth? Was there anything that matched?

  “Why, let me think,” Wallace said, setting down her cross-stitch. “I don’t think we’ve met. Have we?”

  Hannah’s brain was still scanning. Nothing hit. Nothing was saying to her that Wallace was anyone she knew. Her mother, adoptive or otherwise. Zero recognition. Hannah felt weak with relief. “Can I sit?”

  “Certainly,” Wallace said. “But you’re not a reporter, are you?’

  “No, not a reporter. I’m an investigator.”

  “An investigator? That sounds interesting.” Wallace swung the magnifier to the side of the chair. Her movement was swift and a little startling. She smiled at Hannah and called to her friend.

  “Marge, would you bring us some tea? More of that lovely chamomile we had earlier this morning?”

  Her glasses on so she could get a good look at the visitor, Morrison nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “I’ve been sitting all morning,” Wallace said, “but I’ve been through so much lately, there’s not much more I feel I can do.” She shifted her wiry frame in the wingback. “Are you—Hannah, is it?—from the law office? They said they’d be sending someone over here. I thought it was going to be someone I knew. I know everyone on Kodiak Island.”

  Hannah shook her head. “I’m an investigator, but I’m not involved in your case and I’m not from your lawyer’s office. I’m here on my own. I’m looking for my mother.”

  Wallace barely glanced at Hannah. Instead she admired her cross-stitching; her scarred fingers smoothing the red of an apple. “I have no children.”

  “Now? Or never?”

  Wallace gazed out the window, the bay a frosty blue line to the horizon.

  “Look at me, please.” Hannah moved closer. “Don’t you know me?”

  “I can see that you are troubled. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

  “There is something about you that—”

  “—reminds you of someone? That’s sweet. But I’m so sorry. You’re not one of those children searching for their birth mothers? Are you?”

  Hannah’s face was red with anger, and she fought for composure. “No, thank God. If you are Claire Logan, then I know you’re not my biological mother. And I thank God for that.”

  Wallace fiddled with her cross-stitch, the silver needle glinting in the stream of sun that had sent streaks across her lap. It was the first time her visitor—her pretty, young, and apparently motherless interrogator— had mentioned the Logan name.

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” she said.

  Hannah listened to each word as if each syllable could provide an answer. Morrison brought the tea in and set it down. Louise thanked her and said the two of them would be taking their tea out to the gazebo.

  “This girl’s searching for her mother. She thinks I might know her.”

  “Be her.” Hannah corrected, only to see the reaction. But there was none.

  “I see,” Morrison said, uncomfortable with the obvious tension in the room. “I’ll pick up in here; you two go on and enjoy the morning. I’m sure you’ll sort things out just fine.”

  Balancing fine china cups and saucers, Hannah and Louise slipped on their shoes on the front steps, and Morrison went looking for the vacuum. When she couldn’t find it anywhere, she poked her head into Louise’s bedroom on the west side of the house. A grand four-poster bed with a damask canopy and a pair of matching chairs commanded the room. It was the bedroom of a queen, and Marge Morrison doubted any woman in all of Alaska had such a splendid boudoir. Morrison ran her hands over the silvery fabric. In doing so, she noticed a suitcase on the opposite side of the bed from the doorway. It was heavy with clothing and slid halfway under the platform of the bed, out of view. She gave it little regard and got the vacuum from the walk-in closet.

  Out in the gazebo, Louise Wallace took a seat first and indicated Hannah should sit next to her in order to take in the view of the garden. A clematis vine climbed over a rail, and the heavy, earthy scent of marigolds wafted through the air.

  “Now really, what do you want from me?” she asked, her genteel smile fading into a cold stare. “I assume you are here to ‘get the story’ like that awful Hoffman woman?”

  Hannah could hardly believe her ears. The name caught her off guard. Dog Face was faster on her feet than she’d have ever guessed.

  “Marcella has talked to you?”

  “You know her?” Wallace let out an impatient sigh. “It figures. She phoned me last night, and I’ll tell you what I told her, the damned FBI, and anyone else with half a brain. I am not Claire Logan. Never have been. Never will be.” She sipped some tea and looked around her yard; a tapestry of flowers filled every bed. “A couple days ago my life was as peaceful as all of this. And now my world’s being turned upside down by a bunch of outsiders.”

  “Maybe I’m not such an outsider.” Hannah was tentative, but she pressed on. “Maybe, in some twisted way, I’m a part of you?”

  Wallace kept facing forward, as if something very interesting was taking place among the flowers of her garden. Her expression was frozen. “Like I’ve said, I have no children, no family. My husband is dead. That’s the only part of me that mattered.”

  “Look,” Hannah said, “I need you to face me. I need to look into your eyes. What about Erik and Danny?”

  Wallace turned toward Hannah, but her eyes were ice. “I don’t know anyone by those names. And I’d really like you to go now.”

  By then, Hannah Griffin had wound herself up like a mechanical toy. There was no stopping her. It didn’t matter what Wallace said.

  “What about Aunt Leanna?”
she asked. Leanna’s name stuck in Hannah’s throat, so tight with emotion. The woman who had been her savior, who had raised her after the murders in Rock Point, had been her mother all along. “What about her baby… about me?”

  Wallace remained ice. “Honestly, you’re completely unhinged, and I don’t know anything about anyone you’re talking about.”

  “Your sister… she gave me to you to raise as your daughter. You, a mother. What a sick joke that turned out to be.”

  This genteel, cookie-baking, Methodist do-gooder was unruffled. Hannah wanted to grab her right then and there, but somehow she held back. Wallace just sat, cool and dignified.

  “That’s disgusting,” she said. She spat out her words, contempt in every bite. “What kind of a woman would give her baby to her sister? That sounds like trash to me.”

  You’re trash, Hannah thought. You’re evil. Instead, she defended her aunt.

  “She was the nicest woman in the world. I loved her more than anything. More than I ever loved you, Claire Logan.”

  It felt good to say those words, as if Leanna was there, all lemony and sweet. It felt good to say Claire’s name.

  There was a flicker of interest on Wallace’s face when Hannah’s words indicated a past tense. Leanna, it was clear, was no longer living, and Wallace seemed a little interested. But as quickly as it came, the curiosity evaporated.

  Finally she spoke. Her words were dismissive. “I don’t know anything that will be helpful to you.”

  “I think you do,” Hannah said. “Are you Claire Logan?”

  Wallace wore a mask of willful, maybe even practiced, incredulity. She stood and faced her accuser. “I will not stand for this kind of harassment. Leave now or…” she stopped.

  “Or you’ll kill me?” Hannah asked, pressing harder. “Throw me in a ditch with quick lime? Tell your friend here that I deserved it? That I didn’t matter? My life wasn’t important? Remember you told me how much you loved a military uniform? And the security that came with one?”