Winter at the Door

by Sarah Graves

  Across the street, a car in the Food King’s icy lot skidded and banged, horn blaring, into a parked one. A snowmobile shot fast and absolutely illegally uphill on the library lawn. And the fire siren atop the cupola on the potato barn went off, signaling a blaze somewhere.

  So much for the funeral; on the street outside Saint George’s the long, black hearse was just now pulling up. She’d never get there in time, not that anyone would miss her.

  Instead she headed for the fender-bender; after that came the snowmobile, a check on the fire siren, which turned out to be for a shed blaze somewhere, and finally a visit to Area 51. There her old pal Henry, after an initial tantrum, had settled down and taken the divorce papers stoically, although with a gleam in his eye that she thought boded ill for later when he’d had more beer.

  All of which took half the morning; by the time she finished sorting it out, she had barely enough time for the sixty-mile drive to Houlton and Spud’s court hearing.

  But she made it.

  FOURTEEN

  As Cody Chevrier crossed the parking lot between his office and the dome-topped, red-brick edifice of the Aroostook County courthouse, he felt his mood darken. Inside, Spud Wilson’s folks would be waiting to hear what came next for their son, still hoping that there had been some kind of mistake, and Cody meant to be there with them when they learned that there hadn’t, that the boy they’d raised was to be tried as a killer.

  It was his duty. But he didn’t like it. Inside, he climbed the polished stairs to the courtroom level, read the schedule posted on the wall across from the stairwell, and found the room with its varnished wooden wainscoting, heavily ornate wooden bench flanked by the State of Maine and American flags, and the prosecutor and defense desks of brightly polished wood, sitting at right angles to the witness stand.

  All the hearing participants had already arrived: Al Bacon, the county judge; the prosecutor, Marion Brandt Daly; defense attorney Hamilton Bell; and Spud himself, with a white padded bandage covering his injured ear.

  His folks were there, too, his father and mother looking stunned in their Sunday clothes, as if being well dressed might somehow be of help to their boy. His mom wept quietly into her tissues while his father, eyes bleary as if recovering from a hangover, sat with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

  Behind them sat Lizzie Snow, waiting like the rest for the proceedings to begin, which shortly they did, and almost as soon as they had begun, they were finished: the complaint was read, Spud was asked how did he plead, and he replied, “Not guilty.”

  All of which had been expected. Cody shifted, trying to ease the ache in his wounded shoulder, and wished the heat in here wasn’t always turned up so damned high. But he wouldn’t be here long; there might ordinarily have been a defense argument on why Spud Wilson ought to be let out on bail.

  There was no bail for murder charges in Maine, though, so all that remained was for the judge to speak.

  “Prisoner is remanded to the custody of the state.” The transfer had already been arranged and agreed to.

  But Spud still looked puzzled. “Jail?” he queried shakily. He’d been in a cell downstairs; the county lockup was right here in the building. “Does he mean I’m going back to—”

  But his father understood, all right. “No!” he shouted, his face reddening as he yanked his right hand out of his pocket.

  A hand with a gun in it. Not for the first time, Cody cursed the absence of metal detectors in the courthouse building; every year he argued for them, and every year there was simply no money for it.

  “No, you ain’t takin’ my boy,” the old man yelled, “this ain’t fair, this—”

  “Marty!” Spud’s mother cried, but he shoved her roughly away.

  “—this ain’t right! And it’s your fault! You … you always coddled him so, you made him that way!” He grabbed his wife, held the gun to her head, then waved it around.

  “Don’t come near!” he threatened as Cody jumped up.

  For an instant the courtroom was still, even the deputy who’d run in when the judge hit the panic button under his desk froze in place. Only Lizzie Snow stood slowly, her face a smooth mask of intent, right behind Wilson so he didn’t see her.

  Then she was on him, her hand plucking the weapon from his in a quick, deft motion, his arms seized and yanked behind him. Another moment and he was on the floor with her knee in his back.

  Spud stared slack-jawed. Cody wondered again if the boy was on some kind of medication, or if he’d suffered a brain injury in the shooting.

  But that didn’t matter now, or at any rate it couldn’t be helped. Al Bacon concluded the hearing and they all left the courtroom, Spud and his father in custody, leaving only Mrs. Wilson in her worn coat and run-down shoes, looking confused.

  Before Cody could reach her, though, Lizzie was with her, offering the woman a tissue and a ride home. “We can come back to check on your husband later,” she added kindly.

  Cody paused in the doorway as Mrs. Wilson went out into the hall. “After you get her home, you want to go get lunch?” he asked.

  Lizzie shook her head. “Can’t. I told Missy I’d stop by, talk to her about working in my office. I need—”

  He waved tiredly. “Yeah, a replacement for Spud. Fine,” he told her, and with a grin at him she was gone.

  A grin, by God, after what she’d been through. Ain’t she a pistol, though? old Carl Bogart would’ve said, and she was; Cody watched from the second-floor window as she guided poor Flora Wilson across the parking lot. With that spiky black hair, red lipstick, and elaborate eye makeup, she hardly resembled a cop at all …

  But she was his new deputy, just as he’d been Carl Bogart’s; watching her help Flora Wilson into the Blazer, Cody thought that on balance he’d done as well as Carl had, picking one out.

  Better, even. Meanwhile, though, his shoulder still hurt like a son of a bitch. Sighing heavily, he decided to take one of those pain pills they’d given him after all, call dispatch and tell them he was going on home to bed.

  Lizzie and the other deputies could handle things without him, he thought.

  So he did.

  “Missy? Missy, what happened?”

  Lizzie hurried across the driveway toward the Brantwells’ back porch, where the girl stood watching the fire crew finish putting out a smoldering heap, one that had been a shed.

  Missy shook her blond head sorrowfully. “Mom thought that she was in the kitchen and tried to light the stove out there.”

  The girl turned. “Oh, Lizzie, we can’t leave her for even a minute now.”

  They’d already put the fire out once, earlier, but some hot embers had blazed up again; now the fire crew soaked the ruins carefully a final time before packing up at last.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Lizzie. “Is the baby okay?”

  He was still recovering from his time in the woods; for a couple of days they’d thought he might be coming down with pneumonia.

  Missy brightened. “Oh, much better. Having his morning nap. But—”

  She bit her lip, staring across the driveway. “Lizzie, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I mean, with Dad gone.”

  In federal custody, she meant, which he probably would be for a long time. “Isn’t Tom Brody in charge when your dad’s been away in the past?”

  Missy nodded uncertainly. “Well, yes, but that was only for a few days at most. And anyway, Tom’s not around.”

  “Really?” Across the drive, the firemen inspected the shed wreckage, looking for more hot spots. “You mean on vacation?”

  “No, I mean no one knows where he is. He didn’t show up for work the day after Dad got arrested and no one’s seen him since. I’m getting worried about him.”

  Missy turned, her expression troubled. “You don’t suppose …”

  Damn, Lizzie thought. She’d known it must be someone; Daniel wouldn’t have approached a respectable guy like Brantwell just on a whim. But she’d been hoping it wasn’t the pleasant
ly ferret-faced foreman, the only one who knew how this farm ran besides Roger Brantwell himself, who’d been the link.

  “I’m sorry, Missy. But Brody must’ve known your dad had money problems. He saw the accounts, what came in and what money was owed.”

  Missy’s shoulders slumped. “You think he told Daniel that Dad might be open to a deal? To getting paid for carrying drugs?”

  Lizzie shrugged. “Something made Daniel think your dad was a candidate.”

  And now Brody was gone. Lizzie made a mental note to check in with Chevrier about it, as Missy replied.

  “Great. Something else for me to feel paranoid about. After Spud just walked right into the house and took Jeffrey, it’s like I can’t trust anyone. And this just makes it—”

  “You know that’s what happened?” It had been another thing Lizzie kept wondering about, how Spud had gotten inside and taken little Jeffrey without being noticed.

  Missy nodded ruefully. “Mom remembered. I mean, not in an accurate way, that Jeffrey was kidnapped. And not soon enough to help. But when I was helping her get ready for bed last night”—the girl’s face crumpled suddenly; she struggled for control and gained it—“she told me about the nice boy with the pretty pictures on his arms who took Jeffrey outside to play.”

  Lizzie couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, man. So she saw Spud? But he must not have seen her or …”

  Missy nodded, smiling through her tears. “Right. Daniel had told Spud to steal the baby for him so he could get away. I guess because you were looking for that little girl?”

  “Well, partly,” Lizzie allowed. “After the bust at Izzy Dolaby’s, though, he must also have realized the authorities were getting closer to him, too.”

  The last of the fire department vehicles pulled out of the driveway. The smell of smoke still hung in the air.

  “But it was getting too cold for them to stay outside much longer, and if they came into town, he was worried I might see the little girl. Or that’s what Spud said, anyway.”

  Missy was silent a moment. Then: “He knew all along. About Jeffrey, I mean. Daniel knew about the baby, he’d been watching me secretly since right after I left him, he took pictures …”

  Her voice broke. “I know,” Lizzie said gently. The photos had been found on Daniel’s computer, which he had powered via solar panels. “He was big on watching people, wasn’t he?”

  It was the same laptop that Daniel had been using to monitor Lizzie’s office via his bugging gadgets. Lizzie felt unclean just knowing the guy had spied on her for a few days; what Missy must feel after a year of being stalked was …

  Well, it couldn’t be good. “It turned out not to be her, by the way.”

  Lizzie looked out across the valley through the lightly falling snow, toward the forested hills beyond.

  “The little girl out there, she turned out not to be the one I’m looking for.”

  She bit her lip. The disappointment was still very fresh. “And now she and her mother have taken off again.”

  Missy looked stricken. “Oh, the poor things. You couldn’t keep them here just to help them somehow?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “Social Services tried. But there turned out to be a sister in Bangor who said she’d take them in.”

  She brushed off the unhappy memory of the stiff, blond-helmeted relative grimly ushering the two unfortunates into her plush SUV. Watching them go, Lizzie had wondered how long the arrangement would last.

  But like so many things, it was beyond her control. “And there was nothing to hold them here for. Mom was a victim, shot Spud in self-defense. They were free to go. So sayeth the court.”

  End of story, at least for now. But she could still do something about someone else.

  “Listen,” she began, and described what she had in mind. But when she’d finished, Missy looked doubtful.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Lizzie. There’s still the whole farm to try getting a handle on. And if Mom can’t be left alone at all, I don’t know how I’d—”

  Lizzie put a hand on the girl’s arm. “Look, I realize you need to care for your family, and I respect that. What you’ve told me about wanting to live here in Bearkill, too … well, let’s just say I understand better now.”

  Cody Chevrier, for instance, had lived a great life here, and so had Carl Bogart’s wife, Audrey; the more Lizzie heard of her, the more she admired the wise old sheriff’s spouse.

  “But, Missy, is a twenty-four-hour-a-day nurse’s aide job taking care of your mom really what you want?”

  Even aside from the problem of running the farm, she meant. Missy studied her hands.

  “No. And that’s what it would be, too.” But it wasn’t what worried Missy the most. “Oh, Lizzie, how could he have done it? Dad, I mean, and not just the drugs. He meant to kill you all!”

  “Yeah.” Lizzie had thought about this, suspecting that the question was coming. “Or he said he meant to. Who knows if he’d have been able to.”

  Missy looked mutinous. “He was making pretty good progress toward it.”

  She hadn’t forgiven her father. But everything would get easier for her if she did, Lizzie suddenly understood somehow.

  “Look, Missy, think about what you’d do for Jeffrey.”

  No reply. But Missy was listening.

  “I mean, your dad didn’t start out planning murder,” Lizzie went on. “All he wanted was for you and your mom and Jeffrey to be okay, and moving the drugs looked like the only answer to him. He didn’t know things were going to get so crazy, and by the time they did …”

  She paused, wondering if she should say the next thing. “By that time, he’d started using the product.”

  Missy looked up, shocked. “Dad? Was doing meth? Lizzie, I don’t—”

  Believe it, she’d been about to say. But after his arrest, he’d been taken to the hospital to be checked out; he had, after all, been in a vehicle accident—and blood tests had been done.

  “Missy, he’d been driving a lot, to and from New York. On the road late at night, I guess he felt he needed something to stay awake. Something,” she added, “industrial strength.”

  She touched the girl’s shoulder. “All I’m saying is, one thing led to another. He didn’t know how badly it would all go. And once it did, he must’ve known what a pickle you’d be in here, without him. He just wanted to protect you.”

  Missy smiled through her tears. “Thanks. You’d make a good defense attorney.”

  Lizzie managed a laugh. “Yeah, well. He’s lucky he’s got a real one.” Which was going to be another problem, she realized, paying for the attorney Brantwell needed.

  Then a thought struck her. “You know, Trey Washburn already knows how to run a farm. You should call him.”

  The veterinarian, who after a frightening twenty-four hours in the hospital had now recovered completely from his knock on the head, had big tracts of land, some with crops on them.

  Missy blinked uncertainly. “But doesn’t he already have his hands full with—”

  “No doubt he does, with his veterinary practice. But I’ll bet he could help you find another foreman, someone trustworthy. I’ll bet he’d help you keep an eye on things, too, make sure it’s all being done right.”

  Missy looked hopeful. “Maybe. And … you know, they have a daycare program at the nursing home. It’s right down the street from your office and it doesn’t even cost much, so if I had a job I might be able to afford having someone here at night.”

  She looked questioningly at Lizzie. “So if I could bring Jeffrey to your office with me …”

  That hadn’t been in Lizzie’s plan, but it could work if she wanted it to. “I’ll be needing someone to help me with Rascal, too,” she said.

  The dog deserved more attention than she’d been able to give him. “So you could all get out for a walk every day,” she went on, “when the weather gets better.”

  Possibility lit Missy’s face. “Or even now. I like walking in the winter.” But the
n her face fell.

  “I might still have to sell the farm, though. Or it might just get taken, if part of Dad’s sentence ends up being not only jail time but also a big fine.”

  Both of which were likely. “Look, let’s just take one thing at a time, okay?”

  In the back of her mind, Lizzie thought that Trey Washburn’s large appetite for acreage might solve Missy’s problems. But that was a conversation best left for another day.

  “Okay,” said Missy. “You’re right, for now I’ve got enough on my plate.” She took a deep breath, steadying herself.

  “Anyway, I’m sorry that you didn’t find what you wanted out there. Who, I mean.”

  Lizzie turned to go. “Yeah. Thanks. Me, too.”

  There’d be time enough later to dwell on her next step in trying to find Nicki, and she should get back to work. But she did have a final question.

  “You threw the rock, didn’t you? My front window that night, when it got smashed … you put the note on the rock and you snuck up and—”

  The pink flush creeping up Missy’s neck gave Lizzie her answer. “But why?” Lizzie persisted.

  “I was worried about you, and I guess I panicked. I didn’t know yet, but I already had a feeling about what might be going on. And I knew that if Dan was involved at all, things could get ugly quick.”

  Missy looked up. “You’d been so nice to poor Henry in the bar that night. So humane, I guess is the word. I wasn’t sure you were …”

  “Ready for it?” Lizzie finished. She thought for an instant about a man clad in furs and skins, heavily armed and holding a woman and child prisoner.

  Descending the porch steps, she replied, “Yeah, maybe you were right. But listen, next time, give me a heads-up in person, okay? I can’t go on replacing those expensive windows.”

  She got into the Blazer. On the way out, she passed one of Brantwell’s farm workers; with a roaring chain saw he was cutting up a charred beam from the incinerated shed.

  His expression didn’t change as she went by. She wondered if the missing foreman was the only farm employee involved in luring Brantwell into a deal with the devil.