Dead of Winter

by Annelise Ryan

  They are quiet and mysterious, and there have been times when they have made me arch my brows in confusion. I was originally told that their full names were Cassandra and Katherine, but have since been corrected by the sisters themselves, who informed me that their full names are Cassiopeia and Katerina. I think they made up one set of names, but I’m not sure which one. Did they go through a stage where they hated the dramatic qualities of Cassiopeia and Katerina and decided to normalize themselves by simplifying their names? Knowing what I do of the two of them, I doubt this, since the girls have never been about the plain and ordinary. I think the more likely explanation is that their given names are Cassandra and Katherine, but they decided these monikers weren’t exotic or mysterious enough for them. So they upgraded. Whatever their full names are, the “Cass” and “Kit” diminutives are what most people use because the combination of the two nicknames, and the opportunity to refer to them as the CassKit sisters, is all too irresistible.

  They help me roll and maneuver Liesel Paulsen, assuming that’s who she is, into a body bag. We have yet to confirm her identity, but the DMV picture Richmond showed me on his phone makes me think it’s her. I want to believe it’s her, not because I want her dead—I’d give anything if that wasn’t so—but because some creep has stolen her life and I don’t want to believe that he’s somehow managed to steal her identity as well.

  I’ve never been able to tell the Johnson girls apart, so I’m not sure if it’s Kit or Cass who frowns as we zip the body bag closed.

  “What happened to her?” she asks.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I tell her. “I suspect she’s been beaten to death.”

  “She’s so young,” Cass or Kit says. She looks across the body at me. “Was the guy who brought her in a boyfriend?”

  The quieter of the two sisters pipes up at this point. “She wants to know because she’s dating a loser with a bad temper, despite my warnings to stay away from him.”

  “Is that true, Cass?” I ask, taking a stab at the identity of the bothered sister.

  “I’m Kit,” she says with a tired smile, “and he’s never hit me or anything like that.”

  “The key word being ‘yet,’” Cass says with a hefty dose of sarcasm. “But he yells at her all the time, punches holes in walls, and threatens her with bodily harm when their arguments get heated. Plus, he doesn’t like it when she wants to spend time with me or anyone else in the family.”

  “Those are clear danger signs,” says a voice behind us. I turn and see that Hildy has reentered the room. She walks over to Kit and places a hand on her arm. “Let’s talk about this,” she says in a calming voice. Her large blue eyes are reassuring. “Come back when you’re done with work today and let’s sit down and discuss what’s going on, okay?”

  Kit stares back at her for several beats before saying, “I have to take call all evening, so I’m not sure when I’ll have time.”

  Hildy takes a card from her pants pocket and asks me if she can borrow a pen. I take one from my scene kit and hand it to her. She uses it to write something on the back of the card, and then hands the card to Kit. “I’ll be here until three today, and that number on the back of the card is my personal cell phone. Call me anytime, and we’ll talk on the phone if need be, okay?”

  Kit takes the card and slides it into the back pocket of her pants. The pants are very tight—she has the figure to get away with it—and I can clearly see the outline of the card when she’s done. Without another word, she goes back to her duties. A moment later, we have the body loaded onto the funeral home stretcher, and a blue fabric cover is placed over it all. Cass and Kit roll the stretcher from the room and I follow. So does Hildy.

  “Thanks,” I tell Hildy in a low voice when we reach the back door, where the funeral home hearse is parked. We watch as the Johnson sisters load the stretcher into the back.

  “Make sure she calls me, okay?” Hildy says, her voice barely above a whisper. “This sounds like a dangerous situation.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “And let me know if I can help at all with our other victim,” Hildy adds. “These lost souls haunt me, you know?”

  I do.

  My own hearse—a personal vehicle, not a work-related one, even if it is somewhat apropos—is parked not far from the Johnson hearse. The girls wait for me to get behind the wheel, and then I follow them to the morgue, pulling into the underground garage about eight minutes later. Sorenson is not a huge town, and it’s located in an area of Wisconsin that is populated by other small towns and a lot of rural countryside. Since my boss, Izzy, lives here and was hired as a medical examiner years ago, our office handles deaths from a wide surrounding area that includes all of our county and, occasionally, some neighboring ones. The bigger cities, such as Madison and Milwaukee, are either an hour or an hour and a half away, respectively. Because of our small size, a lot of our work gets farmed out to the labs in those cities. But in the three years that I’ve been doing this job, our abilities and responsibilities have grown. Many parts of Wisconsin still operate on a coroner system, so the presence of an actual medical examiner—a geographic fluke for our area—lends our office a level of professionalism, ability, and importance that some of the other offices in the neighboring outlying areas don’t have.

  The Johnson sisters use their key cards to access the elevator and bring the stretcher into the elevator, which takes us up to the main floor, exiting into a back hallway near our autopsy room. We have three autopsy tables—a bit of overkill, if you can forgive the pun, given that we only have one ME and only do one autopsy at a time. They help me transfer Liesel’s body from their stretcher onto one of ours. Then they sign some paperwork to record the transfer of the body to me so that there is a clear trail of evidentiary possession.

  “Thanks, guys,” I say.

  They nod and turn to leave, but I call out to Kit, this time knowing I’ve got the right sister because I can see the outline of the business card in her back pocket. “Kit, I hope you’ll take Hildy up on her offer to talk. Sometimes it helps to get an objective, outside opinion on things.”

  Kit says nothing, but she smiles at me. It’s not a particularly convincing smile, and I feel a twinge of worry for her. Cass also smiles, hers more an expression of gratitude. And then they are gone.

  I wheel the stretcher bearing Liesel’s body onto a scale and record the weight in a computer file I start for her. She is small, weighing only 117 pounds, and I feel a flare of anger at whoever abused her, knowing they were likely twice her size. Hell, I’m nearly twice her size, and I feel a tiny twinge of guilt when I realize that Liesel is exactly the kind of girl I used to hate in high school: petite, pretty, and well proportioned.

  I suppose “hate” is too strong a word for what I felt, but there was definitely some soul-sucking envy, given that I was already six feet tall when I started high school, was wearing a size-40DD bra, and had feet so big that Jimmy Hoffa could’ve been hiding out in one of my shoes all these years. When most of my schoolmates were shopping for clothes in trendy, chic little shops, I was thumbing my way through the Lane Bryant racks, wondering why so many of the clothing lines bore the names of Greek and Roman goddesses like Aphrodite, Athena, and Venus—though given that Venus is also a planet, I suppose that one is apropos. There are days when I feel as big as a planet, with moons of fat circling around me.

  Oddly enough, my mother is built like Liesel. Clearly, I inherited my physique from my father, who is well over six feet tall, wears a size-fifteen shoe, and tends toward what my sister, Desi, calls “thickness.” That’s her kind way of avoiding the f-word whenever I start bemoaning my figure. Desi got my mother’s build, and when we were kids, she had no compunction about calling me any number of stinging names when she was ticked at me, monikers like “lard ass,” “thigh-tanic,” and “gazonga chest.” On one occasion, when I came home with a pair of red flats I’d purchased to go with a new outfit, Desi, who was mad at me over some long-for
gotten transgression, snidely asked me if I was trying out for clown school.

  Fortunately, age has brought both maturity and kindness to our relationship, but there were times when we were kids when it was like World War III in our house. I didn’t let her insults go unrequited. I spent the better part of one weekend stealing items of her clothing and sneaking them over to Jennifer Closker’s house because Jennifer knew how to sew. I had her take in the seams and trim them so that when Desi tried to put the clothes on, they’d be suddenly too small. I managed a few other pranks, such as mixing baby oil into her shampoo, and tanning lotion into her regular skin lotion, which made her look like a greasy-haired zebra. Despite these childhood rampages, Desi is my closest confidante and best friend these days, and I’d honestly be lost without her.

  As if Desi somehow knows I’m tripping down memory lane, my cell phone rings and I see that it’s her.

  “Hey, Desi, what’s up?”

  “I just realized that Hurley’s birthday is next Monday. Are you planning a party?”

  I utter a silent curse. “Um, yeah, but I haven’t nailed down the specifics yet.” This is essentially the truth. I thought about throwing a party for him . . . five months ago when we celebrated Matthew’s second birthday. Thoughts of Hurley’s birthday haven’t crossed my mind since, however. The date kind of sneaked up on me.

  “Are you inviting friends, or limiting it to family?” Desi asks.

  “I think family.”

  “You think,” Desi echoes with a healthy dose of skepticism. “You haven’t had time to plan anything, have you?”

  “I haven’t,” I admit. “I’ve been so busy with work stuff. . . .” I let my excuse trail off, knowing it sounds feeble and like a winning entry for the Worst Wife of the Year award. I figure I can hang the certificate on the wall next to my Worst Mother of the Year award, one I feel I’ve earned several times since Matthew’s birth, this morning included.

  When it comes to motherhood, Desi has me beat hands down. Despite her occasional abuses of me growing up, she was born to be a mother, and her kids, Erika, who is fourteen, and Ethan, who is twelve, are sweet, well-rounded, and well-behaved kids. This is all the more surprising, given that their father is Lucien Colter, a local attorney who specializes in criminal defense, but dabbles in other areas as well, such as crass behavior, unfiltered vocabulary, and sartorial disasters. Desi and Lucien met when she was in high school and he was in law school. They got married right after she graduated, and wasted no time at all in starting a family. Desi had Erika when she was just nineteen years old. That blows my mind at times. When I was nineteen, I could barely plan what to wear the next day, much less the start of a family. And since, technically, I didn’t plan the start of the family I have now, I think it’s safe to say I haven’t gotten much better with time.

  “Why don’t you let me throw something together?” Desi offers. “We can do it here, just like we did with your wedding, and my birthday party. We can have it on Sunday, so no one has to work. I’ll invite Dom, Izzy, and Juliana, of course, but we’ll keep it just the clan otherwise.”

  Juliana is the adorable nine-month-old Izzy and Dom adopted six months ago, and she is also my son’s best and most frequent playmate, since Dom is my primary childcare provider, though Desi fills in a lot of the time. While Izzy and Dom aren’t actually related to us in any way, they, and now by extension Juliana, have always been considered part of our family.

  “I doubt Mom will come,” Desi goes on, “but you never know.”

  “Speaking of moms,” I say, “if we invite Dom and Izzy, we should probably invite Sylvie.”

  “Oh, right,” Desi says, and it’s obvious from the tones we’ve both adopted that this option is not high on either of our lists.

  Sylvie is Izzy’s mother, and a difficult woman to like at times, since she is an opinionated, headstrong, stubborn old woman who never misses a chance to say what she thinks. She is also fiercely independent and hasn’t taken well to the fact that her health is failing and her strength isn’t what it used to be—though woe be it to anyone who ticks her off and is within the swing arc of her walker. Izzy had a cottage built behind his house for Sylvie several years ago after she fell and broke her hip. But after living in it for a year, Sylvie’s rehab worked well enough that she was able to move out and into an apartment of her own. This worked well for me, too, since it left the cottage vacant right around the time I fled my home and marriage after catching David in flagrante delicto with a coworker.

  Unfortunately, Sylvie’s recovery was short-lived, and other health problems eventually made it unsafe for her to live alone. Izzy would have gladly let her move in with him into what Sylvie refers to as the “big house,” but she isn’t very accepting or tolerant of her son’s sexual orientation. Being the natural-born caregiver he is, Dom has done much to win her over, and the presence of Juliana has softened Sylvie even more. But decades of blind prejudice are hard to overcome, and Sylvie still can’t resist the occasional judgmental tongue-clucking, or a bit of commentary regarding her son’s living situation. The cottage offers the perfect solution by providing Sylvie with the sense of independence she desires, while still being close to her son. And it leaves Dom and Izzy with some privacy, so it’s a win-win situation all around.

  As I’m contemplating the potential headaches inherent in inviting Sylvie, something occurs to me. “Desi, when you say we’ll keep it to family, are you including my . . . our father?”

  There is a moment of silence on the other end that gives me my answer. Up until last summer, I always thought Desi was my half sister, fathered by my mother’s second husband after my father ran off when I was four. It turns out I was wrong about a lot of things. My father didn’t actually abandon us. He entered the Witness Protection Program, and my mother refused to go with him. There were a number of reasons why she refused, not the least of which is her severe OCD and a bad case of agoraphobia. My mother was pregnant with Desi at the time, and in order to protect us, she passed Desi off as the progeny of another man. She did so with such alacrity that even my father didn’t know the truth until recently.

  Of course, neither did Desi, so I suppose it’s understandable that she’s now curious about the man who is her newly discovered biological father. I’m curious about him, too, but I’ve harbored such ill feelings toward him for so many years that I’m having a harder time than she is making nice with the man, now that he has reentered our lives.

  “I’d like to invite him,” Desi says. “But if it’s too uncomfortable for you, I won’t.”

  I sigh. “It’s hard for me to tell you no, given that you’re offering your home and throwing a party for my husband,” I tell her. “How often are you seeing him?”

  Aware of how much this subject bothers me, Desi and I have spent the past few months avoiding discussions about our father. Desi has done a good job of making sure our paths don’t cross. But I realize it might be time to set my petty differences aside and give the man another chance.

  “He comes by about once a month,” Desi says. “The kids have really gotten to know him. He spends a lot of time with them, especially Ethan. He’s as fascinated with Ethan’s bug collection as Ethan is, and it’s really helped them bond, since that’s something Lucien has never been able to connect with very well.”

  This is one of those rare occasions when I can relate to Lucien. Ethan’s bug collection is mostly dead specimens, but it also includes a live tarantula, which bears the ignominious name of Fluffy, and a live, three-inch-long, hissing Madagascar cockroach, which is more appropriately named Hissy.

  “Does Mom know Dad is visiting you and the kids?” I ask.

  “Heck no,” Desi says. “She’s been stressed out enough about his return, although William tells me she hasn’t declared herself terminally ill and taken to her bed for nearly five weeks now.”

  William (not Bill, he will tell you) is a local accountant whom I met on a blind date that Izzy fixed up for me not long after my
split from David. To say our first date was a disaster is a gross understatement, though it wasn’t a total loss. Like my mother, William suffers from OCD, though his case isn’t as severe as hers. Despite a ten-year difference in their ages, I had a feeling that my mother—who was, once again, single after divorcing husband number four—and William would get along well. And I was right. They’re going on their third year together. They share a fear of dirt and germs, making their house cleaner than the OR I used to work in, but William lacks my mother’s hypochondria, agoraphobia, and penchant for melodrama. He’s also an eminently patient man, a prerequisite for putting up with my mother for any length of time. Whenever my mother gets stressed—which is often, thanks to her many mental illnesses—she goes on a maniacal cleaning binge for a few days, then tells everyone she has some terminal illness, declaring that death is imminent. She then takes to her bed and stays there for anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, after which she gets up and goes about her life as if nothing happened. Ever since the reappearance of my father several months ago, and the revelations about events of thirty-some years ago, my mother has “nearly died” at least four times. The fact that she has recently gone for more than a month without declaring herself terminal is a sign she’s on the mend.

  “Just make sure you tell her you’re inviting Dad,” I say to Desi. “No surprises. I have enough drama in my life already.”

  “Oh, I’ll tell her,” Desi assures me. “That’s why I said I doubt she’ll come.”

  “Okay then, dear sister, you are on. And if you can think of the perfect birthday present for Hurley, let me know.”

  “You’re on your own for that part,” she says. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  As I disconnect the call, I wrack my brain trying to think of something I can get Hurley for his birthday. We have a new house, he has a brand-new truck in a gorgeous shade of blue that matches his eyes, and aside from some very unromantic ideas, like socks and underwear, I can’t think of a single thing he might want or need. My husband is a simple man who takes pleasure in the tiniest of things: the way the sunlight hits the snow and makes it sparkle like diamonds, the sound of his son’s laughter, the feel of my body snugged up against his, the rich flavor of a perfectly grilled and seasoned steak. This aspect of him is one of the reasons I love him, but it’s also one of the reasons I hate trying to come up with a gift for him.