Angel in the Snow

by Glen Ebisch

  I took the hatchet out of the sack and handed it to Elaine.

  “If what I’m going to try works, you won’t need this. But if I tell you to, start running deeper into the woods and take this for protection.”

  “What about you, then?” she asked in a tone that suggested it might really matter to her.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll try to slow them down. By splitting up we might confuse them.”

  “Don’t be a hero,” she said primly, like mom warning me to wear a hat because it’s cold out. “I’m staying here with you.”

  “Okay, would you like to take over? Maybe you could just punch out the three of them. Do you have a black belt in something? If you do, now is the time to mention it, don’t be shy,” I said peevishly. My nerves were getting the better of me.

  “Sorry.”

  “Forget it.”

  I reached down and grabbed a handful of the wet snow and began packing it together as tightly as I could. Elaine caught on to what I was doing, and in a couple of minutes we had a bunch of snowballs piled up.

  By now the biker’s flashlight was only about a hundred and fifty feet or so from where we were.

  I heard the same voice as before call out, “Hey, Spacer, these don’t look like a girl’s footprints. They’re bigger.”

  “Who cares? We haven’t finished what we’ve got to do here,” the guy with the flashlight replied as he walked toward our hiding place.

  I stretched my right arm, massaged the shoulder, wishing it were baseball season so I’d be more limber. As I picked up the first snowball, the moon came out. It was behind the woods, so Elaine and I were in darkness, but the three of them stood out as clearly as if someone had turned on a fluorescent light.

  My first throw went high, over their heads. They must have sensed something because they stopped momentarily before continuing right toward us. My second shot caught the guy with the flashlight in the forehead. The light rolled in the snow as he dropped to one knee and put his hands up to his face.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” the biker on his right asked, and found out when my second throw got him in the neck.

  By now I had really settled in and was winging them out there pretty good, keeping my eye on the target and getting a nice easy follow through. The smartest thing they could have done would have been to crouch over and run across the field right at us. If they all did it at once, the worst they would have gotten were a couple of bumps on the top of their heads, and then they would have been all over me. But like most people, they weren’t anxious to run head-on into the darkness and the unknown. They had to figure that it wasn’t some ninety-pound girl clipping them, but who or what I was, or how many, that they couldn’t be sure of. So they stood there and took it.

  Actually they weren’t standing anymore. All three of them were either lying or kneeling, and they had turned off the flashlight. In the bright moonlight that didn’t matter, but I was hoping the fickle moon didn’t decide to do its disappearing act again.

  “Spacer, my nose is bleeding. My hand is all black with blood,” the one with the loud voice whined.

  “Okay, we’re not getting paid enough to go through this,” a guy I figured was Spacer said. “We’ll get the girl another time.” He switched on the flashlight and the three of them, staying crouched over, began an awkward, monkey-like run back to the road.

  Elaine started to stand, but I put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Let’s wait till we hear the engines, just to be sure.”

  When the motorcycles barked to life a few minutes later, we stayed inside the cover of the woods and made our way to the far end of the field on the side away from the road. I whispered to her not to talk. In case someone was out in the field waiting for us, I wanted to slip around him unnoticed. Going that route, it took us a long time to get back to the field house. Only when we were walking up the path leading from there to the library, did I feel safe enough to break the silence.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, thanks. I didn’t know there still were guys around who saved damsels in distress.”

  “I’m new here. I just transferred in a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I only started in September myself. You must have Mr. Hawthorne for an advisor, then, he handles all the transfers.”

  “A cute guy with fancy shoes?”

  “Yeah, but he’s nice. He’s my advisor, too, and I work in his office.”

  “I guess running into me made this your lucky night,” I said, to remind her that it was me and not Hawthorne who had just saved her from the Heck’s Angels.

  “No, it hasn’t been that,” she said in a funny voice.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want to go back to my room tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  Elaine hesitated. “It’ll be too hard to get past Miss Carmody. She never goes to sleep before one, and she’ll ask a lot of questions if she sees me covered in snow like this.” Miss Carmody was the dorm supervisor for the girls.

  “But won’t she wonder where you are? She must be wondering right now.”

  “No. I stay in town late quite often on Wednesdays when I have my . . .”

  “Your what?”

  “Appointments.”

  I pretended that was an answer.

  “Can you sneak me into your dorm? Maybe I could sleep in a closet or hall somewhere, and slip out at dawn. I’ve heard Mr. Prendergast doesn’t keep a very close watch.”

  “You can do better than that,” I said gallantly. “You can stay in my room.”

  “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “What about your roommate?”

  Good question. It was hard to know how Templeton would take to sharing the place with a female—even one in distress. He never gave any sign that he noticed that there were two sexes.

  “I guess Templeton wouldn’t mind.”

  “Templeton? Maxwell Templeton is your roommate?”

  “Yeah, but don’t let his reputation worry you. Anyway, he’ll be happy to help me out.” Yeah, we were like brothers, I thought.

  “Templeton is just the person I want to see. Let’s go to your room,” she said eagerly. Did Templeton have a reputation with the girls I didn’t know about?

  We were about to come around the library into the light, so I stopped and ordered, “Into the sack.”

  “What?” she said in a shocked tone. Then she spotted the bag and seemed relieved. “Why?”

  “Because if anyone sees me, you are my nice fresh laundry that I forgot to retrieve from the dryer earlier in the evening.”

  Without uttering another sound she climbed into the bag, and I went along carrying it behind my back and trying to make it look effortless. It was a good thing she wasn’t any heavier.

  “People are going to think you dirty an awful lot of clothes,” the bag said with a nervous giggle.

  “Shush! Laundry should be seen and not heard.”

  As I was passing one of the faculty bungalows, a familiar figure came out and gave a grunt of surprise as he spotted me.

  “Wood,” Mr. Jameson said, “I might have guessed you would be wandering around at night. Obviously you think your laundry is more important than sleep.”

  “When you need it, you need it,” I said cheerfully. Without bothering to answer, he marched past me down the walk.

  “Who was that?” Elaine whispered.

  “His name’s Jameson. He teaches English.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “You wouldn’t want to.”

  “You know, I like tall boys,” she said illogically.

  “Bag the conversation,” I answered, and tried to stand up a little straighter.

  I was just starting to get tired when I reached the room. Templeton was still bent over some big book and scribbling away. He gave me a quick glance as I opened the door.

  “You went out to gather wood, not wrestle with it; but unless I’m very wrong you’ve been rolling in the snow. And
from the way you’re carrying that sack, it must contain a giant redwood.”

  I put the bag down gently and opened the top, wondering nervously what Elaine would look like. I hadn’t been able to tell much in the moonlight. Maybe that’s why people say it’s so romantic, it hides a lot. Elaine crawled out onto the middle of the carpet.

  She was real petite. Her mouth was maybe a little too large to call her beautiful, but her golden hair glowed in the light of the fire, her skin seemed almost too perfect, and her light blue eyes, well . . . She looked up at me, gave a little smile, and my heart felt funny.

  Templeton raised one eyebrow slightly. “Wood, I send you out to bring back a few branches for our meager fire, and not only do you come back with some strange girl, but with no firewood.”

  “She was in trouble—” I started to explain, but Elaine crawled toward Templeton, almost as if she were begging and said, “My roommate has disappeared, and I think someone is trying to kill me.”

  Templeton’s face brightened. He came the closest to smiling that I’d ever seen. “Excellent! Excellent!” he shouted, springing up and throwing what was left of the wood on the fire.

  “We’d like to get some sleep,” I said.

  “Nonsense!” he roared. “You’ve brought me a case, Charles. Help the young woman to her feet. There’s no time to lose!”

  Chapter 5

  Templeton sat in one of the old leather chairs in front of the fire. Occasionally a log would flare up and throw a flickering light on his face, making even more noticeable the deep shadows around his eyes and the sharp angle of his nose. Elaine sat in the other leather chair directly across from him. I had perched on my desk off to one side after filling him in on our adventure.

  Now he carefully put the tips of his long fingers together under his chin and asked Elaine to start at the beginning and tell the entire story, not leaving out any details.

  “I caught the bus into town at four o’clock,” she began.

  “Why were you going into town?” Templeton asked.

  “I had an appointment,” she replied, staring at her hands. “I go into town every week at the same time.”

  “What type of appointment?” he asked impatiently.

  Elaine said nothing.

  “A medical appointment?” Templeton asked.

  Her eyes opened wide in surprise, and she nodded.

  “Are you sick?” I asked in concern.

  “I would venture to guess that her illness is not of the body but of the mind. Am I correct?” asked Templeton.

  She nodded. “I was ill at one time, but I’m almost completely recovered. How did you guess?”

  “I didn’t guess, I inferred. It stands to reason that someone who has an appointment the same time every week is probably consulting a professional person, most likely a doctor. That is also the only excuse the school would accept for a weekly absence.”

  “But how did you know he’s a psychiatrist?” Elaine asked.

  “If you were physically so ill as to be under weekly care, North Hill would probably not have accepted you, and even if the problem was not serious but chronic, they would have arranged for you to be treated by the nurse in the infirmary. So the most likely conclusion was that you are being treated by a psychologist or psychiatrist.”

  Elaine seemed impressed. “Lucky guess,” I mumbled, and Templeton shot me a withering glance.

  “My roommate Vicki Girard had agreed to meet me after my session with the doctor was over at six. We were going to do some shopping and have dinner in town. We’ve done it several times before.”

  “How does she get permission?” I asked. It had been impressed upon me when I registered that we weren’t allowed to leave the school grounds from Sunday night until Friday afternoon after classes were over without permission from our advisor or the headmaster. And they didn’t give it without good reason. Even on weekends we had to let the floor monitor know where we were going to be if we left campus in case there was some kind of emergency at home.

  “I don’t know,” Elaine said. “She got away with a lot of things, but whenever I asked her how she did it, she would just smile and get all mysterious.”

  “Did she meet you after your appointment as planned?” Templeton asked.

  “Yeah, and we went to several stores. We didn’t get to the restaurant until about seven-thirty. We had dinner and talked. About nine o’clock Vicki went to the ladies’ room.”

  Templeton held up his hand to stop her. “Even though the school allows you to keep these appointments with your psychiatrist, they surely don’t allow you to stay in town that late.”

  “Well, when I was first being treated, sometimes I was pretty upset after a session, and I stay for supper at the clinic where my psychiatrist works, maybe even spend the night and come back in the morning for my first class.”

  “At Valley View Clinic?” he asked.

  “Yeah, do you know it?”

  Templeton didn’t bother to answer. “So even though you no longer stay at the clinic, you wouldn’t get in trouble with Miss Carmody if you stayed out all night.”

  Elaine nodded. I gave her a little smile of encouragement, and she grinned.

  “Go on with your story,” Templeton ordered.

  “So Vicki said she had to go to the ladies’ room. I waited at the table for her. When fifteen minutes went by and she still hadn’t returned, I went to the rest room to look for her. She wasn’t there, and none of the waitresses or the cashier had seen her leave.”

  “Did anyone call the police?”

  “The manager wanted to, but I said that Vicki had probably gotten confused, maybe thought I was going to meet her at the bus station, and left without me. He didn’t much care as long as I paid the bill.”

  “But you knew that wasn’t likely,” Templeton said in a sharp tone.

  “Yes, but I didn’t want the police involved.”

  “Because you thought that possibly Vicki was up to something unusual. Something that gave her a reason to disappear.”

  Elaine blushed. “I just hate trouble, and Vicki does too.”

  After a time Templeton asked, “What happened next?”

  I left the restaurant and looked up and down the four blocks of stores near the place, but nothing was open that late. I went back and waited in front of the restaurant for a while. But it got so cold that I finally had to leave. Before I left I called the dorm to find out if Vicki had come back, but she hadn’t.”

  “You went to the station and caught the next bus back to school. How often do the buses run in the evening?” Templeton asked.

  “Every hour on the hour,” she answered.

  “So there was no bus between the time Vicki disappeared and the one you caught?”

  “No, I caught the bus at ten, and she disappeared around nine-fifteen.”

  Templeton had stopped looking at her and was slumped in the chair staring at the floor. Casually he crossed his right ankle over his left. I almost said something to hurry him up, but was afraid to disturb the great man’s thoughts.

  “I have two questions,” he finally said in a cold voice, “and please think before you speak and answer them truthfully.”

  Elaine nodded.

  “What type of mental illness were you being treated for?”

  The question took her by surprise. She crossed her arms over her chest, and gave Templeton a long look.

  “My psychiatrist said I was mildly paranoid.”

  “You mean you thought people were out to get you?” I asked.

  “Diplomatically put as always, Wood” said Templeton sarcastically. “Although you may not be aware of it, mild paranoia is quite common and is characterized by being distrustful of people. Perhaps a not unreasonable attitude in this day and age.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “When it first started I was out in California,” Elaine explained. “My father is a movie producer. One day he took off for Europe to make a picture, and a week later wrote to mom sayi
ng that he wanted a divorce. I knew the other kids were saying things about me behind my back.”

  “What kinds of things?” I asked.

  “Horrible things about how my father couldn’t stand us any more. And how most fathers just leave the house or maybe the town, but we were so bad that he had to leave the country.”

  “Did they really say that?” I asked.

  Elaine shrugged. “Who knows for sure? I thought they did, and that’s what matters. Maybe some of them really did say it. Anyway, after a while I wouldn’t go to school, then I stopped leaving the house, and finally I just stayed in my room listening to music and watching television.”

  “Your mother got professional help for you?” I asked.

  “Yeah, after a while, when nothing else seemed to work. She wasn’t in such great shape herself. We were both in analysis in California for over two years. Then my mother got a job in New York City. We decided that maybe it would be best if I lived in a quieter place, so I came to North Hill.”

  Templeton cleared his throat to get our attention. “My second question is a repeat, ‘What has Vicki done in the past that kept you from having the police called in the restaurant?’”

  Elaine shook her head.

  “Come along, I’m trying to help you. Don’t make it more difficult than it already is.”

  “There’s nothing specific. Like I said, she always seemed able to get special privileges, and she seemed older, somehow, than the rest of us.”

  “Older?” asked Templeton.

  “Yeah, you know, more experienced. Like she’d been around more. I figured she just had to do something she didn’t want to tell me about and slipped out of the restaurant. I know she doesn’t like taking the bus much, so I thought maybe she’d caught a taxi. I didn’t really start to worry until I called the dorm and she wasn’t there. Now I guess being chased by the bikers has got me kind of spooked.”

  “Is that all you can tell me about Vicki? Did she act unusual in any way tonight?” Templeton asked.