Dead of Winter Read online

  “Oh no!” I say. “Can we get a temp in?”

  “No need,” Izzy says. “I can cover for now.”

  “Izzy,” I say in my best reprimanding tone. “You’re supposed to be part-time and semiretired at this point, remember? Your heart attack wasn’t that long ago. Don’t overdo it.”

  “I won’t. That’s why I’m going to wait until tomorrow, assuming I can even get in. This storm is building fast, and from what Otto said, the stuff yet to come our way is nasty. I’d stay here in the office tonight, but I think Dom needs me.”

  “I’m sure he does. I’ll be there in a little bit and drive you home. Let’s hope the weather will keep people on their best behavior tonight so we don’t have to go out on any calls.”

  “You won’t need to. Christopher is staying here overnight.”

  “Smart thinking on his part,” I say. “See you soon.”

  I disconnect the call and fill Junior and Hurley in on the conversation.

  “I suppose we should all get sheltered as soon as possible,” Junior says. “What do you say we call it a night? I’ll lock up here. I got the keys from that Haugen woman.”

  “Sounds good,” Hurley says.

  * * *

  With that, he and I head for the back door. When we open it, we are met with a winter maelstrom of swirling, stinging snow; frigid gusts of wind; and an early darkness thanks to the cloud coverage. We make it to the truck without blowing away, but there are a few dicey moments.

  “Man, this thing is really revving up,” Hurley says. “I’m going to go back to the station and help Richmond, but why don’t I drive you home first? You can pick up the hearse in the morning.”

  “I need to take Izzy home,” I remind him. “And I need to report off to Christopher. I’ll be fine. That hearse handles well in the snow.”

  Hurley looks displeased with my answer, but he offers no argument. He white-knuckles the drive to our office, which, fortunately, is only a few blocks away.

  “Are you planning on staying all night at the station?” I ask as he pulls into our underground garage. The sudden escape from the elements makes me realize how tense I was during the ride. I relax, but I can feel an ache in some of my muscles from being clenched up.

  “Probably,” he says. “Are you okay with that?”

  “I’d rather have you home, but I understand. And I suppose you can work on finding more info on this O’Keefe guy. Has Richmond run him yet to see if he has any priors?”

  Hurley looks over at me with a big smile.

  “What?”

  “You’re getting good at cop-speak,” he says. “It’s kind of sexy when you talk like that.”

  I give him a look of disbelief. “Seriously, Hurley? I’m starting to worry about the things that turn you on.”

  “You turn me on, Squatch,” he says, his voice suddenly low and sultry. He reaches over and starts to play with my hair. “You always have. Right from the first moment I saw you.”

  I stare at him, unsure how to take this. On the one hand, I’m flattered, but on the other, I recall that the first time he saw me was at a crime scene, one involving the murder of the woman who had been having an affair with David. And not only was it my very first crime scene investigation with Izzy, I ended up being a suspect. Then there was the quirky turn of events that led to my underwear getting tagged as evidence.

  “I remember seeing you walking behind Izzy,” he says, “looking all scared and vulnerable. You were clearly unsure of yourself, even though you were trying hard not to show it. And the way you blushed with that whole underwear thing . . .” He trails off, his eyes gazing off into the past. “I don’t know what it was exactly, but something about the way you looked and acted that night had me all hot and bothered.” He gives his head a little shake and focuses on me again. “It nearly broke my heart when I realized you were a suspect. I didn’t think you had anything to do with it, but I had to keep my distance until I knew for sure.”

  I’m stunned by this revelation. I knew there had been an attraction between the two of us early on, but I had no idea how early, or how strong it was on Hurley’s part. For me, it was nearly instantaneous. One look at Hurley with his dark hair, vivid blue eyes, and those long, lanky legs so tidily wrapped up in a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans . . .

  I reach up and give his arm a squeeze. “Are you happy with our life, Hurley?”

  “Very,” he says without hesitation. Then his brow furrows. “Why do you ask? Are you happy?”

  “I am,” I say, and I mean it.

  He smiles warmly at me. “I will admit to one thing I’d like to see different, though,” he says.

  My mind reels in panic. Is he going to tell me he wants me to do a better job at keeping the house clean? Or that I need to learn to cook something other than hot dogs and mac and cheese? Or that I need to lose about twenty-five pounds? Or that he wants to have more sex? Or less sex? Or sex in different places? Or . . . heaven forbid . . . sex with other people? I start to ask him to clarify, but my mouth is so dry I can’t get it to work. It turns out I don’t have to. Hurley provides the answer for me.

  “I’d really like to think about us having another kid.”

  I’m both relieved and dismayed. This again. My mind strobes images of all the reasons why I think this is a bad idea, a montage of leaky breasts, huge bellies, morning sickness, swollen ankles, and me looking and feeling utterly exhausted. And then I see an image of Matthew smiling at me, hugging me, talking to me, calling me “Mammy,” his unique combo of “Mattie” and “Mommy.” It makes me feel all warm and squishy inside, and I smile.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say. “There are some things we need to consider.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the fact that I’m not a spring chicken anymore. I’m thirty-seven, Hurley. I might not be able to get pregnant.”

  “You certainly didn’t have any trouble with Matthew.”

  True that. Matthew was a surprise, one that occurred while I was on the pill, though I admittedly hadn’t been as religious about taking them as I should have been. Nevertheless, Hurley and I seemed eminently compatible in that regard.

  “My eggs are looking a little gray around the edges,” I say. “The risk of birth defects greatly increases with the age of the mother.”

  Hurley shrugs. “I don’t care. If it’s our kid, we’ll love it, raise it, and give it the best life possible.”

  “That’s an idealistic view of things, Hurley. It’s a serious consideration and it’s irresponsible to simply dismiss it out of hand. Give it some thought.”

  “I have, Squatch.” He takes my hand in his and gives it a squeeze. “I love Emily and Matthew, and our family makes me happy. But something inside me keeps clamoring for another one. I don’t know what it is, but it won’t let me go.”

  “It’s your biological clock ticking,” I tell him. “I’ve felt it, too, but I’m worried that in my case my biological clock has already sprung a few sprockets.”

  “Women have babies well into their forties these days,” Hurley argues.

  He is adamant on the subject, and I can tell from the tone in his voice and the set of his jaw that he is determined on this matter. More so than I realized.

  “You really want this, don’t you?” I say.

  He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and says, “I do. I love you, Squatch. I love us. I love our family. And more than anything, I want to make another little person who is a combination of you and me.” He shrugs. “I can’t explain it any better than that.”

  Tears well in my eyes. “ ‘You had me at hello,’ ” I say, my voice hitching.

  Hurley’s brow furrows. “What?” he says. “I didn’t say ‘hello.’”

  “No, silly, it’s a line from a movie, Jerry Maguire.” Hurley shrugs and shakes his head. “Never mind.” I lean over and kiss him before getting out, and as soon as I shut my door, he pulls around and leaves the garage, heading for the police station two blocks away. I
have the weirdest urge to run after him.

  CHAPTER 24

  I take the elevator up to the first floor and head straight for my office, where I find Christopher seated behind his desk.

  “This storm is getting crazy,” I say when I walk in. “Can I report off to you so I can drive Izzy home?”

  “Sure. I’m staying here at the office tonight. That way, I know I’ll be able to get to work in the morning.”

  “Yeah, Izzy told me. I think that’s a smart idea, given that you live out in the boondocks.”

  Christopher was renting an apartment in Sorenson when he was first hired, but he recently decided to buy an old farmhouse, which he’s living in while he fixes it up. It’s a charming place, with several acres of land, an old barn with a fieldstone foundation, and a stream that runs through the property near the house. But the charm ends there. The amount of work needed on the place is huge. The wiring is old knob-and-tube stuff with fuses, and the plumbing leaks bad enough that most of the pipes have to be replaced. The roof is estimated to be about fifty years old and it leaked like a sieve when Chris first moved in. Thanks to the leaking roof and pipes, as well as the ravages of time, and the work of some homesteading rodents, the walls and floors had been heavily damaged in places. The house was barely habitable when Chris bought it, but he replaced the roof first thing and courageously—or foolishly—moved in, sharing the abode with an extended family of mice, a small township of chipmunks, and a raccoon that hung out in the basement. After only a week, he informed us that the wildlife had flown the coop, and Izzy and I privately speculated on whether Chris had an exterminator come out, or if the quantity and quality of his daily emissions drove the critters away.

  His most recent project is the replacement of the electrical wiring. After wisely purchasing a high-end, gas-powered generator, he hired an electrician to come in and rip out all the old knob and tube and replace it with modern-day wiring. Unfortunately, he hired Billy Conroy to do this, and while Billy does a bang-up job—in the most literal sense at times—and knows his stuff, he has a bit of a drinking problem, which makes him a tad unreliable. I took care of him twice back when I worked in the ER because he managed to shock himself good enough to throw his heart into a funky rhythm. I know of at least six other occasions since then when he came into the ER with the same complaint. The one consistent factor in each of these incidents was that Billy had decided to work with a hangover. And Billy’s hangovers aren’t your garden-variety headache-and-nausea kind of stuff.

  Billy is a binge drinker, someone who will go days, even weeks, without touching a drop of alcohol, and then decide one night to get so liquored up that he can barely function. His binges typically last a week or more, and he treats his hangovers each morning with the hair of the dog, to the point where the dog bites him in the ass.

  Billy’s binges are the stuff of legend in Sorenson. On one infamous occasion, the police found him naked doing the breaststroke on someone’s front lawn while the sprinklers were going. Another time, he was found naked curled up in the corner of a coat closet in the house of a perfect stranger. Yet another time, he was found—yes, naked again—sitting on a bench downtown trying to “drive” with a Frisbee in his hands. Billy’s penchant for getting naked when he binges has led to the police keeping a spare change of clothes for him down at the station.

  Billy was between binges when he was hired to redo Chris’s wiring, and he managed to stay sober long enough to rip out most of the old stuff and start running the new wire. But then one of his binge cycles kicked in and he hasn’t been back to the house in over two weeks, so Christopher has no power other than what he can run off his generator. He’s been using candles for light, his fireplace for heat, and an old kerosene stove to cook on. Since he doesn’t have hot water, he’s been using the office bathroom and showers for his daily ablutions. And once a week, he hauls his laundry to the local Laundromat to wash it.

  It’s a lifestyle that might do in the hardiest of souls, but Christopher has taken it on with good spirits and a sense of adventure. The coming storm, however, might be too much for even his pioneering spirit, since his house’s location gives him a half-hour commute on winding, narrow country roads, and his car is a beat-up old VW Bug, with tires that have about as much tread on them as an inner tube. I figure sleeping on a stretcher in a morgue that has power, heat, and running water will probably seem like Shangri-la to him at this point, even if he is sharing the space with a few dead people. At least they won’t be bothered by his gastric problems.

  “Let me know if you need any help,” I tell Christopher. “If you get a call, that car of yours isn’t going to do very well. Hurley’s truck has four-wheel drive, as does Emily’s car. And Hurley has a plow he can hook up to the truck if necessary.”

  “I will. Thanks,” Christopher says. “Hopefully, I won’t get any calls and can stay here. I brought an overnight bag with toiletries and such in it, and I can just wear scrubs for a change of clothes.” His statement is punctuated by a quick whistle of wind that escapes from his backside. “Sorry,” he says almost automatically.

  “You don’t need to apologize,” I say. “I’m used to it. You can’t work as a nurse for any length of time without learning how to tolerate nasty smells. And the same tends to go for this job. Not to mention potty training a toddler. I’m pretty much immune to such things by now.”

  I figure I have no right to be critical of Christopher’s issues, given that I managed to outdo his emissions this morning, a fact I wisely decide to keep to myself, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Brenda Joiner lets the story slip when she and Christopher get together.

  Chris smiles. “You and Izzy have been very kind and understanding about it,” he says. “I appreciate it.”

  “How’s the gluten-free thing going? Is it helping any?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be making a difference,” he says.

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “By the way, I heard you had some excitement here earlier,” Chris says.

  I panic for a moment, thinking Brenda has already spilled the beans and he’s referring to my earlier Code Brown. Then I realize he’s talking about the shooting and Ernie Roberts. I spend a few minutes sharing all the gory details with him—having insider info on a juicy story like this one is practically better than money here in Sorenson—and then give him a brief update on the Paulsen case and the Dalrymple case.

  When I’m done, I call the house to see how Emily and Matthew are doing.

  “We’re having fun,” Emily says. “We built a blanket tent in the living room and Matthew says he’s going to live there forever.”

  I smile at this, recalling how Desi and I used to build blanket tents when we were kids and spend hours in them. I update Emily on my ETA for home, and tell her that her father won’t be home until very late, if at all.

  * * *

  With that done, I pack up my things, bundle up, and go to Izzy’s office. As the two of us head down to the garage, I’m curious to see how good a job Not a Trace did on my car. I’ve seen the amazing work they can do on crime scenes, some of which I would’ve thought had to be burned to the ground to get rid of the odors and detritus left behind by dead humans.

  When I unlock the car door, I’m pleased to see that the seat looks as good as new, better, in fact, than it did before my accident. I doubt the hearse has been this clean since it was driven off the lot. And the smell inside is a fresh linen sort of scent. I hit the power button and unlock the passenger door for Izzy. He pokes his head inside warily, sniffing and examining all the surfaces.

  “They do good work,” he says finally, settling himself into the seat.

  “Yes, they do,” I agree, turning the key. The car starts with only a minor hiccup, and we fasten our seat belts. “Okay,” I say, flexing my hands on the steering wheel. “Let’s see how bad the roads are.”

  They are horrible. The snow is drier now, but it’s coming down hard and fast, and blowing sideways. The wind is
so strong that the hearse is buffeted sideways as soon as we leave the protection of the building. The rear wheels slide a smidge with Mother Nature’s zealous exhalation, but they quickly regain their grip and the hearse plows along, its heavy weight providing both a solid base and decent traction. The plows are out, clearing and salting, but the storm has taken on such fury at this point that they are hard put to keep up. The main streets downtown have been cleared once, but already they are covered again with the wet, slick whiteness.

  As the wind howls its banshee calls, drifts of snow build and blow, snaking their way around the corners of buildings, eddying in pirouettes on the sidewalks, and darting between the few cars still parked on the street. It’s like a dance troupe of ghosts putting on their winter performance, and it’s both mesmerizing and terrifying.

  I take it so slow that Irene Keller could have whizzed by me. I navigate my turns at a snail’s pace, and keep an eye out for the occasional stray drift. When we get to the outskirts of town and turn onto the road Izzy lives on, we find it virgin and untouched, a couple of inches of snow already piled atop a base of frozen rain. As I approach the entrance to Izzy’s driveway, wondering if I’ll be able to navigate the climb of it, I see headlights appear up ahead, skewing wildly from side to side. They disappear momentarily, replaced by a flash of red taillight before they return again, the light beams suddenly still and pointed toward the sky.

  “Did you see that?” I say to Izzy.

  “I did.”

  “Should we go and see if they’re okay?”

  Izzy, clearly torn, makes a face. “I suppose we should,” he says.

  I’ve slowed the hearse to a near stop, and I gently press the gas. The rear wheels spin for a second, but then they take hold and I ease the car farther down the road. As we close in on the lights, I see that there is a car in the ditch, the back end down, the front end pointing toward the sky. The vehicle looks familiar and, sure enough, when I look at the trail it left in the snow, I see that it came down and out of David and Patty’s driveway. After shifting into park, I leave the engine running, turn on the emergency blinkers, and get out of the hearse. I clamber down the bank and into the ditch, the wind hitting my body hard enough to upset my already precarious balance, and stirring up loose clouds of snow that make it difficult to see. The windshield is already halfway obscured with falling snow and I can’t easily reach it, so I navigate my way around to the driver’s-side door and look through that window.