Cold (19 page)

“Probably before she could reconsider.”

“What’s she afraid of?” Liesl asked.
 
“What’s ‘out in the woods’?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think Norman knows, whatever it is,” she said.
 
“Or, if he doesn’t know, he wants to find out.
 
When he was here I just got the feeling he’s running
toward
something.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying
he needs to be brought in.”
 
She sipped her tea and stroked her thick blond braid as though it were a pet.
 
“He’s a troubled boy,” she said.
 
“Will the state police understand that?”

Del put down his mug of tea.
 
“Now that the snow’s stopped it’ll turn real cold.”

“You’re going to go look for him.”
 
It wasn’t a question.

Del stood up and went over to the window next to the sofa.
 
The sun was on the new snow.
 
“After your accident, I really looked for that green truck.
 
I know that you were counting on it being found but, I’m sorry, I never came up with a thing.”
 
He waited but she didn’t say anything.
 
Finally, he said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’ll let me know if you find something out.
 
Won’t you?”

“Sure,” he said, turning from the window.
 

“I mean it.”

“I know.
 
Thanks for the tea.”

He didn’t move.
 
She reached across the armrest and took hold of his hand.
 
“Been a long time since I held a man’s hand.
 
I could get used to it.”

“I could too.”

She smiled up at him then, her eyes large and blue.
 
“Must be those meds they gave me.
 
What’s your excuse?”
 
She squeezed his hand a moment and released him.

“You’ll be all right?
 
By yourself?”

“Have been for years.”
 
She leaned back and closed her eyes.
 
“Darcy’ll be back later to help with dinner.”

“Good.”
 
He watched her a moment longer.
 
She didn’t open her eyes and he knew she wouldn’t until he was gone.

He went out through the shed and drove down off the hill.
 
With the sun up now he wore his sunglasses because of the glare off the snow.
 
His Land Cruiser was a ’76 that had been rebuilt from the axles up.
 
With four-wheel-drive engaged he could get down snowbound roads where few other vehicles could go.
 
When he reached the county road, he called Monty at the station in Yellow Dog Township.

“Alberta Clipper’s coming across Superior,” Monty said.
 
“Big time.”

“No word about the walkaway from the state police?”

“Nada.
 
Why go out looking for the kid when you can stay inside where it’s warm.
 
He’s going to freeze his ass eventually and it’ll either kill him or he’ll turn himself in.”

This was true:
 
Marquette Prison dated back to the middle of the nineteenth century and there were numerous incidents where prisoners had escaped, only to turn themselves in due to the severity of the Upper Peninsula’s climate and terrain.
 
Those who didn’t usually died.

“Check that sheet we got on the kid,” Del said.
 
“What was the last name of the girlfriend in North Eicher?
 
P-something?”

“Hold on.”
 
Monty rummaged through some paperwork on the desk.
 
“Okay here, it’s Pronovost, Noel Pronovost.”

“Right,” Del said.
 
“I’m heading over that way.
 
Now that the snow’s stopped it shouldn’t take me much more than an hour.”

“If the roads have been plowed,” Monty said.
 
“You have any idea how cold it’s going to get?
 
The winds going to come up as the Alberta Clipper comes in off the lake.
 
Lucy on the Weather Channel was talking about wind-chills of sixty-below.”

“Monty?”

“Yeah?”

“That cigarillo you got smelling up the office—put it out right now.”

“Have a nice trip.”
 
Monty hung up.

•

The second time Warren drove by Noel’s apartment, Noel’s Trooper still wasn’t in the driveway.
 
It was after ten in the morning, which probably meant that after leaving the motel she’d gone out to her father’s to pick up Lorraine and she was still there, scrubbing the kitchen floor, cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry.
 
Countless times Warren had told her that she was nothing but her old man’s maid, that she should break free of him.
 
But she couldn’t.
 
She was too weak.
 
As long as her father took care of the rent on her apartment, as long as he paid the electric bill, the phone bill, the gas credit card bill on the Isuzu Trooper he’d bought for her, he was going to have a clean house, clean clothes, a vacuumed wall-to-wall carpet.

nine

As they drove through North Eicher, Norman avoided eye contact with the girl.
 
Noel had strapped her in the car seat in back and he couldn’t help but see the child’s face.
 
She was shy and quiet, and she tended to stare at the back of his head instead of into the mirror.
 
He assumed she was confused; he must look like Warren to her, but she knew he was someone else.
 
Noel had simply told the girl that his name was Norman and that they were all going bye-bye.

After that, Noel said little since they’d left her father’s house.
 
She stared out her side window mostly, and occasionally she turned to check on the girl.

“You had a moment back there in your father’s driveway,” he said when they reached downtown.
 
“You made a decision.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You want I can still let both of you off right here.”

Her head was turned so she was gazing out at the new high snowbanks in front of the stores.
 
“I’ve been trying to make that decision for a long time, Norman.
 
My mother made it once too and left my father.
 
Years ago.
 
She was from downstate outside Grand Rapids.
 
Everyone over there seemed to be Dutch.
 
Towns like Zeeland and Holland.
 
Daddy’s from up here, and his parents came over from Quebec.
 
When I was eleven I knew there was something different about my mother, but didn’t understand until I came home from school one day and found her suitcases opened on their bed.
 
I asked her where they were going—somehow I understood that I wasn’t going on this trip.
 
It was maybe three in the afternoon and she was having a drink.
 
Before that day I’d never seen her drink anything more than a glass of wine with dinner.
 
She sat on the bed and started crying.
 
Then she told me that I should go over to Ellen’s, my friend who lived down the street, and stay there until dinnertime.
 
She said she was going to visit a friend who was very ill.
 
I believed her but somehow I knew I wasn’t getting the whole story.”

Once they were out of town, Norman drove faster.
 
A strong gust of wind hit the left side of the Trooper and he had a hard time keeping away from the snowbank.
 
Noel turned around and put her hand on the girl’s cheek a moment.
 
“It’s okay, honey.
 
Just a little wind.”

Norman made a whistling sound through his teeth.
 
The girl watched him in the mirror until he stopped.
 
Something in her large blue eyes said that she knew she wasn’t getting the whole story.

Noel faced forward and said, “My mother was a model before she was married.
 
I’ve seen ads that were in Sunday newspapers in the seventies.
 
Dresses, sweaters, bras.
 
She could have had a career if she hadn’t met my father and moved up north.”

“But she got away.”

“For three days.
 
She ran off with a guy and was back in three days.”

“You never told me this.
 
What guy?”

“Later.
 
Let’s talk about this later.”
 
She turned to him and waited a moment; he knew she had something on her mind.
 
“I should drive through customs,” she said.
 
“It’s my car.
 
I have my license, in case we get stopped.”

He took one hand off the steering wheel and for a moment he wanted to reach out to her—just hold her arm or her hand.
 
Instead he ran his fingers through his short hair.
 
“I thought you were going to say you wanted to get out.”

“I don’t want out, Norman,” she said as she shook her head.
 
“I know this is crazy and I keep waiting for that to really sink in, but I’m
not
going back.
 
Not now.
 
I
can’t.
 
I really have been trying to do this for a while.
 
You don’t know what it’s been like, between your brother and my father.”

He glanced up in the mirror.
 
Lorraine’s eyes were getting heavy and she’d be asleep in a few minutes.
 
He realized it was their talking—adults talking—coupled with the drone of the engine that would put her out.

“When we get around this bend,” Noel said, “pull over and I’ll drive.”

“I don’t know.”

“It only makes sense that I drive until we cross the border.”

When they came out of the bend there was nothing ahead except woods along both sides of the road.
 
Norman stopped the Trooper and turned to her.
 
“We’re not going to Sault Ste. Marie.
 
The cops’ll expect that.
 
They can just wait for me at the border.”

There was a twitch in Noel’s cheek, just below the ear.
 
He recalled that it meant that she was grinding her teeth because she was frightened.
 
“That’s why I should drive.
 
Even if we did manage to get across to Canada, they’d still be looking for me.
 
How long do you think it would take the Mounties to find us?
 
Noel, at least if I’m driving and we get stopped, you can tell them I made you come with me.”

“No.”

“It only makes sense.”

“I won’t
do
that.”

 
“I hope you don’t have to.
  
Right now they’re looking for the brown Dodge van.”

They sat in the Trooper, staring out at the empty road, both sides lined with snow-covered trees.
 
The road here was straight for several miles and the woods seemed to converge at the horizon, as though at that point the road would simply end.

“I never realized how
hard
it is to get out of Michigan.”
 
She was almost shouting over the heater blower.
 
“It’s big and surrounded mostly by water.
 
I don’t know, Norman.
 
What are we going to
do?”
 
There was a fierceness in her expression that made her profile seem sharp, focused, yet her blue eyes in the glare off the new snow were incredibly pale.
 
Again, Norman had to keep himself from reaching over and touching her sleeve.

“I have an idea,” he said, speaking quietly now.
 
Lorraine had fallen asleep in her car seat, her face slack and a strand of drool hanging off her lower lip.