Cold Snow: A Legal Thriller (44 page)

"Wait!" he shouted several times, trying to make himself heard over the cheers. Most of the crowd fell silent eventually. "It's not that I don't really appreciate this support," he said cautiously, not wanting to lose the multitude's favor, "but I'm here to surrender to the authorities, and I want to do that now."

He'd managed to silence them. The tumult slowly died, and people silently parted to reveal two uniformed men. Alex recognized one as a provincial policeman. The other one wasn't; he had the look of a local cop, but he didn't think Sawtooth had its own police force. The two were looking across the crowd furtively, and exchanging awkward glances, unsure what exactly they were doing here or whether they were supposed to be here at all. Finally one of them stepped forward.

"I understand you're here to arrest me," Alex said lightly, grinning as though he'd just told a joke that had broken up a room.

"Um, well, yes, we'll have to take you into custody," the provincial policeman said nervously, trying and failing to sound authoritarian in the midst of the withering glares of the throng. "Just for a short time—" Alex, however, walked past him, and looked straight into the eyes of the second cop, smiling, if possible, even more broadly.

"Jeffries!" he barked happily. "Officer Frank Jeffries! Did you really come all the way from Ridge City just to arrest me?"

Jeffries tried to respond, but at the sound of the words "Ridge City," the crowd broke into roars and boos, waving their
Alex Orson Lives
and
Alex Is Innocent!
signs back and forth vigorously, so that it looked like several townspeople were in danger of being struck. The young ones were especially vehement, shouting at Jeffries like he had personally offended them.

"You are supposed to be dead." Jeffries's voice was a malevolent hiss.

"It's funny how that works, isn't it," Alex replied, still smiling. "If I'd died every time I was supposed to, god knows what I would look like now. There'd be nothing left to arrest." As he said this, he held out his wrists, parallel to each other. "Go on, Jeffries," he said, teasing, challenging. "Cuff me. You crossed two provinces to do it."

Jeffries, angered at being forced to follow what seemed to be Alex's wishes, reached for the cuffs in his belt, but was startled to feel his hand slapped away. The arm responsible belonged to a woman, who looked old but somehow not aged, wearing grey hair as though she had intended on it for her entire life.

"I'm warning you, lady, if you interfere in police operations—"

"My name isn't lady," the woman said, straightening up to a dignified height. "It's Vera Copeland, I'm the mayor of this town, and I say that until we here what the judge has to say, Alex Orson goes nowhere."

The tumultuous crowd took up a roar of agreement. Jeffries took a step back, then two, and looked around hoping for backup. However, the provincial policeman had already retreated hurriedly from the scene. Jeffries cursed and began looking for his own escape routes.

"And furthermore," Vera Copeland shouted, raising her voice to an impressive level over the noise, "I don't think I want you arresting him in any case, Officer Jeffries. In fact, I think I'd like you to leave."

"I—you—" Jeffries spat. "The law will get you for this!"

This was the last straw for the mob. Some of them dropped their signs and ran for Jeffries. Some of the younger kids began yelling, "Get out! Get out!" and the entire city of Sawtooth took up the chant. Jeffries's eyes widened and he took off, running like Alex had seen nobody run before, faster even than him. The people surged after Jeffries, who was pushing against the ground to move as fast as he could toward the edge of town. Never, for the rest of his life, would he be seen in Saskatchewan.

Copeland turned to Alex, a little more warmth in her eyes now. "Well, Mr. Orson," she said, "you've certainly brought my town together, I'll give you that."

"I just wish I knew how," he replied. He was genuinely wondering why he suddenly seemed to be a hero.

"Well, I'd like to welcome you to the village, but under the circumstances…" she shook her head sadly. "I don't know how long you can stay."

"Oh, I'd bet on a while. I must say, I really like it here," Alex said, grinning as though in on a secret joke. Suddenly, his face turned serious. "By the way," he began. "Have you seen—"

But he was cut short; at that moment, a man ran out of the double front doors of a large building that Alex had taken for a community center. "Hey!" he shouted. "The judge is on the line!"

At the heart of the community center, accessed through two doors at opposite ends of a spartan anteroom, was a fair-sized auditorium, white-walled, carpeted in blue, with rows of cushioned seats that matched the floor. Two aisles ran from the doors down the left and right sides of the audience; as well as in front of the raised wooden stage. It could seat only 500 at a time, so many of the citizens were forced to stand in the aisles, or cram up against the stage. Several of them damned the rules and climbed right up onto the stage, where Alex, Hart, and Copeland were standing, along with a sound device that consisted of a telephone hooked up to a speaker system. The room was deathly silent as the bass crackled and words emanated through the room.

"Am I speaking to the city of Sawtooth?"

"You…" Copeland stopped herself. "You should talk to him," she whispered to Alex, who stepped forward obligingly.

"You are," he said.

"And is Mr. Alexander Orson among you?"

"Speaking."

"Alexander, my name is Judge Theodore Sellers, and I must tell you that your case is one of the most interesting I've come across in my career. After you were denied a verdict by that…unfortunate turn of events in Ontario, the entire nation seems to have rallied around you."

"Really?"

"Oh, indeed. After you were declared dead, there were many—most, I should say—that refused to believe it. 'Alex Orson Lives' was the popular phrase."

Alex was taken aback to the point of silence. He could never have known this. He looked around to the packed auditorium and suddenly understood everything that had happened.

"And now to business," Sellers said. "I preside over a courthouse in Regina and was assigned to consider whether or not you required a further trial. It did not take me long to reach a decision. In light of the fact that you have practically been acquitted already, added to the, in my opinion, extremely insubstantial evidence used to accuse you of murder in the first place, it seemed only right that the nation of Canada dismiss all charges against you. I made my recommendation…and it seemed the Ridge City courts agreed with me. It is my pleasure, Alexander, to tell you that you, along with Sarah Jones, Jacob Harwell, and Anthony Anderson, are free from all accusations."

The audience erupted in celebration. With a voice that was at once one and many, they screamed and yelled their triumph. Judge Sellers disconnected, pleased with his correct verdict. Alex, however, freed from his crimes, had only one thought in mind now; and, flying down the stage steps as quickly as he could on crutches, he plunged into the revelry with reckless abandon, at first grabbing every girl the right size and asking her, then calling out her name repeatedly, yelling it as though drowning and screaming for help. His throat turned hoarse as his desperation to see her grew, and he began clawing his way through people at random, none of whom cared, all of whom were too happy with a victory that was barely his. He dropped one, then both of his crutches as he fought the tide, and, giving them up for lost, began to limp, wincing every time he stepped on his right leg. None of this mattered, not the endless congratulations of the audience, not even one citizen who told him that the town had gathered contributions to pay his hospital bill. Alex thanked him with his dry voice and forced his way into the sea of humans again, who were spilling out of the auditorium, onto the streets, letting the world know that Alex Orson was free, oblivious that he was still in chains. He continued to scream her name, again and again, until it meant nothing, simply an incantation to keep him from thinking he was back in the lake with Ordoñez, sinking and gasping for air. He lurched through a throng at the doorway and continued to shout, his throat so barren now that she would not have heard him even if she had been there. He stopped in the outer room, through which people were filing onto the street, and caught his breath with his hands at his knees, again screwing up his face against the pain in his leg. Rising up, he locked eyes with Hart, whose face was set with the effort of holding back emotion.

"Alex…" he said, despairingly. "Alex, oh, God, Alex…I lied…I lied to you the whole time."

"Hart, get a hold of yourself!" Alex rasped. "What do you mean!?"

"They were never here," Hart moaned, and then again, louder, "
They were never here!
"

Alex needed no other words. Ignoring everybody and everything, even the fact that he was finally in the town he had spent years dreaming of, he limped almost rapidly off toward the Mercedes, never to be returned to the rental lot, and stepped behind the wheel, slamming the door behind him. He knew that he was unable to drive but locked out his fear and turned the keys in the ignition, starting the engine to life. Looking through the windshield, he could see Hart running towards him, trying to stop him from leaving. Alex would have none of it; he shifted into reverse and shot backwards, away from Hart, barely checking to see if anybody was behind him.

After passing the edge of town, he turned toward the road, and shifted into drive, pressing his foot to the pedal and surging forward exactly as he had always seen drivers do. His destination was locked in mind, and he headed south immediately, moving only straight and barely turning the steering wheel. The road was completely deserted.

Highway 28 was equally empty as he turned on, and he arrived at Cold Lake sooner than he wished, hoping to keep the dissenting voice to the inevitable in the back of his mind for as long as he could. He opened the door gradually, and set his leg on the ground, ignoring the shooting pains. Eventually, he dropped his left leg as well, and limped around the front of the car, walking toward the field of death, heading for the gallows, dragging his feet to enjoy the comforts of the world for the last time. The snow of two nights and a day ago had dwindled to a thin layer, and patches of hardy grass had forced their way through in places.

He reached Anthony first. Standing over the corpse, he saw that a bullet had made a remarkable clean passage through his face; it seemed as if, having not been dead, he would not have felt pain. He wondered if this was truly the way Anthony deserved to go. He had betrayed Alex and cast him out to die, but for almost the entire journey before that, he had been useful, loyal, verging on a friend. Though he then remembered what Anthony was—the proudest delinquent in the state of New York, who had spent years building up a wall of hard and hating personality that was almost as fake as Hart's had been genuine. That was how you could tell the difference—Hart wanted to escape from his, while Anthony reveled in it. And along the road, they had both changed. Had the real Anthony been the traitor? Or had he just realized that the false Anthony would never stand for this?

This corpse,
Alex thought,
is what he has to show for it.

It was then that he saw the other bodies.

He limped quickly toward them, and recognized that the taller one must be the owner of Hart's stolen car.

He knew exactly who the other body belonged to; exactly which soul had inhabited the cold-preserved remains before plummeting from the cliff. He accidentally weighted down his right leg and a burning sword fired through it again, dropping Alex Orson onto his knees, then onto his side, rolling to the ground. He lay there, his head in the grass, gazing into the closed eyes that had once held such fire, such unerring belief that everything would be solved if people could stand tall enough, those knowing emotions that seemed to be guided by her hand and were yet completely out of control. He shut his eyes and held her to himself, oblivious to the fact that they were both freezing; and seemed to go through all five stages of grief in an instant. He died then, returned to life, and found that he had no feeling left to spend; he sufficed by holding onto her, clinging to the memory of her touch as if resisting an infinite hurricane.

He didn't know how long he lay there, nor what made him decide to leave. At the end of his makeshift period of mourning, Alex did what he had silently sworn to never again do: lift a friend onto his back, and begin to walk.

EPILOGUE

Nine Years Later

The sky seemed to be having trouble deciding whether it wanted to remain calm or unleash a torrential downpour, and had settled somewhere in the middle, spitting intermittent showers onto Sawtooth and environs for several hours. In the midst of one of these, Alex stood under an awning and struggled to hear the voice coming from the cell phone clamped precariously between his ear and right shoulder.

"Mm-hm," he muttered, "yeah." He waited for Chief Rodin to finish laughing at his own improvised joke while fumbling with the complex lock on the door, which, even after seven years and a half of owning the building, still seemed to elude him. "So, exactly when do you need me in Ottawa?"