Frozen Stiff (15 page)

“But this is the one I want. It’s got everything—right by the lakes, workout room in the basement. Great view.”

“Don’t worry. Another one will come along just as good—probably even better.”

Sherri picked that moment to walk into his hospital room and Danielle exploded. “I know this is all your doing,” she yelled at Sherri. “You have always tried to turn my dad against
me. If it weren’t for you, I’d have my condo. You think you can step back into his life and take over again. Now he won’t have any time for me. Like last time when you got married.”

Sherri stared at Danielle and backed up. “What are you talking about?”

Dan yelled. “Stop it, Danielle. Now I mean it.”

Danielle turned back toward her father and shouted, “I hate you. You’re nothing but a big slob and a liar and a cheat. You cheat on everyone. Even me, your daughter. When you’re lonesome you want me around, but now that Sherri’s come back, you don’t care about me anymore.”

“Danielle, I’m just helping your dad out—” Sherri said, but Danielle broke in before she could finish.

“No, don’t try to explain. I know the routine. He’ll suck you back in until he sees some other piece of ass that he likes better. He did that with my mom. You think you’re different. Yeah, you got him to marry you, but he’s never going to really change.”

Sherri pulled away as if she’d been slapped.

Danielle turned back to her father. “I never want to see you again.” She stormed out of the room, then turned back and screamed. “So fuck you. You’re not my father. I disown you.”

Sherri sank down in the chair and stared at Dan. “What was that all about?”

“I’m sorry, Sherri. I’m not sure. She doesn’t mean it. I just wouldn’t give her some money.” Dan wondered if that was all that was going on. “She’s tired and worn down from being here. She doesn’t handle stress well.”

“Well, you’ve trained her. I think she equates your money with your love.”

Dan was surprised to hear Sherri be so blunt with him. Maybe she had changed too. “You might be right. But she’ll be back,” Dan said, hoping it was true.

Sherri reached down and put a hand on his shoulder. She didn’t look her best, but she was smiling. “Let’s go home,” she said.

4:40 pm

The Hegstrom house was hidden deep in the snow and woods. Claire went down many small roads, then a lane and finally turned into a long driveway that skirted a field and ended up in front of the house. A Christmas tree was stuck into a snowbank on the side of the drive with pieces of suet and other treats for the birds. She knew her way because she had been here once before to pick up some milk.

There was no path to the front door, but the steps to the side door had been shoveled. She walked up to the kitchen door and knocked.

“Come on in,” she heard a voice yell from the interior.

Pushing the door open, she felt the steam from the kitchen hit her face. The smell of gingerbread wafted toward her as she closed the door behind her, hitting it with her backside to make sure it was tightly closed.

Sara Hegstrom walked into the kitchen and stopped when she saw Claire. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.” Claire figured Sara was about the same age as she was—mid-forties. She was a handsome woman with long tawny brown hair streaked with silver. She wore it tied loosely at the nape of her neck. She had on what looked like a hand-knit burgundy sweater and sweat pants with polar fleece booties on her feet.

“I need to talk to you and your husband about something. How’s your daughter and the baby?”

Sara smiled and looked much more rested than she had at the hospital. “Much better, thank you. She’s finally named him—Eric. Such a nice Scandinavian name. They’re home and doing fine. Both of them are sleeping right now.” Sara offered Claire a chair. “Should I get Clyde?”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

She went into another room. Claire could hear the TV go off and moments later they were both back in the kitchen.

“To what do we owe this honor?” Clyde said rather boisterously. He, too, seemed more relaxed in his flannel-lined denim shirt and jeans.

“I talked to your daughter yesterday.”

They both sat down and a look passed between them. Clyde said cautiously, “Yes?”

“She told me who Eric’s father is. Or rather I guessed who it might be and she confirmed it.”

Clyde put his head in his hands. Sara shook her head leaned into him. “I don’t know what to say. Clyde just told me. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Well, what happened between your daughter and Mr. Walker is against the law. Bonnie is a minor and even though it sounds like the sex was consensual she was under age. I want to know how you want to handle this.”

“What are our choices?” Clyde asked.

“You could take him to court. When the minor is over sixteen years of age, as you daughter is, such and offense is considered a class A mismeanor. It carries a maximum sentence of a fine of $10,000, nine months in jail, or both. Given how
much older Mr. Walker is than Bonnie, he would probably be fined, I would guess might even serve some time. You could also prove paternity and he would be forced to help out financially with the baby.”

The couple sat still.

Claire said, “Bonnie said she told you the morning of the birth who the father was. She said you were very upset when you learned how she had gotten pregnant, Mr. Hegstrom. How do you feel now?”

“You gotta understand,” Clyde’s nostrils flared slightly and his shoulders rose, a combative posture. “I went downstairs and my daugher had delivered a baby and was hemorrhaging in her bed. When she told me who had done that to her, I wanted to wring his neck. I just wanted to throttle him. But now that she and the baby are fine, I don’t know what I want to do.”

Sara lifted her head. “Whatever’s best for the baby and Bonnie. We don’t want them hurt. Do we need to decide anything right now?”

“No, but I would advise you to come to some kind of decision fairly soon. I think it will be better for all involved. The other thing that counts against him is that technically he was her employer—which might raise the stakes. He was in a position of power over her.”

“I don’t know what to say. He’s always treated us well. He even gives me a holiday bonus, more than most of my clients around here do. I hate to lose that job, but I don’t know if I could stand to see him again.”

“By the way, Mr. Walker has admitted to having sex with your daughter, but he claims he thought she was eighteen.”

“What the hell difference does that make?” Clyde stood up so fast his chair went flying backwards. “You would have thought we could have trusted him with our daughter. What kind of scumbag sleeps with a girl nearly young enough to be his grand-daughter?”

Danielle was getting into her car when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and was not that surprised to see Andy standing there. He had called her three times on her cellphone, but she had ignored him. He did not like to be ignored.

“Hey,” he said.

She almost thought of getting in and slamming the car door in his face, but decided it might be time to cut things off cleanly between them. She didn’t know why he was bugging her now. They really hadn’t had that much of a thing going. He just wasn’t that interesting.

But she motioned him around to the side of the car. She might as well get it over with. Andy sank into the seat next to her. His face was red and he had a snowboarding hat pulled down over his forehead. He smiled and she thought once again what a cute smile he had, mischievious and naive at the same time.

“Let me get the car going.” She turned on the car and started the heat.

“What’s going on with your dad? He leaving the hospital today? You going to stay with him?”

“Andy, this isn’t working out, you and me. Besides, I’m getting ready to leave,” she told him.

“Leave? What do you mean? Aren’t you staying with your dad?”

“No, looks like he and Sherri might be getting back together. Which really fucks everything up. He doesn’t want me to get the condo now.” She shook her head. “Listen. I gotta go. Nothing is working out.”

“Things could change,” he said.

“I don’t know. Things have changed. Like I said, he and Sherri seem to have gotten real tight again. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get the money.”

His face tightened. “I can’t believe Sherri would go back to him after all that’s happened. Where does that put you?”

Danielle was exhausted and didn’t want to be sitting in a car in Durand, Wisconsin, talking to a punk kid about her dad and his bitchy wife. She wanted to get back to her apartment and sleep in her own bed tonight. “I guess that puts me out in the cold.”

4 January: 7 pm

H
ow would you feel if some old guy had sex with Meg?” Claire asked Rich as they finished the lamb stew he had made. They were having a rare dinner alone. Meg had gone to study with a friend.

Rich frowned as he pushed back his plate. Her question had come out of the blue. “Where are you going with this, Claire?”

“Don’t worry. Nothing has happened to Meg.” She stood up and started to clear the dishes. That was their arrangement. He made the meals and she cleaned up after them.

“So what are you asking me?”

“Well, you know technically if Meg and Curt were to have sex now, which I’m not convinced hasn’t happened already, it would be statutory rape. After all, he’s eighteen and she’s only seventeen.”

“That’s stupid.” He laughed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying they should have sex, but it shouldn’t be illegal.”

“Yeah, I know, but that’s the law. We do have discretion as to when to prosecute. Which brings me back to my original question—how would you feel if some old guy, you know, about your age, had sex with Meg? What would you do if you found out who the guy was?”

“So now I’m old.” Rich leaned back in his chair. “That’s easy. I’d want to pound the guy into the ground.”

“Would you want to kill him?” Claire asked as she piled the dishes in the sink.

“Depends.”

“On what?” She started to run some water into the sink to wash the dishes. There were so few of them she wasn’t going to run the dishwasher, plus she liked washing dishes by hand once in a while.

“Oh, wait on the dishes. Come and sit down.”

Claire wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and sat back down across from him. “Depends on what?”

“Well, I guess, primarily if it was consensual. On how Meg was doing with it all. How it happened. Many variables.”

Claire said, “You are such a reasonable man. You want some coffee?”

“I wouldn’t say no to a cup of decaf. Sounds good on this cold night.”

Claire started the coffeemaker.

Rich watched her, then asked, “Is that what happened to Bonnie Hegstrom?”

She turned and looked at him. She was marrying one smart man. “You are capable of putting two and two together, aren’t you?

“Who was the guy?” Rich asked.

“Hey, you know I can’t tell you that, not until it’s public information. But I will say that it’s no one you know well.” She wanted to reassure him about that since he knew everyone.

“Hmm.”

“But I’m trying to figure out what to do about it. I went and talked to her parents and they don’t seem eager to prosecute. I know that Bonnie doesn’t want to. She’s said as much.”

“But can’t you just go ahead and do it?”

“Yes, we can. But it isn’t usually a very good idea. Why waste everyone’s time when the victim doesn’t even want him to be punished?”

“I suppose.”

“Bonnie’s not dumb.” Claire poured them both cups of dark brew. “But the thing I’m worried about is she needs to think seriously about getting some child support out of this whole mess.”

“The guy got money?”

Claire looked over at him. “Rich, I’ve said all I’m going to say.

“Hey.” He raised his hands up. “You were the one who brought it up. You ask my opinion and then you shut down on me. So here it is: Anyone who would take advantage of Bonnie Hegstrom, or any seventeen-year-old kid, should have the book thrown at them.”

After taking a sip of the coffee, Claire said, “You know, what we’re doing is technically illegal—living together and having sex without being married. The state of Wisconsin does not see us as moral, upstanding citizens.”

Rich lifted his coffee cup in a salute to her. “Maybe we should break the law a few more times while we still have a chance?”

“Sounds good, but can we take a snow check? I’m utterly pooped. Something about this weather just makes me want to hibernate.”

9 pm

“Well, if it isn’t my little deputy?”

Amy had purposefully stopped by the Chippewa Tavern on the off chance that John Gordon might be there—she knew it was a hangout of his—and yet she was surprised when he came up behind her at the bar. She hadn’t seen him when she walked in and there were only a handful of people in the place. Too dangerous to drink and drive in this weather.

John slid onto the stool next to her and smiled. His smile made his eyes crinkle until they almost disappeared. “Well, Amy, I hardly recognized you without your uniform and your hair down. What’re you doing out on this cold night?”

“Same as you. Kicking back, having a brew.”

“Let me get you that brew.” He called the bartender over and then asked, “What’re you drinking?”

“Whatever’s on tap.”

As he ordered she watched him. She couldn’t believe she was having a drink with John Gordon. How things changed. When she was in grade school she used to watch him, the captain of the football team. She had a super major crush on him, but he was so out of her league. He was centuries older than her for one thing. And all the girls wanted to date him. If she remembered correctly he had been crowned homecoming king his senior year.

That was almost fifteen years ago. John was aging well. His shoulders still looked good under his sweater and there was no little pudgy potbelly forming that she could tell. From what she knew he wasn’t much of a drinker. He didn’t seem drunk tonight. But she was sure it got as lonely at his mother’s house as it did in her apartment on these long winter nights.

He turned and handed her a mug of beer and then held his up and they clinked mugs. “How’s Mr. Walker doing?”