Frozen Stiff (8 page)

“Hey, listen,” he said. “We need to talk. Why don’t we go get a cup of coffee at the Jenny?”

“I need to get home.”

“Meg, don’t do this to me.”

She felt her anger burbling inside of her. She turned on him and yelled in a quiet voice, “Excuse me. Who did what to whom?”

“Whoa. What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t like being stood up.”

“The time slipped away...”

“I can guess where you were,” Meg said, hoping he’d tell her differently.

But he didn’t say anything. Just looked down and shuffled his shoes.

“I gotta get home,” she said and turned toward the parking lot. “It’s a school night.”

“Too bad we can’t drive together,” he said.

“You should have thought of that a few hours ago,” she said and walked away.

He didn’t try to stop her; he didn’t come running after her. She climbed into her car and was happy when it started on the first try. She sat and let it run, but didn’t even bother to turn the heat on yet. It would just blow frigid air at her.

She watched Curt walk to his truck, his shoulders hunched inside his thin jacket. He never wore enough clothes. She had knit him a scarf for Christmas and she could see that he had that wrapped around his neck.

What was the matter with boys? Don’t they even know enough to say they’re sorry when they mess up? That’s all she had wanted to hear from him, but he hadn’t known enough to apologize.

7:30 pm

“Where’s Meg?” Claire asked as she walked in the living room and saw only Rich sitting by the fire.

“Well, hey to you too.” Rich laughed. “I think she went into Red Wing to see a movie with Curt.”

Claire walked over and tilted his head back and gave him a just-came-out-of-the-cold kiss on the lips. “Those two. They’re so serious. Makes me nervous.” Then she tried to slide her hands down the neck of his flannel shirt to warm them up.

“Don’t you dare put your cold hands on me.” Rich grabbed her around the neck and pulled her down for another, deeper kiss, then said, “Curt’s a nice kid. Relax. It’s always intense at that age.”

“I guess. How about our age? I’m freezing here. You need to warm me up.” Claire wrapped her arms around him.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that. As I recall you propositioned me the other night.”

“Correction. Let’s get it straight. After much consideration, I proposed to you. Just wanted to make you an honest man.”

“Yes, and after equally careful consideration, taking into account all your hard work and effort in bringing some couth to my simple life, I’ve decided to take you up on it. My answer is yes.” Rich pulled her down into his lap.

Claire felt something inside of her grow warm and sank into his kiss. Finally, she pulled away from him and said, “Good. Should we set a date?”

Rich snuggled his head into her neck and whispered in her ear. “Sure. When would you like?”

“Something easy to remember. How about Valentine’s Day?”

“I think that can be arranged.”

“Let’s keep it simple. Not too many people.”

Rich laughed. “What’re you talking about? We’ll do it just
like all the other weddings around here. We’ll put a notice in the paper inviting everyone in the county and see who shows up.”

“I like it.”

“Hey, how’s your abominable snowman?”

“Daniel Walker?”

“You have more than one?”

“He appears to be out of danger,” Claire rested her head against Rich’s chest and put her feet up next to his on the ottoman. She could feel the fire’s heat on the bottom of her feet. “But when I left the hospital, he still hadn’t come around yet. Did you hear that he and his wife were separated?”

“Suspicious.”

Claire looked over at Rich, his face lit by the fire. He was wearing the red skullcap that Meg had knit him for Christmas pulled down to his ears. Claire thought he looked like a lumberjack, but a cute, good-hearted one. “Yeah, maybe.”

“So is it true that someone locked him out of his house? And was he really naked?” Rich asked.

“How’d you hear all that?”

“Donuts,” he explained.

Claire shook her head, then let it fall back on the chair. “After all these years, I still can’t get over how news travels around here.”

“What else have we got to do but talk about each other?”

“Point taken. As far as Walker goes, all we’ve got is his wife’s word for it that the dead bolt on the back door was locked. But I can think of no reason why she would lie about that.”

“How can someone do that? Freeze and then come back to life.”

“How they do it is very slowly, by what I saw today in the hospital. And very carefully. They cut a hole in his stomach, then gently washed his innards with warm water.”

“Really? A hole in his stomach? Amazing. Is he going to lose anything to frostbite?”

“Hard to tell. The doctor said he might lose part of an ear and a couple toes. I can’t believe he is coming through this as well as he is.”

“The body is a remarkable machine.” Rich thought for a second, then added, “Course I’ve seen piglets come back to life after they were frozen. I guess it might have helped that Daniel Walker was a bit of a pig.”

“Rich, you don’t like the guy?” Claire asked, not a bit surprised that he didn’t like Walker, but surprised that he would express it so clearly. Even with her, he didn’t usually say much negative about anyone.

“He doesn’t care for anyone but himself. Anyway, anyhow. I bet there’s ten people right in Fort St. Antoine that wouldn’t mind getting rid of him if they thought they could get away with it.”

“Could you give me that list?”

He slid his hands under her shirt and said, “Maybe we can strike a deal. I might need some warming up myself.”

2 January: 9 am

I
tell you what, that man must not have the sense that god gave geese. Who’d a guessed that a sauna needed to come with operating instructions,” Sheriff Talbert said as he sat stuffed into his swivel chair.

Claire was worried about the sheriff. He had gained weight over the holidays—just like everyone else in the department—in the county for that matter—but those extra pounds on top of the others that he had been accumulating for the last few years were not looking good. His face was constantly flushed and he wheezed. He was approaching sixty-five years old and his age wasn’t sitting well with him. But she couldn’t imagine the sheriff’s department without him.

“We just about lost Mr. Daniel Walker,” Claire said. “If that new woman doctor up at the hospital hadn’t known how to handle hypothermia, he would have been a goner for sure.”

Sheriff Talbert winced. “How’d his privates come through the ordeal?”

So like a man to worry about such things. Claire had to cough to keep from laughing. “Well, the doctor didn’t mention them. I’m sure they had burrowed deep into his body and were protected.”

“Hope so. Makes me shiver just to think about it.”

“What I’m concerned about is, well, it’s looking like someone tried to kill him. I’m wondering how we should handle this.”

“I guess handle it like an attempted homicide.”

“Yes, but his wife is, at the moment, number one suspect and she’s also the one making decisions about his medical care.”

“Well, that’s gotta stop. Is there anyone else who could step in?”

“His daughter’s there.”

“How old is she?”

“I’d guess early twenties.” Claire thought about Danielle’s attitude. “But somehow I don’t trust her even as much as his wife. They seem cut from the same cloth. Skinny women who need to be kept in high style.”

“Well, talk to the doctor and keep a close eye on what’s going on with him. So you think the wife might have locked him out? That’s cold.”

“I don’t know. She’s the logical suspect. She has the most to gain. According to Daniel’s daughter, who by the way is named Danielle, if they divorced Sherri wouldn’t get a penny, but if Daniel died before the divorce went through she might inherit most everything.”

The sheriff pouched his lips, then nodded. “That’s certainly a darn good motive. Money’ll do it.”

“Yes, but something just doesn’t feel right to me.” Claire had been thinking about this as she drove to work, going over and over what had happened to Daniel Walker in her mind. “First of all, Sherri has no alibi for New Year’s Eve. You’d think she’d have
planned something if she was going to try to off her husband. Secondly, she was the one who told us the house was locked up with a dead bolt, which could only have been done from the inside or with a key. If she hadn’t let us know that, we would have assumed Walker had just had an accident—letting her off the hook. Third, why would she have been the one to find him?”

The sheriff shrugged. “So who did it?”

“Well, as I told you, when Sherri got there the house was locked up tight. I think it all comes down to who had a key.”

“To get in and then lock the deadbolt.”

“Right. So my mission today is to track down all the keys.”

The sheriff tilted back in his chair and Claire worried that he might tip over, but he caught himself. “Better than a needle in a haystack.”

9 am

As always, Curt was waiting for Meg when she got off the bus at school. He smiled up at her as if nothing was wrong. His light brown hair was still damp from his shower and he looked happy to see her.

“Hey,” he said, bumping her gently with his shoulder. “Good movie last night. I’ve been wanting to see that one for a while.”

“Yeah. It was okay.” She didn’t stop to bump him back or to tilt her head up for a kiss. She just kept walking.

Curt walked along with her, staying close. “Sorry about last night. I just lost track of time. Andy had this new game, you know. It was pretty cool. I just spaced out, you know.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. Lighten up.”

She had been all ready to forgive him, after all he had finally said he was sorry, but the ‘lighten up’ comment got her all mad again. “I don’t want to lighten up. I’m kinda serious, if you haven’t forgotten that about me. Also I’m serious about you. I think you need to think about how you feel about me. What’s more important in your life?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Meg wished she could pull them back. She sounded so needy.

“Whoa.” Curt stepped back from her as if he was trying to see her from a new angle.

She stalked off and this time Curt didn’t follow.

Meg felt like putting her head in her locker and then just climbing in and shutting the door. What a way to start the day. Maybe what was happening between them wasn’t all Curt’s fault. Maybe she was too serious about everything. What was the matter with her?

Just then Andy walked by and rammed his fist into her shoulder, in what she took to be a friendly tap. The guy didn’t realize his own strength, plus he sure didn’t know how to treat girls.

“Where’s my main man?” he asked.

Meg hated the faux hip-hop lingo. She wanted to say, “Your man is a seventeen-year-old boy who is going to a Podunk school in the smallest county in rural Wisconsin with more cows per capita than any other state. Not a single black person even lives in this county, nor anyone remotely hip. Drop the stupid jive.” But instead she pointed to where she had left Curt.

Candy Bjurkquist slid up to her and said, “Did you hear about Bonnie?”

In their small school there was only one Bonnie, Bonnie Hegstrom, who was a year ahead of them in school. Meg barely knew the girl. She was very quiet and rather ponderous. Not unattractive, but not much of a personality. Lately, she seemed to be neglecting herself. Meg noticed that Bonnie had gained weight and her face had broken out and her hair seemed greasy all the time. She hoped Bonnie hadn’t had a nervous breakdown or some horrible rare disease that would kill her. She didn’t need more bad news today.

As much as she would have liked to have said into Candy’s intent face,
I don’t gossip,
she couldn’t resist asking, “What?”

“She’s in the hospital,” Candy said with a half smile that said clearly there was more.

“Why?”

“I heard she had a baby.”

“No way. She wasn’t pregnant, was she?”

“I guess so. Didn’t you notice how big her t-shirts were getting?”

“I just thought she was putting on weight.”

Candy shook her head. “What I can’t figure out is what guy knocked her up? You have any ideas?”

Meg felt sorry for Bonnie. Only seventeen years old and saddled with a baby. Knowing her parents, they’d probably make her keep it. She’d be stuck with a kid and living with her parents the rest of her life. Meg went through a list of possible boys in her head. No one came to mind. Then she wondered about Andy. He lived close to Bonnie, just a couple farms away. He
certainly seemed horny all the time and wasn’t going with anyone from school that she knew of, although Curt had said something about a hot date. She’d have to check it out.

Meg shrugged. “Not really. How’d you hear this?”

“My aunt works at the hospital. She says that Bonnie’s not doing so well, kinda scary.”

“Wouldn’t you be if you were in that situation?”

Candy shrugged. “I guess the baby’s cute.”

For a second, Meg wished she were closer to Bonnie and could go the hospital and talk to her, make her feel so not alone. But she knew she wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that. But maybe there was something else she could do.

She’d have to find a way to check out what Andy knew about Bonnie, if there was any chance he was the father. Ask Curt what he knew about Andy’s love life. Maybe that would get him out of Curt’s life. Kill two birds with one stone. Andy would have to stop playing games and start thinking about earning a living for his new family.

Maybe this was good news after all.

10 am

Amy saw Claire coming down the hall and stood up from where she had been dozing in a chair, across the hall from Mr. Walker’s room. The hospital felt so warm after the sub-zero weather outside and so quiet with the nurses walking around in their rubber-soled shoes, that she had felt sleep creeping up on her.

She tried to look alert and told Claire, “I haven’t seen either the daughter or the wife yet this morning. They stayed pretty
late last night from what Bill told me. Then, I guess, they got a hotel room.”