Snow Way Out (8 page)

He looked at the menu of beverages posted on the wall above the serving counter. “You know one of them fancy chai teas would hit the spot on a cool fall day.”

“Mmm, that does sound good. You should work here, Archie. You’ve sold me on one, too.”

I mixed up the concoctions and set one frothy drink on the serving counter in front of Archie and kept the other for myself. “So, Archie, what’d you think of the class last night?”

“Accordin’ to my way of thinkin’, it never hurts to learn a new skill. And I thought it was kind of interestin’ the way that teacher made that snow. It did seem like magic.” Archie pronounced the word “interesting” as “inneresting.”

“We had kind of a big surprise after the class, huh?”

“It was a durn big shock is what it was.”

“No, not what happened with Jerrell Powers. I meant the whole thing with May Gregors and Erin and Pamela Hemley and her sister.”

His lips pushed out and formed an O. “That whole fiasco was quite the deal, at that. Those women involved with the likes of that no-goodnik. If a guy had to die, out of all the guys I know, I guess he’d be the best pick.”

Archie had a simple, sometimes even simplistic, way of looking at things.

“When you put it that way, I can’t argue with you. But I would have voted for running him out of town instead.”

“He’da probably only come back anyway.”

M
ark was right: if wearing a pair of earplugs wouldn’t have been obvious and rude, they might have prevented my eardrums from pounding at the family gathering. All the immediate Vanelli family members were loud and expressive. Except for Mom and me, that is. We both clung to our more quiet Scandinavian—Norwegian and Swedish—roots. On top of that, my biological father was of English descent. Consequently, loud and expressive was not in my gene pool, or part of my experience in the first five years of my upbringing.

When I first moved in with my new family at the young age of five, I was on sensory overload. It seemed like everyone talked at once, and I couldn’t figure out how anyone heard what even one other person was saying. Eventually I sorted it out and came to love the way my father and siblings were so passionate about things. And Mom’s low-key demeanor kept it all from getting too crazy.

I opened the door of my sister’s large, two-story house undetected and stood in the entryway, taking a second to inhale the combined smells of garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, and herbs. When I walked into the living room, Susan was the first one to grab on to me. She took the bag of muffins out of my hand and gave it to one of her daughters. Then she hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe.

“Okay, okay,” my other sister, Debby, said, “my turn.”

I was passed down the line until everyone—my brothers, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews—all had physical proof I was all right. Mom was sitting on the couch, and Dad practically carried me over to her.

“Cami, you sit down here so I can hold you a minute,” Mom said. When she put her thin arms around me, it was like I was that scared and lonely little girl again. Tears filled my eyes, surprising me. Besides being worried about Mom’s health, the emotions connected to all I’d experienced the previous day caught up with me. Dad sat down on my other side and laid his large, muscled arm across me then rested his warm hand on Mom’s. In minutes, I felt calmer.

“We are so grateful you weren’t harmed,” Mom said, her blue eyes bright with unshed tears. Her head was wrapped in a stylish multicolored scarf I’d given her from my seldom-worn collection.

“But we’re mighty troubled to think we have a killer who lives among us in our community,” Dad said.

“They don’t know if the killer lives here or not. The police think it might have been someone from outside of Brooks Landing. They’re looking for a man Jerrell Powers knew from the halfway house they were both in.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case,” Dad said.

I had an inkling that wasn’t the case, but there was no need to mention that.

“Soup’s on,” Susan called above the rising volume of twenty or so voices talking at various decibel levels. We gathered in the country-style kitchen for our mealtime prayer, then Susan guided me to be the first in line for the buffet assortment of hot dishes, salads, and breads. I dished up portions of Susan’s always-in-demand lasagna; Debby’s romaine and provolone salad drizzled with an herbed dressing; ricotta and fruit salad; manicotti with mozzarella cheese oozing out the sides of the pasta; and a piece of crusty bread. A culinary heaven for Italian food lovers like me.

“You go sit next to Mom at the table tonight,” Susan instructed. Her extra-large dining table held sixteen people comfortably, so there was room for all the siblings and their spouses, plus a few nieces and nephews. The others sat at card tables in the living room.

Eventually everyone got through the line, and Dad filled a plate of food for Mom, which she picked at and pushed around more than she ate. I wondered if it was good for her to be surrounded by all the potential germs in the room, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dad sat at the opposite end of the table from Mom. He clapped his hands together three times, which was the signal we all recognized as
Attention, please.

“Children, Cami has the floor and will tell us of her unfortunate experience last night. And we will listen without interruption so she can get through her whole story before the cows come home.” My dad had never owned cows, but it was an expression he preferred over “it gets too late.”

I walked the family through the entire “Friday from hell,” beginning with Pinky’s news that Jerrell Powers was once again wandering the streets of Brooks Landing. But for a very limited time, as it turned out. There were loud gasps when I told them the class instructor was Powers’s ex-wife, and about the confrontation at the end of the class. But the snowing snow globe got the biggest response, until I filled in the details of finding Powers’s body in the park, that is. My family members were shifting, visually itching to ask questions along the way, but Dad’s command kept them in check. When I finished by telling them that when Clint took me back to the store, the snow globe had disappeared, the normal unchecked family gusto returned.

And it seemed I answered questions, and repeated key parts of my story, until the cows did come home. “Okay, everyone, enough! We can all see we are wearing Cami out,” Dad said.

I smiled a thank-you at Dad then gave him and Mom a kiss and a hug.

Mom’s eyes misted. “Besides being my daughter, you’re the only living connection I have to Berta. I need you to stay safe, my dear.”

“I will, Mom.” And for the second time that night tears welled in my eyes.

Instead of the usual thirty-minute Minnesota good-bye, I slipped away quietly into the night. The cool evening air was refreshing after the warmth of the house. I threw my head back to look at the moon and the stars and sucked in a big breath of air. On my way to the car, my phone beeped, alerting me I had a message. It was Erin wondering how much longer I’d be. Instead of texting a reply, I phoned her, said, “Five minutes,” then hung up.

Erin handed me a bottle of my favorite brand of beer while I was still in the entry, after I’d slipped off my jacket. “Thanks, I think this will really hit the spot tonight.”

“I got nervous waiting for you so I already had one,” Erin said as I followed her to her den. We sat in her comfortable overstuffed wing chairs and plopped our feet on the matching ottomans. She pulled at her straight black hair, gathered in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. “I didn’t exactly want him dead, you know. I actually feel bad about it.”

Didn’t exactly want him dead?
“I think I know what you mean. There have been people in my life I hope I never see again, but that doesn’t mean I want them to die.” I took a sip of my drink. “So who do you think did it?”

Erin’s dark eyebrows shot up. “For Pete’s sake, Cami, what a question! I think we should leave that up to the police to figure out.”

Her reaction was so similar to Pinky’s, it stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t like either of them not to answer a direct question, especially from me or someone else who was close to them. Erin and Pinky had returned to Brooks Landing after their years away at college, and they’d continued spending time together all the years I’d been gone. They were still the best friends I had in the world, but the two of them had more history, more memories, probably more secrets, that I hadn’t been a part of.

I wanted to get to the bottom of what had really happened to Jerrell Powers. I needed to know the truth, even if it meant my friends were involved. The fact that both Erin and Pinky were reluctant to offer their opinions of what they thought may have happened was just plain odd. Everyone seemed to have a theory, or at least a guess, when a major crime went down. Maybe they’d be willing to talk about it in a few days.

There was no need for me to keep pressing her. “Erin, you didn’t happen to find extra snow globe–making supplies with your things last night, did you?”

“Extra supplies?”

“May is missing some from her stash.”

“Hmm. It’s funny she’d even notice with all the stuff she brought.” She shifted then studied my face and changed the subject herself. “How are you doing, really? And tell me the honest truth, Cami.”

“I’ll be okay in time. The whole thing does not seem like it really happened. At all. But I’ve told the story so many times already, it’s bound to sink into my thick little brain eventually.”

She smiled and shook her head at my last comment. “You mean your thick
big
brain. I don’t think that the whole thing is real to any of the rest of us, either.”

“And how about you? I mean, first off, you heard Jerrell Powers was back in town. And then the whole ordeal of finding out who was who before and after our class. May, Pamela, Lauren. You had a few shocks of your own, huh?”

Erin looked down at her dainty hands then nodded. “That’s for darn sure. Nothing that compares with yours, but it was one thing after the other once we heard the last person in the world I ever wanted to see again was back roaming our streets.” She reached over to the end table that stood between us, picked up the snow globe she’d made, gave it a shake, and set it back down. We watched the snowflakes settle over her scene of kids sledding down a hill

“I’m glad I was in the dark about who May was when I signed up for the class because I really liked learning how to make these. And my students will get a kick out of making something this special. They’ll be cool gifts for their parents.”

“No pun intended?”

“What? Ahhh, cool. No, no pun intended. And Pam and her sister being there added another strange aspect, but neither one will have to worry about Jerrell Powers anymore.”

“That’s one way to put it, I guess.”

Erin gave the snow globe another shake. “Who’s manning the shops tomorrow?”

“Pinky.”

“Good. You need a day of R and R. I was planning to meet one of my friends from school to do some hiking, but I can cancel and spend the time with you instead. Or do you want to come along? Physical activity is a great stress reliever.”

“No. You go have fun. I have a date with a dirty house.”

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

“Cami, you never let your house get dirty and you know it.”

• • • • • • • • • • • •

S
unday morning, just before ten o’clock, I was scrubbing away in the kitchen, pondering who may have been involved in the murder, and otherwise minding my own business, when I heard a car pull up and park on the street in front of my house. I looked out the window and was not at all pleased to see it was Assistant Chief Clinton Lonsbury’s police car. He got out of it and shut his door. I threw the rags and cleaning bucket under the sink, and pushed the vacuum into a nearby closet a second before the front doorbell rang.

I took my time walking to the door, as much to slow my breathing as to make Clint wait an extra minute. He rang the bell again. I steeled myself and opened the door. “Good morning,” I said, with not a trace of a smile on my face.

Clint raised an eyebrow. “Am I interrupting your cleaning therapy session?”

“What?”

He pointed at my jeans. “You have a rag stuck in each of your front pockets.”

“Oh.” I patted the telltale evidence.

“And the smell of citrus fruit is the second dead giveaway.”

“Do you feel safe coming into my lemony clean house?”

“If you feel safe against any invisible germs that might be clinging to my body.”

I stepped aside and bit my tongue to hold in a rude remark while he braved a step inside.

Clint pulled his memo pad from his front pocket, flipped to a page, and glanced at his notes. “I wanted to give you an informal update on the case.”

“Informal?” I waved my hand toward the kitchen, and then I led the way there.

“Rather than asking you to come to the PD.”

I pulled a solid wood chair back from the small table for him. “I see. Here you go, have a seat. How about a cup of coffee? I have the beans from Pinky’s special supply.”

Clint’s nostrils flared slightly and he blinked. As I waited for his answer the thought crossed my mind that he might be wondering if I was thinking of poisoning him. It made me smile. He smiled back. “Something funny you’d like to tell me about?”

“No, it wasn’t all that funny. Coffee, no coffee?”

“Coffee. Thanks.” Clint settled onto the chair and crossed his arms on his chest. I felt his eyes boring into me as I turned my back, pulled a mug out of the cupboard, and filled it with a Guatemalan-blend medium-dark roast from Pinky’s last delivery.

“Do you take cream or sugar?”

“I drink it black.”

I set the mug on the table and sat down across from him. “Take a sip and if it’s too strong and you need to add milk or cream, I have both.”

Clint noisily slurped a bit of the hot brew and frowned slightly. “It’s good. I don’t usually go for the fancy stuff, but . . .” He took another loud sip.

“Do you always do that?”

“What?”

“Slurp. That loud sound when you suck in your coffee.”

“Never thought about it, but yeah, I guess I do. To cool the hot coffee before it hits my mouth.”

“And that works?”

“It does. Why, does it bug you?”

I considered denying that it did, but “yes,” came out instead.

Clint shrugged and slurped some more. “I thought I’d let you know Benjamin Arnold has slipped off the radar.”