Vanessa Gray Bartal - Lacy Steele 07 - Icy Grip of Murder (8 page)

“I have no idea. One of my former
friends or maybe Jenny.”

“Jenny, the girl you killed? Last I
heard ghosts couldn’t throw well,” the officer said.

“What do you think happened?”
Michael countered.

“I think trouble follows you
wherever you go, and I don’t think that’s coincidence,” the officer said.

“You know who else follows me
wherever I go? Police officers. Maybe it was one of you,” Michael shot back.

“Hey, now,” the officer said,
standing straighter.

“It’s been a rough night and we’re
all tired and stressed,” Jason said. “Why don’t you finish your investigation
while we make other car and hotel arrangements? If you need to talk to us
again, we’ll be happy to give another interview in the morning.”

“I suppose, but don’t leave town,”
the officer said.

Lacy opened her mouth to make a
rebuttal. Jason had once told her that unless an arrest had been made, officers
had no power to keep anyone in town. Michael was obligated to stay because he
was under bond, but she and Jason were free to go. Jason jumped in before she
could say a word, though.

“We’ll be sure and stay right
here,” he said and rolled up the car’s window before Michael or Lacy could add
anything else. “Could you two try any harder to get us arrested?”

“That guy is a jerk,” Lacy said.

“Lacy, baby, everyone’s a jerk when
they’ve been pulled from a warm bed at two in the morning,” Jason said. “In
fact, I’m about ten seconds from turning into a raging jerk myself. Let’s get
another room and go to sleep.”

“All right,” Lacy agreed. “You wait
here for the rental company to show up with another car and I’ll go arrange
another room.” She started to go, but he held her back.

“See if they have cocoa.”

“You hate cocoa,” she said.

“I know, but it’s been sounding
good ever since I got here,” he said.

“Do you want cocoa?” Michael asked
her.

“For the first time in my life, I
can honestly say that I don’t,” she said.

“Could this trip get any weirder?”
he asked.

The answer to that was a resounding
yes.

The rental company soon arrived
with another car—
their
last, they warned. But
when Lacy returned to sign for it, the news she brought to Michael and Jason
wasn’t good.

“The motel doesn’t want to give us
anymore rooms. Apparently we’re too much of a risk.”

“What about the other hotel?” Jason
asked.

“No good. They’re owned by the same
person,” Michael said.

“How far is the next closest hotel?”
Jason asked.

“Forty miles,” Michael said.

“That’s no good since you’re not
allowed to leave,” Lacy said.

“You guys go on without me. I’ll be
fine,” Michael said.

“What are you going to do? Camp
outside and die?” Lacy asked.

“I’ll find somewhere to stay. It’s
never been a problem before,” Michael said.

“Then why don’t you find somewhere
for all of us to stay,” Lacy suggested.

“You might not like it,” he warned.

“As long as it doesn’t explode with
fire or shrapnel, I think I can handle it,” Lacy said.

“And if it’s warm,” Jason said,
shivering. He had tried to put on a pair of Lacy’s socks, but they only covered
the tips of his feet. Between the hat, long underwear, and dangling socks, he
looked like a court jester for northern climes.

Michael took the keys and drove
them to what looked like a small bungalow. It was hard to tell much about the
house in the dark. So far all the houses Lacy had noticed were small and
rundown. If there was money in this town, it wasn’t on display.

“Whose house is this?” Lacy asked.
“Beetle? Ladybug? Horsefly?”

“Len and Linda,” Michael said.

“Who are Len and Linda?”

“They ran the group home where I
lived for a whole lot of years until they retired. They’re good people, not
like real parents, but the best I could have asked for under the circumstances.
Let’s hope they find some pity in their hearts to take us in.”

It was three in the morning. Lacy
thought nobody in his right mind would answer the door at such a late hour, let
alone take in three homeless people, but she was wrong. A woman glanced through
the window and opened the door wide, casting the shivering trio in a pool of
warmth and light.

“Well, Michael Smith. It’s about
time you came for a visit. Come in.” Even in the dim light of the hallway, Lacy
was struck by the woman’s appearance. She was large and broad, her face wide
and dimpled. Her once blond hair had faded to gray and hung in thick braids on
each side of her head. Her nightgown was blue gingham with a picture of a
mountain scene across the breast. She looked like Heidi’s grandmother.

“Hi, Linda, these are my friends,
Jason and Lacy. I’m sorry to drop in on you like this, but we’ve had some bad
luck with our hotel. Would it be possible to stay here for a while?”

“Of course, but, oh, I’ve only got
the one room.” Her face clouded with apology.

“One room is fine,” Michael assured
her. “I really appreciate this.”

“I told you when you left that you
would always be welcomed back, trouble or not,” Linda said.

“It was trouble more often than not
with me, huh?” Michael said.

“Some people take longer to find
their footing,” Linda said. “Now come on, you three look dead on your feet. Let
me show you that room.” They followed her down a short hallway. One partially
open door emitted the sounds of someone snoring. The other door she pushed open
and flipped on a light. It was a small room with a set of twin bunk beds, more
befitting a child than three adults. But at this point Lacy was too tired to
care. She thought they thanked Linda, but she couldn’t be sure. The late hour
and post-adrenaline crash had caught up with her and she wanted nothing more
than to sleep.

Michael vaulted easily to the top
bunk. Jason crawled in the bottom bunk and faced her. He patted the four inches
of space beside him. She stood staring at him in dismay, sure there was no way
they could both fit. However, the floor was hard wood and Linda hadn’t provided
any other bedding. Unless she wanted to sleep on bare oak, she had no choice.
She scooted in beside him. He wrapped her close, his whole body shivering.

“It’s so cold. I can’t get warm,”
he whispered and promptly fell asleep.

Lacy, on the other hand, promptly
began to overheat. The sheets were flannel. There were three blankets on top of
her and Jason smashed beside her, his arm and now one leg extended over her.
There was a t-shirt in her suitcase. Perhaps if she changed from her
long-sleeved pajamas, she would stop sweltering. She tried to ease away, to put
some space between them, but he held her tighter with a mumbled,”
Mmp
.” He was still shivering. How was it possible that she
was absorbing all the heat and him none of it?

Sweat began to bead on her forehead
and trickle into her eyes. She wiped it with her free hand, the one that wasn’t
pinned by Jason’s weight. She was sure she would never be able to fall asleep,
but halfway through trying to calculate how long the human body took to
dehydrate, she did just that.

The next morning, she woke in the
same position, encased in Jason’s embrace like a captive animal—one that
sweated profusely. And he was still shivering. This time when she tried to slip
away, he woke up.

“Can you believe how cold it is
here? How do people live like this?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” Lacy said, dabbing
her sleeve across her brow.

“I smell eggs.”

“How can you smell eggs? Unless
they’re rotten,” she said.

“I don’t know, I just do. Do you
think she’s making breakfast for us?” he asked.

“Yes,” Michael answered as his legs
swung over the top of the bed to dangle beside them. “Linda’s a good cook.”

Jason sat up so quickly that Lacy
would have bounced to the ground if he hadn’t caught her. “Let’s eat. I’m
starving,” Jason said.

In the other room, someone started
to yodel.

“Is that…” Lacy began, but Michael
interrupted her.

“Polka music? Yes.”

“People actually listen to polka
music here?”

“Not just listen; it’s a way of
life, at least for Len and Linda. They were Wetherby polka champs eight years
running.”

“You know some interesting people,”
Jason said.

“Everywhere I go, I attract the
weirdest ones,” Michael said.

Jason squinted, trying to decide if
he had just been insulted.

“I think I’m going to shower before
I eat,” Lacy said. After sleeping in a pool of her own sweat all night, she
couldn’t wait to be clean again.

“But…breakfast,” Jason said.

“You guys go on without me. I think
I only want something to drink anyway,” she said, figuring she would need a
large amount of fluid and electrolytes to replace what she had lost in the
night. “And, Michael, tell Linda that we’re going to pay her what we were
paying for the motel.”

“I’ll try, but she won’t take it,”
Michael said.

“Find a way to make her,” Lacy
said, pushing aside his legs to climb out of bed.

Linda had laid towels outside the
room for them. Lacy took one and made her way down the short hallway to the
bathroom. It was small and cramped and probably the only one in the house. For
that reason, she tried to hurry, not wanting to hog the space or hot water. Even
though she felt she had succeeded in being quick, Michael and Jason were still
gone by the time she emerged.

“They went to get clothes for the
one in his underwear,” Linda said. “What can I make for you?” This morning her
braids had been wound into buns atop her ears. Last night’s gingham nightgown
had given way to a red sweater with white reindeer and pine trees knitted all
over it. She looked ready for a day on the slopes. As Polka music played in the
background, her ample backside shimmied enthusiastically with the beat.

“Nothing, really. Juice is fine,”
Lacy said. She helped herself to the container sitting on the table.

“Are you sure? It’s no trouble to
whip up more eggs.”

“No, I’m not hungry. Thank you.”

“Not eating must be how you stay so
skinny,” Linda said. Lacy tried not to choke on her orange juice. She had never
been accused of not eating or being skinny before, but Linda was a large, solid
woman. In comparison, Lacy was definitely diminutive.

“Michael tells me you and your
husband ran the home where he grew up,” Lacy said.

“Yes, you’ve got yourself a
troublemaker there. He was full of mischief from the time we took him in.”

“We’re not together,” Lacy
explained. “Jason is my boyfriend.”

“The one with the hat?” Linda said.

“He doesn’t always wear a hat.
Michael’s been a good friend to us, and we wanted to return the favor by lending
some moral support.”

“I’m glad he found friends like
you. He needs them, someone to challenge him and not mindlessly follow whatever
he says. It wasn’t good for him to be the leader of that group. Too much
temptation to let the power go to his head and make him do bad things,” Linda
said.

“You don’t really believe he killed
Jenny, do you?” Lacy asked.

“No, I don’t believe Michael could
murder anyone, least of all Jenny. I tried to tell the police as much, but of
course they wouldn’t listen. They thought Len and I were biased because we had
helped raise him all those years. But we were never biased about the kids in
our care. They had problems, probably more than most, but they weren’t
deviants. They were normal kids in need of care and discipline. We tried to
provide both. Oh, I hear my husband stirring around. Excuse me.” She left the
kitchen and returned
a few minutes
later, a stooped,
hobbling man on her arm.

Lacy turned expectantly toward the
door, halfway expecting the man to be wearing lederhosen and smoking a long
wooden pipe. He was dressed in a plain green robe, although his head bobbed
merrily in time with the accordion music. Somewhere in the other room, a cuckoo
clock sounded, furthering the illusion that Lacy had been mysteriously
transported to the Alps.

“This is my husband, Len. Len, this
is a friend of Michael’s who is staying with us for a while.”

“How do you do,” Len wheezed. Lacy
noted an oxygen line sticking out of his nose and trailing behind him into the
recesses of the house.

“Thank you for having us. It’s a
pleasure to meet you,” Lacy said.

“The kids and their friends are
always welcome here. They know that,” Len said. Speaking seemed to be difficult
for him. He sat and waited breathlessly while his wife poured him a cup of
coffee. “COPD,” he explained, even though Lacy was doing her best not to be
nosy about his medical condition. “All those years of smoking caught up with
me. I need to have a serious talk with Michael about his smoking.”

“He quit,” Lacy said.

“Good for him,” Len said and sat in
silence sipping his coffee a while. Lacy began to feel conspicuous and awkward,
as if she were interrupting a private breakfast ritual, which she was.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go
finish getting ready,” she said. She carried her glass to the sink and rinsed
it before easing out of the tiny kitchen and down the hallway. Len and Linda
were friendly and welcoming, but it was much different to stay at a hotel
versus someone’s home. Add to that the fact that she had never been comfortable
meeting strangers, and she was better off hiding in her room until Michael and
Jason returned.

Jason had already made their bed,
but Michael’s was still in a shambles. Lacy stood on the bottom bunk and tidied
his blankets and sheets. When she was almost finished, she became aware of a
tapping sound coming from the window. She moved aside the curtain and saw a
young boy standing outside, tossing pebbles against the glass. She opened the
door and leaned out.

“Can I help you?”

“You’re Michael’s new girl.”

For a few seconds, Lacy was too
startled to speak. As soon as she heard the words, she knew it wasn’t a boy.
And though she had never met her before, she also knew the woman in front of
her was Jenny. She was short and wiry with choppy black hair and an ivy tattoo
that wound the length of her neck. She also wore a black fedora. Lacy was
envious of that. She had always wanted to wear hats, but her last disastrous
attempt occurred when she was in high school and wore a stocking cap and
striped shirt. The “Where’s Waldo” jokes had kept her from ever trying a hat
again.

“Uh…” she began, stalling for time.
If she could find a way to call the police, they would see Jenny for
themselves. They would know she wasn’t dead and Michael would be off the hook
for her murder. But her phone was on the other side of the room in her purse.
There was no way she could risk leaving the window to reach it. She would have
to hope that Jason and Michael came back before Jenny left.

“You don’t look like his usual
type. You’re wholesome,” Jenny said and somehow she made “wholesome” sound like
a bad word.

Stall,
stall, stall,
Lacy thought. “I’m not as wholesome as I look. Once I forgot
to return a library book for an entire year.”

“Wow, hardcore. I need to talk to
Michael.”

“He’s not here right now. Can I
take a message?”

“How do I know he’ll get it?” Jenny
asked.

“Despite the library thing, I’m
usually trustworthy,”
Lacy
said. “Besides, I think you
two have a lot to discuss. For instance, how you’re not dead.”

“Why would he care? He was going to
break up with me. He never loved me anyway,” Jenny said. She sounded petulant.

“I think he loved you. He was
pretty torn up by your death, and then he was accused of murder. Wasn’t that
enough to make you come forward?” Lacy asked.

Jenny smiled, but it wasn’t a nice
smile. “That was enough to make me check out. He should have been accused of my
murder then. He should be rotting in jail now. I left the best trail I possibly
could. I should have known our incompetent cops would mess it up. I never counted
on Michael to flee, though. Where did he go?”