The Deep, Deep Snow

by Brian Freeman

  “No, I’m staying.”

  “There’s a lot of ground to cover, Adrian. They’ll be at this for days.”

  “I know, but I want to be here. I owe it to Jer.”

  Adrian reminded me of his father, a big, physical kid who didn’t know how to deal with loss. “I’ve told you this before, but what happened to Jeremiah isn’t your fault. You shouldn’t feel guilty about it.”

  “Not feel guilty? Shelby, I told him to go. I was buying drugs, and I sent my little brother off by himself.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not the one who took him away.”

  Adrian simply shook his head and didn’t listen to me. I could tell that he didn’t want to feel better about himself. I remembered the very first day, the very first moments after the crime, when Ellen Sloan had quietly eviscerated her older son by laying the blame at his feet. I wondered if Ellen had ever taken those words back and forgiven him, but I doubted it. Here we were ten years later, and Adrian was still echoing what his mother had said.

  You let him go.

  I heard a shout.

  “Special Agent Reed, we need you over here,” one of the members of the FBI search team called. Through the gray twilight, I saw him signaling to Reed from the opposite side of the clearing. “We’ve got something.”

  My heart sank. I had visions of what they’d found, and none of them was good. I ran through the snow, and so did Adrian. We all converged on the site from different directions. Adrian, me, Reed, Adam. The FBI analyst stood outside one of the other cabins, at least fifty yards away from where we’d found the shuttlecock. He held a large plastic bag in his gloved hand. The bag was filled with odd, multicolored objects, but I couldn’t identify them at first. Then I realized that the objects were Legos. There were hundreds of them in red, yellow, green, orange, purple, and blue. Some were loose; some had been chained together; others had been built into an army of tiny robots.

  “We found these scattered among the debris on the cabin floor,” the analyst said. “We may be able to get fingerprints or DNA off the pieces.”

  I looked at Adrian. “Did Jeremiah have Legos with him that day?”

  Adrian reached out to graze the plastic bag with his fingers, but the analyst pulled it out of his reach. “Yeah. He had a tub of Legos in his backpack.”

  “And the robots?”

  “He used to build those all the time.”

  Agent Reed didn’t look happy about the discovery. “Was Jeremiah playing with the Legos before he disappeared? When the two of you were at the ranger station that morning?”

  Adrian rubbed his forehead with his thick fingers and tried to remember. “No, Mom got the box to cheer him up because he was so upset about losing our grandfather. He hadn’t opened it yet.”

  Reed frowned, as if this wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. “Did you find anything else?” he asked the analyst on his team.

  “Yes, sir. We’ve got a collection of rocks similar to the ones the sheriff’s department found in the other cabin. We’re bagging them now.”

  “How many?”

  “There are a lot, sir. Dozens. It looks like they were gathered from the forest and creek bed around here.”

  I saw another scowl of confusion cross Reed’s face. He buried his hands in his coat pockets and wandered away from the group. The wind blew snow across his face. I followed and quickly caught up with him. “Is something wrong?”

  “This doesn’t add up. How long does it take a kid to build Lego robots like that? How long does it take to gather that many rocks from the forest around here?”

  “I don’t know. Hours, probably.” As I said that, I realized what he was driving at. “Jeremiah was out here for a while.”

  “Yes. If you ask me, he was here at least a day. Maybe more. But that’s not what’s bothering me.”

  “Then what is?”

  “Think about it, Shelby.”

  I did. I tried to imagine Jeremiah here with his toys. Attaching Legos together one after another. Batting his shuttlecock around the resort. Hunting through the trees and ravines and finding rocks he could use in his cairns.

  That’s when it hit me.

  “He was free.”

  “Exactly. He was free. It doesn’t make sense. Abductors don’t let kids go off by themselves. What was really going on in this place?”

  I studied the ruins in the growing darkness.

  We had to be getting closer to the truth, and yet I felt as if we were farther away than we’d ever been from finding the answers. “We just said we were dealing with a predator. A sex crime. But I don’t know, is that what this feels like to you? I mean, it looks like Jeremiah was out here playing.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I got home after dark with a takeout veggie burger and sweet potato fries in a cardboard box from the Nowhere Café. Thumping rap music from Anna’s room drowned out every other sound in the house. I was hungry, and I had a headache, and the music made it worse. I called out to my father that I was back, but there’s no way he could have heard me, so I sat in the kitchen by myself. We had an open liter of cheap white wine in the refrigerator, and I poured myself a glass.

  I don’t know how long I sat there. I finished my burger. I dipped my fries in ketchup one at a time as I ate them. I drank the wine, and when I was done, I drank another glass.

  Anna still hadn’t turned down the music. When I went upstairs, I saw that her door was closed, with a sign hung on the knob that said, Stay Out. Dad’s door was closed, too. I went to my bedroom and grabbed my guitar and went back downstairs. I let myself out into the yard and hiked through the path we’d shoveled to our gazebo. I sat inside on one of the wicker chairs, and I turned on a space heater to take the edge off.

  I played for a while, picking out tunes and singing. That’s the way I unwind. I did a Simon and Garfunkel song, “Keep the Customer Satisfied,” and then I played “Hotel California” until I had this vision of Don Henley with a sorry look on his face, shaking his head at me. So I quit. I worked on the chords of a song I’d been writing, but it wasn’t coming together yet. By the time I’d played for half an hour, the space heater wasn’t enough to keep me warm. I was freezing and my fingers were numb, so I went back inside.

  The music shook the house. I couldn’t take any more of it. I went upstairs and pounded on Anna’s door, and when she didn’t answer, I opened it anyway, despite the warning to keep out. The volume inside made me cover my ears. Anna lay on her bed, wearing a purple T-shirt and shorts and white athletic socks. I was relieved that she was alone in the bedroom. She was reading the Bible, and I couldn’t remember when I’d ever seen her doing that. I went over to the speakers on her dresser and yanked out the plug. The sudden silence was blissful, but the music left a ringing in my ears.

  “I think we’ve had enough of that for tonight.”

  “Tom didn’t mind,” she replied in an irritated voice.

  “He’s a kinder soul than me. Where is he?”

  “In his room.”

  “Did the two of you eat?”

  “Yeah, we had eggs. I can cook, remember? You’re the one who can’t.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “I’m going to crash early. It was a long day. Keep the music off, okay?”

  “Whatever.”

  I nodded at the Bible in her hands. “Light reading?”

  “Will said I should see what’s in it.”

  “And what have you found?”

  “It’s pretty grim. ‘Everything is purified with blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.’”

  “Try some other passages,” I suggested.

  Anna shrugged. “So did you find him?”

  “Who?”

  “Jeremiah.”

  “We found evidence at the resort, but we don’t know what happened.”

  “Oh
.”

  She began reading the Bible again, ignoring me. I felt dismissed. I left and closed the door behind me. I went to my father’s room and tapped my knuckles gently on his door. It was still early, but if he’d fallen asleep, I didn’t want to wake him. Although I didn’t know how anyone could have slept through the music Anna was playing.

  There was no answer. I opened the door a crack and peered into the room. The bed was neatly made. The recliner near the window where he usually sat was empty. “Dad? Are you still up? It’s Shelby.”

  I checked the bathroom, but that was empty, too. When I glanced at the dresser, I saw his cell phone. Wherever he was, he didn’t have it with him.

  I went back downstairs. There was no sign of him in the great space. I knew he wasn’t in the backyard, because I’d just been there. I checked the basement, because he still liked to putter in his work room, even though I’d had to take away the power tools for fear he would injure himself. But the basement was dark. No one was there.

  My heart began to accelerate. Anxiety tightened around my chest.

  “Dad? Dad? Where are you?”

  He didn’t answer. He wasn’t in the house.

  I ran upstairs again and threw open Anna’s door without knocking. She had headphones on, but I could still hear the blast of music between her ears. She didn’t notice me until I went and grabbed the headphones off her head and threw them on the floor.

  “Hey!” she shouted at me. “What the hell?”

  “Where’s my father?”

  “I told you, he’s in his room.”

  “No, he’s not. He’s not in his room. He’s not downstairs. He’s not anywhere.”

  “Well, the last time I saw him, he was in his room.”

  “And I just told you, he’s not there. Now march your ass downstairs and help me find him.”

  Anna groaned loudly and followed me back to the ground floor. I rechecked all of the rooms, but I was wasting my time, because I knew he wasn’t there. I could feel a huge, sick weight taking shape in my stomach. I went out onto the front porch and shouted into the darkness.

  “Dad? Are you out there? It’s Shelby. Are you there?”

  The winter night was perfectly still. All of the animals and the dead in the cemetery must have heard me, but not my father.

  I was shaking from head to toe as I went back inside. Anna stood in the foyer, watching me with her thumbs hooked in the belt loops of her shorts. Her blond hair was messy.

  “Where is he?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Anna, I told you to watch him. I was counting on you.”

  “I did watch him. I spent the whole day with him. I made him dinner. He went to his room. I figured he was in for the night.”

  I clenched my fists and unclenched them. I swallowed down my rage, but it rose back up like a boat on a turbulent sea.

  “Did he say anything?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice calm. “Did he talk about going somewhere?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone come by? Did anyone call?”

  “No.”

  I glanced at the hallway leading past the laundry room to the garage. I had a terrible premonition of what I would find. I ran down there and pushed through the heavy door. The garage was empty, and the door to the outside was open, letting in the cold wind. The Ford Explorer we kept in there was gone. Dad’s truck.

  “Oh, my God.”

  He hadn’t driven in two years. We’d taken away his license and keys. But I’d been letting Anna drive the truck since she’d been staying with us.

  “Where are your keys?”

  “What?”

  “Your keys, your car keys, where are they?”

  I was losing it. Sweat made a film on my skin, and I felt acid in my throat.

  “On the kitchen counter,” Anna replied. “Chill. I needed to run out and get eggs, remember? You don’t keep anything in the fridge.”

  “Chill? Did you just tell me to chill? Don’t you understand what’s going on here? The truck is gone. My father is gone. Your keys aren’t in the kitchen, because he took them. How many times have I told you that you can’t leave your keys lying around?”

  “I forgot. I was busy making dinner. What the hell do you want from me, Shelby?”

  “What do I want from you?”

  I could feel blood pulsing into my face. I stared at the empty garage, and I thought about Dad out on the roads, with no idea where he was or where he was going, driving off in the middle of a January night. He could be alive or dead by now. He could be hurt. He could be bleeding. He could have pulled off the road and walked into the woods alone and be freezing to death on a trail somewhere. My father. I’d failed him. I’d lost him.

  What did I want from Anna?

  What did I want from this girl?

  I thought about what Trina would do and what Trina would say, but Trina was gone. I wasn’t her. I could never be her. I didn’t have the patience of Job. I wasn’t a mother. I had no idea what to do with Anna. All I knew is that I had never been so furious at anyone in my entire life. All the emotion I’d bottled up and forced down for months exploded from me like a bomb.

  I screamed.

  “What do I want, Anna? What do I want? I want you for one single second of your life to think about someone else. I want you to stop being a little bitch and realize that what you do affects other people in this world. I want you to be a human being and find something in that empty heart of yours. Got it? I want you to grow up, Anna! Grow the hell up! And I want you out of my house. I want you to pack your bags and go. Go now. Get away from me. Do you hear me? Do you understand me? I don’t want you anywhere near me or my father or this house. Call Will Gruder and have him pick you up, and live with him for all I care, because I am done with you, Anna Helvik. Done. Finished. We are over. Get out of my sight!”

  It took me all of one second to regret my outburst.

  Oh, damn.

  Oh, hell.

  What did I just do?

  I watched this beautiful twenty-year-old girl, whom I treasured, whom I loved more than life itself, disintegrate before my eyes. I wanted emotion from her, and I got it. She crumbled into pieces. She sobbed.

  I tried to apologize. I said it over and over. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Anna, I’m sorry, please forgive me, I didn’t mean that, I’m upset.

  But you can’t take the words back once you’ve said them. They’re out there forever. I reached out to take hold of her arm, to hug her, to comfort her, but she twisted violently away from me. Her tears turned to fury. She was speechless with sorrow, humiliation, and rage. She turned and ran away from me up the stairs, and I knew, I knew, she was gone.

  She was going to leave just like I’d told her to do, and she wasn’t coming back.

  And meanwhile, my father was missing.

  *

  There haven’t been many times in my life when I’ve been a wreck, but that night, I was a wreck. I wasn’t able to function. I couldn’t drive. I called Adam, who told me he’d come to the house. I called Monica, who was an hour away, but as soon as I told her about Dad, she started getting dressed and getting ready to head back through the winter night to Everywhere. I probably sounded hysterical to them, and I was.

  Adam arrived first. I half expected him to use his motorcycle, which he drove on off-hours throughout the winter, but he came in his sheriff’s truck. He was out of uniform, and the first thing he did was ask for coffee, because I could smell that he’d been drinking. He didn’t look thrilled to be here, but he hugged me and sat me down in the kitchen and tried to keep me calm.

  “I’ve called out every deputy,” he assured me, putting his cell phone faceup on the table. “They’re all out on the roads, every one of them. I called the boys in Stanton, too, and asked them to give us a hand. Wherever T
om is, we’ll find him.”

  “Did someone look in the sheriff’s office? Maybe he’ll go there.”

  “That was the first place I checked.”

  “I just don’t know how his mind works, Adam. He could think it’s years ago. He could think he’s still working a case somewhere.”

  “Like I said, we’re covering the whole county.”

  “It’s cold. It’s practically zero. If he’s outside …”

  “I know, Shelby. We’re doing everything we can.”

  I stood up again, because sitting down and doing nothing was driving me crazy. “I’m so sorry about this.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “He wandered off and didn’t take his phone. I don’t even know if he remembers how to drive. I’m going to have to do something. This is the beginning of the end. I can’t let this go on.”

  “Worry about that tomorrow. For now, let’s just focus on finding him and getting him home.”

  I nodded, because Adam was right. I opened the refrigerator door and closed it. Don’t ask me why. I poured myself a cup of coffee and poured it out. I pulled a half-empty garbage bag from under the sink, tied it up, and replaced it with a new one. I had to keep moving and doing something, no matter how useless it was.

  Finally, I ran out of power like a wind-up toy. I sat down again.

  “Thank you, Adam.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. It’s my job. Besides, you and I go back a long way. So do me and Tom.”

  “Well, this is above and beyond, and I really appreciate it. You’re a good sheriff. You know that, right?”

  “I’m competent, Shelby. That’s about all. Let’s not pretend I’m the sheriff Tom was.”

  “Hey, come on. That’s not fair.”

  Adam took a pack of nicotine gum from his shirt and unwrapped a stick. “It’s okay. I’m used to living in other people’s shadows. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He reached into his pocket and found his wallet. He opened it and took out a small photograph of his mother. It was from decades earlier, when she was a young athlete. He had a glossy magazine article folded inside his wallet, too, and he spread it out on my kitchen table. It was from a sports magazine that had done a retrospective on his mother’s Olympic career after she’d died. I felt a little bit of kinship with him at that moment, despite all the differences between us. Sooner or later, we all become orphans.