Sarah studied Amanda's eyes and saw a very deep worry. “Honey, does this woman have any children?”
“Not that I'm aware of,” Amanda said. “She surely didn’t while she was turning my innocent years into a living nightmare. She would have been in her late fifties or so at that time…she never mentioned a son or daughter or grandchild, never mentioned any family at all. She never left to visit anyone, either.”
Sarah took a sip of coffee, considering everything. “Okay,” she said, “let's review what we know.”
“Okay.”
“Bertha is a registered nurse, right?” Sarah asked.
“Unfortunately.”
“And she's between sixty-five and seventy years old?” Sarah asked.
“I guess, love,” Amanda replied. “I never knew her exact age.”
“Andrew said Bertha appeared to be around seventy, so let's run with that,” Sarah said and continued. “We know Bertha became a home nurse to your father-in-law, either by chance or by deliberation.” Amanda nodded. “We know Bertha came to the realization that you were her patient's daughter-in-law.”
“Boy did she ever.”
Sarah worked on her coffee. “So what does this awful woman do, at the moment of that realization?” she asked.
“I'll tell you what she did,” Amanda said in a worried voice, “she walked back through time and remembered a dark threat she made against an innocent young woman and decided to fulfill her promise. She carried an evil grudge all these years and saw her opportunity to get back at me, once and for all.”
“I wish I could find a flaw in your reasoning, June Bug, but I can't. It does appear that Bertha is in town to cause harm,” Sarah told Amanda. She put down her coffee and looked at the kitchen window. “Until that woman leaves Snow Falls, you're not leaving my sight. Also, I want you to begin carrying a gun.”
“I...have a gun in my suitcase,” Amanda confessed. “I loathe those awful things and can't wait until the day all weapons are hammered into plowshares like the Bible says.”
“Unfortunately, for the time being, the bad guys are still out there, and the good guys still need a way to defend themselves,” Sarah pointed out. “Gang members, criminals, thugs, drug dealers...they'll find a way to get guns regardless of what laws are passed, and meanwhile law-abiding citizens like us are left to suffer the consequences. For now, we carry our guns not because we want to but because we have to defend our lives in a very dangerous world.”
“From bows and arrows and spears to guns and bombs...mankind has sure improved, huh, love? We create more ways to kill than to heal and more ways to hate than to love.” Amanda sighed. “Long ago, I once believed Bertha had a decent heart inside her, and I thought if I simply bent to her will I would find a loving nanny under her hard exterior, ready to cherish and protect me. But then she removed her mask and I saw the monster lurking underneath. There was nothing I could do to make her happy. She didn’t want me to obey her, she wanted me to suffer. And now that monster is in town and there's no telling what weapons she has hidden in her valise.”
Sarah nodded. “I remember once, when I was a rookie...real wet behind the ears...I believed only cops and government officials should carry guns. I believed we were responsible for protecting the civilian population and that civilians didn't need guns.”
“What happened to change your mind?”
Sarah picked up her coffee. “A man tried to snatch a three-year-old girl from her mother in the parking lot of a grocery store. No cop was around.” Sarah closed her eyes and saw a vicious monster trying to steal a precious child from her mother. “The man had a knife...but the mother had a gun in her purse. Her husband was a cop who insisted she carry a gun and taught her how to use it. Long story short, this woman shot the man trying to steal her daughter.”
“Good for her!” Amanda cheered.
“The man ended up six feet under,” Sarah smiled. “And, as it turns out, he was a convicted felon who had recently been paroled from prison who had no intention of obeying the law. Now, what would have happened if the woman hadn’t had a gun?”
“I shudder to imagine.”
“Me too,” Sarah said. “And it was on that very day that I realized the wisdom of our country’s laws, and why every person has the right to carry a firearm and defend themselves. When a country is at war, you don't throw rocks at enemy tanks, and when a person's life is in danger, you have a right to fight back on equal footing.”
“I agree completely,” Amanda said. “I guess...I'll start carrying my gun in my purse.”
“I prefer an ankle holster, but a purse is fine, too.” Sarah finished off her coffee. “You can’t be shy with a gun, June Bug. Don't be afraid to go with your gut – sometimes that means we shoot first and ask questions later. Especially when there seems to be a clear and present threat in town.”
“Oh,” Amanda fretted, “I don't want to kill Bertha...I only want her to...well…shoo.”
“Doesn't seem that Bertha has any intent of leaving town anytime soon,” Sarah pointed out.
Amanda sighed. “I know.”
Sara stood up and refilled her coffee. “June Bug, we need to find out if this woman has any connections – maybe some family she didn’t mention. She’s in her seventies, and from what Andrew said, she’s not exactly spry and robust. That leads me to believe she may not be working alone.”
Amanda's eyes grew wide. “Do you honestly think?” she asked. “I mean, I never considered the idea that Bertha might be teaming up with a deranged husband or evil offspring. Goodness...”
Sarah looked toward the kitchen entrance. “Conrad is in the bedroom working on one of his puzzles. I need to go update him and have him run Bertha’s name to see if she has any known associates.”
Amanda gave Sarah a loving look. “Los Angeles, thank you,” she said in a sincere voice.
“For what?”
“For believing me. For caring and being a real friend...no, a sister,” Amanda explained and nearly began crying. “When my hubby took me away from London and moved us to Alaska, I never imagined I would find a real sister...a real family. But you and Conrad honestly care about me and for that...thank you.” Amanda wiped at a tear. “I never feel alone when I'm with you. I always feel safe and loved, and that's a gift that you can't put a price tag on.”
Sarah walked over to Amanda and hugged her. “You're the one who helped give our coffee shop life. You changed the coffee shop from a rugged wreck into a cozy, inviting place.”
Amanda laughed. “Well, that coffee shop was a little on the drab side,” she said and looked up at Sarah. “And speaking of the coffee shop, we better begin opening the doors for the winter.”
“I opened up the coffee shop all last week while you were gone,” Sarah smiled. “The regulars poured in, complained about my coffee, talked about this and that, ate me out of cinnamon rolls, and then wandered away.”
“The folks in this town complain about your coffee but still keep coming back.”
“Guess my coffee isn't that bad,” Sarah laughed and hugged Amanda again. “June Bug, I love you very deeply. Having you in my life is a blessing. Conrad feels the same way. Why, if he didn't have someone to fuss at while playing Scrabble his life might come to an end.”
“Conrad cheats at Scrabble,” Amanda whispered and hugged Sarah back.
“He does seem to get his I's and E's confused, doesn't he?” Sarah grinned.
“He sure does,” Amanda nodded. “And—” Amanda quit speaking when the telephone rang. “I told that husband of mine to give me time to calm down.”
“I'll answer the call,” Sarah said and hurried over to the phone. “Hello?...Oh, hi Andrew.”
“Sarah, I've got some bad news,” Andrew said in an upset tone of voice, heaving a deep sigh.
“What's the matter?” Sarah asked.
“That old lady we wanted out of town...well, she's dead.”
“Dead?” Sarah asked.
Amanda jumped to her fe
et and ran to Sarah. “Who's dead?” she asked.
“Bertha,” Sarah said in a daze. “Andrew, what happened?”
“I'll explain later. Right now, I need Conrad down at the station. And you better come, too, Sarah. I hate to ask this of you both when the storm is so bad, but I'll feel a lot better if we have two detectives on this murder case instead of one. She’s a British citizen so we’ll have the feds asking questions as soon as we file our report, so we have to get the investigation done right.”
“Andrew, the storm outside is getting worse,” Sarah pointed out. “I don’t even think we could dig out my truck if we wanted to. It’s coming down too fast.”
“Better dig out your snowmobiles,” Andrew replied in a heavy voice, “because I've got one wounded cop and a dead woman on my hands.”
“Wounded cop?”
“Someone struck Michael in the back of the head before they shot the old woman in the back two times,” Andrew explained.
“At the hotel?”
“Yeah, at the hotel,” Andrew confirmed. “Right out front. Because of the storm, no one saw or heard anything.”
Sarah took Amanda's hand. “I'll have Conrad call you right back, Andrew.”
“Have him call me here at the station,” Andrew instructed. “I called Brent in. When he gets here to man the station house I'll head over to the hotel. Brent should be here in about twenty minutes.”
“Will do,” Sarah said and hung up the phone. She looked at Amanda. “Bertha has been shot. She is dead.”
Amanda grew very silent and still. When she finally spoke, her voice came out very, very scared. “Whoever killed Bertha will try and kill me next,” she whispered.
Sarah looked at the kitchen window and watched the storm swirl as the winds howled across the landscape. “Another snowstorm...another murder...and just when we thought all of our troubles were over with.”
Outside in the dark, stormy night, a figure was racing away from the hotel on a snowmobile, headed straight for Amanda's cabin. “One down, one to go. It's time to pay the price,” the voice growled as the storm raged on.
3
Conrad was not pleased at the prospect of digging out a frozen snowmobile from a snow-covered shed then heading to town through a storm. But a murder had been committed, and his job required him to be on the scene. “I'll call you from the hotel,” he promised Sarah, slapping on his leather jacket.
Sarah grabbed a thick black ski coat and placed it over his leather jacket and then helped Conrad put on a black balaclava ski mask and a pair of thick winter gloves. Conrad would have preferred his old hunting jacket to the modern insulated winter gear that Sarah made him wear, but he had to admit that being warm was better than retaining his image and freezing into the bargain.
Then Sarah took down her own snow parka and began to dress for the snowstorm. “I can ride with you. Andrew asked me to come down.”
“We only have the one snowmobile,” Conrad pointed out, now starting to sweat under his balaclava. Mittens raised her head at the commotion in the kitchen and tilted her head at the strangely dressed man standing by the door, then laid back down and went to sleep. “Besides, what about Amanda? We can’t fit three on a snowmobile, and we can’t leave her here alone. If the power goes off, you need to be here to start the generator. We don't need our pipes freezing up on us.” He did not voice his concern that Sarah might need to protect Amanda from other, more sinister dangers, but Sarah understood the worry in his eyes.
Sarah loved Conrad for trying to protect her and her friend. She gently kissed his cheek, getting a mouthful of woolly lint, and opened the back door. An icy wind followed by screaming snow raced into the kitchen like a prowler searching for innocent victims. “Be careful,” she begged.
“Will do,” Conrad yelled over the winds and hurried outside into the dark storm.
“Please do,” Sarah whispered and pushed the back door closed with her back. “Well, June Bug, it looks like it's just the two of us.”
Amanda glanced down at a sturdy box on the table that she had retrieved from her cabin on her way home from the airport. She looked up at Sarah. “My gun is in this box,” she said in a voice full of dread. “My gun is in this box...my hubby and my son are in London...your husband just went out into the storm to help catch a killer...what a night.”
Sarah walked over to the kitchen window and looked out. She looked toward the shed, waited, and then saw a dim light turn on. “Conrad is in the shed,” she said and waited. A few minutes later she saw a pair of headlights flash out into the blowing snow from the open door of the shed. “He got the snowmobile out.” Sarah watched as Conrad drove a white and blue snowmobile out into the storm. A little ways down the driveway, he hopped off, ran back into the shed, shut off the light and closed the door. He peered toward the cabin then and waved at her before he raced off to the snowmobile and was off into the storm. “And now he's gone.”
“Come sit down, love.”
Sarah sighed. “I think I'll have more coffee,” she replied and walked over to the kitchen counter. “All we can do now is wait.”
“Waiting is horrible...not knowing is even more horrible,” Amanda commented. “I suppose there's no sense in making it worse, though.”
Sarah refilled her coffee cup and leaned back against the kitchen counter. She stood still for a minute and listened to the storm howl and whine. “Isn’t it funny, June Bug? When I was living in Los Angeles, I would have been excited to see just a few snowflakes in the air...not that it ever happened. Now if I see a few snowflakes in the air I prepare myself for a hard winter. But the strange thing is...now I look forward to the hard winters. At first when I moved to Snow Falls, I missed Southern California...the warm sun, city living, the beaches, the palm trees and the hills and canyons...a part of me still does, I guess. But when winter arrives here, I feel a sense of dread and excitement, both at the same time.”
“I love the snow,” Amanda confessed. “Not all the time. The winters in Snow Falls can be very long and scary, you’re right about that, love. Yet when spring begins to arrive, I start to feel sad. I hate saying goodbye to the snow. As much as I fuss about the cold...well, the snow is my friend. It always breaks my heart to see it melt away.” Amanda kept her eyes on the sturdy cardboard box in front of her. “The rain and fog that always shuffled around London with me were old friends, too. The rain and fog somehow seemed to transform the world into my own special place...a hidden world that only I understood. Silly, huh?”
“Not at all,” Sarah replied. “That's how the snow makes me feel. The sun and palm trees in Southern California seemed to belong to everyone...but the snow, June Bug, is ours.” Sarah sipped at her coffee and listened to the storm. “I wish my friend Pete were here. I wish he hadn't changed his mind about leaving California. But Pete belongs in Los Angeles with his cigars and Chinese take-out. And I belong in Alaska with the snow and the bears.” Sarah stared into the swirling snow outside the windows and saw the form of a creepy snowman in a leather jacket appear in her mind, grinning with familiar malice. “Hello Sarah,” the apparition hissed as it pulled a peppermint candy cane out of one of its pockets. “Almost got you with the virus, didn't I? I come in all forms, oh yes I do.”
“Love?” Amanda asked, spotting a strange expression cross Sarah's face.
“Huh?” Sarah asked.
“Are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“I guess I did,” Sarah whispered. She walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. “Maybe we better look at your gun, June Bug. I would like to make sure it's loaded properly and ready to fire.”
“Oh...okay,” Amanda said reluctantly, like someone was pulling a band-aid slowly and painfully off of an injury she didn’t want to touch. She reached out her hands and removed the lid of the box. She set the top down and reached into the box to pick up the microfiber cloth she used to wrap the gun when it was in storage. “What the bloody…?” she said, her brow wrinkling in confusion.
Amanda's eyes grew wide with fear. “This,” she said and unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a roughly-shaped gray rock instead of a gun. “Love, what's going on here?”
Sarah stared at the rock and then jumped to her feet. She ran to the phone and dialed Andrew as fast as she could. Andrew picked up on the third ring. “Andrew, it’s Sarah. Someone stole Amanda's gun from the safety lockbox inside her cabin.”
“Are you sure?” Andrew asked, slapping on a pair of thick gray gloves.
“I'm sure,” Sarah said. “Whoever stole her gun put a rock in the box to counter the weight so she wouldn’t know. My guess is the person who shot Bertha stole Amanda's gun.”
“Who would do that? Why would they try to frame Amanda for murder?” Andrew asked.
“I don’t know, but that’s what it looks like to me,” Sarah told Andrew. “Listen, Conrad just left a few minute ago. He should get to the hotel soon. When he arrives, have him come back here. He needs to get to Amanda's cabin and search it for evidence.”
Andrew hesitated. “Sarah, I really need him at the hotel.”
“I know,” Sarah said, “but Conrad needs to search Amanda's cabin, it’s urgent.”
“Sarah, it's hard enough moving in this storm. We have to get a dead body over to the hospital and arrange for an autopsy and the works.” Andrew looked down at his messy desk. “But if you think Conrad needs to be elsewhere, I trust you, Sarah. Lord knows, your reputation as a homicide detective is one for the books.”
“You're a good cop yourself, Andrew,” Sarah pointed out.
“When it comes to murder, sometimes I feel I’m in way over my head,” Andrew confessed. “When you and Amanda were trapped up at the hot springs, I had a killer disguised as one of my own guys and didn't even know it. I'm better at tracking down a hungry bear than a killer. Remember when I almost shot and killed Conrad?”
Danger in the Snow Page 4