An Accidental Woman

by Barbara Delinsky

  He opened the curtains on a world dense with fog. He couldn’t see more than a dozen feet beyond the cabin. The lake might have been an ocean, with him thousands of miles from shore.

  Unsettled, he returned to the woodstove. His hiking boots were still damp. He opened them wider and repositioned them, then set a pot of coffee on to perk. When it was barely done, he poured a cup and drank it while he scrambled eggs in a heavy iron skillet. He ate them straight from the pan, standing up, shifting from one foot to the other. Finally, when hehad nothing else to distract him and couldn’t possibly wait any longer, he put on his boots, went outside, and ran straight for the trees.

  The relief was well worth the biting cold. He took a deep breath, dropped back his head to look high into the hemlocks, smiled at the crispness of the air and the pleasure of the physical release. When he was done, he turned back toward the cabin and caught sight of the lake. The fog had begun to lift, leaving startlingly beautiful tiers of light. Highest up were the clouds in shades of gray, beneath them the shore in gradient levels of gray-green to moss, then the lake itself with snow riffles shaped by the night’s wind.

  The clouds lifted even as he watched. When they thinned enough to allow bits of sun to break through, the snow came alive with glitter, but it was what he heard then that made him catch his breath. From somewhere—nowhere—came the haunting call of a loon. At least, he thought it was a loon. He had heard a few when he’d visited Lake Henry in October and had seen them on the lake. He didn’t see any birds now on the frozen expanse and guessed that they were in a hidden little patch of water, but that didn’t lessen the effect. If anything, it added a surrealism to the scene.

  In that instant, he wasn’t thinking of paying his dues or proving himself or getting on anyone’s good side. He had always loved the outdoors, and this was the outdoors at its best. As he stood there and the loon call came again, the shore grew more distinct. He made out his truck. Farther along the shore he picked out one small cottage, then farther on, another. He heard the sound of an engine or a chainsaw—he didn’t know which, didn’t care. It worked well with the smell of the woodsmoke coming from his stove.

  The loon moved on and ceased to call. He began to shiver, but he stayed there, standing now on the edge of the island, until his ears stung from the cold. Back inside, by comparison comfortably warm, he was invigorated.

  He could do this, he decided. He could find the switch to turn on the lights; he could get the water running. He could make this cabin work.

  All he had to do was get the truck out of the snow, and he’d be on his way.

  * * *

  Poppy worked out until her arms and shoulders ached. Lulled by the fog as she faced the lake, she focused on her upper body, moving from one part of the weight machine to the other. She pedaled the recumbent bike with her arms, which in turn moved her legs through a range of motion. She used the standing table to keep her lower extremities as attuned to weight bearing as they could be. But she ignored the parallel bars on the far side of the room. That piece of equipment had been her physical therapist’s idea, not hers. She hadn’t wanted it there, didn’t see the point. She wasn’t walking again. She could accept that.Finishing up, she showered, had breakfast, and answered the phones long enough to know that Micah had taken the girls to school, that Cassie had learned nothing more from Charlie than Poppy had learned herself the night before, and that Griffin had survived his night on Little Bear. He had shown up at the general store with a bruise on his thumb from whapping frozen logs together, a purpling slash on his cheek from slipping against the truck when he was shoving pieces of birch bark under his tires for traction, and stories about hearing a loon. The reports said that he was undaunted, and had come looking for gloves, high winter boots, thermal underwear, and the secret to turning on the lights at the island.

  Everyone in town knew that the fuse box was behind a small panel in back of the peanut butter in the kitchen cabinet, that the loons were gone for the winter, and that Buck Kipling kept a set of tire chains under the seat of his truck.

  Poppy wondered if anyone had told Griffin about the chains.

  She wondered if anyone had told him that he wouldn’t get water running until the pipes were fixed, and that they couldn’t be fixed until spring.

  She wondered when he would show up at her place.

  Not wanting to be there when he did, she set off in the Blazer the instant Selia McKenzie showed up to man the phones. By ten, she was at Cassie’s office in town, and within minutes of that, they were off to visit Heather at the county jail in West Eames.

  Chapter Six

  The county jail was a squat brick building behind the courthouse. Poppy’s heart pounded in trepidation as she propelled her wheelchair up the well-shoveled ramp. She stayed close to her friend while Cassie talked them inside. There was a standard search, modified to accommodate dangers that a wheelchair might hide, during which Poppy was desperate to say something like, You’re suspecting the wrong people! Always the wrong people! A dozen years ago, she would have spoken right up. Wisely, now, she held her tongue.They were ushered into a small room reserved for meeting with lawyers. The walls were bare concrete with a smattering of graffiti. A card table stood off to one side. Cassie dragged it to a more comfortable spot away from the wall and pulled up two folding chairs.

  A short time later, Heather was led in. She wore an orange jumpsuit and looked as if she’d barely slept. Her eyes widened when she saw Poppy, and for a minute she hesitated. It took Poppy offering her arms before she ran over for a hug.

  After a minute, Poppy eased her back. “How are you doing?”

  “Awful awful awful,” Heather whispered and started to cry. When she tried to hide her face, Poppy hugged her again. After a minute, Heather pulled back on her own.

  Gently Cassie asked, “Are you all right here?”

  Heather nodded as she blotted her eyes with the heel of her hands. Rather than taking a seat at the table, she backed up to the wall. “Where’s Micah?” she asked in a thin voice.

  “He’ll be here this afternoon,” Cassie replied. “He wanted to come with us now, but I asked him not to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we need to talk—you, me, and Poppy. We need to talk about where you were before you came to Lake Henry. I thought you might feel freer without Micah here. Charlie told us about the restaurant in Atlanta. That’s the kind of information we need. My paralegal is at the office right now trying to contact the guy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if we’re going to prove that you’re Heather Malone, we need affidavits from people who knew you before the date of the murder in Sacramento. I need leads, Heather. Help me, please.”

  Heather took in a slow breath. Exhaling, she put a hand over her mouth. For a minute, she looked like she was going to be sick. She swallowed once, then again, and seemed to regain control.

  Poppy wheeled over to her. “What is it? What happened?”

  Heather’s eyes welled again, but she said nothing.

  “It doesn’t matter what it is,” Poppy tried. “We don’t care. It won’t change how we feel about you. We’re with you through this all the way. That’s what being friends is about.”

  “Did John write a piece?”

  Lake News, John’s newspaper, appeared each Thursday. “He’s a friend, too. The article covered only the facts of your arrest. It didn’t get into speculation.”

  Heather nodded. Eyes moist and filled with pain, she asked softly, “How are Missy and Star?”

  Feeling rebuffed, Poppy sat back in her chair and said a less gentle, “They’re terrible. They want you home. They’re sure that you’re gone for good, just like Marcy.”

  Heather drew in a shaky breath but made no reply.

  In the ensuing silence, Cassie rose abruptly. “This is not fair to them, Heather. They love you. So does Micah, and here he is, hit with all this just as sugaring season is about to start. You’re his partner in all that, so it�
�s not fair to him, either. And it’s not fair to us. We’re your friends, and we love you, but those facts don’t take us far in a court of law. Here’s thescoop, sweetie. We need facts. We need hard facts documenting who you are, like where you were born, where you grew up, where you went to school.”

  Heather frowned, swallowed, murmured, “We had no money.”

  “Public schools are free,” Cassie replied. “Where did you go to school?”

  When she didn’t answer, Poppy asked, “Did you get a driver’s license somewhere?”

  “I used to baby-sit,” Heather said.

  “For whom?” Cassie asked.

  “They’re all long gone. My dad had trouble holding a job. It was worse after my mother left.”

  Left. Poppy had assumed that the woman was dead, since Heather had never mentioned her mother. Left was something else, something that could raise all kinds of issues, which made Heather’s silence on the matter all the more puzzling. They had talked about mothers. Poppy knew they had, and many times—Poppy and Heather alone, Poppy and Heather with Marianne, Sigrid, and Cassie. Most women had issues with their mothers. Heather must have taken part in these discussions, or the others would have questioned her on it. Of course, there were ways to take part in a discussion without talking from firsthand experience.

  “Left?” Cassie asked.

  “Where did she go?” Poppy asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How old were you when she left?” Cassie asked. When there was no answer, she asked, “So your father raised you? Where?” Still there was no answer. “Talk to us, Heather,” she warned. “I need to know these things. Give them to me, and I can get you out of here. Without them, my hands are tied.”

  Heather huddled into the wall. “I can’t.”

  “It’s that bad?” Poppy asked.

  Heather nodded.

  “Worse than being sent back to California and tried for murder?” Cassie asked, then warned, “Because that’s what’ll happen, sweetie, if you don’t help me out here.”

  Heather put her forehead against the concrete wall.

  “Don’t,” Poppy begged.

  “Talk to us,” Cassie pleaded.

  Heather took her head only far enough from the wall so that she could press her palms to her temples.

  Cassie took a step back. “The problem is that if you won’t talk, people will assume guilt.”

  Heather pressed harder.

  Poppy tugged at her arm. “Help us, Heather. Give us a date, any date. You don’t have to relive the whole nightmare, if that’s what it was, just give us one person who can vouch for your being you, just one person, just one name, one place, one date . . .” She could have gone on, but it wouldn’t have helped. Heather had put her hands over her ears.

  “I think we’re done,” Cassie said in a no-nonsense voice.

  “No,” Poppy cried, turning to her, but Cassie’s face was set.

  “We’ve asked, we’ve coaxed, we’ve begged,” she said loudly enough for Heather to hear, hands and all. “I don’t know what more we can do. Heather has thirty days to decide if she wants to visit California. At the end of those thirty days, she may not have a choice. If that governor’s warrant presents evidence that we can’t counter, she’ll be on the first flight out, and once she’s there, it’ll be prison, not jail. It’ll be hardened convicts on the next cot and in cells on either side, not someone spending the night for driving under the influence. Californians have no sympathy for Lisa Matlock. Charlie DiCenza is out for blood. So if Heather’s prepared for hard time, fine. If not, she needs to listen to reason and talk.” She went to the door and rapped hard. Within seconds it opened, and Heather was retrieved by a guard.

  Watching her leave, Poppy felt utterly helpless. The instant the door closed, she turned on Cassie. “We should have kept at her. We should have worked at it from the personal side—the five of us being close friends—friends wanting to help. If she doesn’t have family, we’re her only hope. We should have told her that.”

  “We did. She’s not hearing.”

  “But what you said was cruel.”

  Cassie sighed. “What it was was blunt. Gentle coaxing hasn’t helped. I tried that yesterday. Maybe this will.”

  * * *

  Within minutes of dropping Cassie at her office, Poppy put in a call to Maida. “Hi, Mom.”There was a pause on the Palm Beach end, then a cautious, “Poppy? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Poppy said lightly.

  That brought another pause. “You don’t usually call. Is this about Heather?”

  It certainly was, though for the life of her, Poppy didn’t know why she thought her mother might help.

  “I’ve gotten calls,” Maida went on. “I know she’s in jail.”

  “She’ll be out soon. We’re working on gathering evidence to prove that she is who she is.”

  “And is she?”

  Poppy felt a twinge of annoyance. “Of course, Mom. Why do you ask that? She’s my friend. Wouldn’t I know if she’d committed murder? Wouldn’t I know if she’d done something as bad as that?”

  After yet another pause, Maida said quietly, “Maybe . . . maybe not.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Maida sighed. “It’s just that sometimes you know people, and sometimes you don’t.”

  “Heather isn’t people. She’s a friend. You know a friend.”

  “Not always.”

  The conversation wasn’t helping Poppy, though she didn’t know what she wanted. She had always detested the kind of perfection that Maida pushed. Conversely, she might have liked the assurance that Heather’s secrets were innocent and pure.

  Poppy sighed. “You’re not making me feel better.”

  “Is that why you called?”

  It had to be, though she had never done it before. Maida was her mother; she was of a different generation from Poppy and had a different approach to life. Maida wasn’t Poppy’s friend by any measure of that word. “Well,” she said after a pause, “maybe not. I just . . . wanted to call.”

  “I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you.”

  It wasn’t disappointment, exactly. Or maybe it was. “You haven’t.”

  “I have a way of doing that with you and Lily.”

  “No, really. It’s okay. But hey, Mom, I’m almost home. We’ll talk another time, okay?”

  * * *

  Shortly before noon, the FBI returned to Micah’s. He was up the hill in the sugarbush, taking his anger out on the winter debris. His chainsaw had cut up a storm of downed limbs and dead branches when he finally killed the engine and came up for air. That was when the sound of a car breached the silence of the clear winter air. Returning to the house as fast as his snowshoes allowed, he came down the last hill just as two agents were looking around. They were different ones this time, but he knew what they wanted.“We have a warrant to search the house,” one said, unfolding a paper that Micah had no doubt was official.

  He considered his options. “What if I say no?”

  “We break down the door.”

  “Do I have a right to a lawyer?”

  “Do you need one?”

  “Not me. Heather. You’re looking through her stuff.”

  “Her ‘stuff’ has no rights. This warrant says that.”

  No Cassie. No rights. No choice. Micah trudged over to the porch and took off the snowshoes. He might not be able to keep them out, but he sure as hell could watch what they did inside. He didn’t trust that they wouldn’t try to plant something there.

  * * *

  “Micah, what do you know?” Poppy asked. She had returned to a barrage of media calls directed at his very available phone number, but she didn’t see any point in telling him that. “You lived with Heather for four years. You have to know something.”“They’re here searching the place,” Micah replied angrily. “For all I know, the phone is bugged.” He hung up.

  Poppy called Cassie, who promised
to head to Micah’s. She took several calls from townsfolk asking questions she couldn’t answer. Then,putting the phone bank on audio, she wheeled to the window and looked out over the lake. Visually, it was as clean, crisp, and pure as it had been the day before. Emotionally, however, it felt old today—and not unexpectedly so. Poppy experienced this same shift every year in the middle of February, when she suddenly ached for spring—and she wasn’t the only one. Ice Days were held in February to give the townsfolk something to look forward to at the end of a long winter, and after Ice Days came the sap. Sugaring season was about celebrating the first crop of the year. It was about a strengthening sun, about townsfolk loosening their scarves and trekking through melting snow, about the promise of spring.

  Poppy was ready. She craved a warmer sun. She craved grass on the ground and buds on the trees. She craved ice-out. She craved loons.

  After a bit, she returned to the phones. The occasional call came in, but her heart was elsewhere. Frightened for Heather, unsettled by her conversation with Maida, and tired of asking questions she couldn’t answer, she had nothing better to do as she ate lunch at the console than to wonder when Griffin would show up. She was surprised that he hadn’t been there already. Each time she heard the slightest sound that might be a car on the drive, she held her breath.

  Car on the drive? Make that truck on the drive. Noisy truck, unless Griffin had a way with tinkering under the hood of a car, which she seriously doubted since he was a city boy through and through. Car? Truck, Poppy. Truck.

  * * *

  Though she made a point of looking at everything else as she drove around the lake and through town that afternoon, she didn’t see the truck, and once she arrived at the school and got the girls into the Blazer, her concern for them pushed thoughts of Griffin away. Missy had heard that Heather was in jail and wanted to know if it was true.Poppy could curse Micah as much as she wanted for not telling the girls himself, but with Missy asking straight out, she couldn’t lie. “Yes, she’s in jail.”