by Stephen Frey
“And I forgive you.”
She’s trying to get under my skin. I can tell she is because I’ve known her for so long, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. “Forgive me for what?”
“You know.”
“No I don’t.”
“Forget it,” she says. “I love you so much.”
We’re silent for a while and then I can’t help myself. If she just hadn’t started it with the little verbal jabs, I’d be fine. But when she does that, it gets me going. “What’s going on, Vivian?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” I say gently. I’m her husband, but, as she said, I’m also the sheriff. I have a huge responsibility on my shoulders, and I can’t get the connection between the immediate change in her attitude and the timing of Cindy’s murder out of my head. “Why are you acting so different? Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?” She rolls her eyes and snuggles even closer to me. I don’t actually see her roll her eyes, but I know she does because I know her so well. She does it all the time when I say something she doesn’t like. “Come on, talk to me.”
“It’s been such a good day, Paul,” she murmurs as she strokes my chest with her fingernails. “Why are you trying to ruin it?”
“I’m not trying to ruin anything, Viv.” My voice rises with conviction this time. “I just want to know what’s going on.”
She takes a deep breath and I can hear the angst tangled up inside it. She leans a little away from me, too, and stops stroking my chest. “Are you trying to get me to say that I’m glad Cindy was murdered?”
“Well, are you?”
“Well, are you sad about it?” she snaps, moving to the other side of the couch and crossing her arms over her breasts.
I hear that tone in her voice. It’s the same one I heard the other night before she came at me in the kitchen. “I think it’s terrible any time anyone’s murdered.”
She turns to look at me. “Oh, really?” she asks sarcastically.
“Of course.” My eyes narrow. “What’s that supposed to—”
“You didn’t think it was terrible when you shot those people over in Madison.”
“What?” She can be so damn mean sometimes. “Are you talking about what happened during those traffic stops? Are you talking about those guys I shot in self-defense?”
She rolls her eyes again, but this time I see it. “Self-defense?” she scoffs. “That’s not what I heard. I heard it was something else.”
“Oh, yeah?” Now I’m getting angry. “Who’d you hear that from?”
“A friend of mine on the police force over there.”
“You mean that same rat bastard who ran you in for soliciting in front of the Drake Hotel that night?”
She jumps off the couch and points down at me with a shaking finger. “I told you a long time ago never to bring that night up again.”
I rise off the couch slowly and straighten up to my full height, so I’m towering over her. “Too bad.” I always heard about this one guy who came into the club every once in a while and took up all her time when he did. I never met him but I heard about him from two of the other girls who wanted me to get Viv out of that place so badly. Maybe he was taking up her time that night but it wasn’t at the club. “I want to hear the truth; I’m tired of wondering. What the hell were you doing down there in front of the Drake that night?”
“You’re such an ass sometimes, Paul.” Her eyes are on fire as she glares at me. “I was minding my own business, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
“What kind of business were you minding?” I don’t come right out and say it, but we both know exactly what I’m talking about.
“I can’t believe you said that. I can’t believe you!” she shouts.
She leaps at me exactly the way she did the other night, clawing at my face with her fingernails. I push her back and she falls onto the couch, but she’s up again and at me in a heartbeat. This time I hurl her down when her nails rake my chest, then fall on top of her. I spin her over so she’s facedown, straddle her, grab the sash from her robe that’s lying on the arm of the couch in front of me, bring her hands behind her back roughly and start to tie her up. She’s screaming bloody murder but I’m not going to take this tonight. And I’m going to finally find out what happened that night Clements ran her in, no matter what. I suddenly realize how crazy it’s been driving me all these years. Maybe she wasn’t just a stripper.
As I’m tying the knot, there’s a pounding on the back porch door that almost shocks me out of my skin. It sounds like someone’s trying to break down the door, it’s so loud, and I swear my heart stops for a few beats. I freeze like an ice statue at Bruner’s winter carnival as I stare into the darkness beyond the window over our couch. The curtains are pulled back so anyone out there could have looked in here and seen me tying Vivian up. Maybe some idiot who was trying to drive on 681 through the storm spun off the road and came up here looking for help. Christ, just my luck. I was just keeping her away from me, just trying to keep her from scratching me, but it might not look like that to someone outside. It might look like something very different.
I lunge for the wall and flip off the lights, then fumble for my sweatpants and T-shirt that are on a chair across the room from the couch. When I’ve got my clothes on I feel my way back to Vivian, who’s gone quiet, and I quickly untie her.
“Get upstairs,” I hiss over my shoulder as I head through the darkness toward the kitchen and the banging that keeps on going. “Go on!”
When she’s gone I slink to the back porch window. I can actually feel the sound waves blasting into the room right beside me, see the door depress with each blow in the dull glow from the stove light. I pull the curtain back slightly with one finger, press my face to the glass, and flip on the outside lights. Christ, it’s Bear. I’d recognize that hulking six-foot-seven-inch frame anywhere, even beneath his red down parka and orange ski mask.
I twist the knob open and pull back the door. “What the hell are you doing here?” He smiles at me from inside the mouth hole of the mask.
“Are you going to ask me in or what, Professor?”
“I ought to let you freeze,” I mutter, moving out of the way so he can come in from the cold. “How’d you get here?” I ask, shivering as he moves past. But I know before he answers by the kind of boots he’s wearing.
“I skied.” He stamps his boots, then jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re beside the door.”
“You skied seven miles?” Bear lives in one of those little boxes at the edge of town. “In a blizzard?” It seems strange to me that a guy who’s become a dedicated couch potato would suddenly cross-country ski seven miles at night through this weather. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I was bored,” he answers cheerfully. “And lonely,” he adds with a searing shot of honesty. He peels off his boots, then three layers of warmth—parka, wool vest, and sweater—and tosses everything to the floor. Now he’s down to his turtleneck and his spare tire is obvious. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time,” he says, heading through the kitchen. “The satellite was out.”
I follow him into the living room. “Billy, I—”
“Hello, Viv,” Bear says loudly. “How are you?”
“Fine, thanks.”
She’s coming downstairs in a short lace robe I didn’t even know she had. This outfit’s almost as revealing as the teddy she cooked in for me this morning and my mind boils with suspicion. She must have heard me say his name, so why would she come down looking like this? In fact, why would she come down looking like this no matter who was at the door? She ought to be wearing her old terrycloth robe with the patches on the elbows, or maybe a pair of jeans and a baggy sweater.
Then she and Bear hug. She usually gives him a hug when he comes over but she’s not usually dressed like this and their hug doesn’t usually last this long. Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems too passionate.
; “You look great,” he says to her with a big smile. “Really great.”
She flashes me a coy look, then smiles back at him. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure. Love some.”
I wake up and it’s pitch black in our bedroom except for the clock on the nightstand that says 4:47 with its red LCD numbers. I slip my hand across the sheet to Vivian’s side of the bed but it’s empty. So I swing my feet to the floor, to the rug we bought cheap at a garage sale in Hayward when we first moved here. Then I move cautiously across the bedroom like a blind man, waving my hands out in front of me, searching for the chair I laid my clothes on when Vivian and I came to bed last night. Bear decided to spend the night after eating a whole sixteen-inch pizza by himself as Vivian and I sat at the kitchen table watching in awe, and it was still snowing when we all came upstairs.
I find the chair and my sweatpants and I step into them cautiously, careful not to fall. Then I steal to the door and down the short hallway to the guest room. In the moonlight coming through the window on this side of the house I can see that Bear isn’t in bed, either. As I creep down the stairs I hear them moaning in the kitchen. I knew it, damn it, I’ve always known it. This is the reason Vivian doesn’t mind Bear coming around. I can’t believe I was so stupid.
I lean around the kitchen doorway and in the dim rays coming from the stove’s light I see my wife and my best friend going at it like animals in the woods. She’s bent over the kitchen table and I can’t handle it. I’ve brought my gun downstairs with me and I lift it slowly until it’s pointed directly at Bear. “Get off her!” I shout.
His head snaps up and he stumbles backward against the refrigerator. “Paul!”
Vivian screams and puts her hands to her face.
My finger curls around the trigger and constricts. “You bastard.”
“Paul, Paul, Paul!”
Darkness, nothing but darkness, then I have that strange lost feeling l always have when I’m coming out of a dream, especially a nightmare. That’s followed by a few seconds of no-man’s-land while I’m still not sure where I am or who I am, then a towering wave of relief surges through me when I realize what’s really going on.
“Paul, Paul.”
“I’m all right, I’m all right.” I sit up and run a hand through my hair, feeling perspiration coursing down both sides of my face. “I’m okay,” I say, more to myself than to Vivian.
“What were you dreaming about, honey?” she asks, taking my hand and rubbing it gently. “Tell me.”
“Nothing,” I mutter, getting up and moving to the window to look outside. The storm clouds are gone and they’ve been replaced by a clear sky filled with stars and a full moon. It’s almost bright outside with so much snow on the ground and the heavens so clear. Jesus, I’m still shaking from the dream. “Nothing, honey,” I whisper, easing back onto the bed. I feel her hands come around me and her lips on my back. It feels good. But I can’t shake the nasty realization of how terrible it would have been to really find my wife and my best friend going at it. So I have the answer to whether I’d care if she was having an affair. I actually thought I’d be more indifferent, but I was dead wrong. “Sorry I woke you up.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she whispers, pulling me even closer. “Come here and hold me.”
When she’s in my arms I nuzzle her ear, then kiss it softly. “I’m sorry for what happened tonight, I really am.”
“I know you are. I’m sorry, too.”
I gaze up at the ceiling through the darkness. I’m sorry, but I still wonder what happened that night Clements ran her in. It still bothers the hell out of me. But at this point, I guess I’ll never know.
Vivian’s fixing Bear and me a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, and hash browns in that same little robe she was wearing last night, and I’m pretty sure I catch Bear sneaking a long, lustful look at her. At my wife, for Christ sake. He’s not a subtle guy to begin with, but I’m still pissed.
She sets my plate down and as the aroma reaches my nostrils I realize how hungry I am. I reach for the salt and pepper, and out of the corner of my eye watch her put Bear’s plate down in front of him, then catch her fingers running gently along his broad shoulders as she heads back toward the stove to clean up.
The dream still haunts me. As do my suspicions.
14
I HAVE TWO pairs of extra-large Atlas snowshoes on the back porch and it’s a good thing I do. Otherwise, Bear and I wouldn’t be able to make it down my driveway to 681. The storm dropped almost three feet of snow on top of what was already on the ground, and, in places, it looks like it’s ten feet deep out there because this morning’s gusts blew up some monster drifts. Without the snowshoes we’d be up to our waists or higher in the white stuff with every step.
We’re leaving the warmth for the frigid temperatures outside because I thought I heard something grind past the house a few minutes ago. Vivian and Bear think it was just my imagination, but I want to see if one of those big state plows that can go through almost anything actually made it to Bruner already. The snow only tapered off a few hours ago and the state boys usually take a day or two to get here after a storm blows through. That’s with just half the accumulation this monster dumped on us.
The stone foundation of my house rises four feet from the ground so the first floor is elevated, but, when I try to push open the back porch door, it barely budges. I have to give it a firm shoulder-shove to wedge it open wide enough to get out. The stoop and the wooden stairs leading to the ground are completely covered and it’s amazing, I’ve never seen anything like this. Not in Bruner, not anywhere. I step out into the frozen landscape gingerly, wary that, despite my specialized shoes, I might disappear into the snow as if it were quicksand. But I don’t, I only sink a few inches.
When I’m almost to the end of the driveway I can tell we’ve gotten lucky, that a plow did go past. The towering snowbank it created is on my side of the road so it must have come from the south, because plows always push or throw snow to the right. Bear’s already well behind me and struggling because, despite the snowshoes, the fresh powder rises to at least his knees with every step. He’s just too heavy for them to support him the right way.
I don’t wait for Bear to catch up. When I reach the snowbank I climb it, then slide down the other side to the road. A few inches of packed snow still cover the asphalt and the path the plow cleared isn’t wide enough for two cars to pass each other. But that’s fine, I’m not complaining. It’s better than the alternative. It’ll take Bear and me a few hours to shovel my driveway and clear the wall of snow created by the plow. But by nightfall I should be able to make it out of here. Then the Dakota County Police Force will be back in business, and I’ll be able to get to the hospital and interview that girl I grabbed before she tumbled off the cliff. She could be the key to everything.
I glance over my shoulder and watch Bear tumble clumsily down the wall of snow to the road.
“Yeehaa!” he shouts as he rolls down the face of the slope onto the roadway. “Yeehaa!”
I chuckle. He’s still got a lot of kid in him, but he’s a hell of a man, too, a damn brave man. I just wish I hadn’t had that dream about Vivian and him last night, or seen that touch she gave him at breakfast.
“One monster storm,” he yells as he picks himself up and trudges toward me, brushing snow off.
“You ever seen anything like this before?” I ask.
“Not in a long time,” he says when he makes it to where I’m standing. “I remember this one we had when I was a kid. It was a few years before you moved here. I was eleven or twelve and it was bad, real bad. I think it dumped more snow on us than this one but I could be wrong.” He breaks into a wide grin. “Everything always seems bigger when you’re a kid, you know? And sometimes your memory—”
Fifty yards down the road a huge branch halfway up a tall pine tree suddenly gives way, unable to hold up against the weight of all the snow. It tears off with a sharp crack, leaving a long yellow-ora
nge scar on the trunk as it tumbles down through the lower branches and crashes onto the roadway. Right in the middle of what the plow cleared.
“We better move that thing,” Bear says.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“Hey, that’s one hell of a game you and Vivian play,” Bear says out of nowhere as we start for the fallen branch. “I was shocked, and I don’t get shocked much anymore.”
My head snaps around and I don’t know what to say. I’m hoping to God he’s talking about something other than what I think he is. “Game?” My heart’s thumping in my throat so hard I can barely breathe. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Professor.”
“No, I don’t.”
Bear chuckles and shakes his head. “I didn’t think you had it in you. I didn’t think you were into ropes and bondage and making a woman do those kinds of things, even your wife. And I’ve known you for what, twenty-five years?”
Christ, Bear saw it. And instantly my suspicions about Vivian and him jump to a new, even more dangerous level. Maybe that’s why Vivian came at me so hard last night. Maybe she knew Bear was coming over and she wanted him to look through that window and see what I was doing to her. Maybe the whole thing was a setup. Maybe they had it all scripted out. I mean, why else would she start slinging the verbal jabs at me after such a great day? And why would Bear cross-country ski to our house in the middle of a blizzard? He doesn’t have that kind of Lewis and Clark fire in his belly anymore. He used to, but his nose for adventure went the way of the couch.
“Billy,” I begin as calmly as I can, “I think you—”
“Hey,” he says, putting his hands up and out in front of him like he’s really not trying to embarrass me. “It’s none of my business.”
I’m going to hear about this for a long time if I don’t do something right away. Even worse, the town might hear about it. Sometimes when Bear drinks beer his mouth runs faster than the steelhead trout run up the Boulder to their spawning grounds in the spring. The last thing I need, the last thing any small-town sheriff needs, is a rumor like this one going around.