“What do you know?”
“Not much. After your mother alerted the truck driver, he stopped, called 911. We didn’t know about the burglary until later, when our deputies were doing a sweep of the area to find out what happened.” He moved around the counter. “We’ve already checked the room for prints, but there’s just too many. A cold day like yesterday . . . before the storm hit, this place saw a lot of traffic.” He pointed to the back room, where an office door lay open.
The room had already been cleaned, the scent of chemicals rising from it making his eyes water. Kyle put a hand over his nose.
“Forensics has taken samples. They found skin under the victim’s fingernails and a welt across her face as if she’d been hit with more than a fist. There seemed to have been a struggle, and from the blood spatter and her wounds, it appeared she’d been shot from close range.” He indicated where the blood had hit the walls, the papers on the desk, the window.
“Who was the victim?”
“Cassie Mitchell. Senior over at Harbor City High.”
Kyle couldn’t speak. Today, a family grieved over their lost futures.
“We did find something odd.” Marc backed out of the room, pointed to a painted outline on the floor. “A fishing knife. Could be the perp’s—we found it on the floor next to the cash register. Maybe he dropped it when your mom took off.”
“You know for certain she was here?”
“She left her purse, and her coffee, in the bathroom.”
“She saw it.”
“Could be. We’d sure like to talk to her.”
Kyle stood behind the counter, running the scenario through his mind. His mother had left coffee in the bathroom. So she had already ordered, already waited for her drink. Had the man come in after her? Or before? Was it a spontaneous or a planned robbery?
“Does the coroner have a report back on the kind of weapon used?”
Marc shook his head. “We’re going door-to-door today, doing some interviews. We’ll call you if anything turns up.”
“What about the log? Did anyone call in anything . . . suspicious? Out of the ordinary?”
“I went through the calls this morning. A couple cars in the ditch in the storm, a dog on the loose, but nothing that might shed some light on what happened.”
Kyle moved to the bathroom. The door stood ajar and he flipped on the lights. He turned, tried to see the crime through his mother’s eyes.
She had stood here, watched someone holding up the clerk. A high school student, no older than Kelsey.
No wonder she tried to save her.
He reached up, held on to the doorframe. Let the tremor that went through him pass.
“What if she opened this door, saw them—maybe ran for help?”
Marc nodded. “But why didn’t he go after her or even shoot her?”
“We’re right next to the highway. Maybe he didn’t have time.”
“There was about ten feet of visibility. No one would have seen him, or even heard, the shot over the wind.”
Kyle came out to stand by the counter. Surveyed the scene. “Why didn’t she go for her car? There were hardly any vehicles on the road.”
“We found her keys outside by her vehicle. It’s possible she tried, and he dragged her back inside.”
Kyle stared out the window, the thought of some man’s hands on his mother, dragging her inside, nearly killing her . . . He took a few long breaths—in, out.
Randomness. He hated every bit of it, how in a second, a person’s life could be dismantled. How plans and hopes and dreams died on the tile floor of coffee shops and convenience stores. How it inflicted wounds not just on the victim or the family, but on entire communities.
It simply wasn’t right that a forty-six-year-old woman could drive into a strip mall coffee shop and lose her life. Or at least, most of it.
Kyle was sick to death of randomness. Of injustice.
Marc stood by the other door. “We’ll find him.”
Kyle nodded. No, I’ll find him.
Lee Nelson’s front yard resembled one of her homemade lemon meringue pies. Snow drifted in swirls across her driveway, out toward the lakeshore. Ravenous waves from the storm the night before had devoured the ice buildup onshore, leaving only jagged crumbs, now crashing together as the current moved them. They tinkled like the wind chimes Lee hung over her deck during the summer, the wind gusting now and again to add a rattle to the pane.
Lee shivered as she stood at the picture window, zipping up a vest. Not so long ago, Clay would have covered this window with plastic to stave off the wind. She could get Derek to help her hold up one end, secure it with tape, and blow-dry it taut. But the kid usually arrived home after dark, exhausted to the bone after basketball practice, ate his dinner with a sum total of five words, and fell asleep in the spine of his algebra book.
Add to that games on Saturdays, his part-time work bagging at the grocery store, and church on Sundays, and the boy had no time for chores.
Not that Lee had extra time, either. With her volunteer positions around town, as well as her new treasurer duties at church, if she managed to cook something from scratch, she counted it a triumph.
No wonder they still had six cords of unsplit wood in the shed and a pile that needed stacking outside the wood burner.
Why on earth couldn’t Clay have installed a gas heater? But no, he wanted to be efficient, and with the acreage his family left him, they could log off their own land, keep themselves in wood until the end of time.
Except he hadn’t counted on leaving her with the work. Sometimes she could still see him, his body lean and strong from hours with the wood splitter, covered in shavings, smelling of poplar, cedar, and pine, grinning at her as she gathered up the wood to stack. Their Saturday morning dates. She’d bring him coffee, bundled to the gills, and they’d talk about the kids and how they would manage to send Emma and Derek to college on a cop’s salary.
The wind shook the house, the sun low on the horizon, bleeding through the late-afternoon shadows that hovered over the lake.
She had to shovel if she hoped to get her car out of the garage for Derek’s game tonight. She planned on surprising him. It seemed the only time they talked was when she trapped him in the car.
Lee checked the fire grate, made sure it was secure before she went into the entryway, pulled on her Sorels, her down parka, Clay’s old beaver hat, and her work mittens with the wool liners. She added a scarf so that only her eyes showed, then, taking a breath, opened the door.
The chill had the power to freeze her eyelashes to her face. She shut the door quickly behind her, hating how the cold slicked up her nose, made her eyes water.
She picked up a scoop of kitty litter in a bucket next to the door and sprinkled it on the fresh snow as she packed down a new trail to the garage. They’d lived in the two-car garage for a year before they finished the cabin, building on as their family grew. Clay added an attic to the garage three years before he died, a place for Emma and Kelsey to practice.
Emma . . . do you need anything? Lee had tried not to betray her concern in her voice this morning—Emma had become so distant in the past three years, and it seemed every time she offered her support, Emma simply pushed her away.
No, I’m fine.
No, she wasn’t, but Lee had no idea how to fix her. Or any of them. She just kept trying to survive a little bit better every day.
Lee hit the garage door button and let it open. A three-foot shelf of snow tumbled onto the cement. Oh, to have a snowblower, but that went out a year ago. She hadn’t had the heart to ask Eli to fix it. He already did too much.
Eli.
She hated the wretched hurt in his voice last night when he’d called her. At 3 a.m. She probably should have been sleeping, but she’d been hoping he might call, if not stop by.
She hated herself a little for that—the happiness she found in his friendship. He was such a kind man, the way he showed up to cut wood, shovel, unplug a
drain, mow her lawn, repair a broken faucet, help her sort out the statements from the insurance company.
Clay had picked well when he campaigned for Eli for sheriff. A better man—besides Clay—she didn’t know. It helped that Kirby and Derek had played ball together since middle school; it became a natural reason to sit together at events, to become friends, to share hopes and dreams, back when they had them.
Noelle didn’t even realize what she had in a man like Eli. Lee tried not to resent Noelle. . . . Okay, she probably did a little. But she could forgive her—after all, Lee had lost her past, her present. Noelle had lost her only daughter. Her future.
Hey, Lee. Eli’s voice, in the padding of darkness, had made her heart do a forbidden dance. He had a deep, resonant voice, a seasoned calmness, a soft familiarity that she needed when the moon lit the lake, lonely in the night sky. “I’m in Duluth. Noelle had an accident.”
“What happened?” she asked, her voice quiet. Hopefully the ringing phone hadn’t woken Derek.
“She fell and hit her head outside the Mocha Moose.”
“Did she break anything?”
“She has some bleeding in her brain—”
“Oh—that’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.” He sounded tired. And as if he might be talking to her in an enclosed, echoing place.
“Where are you?”
“At a hotel near St. Luke’s. I’m in the bathroom—Kirby is asleep. We stopped in at the ICU. She seems to be stable, thankfully. But . . .” He sighed.
She could see the sigh. Could see him sitting on the side of the tub or leaning against the counter, dragging his fingers through that dark, curly hair. She wanted to rest a hand upon his cheek, smooth away the stress.
Lee banished that thought. It was just compassion. She knew what a midnight vigil felt like. They’d even shared it—she and Eli and Noelle.
“She can’t remember me.”
The words stripped her of a response. Noelle couldn’t remember him?
“She looked right at me and didn’t know who I was.”
“Oh, Eli. I’m sorry.”
He blew out a breath. “Thanks. I just wanted to let you know that Kirby won’t be at tomorrow’s away game. Can you ask Derek to tell the coach?”
He wanted to let her know at 3 a.m.? She had no comment for that. “Of course, Eli. And I’ll be praying too.”
“Thanks, Lee.” He’d clicked off, and she wanted to say more, to offer something, but the words wouldn’t surface.
Probably it was better that he’d hung up, that they couldn’t say any more in the middle of the dark night.
Hopefully he would forget her words, so ill spoken, about starting over. About him already being alone. She’d regretted them since the minute they left her mouth. She hadn’t meant he should start over with her. Just . . . that things might be different for him, for Noelle.
But not like this.
The snow had turned heavy today, and Lee could only tackle the top layer, tossing it feebly to the side before going back for another dip. At this rate, she’d be out here until the spring thaw. Maybe she’d just put on the four-wheel drive and back out her SUV like a monster truck the entire sixth of a mile to the road.
She leaned down for another shovelful, filled it up, lifted.
It was then she felt it, the hitch in her neck, as if something slipped. The pain, sharp, bright, lit up inside her.
Then it was gone. But her arm hurt, an ache that scooted the length of it.
She tossed the snow away, and the pain shot down to her fingers as if someone had taken a match and lit.
“Ow—oh—” Her voice seemed feeble in the encroaching night. Shaggy, snow-laden trees muffled the sounds of the road, protected the house from the sight of neighbors. If Lee collapsed in the snow, no one would find her until tomorrow.
If Derek didn’t come home after Saturday’s game, then maybe not even then.
She put the shovel down. The pain burned brighter, creeping up to her neck, clenching the muscles there. Oh, she’d done something bad.
Ice. She needed ice, and quickly. Turning back to the garage, she hiked along the tiny trench she’d made, set the shovel on its hook, then trudged to the house. By the time she reached the door, she could barely lift her arm to grab the handle.
Shaking off her coat, her hat, her gloves, she piled them on the bench. She wanted to scream as she bent down to remove her boots and finally kicked them off and headed toward the freezer.
She pulled out an ice pack and positioned it on her neck. Then she hobbled to Clay’s recliner and climbed in.
Hey, babe, you all right?
In her mind, Clay came over, sat on the hearth, his strong hands picking up the knit afghan his mother had gifted them for their wedding. He draped it over her, then pushed her hair back and pressed a kiss to her forehead, right above her eyebrow. Sometimes she could still smell him, feel the caress of his fingertips on her skin.
The sun had all but disappeared, the final brilliance of light nearly blackened. She searched for early stars high above but saw nothing.
In the hearth, her fire had started to die, embers crackling.
No. No, Clay, I’m not.
The pain pulsed down her neck, seeping into her bones as the night wind shook the cabin. And in the echo of the wind, Lee heard a tiny whimper.
Her own.
Noelle might as well have been a prisoner. There had to be some sort of law against the hospital releasing a patient into the hands of virtual strangers. But as Eli so brutally pointed out, where else would she go? Especially since her headaches had diminished and she otherwise felt fine.
Noelle rode in the front seat of a black truck, beside the man who claimed to be her husband—although she had to have been cracked in the head long, long before this to have married someone who looked like he’d emerged right beside Grizzly Adams from the depths of the forest, having just wrestled a bear.
The man even smelled like wildlife.
The only reason she got into the truck at all and didn’t just check herself into some church shelter was Dr. Anne Standing Bear’s vigorous belief that not only was this her life, but Eli was a safe, good man.
Right.
But Kirby could make a girl rethink her headstrong ways.
She liked the boy. He had a gentleness and compassion in his green eyes that convinced her that, even if she didn’t know him, she might have been proud to be the mother of such a son. Over the past day, he’d sat by her bed, told her stories of his life. He played basketball—a point guard, apparently—and football for the Deep Haven Huskies. He hoped to land a scholarship next year to the University of Minnesota at Morris or Duluth. Or even the Twin Cities campus.
He had a kind smile, too, and fetched the nurse once for her when her migraine overtook her and made her retch.
All the while, Eli—her husband—wandered in and out of the room like a prowler.
The man gave her the willies, with his dark demeanor, his wary, even angry eyes. If he hoped she’d recognize some life they shared together, he might not want to walk around with his bristly side out.
So far, she didn’t even recognize her own body. She was . . . well, she was fat. She sat in the bathroom last night, staring at all the unmuscled, flabby flesh around her stomach, at the faded white scar of a cesarean section, running her finger into the stretch marks below her navel.
She had given birth—twice.
Which meant . . . She glanced at the man beside her, then looked away. Oh. My.
“I haven’t said much to anyone about . . . well, you know. About your memory thing,” Eli said.
Her memory thing? Wow, the man had superb verbal skills. No wonder he’d barely spoken to her the entire two-hour drive into the backside of the earth, where the trees seemed to loom higher, loop over them.
Like coils of barbed wire.
“Normally we’d go to church tomorrow. But I’m thinking maybe we should stay home,” Eli said.
That meant she at least still had her faith. Probably the only thing that kept her from fleeing in the dead of night.
Although, funny, she didn’t feel like she and God were on a talking basis.
“I need a drink,” she said.
“There’s a convenience store in Little Beaver; you can get a coffee—”
“I hate coffee. But I’d love a Diet Coke.” It suddenly occurred to her—“Do I have any money? A job? My own account?”
“We share everything. And no, you don’t work outside the home.”
She didn’t? Then what did she do all day? Her question must have resonated in the little sound of confusion she made because Kirby leaned up from the backseat.
“You volunteer a lot at the school. In the concession stand and taking tickets at the games. You also help some of the little kids with their reading.”
“Am I a teacher?” She never wanted to be a teacher. In fact, she didn’t even like children. They had runny noses, grimy hands. They were loud and messy.
“No. You just like being a mom,” Eli said.
Oh.
“What else do I like?” Indeed her tastes must have changed considerably since she wore leggings and a baggy sweater to class, because in the plastic bag over the door of the hospital bathroom, she’d found a pair of ugly black dress pants, a flimsy blouse, and a suit jacket. She did like the killer boots, however. Clearly she hadn’t lost her taste in shoes.
“You like gardening and cooking, and you do the crossword every day,” Kirby said.
“The crossword.” What, was she eighty?
“Kyle gave you an advanced crossword book last Christmas. You do one every morning. You always say it helps you to . . . not lose your . . .” Eli made a face. “Mind.”
Yeah, that had worked.
“But you used to play Scrabble a lot with the kids.” Eli sounded like he’d rather have his fingernails sanded off.
Kids. Right. “Where’s . . . uh, what’s his name?”
“Kyle? Your oldest son?”
“Please don’t use that tone, like I’m annoying you. I met him for five minutes.”
The Shadow of Your Smile Page 7