by Julie Howard
He walked them to the car and buckled Atticus into the car seat. He touched Meredith on the arm as she opened her car door. “I’m going to need to talk to you,” he said in a low voice. “Everything Jacob might have said to you, in the library.”
“He was an old man—Father Karl,” she said quickly, agitated at the mention of Jacob. Stay calm, she warned herself. “Surely not like Jacob at all.”
“Probably not,” he agreed right away. “Nothing to worry about. But…”
She waited, her mind filling the gap: Two men from the same church, dead within a short period of time. It wasn’t paranoia to link the two together, but she didn’t want to be the one to mention it. Stay calm.
“…there are some similarities I need to look at,” Curtis finished. “It’s why the coroner wants me to go as back up.”
Lips stiff, she asked, “What similarities?”
“I’ll stop by your place when I get back, okay?”
She locked eyes with him as she backed the car out of his driveway, crunching over sloppy snow which was melted in some areas and icy in others. There was a predator on the loose in Twin Lakes and Meredith knew exactly who she was.
****
The snowman tilted slightly to the left in front of her house but stood firm, its base packed firm by two sets of little hands. As she worked alongside her children, her gaze lifted every few minutes to the road. Curtis wouldn’t forget his promise to come by. He would have to know she was dying…well, aching to know how the old priest died.
Similarities. The word echoed in her mind.
It was murder, of course. It was obvious as could be there was a link between the two deaths, the two murders; there was no doubt in her mind. Now Curtis would have to agree Jacob’s death was suspicious and most likely murder. Now he would have to consider Brooke as a suspect.
I was right all along and not crazy at all.
What she couldn’t understand was why Brooke would kill the old priest. What did Jacob and the old priest have in common except for their obvious connection with her?
“Mommy. Pay attention.”
She was startled out of her thoughts. Jamie’s arms were filled with a pile of clothing to dress the snowman: one of Meredith’s dresses, a pair of panties and a bra. After disengaging the underwear from her daughter’s hands, she said, “I don’t think we need these.”
“But she's a girl,” Jamie insisted.
“People will figure it out by the dress.”
“I saw a man in a dress once. He wore a beard.”
She was at a loss how to explain things. “Okay, well…”
She’d heard once you should only explain as much as a child can understand and no more. What should I say? What are the appropriate words? I don’t want to confuse her. At her feet, Atticus continued to build onto the bottom of the snow-woman, packing handful after handful to the base and occasionally stuffing a fistful of white into his mouth.
“Can Karin and Rio come over to play?” Jamie prattled on. “We’ll make snow babies and snow rabbits and…”
She was relieved her five-year-old didn’t need her to say anything more. She’d finally learned most times her daughter simply wanted her mother to be there and listen. She tossed the bra and panties aside and crammed two generous globules onto the chest of their creation and packed more on each side to create hips. Jamie giggled and handed her the dress. They tugged and buttoned the dress best they could around the lumpy figure. Meredith stepped back, admiring their work, and thought a woman—even one made of snow—needed some hair.
“Sheriff,” Jamie cried, and Meredith spun around as Curtis’s truck rolled into the driveway.
Jamie ran to the truck. “Come see our snow-woman man,” the girl called, as he stepped out of his truck. She tugged at his hand and pulled him across the yard.
He examined the curvy figure with a smile. “She’s great. Like a princess.”
Meredith approached to stand next to him. “Hey.”
“Thought you’d want to hear what’s happening, up in Twin Lakes,” he said, his smile slipping.
She turned to Jamie. “Spaghetti,” she said. “Pasta’s the perfect thing for our snow-woman’s hair. Can you get it from the kitchen?”
The girl ran to the house, her petite boots punching through the soft drifts. They watched her go into the house and then faced each other. “Tell me,” she demanded.
Curtis’s face was grim. “Father Karl was vomiting, like Jacob, right before he died. We’re getting some samples taken, for some type of poisoning. If it comes back positive, we’ll have to exhume Jacob’s body and have a medical examiner come in to do a full autopsy.”
She remembered seeing the old priest once, sweeping the front step of the church as she passed by. He possessed a full head of gray hair slicked back and he stooped slightly as he walked. He wasn’t around the day she sought him out in the church, when she hoped to speak to him about Jacob and Brooke. More than ever, she wished she could have talked to him.
“Not a heart attack, like Jacob,” she ventured, though inside she felt a chill.
“It could be, of course,” he answered. “It would be a pretty big coincidence if they both presented heart attacks in the exact same way. Also, I spoke with the doctor, and she confirmed Father Karl recently had a checkup and everything appeared fine.”
Murders were rare in High County. Brian’s murder was the county’s first in decades. Now, only eight months later, there were two more. Her intuition from the start was Jacob was murdered. And now a priest too. She felt strangely victorious in predicting Jacob was murdered and not dead of a heart attack at all.
“Did you go see Brooke? What does she have to say about this?”
He gave her a warning look. “Don’t jump to conclusions. If they both died of poison, it was probably accidental. Other people could be at risk. I need to wait for the toxicology results first.”
She shook her head doubtfully. The next words launched themselves out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Brooke poisoned both of them. She killed Jacob and then killed the priest because …somehow, he knew and she had no choice. You need to arrest her.”
Curtis took hold of her hand and blew out a heavy breath. “Slow down. You can’t just blurt out everything you’re thinking…wild accusations you have no proof about.”
Tears sprung to her eyes in frustration. He could be right; she was getting carried away once more. If the men died of poisoning, the deaths were apt to be accidental, not murder. Even as she told herself these things, she didn’t believe it at all. Meredith became aware Curtis was still holding her hand and she grew warm. What would she have done if he hadn’t believed in her, certain she was innocent? What if he, too, rushed to judgment? She’d even doubted herself, at one point believing she could have killed Brian during a blackout.
Brian. He was buried but he now haunted her; his violent life and death wouldn’t release their grip on her. In life, his behavior steadily became abusive and she’d become more isolated than ever. No friends. No family. There’d just been her children as comfort against the darkness closing over her world.
Then they moved to Hay City and she gained everything she ever wanted—a house, friends, security from want. But all this still wasn’t enough. She loved her children to the moon and back, but there was more to life. There had to be.
“Meredith?” Curtis wore a puzzled expression. “Are you okay? Where did you go?”
She gave her head a shake. “Just thinking about everything that’s happened. My life. You believed in me. I’m more grateful than you can imagine. But…but there’s something not right about Brooke. The poison came from somewhere. And Jacob did predict his own murder.”
Jamie ran up, holding a fistful of spaghetti. “I have the princess’s hair,” she cried. “Can I put it on her?”
Meredith turned back to the snow-woman, grateful for the interruption. They spent the next few minutes poking spaghetti around their sculpture’s head, g
iving it blonde spikes that jutted out at all angles. She was distracted, both by the puzzle over possible twin poisonings in Twin Lakes and by the recollection of this kind, sweet man holding her hand. His touch, so gentle and easily offered, awakened a continuous buzzing inside her.
Curtis stood back and examined their work. “This is one crazy lady.”
“I think we did a good job,” Meredith protested, laughing, and he laughed with her.
“An alien,” he proclaimed.
“I don’t think so.” Jamie spoke firmly, hands on her hips. “She’s beautiful, like my princi-pess at school. I like her. I’m going to give Mrs. Beebee one of my bunnies. She’s been sick.”
The mention of Brooke, or Mrs. Beebee, reminded Meredith the woman would soon return to work as her daughter’s school principal. Even if the woman wasn’t a murderess, she’d made veiled accusations. Her daughter could suffer for it.
She nodded toward the house. “I need to get my kids out of their wet clothes. Want to come in and warm up?”
Jamie grabbed Curtis’s hand. “Come see my baby bunnies. They look like teeny weeny pigs, but they’re going to be rabbits. I promise.”
Meredith scooped up Atticus, who shoved one more fistful of snow into his mouth. She brushed the rest of the snow off his face. “Your lips are blue.”
“Boo,” he agreed.
****
Hot cocoa warmed them all. Curtis was more impressed than they were by the baby rabbits, which were called kittens, he informed Jamie. The five-year-old danced about in elation. “Wait ’til I tell Karin I have kittens,” she crowed.
Meredith quietly hoped this would forestall her daughter’s interest in getting the more common type of kittens, the ones coming from cats. She tucked away this knowledge and figured she could draw it out again to combat her daughter in any future attempt to get more pets.
“What are baby goats called?” Jamie’s question set off alarms in Meredith.
She walked up behind them, noting the kittens were still bare of fur, with only their mini elongated ears hinting they were rabbits. “How do you know so much about rabbits?” she interrupted.
He winked at her and tapped his head. “You have no idea how much useless knowledge is trapped up here,” he said. “Ask about ancient Sumerian history or how to put up hay. I could go on for hours.”
Questions burst forth from Jamie and Meredith was grateful the subject of goats was forgotten. “When will they grow fur? Are they boys or girls? What color will they be? I’ll give you one if you want.”
He tucked his head down near the hutch to answer the young girl’s questions as best he could. Meredith hoped he knew something about poisons and how two grown men could be felled by one.
She shooed her daughter off to play with Atticus so she could question Curtis. “What are you going to do next, if…poison is confirmed in both of them?”
He knelt at the pellet stove in the corner of the room, checked the ashes were cleared, and then he lit the stove. Sometime soon, she’d need to buy more pellets, just one more monthly expense, but it saved on her heating bill. Bills, bills, bills. Her bank account was paltry now, at best, and she’d have to find another job soon. It was ridiculous she’d ever imagined they could make ends meet on a part-time job.
His tone was doubtful. “I…well…I suppose it depends on what kind of poison. Then we’ll figure out how they both gained access to it. That’s why I want you to tell me more about what Jacob said to you, places he’d been, foods he’d been eating, anything you can remember. If we’re dealing with poison, there could be a serious public health risk in Twin Lakes.”
There was Brooke, of course, but she held her tongue on that subject. “I tried to ignore him,” she confessed. “I probably missed lots of what he said. He mainly talked about his wife.”
“Aside from his wife,” Curtis prompted. “Anything at all.”
“That’s the thing. She’s all he wanted to talk about. He was afraid of her.”
He straightened up, satisfied the pellet stove was churning out heat. “We should know by morning if it’s poison and whether Jacob’s body will need to be exhumed. If that happens, I’ll talk to Brooke; not before. She might have some idea of what Jacob could have taken, and if he’d been talking to Father Karl recently. Exhuming her husband’s body…it’ll be rough going for her.”
Meredith recalled Brooke’s elegant figure, her soft voice, and high cheekbones. The woman was forty if she’d been married for twenty years, but she appeared at least ten years younger. She darted a glance at Curtis and was shocked at the sharp jealousy rising within. She gathered their cocoa cups and took them to the kitchen sink, washing and drying them. Finished with her task she whirled about and was startled to find he’d followed her into the kitchen. She bumped against him before she could stop. “Sorry,” she apologized. “Tight quarters.”
He didn’t shift away. She gazed up at him and her breath went shallow. He was unshaven and the rough stubble gave him a rugged appearance. She remembered the first time they met, how she’d thought he was an actor, dressed up and handsome in a Hollywood version of a country sheriff, complete with vest and silver star. Real life sheriffs weren’t supposed to look this good.
“You never answered me about Thanksgiving.”
His closeness addled her thoughts. His eyes were bright as he gazed down at her; she wanted to edge away so she could get her voice back, but her legs wouldn’t obey.
“If you’re free,” he added.
Of course, she didn’t have any plans for the day. There was just her, the kids, and studying. She needed to catch up on her schoolwork, but it was a cinch she’d pass the class; most of her homework assignments were turned in and she’d done well enough on the quizzes. A holiday dinner with friends…Curtis…would be nice and then she could consider signing up for a spring class. School was another bill she couldn’t afford, but she’d find the money somewhere. It wasn’t worth thinking about now.
Right now, there was this big-hearted, gentle, handsome man standing in her house. She gave him a warm smile as an answer.
He edged closer. “Meredith.”
She let her body melt into his as he folded his arms around her. His hands, one on the small of her back and the other coming around to rest on one of her shoulder blades, burned through her sweater. She lifted her chin and met his gaze, and then he drew her closer against him. How did she get so lucky?
This is the good part of my life starting.
Chapter Thirteen
Snow fell through the night, piling up on the window edges, on the doorstep, the trees, the long valley, everything in sight. Sipping on her morning coffee, Meredith recalled the frozen landscape when they’d first arrived in Idaho in late February, and how the melt-off didn’t occur until well into March. She counted the months ahead on her fingers. Four more months of persistent flurries, with another month of rain beyond. Winter days would be long and dark, filled with long and dark nights. Last night…
The phone rang and she jumped to answer it, nearly upsetting her coffee cup. Crusty’s voice boomed through the phone. “Merry morning! Up and at ’em.”
“Hi, Crusty. It’s early for you.”
He chuckled. “Or late. You never know.”
Meredith smiled to herself. It was true one never knew with her boss. He was a mystery, with his no-name hardware store located around the side of a dilapidated log structure. A small sign above the door read “Not the bar.” The pony-tailed hardware store owner/bartender/postmaster made sure only regulars patronized his bar by a similar sign reading “Not the hardware store.” There was no one who worked harder at keeping customers away. The man had to be secretly wealthy and this was his eccentricity; there was no other way he wasn’t going bankrupt.
“I need a hand this morning,” he continued. “Need you to go down to the hardware store and open up. Take your kids, do some of that college homework of yours. I’ll be into open the bar for my regulars around noon.”
“I’ll pay overtime,” Crusty added. “All week.”
“I suppose I could drop Jamie by Honey’s,” Meredith conceded. She wasn’t in a position to turn down work, especially at overtime pay.
“Take both kids into the store, no problem,” he urged. “Honey’s busy this morning.”
A background giggle came through the phone and it became clear he was with Honey, keeping her busy enough. He was head over heels with the woman.
“I suppose Jamie can help me,” Meredith hedged, trying to think how she was going to keep both kids occupied.
“No cleaning,” he warned. “No organizing. Just keep an eye out, that’s all.”
Another giggle sounded, this time closer to the phone.
“All right then,” Crusty said. “Gotta run.”
The phone clicked and he was gone. She sighed and hung up the phone. There could be no other employer in the world who would let her bring two kids to work, and then forbid her to do anything productive once she got there.
However, there was nothing to be done in Twin Lakes until the autopsy was complete and she had bills to pay. The overtime pay for working Thanksgiving week would be put to good use. She would keep her pre-paid cell phone in her pocket, the one she only used for emergencies. Perhaps Curtis would call with an update as soon as he knew, but she knew this was unlikely. She wasn’t part of this investigation. She wasn’t a deputy. She was just a nosy single mom with a part–time minimum wage job.
This was a case requiring a suspicious mind, one recognizing how deceitful and monstrous people could be. Curtis lived a quiet life where people discussed the weather and what was for dinner. Meredith came from a much different background. Jacob’s death triggered alarm bells in her. She could relate to having fear of one’s spouse. She hoped if Brian followed up on his plan to kill her, someone would have penetrated beyond his charming facade.