Dead of Winter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  As they make the short drive along the country road back to the Dale, Elvis sings about a blue Christmas, and Bella thinks about Sam.

  Jiffy greets them, coasting along Cottage Row on his scooter, bare-headed, phone in hand.

  “That was longer than fifteen minutes!”

  “How many times did you sing ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’?” Max asks.

  “A lot. The timer went off a long time ago, and I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and”—he pauses to take a breath—“waiting and waiting and—”

  “Where’s your helmet, Jiffy?” Bella asks.

  “Dunno.”

  “Why was I sure you were going to say that? Max has an extra one you can borrow.”

  “My mom says I shouldn’t borrow stuff because I lose everything. I lost a boring book the other day.”

  “And your jacket,” Max reminds him.

  “Things that are on the bus don’t count.”

  Bella wonders why, if he loses everything, Jiffy is allowed to have an expensive cell phone. He got it last month, and naturally, Max has been asking for one ever since. When she pointed out that her own phone is so old it barely holds a charge, he’d suggested she ask Santa to bring her a new one.

  “We’ll make sure you don’t lose Max’s extra helmet,” she assures Jiffy, though it isn’t really extra. She bought it for Jiffy to use whenever his own is MIA.

  She turns off the car, curtailing the last sad line of “Blue Christmas,” and ushers the boys to the porch. Unlocking the front door using the new code, she tells them to go up to Max’s room for a few minutes until she’s ready.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Ready to watch you ride scooters,” she tells Jiffy, who looks like he’s about to argue, then appears to think better of it.

  “All right,” he says agreeably. “And you’re very welcome.”

  “Welcome for what?” Max asks as he and Jiffy head inside, leaving the door wide open behind them.

  “It’s good manners to say stuff like that.”

  Max emits another trio of sneezes. “Well, it’s good manners to tell me gesundheit, too. That’s German, by the way. Like ‘stille nacht, heilige nacht,’” he sings through a stuffy nose.

  “I like ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ better because it has golden rings in it.”

  “Shhhhh! It’s a surprise!”

  “I know! She can’t hear us!”

  “Maybe she can,” Max says. “She has the best listening ears in the whole wide world! Just sing and don’t say any more words about golden rings!”

  Smiling and shaking her head, Bella deposits the first load of bags in the house. As she returns to the car for the rest, she wonders about Drew and the puppies. Maybe she’ll have time to give him a quick call before the boys start pestering to ride scooters.

  Hurrying back up the porch steps with another armload, she loses her grip on a bag. Its contents—all the metal hardware—spill across the floor.

  Terrific.

  With a groan, she puts the intact bags inside and goes back out to scoop up loose nails. Crawling along the porch, wary of splinters, she hears an abrupt creak-bang from down the street. The Dale is full of antique hinges that loudly protest movement. After a while, you recognize the distinct sound of each one.

  This particular creak-bang belongs to the Arden household.

  Footsteps descend to the gravely street, and one of Misty Starr’s clients comes strolling past Valley View in the midst of a one-sided conversation.

  Just about anywhere else, Bella might assume she’s on the phone. Here, it’s just as likely she’s talking to Spirit.

  “Yeah, I got tired of waiting so I stepped outside to have a cigarette,” Bella hears the female voice say, followed by the flick of a lighter. Seconds later, a tendril of smoke wafts to the porch.

  “Nah, it’s so nice out I left my coat inside,” the woman chatters on, strolling and smoking. “Yeah, it’s safe. There’s no one around to steal it unless the spooks wear fur.”

  It’s one thing for Bella to harbor doubts about what goes on in the Dale but quite another for this cavalier, sarcastic stranger to refer to Spirit as spooks.

  The woman laughs into the phone. “Well if he is around, I’ll hear him choking his brains out. Smoke him right out!”

  She listens again. “Yeah, I think he bolted, too, but—yeah, she’s supposed to be good . . . Right. Let’s hope she picks up on where he is and not the rest of it . . . I know . . . No, I’m just worried that she’ll—hey, I am open to it. Believe me, I want them back as much as you do . . . I hope so, too, but if not, then we’ll do whatever we have to do to . . . Illegal? What, are you kidding?”

  Phew. For a moment there, Bella thought she was about to overhear incriminating evidence from Moroskov’s killer.

  “Of course it will be illegal. Desperate times call for desperate measures, my dear.”

  Heart pounding, Bella leans closer to the railing to get a look at the woman. She’s of medium height and build with teased red hair and is wearing a tight, low-cut sweater that reveals an ample bosom.

  “Listen, I’d better get back in there. My turn with Ms. Misty Starr is coming up . . . what? Please, does it sound like a real name? . . . What, are you kidding me? No, I didn’t . . . Yeah, Barbara.” She laughs. “Sure, call me Babs. I’ll let you know how it goes. Bye.”

  Heart racing, Bella watches the woman pocket her cell phone and stride back up the lane, leaving a trail of smoke in her wake.

  * * *

  The attempt at meditation doesn’t leave Misty feeling any more capable of summoning Spirit for her walk-in client, but she’s done a whole lot of thinking about her money woes and her marriage.

  She’s put aside her earlier concerns about Jiffy for now. As long as he’s with Max’s mom, he won’t be boarding a school bus to . . .

  Well, anywhere. Not even school.

  Misty can never remember Max’s mother’s name, but it makes her think of a Disney princess. Elsa? Ariel?

  Anyway, she’s the kind of person who keeps a close eye on her own kid and other people’s kids whether she needs to or not. Most days she doesn’t, but today Misty is grateful. She’ll thank her later, after she’s finished with Barbara-who-probably-isn’t-Barbara.

  “Come on in,” she says, sticking her head out into the hall. “Thanks for waiting.”

  “No problem,” Barbara says in a tone that indicates it really was a problem.

  “Have a seat. Ever had a reading before?”

  “Never.”

  Two for two in the novice department today, Misty thinks, and she asks Barbara what brought her to Lily Dale.

  “I have something specific I need to know. I’m trying to get in touch with a certain . . . friend.”

  Isn’t everyone?

  “There’s no guarantee that someone specific is going to come through.”

  Or, for that matter, that anyone will.

  Misty rhythmically rubs her hands. “When I’m not sure how to interpret an image, I just let you know what I see. If you don’t understand right away, keep an open mind. Got it?”

  “I guess.”

  “Let’s get started and see what happens.”

  She closes her eyes.

  Breathe . . .

  Breathe . . .

  There’s the careening school bus again.

  Breathe . . .

  Aware that message is meant for her and not the sitter, she accepts it and puts it aside, rubbing her palms against each other and focusing her energy intently on Barbara.

  Breathe.

  Something about finances.

  A troubled relationship.

  Not unusual. Love and money—the vast majority of her clients, at one time or another, are concerned about those things, either separately or together.

  Breathe.

  An image flashes in her brain. Stacks of cash, bills rubber-banded together.

  Symbolic or real? She still isn’t getting a clear re
ad on what that might have to do with Barbara, or if it’s even related.

  Maybe it’s the just the pressure she’s putting on herself to continue this reading due to her own financial need.

  Focus . . .

  She sees the bag of dirty clothes she left in the mudroom—another reminder that she’s in dire straits.

  Stop thinking about your own problems. You need to focus on Barbara . . .

  Breathe . . .

  Barbara . . .

  Breathe . . .

  At last, something else begins to take shape.

  She’s getting a word, maybe ranger or ninja or . . .

  No, it’s ginger. She can see it spelled out in her mind’s eye: G-I-N-G-E-R . . .

  A blur of other letters follow, indicating that there’s more to the word or that the word was the first part of a phrase.

  “Are you getting anything?” Barbara asks.

  She hesitates, on shaky ground, eyes squeezed shut as she searches for the rest. Gingersnap? Gingerroot? Ginger and Mary Ann?

  Maybe it’s just her own desire to make the reading worthwhile, projecting the word into her subconscious mind. Hey, look, a redhead. Bet ginger means something to her. Or maybe it is a message, but meant for Misty, like the school bus.

  Barbara makes an impatient sound.

  Misty keeps rubbing her hands, keeps trying to channel something else, keeps getting only ginger.

  “Sorry,” she says at last. “I don’t know if this is supposed to be the spice or the color or what, but I’m getting something about ginger.”

  She hears a slight gasp, and then, “Ginger?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about it?”

  “I don’t know. Ginger is the first part of a word or maybe a phrase. Ginger . . . something. Is it relevant to you?”

  “No, not . . . not at all.”

  She’s lying.

  Misty opens her eyes to see that Barbara’s aura has flared a bright shade of scarlet. She’s angry. Yet her voice is calm as she asks, “Is that the only thing you’re getting?”

  Should she mention the money? People don’t always react well to that. When she asked her very first Lily Dale client if he was worried about his finances, he shut her down on the spot, retorting, “Who isn’t?”

  “I’m sorry,” she tells Barbara. “If you’d like to stop . . . ?”

  “No. Keep trying.”

  She closes her eyes and rubs her hands together again.

  There’s the school bus.

  Once again, it’s rolling Jiffy away from her with a bunch of dead kids.

  Katie Harmon.

  She was Great-Aunt Ellen’s childhood friend, drowned in Cassadaga Lake decades before Misty was born.

  Billy Buell.

  His fifth-grade locker was right next to Misty’s before he was killed in a car accident.

  DeQuann Jones.

  He lost his battle with cancer back in March.

  This time, Misty gets a good look at the driver.

  Her father.

  Chapter Seven

  True to Mitch’s prediction, the snow that began falling last night has already topped a foot and is expected to grow heavier as the day wears on. Also true to his prediction, neither Bella’s inbound guests nor the local school district have canceled due to weather.

  Nor has Hugo Munson. When Bella answers his knock, the electrician blows into the guesthouse on a bitter gust of wet, white wind that slams the door hard behind him.

  “You locked me out,” he says, stomping his feet on the mat. “Trying to tell me something?”

  “Yes, that I didn’t expect you to come on a day like this!”

  “I’d come through worse to be here,” he tells Bella with a wink. “The wife was after me to help her wrap a huge pile of presents for the grandkids.”

  “There are worse things in the world.”

  She’s thinking of her own meager shopping budget, but Hugo’s smile dims.

  “Yeah, I heard what happened over here yesterday morning. If you hadn’t already changed the keypad code, I’d have told you to do it. You all shook up about it, Bella?”

  “Should I be?” she asks, thinking that depends on how one defines all shook up.

  Hugo shrugs. “Just be careful and keep your doors locked.”

  Drew had said the same thing when she finally reached him last night and told him what had happened. “I don’t like the sound of this. Are the police still around there keeping an eye on things?”

  “I’m sure they would be if they thought there was any threat, but they’ve moved on.”

  “Because they don’t want to hang around outside in crappy weather?”

  “Luther says they’re pretty sure there’s no connection to the Dale. Looks like the body was dumped on the other side of the lake.”

  “Still spitting distance. I feel like I should come over to Valley View and make sure everything’s okay.”

  “Everything’s fine! You have your hands full there with that precious doggy family.” She knew he couldn’t leave the three fragile newborn puppies and their valiant mama. They’d all made it through the night and appear to have a fighting chance, according to Drew’s latest text.

  Bella had stayed up late baking peanut butter blossom cookies, cleaning for the guests, and prepping the parlor for painting. It was after midnight when she finally got to bed, so exhausted she forgot to set the alarm.

  She dreamed that a man-sized Easter Bunny wearing a gun holster slid down the chimney on Christmas Eve and filled the stockings with stolen Fabergé eggs. Max had appeared in pajamas shouting, “Hey, you’re not Santa! It’s not Easter! What are you doing?”

  “I’m a fence!” the sinister rabbit had said and turned into a ferocious leopard, claws and fangs bared . . .

  She’d awakened to find the room filled with grainy morning light. Rattled by the nightmare, she realized she’d overslept and Max had missed the bus. When she’d gone to wake him, she’d found his cheeks flushed with fever. No school for him. He’s spent the morning asleep with Spidey curled beside him and Chance the Cat keeping watch over both from the foot of the bed.

  Bella spends most of it preparing for her guests. Hoping to greet them with a cheerful holiday display, she braves the storm to hang several light strings along the porch eaves. There are hooks from years past, so it doesn’t take long to get them up.

  But the wind is ferocious, and she’s too chilled to run the extension cords to the outdoor outlet in the side yard. Chilled, too, by the corpse in the lake and the prospect, no matter how remote, that his killer might still be in the vicinity.

  She’ll ask Hugo to give her a hand outside before he leaves later. For now, she’s comforted to hear him working in the basement as she balances on the second-to-top tread of the wobbly stepladder, using a putty knife and joint compound to cover a network of ceiling cracks.

  Scoop, spread, repeat.

  She thinks about Yuri Moroskov as she smooths globs of joint compound overhead and about last night’s dream. It hasn’t faded as the day goes on, the way dreams often do. This one lingers, almost seeming to make sense in that wacky, illogical dream-logic.

  In the midst of her brooding about the crime—and scooping, spreading, repeating—she hears footsteps on the porch and then a knock on the door.

  Please don’t let it be Grange, she thinks, descending the ladder. She has a feeling she hasn’t seen the last of him.

  She’s relieved to find Calla on her doorstep. She, too, is covered in white powder, but it isn’t sanded spackle. Her long brown hair and puffy blue parka are flecked with fat flakes, and her pretty face is ruddy from the cold.

  “I’m here to see the backsplash and to deliver this to Max, from Gammy.” She holds up a mason jar wrapped in a dish towel. “It’s still hot.”

  “What is it?”

  “Lime and ginger pho soup. She said to tell you it would have been better if her Crock-Pot was working, but she did the best she could on the stove. Oh, an
d she says it’s the best cold remedy, and she hopes he feels better soon.”

  “How does she know he’s sick?”

  “You didn’t tell her?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Calla shrugs, handing over the jar of soup. “It’s Lily Dale.”

  Ah, yes, Lily Dale—not merely a typical small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business, but an atypical small town whose psychic residents seem to know . . . well, everything. Maybe that’s why Bella seems to be the only one around here with a nagging concern over the body in the lake.

  “Luther’s coming over later to help Gammy set up her Christmas tree, so she’s cooking up a storm. She wants you and Max to come over, too.”

  “Unless he has a miracle recovery by dinnertime, we’ll have to pass,” Bella says, leading the way toward the back of the house.

  After the dusty, drop-cloth-shrouded parlor, she appreciates the wallpapered dining room with its formal furniture, vintage etched-glass sconces, and built-in cabinetry filled with delicate china and crystal.

  Through an archway, the adjacent breakfast room is especially cozy this morning, snow flying past the wide, unadorned windows that sit between the white-washed bead board ceiling and lower wall.

  Ball jar vases on the small café tables hold evergreen sprigs and red berry twigs that Bella cut from the backyard. A vintage sideboard holds a larger jar filled with mini candy canes and small baskets of assorted tea bags and hot cocoa mixes. Tomorrow morning, Bella will be up at dawn to start the coffee and bake cranberry orange muffins for her guests’ breakfast, if Lauri and Dawn manage to get through the snow.

  In the kitchen, Bella puts the jar of soup into the refrigerator as Calla helps herself to a peanut butter blossom from the plastic-wrapped plate on the table.

  “Amazing,” she pronounces around a mouthful of cookie, checking out the gleaming white subway tiles behind the countertops.

  “The cookie or the backsplash?”

  “Both. I knew you could bake, but I can’t believe you installed this yourself. I’m taking a picture to show Gammy.”

  She brushes crumbs from her hands over the sink and pulls her cell phone from her pocket. She snaps a couple of photos, texts them to Odelia, and gestures at the white charger cord. “Mind if I plug my phone in for a few minutes? My battery’s about to die.”