Winter at the Door

by Sarah Graves

  But little Jeffrey had won his grandfather over at last, as Margaret had been pleased to recall when she’d finally put the child down for his nap … or had she?

  She looked around, not frightened yet but only perturbed at herself. Silly. That must’ve been some other day.

  Which unfortunately was not out of the question. She knew she’d been forgetting things—losing thoughts, she called it to herself when she dared think of the mental blurry spots she had been having lately—and she must have misremembered this.

  Of course she had. The baby would be up in the guest room that she had fitted out for him with such pleasure, once Missy started letting him stay for the whole day while she worked.

  Returning to the kitchen she took such pride in, all tile, granite, and stainless steel with new white cabinets and a center island, Margaret paused to grab a pile of clean cloth diapers still warm from the dryer and press her face into the sweetness left by boiling hot water and Ivory Snow soap flakes.

  Then she went on upstairs, wondering distantly what it was that she’d been so worried about only moments ago. Humming, she placed the diapers in the hall cupboard now given over to baby things, the terrycloth onesies and tiny socks and the sweater she had knitted for him. I should find that yarn and knit mittens …

  Next she went into what had been the guest room. The crib, a white-painted maple one bought brand-new in a Bangor department store, came recommended for safety by Consumer Reports and held a properly firm baby mattress with a blue sheet and a blue fleece blanket; stuffed toys, plush bedding, and anything else a small child could smother in were forbidden, naturally.

  Even the baby quilt she’d stitched for little Jeffrey was not allowed in there, so she’d draped it over the raised railing where its bonnet pattern showed prettily, appliquéd in gingham. Oh, how she loved being a grandmother, she thought, crossing to the baby’s crib and peering in.

  And finding it empty.

  “So, let me get this straight,” said Chevrier. “You think both hunters got killed, and Nussbaum, too, because one of the hunters was in the woods out there and saw someone? A little girl?”

  They sat at a booth in Grammy’s Restaurant, their lunches barely touched. “Yeah. Sounds unlikely, huh? But that’s it,” said Dylan.

  “And my guys, Sirois and Bogart and the other three, you think their deaths might be also hooked into it all somehow?”

  Another nod, this one a good deal less certain, from Dylan. He’d ordered a seafood plate but looked as if chicken soup with saltines might suit him better.

  “Maybe,” he said doubtfully. He picked up a french fry, ate half of it, and put the rest down, swallowing more Coke instead.

  “If Sirois really could’ve helped find that campsite, that’s a possible connection. For the rest of them, though …”

  He sighed, leaning back uncomfortably as Lizzie got up from the booth. As she crossed to where the waitress was filling a tray full of water glasses, she heard Dylan add tactfully, “Let’s just see where it goes.”

  She slid back into the booth in time to catch the tail end of Chevrier’s reply. “… so what do you suggest? ’Cause I can tell you right now, a search party that doesn’t know where to search out there might as well just—”

  “No.” She picked up her sandwich, looked at both men over it. “Not a search. A tip line.”

  She bit in and chewed industriously. If the sight of a guy in a pool of blood had been enough to ruin her appetite for very long, she’d have been dead of starvation by now.

  “For the hunters, trappers. Loggers, too, maybe, as well as the game wardens. People who spend time out in the woods might see something.”

  Watching her devour her meal, Chevrier slowly picked up one of the fried shrimp he’d ordered and put it into his mouth. It went down, and he took another, but not eagerly.

  “Huh. Not a bad idea. You started on it yet?” he asked, and when she answered in the affirmative, he looked grimly impressed.

  “Good. Way to take the initiative,” he said as the waitress arrived with the milk shake Lizzie had ordered for Dylan.

  Then, seeing how rocky the detective looked with the sweat glistening in his hairline and his eyes pain-pinched, Chevrier paused in scarfing up his shrimp.

  “Get a little of that down if you can,” he advised, “and take a pill, for God’s sake. You look like a damned ghost.”

  He turned back to Lizzie. “But we don’t have to say why we want to find this place, right? Just tell guys, when they’re out in the woods, keep their eyes open. We just want them to call if they see anything and—”

  “Right. All that’s under control,” said Lizzie, pleased that the move she’d made was meeting with the boss’s approval. She was about to say more when the diner’s front door swung open, letting in two patrons:

  The veterinarian Trey Washburn was having lunch today with a pretty brunette wearing a short, silver-colored down jacket, slim jeans, and a pair of red cowboy boots. It was the veterinary technician she’d met a few nights earlier, Lizzie realized, but she hadn’t noticed then how attractive the girl was.

  Looking over the room, Trey spotted her and waved, his face looking a lot friendlier than it had a couple of hours earlier.

  Or maybe just smug. But then another new arrival hurried in: Missy Brantwell. Scanning the room swiftly, she rushed over, nearly colliding with a waitress in her hurry.

  “Oh, thank God you’re here,” she babbled to Chevrier. “I saw the Blazer outside and I—”

  Wiping his lips, Chevrier got to his feet as the room went silent, Missy’s frantic voice suddenly the only sound in it.

  “Cody, the baby’s missing. Jeffrey was with my mom, but now he’s gone. We looked everywhere and he’s just not there.”

  A sob escaped her, but she pulled herself together enough to choke the rest out, her eyes imploring.

  “Cody, I think maybe Jeffrey’s been kidnapped!”

  EIGHT

  Oh my God. Ohmygodohmy—

  Spud pumped his bike up the driveway, jumped off it, and threw it under the porch. Slamming up the front steps, he flung himself into the house, where the fresh tobacco smoke and reek of beer said that his dad was home.

  Slumped before the noon news on TV, the old man barely stirred as Spud rushed by. “Wha’s yer hurry? Cops after you?”

  A boozy laugh punctuated this witticism, followed by a fit of coughing. Not for the first time, Spud wished his dad would just smoke up a couple of cartons all at once, get it over with.

  Then, still seized with the enormity of what he had done—ohmygodwhatI—Spud headed for the stairs and the safety of his own room.

  But the old man wasn’t done yet. “Where you been all day, anyway?” he wanted to know. “Out robbin’ banks?”

  His hand already on the banister, Spud paused. It wasn’t any worse than a lot of other things his father had said to him. The litany of foul names he’d endured being called over the years would fill a book. But somehow …

  Slowly Spud turned and walked back into the living room. Leaning down, he plucked the beer can out of his dad’s hand, enjoying the look of injured surprise that filled the old man’s bleary eyes.

  This is what I’ll be someday, Spud thought. Never mind what I read, what I think, what I want, or even what I try—stupidly, clumsily—to do to get out of it. This:

  Drunk, dumb, addicted, and sick. Hooked by the eyeballs to the goddamned TV set, sucking up game shows and soap operas and “reality TV,” shows about other losers, just with nicer clothes and plenty of makeup.

  “Gimme that,” his dad whined, reaching up for the beer can, too lazy to get up and try taking it. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, you little pissant, you—”

  Spud held the can, a nearly full twenty-four-ouncer, just out of reach. He wasn’t sure what had come over him, only that it felt good. “This? You want this?”

  He danced back a couple of steps, whirled, and flung the can hard at the TV, whose screen e
xploded in multicolored sparks and flames before going entirely dark.

  “There. There’s your goddamned beer. Whyn’t you crawl in there and get it, you want it so much?”

  Fury replaced shock on his father’s face. Pushing his veiny hands into the couch cushions, he charged up at Spud, undoing his belt as he advanced.

  “Crazy as a shithouse rat, you are, you know that? Your mom’s way too soft on you, but I’ll fix you. I’ll smack the crazy right out of your—”

  Spud put a hand up, closed it around that stringy throat to stop the sounds coming out of it. “Shut up.”

  Step by step, squeezing because it felt good, Spud pushed his dad backward until the old man’s legs hit the couch cushions and he sat down again, choking and flailing.

  Spud didn’t let go. Instead he leaned forward, squeezing harder, enjoying the sight of his dad’s eyes bugging out. This is for the belt, Dad. And the switch. And the yardstick.

  And your fists. His dad’s face was turning purple, hands weakening in their useless attempt to loosen Spud’s grip.

  “You’re mistaken,” Spud said softly. “I haven’t been out at all. I’ve been here all day, up in my room. And you know it, you know it ’cause you’ve been here, too … right?”

  His dad’s leg shot out in a badly aimed attempt at a kick. In response, Spud kicked back, aiming his boot at the old man’s kneecap and connecting with a sick crunch. Then he shoved his dad’s throat so hard back into the couch that it nearly vanished into the upholstery.

  “I said, am I right?” Then he waited. His dad was stubborn. But eventually it sank in: something had changed between them.

  This was a new Spud. The whippings and beatings were over and the litany of foul words … done. Because after this morning …

  Spud hung on a moment longer just to make sure of it. Then, with a last contemptuous shove, he let go, stepping back quickly as the old man lunged forward, vomiting.

  “Jesus,” Spud said in disgust. When the gasping and puking ceased and the old man sat catching his breath, Spud spoke again.

  “Ma’s gonna be home in an hour. Better make sure this shit’s cleaned up and the TV gone, too. You can figure out what to tell her about that.”

  His dad glowered malevolently. But he didn’t say no.

  He’d better not. “And remember what I told you. I was here all day. Understand? Otherwise, next time you’re passed out—”

  He put both hands around his own throat, squeezed, and stuck his tongue out sideways, letting his eyes roll around unfocused in imitation of being strangled.

  His dad looked away. Spud went on upstairs, where he washed his hands and face at the rusty bathroom sink, then changed his clothes. The guy in the van, he had noticed, was clean and clean-shaven, and he lived out in the woods, for God’s sake.

  When he was done, Spud went back down for a snack, Cheetos and a liter of Pepsi he found in the fridge. He didn’t enter the living room, but as he went by he could hear sounds from in there: the clanking of a bucket and the swishing around of water in it, and now among the rank odors he also smelled soap.

  Muttering curses, the old man was cleaning his mess up. Spud felt confident that his dad would do the other thing, too:

  Keep his mouth shut, or if he had to speak, then say what Spud had told him to. The look of true fear in the old man’s eyes as he was being choked had left little doubt of that.

  Good, Spud thought. Then he returned to his own room, where he spent the rest of the afternoon playing Grand Theft Auto. Not until much later, after dinner—his father did not appear—and after he’d gone with his mom to the Walmart in Presque Isle for a new TV, paying for it with his own money—because I did it, I did what he said—did he lie wide awake in bed.

  Staring at the ceiling, starting up at every sound, sure that it was the cops coming for him. Thinking—

  Oh my God. Ohmygodohmygod—

  I did what he told me to do, I—

  The task itself had been unexpectedly easy. None of the many obstacles that he had imagined had in fact arisen:

  Roger Brantwell hadn’t been home, for one thing, or Missy Brantwell, either, and for another the Brantwells’ whole place had been swarming with hired help, getting trucks and tractors ready to harvest Brantwell’s potato acreage and getting the hay indoors.

  Keeping his knit watch cap pulled over his hair, his arms covered, and his head down, Spud had just walked up the driveway like he belonged there, and no one had even looked at him. And inside had been as simple:

  No one around, the whole place shimmering with new paint and cleanliness, full of a sense of order and domestic routine that Spud didn’t have time to stop and wonder at. Once he heard a woman upstairs humming to herself, and he froze, but she didn’t come down and the vacuum cleaner that was running at the other end of the house never approached.

  He’d found what he wanted in the sunroom, grabbed it up, and run outside, then forced himself to walk slowly back down the long driveway again, certain that at any moment there would be an outcry.

  But there wasn’t one. The van came along as he reached the road, the guy’s face impassive. He’d handed over his burden as he’d been instructed to do.

  And that had been that. Done …

  The trouble now, though, was that he couldn’t stop reliving it. He jerked bolt upright in bed, trying to get it out of his head.

  Only it wouldn’t go. It was real. Not like all the computer games he played, not even like the girls that he went out to find sometimes, girls who were real but not really real.

  Not real like he was. That was why he could … do things to them. And he would do those things again soon, he knew; find one, leave her where she fell. Then for a while he would feel better, almost human once more.

  All that he knew just as surely as he knew that the day became night.

  This, though. This was different, this was—

  Oh my God, I stole a goddamned kid.

  “Missy? Honey, you’ve got to stop crying, baby, they need you to help.”

  Roger Brantwell had just arrived in New York for a New England marketing association meeting when he learned that his grandson was missing and had flown home at once, leaving his Escalade behind in the city.

  Now, though, bending over his weeping daughter, he seemed more frustrated by her refusal to listen to him than worried about any danger to the vanished child.

  Lots of people did that at first, not wanting to let the truth in. Lizzie decided to cut the guy some slack, at least for now.

  But he sure didn’t make it easy. “Missy,” he repeated insistently, “they need—”

  His daughter jerked her head up from the long table in the conference room at the Aroostook County Courthouse in Houlton, her haunted eyes makeup-smeared and her face a tear-streaked horror.

  “Need me to do what?” she gasped through her sobs. “Answer more questions, give more descriptions? How many times, a hundred or a million? Until you understand that I don’t know?”

  She glared around furiously at the collection of cops in the room: local, county, and state, all hoping for some scrap of new information that would tell them where a missing child might be waiting for them.

  A staffer from social services was there, too, silent and grimly narrow-eyed. Lizzie wondered if Missy had any idea what she was in for, even after the child was found.

  If he was. “Go through it again, Missy,” said Chevrier patiently. “I know you think you’ve already told us everything, but you never know. Any new detail you come up with could be the thing that—”

  She hadn’t been accused of anything—not yet—and there was no point in upsetting her even more than she already was. But he knew, and so did everyone else in the room with her, that when a kid went missing the first ones you looked at were the parents.

  And that too many times, even though you went through the motions, in the end it turned out that you’d never really had to look any further than the kid’s own home.

 
“I told you, I was at the bar. It got really busy this week, Jimmy needed me to help restock, so I left Jeffrey with my mom. I knew he’d be fine, I’ve left him hundreds of times, and—”

  She stopped, seeming to realize how that sounded. “I mean, not literally hundreds. But he was fine with her, he …”

  The social worker’s lips tightened. Dylan leaned in to where Lizzie stood listening. “She doesn’t know yet, does she?”

  Lizzie shook her head; how bad it would get, he meant, the questions and insinuations that were coming. They weren’t there yet, but soon every news outlet in the state would be pestering for updates and interviews: with Missy.

  Or her relatives or friends. Anyone would do; compared to the media, the hounds of hell were merciful.

  “No.” Lizzie sighed. “Anything from the volunteers?”

  Every all-terrain vehicle in town was out searching, every scout troop and church group, everyone who could walk, ride, or crawl through the fields and forest around the Brantwell home had come out of the woodwork to say they’d help. A missing kid just seemed to summon up the good in people, it seemed.

  Or the desire to be a part of the excitement, she added to herself sourly. Some of the faces she’d seen in the volunteer groups had looked more avid than concerned.

  But that didn’t matter. The more ground covered, the better, and if somebody found that child alive, Lizzie would gladly allow them their fifteen minutes of fame.

  “Uh-uh.” Outside it was dark. “They’re shutting it down for the night. The Amber Alert’s up on the interstate flashboards—they’ve expanded it to all of New England. There’s posters at all the border crossings and a flyer on every squad car’s dashboard.”

  “Great.” But as they both knew, getting the word out wasn’t the same as getting the kid back. Ninety-eight percent of the tips that came in on the hotline would be obviously worthless; or worse, they’d look good but then prove to be misleading, wasting time and resources.

  Lizzie knew this. She’d learned it when her own dead sister’s child was on those posters.

  Now Missy was crying again; she’d been tough all day, but she was starting to despair as the hours wore on.