Winter's Secret

by Lyn Cote

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader:

  Author Bio

  AUTUMN'S SHADOW Excerpt

  End Notes

  Winter's Secret

  Revised and Updated

  By Lyn Cote

  Northern Intrigue series

  Winter's Secret

  Autumn's Shadow

  Summer's End

  http://www.BooksbyLynCote.com/

  Dedications:

  To my great husband for taking me up north.

  And to Marilyn LeClere, my critique partner. Thanks for all those phone calls which start "I've been thinking about your story ..."

  Many thanks to Harry Dougherty, chief of police of Marion, Iowa, for his technical help with this book.

  Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.

  Proverbs 3:5, NLT

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Author's Bio

  AUTUMN'S SHADOW Excerpt

  End Notes

  Prologue

  Standing to the side of the battered door, Sheriff Rodd Durand eased out his gun.

  "Police! Come out with your hands up!"

  He expected no answer.

  Still, he waited. Snow sifted down on him from the ragged edge of the overhanging porch roof. He tugged up his collar against the harsh wind while trying to detect any sound from inside. He nudged open the sagging door and looked in. Then he stepped inside and walked cautiously through the cold house.

  This was the second time he'd been called out on a frigid morning to face a wrecked door of a farmhouse burglarized overnight. Fortunately, in both cases the owner had been away for the night, so no one had been hurt. Rodd had been on the job just over a month. This was the second unsolved burglary in three weeks. Two failures. What a way to start out as county sheriff.

  Inside, Rodd found what he'd expected—broken knickknacks, slit cushions, dresser drawers dumped onto the floor. Everything about the crime scene shouted, "Careless, clumsy!" The only reason the perpetrator succeeded was that he chose his targets well—isolated, empty houses.

  This low-life thief preyed on the most defenseless—the elderly who lived alone out in the country. Leo Schultz had spent last night in Steadfast's clinic-care center. The shock of coming home this morning and finding his home burglarized had taken its toll on Schultz. The old man had looked pale and shaky. So Old Doc Erickson, who lived nearby, had come to take Mr. Schultz back to the county's only clinic.

  Righteous anger swept through Rodd like flames. He had a thief, a nasty little weasel to catch.

  Chapter One

  Fighting the November gloom, Wendy Carey winked at the gray-haired woman who sat beside her in the front seat of Wendy's aged Blazer. "I saw Bruno Havlecek flirting with you—with my own eyes."

  "What would I want with that old fool?" Ma Ukkonen snapped.

  "I think he's cute, Ma," Wendy teased. Everyone loved this woman and called her "Ma."

  As Wendy turned off Highway 27, the Blazer fishtailed. Oh, Lord, keep us safe, she silently prayed. Easing off the accelerator, she hugged the middle of the slick Wisconsin county road. The windshield wipers flicked away tiny snowflakes. She glanced at Ma. Ma's blood pressure had certainly worried her yesterday. That's why she'd taken Ma in for observation at the clinic. Now taking her home, Wendy still worried--Ma still looked worn down. And another dreary, gray morning offered no cheering-up. Wendy decided to go on teasing till Ma smiled and regained her usual good spirits. "And I love those little bow ties he wears."

  With a humph, Ma folded her arms over her generous middle, padded by an outmoded wool coat. "If you keep talking like that, I'll paddle you like I did when you was little."

  The older woman's blustery answer pleased Wendy. She'd get Ma to laugh before she had to leave her this morning. "You never paddled me. You fed me pancakes and maple syrup!"

  Ma chuckled. "You sure could put away my pancakes. Now why are you asking about me and Bruno? I want to know who you're sweet on."

  Wendy shook her head, trying to ignore the flicker of irritation this question, a frequent one, always brought. She repeated her routine answer, "Nobody around here to date."

  Ma wagged her finger. "If I was twenty-five and as good-looking as you, do you think I'd be wasting my days taking care of a bunch of sick people?"

  Wendy picked up the new topic. "Nursing is all I've ever wanted to do."

  "I know. When you was little, you read me that book—"

  "Nurse Nancy." Wendy grinned with real pleasure at the memory.

  "A million times. So now you're all grown up, Nurse Wendy. Time you find you a man."

  Wendy shrugged. I tried romance, Ma. Not a good idea. Why can't everyone just let me be? But she kept her voice light. "I have plenty of time for that." She turned up Ma's rutted drive. "Now I want you to promise me you'll take your blood pressure medicine every day. High blood pressure is nothing to play around with."

  Ahead was Ma's white farmhouse with its large bay window in the front. An image of herself flashed in Wendy's memory—a little towheaded girl looking wistfully out the bay window, waiting for her tardy mother to come and pick her up—long after all the other children had been taken home. Remembering her loneliness jabbed Wendy like a dull needle.

  Ma's voice interrupted Wendy's thoughts. "I hope Jiggs didn't miss me last night. He's getting too old to be left alone."

  Wendy gave Ma a sly grin. "Jiggs is a sharp old dog. He probably entertained some old hounds he hadn't seen in a while."

  Ma slapped Wendy's arm. "Hush."

  Parking the car behind Ma's house, Wendy glanced at the back door and froze. The beaten-in door hung open on one hinge. Another burglary?

  "Oh no!" Ma gasped.

  Protective fear rushed through Wendy. "Stay here. I'll—"

  Heedless, Ma turned the handle and kicked open the car door. She lurched toward her house over the frozen ground.

  "Ma! Wait!" Wendy raced after her. She caught up, took Ma's arm, trying to slow her.

  Ma shook her off. "Jiggs! Jiggs!" She shoved against the splintered door.

  Wendy crowded close behind her. Just inside on the scuffed linoleum, the black-and-white dog lay motionless, silent.

  "Jiggs! No!" Ma staggered.

  Wendy threw her arm around the older woman, who slumped weakly against her. Supporting Ma, she guided her through the kitchen into the living room, where she eased her onto the sofa. W
endy didn't need her blood pressure cuff to see that Ma was in bad shape again. Her own heart quickened at the sight of the disarray around her. She took Ma's pulse —one hundred and fifty and threadlike. Worse than yesterday. Ma tried to speak , but her words came out garbled. Suddenly Wendy's fear became reality. Stroke.

  Wendy pulled out her cell phone and ordered the ambulance. Then she quickly dialed 911 and tersely told dispatch about this third break-in. A sick feeling settled in her stomach. Finding Jiggs like that had been a shock. After slipping a baby aspirin under ma's tongue, she knelt beside the sofa and chafed the old woman's icy hands. Poor Ma. Poor old Jiggs. Wendy blinked rapidly to ward off tears that wanted to fall. "Don't worry, Ma. We'll get you back to the clinic right away."

  The mantel clock ticked loudly in the stillness. Ma moaned on and off.

  Praying for the ambulance to hurry, Wendy checked Ma's vitals and tested her limbs for weakness. All the while she tried to avoid looking at the mess that the thief had left behind. She would have gladly strangled the person responsible.

  Finally she heard a siren coming up the lane. She rushed to the front door and peered out the frosted window. The sheriff's Jeep Cherokee swerved to a stop, scattering snow-crusted gravel against the steps. What? The sheriff? How did he beat the ambulance here?

  As Sheriff Durand bounded up the steps, she threw wide the door. The cold made her gasp. He shouldered his way in, and she slammed the door behind him.

  The sheriff's commanding presence drew her like shelter in a blizzard. She stepped near him—her cold hands clenched together. Where were the EMTs? "Did you pass the ambulance?"

  He glanced around at the disarray, then laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "They radioed dispatch. They swerved to miss a buck." His deep voice wrapped itself around her raw nerves. "They slid off the road south of here, but no one was hurt. They're just waiting for the wrecker to pull them out." Nodding toward Ma, he murmured, "What's wrong with your patient?"

  "I think she's having a stroke," Wendy whispered. "The shock ..." She collected herself and led him back to Ma. "I just brought her back from spending a night at the clinic."

  From the sofa, Ma reared up, her jumbled words sounding her distress. Wendy hurried to her side and put an arm around her. "We've got to get her to the clinic for medication—right away!"

  "I'll drive you in." The sheriff bent to lift Ma into his arms. "Get the door, please."

  Wendy scrambled ahead of him, opening the front door, then outside, the Jeep door. "I'll get in first. You lift her in and I'll cradle her head in my lap."

  "Fine. Fasten your seat belt first." He eased Ma into the backseat with Wendy, then hurried to the driver's seat.

  Wendy's heart beat a rat-a-tat. The roads into town were slick. The snow-splattered roadside weeds spun by the car window. Clutching Ma to her, Wendy remembered all the times past when Ma had wrapped her soft plump arms around her.

  The sheriff glanced back at her, asking her wordlessly how Ma was doing. Her heart in her throat, Wendy looked into his ice blue eyes. Their depths—so clear and calm—steadied her. She nodded, telling him just to get them to the clinic where Ma would get the medication she needed.

  She gave Ma a gentle squeeze and prayed to get to Steadfast safely—without running into a patch of glazed ice or another buck. It was hunting season and the deer were on the move.

  The miles flew past. At the outskirts of town, the sheriff radioed ahead to the clinic. At its entrance, a nurse wearing a heavy white sweater burst through the emergency-room doors, pushing a gurney ahead of her. The sheriff gently lifted Ma onto it.

  Wendy slid across the seat to him. He swung her out, too, as though she didn't weigh anything at all. His touch—or her worry—made her breathless. "Thanks, Sheriff," she managed when her feet hit the ground. She hurried after Ma. His gaze followed her inside or it felt that way.

  Sheriff Rodd Durand watched the automatic doors close behind Wendy. The young nurse's pretty but anxious face lingered in his mind. Keyed up, he felt drawn to follow her to see the end of the drama they'd just shared. Instead, he climbed into his Jeep. He had another burglary investigation to conduct and sick cattle at home.

  Four miles out of town back at the Ukkonen property, he bumped along its rutted road and pulled in, parking next to the nurse's dark Blazer. He radioed his location to dispatch, then got out. Dread clumped in his midsection. Examining a crime scene here hit him harder than it had as a cop in Milwaukee. Here, the people who depended on him were individuals he was coming to know, not just the law-abiding public. As Steadfast's new sheriff, he'd expected drunkenness and disorderly conduct, petty theft, minor drug offenses, and the occasional drunk-driving case—stuff like that. He'd never expected a string of burglaries aimed at the most defenseless—the infirm, the elderly, the poor. Pathetically easy targets.

  The thief—whom he'd nicknamed "the Weasel"—had used the same simple MO again—hitting the isolated house of an older person away from home. Shivering in the brisk wind, Rodd paused next to the back door and glanced down at the footprints. The pretty nurse and her patient had trampled over the same brand-new, generic men's boot prints he'd seen twice before. The thief must have bought them just to use in the burglaries. They showed no unique wear patterns. With his toe, he nudged the remnants of the door open and walked into the shadowy kitchen. He stopped short, the body of an aged black-and-white mixed-breed dog blocking his way. Out of habit, Rodd knelt and felt for a pulse. But the old dog had been gone for hours.

  A picture from the past flashed into his mind—Bucky, his father's hunting dog and his own first pet. How many times had he wakened and found that Bucky had become his pillow for the night?

  He ruffled the shaggy fur at the dog's neck. "Poor old fella."

  A sudden spurt of anger whipped through him like the icy wind outside. An old widow living all alone and now her dog killed. And all for a few lousy bucks. Rodd felt himself steaming with the callousness of it. Then Uncle George's words came: "Ride your anger. Don't let it ride you." Rodd sucked in air and rose. "Weasel, this is your last nasty job."

  With that pledge pulsing inside him, he began the first methodical examination of the crime scene, routine to him after more than ten years in law enforcement. Room by room, section by section, he viewed the upheaval—upholstered furniture upended with the bottoms slit open, old books dashed helter-skelter on the floor. Alongside the worthless bric-a-brac, expensive antiques lay shattered and scarred— one, a smashed, green-glass hurricane lamp over a hundred years old. A thief with brains might have taken this and fenced it successfully, but not the Weasel—a thief in a hurry, who took only cash. Rodd let out a sound of disgust and quit the house.

  Outside, he scanned the snow-covered ground around the house and behind the precariously leaning barn looking for—there. Snowmobile tracks under the new snow.

  The Weasel always traveled on a snowmobile. At the first two burglary scenes, Rodd had followed the machine's tracks, but each time the tracks had led him to a popular snowmobile trail where many snowmobiles had already crisscrossed. He'd lost the trail then, in the morass of tracks.

  And this thief worked after dark, using the cover of trees. That explained the lack of leads. At night, a snowmobile was only a headlight and a roar—impossible to identify.

  Icy wind whistling around his ears, Rodd stared at the bleak horizon. He went over the first two crime scenes in his mind and compared this one to them. Wearing snowmobiler's gear, complete with face mask, helmet, and gloves, meant that the thief left nothing—not even a hair—behind at the crime scenes. Rodd would super vise a couple of his new deputies in examining this latest crime scene and lifting a few latent prints, even if they wouldn't be the thief's. The experience would be good for them. He marched back into the house to do more than just look. He didn't want the older woman to have to take care of the old pet.

  In a kitchen drawer, he unearthed a used blue-gingham vinyl tablecloth. Kneeling, he gently wrapped the old dog i
nside its flannel backing, then carried him out to the barn. There, he carefully secured the long bundle up high across the open crossbeams, where it would be untouched until someone could come out and dig a grave in the frozen ground. He rested his gloved hand on the bundle. "Good-bye, old fellow," he whispered.

  Back at the house, while he reinforced the splintered kitchen door to keep wild animals out, he thought of one constant that hadn't seemed significant to him until now: Wendy Carey, Harlan Carey's granddaughter. In only that scant time together, she'd caught his attention—her clear, direct eyes and obvious concern for her patient. He usually wasn't very attracted to women with such short hair, but her appealing face held a rare... sweetness.

  Suddenly his thinking cleared. He saw a connection. He needed to talk to her, and she'd need a ride back to her car. As he headed back to town, he radioed the clinic and told them he was on his way to pick her up. He hoped she'd be able to tell him what he needed to know. But questioning a woman always put him on his guard. Raised by a father and a great-uncle, he considered women a mystery. He'd need Wendy's cooperation. Would he know how to get it without upsetting her?