Dead of Winter

by Annelise Ryan

  The waitress goes to set the drink on the table and somehow manages to spill the entire thing. The brown liquid flows over the face of the watch, momentarily obscuring our view. And then the video feed goes dark.

  “What the hell?” Agent Black mutters.

  We hear the waitress start to offer a profuse apology, and then hear Jen say, “Geez, lady, you spilled it all over my new watch. My mom got that for me for Christmas. She had to work extra shifts just to pay for it.” There is a whine in Jen’s voice that borders on crying, and the waitress continues to offer her apologies. We can still hear even if we can’t see anything, and in a moment, it becomes clear that the waitress has retrieved a towel or rag of some sort and is attempting to clean up the mess.

  “We lost video,” Agent Black says. “If you understand, clear your throat.”

  Jen dutifully clears her throat a second or two later.

  Agent Black lets out a frustrated sigh. “Damn,” he says, half under his breath. He looks at his watch, then over at Agent Anderson. “One of us should go in there to get eyes on the scene. We can use a cell phone.”

  Anderson nods and removes his headset, the apparent presumption that he will be the one to go in.

  “Hold on,” I say. “You guys can’t go in there. Anyone with half a brain will spot you as cops from a mile away.” Agent Black starts to object, and I add, “Let me do it. I can walk over there the same way Jen did. At least I don’t look like a stakeout cop.”

  Agent Black purses his lips and looks over at Anderson, eyebrows raised.

  “No way,” Hurley says. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “No, it’s not,” I say. “I’ll go in there with the cell phone video running and pretend I’m talking to someone. I’ll order a pizza to go and during the time it takes for them to make it, I’ll walk around a little and keep on talking.”

  “It could work,” Black says.

  “I’ll do it,” Hurley says, his face a thundercloud of emotion.

  Black looks at him, then at Richmond. “Sorry, guys, but the lady has a point. You two look like cops, just as much as we do. If this guy is going to show, he’ll be a lot less suspicious of someone like your wife here than he will of any of us.”

  I take my headset off and look at Black, ignoring Hurley’s scowling visage. “Should I use my own phone, or do you want to give me one to use?”

  Decided on the matter, Black says, “Give me your phone.” I do so, and he plays with the settings for a minute, then says, “Yours will be fine. You’ve got video capabilities and a good battery charge.”

  “Do you have another one of those ear things, so I can hear you guys?” I ask.

  “Don’t need one,” Black says. “We’ll be on the other end of the phone. You’ll have to make up a conversation of some sort and not respond directly to anything we say. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Easy-peasy,” I say with a smile. “I just need one more thing.”

  Black raises his eyebrows, waiting.

  “I don’t have my wallet with me. I need a credit card or some cash to pay for the pizza.”

  “Right,” Black says. “Good thinking.” He fishes in his pocket, pulls out a wallet, and after rummaging in it, he hands me a twenty and a ten. “That should cover it,” he says.

  “Thanks.” I stuff the money in my pocket.

  “I don’t like this,” Hurley says. “What if this guy is armed?”

  “Jen has an ankle holster,” Black says. “And if she sees someone who looks like a likely candidate, she can direct Mattie with a nod so she can aim her phone that way. Jen, are you getting all this?”

  Jen clears her throat again. “Got it,” she says in a low voice. “Someone coming in now.” Apparently, the waitress has left Jen’s table for the moment.

  Black, with a renewed sense of urgency in his voice, says, “Mattie, what’s your phone number?” I give it to him, and he saves it in his own cell phone. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll give you one minute to get to the parking lot, and then I’ll call you. You know what to do?”

  I nod, put my phone in my pocket, and zip up my coat.

  “Okay, if you feel uncomfortable at any point, just leave, all right?”

  I nod again. Then I head up to the front of the van, open the passenger door, and get out.

  * * *

  I pace my stride the best I can so that I reach the restaurant parking lot in the minute Black mentioned. Hurley’s glowering face keeps popping into my mind, and I do my best to shut it out and focus on the task at hand. When I reach the parking lot, no call has come and I fear I’ve walked too fast. I see Jen sitting inside the restaurant and she looks out the window at me, and then quickly dismisses me. Just as I reach the door, my ring tone goes off. I take the phone out, hit the video record button on my camera, and make sure it’s working; then I answer the call with a cheery “Hello?” as I open the restaurant door.

  I stand by the podium for a moment, phone to my ear, turned so that the camera lens is pointed toward the dining area. I hear Black’s voice on the other end say, “Good, is the camera running?”

  “Yes, how are you?” I say into the phone, careful to hold it in a way so that my hand isn’t covering the lens.

  “Okay, try to move around so you can pan the interior, but don’t be too obvious about it,” Black says.

  “That’s good. How’s William doing?” I say, pretending that it’s my mother I’m talking to. A waitress, the same one who spilled the drink on Jen, is approaching me, so I say, “Hold on a sec, can you?” I drop the phone from my ear, and hold it near my injured shoulder, the lens pointed toward the dining area. When I walked in, I saw a man seated at a table alone, someone who wasn’t there earlier. I assume this is the new arrival Jen mentioned, and try to aim my phone in his direction.

  “I’d like to order a pizza to go,” I tell the waitress. “A large with pepperoni and sausage.”

  The waitress scribbles the order on a ticket, and carries it over to the counter that fronts the kitchen. I take advantage of the moment to return to my call.

  “Still there, Mom?” I say into the phone.

  “I’m here,” Black says.

  “Good. Sorry about the interruption. You caught me just as I was entering a restaurant to order a pizza for dinner. Hold on again, I have to pay for it.”

  Once again, I lower the phone as I fish in my pocket for the cash Black gave me. I hand the girl the twenty—the total is just under seventeen bucks—tell her to keep the change, and then go back to my phone.

  “Sorry, Mom. I’m back.”

  “It will be about fifteen minutes,” the waitress says, and I nod.

  Black doesn’t respond to me this time, so I make up a conversation in my head. What would my mother ask me? I realize the most likely scenario would be a listing of her current symptoms for whatever imagined ailment she thought she had.

  “I don’t know,” I say into the phone. “What are your symptoms?”

  As I pretend to listen, I walk around the salad bar, checking out the contents, moving the phone slightly whenever I get close to someone. The woman in the far booth has a bad cold. I hear her sniffling and coughing, and when I get close to her, I get a strong whiff of eucalyptus, probably from some kind of rub.

  “That could be any number of things,” I say into the phone. “When did it start?”

  Reaching the other side of the salad bar, I stop when I’m near the table with the newest arrival. He’s a man who looks to be in his thirties, dressed in a sweatshirt with the Packers logo on the front of it, snow boots, and a knit cap. His hooded parka is hanging on the back of his chair, and he’s reading a copy of the local paper. I turn slightly to look out the window, acting as if I’m listening to my mother’s litany of complaints. From this position, I should get a good shot of the man.

  “Have you made an appointment to see your doctor?” I say into the phone. And after a few seconds, I say, “Why not?” in an exasperated tone. Behind me, I hear the door
to the restaurant open and turn to see who has come in. Then I realize it’s someone leaving: the middle-aged couple who had been seated behind Jen.

  “Mom, you can’t keep ignoring this stuff,” I say into the phone. I see Jen turn to look out the window, and wonder if she is saying anything for the guys to hear. Then I see a car pull into the lot. I walk quickly to the other end of the salad bar and switch the phone to my other hand so that the camera is aimed out the windows toward the parking lot. I don’t watch to see who gets out of the car, but a moment later, when the front door opens, I see a woman with two preschool-age kids come in.

  “I don’t want to discuss this anymore,” I say into the phone. “If you’re not going to take care of yourself, then I don’t want to hear your complaints.”

  I turn and aim my phone toward the twentysomething guys at a table. They look harmless, and their heads are bent close together, laughing at something that one of them has on his phone.

  For the next ten minutes, I continue to wander around the front area of the restaurant, discussing the antics of Matthew, the storm, and then, running out of topics, Hurley’s upcoming birthday. I have no idea if Black has his cell phone on speaker, so I’m careful not to get into too much detail, but I do bemoan the fact that I can’t come up with a good gift idea for Hurley.

  Finally my pizza is ready, and when the waitress hails me up to the register to get it, I’m not sure what to do. No one else has come into the restaurant. I look at my watch, see that it’s nearly four o’clock, and say into the phone, “My pizza is ready, Mom. I really need to go.”

  “Anyone new in the place?” Black asks.

  “No, Mom.”

  “Okay, come on back.”

  “Bye, Mom. Talk to you soon.” I disconnect the call, but keep the phone out, holding it in my hand. I go up and get my pizza from the waitress, and carry it over to a bench near the take-out area. I set the pizza down on the bench and sit beside it, then I type out a text message to Hurley. I’m stalling for a little more time, hoping our man will show, but after several minutes with no new customers, I stop the recording, gather up the pizza, and leave.

  I half expect a car to pull into the lot as I’m walking across it, but it doesn’t happen. By the time I reach the van, I’m bummed.

  “Let me see what you got,” Black says, holding out his hand once I’m inside.

  At first, I think he means the pizza and I go to hand him the box.

  “No, the phone,” he says.

  “Oh, right,” I say with a self-deprecating smile. I set the pizza down on the passenger-side seat, and take the phone out of my pocket, handing it to Black.

  “I’ll take a slice of that pizza,” Anderson says.

  I get the box, open it, and hand it around to the others. Arnie, Richmond, and Anderson all take a slice, but Hurley just glares at me and shakes his head when I offer the box to him. I shrug it off, carry the box back to the front seat, and take a slice for myself.

  “You did really good,” Black says, watching my video. “Unfortunately, it looks like our guy is a no-show.” He watches for a few seconds more and then says into his headset, “Anything, Nolan?”

  I don’t hear the answer, but I can tell what it is by the crestfallen look on Black’s face. He looks at his watch. “Okay, let’s call it,” he says. “Either the guy never intended to show, or something scared him off. Let’s hope this was just a test run on his part, to see if you’d be willing to meet him.”

  Black removes his headset, and the others do the same. Then Black plugs my phone into his laptop and transfers my video. “I’ll take a piece of that pizza now,” he says, once the data is transferring. I get the box for him and he takes a piece. By the time I return the box to the front seat, Jen has returned to the van.

  “Sorry, guys,” she says to Richmond, Hurley, and Arnie.

  “Hey, it was worth a try,” Richmond says.

  “We’ll have our guys keep looking for your girl,” Black says around a mouthful of pizza. “If anything comes up, we’ll let you know. And if your online guy offers another meeting, we’d be happy to help out again.”

  “How should I respond to him?” Arnie asks.

  “Just go into your young-boy mode and either e-mail or message him and ask, ‘What’s up?’ Try not to come across too mad, because you want him to think you really want this meeting, those games.”

  Arnie nods, and then helps himself to another slice of pizza.

  Ten minutes later, Hurley and I are back in his truck headed for home. I’m bummed, disappointed that our little sting didn’t work, and depressed that we’ve accomplished nothing toward finding Lily Paulsen.

  Hurley, stone-faced and silent, hasn’t said a word to me. I can tell he’s still angry, and thinking that shoptalk, rather than personal talk, might ease the situation, I say, “What do you think went wrong?”

  “Sending you in there was an asinine move,” he says, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel. He looks over at me and shakes his head, sighing. “If the guy had shown up, he would have run in a heartbeat. You wandering about in that place, the way you were, would have looked suspicious.”

  “I don’t think so,” I argue. “I made like I was checking out the salad bar while I waited for my pizza.”

  “I don’t want to discuss it,” Hurley says, and I can tell from the tone in his voice that any attempts to do so will likely result in a blowup.

  Resigned to my fate, and hoping that a decent night’s sleep will improve his temperament and outlook on the matter, I sit back and stay quiet for the rest of the ride back to Sorenson.

  CHAPTER 29

  When Hurley pulls into the police department lot, he turns off the truck, gets out without a word, and storms off into the police station with nary a glance back in my direction.

  Hurt and angry, I get out of the truck, slam the door closed, and walk out of the lot toward my office. Let him sulk, I decide. But my determination is waning by the time I reach my office.

  Christopher isn’t in, and Cass informs me that he is out on a call for what sounds like a routine death, if such a thing is possible. It’s an elderly man who was in home hospice care. I settle in at my desk, and find the invoice for Not a Trace’s most recent efforts. I toss it aside and lean back in my chair, thinking about Hurley, thinking about the case, thinking about Lily Paulsen out there somewhere, lost and alone, and her grieving father, a walking corpse of a man.

  These thoughts remind me of the grief support group Hildy told me about, and I decide to give Michaela Watkins another call. Before I can, my phone rings and I see that it’s Emily.

  “What’s up?” I answer. “Is Matthew okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Emily says. “He is very proud of his first snowman, loves hot chocolate, and is about to sit down to a dinner of frozen pizza and sugar snap peas.”

  It’s an odd mealtime combination, but the peas are one of the only vegetables Matthew will eat, and I keep a stock of the frozen ones on hand all the time.

  “But I’m a little worried about Hoover,” Emily says. “He keeps whimpering and licking his belly. I let him outside, thinking maybe he needed to poop some more. He kept squatting like he was trying, but nothing came out.”

  “Great,” I say irritably. “I hope all that stuff he ate last night hasn’t blocked him up. Let me call and see if I can get him in to see the vet before they close.”

  I disconnect the call and place one to the vet clinic. After explaining my situation, they agree to squeeze me in between appointments if I can come right away. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” I tell them.

  I dash down to my car, once again impressed with the job Not a Trace has done. By now, the roads have been cleared, and I make it home in good time. I hook Hoover up to his leash, and then tell Matthew I’ll have to check out his snowman later because Hoover has to go to the doctor.

  I don’t quite make it in the promised twenty minutes, but the clinic staff takes us into an exam room right away. Hoov
er normally hates the vet office as much as he hates baths, and the fact that he’s subdued and not looking scared scares me.

  I explain the situation to the veterinarian who comes into the exam room, a pleasant young man named Brian Murphy, who is new to the clinic.

  “The main concern is whether or not he’s obstructed,” he explains, palpating Hoover’s belly. “We should do an X-ray.”

  I agree, and he takes Hoover by his leash and leads him into the back area of the clinic. Ten minutes and some worried pacing later, he returns. Hoover looks like a new dog.

  “Good news,” Murphy says. “No blockage. In fact, he took a rather large dump on the X-ray table and it improved his mood considerably. I suspect he’s just got a tummyache from all the sugar he ate last night.”

  I thank him, pay my bill at the front desk, and load myself and Hoover into the hearse. As I’m preparing to pull out of the parking lot, I glance at my watch and see that it’s a few minutes past six. After a brief mental calculation and a moment’s debate, I switch my turn indicator in the other direction and pull out. Then I place a call to Emily to let her know Hoover is okay and that I’ll be later than planned.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, I arrive at the local medical center in Mauston, park, and head inside after telling Hoover to be a good dog. A woman behind an information desk asks if she can help me, and I inquire as to where the grief support group meeting will be held.

  “In the basement. It’s held in the Nelson Meeting Room,” she says. “You can’t miss it. It’s the only meeting room down there.” She directs me to an elevator and stairwell, and I opt for the stairs.

  The basement area is mostly offices and storage areas, and the employees who would normally be working them have long since gone home at this hour. Despite that, the hallways are well lit, though eerily quiet and deserted. The Nelson Meeting Room—identified with big black letters over the doorway—is around the corner and down the hall from the elevator and stairs, but is easy enough to find, as promised. The room is open but dark, and after peering into the inky blackness of the windowless space for a moment, I step over the threshold and feel on the wall for a light switch.