A Cold Day for Murder

by Leigh Mayberry

  Everyone went quiet, absorbing the warning. Only Oliver clapped and cheered. She saw him stand beside Vincent Atkinson, looking sheepish.

  “Well, let’s hope whoever it is doesn’t have a peanut allergy,” Dave added to keep the crowd amped up. The delivery came with another round of applause. Meghan took her exit. Calvin was there at the base of the stage, helping her down again.

  She left the framed article leaning against a stack of chairs, facing away from the crowd. It was a proud moment, a great piece, but a terrible picture of Meghan. The tub of peanut butter sat beside the portrait.

  “So, what’d you think?” he asked.

  “I feel like this got away from everyone on why we’re all here,” she admitted.

  “Not at all,” Calvin said. “Look around a see a roomful of happy people. Even the Snyders are having a good time. Death is a part of life. We have a different view of death in Alaska. It’s been so long since I’ve been to a wake or funeral in the lower-forty-eight that I can’t compare the two, but here we like thinking about life because it can end at any moment.”

  “I like that.” She scanned the crowd. “Congratulations on the Associated Press.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “So, it made national news.”

  “I got a call from a couple of Anchorage news stations. I even got a call from a cable news network. They’re calling me to get to you.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “It’s good for the town, you know. If you did an interview,” he said in a subtle plead.

  “I just want to do my job without all the attention.”

  “Does this have anything to do with what happened to you before?”

  For a guy who wanted to keep the festivities cheerful, Calvin managed to pick the one point that was still raw for Meghan, even after all the years. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. Right now, let’s enjoy the evening.”

  There was more music; some took the opportunity to dance. The DJs competed with each other trying to get Meghan to dance with them. She explained while she was out of uniform, she wasn’t off-duty. It seemed to work. She was content to hang back, shake hands when people wandered close to her, and have pleasant conversations that had nothing to do with peanut butter.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  That night when Meghan went home, she removed the smartphone from her clutch purse. She’d turned down the ringer because she wanted a few hours of being a woman instead of a cop. Sometimes even the little things mattered. She liked the attention; some who gave her focus was more welcome than others.

  The framed front page of the newspaper leaned against the wall in front of the collection of cardboard boxes. She’d left it facing out and wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it. The pastor from the local nondenominational church gratefully accepted the donation of the giant tub of peanut butter. There was one church in town. The pastor was a progressive man who thought it was better to bring people together instead of worrying about whose god was bigger and better. It worked for the villagers. He organized the local food pantry and Wednesday night soup feed for subsistent families who didn’t have a lot. Everyone in town seemed to find a way to work together as an extended family instead of neighbors who didn’t care about each other.

  The article made national news. There were missed calls from numbers she didn’t recognize when she scanned the call logs. The voicemail was full. News personalities wanted interviews. The Associated Press published the article on Friday, the day before Nancy’s celebration of life at the civic center. She got a good look at the photograph. It wasn’t half-bad. She looked a little tired. Meghan felt she looked rugged, a representation to the rest of the women to not be afraid to dress warmly when she was in cold weather. It was the woman’s prerogative to sacrifice warmth for fashion.

  Meghan saw her ex-husband called but hadn’t left a voicemail. Brittany called four times and left a volume of texts for Meghan to get in touch with her immediately. The word got out. Her daughter knew the last time she’d talked to her mother she had a run-in with a murderer who almost took Meghan’s life. A lot of the article glossed over the events around her physical ordeal with Hodge, and for that, she was grateful to Calvin for exercising journalistic restraint.

  Stepping out of the dress, slipping it back on the hanger and throwing a plastic garment bag over it for another occasion, Meghan put the dress back into the closet. Maybe she’d get an opportunity to wear it again.

  Since she already wore leggings, she found a sweatshirt, slipped it on, and in a half second, unlatched her bra and pulled it off. Now she could breathe, was comfortable, and when the time came, Meghan could slip into bed.

  When the phone buzzed, she saw another text from her daughter. Looking at the clock, seeing it was after eight in Alaska, it was after midnight in New York. The text was brief, asked her to call as soon as she could.

  Since Meghan was still awake, she crawled into bed and dialed the number.

  “Is your phone broken?” were the first words from her daughter.

  “No, I’ve been a little busy. I see you’re still awake. Are you spending the night at a friend’s house?” Meghan put her head against the pillow and lay in the dark. The contact photo of Brittany glowed; the smartphone rested against the pillow beside Meghan. She could lay there, facing her daughter and talk to her like they used to do when Brittany was a little girl and full of questions that only Mommy could answer.

  “I think you’ve been more than a little busy,” Brittany scolded.

  “What do you mean?” Meghan suspected what she meant.

  “I heard about what happened. I saw something on the news about it. You caught some deranged killer in the Alaskan wild.”

  “That sounds a little over the top to me.”

  “Are you kidding me? The last time I talked to you, you said you were busy, and that’s why you couldn’t talk to me on that Saturday. You were catching a killer.”

  “Well, it wasn’t like that.” She tucked her hands under her face, watching the phone. They had the technology to talk face to face on video conference through the phone. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it lagged and ended the call. At least with the cell phone speaker on, she could still hear Brittany, and the picture was still as beautiful as she remembered. “I was busy investigating the crime scene that Saturday.”

  “What happened, was it all gross, did he like, use a knife?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m home.”

  “Okay.” She sighed. “I’m not giving you details that don’t matter.”

  “Is it because you’re investigating another murder?”

  “No, I’m home, lying in bed actually, talking to you.” Meghan thought about the case file she brought home. Detective Anderson wanted her to look at it. She hadn’t dug into it yet because Meghan wished to enjoy the quiet for a minute or two.

  “Remember when you put me to bed, and it felt like I stayed up late asking you all sorts of questions?”

  Meghan smiled. “Yes, I remember that. I’m surprised you remember.”

  “I remember.”

  “You didn’t stay up very long. Mostly you fell asleep about ten minutes after you went to bed.”

  “It felt like forever.” She paused. Meghan suspected Brittany had something to talk to her about but hadn’t found the path to lead into a conversation. “I was thinking about trying out for track next year?”

  “Really? That’s awesome.”

  “Yeah, I like running, I think if I had an excuse to run, I’d do it more.”

  “You’ve got long legs, and you’re taller than me. You get that from your Dad’s side of the family.”

  “Well, the coach wants us to start training this summer.”

  “Oh,” Meghan heard it. There it was, the lead into a conversation that her daughter wanted to have but didn’t know how to broach. “Well, it makes sense. You start running during the summer, you can build up your endura
nce before school starts, and you train to compete.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Listen, I understand, Brittany. You want to stay there this summer and start your training.”

  “Well, actually, I was wondering if there’s anywhere to run up there.”

  “Here? In town?”

  “Yeah, that crazy town you live in, King—Gi—I—Ki—I,” Brittany pronounced slowly.

  “It’s Kinguyakkii,” Meghan said.

  “Kinguyakkii,” Brittany repeated.

  “That’s good, sounds natural.” She took a deep breath to slow her heart from thumping out of her chest. “So, you want to come up here this summer?”

  “Well, yeah. Maybe I can start training up there. Is the air thinner there? Like I could get high-altitude training.”

  “We’re pretty close to sea-level. Kinguyakkii is right on the shore of the bay.”

  “Oh, okay.” Brittany sounded unsure. It was healthy, people thought of Alaska in terms of ‘up there,’ and that geographic idea came with height. “So, do you think if I came up there, I could run?”

  “Of course, you could. I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll run with you. It will give me an excuse to get back into shape.”

  “Yeah, you probably need it.”

  “Listen, just because you’re my daughter doesn’t mean you can be brutally honest with me.”

  “I saw your picture online. I read the article the local reporter wrote. I saw his picture too in the byline. He’s cute. Is he single?”

  “What about my picture?”

  “You look like a total badass in that shot.”

  “Well, it must have been the lighting.”

  Brittany paused again. It seemed like the minutes ticked away. “Did you almost die?”

  Meghan swallowed. She’d read the article. Calvin was kind with the details surrounding the arrest…well, Hodge’s takedown. He wrote about the altercation. It wasn’t a secret that she fought with the killer.

  “I’m here. It happened.”

  “Aren’t you scared? I mean, I’d be scared.”

  “You’re tough, and you’d be surprised what you can do when you put your mind to it. You don’t give yourself enough credit. You ready to come up here then?”

  “Yeah, I am. Is it pretty?”

  “It’s gorgeous. People see picturesque parts of Alaska. When you come to a place like Kinguyakkii, there’s no sugar-coating. This is real Alaska. The weather can change in an hour, and ice fog can sock-in the town. But you keep going and eventually, everything works out again. I think you’ll like it.”

  “Yeah, some of my friends say they want to go.”

  “I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t said they’d like to visit Alaska. When you come, you can give them the real dirt on it.”

  “Are you really okay? I’m worried something’s going to happen to you.”

  “I’m okay, Sweetie. It doesn’t happen here. It’s not like before.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” Meghan said. Brittany’s perception of the events that got her mother shot was from the outside looking in on the incident. “I’m still here. I know it feels like you’re a million miles away, but I’m still here. You can call anytime you want; you know that.

  “I never know what time it is there. That’s why I texted you. Dad wants me to visit you.”

  “Does he? That’s cool.” She refused to engage in any negative conversations with her daughter about her ex-husband. That was something Meghan had never exposed her daughter to, and she felt better for it. “Well, I’ll send him an email with a tentative schedule for the summer. We get everything worked out; we’ll get you the plane ticket. You’ll have to fly solo.”

  “Yeah, I know. It doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “I like flying solo; makes you feel cool.”

  “You’re a dork, Mom.”

  “I know, but I’m your dork.”

  “I love you. I’m a little scared for you now after reading that article.”

  “It’s worse than it was,” Meghan said and felt as if she’d lied to her daughter. “Honestly, there hasn’t been a murder here in fifteen years.”

  “Did they get who did it? Is there some crazy madman running around in the wilderness?”

  “There are a few interesting people out there. They didn’t get who did it, but I’m pretty sure here is a lot safer than there.”

  “I feel safe here.”

  “That’s good, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.” Meghan pressed the back of her wrist against her mouth, trying to suppress the yawn that suddenly showed up.

  “Is it late there?” Brittany asked.

  “No, not really, remember I’m four hours behind you.”

  “Oh, okay. I’m tired too.”

  “Well, I’ll let you go. Get some sleep.”

  “I miss you,” Brittany said, she sniffled.

  “Oh, Honey, I miss you too.”

  “You like it there?” She attempted to ask Meghan to leave Alaska and come back to her.

  “I love it here. You know, I wasn’t running away from you when I moved here. You know that, right? I needed a change after everything that happened. I wanted something different, and I wanted to go somewhere I felt like I mattered like I made a difference. It feels like I make a difference here.”

  “I’m not going to guilt you into leaving there, Mom. I think it’s cool. I just miss you.”

  “I’m here. And I’ll see you in a couple of months.”

  “I know.” It was Brittany’s turn to yawn.

  “All right, time for bed. I love you.”

  “Goodnight, Mom.”

  “Night, Brittany.”

  They ended the call. Meghan lay facing the dark face of the smartphone for a little while. She pressed her fingers against her eyes to push back the tears. In a few months, Brittany would be here. They’d go running together, she’d fall in love with the place the way Meghan had, and it would feel as if everything was right in the world. She just had to wait, do her job, and know that this kind of thing, a murder in a rural village in bush Alaska doesn’t happen every day. It’s not like a series or anything, Meghan thought, then put the phone on the nightstand and rolled over to go to sleep.

  **The End**

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