Not long after that I went up to bed. My shoulder still hurt, and my back ached enough to force me onto my stomach for sleep. The spare room was the coldest in the house, and Jean had plugged in a space heater for additional warmth. While I slept, the room grew close and overheated, and I began to dream.
For the first time since he'd died, I dreamed of Brendan. In the dream chestnuts were heaped on a city street all around us and we were trying to gather them up, but Brendan kept getting fistfuls of my hair instead.
His hands on me felt wonderful, and then the dream changedâwe were back home, making love, as we did that last night. It was just as it had been, Brendan coming and taking me with none of the usual preventions or pause, just raw, relentless passion.
I remembered he was dead, but that was impossible, because he was moving inside me, as potent a force as ever. I wanted to cry outâdid start to cry outâwith pleasure and pain, saying that I had so many questions, what happened on the sixteenth, how much had he known about the police. But then I realized I couldn't ask Brendan anything ever again.
I looked down to see him on top of me.
His body was cold, and soft in some terrible way, the flesh beginning to slide from his bones. His weight was dead weight and I couldn't get him off me, although I thrashed and bucked, throwing my arms up so that my fingertips dragged against the walls. I woke with a start, the feel of grit beneath my nails, and a moldering taste in my mouth as if I had come into contact with something that'd been lying deep in the ground.
I sat up in bed, heaving and panting, brushing off my hands. My gaze tore around wildly. It wasn't only the dream that had woken me; I'd heard something, too. Something sudden and loud, a noise I couldn't quite place. And I was continuing to hear sounds, not as alien as the one that had startled me awake, but still not as quiet as nighttime should be.
My heart tripped through the logical possibilities. Heat ducts contracting and expanding, wood buckling as the cold intensified, branches batting against the glass. Gooseflesh rose on my skin. This wasn't any of those. One thing I knew was old houses, and what I was hearing was the unmistakable sound of floorboards sagging beneath somebody's weight.
Jean? Just after we had said good night, she'd added that she rarely slept all the way through the night. “You don't anymore once you're my age,” she'd explained. “A little snack sometimes helps.”
But the methodical thunks coming from below didn't sound anything like Brendan's soft-footed aunt padding around.
It was warm in the spare room, but as soon as I got up and walked to the door, a rush of cold air met me, and I began to shake. Midway down the hall, I saw why it was so cold. The front door was ajar.
“Jean?” I called out. A stupid thing to do, betraying my location.
I reached the flight of stairs and began to descend, wending through the hall and parlor and into the kitchen. Then I stopped and sucked in my breath.
This room had been ransacked, drawers yanked out, contents spilled onto the counters or floor, table pushed to one side, cupboard doors hanging open. The stove burners sat askew. A toaster was overturned and even the appliances had been breachedâfridge, dishwasher, oven.
The front door, flung wide enough that icy air was rapidly filling the house, gave a view of bare tree limbs splitting the starless sky.
Someone had rushed out in a hurry after doing all this damage. When he had heard me? Or
she
had heard? Briefly, I recalled Eileen's rage, the slap of her voice. Where was Jean? Was it possible she had slept through all this? I supposed that I had missed most of it myself, only awakening at the end. But I had been sleeping particularly deeply, pushed under by the artificial heat, as well as by the weight of my dreams. Jean said she slept lightly.
I was heading back for the stairs to check Jean's room when I saw her.
She knelt on the floor, leaning over a low bench that stood behind the staircase, which was why I hadn't spotted her on my way down. The first thought in my head was that she must be checking on some especially cherished possession, hoping it had been spared from the demolishment, because one of her hands was outstretched. But the expression on her face was too peaceful to be guarding against great loss; she actually wore a slight smile.
If it weren't for the small, black hole in the midst of her hair, I might've missed the fact that she was dead.
I called 911, forgetting that in Wedeskyull 911 calls were routed through to the Chief. I'd known it when I used the pay phone to call about Ned, but the sight of Jean's fallen form had erased all lucid thought. When Vern answered, my mind went completely blank.
“State your emergency.”
I couldn't speak.
“State your emergency. This is the chief of police. Hello? Jeannie, is that you?”
“My bag was stolen, Vern,” I said nonsensically. And then I started to scream.
The police cars arrived in a kaleidoscope of red and blue lights. Vern exited his vehicle first, mounting Jean's porch stairs with the speed of a much younger man. Dave emerged from the same car, but he stumbled on the last step, squaring his fists on his hips and taking a look around as if there might be something outside to be seen.
Vern came upon me in the entryway, then took several fast steps in the direction of the staircase. When he spotted Jean, he let out an animal howl.
It was a bellow of shock and despair, long, drawn out, hollow, and it told me that no matter what else the Chief might be responsible for, he wasn't the one here in the house tonight.
His fists were clenched as he roused himself from studying Jean's body on the floor.
After that, everything happened quickly.
The Chief ushered me outside, and the rest of the cops descended. Tim Lurcquer arrived with his kit; a while back he'd been sent downstate to study crime scene investigation. Eileen dashed out of her house, mouth a gaping
O
of puzzlement. When the Chief spoke to her, her body went rigid, throwing off the Chief's hand as if an electric shock had been exchanged.
A spasm shuddered through my whole body as well; it was too cold to wait out here on the lawn. I got into my car, turned on the engine, and wondered how long the gas would last.
Vern stationed himself on the front porch, barking orders to the cops and pointing a gloved hand to direct them. In their uniforms and masks, they looked like nothing less than a troop of robots.
An ambulance drove up, along with a state vehicle whose driver looked barely awake. Both vehicles parked on Patchy Hollow Road, and the occupants got out and walked across Jean's lawn, wheeling a gurney. The gurney emerged from the house, and I wrenched my gaze away from the sight of the black body bag on top. Half a roll of yellow tape was haphazardly affixed to the rails of Jean's porch, ends immediately torn down and whipped about by the wind.
There was a reporter speaking into a tiny recorder. I scanned every face in the crowd for a glimpse of Ned, miraculously returned.
A rap shook my window.
I opened the car door and got out on the snow-clotted driveway. The Chief stood there, appearing a little more composed. “Planning on going somewhere again?”
“Just trying to keep warm,” I said, wondering if he would notice anything in my abbreviated reply.
“We'll need you to give a statement.” Vern gestured toward one of the cops, and the moment Gilbert opened his mouth, suggesting a place we could go, I knew.
My gaze shot down to my feet; I had to fight to remain standing.
I could feel that finger digging into my shoulder, hear the cur's rumble of his voice in my ear. Gilbert had told me to shut the old bitch up, and I hadn't. Had he killed Jean?
I raised my face to the Chief's. The man I had just been fighting to avoid, or interact with only in the briefest possible way, suddenly seemed my one hope of salvation.
“VernâChiefâcan you do the questioning?”
But the Chief was already marching off to meet Club across a snowy field. It looked like he was yelling at him. Club's finger started a jig against his holster. I caught a snatch of words.
“âeven have the guts to look 'em in theâ”
Gilbert was just starting to take a step forward.
Dave shambled up to me. “Mrs. H.?” he said. “I can ask you the questions.”
Gilbert left, then Dave drove off after getting the scant information I had to give. Instinct kept me silent about anything besides the basics. Maybe I was wrong. And if I wasn'tâand Gilbert had killed Jean after attacking meâthen voicing that suspicion to the police was far from a safe option. No IA up here. Hadn't I just told Ned that?
Tim Lurcquer stood on the porch, arms folded across his chest, hat pulled down low as he gazed around methodically, right, then forward, left, and right again.
Club was also still there. Approaching me, he said, “We'll put you up in a hotel tonight.”
“What?”
His reply was grim. “Where did you think you would go?”
Brendan never had to deal with a murder where the suspect wasn't obvious and locked up right away. Tim was going to stay here, all night probably, on the lookout for anything that might happen, someone who might return. Did I really think I would just cozy up in the spare room of a woman who'd just been murdered?
Something plugged my throat; I had to gulp back tears. I turned and headed for my car.
“I'll drive you,” Club called.
“No,” I said. I swiped a gloved finger across my eyes. “That's not necessary.”
Club strode toward me, slowed down not at all by the heaps on the ground. “You want to take your own car?” he said. “Fine. It'll be the Super 8. I'll have Dave meet you there. You seem to prefer him lately.” Club huffed a cloud of white. He reached for his radio, speaking into it between crackling bursts of static.
Dave pulled up behind me in the Super 8 parking lot. “You're some driver,” he said, getting out and slipping a bit as he crossed the lot. “That ice was bad.”
“How does this work?”
Dave shrugged genially. “Not much to it. Police have an account. I'll go in and tell whoever's there that we need a room for tonight. Then you get a key.” Dave looked down at me, and I saw a hint of something sharper than the usual in his eyes. “You can stand next to me the whole time. It's not like I'll get a dupe.”
“I didn't think that,” I said, and he patted me companionably on the arm. He pulled open the door, started to enter, then stepped backward in a hurry. But Dave was too bulky for me to pass in front of, and when I signaled that it was okay, he shook his head in protest before going forward, so that we got confused and tripped over each other again.
After that, registration went smoothly, and I let myself into room number 12, keeping the door open an extra few seconds despite the cold.
Dave lifted one thickly gloved hand, waving goodbye as he clomped across the lot.
I waited to leave until he had driven off.
I thought of Ned's sudden, soundless disappearance. The police could do pretty much anything, but their tactics seemed to involve subterfuge and misdirection. Fires that might've been accidents. A death that could've been a bungled robbery in a dark house in the middle of the night. Here at the motel where the cops had stashed meâwhere they might stash everyone who was giving them trouble, for all I knewâI was a sitting duck.
How had I gone from considering the police my husband's second family to suspecting them of arson, abduction, and murder? The thought that this whole thing was some sort of grief-induced psychosis beckoned like a warm quilt.
And Ned is suffering the same delusion?
demanded the internal Teggie.
Better safe than sorry. I wouldn't let a desire to turn away get me killed.
But it wasn't as if alternatives abounded. My own house was gone, and the house Ned had just hired me to work on wasn't in a much better state. Jean had been the only member of the family who could stand me, and now she was gone, too. And I'd never really made any friends of my own up here. I took in a choking gulp of air as the fact of my aloneness descended, as deep as the cold that encased this part of the world, seeming permanent by now, as if spring would never come again.
There weren't other motels, not anywhere nearby. And you couldn't exactly check into one of Wedeskyull's quaint inns at this hour.
The temperature precluded trying to last out the aborted remainder of the night in my car. I'd be dead by morning.
And then a possible place occurred to me.
Ned had never given up his cabin on Squall Lake. He'd been going to occupy it himself after the first fire. If it wasn't still rented, then I might just be able to hunker down there for a night. Decide tomorrow what to do.
I hadn't been to the cabin before, but Ned had mentioned its location, and it was easy enough to find. The road had been kept clear by a private service used by vacation residents and owners of rental units. No vehicle sat in the drive, and the cabin was lightless. Its door was locked, but a window opened without difficulty, and I hoisted myself up and crawled through.
It was almost as cold inside as out. The rough wood walls gave off vapor, and I stared longingly at the logs crisscrossed by the stove. But I was wary of revealing my location even by as unlikely a hint as smoke curling up from a distant chimney.
I realized I was starving, and entered the kitchen. The last renters had left it in pretty good shape, except for a few cabinet doors hanging loose on their hinges. But those cabinets contained tins of ready-to-eat food, and I gobbled their contents gratefully.
A closet held blankets, and once I got settled beneath them, with the food in my belly, I didn't even feel all that cold.
I fell asleep.
I awoke with a stunned sort of sense of well-being. Aunt Jean was dead, and Ned had gone missing. I had no home and no belongings. And no one to turn to for help with any of it. But I had eaten, and I'd slept.
And I had figured out what to do next.
A gap in the blankets exposed me, and frigid air bit my neck and arms.
My tools were lost, but I was fairly sure, given the well-stocked nature of this cabin, Ned would have a screwdriver somewhere. Trusting that he would be back one day to see, I straightened every one of those sagging cabinet doors.