Cover of Snow (27 page)

In the act of reaching for the phone, I let my hand drop.

“No,” I said, and started to back away from Mrs. Mackenzie. I had to find my car. I didn't know where it'd been left, though, and I couldn't make the trip on foot.

“You have to do what the police say.” Dugger's mother frowned. She aimed the remote at the television set and silence fell over the dingy room.

A set of words jumped into my head.
The long arm of the law
. The police had control of the news, enough friends there that a totally concocted story hadn't gotten questioned, fact-checked to death. How could I outrun such men?

“No,” I said again.

Someone else said it, too.

Mrs. Mackenzie and I both turned. Dugger had appeared in the doorway.

His eyes were crazed, almost pupilless, and his hands couldn't stop moving, twisting his hair into loopy knots.

I had to get out of here. Walking, not sure of my direction. I had my keys, and money. Maybe I could act the part of damsel in distress—that wouldn't require much playacting at all—find someone who didn't watch the news, and call a cab from his or her house.

Mrs. Mackenzie lifted the phone. It was on speaker. We heard the trio of tinny beeps it made as she pushed the buttons, just three of them.

“No, Momma,” Dugger said, his voice suddenly strong and sure.

A V of wrinkles deepened between Mrs. Mackenzie's eyes. “Baby? You all right?”

Dugger stepped out of the shadows, coming farther into the room. “I've always been all right, Momma.”

“You are by me, baby,” his mother said, and the weight in her voice seemed enough to crush it. She looked at me. “It's just the world who cares he's got the autism.” She pronounced the term as if it were two separate words, as if she were expressing regret.
Aw-tism.

“This is the Chief,” came a bass rumble over the line. “State your emergency.”

Dugger turned to face his mother, and a moment of complete and total understanding passed between them.

Dugger let the whites of his eyes roll up.

“Shine,” he whispered. “Sign, mine, hand me a line.”

That V appeared on Mrs. Mackenzie's forehead again, a question, a pulse. “You sure, baby? You sure about this?”

Dugger bobbed his head.

I fought to keep up, to understand.

Mrs. Mackenzie took one deep, hitching breath. “It's my boy,” she said into the phone. Her voice broke. “Oh no.” She looked from me to him. “He's taken ill again.”

“Keep him there,” said the Chief. “Mrs. Mackenzie? Don't let him get away.”

“Yes,” Dugger's mother whispered, watching her son pull his hair and rhyme and nod her on. “I mean, no. I won't.”

Dugger moved very quickly after that. He was as clearheaded as I'd ever seen him, pulling back the curtain from the window with intent, then glancing in my direction.

Mrs. Mackenzie was pacing back and forth. “He's been in before. Three times, four. Last time he said he wasn't never going back there again.”

Understanding struck.

“No, Dugger,” I said. “You can't be locked up. You don't have to do this for me. We'll find some other way—”

“Hush, Missus!” he hissed, tilting his head to listen to something outside.

His mother sat down on the sofa, face in her hands, mumbling a string of utterances almost as disconnected as her son's rhymes. “I'm sorry,” she said. “He's special. My boy has always been special. I didn't know what to do with him. I always trusted my boy.”

I couldn't tell what she was apologizing for, if she thought she was doing the right thing in allowing him to protect me, or making the biggest mistake of her life.

“Everyone made fun of me, Missus,” Dugger said, his voice so lucid that my gaze snapped up. I leaned forward, blinded by tears, groping for his hands, which seemed the safest thing to try and touch.

“Said I couldn't do anything right. They always said that. Even after they grew up.” He paused, and I thought I had lost him. “Everyone except Brendan.”

Somehow, without my feeling it, he had pressed a set of keys into my hands. I sniffed in raggedly, looked down.

“Your car?” I asked, but he didn't reply. He patted a pocket on my coat, and I thought he might've stuffed something in there too, though he could also have been returning my touch the only way he knew how.

Dugger tugged me to the door, and pushed me out onto the stoop. He left the door ajar as I finally gained some of his urgency and ran for the vehicle he had given me. I had just dropped down inside when the sirens started to wail.

The gray patrol car came first, followed by an ambulance from Wedeskyull Community Hospital. I fell sideways on the seat, then scooted into the cramped space beneath the wheel.

I stayed there, huddled, breathing hard, as metal doors clanged, and voices began to yell.

Dugger's voice filled the still air, so frantic and undone that it seemed he must really be having a breakdown, and I had only misread his intent to help me, construed a kamikaze act, self-sacrifice where there was none.

I dared a peek at the paramedics. They were snapping lengths of brown leather, pierced with holes, and studded with cruel metal buckles. Dugger's legs smacked against the stairs as they brought him down, and he fell heavily, letting out a high-pitched, wounded scream.

The men descended upon Dugger.

He was still chanting, a string of words that seemed tied together somehow, as meaningful as the best of his rhymes. “Steal, kneel, make no deal.”

Tim Lurcquer stepped into view, his gray form sinister, deadly. He eyed the other men, and then with some unspoken, preordained exchange of motion, the medics moved forward. They tightened the binds around Dugger's wrists, chest, and ankles as they laid him on a gurney.

I threw myself back down below the seat, moaning protest.

“Snow, no, I'll go, don't show!” Dugger screamed.

So I didn't.

It took me a while to get a feel for Dugger's car. The weight of what he'd done for me made my foot heavy on the gas, my hands clumsy at the wheel. As soon as I'd placed some distance between myself and town, I unfolded the stiff, new map I'd purchased. Its vast gray-green areas were riddled with faint lines. Cold Kettle appeared to be every bit as out-of-the-way as I'd feared. Twenty miles from here, a thick rope of road gave way to a thinner whip called Rural Route 701, and finally to a series of wisps nearly too narrow to make out on the paper.

Those roads were well nigh impassable in winter. Every year Brendan used to have to dig out at least one frozen car that went off such a road as the one I'd be taking. Once in a while, there was a body inside. Sometimes more than one body: the worst tragedy I could remember happening in Wedeskyull involved a family of four freezing to death after getting lost on their way to a lodge. They'd come from Pennsylvania and I could still recall how a collective breath had been heaved, and interest seemed to fade, when the out-of-state license plates had been revealed.

Some of the roads had
CLOSED
FROM
OCTOBER
TO
APRIL
signs nailed up at their starts. But since the true beginning of such a stretch was a hard thing to sort out amidst the tangle that criss-crossed Franklin County, often you were already on a road that would prove impossible to follow long before you were warned. And that was if the sign wasn't too snow-covered to read.

But there wasn't any choice. I was a pretty good driver in the snow, and I would have to rely on that to get me through.

I filled up the tank as well as an extra red canister at an anonymous truck stop. The food smelled good when I paid for my gas, so I purchased lunch as well and sat in the car to eat it. Gobbling a sandwich, I remembered Dugger's tape of the Weathers boys, and was thankful I still had somewhere to stow it.

That tape was twenty-five years old. It contained information that didn't exist anywhere else. The dim fear nagged at me that the words on it might not be evidence enough to bring about proper punishment for Red's death, but still. The cassette couldn't be lost.

I bunched up the paper wrappings of my lunch, then leaned over the seat to get Brendan's yellow box. The lid stuck again as I went to lift it. Annoyed—I didn't have time for this—I tugged hard at the cover.

And then I saw.

If you hadn't known to look, you never would've noticed it was there. Not unless your hands were used to planing over wood all day long, knew how it felt and moved and breathed. One side of the box shifted just a little. It wasn't secured like the others, at least not anymore.

With silent apology to my husband, I began to pull at the yellow flannel covering.

Now that I was looking so closely, I could see that this particular piece of fabric had been peeled away at some point, then smoothed back into place. It came off as I picked at it.

I knew exactly what I needed—a small putty knife, some kind of shim—but I didn't have either. The job I did was brute and crude; everything in my restorer's soul railed against it. But I didn't have a choice. Using the sharp tip of Dugger's key—thank God his car wasn't a late model, with a blocky remote or keyless ignition—I separated the dovetailed joints.

This box had a false side. A hollow side, composed of two panels that fit cleverly together. When I jiggered them apart, something fell out.

A Polaroid photo.

Horror scalded my eyes as I took in the scene and constellation of people.

I held the Polaroid between trembling fingers.

Off in the background you could see the twin roofs of the foursquares. This picture had been taken on Patchy Hollow Lake. Three people were walking away from a black hole in the ice. A younger, less shuffling Dave held up a fish with pride. Beside him was Vern, stocky, but more built. He had a beer in one hand. His other arm was slung around a slim and pretty Jean. Vern was looking down at her, and the expression in his eyes contained a youthful blend of things. Cockiness, abandon, lust.

I laid the photo facedown on my lap, unable to look at it a second longer.

Some words were penned in girlish handwriting:
Vern, me, and Dave,with Burt on the lake.
And the date. January twenty-third, twenty-five years ago.

There in the rest stop parking lot, the sounds of car doors slamming and engines thrumming faded away, as I took in the meaning of the picture. Jean and Vern had been in love, or something close. And she was there the day they abandoned a fishing hole for two little boys to find later that day with deadly results.

The guilt Jean must have carried as this secret was kept. It made my stomach heave.

But she'd been planning to tell. This had to have been what she was talking about the night she was murdered. At some point, perhaps long ago, perhaps recently, Jean had hidden this photo away, irrefutable proof that the Weathers boys had been on Patchy Hollow Lake when a hole was bored in the ice and left uncovered.

Who had taken the photo? Dugger again? The other person named on the back? That had to be Club's father. He would've been Vern and Dave and Jean's age, just another teenager, drinking and making sport on the winter lake.

According to Club's mother, Burt Mitchell had been killed while on duty.

The snow that had threatened all morning started to fall. Great, soft flakes of it starred the car window. When it was big and puffy like this, it didn't pose much of a threat. It would come down slowly; accumulation would take time. Worse were the tiny crystalline granules that bespoke terrible, windswept cold. I shifted into drive and left the rest stop, hoping to beat the impending storm.

By the time I reached the exit for route 701, the lovely ski-slope powder had given way to icy bits pelting the windshield. I had gone too far to turn back, though, even if there had been somewhere to go. With the wipers turning the windshield opaque, glass frosting over before it could be swept clear again, I squinted and headed west.

Twenty minutes later, I was checking both the map and the gas gauge repeatedly and fighting to remain calm, speaking out loud, almost chanting in the silent cave of the car.

“Still more than three-quarters of a tank, plus the refill. My stomach is full. I have directions, I can't lose my way.”

The third at least was untrue. A map was no artillery against this vast, untrammeled land, whitened over and free of landmarks I wouldn't have recognized anyway. All the stories I'd heard of naïve downstaters, and residents who'd gotten cocky, began to take on a sickening reality. I understood how small was the space between survival and giving up. You could cross from one to the other without even knowing it.

Route 701, as empty as it had been, was a wide, generous swath compared to the knife blade of road before me now. Two hunched-over trees stood on either side of a steep run that I had to descend before it would level out, bisecting a stretch of seemingly endless, snow-covered fields. The chains on Dugger's tires bit into the pitch, keeping me secure. Then I was down and moving along slowly, the front of the car pushing aside snow that had risen in places as high as the grille.

This road was so narrow that stands of frozen bushes rattled against the side of the car as I inched forward, the noise shotgun blasts in the unrelenting silence. Since there was no room for two lanes of traffic—and not a car in sight anyway—I steered cautiously out into the middle.

I glanced again at the map laid out on my lap. My next turn was coming up, but despite how slowly I had been going, I passed it. I swore aloud. Focus was essential now. I was going to have to turn around, and doing so on this skinny, snow-laden stretch would be no easy feat. I pulled to a stop, setting the emergency brake with my hand. Then I got out.

Snow whirled in a crazy cyclone. I drew my hat down and tried to measure the room I would have. I walked from one side of the road to the other, kicking for snow-draped obstacles. There was nobody out here. Whatever house was associated with a run of barbed-wire fencing that poked out of the snow must sit hidden acres away. The snow was flying too fast for the glare of a porch bulb or window light to penetrate. Seeking shelter, I would stumble around until lost beyond finding.

I got back into the blessedly warm car. When my hands had stopped quaking enough to grip the wheel, I succeeded in making my turn.

The road I'd been seeking was wider than the last. An occasional home stood along it, and relief blew hot inside me. I sat higher on the seat, my face some distance from the windshield, and drove with a feeling of having made it. Every once in a while, twin cones of mist signaled the approach of another car, and I was forced to a halt, allowing it to pass. I didn't dare risk edging along the buried shoulder of the road, which threatened to suck the wheels down to their axles, quicksand-style.

If the map was correct, then Loon Lane, possibly paved, possibly just dirt, and dangling precipitously around a large lake, would be my next right.

The road was as promised: curvy as a skein of yarn, nearly obliterated by the storm. It took another painstaking five-point turn, tires spinning against a bank of snow, to make the all-but-invisible turnoff.

The only hint of a lake gaping below my turtle-slow car was a gray circle on the map. Otherwise, the empty air to my right might be nothing but a dizzying cacophony of flakes, a deceiving pillow to plummet down on.

As soon as I started driving, I missed the cars that had slowed my way back on that last road. Everyone who might come to these woods knew to stay inside during the storm. No one lived way out here anyway; there were no houses. Perhaps a smattering of seasonal cabins around the lake, but like the circle of water, they were invisible, too.

When another car finally did appear, though, it wasn't as reassuring as I'd imagined.

I heard the engine rumbling somewhere behind, volume increasing too quickly. It was gaining proximity. Rather than try to remain ahead, I pulled to the far right and stayed there, hazards twitching. I realized how stupid that was and switched them off, turning off the headlights as well. The car was concealed now, hugging the side of the road.

But no one came.

I couldn't hear the baritone rumble of the motor anymore. I'd just come from a ways down Loon Lane. I would have seen if there was a turnoff, even a driveway, for some car to take.

I unrolled my window to listen, which only deafened me further. The storm roared louder than any motor.

Drive on? Was someone waiting for me to do just that, knowing that if I built up too much speed, I'd lose control of the car? Despite the blizzard, I opened the door and got out. More risky would be continuing to creep through the snow in a four-wheeled tomb.

Snow flew horizontally, embedding itself in my face like glass. Squinting between the flakes, I could make out a wall of shale behind my car, thickly bearded with ice. A mountain that had outlasted many a winter storm, as stable a rampart as I could hope for. For a moment, I wished that I could just stay here, sit with that motionless, unwavering rock at my back. But I remained on my feet, boots crushing fresh clumps.

Hooked fingers of trees clawed the stormy sky, and snakes of snow undulated over places on the road blown bare by the wind.

A ways off down Loon Lane, far enough that it may have been only a shadow, or an optical illusion brought about by the snow, I saw the gray tail of a vehicle. It hung off the bank, buried up to its flanks in snow.

I raced back to the car, my boots flailing in the drifts.

There couldn't be a police car back there. How would they have figured out where I was going?

I pulled the door shut soundlessly, then took the remainder of Loon Lane as fast as I dared. I didn't want to suffer the same fate that had befallen the car that had been tailing me. My map said that the lake would funnel into a brook, crossed by a one-lane bridge, and then I'd be on Main Street.

A straight run into the center of Cold Kettle.