Frozen Stiff (5 page)

2:30 pm

Meg lounged on her bed, listening to her music, drawing a picture of a snowflake. She liked playing with the patterns that they made, symmetrical. So you just had to figure out a fourth of it and then replicate it. A beautiful puzzle.

Her cell phone was resting on the bed next to her. No phone calls, no messages. Usually Curt checked in, even if it was about nothing. She hated being so aware of him, of how he was treating her. She wished she felt more sure of herself, that she didn’t care so much about him. Or that she wasn’t worried about them.

Them. They had been a them for over a year now. She liked being a them: meeting at school, Curt would always be waiting for her to get off the bus, having lunch together, he would give her his chips and she would split her sandwich, walking down to the lake and skidding rocks out on the ice, seeing who could
get one to glide the farthest and checking in a few times a day when they were apart. But lately things weren’t quite the same—Curt had changed.

Where was her good old boyfriend Curt? What had Andy Hindquist done with him?

At first she had been glad when Andy and Curt had started to hang out. Curt seemed happier, more involved in things. Andy had all the latest electronic toys and Curt was so excited about playing with them. Curt’s family wouldn’t waste their money on them, nor did they allow those violent games in their house. At first Meg had thought that was such a rigid way of looking at videogames, but now she was starting to agree with it.

Since Curt had started playing videogames, it was all he wanted to do. He was obsessed with them. All he wanted to do anymore was go over to Andy’s and play them. He didn’t mind if Meg came along and for a while she had, but she didn’t like playing the games and there was nothing else for her to do. She would sit and watch Curt turn into someone she didn’t know and she wasn’t sure she liked.

Maybe she should just call him and ask him to go to a movie with her. She loved watching movies with him—they would sit really close to the movie screen, hunker down in the seats, hold hands, eat candy and popcorn, and then afterwards, dissect everything about the movie.

Meg felt hesitant to call him, like she was chasing him, but that was so stupid because she always called him. At least as often as he called her. She never paid attention to things like that before, like who called who last or who called the most, keeping track.

She picked up her cellphone and pressed his code. The phone rang a couple times and then a breathless Curt answered it. “Hey, Meggly.”

“Hey, Curtly.”

“What’s up?”

“I don’t know, I was just wondering what you were doing on this blastedly cold day.”

“Man, it’s like below below out there. I’ve never seen the red go so low before. I think it was almost thirty below, seriously.”

“No way.”

“Really way.”

Meg smiled. She loved the way they talked to each other. She loved his various names for her. “Are you brave enough to venture out into this weather?”

“What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I’m just going stark raving trapped in my room. I thought maybe a flick.”

“Could be good. I might should check in with Danger Man.”

Meg hated that Curt had a special name for Andy and she especially hated what it was. So stupid, Danger Man. Like he was one of the Fantastic Four or something. And Andy called Curt, Mr. Frantic. Unfortunately, Meg was afraid Andy wanted her to be called Invisible Woman. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Sure,” she said, making her voice calm and light. “Yeah, maybe he’d like to go with us.”

Curt gave a laugh-growl. “Doubt it, but we had talked about getting together. Why don’t I call you later?”

Meg’s heart sank. Then she’d just be waiting by the phone again. “Oh, maybe we should forget it.”

“No, no. He’s not even home yet. Who knows if Andy’s even going to be around today He hinted at some hot date. Let’s say we’re going and if he calls, I’ll just tell him, later. I’ll be there.”

“Okay.” Meg felt relieved and yet uneasy. It still felt like Andy came first, that Andy had first dibs on her boyfriend. “Let’s try to get in to Red Wing for the early evening show. It’s a school night.”

Maybe she should become Invisible Woman and fight the Danger Man on his own territory. Maybe she needed to pull out the secret weapon that only women have. The one that she knew Curt had wanted her to use for a long time.

2:30 pm

Amy opened the door to the Walkers’ house with the key Sherri had given her.

She took off her wet boots and set them on the mat by the door and then walked into the living room, pulling on neoprene gloves. She didn’t have any blue booties, her socks would have to do. First, she’d just do a walk-through, see if anything jumped out at her.

Before she started her search, she stood in the middle of the main floor and looked around. What struck her about the interior of the house was how coordinated the color was—everything was red, white or blue—the couch was blue, the pillows were red, the large rug in the living room was all three colors. How very patriotic, she thought. Maybe that’s what you did if
you had money and a summer home—you made it look like it was always the Fourth of July. All Amy’s furniture had been hand-me-downs so she had given no thought to what color anything was. If it was free, not too beat up, and it didn’t stink, she would take it.

Amy went up the curving stairs, which led to the master bedroom, the only room at the top of the house. The space was as big as her whole apartment, with a Jacuzzi-style bathtub set right in front of the windows.

The view was to die for. Amy walked up to the window and felt like she was going to fall the 400 feet down to the snow-covered lake. She wasn’t sure she could fall asleep in a room like this, although it would be fun to try.

The bed was dressed with only plain white sheets. She had come up here and pulled the down comforter off the bed to wrap Mr. Walker in. But even the sheets looked expensive, crisp and tightly woven.

Amy couldn’t help feeling like she shouldn’t be there, even though it was her job. She remembered when she had broken into a house when she was just a kid, not even five years old. She had done it with an older friend. They had gone into the neighbor’s bedroom and put on some lipstick. When they had been found, the evidence was right there on her face, bright red and smeared.

The other problem was she didn’t really know what she was looking for. If someone had locked Daniel Walker out of his house, that person had more than likely been in the sauna with him. An invited guest. Claire had told her that the Walkers had separated, so conceivably some other woman had been with
him. But why would she have locked him out? What would have pushed someone to do such an awful thing?

Of course, if Amy knew the why, she’d know everything. The longer she worked in law enforcement, the more she realized that even the perps didn’t always know why they did something.

Funny how on television and in books the criminals seemed so smart. Amy had found they were rarely that.

So she should be looking for any evidence of another person, probably a female, in the house.

Amy opened the drawer of the bedside table and wasn’t surprised to find the usual paraphanelia: lotion, nail clippers, Kleenex, aspirin, and lubricant. No diary, unfortunately. No little black book.

A stack of towels were at the head of the bathtub folded neatly on a chair. A rumpled pile of damp towels were next to the tub, obviously just tossed there. Mr. Walker must be used to having other people pick up after him. Might be a good idea to have the towels checked for hair—if a woman was visiting she might well have taken a bath. Amy looked in the tub and noticed a ring of hair and grunge. They could collect those too.

After a quick perusal of the rest of the drawers, which turned up only clothes, she walked down the stairs to the main floor.

In the kitchen she found dishes in the sink, not much in the refrigerator—salami, ajar of mayonnaise, pickles, a six-pack of beer, and some moldy cheese. No signs of lipstick on any of the glasses. But they’d all have to be fingerprinted. An opened box of crackers sat on the counter, a jar of peanut butter with a sticky knife next to it. He certainly was batching it.

She scanned the dining room and living room, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Time to go down to the basement and check out the sauna. The bottom floor wasn’t really a basement as only part of it was underground. The side toward the lake was a walkout, with the sauna built in next to the back door.

She opened the door to the sauna and sniffed. The cedar smelled wonderful, deep and tangy like a pine forest after a rain. The room was large enough to fit six people comfortably. A bench ran the length of the room with a small sauna heater, rocks sitting in the top of it.

Three objects sat on the bench: an ashtray with the butt end of a cigar perched on it, a half-empty bottle of expensive vodka and a glass etched with the letter W. So far no trace of anyone but Walker’s presence.

As she was backing out of the sauna, Amy heard a clicking noise coming from upstairs—it must be coming from the front door on the main floor. She had purposely locked the door behind her when she came in so it had to be someone who had a key—maybe Daniel Walker’s daughter. Amy also knew her presence would not be a secret as her squad car was parked in the driveway.

She ran up the stairs and was surprised to see Sara Hegstrom carrying a vacuum cleaner and a bucket of cleaning equipment. Amy had heard that Sara was supplementing their farm income by doing housekeeping. While she didn’t know the woman very well, her dad was friends with Sara’s husband Clyde.

“Sara, stop where you are. You can’t come in. I’m sorry but you can’t clean in here today.”

Sara set down the vacuum cleaner in the entryway and held the bucket like it was a baby in her arms. “I saw your squad car out front. What’s happened? Are the Walkers okay?”

“We’re not quite sure yet, but Mr. Walker was locked outside his house last night and has a bad case of hypothermia. He’s been taken to the hospital.”

“Oh, no. That’s terrible. How could that have happened? Didn’t he know better than to go out in this weather?”

“That’s a good question. We’re not sure what happened, but for now this is being treated as a crime scene.”

“Crime? Did someone do this to him? Is he going to be okay?”

They’re not sure.

Sara looked dazed as she leaned against the wall by the front door. “My daughter’s at the hospital, too.”

“Bonnie?”

“Yes, you know her?”

“Not very well, but I remember her from school even though she was quite a few grades behind me. With her big laugh she was not easy to miss. I’m sorry to hear she’s in the hospital. What’s going on?”

Sara sat down in the entry hall floor as if all the air had escaped from her. “Oh, she wasn’t feeling well. We didn’t know. She complained of abdominal cramps. I didn’t pay that much attention to her, figured it was just her period. She’s always had bad and irregular periods. Then the baby came early.”

“She had a baby?”

“I know. Unbelievable.” The words rushed out of Sara as if she couldn’t even stop them. “Bonnie was at home in bed. Only my husband was there. The baby just came off the ventilator, but Bonnie’s not doing so well. I still can’t believe it. How could she be pregnant and I didn’t even know it? I’m her mother.
What’s wrong with me that I didn’t know that? But I’m not sure she even knew herself. I’ve heard of such things happening—but to my daughter?”

Amy wondered who the father was. If her calculations were right, Bonnie was about seventeen years old, last year of high school. “Yes, I’ve seen it all in this job. What is the baby—a boy or a girl?”

“The sweetest little boy. But he only weighed four pounds when he was born. And Bonnie lost so much blood she went into a coma. She hasn’t come out of it yet. But we’re hopeful. The doctors say she’ll recover.”

“How’s the baby?”

Sara’s face lit up. “Even though he came early, he’s perfect. He has little tufts of red hair too.” She wiped her face and up. “I suppose I should get going back to the hospital.” She gathered up her gear and looked around at the house. “When will I be able to clean?

“I’m not sure. But probably within a day or two. How long have you been cleaning for the Walkers?”

“The last couple years. They’re pretty easy to clean for, or they were before they separated. Mr. Walker, on his own, is a slob.”

“Do you know why they separated?”

“Not really, but I could guess. Mr. Walker has a roving eye, if you know what I mean.”

“Did he ever try anything with you?”

“No, thank god. I think I’m too old for him.”

New Year’s Day: 3:15 pm

C
laire glanced up from the
People
magazine she was still reading—too many pictures of gorgeous women in jeans and big sunglasses—as a tall, model-thin young woman walked into the waiting room.

“Here’s Danielle,” Sherri whispered.

Danielle certainly knew how to make an entrance—her high-heeled boots clicked on the granite floor, her fur jacket hung open to reveal a low-cut red sweater. The two older women sitting in the corner of the room stared at her as did the young boy slouched in a chair, half asleep. He sat up straight.

The similiarity between this woman and Sherri was striking. Both women were tall and thin with long honey-colored hair. They both wore high-heeled footwear. Lipstick was a must for both of them—Sherri went for a dark deep red, Danielle wore a glistening pink.

Claire watched Danielle scan the room, catch sight of Sherri, and then narrow her eyes and stalk over.

“What did you do to my dad?” were the first words out of Danielle’s mouth. Claire noticed how she claimed Dan Walker.

“Let’s step outside,” Sherri suggested. “That way I can tell you what’s going on and not bother everyone else.”

“No. I don’t care who hears this. I want to see my father and I want to know what happened to him. Figures you’d be the one to find him since you were probably responsible for what happened.” Danielle leaned in close to Sherri and spat her words in her face. “What did you do to him?”