Snow Way Out (24 page)

“Then I wandered in to look at all the snow globes in Cami’s shop, mostly because I’d never really had a good look at them. And to see how the one I’d made compared. I set mine down and started in looking at the others, and then the girls had that little ruckus so I went back to the coffee shop. I was kind of upset, what with that no-goodnik being back in town, and worrying about what he might be up to next. I didn’t want nothin’ bad to happen to any of you girls.

“So I walked down to the park. That helps me relax some when I get myself all tied up in knots. I was walkin’ along the pathway when that no-goodnik himself stepped out in front of me. Of all the people who have no right to be in our fair city. He sorta came out of nowhere. I hardly had a second to wonder what in the heck he was up to when the turkey pulled out this knife and told me to give him my money.

“Well, if it wasn’t bad enough that the girls after the class were all in a huff over the guy, but there he was, back to his criminal ways on his first day bein’ free, in my park. I told him there was no way in hell I was going to give him nothin’ but a black eye maybe.

“He lunged at me and I musta gone into combat mode because the next thing I knew he was on his belly with that knife of his sticking out of his own back. We were right next to a park bench and I hooked my arms under his and managed to pull him up and set him down on it. I backed up and looked at him, thinkin’ I should tell somebody, but I didn’t want to go to jail. As I stood there, it hit me that the snow globe I’d put together looked just like what I was lookin’ at there in the park, for real. I reached in my pocket for it, to have a look for myself, but it wasn’t there.

“That’s when I remembered where I’d set it down. I hightailed it back here, not really sure what I was going to do about it, but that’s what I did. Then I saw Cami workin’ on the computer, and I thought maybe I’d knock on the door. But I couldn’t think of what to tell her, of why I was there. I was thinkin’ maybe I’d have to stop by in the morning and sneak it out then, when no one was lookin’. About that same minute Cami got up and went back to the bathroom. I figured the front door was locked, but it wasn’t so I went in quick. The key was in the lock and I locked the door behind me, out of force of habit, I guess.”

“When you were going right out again?” Clint said.

“The only thing I could figure when I thought about it later was when it’s dark out especially, I turn the lock, automatic-like.”

Clint lifted his hand a little. “So you were in the shop. Then what happened?”

“I went to grab the globe, but I bumped it instead. And then I heard the bathroom door opening—it’s got that squeak—so I dropped down and rolled under a shelf. I didn’t want to scare Cami, having me standin’ there when she thought she was alone. It seemed like I lay there a long time, real still, trying to hold my breath, or breathe real quiet. If she’da known I was there hiding, that would’ve really scared the daylights out of her. And then I’d have had to tell her why I was hiding, and she’d have had to call the police.”

He was right, I would have been scared witless.

Archie went on. “I heard her walking around, and then she set something on a shelf above where I was and my heart was a-poundin’ to beat the band. Finally, the lights went out and I heard the lock turn. I lay there a while longer, just to be sure the coast was clear, and then I got out from under the shelf, got my snow globe, and started up breathing regular again. But I had a little dilemma.”

“What was that?”

“How to get out and lock the door from the outside when I didn’t have a key. But it only took me a minute before I remembered the coffee shop lock was different. I went out that way instead.”

“Where’d you go then?” Clint said.

“I headed straight for home. I heard sirens and wondered if they’d be for that no-goodnik, but I figured no one would be in the park ’til morning. I sorta thought I might go there myself and then call the police. I’da never thought Cami would be the one to find him. I wish I coulda saved her from that. I kinda thought since Powers was such a hoodlum it’d blow over pretty fast. But it didn’t. It seemed like about everybody in the whole town was up in arms.

“And then I started feelin’ more sorry for Cami with people not believin’ she’d seen that first snow globe in her shop the night Powers died.” Archie set his eyes on Clint. “You sorta thought she was making it all up, putting it there herself to back up her story, trying to convince everyone she’d really seen it after all.”

Clint hitched up a shoulder. “Archie, in my job I deal with facts and evidence.”

I had to ask. “Archie, what about the second one? The one with the police officer and the kids in the park? You left it here: Pinky and I both saw it. Then I went to the park and saw pretty much the same scene.”

“Well, that’s why I made that one. A policeman has been in the park a lot since that no-goodnik died there. And kids is always playin’ there.”

And I’d thought some kind of extrasensory or extraterrestrial thing was going on. “Why did you leave that one here on my shelf?”

“I’m gettin’ mighty forgetful. Like the first one, I wanted to see what it looked like sittin’ with all the others. Then by the time I’d gotten my coffee, I’d forgot about it ’til later.”

“Why didn’t you call us in the first place?” Clint said.

Archie moved a shoulder up and down. “I’d been blowing off steam about that character. Who’da believed I just happened to run into him in the park the same night he came back to town? And that I couldn’t remember what happened right after he came at me until I saw him lying there on the ground?”

Clint looked around the coffee shop at all of us sitting at the tables. “All your friends would have, Archie.”

We nodded and gathered around Archie in support.

P
inky, Erin, and I all waited until Clint and Mark left with Archie, en route to the police station, before we broke down like babies and cried. A few minutes later, when Pinky had some customers walk in, she did her best to dry her tears and pull herself together.

“When that Benjamin Arnold showed up I thought for sure he was the one who did it,” Erin said.

“Except for the knife part, you mean. Arnold was still in the halfway house when you realized yours had disappeared.”

“I know that now. I actually thought maybe someone else had one with similar damage. And either mine had gotten accidentally tossed or it would show up in some odd place in the house someday. That’s what must have happened to Pinky’s knife. We know she loses things a lot, but I still think it one weird coincidence she’s missing the same one as I was.”

“That is for sure. The mystery still remains of how Jerrell Powers got ahold of yours. Unless he stole it from your house a couple of years ago when he was helping himself to your clocks.”

Erin nodded. “That must have been what happened. My knife could have been missing for two years. Like I said, I never use it.”

“So you think Powers may have had it with his things somewhere.”

“And must have hidden it before he got caught, yes.”

Pinky had finished with her customers and came back to our table. “I cannot begin to believe this. Poor Archie. And Erin, all these years he thought you might have been his daughter.”

Erin sniffled. “Archie’s a very black-and-white kind of guy. And stubborn. When he gets something in his head, it’s about impossible to get it out again. I can’t believe he thought he might be my father—”

“Not going to get the blood tests done?” Pinky said.

“No. But I have been thinking for a long time about learning what I can about my biological mother and father. Where they are, if they’re still alive.”

“Yeah, I probably would, too, if I were you,” Pinky said.

A middle-aged couple poked their heads through the archway. “Hi, we’d like to pay for our things,” the man said.

I jumped up. “I am so sorry. I didn’t hear you in there.” I apologized again and asked if they needed help finding anything else. I wondered if anyone else had stopped by during our twenty-minute ordeal with Archie, and the ten or so minutes since.

Pinky had me cover for her at about one o’clock and went over to the police station to see if she could visit Archie. When she got back she told me Archie had been taken to the Buffalo County jail, where he’d stay until he made his first court appearance on Monday. He probably had about a million dollars stashed away after all his years working for the city, and living like a miser. And he had agreed with Clint and Mark that he’d best hire an attorney to represent him.

“And Clint asked if you’d stop over at the PD when you can break away.”

“Since this has been about the quietest Saturday we’ve had for months, I’ll go now, if it’s okay with you.”

“Sure, go. I’ll call for help if it gets too crazy.” She lifted her hands. “Bad choice of words because I have to believe we’re done with crazy for, like, forever.”

“Yeah.” With a wave, I went to the back room for my coat and walked to the parking lot. It was only six blocks to the police station, but driving saved time. When I climbed into my car, something felt strange, but I wasn’t sure what. There was a smell inside, like how a person smells if they’ve been outside in cool, crisp air. Maybe a window was open a crack. I checked and they were all shut up tight.

I pulled away and when I got to the edge of the parking lot to turn onto First Avenue, a voice spoke from the backseat. I slammed on the brakes and felt something heavy hit the back of my seat. I threw the car in park, opened the door, and jumped out. Benjamin Arnold sat up in the backseat and looked at me through the open door.

“Dang it, Benjamin, what in the world are you doing in my car?”

“I saw the police take that older guy away before. I needed to find out if he’s the one.”

“There are other ways, normal ways. Like walking into my shop and asking me.”

“There always seem to be people around. Is he the one?” he persisted.

“Archie confessed to the crime, yes.”

He sucked in a breath and his eyebrows rose above the frames of his glasses. “Then I’m ready to turn myself in to the police.”

Clint would surely yell at me for not locking my car up, and he’d probably yell at me for giving his number one bad guy a ride to the station, but that was what I decided to do. “Get in the front seat.” When Benjamin opened the backseat door and climbed out, I gave him a quick look-over. “You don’t have any weapons on you, do you?”

He held his hands up. “No.”

“Okay, let’s go, then. And it’s better if you wait to tell the police your story.”

He walked around the car and got in, then I got back in the driver’s seat, drove the short distance, and parked in front of the police station. When I walked in with Benjamin Arnold, Clint was by the front desk, handing some papers to the receptionist. He looked at us, blinked, opened his eyes wider, blinked again, and then straightened up to his full height, which seemed to be about seven feet tall at that moment.

“Benjamin Arnold?” Clint said and the receptionist stood up, looking prepared to assist with whatever was about to happen.

“That’s me.”

Clint pointed to the wall a few feet away. “First thing, I need to pat-search you. Put your hands against the wall, and stand with your feet a few feet apart.” Clint reached into Benjamin’s pockets and pulled out a wallet and a pair of gloves then patted him down. “Let’s go to my office.” Clint looked at me. “You, too.” He held his hand up, indicating that Benjamin was to take the lead. “Down the hall, take a left, and it’s the second door on the right.”

The three of us filed to the office. All I could think was, if someone had told me I’d been having the weirdest series of dreams in my life and it was time to wake up, I just might have believed him. Nothing since ten o’clock that morning had seemed real.

“Have a seat there.” Clint pointed to the chair he wanted Benjamin to sit in. He moved another chair to his side and told me to sit there. When we were all settled, Clint opened the legal pad on his desk to a clean page. “Okay, Mr. Arnold, why don’t you start from the time you were released from the halfway house and fill us in on what you’ve been doing, how you came to Brooks Landing, and where you’ve been staying the last couple of weeks.”

Arnold folded his hands in his lap. “I guess I should go back about six months to when Jerrell and I began to suspect we were brothers.”

Clint studied Benjamin. “Explain. I want to hear it from your mouth.”

“From the time we met, and this is going to sound hokey, we had this love-hate thing going on between us.”

“Love? Really? That’s not the way I heard it described.”

Benjamin nodded. “We got off on the wrong foot, no doubt about that. Then when we settled down after a while, and tried to get along better, we started noticing things about each other that were familiar. And I started losing weight and we saw more resemblance between us. One of the new guys who got admitted asked if we were brothers. Then we started to wonder if that was maybe true, or what.”

“That you and Jerrell Powers were brothers? Why would you think that?”

“We both knew we had been adopted, and both of us were born at Clydesdale General in Clydesdale, Minnesota, one day apart. Okay, now I’ll jump ahead. Jerrell knew he was born just before midnight on September eighth. My parents never told me the time I was born, and I never thought to ask. When I did, I found out I was born at three minutes
after
midnight on September ninth. Neither of our parents had been told by the adoption agency we had come from a set of twins. We’re fraternal, not identical.”

“Then how do you know you are?”

“When I got out, I headed straight to the agency and told them what I suspected. And I signed the form to let my biological parents, and my twin, contact me if they wanted. They wouldn’t tell me who had adopted Jerrell, but I already knew that, and I knew from Jerrell that both his adoptive parents had died.

“So I hitchhiked to Brooks Landing to tell Jerrell what I’d found out, and when I got here I found out someone had killed him and you thought I was the one who’d done it.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“At Astrid’s Café on Saturday afternoon. One of your police officers was telling the story to a few people. I heard about how Camryn had found Jerrell. I knew I hadn’t done it and needed to find out who did. It was too late to tell Jerrell the truth about our birth, but I needed to know the truth about his death.”

“According to one of the residents at the halfway house, you said you were going to hunt Jerrell Powers down and take care of him,” Clint said.

Benjamin’s eyes opened wider. “I didn’t say anything like that. I said something to the effect of, ‘I’ll meet up with you, after I’ve settled things at the agency.’”

Clint jotted that down and nodded. “That’s how rumors get started, and the main reason we were looking for you in the first place.” He looked up at Benjamin. “Where have you been staying?”

Benjamin looked at his hands. “I didn’t have much money, so I let myself into the Presbyterian church through the basement window at night and slept in the choir loft.”

Clint frowned as he wrote that down.

“I slipped up a few times while I was out scouting, and Camryn saw me. And then when I finally decided to tell her who I was, and what I was doing, I went to her shop, but I was a few minutes late and she had already gone home for the day. Then we ran into each other in that alley and I found out my cover was blown anyway.” Benjamin dug his hands into his thighs as if to push himself up.

“And you were the one who took that boy’s bike and crashed it at Camryn’s place?”

Benjamin nodded. “I was going to bring it back that night, but it was gone when I went back for it. I bought my own the next day.”

“And the burglary tools that were hanging from the handlebar?”

“I used them to get in the church the first time. After that I left the window unlatched.”

“I appreciate you being honest with me. I’m going to give you a piece of advice; whether you take it or not is up to you. It’s too late for your brother, but it’s not too late for you to start over. You’ve got parents who love you. It’s time to do something positive with your life.”

“I’ve been thinking that same thing the last months since I’ve been clean. I’m tired of going down the wrong path. It’s not getting me anywhere I want to be.”

“Your parents will be happy to hear that,” I said.

Benjamin nodded. “I’ve put them through a lot.”

Clint put his pen in his pocket. “I could charge you with misdemeanor theft, but you’re in enough trouble and it’s not worth the court time and fines since the boy got his bike back. I’m going to check with the Presbyterian church, see if they’ve noticed any damage caused by your visits, or if they want you charged with burglary. I’ll leave that up to them. If they don’t, you’ll be heading back to Cottonwood County for the probation violation.”

“I expected that.”

“All right, stand up and turn around. You’ll be in our county jail, either on burglary charges or until Cottonwood picks you up on their warrant.” Clint put handcuffs on him.

Benjamin was cooperative, and Clint escorted him out to his police car with me in tow a minute later.

“Good luck and I hope you do change the course of your life,” I said as Benjamin got in the backseat.

He looked at me and nodded. “I am going to try.”