Snow Way Out (3 page)

Mark returned after his phone call, and when he noticed that Archie was doing his best to help some of the women, he joined in. I was too involved in my own project to pay much attention to how the others were doing, so I thought it was nice the men were lending a hand.

May moved from one student to the next, using a small measuring cup to dip the snowy solution from the pan to pour into our globes. Each person held a globe in one hand and its base in the other. Then after May filled her globe, she put the base in place. When they were all filled and attached, May instructed us to do a final sealing bead of glue where the base met the globe.

Not only had we all survived the class without incident, but we’d produced some wonderful products. I admired what the other crafters had come up with. The teenage girl had assembled a miniature train of three cars on tracks chugging past a group of trees as a gift for her brother. One church lady had placed a single silver, leafless tree with its branches reaching heavenward on her base. It was stunning in its beautiful simplicity. I could have happily put any number of them up for sale on the shop’s display shelves. The class had gone along without a hitch, despite my concerns. But had I known what was about to happen, I would have tried to stop it before it started.

M
ost of the attendees had left by nine o’clock, and the rest of us were swallowing the last of our treats and putting away the supplies. Pam and Lauren thanked us then headed to the door. May called out to their backs, “You’re welcome, ladies. You know, Pam, you seem like a nice person. Don’t let Jerrell ruin the rest of your life, as he’s sure to do if you stay with him.”

Pam and Lauren both turned on a dime. Everyone’s eyebrows shot up, including mine.

Erin’s face paled. “Jerrell? As in Jerrell Powers? That Jerrell?”

Lauren reached over and laid her hand on her sister’s arm. “That’s why I’m really in Brooks Landing. To get my sister away from him,” she blurted out.

“What’s your connection to Jerrell?” Pam asked.

“He’s my ex-husband.”

Archie mumbled first to himself, then out loud, “Lordy, Lordy.”

“Did you come to Brooks Landing to teach the class, or was it so you could check up on Jerrell?” Pam asked.

May’s head went back like she was avoiding a punch and her face drew taut. “I didn’t know where he was, and haven’t seen him in forever—except today, that is—and I was more than shocked. I wasn’t going to let him wreck this class. I had a say in that much at least. Not like when I couldn’t control what he did. He ruined my daughter’s life.” She paused for a breath. “And mine.”

Erin turned to Pam. “How about you? You and your sister sat with me at the same table and didn’t say anything. You know who I am, don’t you?”

Pam shrugged. “I thought it was you then knew for sure when you introduced yourself.”

Erin pointed her finger at Pam. “For Pete’s sake. And worse yet, you’re in cahoots with Jerrell Powers. You’re harboring a fugitive.”

Pam’s lips trembled and tears welled in her eyes, but didn’t spill out.

Mark gave his hand a slight wave. “Technically, he’s not a fugitive.”

“Okay, a criminal, then. And a creepy one besides. If he comes near me or my things—”

“Then I’ll handle him, Erin,” Mark said, lowering his voice.

Pinky stepped in beside Mark. “Me, too. I’ll protect you.”

I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself.

“If we kick him out of Pam’s house, he’ll have to leave town and you won’t have to worry about him,” Lauren said.

“Lordy, Lordy,” Archie said again.

Being caught up in dramatic scenes had followed me from Washington, D.C., to my hometown of Brooks Landing. At least no one was pointing fingers at me this time. I raised my hands for everyone’s attention. “I think the best thing to do is put a little time and space between all that’s gone down here. I don’t think we’re going to resolve this tonight, so we should all go home and try to get a good night’s sleep. And remember what a nice class we had. We all have wonderful snow globes to prove it.” My words sounded fake and shallow even to me.

“Sleep? Seriously, Cami?” Erin asked.

“A glass of wine might help, Erin. Do you want a ride home?” Pinky said.

Erin lifted her eyebrows. “No.” She rolled her shoulders backward in a half circle. “But thanks.” She looked at each of us in turn. She nodded then left. Mark followed her out the door.

May turned to Pam. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I wasn’t going to, but it came out anyway. And Jerrell is a—”

“No-goodnik,” Archie finished for her then slipped out himself.

Lauren pulled on Pam’s arm. “Time to go.” Pam nodded, and they left without another word.

Pinky brushed a crumb off a table. “Let me help you carry your things to your car, May.”

“You know what? I have everything packed in my suitcase on wheels, and I’m parked right outside. But thanks. It was a good class. I wish now that I had just left it at that.”

“Yes, it was a good class,” I agreed and zipped my mouth shut before I told her it was probably the last time she ever taught a class at our shop. Pinky held the door for May, who rolled her supplies out behind her.

“Well, that went well. Not,” I said and sank onto a stool at the counter.

“Holy moly, Cami, our hopes of holding classes here may have died on the vine.”

“Yeah, well, after some time passes, maybe we’ll get our enthusiasm back.”

“That’s optimistic.” Pinky adjusted her neck scarf. “Well, it’s an early day tomorrow, getting up to bake my delicacies, so I’d better head on home.”

I stood up and gave Pinky a light hug. “Rest well, friend.”

“You, too.”

Alone in the shop, I walked around to settle my nerves. The last thing I had wanted that evening was a conflict. And a fairly significant one at that. I checked to see that every electrical appliance was off, then shut off the lights in the coffee shop and headed into my more familiar territory on the curio side. I picked up a recently acquired snow globe on a shelf near the counter and gave it a shake. It snowed on the man and woman who were dressed in Victorian clothing, snuggled together on a rocking horse. Their expressions of both joy and contentment had been captured and preserved for at least a century, according to the best information we had from one of our dealers in Germany.

I carefully replaced the globe then sat down in front of the computer on the checkout counter. I read through and responded to some e-mails and read the featured news headlines of the day. I was surprised when the clock on city hall chimed ten times. My hour online had seemed like half that amount of time.

“You need to head home yourself,” I said out loud and shut down the computer. I went to the back of the store and used the bathroom then grabbed my jacket and backpack from the back room and slipped them on. When I returned to the retail area, I walked toward the front window to turn the security light on, but a snow globe sitting on a nearby shelf stopped me in my tracks. It was “snowing.” I blinked, knowing I was imagining things, and watched until the last of the flakes had settled on the ground. I had never seen that particular globe before and wondered where it had come from. It was made of similar, or the same type of, materials we had used in our class. How odd. A chill ran up my spine as I reached for the front door to be sure it was locked. It was. I was relieved because I honestly could not remember locking it, no matter how hard I thought about it.

I picked up the foreign snow globe and studied the scene. Inside, there was a man sitting on a park bench with his head resting almost on his chest. He appeared to be sleeping. There was a streetlamp, several leafless trees, and a moon behind them. The scene looked familiar, like it could be in one of our town parks. I set the snow globe back on the shelf and let myself out. I locked the door behind me and double-checked it to be certain it was secured.

I went to the back lot, where I usually parked, and had a moment of panic when my Subaru wasn’t there. “No. Of all the days not to drive,” I chided myself. My house was less than a mile away, and I often walked or biked to work. It had been a gorgeous October morning, and it was an even lovelier evening, with a full moon overhead. And, as Archie had pointed out earlier, unseasonably warm.

Even though I generally felt safe walking after dark, I removed the small canister of Mace from my backpack and slipped it in the front pocket of my khaki slacks. It had been a long day on my feet, but I hadn’t thought of bringing a change of shoes with me, so my walking sandals would have to do. I headed south on Central Avenue, glancing up at the top half of the old county courthouse building that sat on the rise of a hill, a block west of the buildings on the opposite side of Central. A bank building dating back to 1890 that currently housed an antique business was directly across the street. It still held the original internal vault, a feature that added to the building’s charm.

The streets were mostly deserted at that hour, even though it was Friday night, and I wished there was more traffic. Why was I on edge? I crossed the street and walked on the sidewalk that ran alongside Green Lake. Not a soul was fishing from the public dock. During the summer months, it wasn’t unusual to see fishers there late at night. But once school started in September, people were rarely there after dark, and the dock would be rolled in soon, before the winter snow fell and the lake froze over.

Where the sidewalk divided—one path ran alongside the highway, and the other turned and led into the park—I veered to the right and took the park pathway, a shortcut that saved me a fair distance. There were streetlamps every fifty feet or so, but because I felt more unsettled than usual, I wished there was one every twenty. I patted the cell phone in my left pocket and the Mace in my right pocket. I’d gotten in the habit of carrying a canister during my years in Washington, D.C.

As children, my friends and I had spent hours playing games in the park, sometimes after sunset, before we were beckoned home. Our favorite nighttime game was a version of tag called Starlight, Moonlight.
Starlight, moonlight, I hope to see a ghost tonight.
I thought about the words and raised my eyes skyward.
Just kidding
.

Something shiny on the concrete path caught my eyes. A penny. I had a thing for picking up pennies. I remembered my mother—my birth mother—telling me, “Find a penny, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck.” As a teenager, I had started to believe it was my mother who dropped the pennies from heaven just for me. I bent over quickly, snatched up the coin, and dropped it in the pocket with my Mace. The two items made a soft clicking sound as I picked up my pace.

At the bottom of the hill, before the ground rose again, I noticed a man sitting on the bench. I considered what I should do: sneak by him quietly or make enough noise so I didn’t startle him when I walked behind his back. I pulled the Mace from my pocket and cupped it in my hand. “Hi, there! Beautiful evening, isn’t it?”

No response. As I got closer, I saw his head was bent over, like he was reading a book. But it was too dark where he sat for that. I decided I had better cross in front of him so I could keep an eye on his movements, and be sure he didn’t have any kind of weapon in his hand or stuck in the pockets of the windbreaker jacket he was wearing. I put my finger on the trigger of the Mace container, just in case. When I was about six feet away, little nerve prickles touched the back of my neck. I sidestepped toward the lake, not only to put more distance between him and me, but also so I could get a better view of him.

He appeared to be sleeping, with his head bent over and his hands resting palms up on his thighs. His ball cap hid his face. A cloud moved across the moon, and since the streetlamp was behind him, I couldn’t see well at all. “Hello? Are you all right? Just to let you know, you can’t sleep in the park. The cops in this town are pretty strict about that.”

Still no response. The cloud moved and the moon’s light came through the trees, shining down on us. “Oh, my God,” I whispered. It was the scene from the new psycho snow globe in my shop. I pinched myself to be sure I was really awake and not in the middle of a nightmare. I squeezed enough to make it hurt. Ouch.

I was afraid the man might be drunk and vulnerable to . . . whatever. I braved a step closer and then another. My pounding heart threatened to break through my chest. “Sir.” I didn’t want to touch him, so I picked up a stick lying by my foot and gently touched his shoulder with it. Instead of lifting his head, he fell forward and toppled onto the ground, landing facedown. I jumped back and then screamed.

The handle of a knife was sticking out of his back. His jacket was a dark color, maybe blue. It was too dark to see much more, but I detected a wet, earthy scent that I guessed was blood. “Oh, my God!” I yelled. “Help
.
” Was there anyone around to hear me? He must be dead, but I wasn’t sure. Maybe the knife was in just a little ways, stuck to a rib. Instinctively, without thinking, I reached down and checked. It felt like it was very deeply and tightly stuck in place.

Oh, Lord, I’d never been alone with a dead body before.

Somehow my reasoning kicked back in and I dialed 911. Thankfully it went through to the emergency operator. I didn’t know if the county had that capability with cell phone calls or not.

“Buffalo County, nine-one-one. Is this an emergency?” a woman asked.

“Yes, it is. I’m with a man who I’m pretty sure is dead. Someone stabbed him. Send the police to Lakeside Park right away. We’re maybe two hundred feet in from the Central Avenue side. Hurry!”

“Ma’am, my partner is dispatching an ambulance and a Brooks Landing officer. Do you know the victim?”

“No. I mean, not that I know of. I can’t really see his face.”

“Are you in danger yourself?”

Dear God, was I? I looked around and listened for sounds, but the only thing I heard was a fish jump in the lake behind me. “I don’t think so.”

“And what is your name?”

“Camryn Brooks.”

“Ms. Brooks, please spell your first name.” I did. “And your middle name?”

“Jo. J-o.” Why did they need that?

“Your date of birth?”

“A man might be dead here. He’s not moving at all, and there’s that knife sticking out of his back.”

“Okay, well, yes, but you need to stay calm. The officer and ambulance will be there in minutes. I need your date of birth and address to start the report.”