The Snow White Christmas Cookie (6 page)

“We’ve been sleeping down here to save on the fuel bill,” Josie explained. “It costs a fortune to heat this big old place. We don’t go upstairs at all.”

“About those pill bottles,” Des said. “You’re sure they were full?”

“Positive. I count them every morning to make sure. He wasn’t taking any of that stuff anymore. Their presence in our medicine chest was entirely totemic.”

“Entirely what?”

“They were symbolic. They represented what he didn’t need anymore.”

“Was that your idea or Bryce’s?”

“It was something we both agreed to.”

The tiny room fell silent as all of them stood there trying not to look at her dead boyfriend.

“Josie, why don’t we continue this conversation in the kitchen?”

Mitch joined them, topping off Josie’s coffee mug and his own before he sat with them at the round oak table.

“I don’t happen to believe in pills,” Josie stated firmly. “I don’t think they make you healthy—just drug dependent. I’m strictly about self-healing that utilizes energy-based modalities and mind-body practices.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t understand what you just said.”

“I’m saying that we concentrated on harnessing the vast power of Bryce’s mind to return his body to its natural state of being. We detoxified his system of artificial chemicals. We reduced his stress levels. We placed him on a…” She trailed off, staring at Des accusingly. “You think I’m full of crap, don’t you?”

“That’s not true at all, Josie,” Des said.

“Yes, it is. I can see it in your eyes. I happen to be a fully accredited life coach, you know. People
value
what I do. You would, too, if you needed me. You don’t. You’re someone who has tremendous personal discipline. You exercise, eat right, don’t smoke or do drugs. You’ve got it together.”

Des glanced down at the graphite stick residue that was always there underneath the middle fingernail of her right hand.
Yeah, I’ve got it together. I just see dead people is all.

“But most people aren’t like you, Des. They’re weak. And an amazing number of them don’t like themselves very much. I have one client who pays me seventy-five dollars an hour just to go grocery shopping with her twice a week. She says she’d be lost without me. This is an affluent, well-educated career woman. You wouldn’t think she’d need me, but she does. Most of my clients do.”

“Bryce was more than a client to you.”

“Much more,” Josie acknowledged, lowering her blue eyes. “That … never happened before. I’ve never fallen in love with a client. I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to.”

The Jewett girls were done in the bedroom. They said their good-byes and headed back out by way of the mudroom. Des heard their van start up and pull away.

Josie gazed out the kitchen window at the snow, which was now coming down so hard that you could barely see across the beach to the water. “I could never, ever convince him that he deserved to be loved. And he was
so
depressed this morning that I decided he ought to see Dr. Swibold again. Mitch and I were talking about it while we were running.”

“It’s true, we were,” he confirmed.

“Josie, is there any chance Bryce was self-medicating without your knowledge? Scoring drugs on his own?”

“I don’t believe so. He hardly ever left the island. Didn’t hang out with anyone. Plus he was flat broke. The monthly check from his trust fund barely covered a week’s worth of groceries.”

“If that’s the case then how did he pay you? When he was seeing you professionally, I mean. You say you charge seventy-five dollars an hour. Where was the money coming from?”

“Why is that important?” Josie asked, sipping her coffee.

“It may not be. I’m just wondering.”

“Preston paid for it. Also for Bryce’s sessions with Dr. Swibold. Preston and Bryce had a-a strained relationship. When Bryce showed up last summer it hit Preston really hard. He told me he felt awful about the way he’d treated Bryce. Preston is in his sixties now, and he’s had two heart attacks. I got the impression that he didn’t want Bryce sitting on his conscience.”

“So you’ve been in personal contact with Preston?”

“By phone and e-mail. And he sent me checks from Chicago when I was coaching Bryce.”

“I’ll need a phone number for him.”

Josie fetched her Blackberry from the counter and gave Des Preston’s home and office numbers. “Bryce was a real hard case at first,” she recalled sadly. “He hated the idea of seeing someone like me. Many of my male clients do. Men flat-out hate to ask for help.”

Des was already well aware of this. It explained why most of the suicides she’d caught in her career were men—going all of the way back to her rookie year, second week on the job, when one of them decided to throw his gray flannel self in front of the 7:32 Metro-North train out of Stamford. Women create support groups for each other. They share their feelings with their friends. Talk. Confide. Depend on each other. Men are taught to be self-reliant. When things go bad they don’t reach out, just retreat into gloomy, lonely isolation. The holiday season, with its feel-goody emphasis on family and loved ones, can be particularly hard for them.

“I can’t imagine what I’ll do now,” Josie said, staring down into her coffee mug. “Bryce was such a big part of my life.”

“I’m sure Preston won’t mind if you stay here for a while,” Mitch said. “Under the circumstances, I mean.”

Josie looked at him narrowly “It’s not up to Preston to mind or not mind. This house doesn’t belong to him.”

Mitch glanced at Des curiously before he turned back to Josie. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Bryce wasn’t the caretaker of this place,” she replied. “He owned it. Lucas left it to him. Ask the family lawyer if you don’t believe me. Ask Glynis. She’ll tell you. Preston held the purse strings to Bryce’s trust fund, but Bryce has owned this house since the day he turned twenty-one. Preston wasn’t ‘allowing’ Bryce to stay here. It was Bryce who was ‘allowing’ Preston and his family to spend their summers here. Bryce knew how much it meant to Preston’s kids to return to Big Sister every summer. They have happy memories of this place. Bryce had happy childhood memories himself. This had been his home until Preston kicked him the hell out. But it’s not Preston’s house. It was Bryce’s and he-he…” Josie broke off, breathing deeply in and out. “I hardly ever drink coffee. It’s making me all buzzy and I’m rattling on.”

“You’re not,” Des assured her.

“Bryce really loved this island,” she said, her eyes growing shiny. “He’d gotten so tired of being rootless. Wanted to settle down here and stay put. Maybe even start a family of his own. Everyone in town thought he was the caretaker. He went ahead and let them think it. That was Bryce’s way. He liked for people to think he was a cheese head, but he wasn’t. Did you know he had a Master’s degree in literature from the University of Montana? He was incredibly well-read and insightful.”

“He told me he worked construction in Bozeman,” Mitch said.

“To put himself through school,” Josie said, nodding. “Des, what happens now?”

“There’s a process. Another officer will come and ask you more questions. So will someone from the Medical Examiner’s office.”

“What’s the point? It’s obvious what happened.” She puffed out her cheeks. “Sorry, there’s a ‘process.’ I get it. Will I need to be here all day? Because I have clients to see.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand if you have to reschedule.”

“No, they
won’t
understand,” Josie said emphatically. “They rely on me.”

“Then do what you got to do,” Des responded. People coped with grief in their own ways. If Josie needed to be there for her clients then so be it.

She was gazing out the window again at the snow. “He really did want to be cremated. But I guess I won’t have any say in that, will I?”

“That’s a family matter,” Des said. “All I can tell you is that those arrangements will be on hold until the Medical Examiner completes the autopsy.”

Josie’s eyes widened. “They have to do an autopsy?”

“I’m afraid so. This type of situation is what we call an untimely death. Autopsy’s pretty much automatic. Bryce’s blood will have to be tested. It may be several days before they have the preliminary toxicology findings, though it usually goes faster if they have a specific idea of what to look for.”

Josie cocked her head at Des curiously. “Why do I get the feeling that you’ve been through this ‘process’ before?”

“Only because I have.”

Too damned many times.

*   *   *

Des made a slow circuit through the Dorset Street Historic District. By now the fresh snow had to be six inches deep. The schools were closed for the day. So was Town Hall. When she reached Big Branch Road, Des made a left turn—her hands loose on the steering wheel, foot gentle on the gas pedal—and eased on through the business district, which was adorned up the wazoo with Christmas decorations and lights. The A&P was open, though there were very few cars in the lot. The antique shops, clothing stores and art galleries were open as well. ’Twas the week before Christmas and the economy sucked. No way the shopkeepers were staying home. Lem Champlain’s plow monkeys were out keeping the parking lots clear. Or trying.

McGee’s Diner on the Shore Road was a shabby, much-beloved local landmark. During the summer it teemed with sunburned, boisterous beachgoers who stopped there to munch on lobster rolls and gaze out the windows at Dick McGee’s million-dollar view of the Big Sister lighthouse. On a snowy December morning Des figured it would be a nice, quiet place to meet Paulette Zander for a cup of coffee.

A red Champlain Landscaping plow pickup was the only vehicle parked out front when Des got there. Pat Faulstich, the young Swamp Yankee who’d been spending time with Kylie Champlain, sat hunched over a mug of coffee at the counter, a wool stocking cap pulled low over his head. He glanced up at Des when she came in, then looked back down at his coffee, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably. Pat had a reddish see-through beard and a thick neck. He was thick through the chest and shoulders, too. Wore a heavy wool shirt, jeans and work boots. A pea coat hung from a peg on the wall next to him. No one else was in the place—unless you count Nat King Cole, who was singing Christmas carols on the radio in the kitchen.

Dick’s waitress, Sandy, came out of there with a paper bag and a Thermos bottle and set them in front of Pat. “Here you be, young sir, four ham-and-cheese sandwiches. And I topped off your coffee—black with lots of sugar.”

Pat thanked her and put his pea coat back on. Then he grabbed the bag and Thermos and clomped out of there, his gaze avoiding Des’s as she sat down in a booth. When he got outside he stopped to light a cigarette, watching Des through the front window. Des watched him back. She made him nervous. She made all of the local boys nervous. He got into his truck, his jaw stuck out defiantly, then started it up and pulled away just as Paulette arrived in her Nissan Pathfinder.

Dorset’s postmaster came in out of the snow wearing one of those full-length quilted down coats that don’t look good on anyone. Not unless an overcooked bratwurst is your idea of looking good. Paulette wore her long silver-streaked hair in a ponytail today, but she still had the same tense, preoccupied look on her face that she’d had last night at Rut’s party. She took off her coat and slid into the booth across from Des, sitting in tight silence while Sandy poured their coffee.

“What’s going on?” Des asked her after Sandy returned to the kitchen.

“Same old sloppy mess,” Paulette answered nervously, pouring cream into her coffee. “We’ll be out there delivering what we have, but these snow days really do a number on my carriers. Those decrepit old Grumman LLVs of ours are just no good in the snow. Do you know what LLV stands for?
Long Life Vehicle
. To which I say
LOL
. Half of ours are falling to pieces.” She removed a paper napkin from the dispenser and tore off a piece, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger until it was a teeny, tiny ball. She set the ball next to her spoon, then tore off another piece of napkin and began rolling that.

Des watched her doing this for a moment before she said, “Shall we talk about what we need to talk about?”

Paulette bit down on her lower lip, fastening it between her teeth. “What did Rut tell you?”

“Not a thing. It was Mitch who he reached out to. He told him that a grinch has been stealing Hank’s Christmas tips and Lem’s plow money. Lem claims he’s missing a couple of thou.” Although that particular aspect was a bit iffy. Rut also told Mitch that Lem was tomcatting with an old sweetheart and might be hiding the money from Tina to pay for his fun. “Rut’s hoping we can keep it in the Dorset family because the postal inspectors won’t exactly be down with our quaint, small-town ways.”

Paulette sat there in stiff silence, rolling another piece of napkin into a teeny, tiny ball and setting it next to her spoon. There were already four tight little balls there.

Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “There’s more happening than Rut let on, isn’t there?”

Paulette responded with a brief nod of her head. “Last Monday a dog walker found a huge batch of Hank’s mail in a ditch on Johnny Cake Hill Road. Practically every envelope Hank delivered in the Historic District that morning had been slashed open. Some contents were missing. Others were simply discarded.”

“Did they take the credit card statements, bank statements and such?”

Paulette shook her head. “They weren’t interested in those. Or in the paid bills that folks had put out for Hank to take. We found dozens of personal checks to mortgage companies, Connecticut Light and Power, you name it.”

“Then it doesn’t sound like we’re dealing with identity thieves. What
did
they take?”

“Anything and everything of value. People mail all sorts of gifts to their friends and relatives this time of year. They send Christmas cards with cash or prepaid retail gift cards tucked inside. And a million small packages that’ll fit inside of any mailbox—DVDs, CDs, iPods, Kindles. It’s kind of ironic, really.”