Glare Ice (13 page)

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. Watkins, I need to talk to you about your daughter.” Mr. Turner’s eyebrows flew across his forehead. Although only in his thirties, he had eyebrows that were starting to sprout auxiliary hairs, and he moved them with great effect when he was excited.

Claire found herself cranking her head back to look up at the man as he loomed over her. She realized this whole conference thing was set up to intimidate the parent. Here she was sitting in a kid’s desk that was too small for her, and he was standing up in front of her. Why hadn’t they met in a nice comfortable lounge? It made her feel like she was trapped back in school.

Suddenly, she had great sympathy for her daughter and wondered if she shouldn’t consider home-schooling. And the teacher hadn’t even started the lecture. She just knew it was coming.

She replied, “That is the purpose of this meeting, isn’t it?”

“You have a very smart daughter.”

Flattery. Another bad sign. “She is, isn’t she? Don’t know how it happened. Her father, I guess.”

“But—”

Claire knew it had been coming—”the big But,” as Meg called it. “Yes?”

“But she is working way below her potential.”

Claire decided it was time to make a suggestion. “We had considered having her skip fifth grade. Maybe we should reconsider that?”

This shook him, she could tell. “Well, I think that might not be what’s called for under these circumstances.”

“Tell me about the circumstances,” Claire crossed her ankles and put her hands in her lap. She knew how to be a good student.

“She doesn’t seem to be able to focus on the task at hand. She only wants to read in class and doesn’t want to attend to her schoolwork. She has been behind on getting several assignments in, which leads me to believe that she is not faithfully doing her homework.” Then he gave her the evil eye. “Mrs. Watkins, do you check in with your daughter about her homework every night?”

Claire almost laughed. She had never had to check on Meg, her perfect child, who sometimes seemed independent. “No, it’s never been necessary with Meg before. She’s very self-motivated.”

“Well, children change. Meg seems to be going through a stubborn period. She doesn’t want to do things the way I want them done. I fear we’re having a test of wills. And I will win it, Mrs. Watkins, I will.”

He was a bully. It was as simple as that, or as complicated. Poor, dear Meg. It would do little good for Claire to antagonize him, much as she wanted to. He seemed to dislike her on the spot, maybe because she was Meg’s mother or maybe because she was a working woman, possibly even because she was a cop. Claire didn’t even care to try to figure it out. She was here to help her daughter.

“What do you suggest we do, Mr. Turner?” She looked up at him and gave him her winningest smile.

“Well, I am encouraged to find you so agreeable to listen to my slight complaints about your daughter’s behavior.”

“Meg will certainly hear about this when I get home.”

“If you could stress to her how important it is to follow the rules. Teaching a group of twenty-five children can only be done when there is law and order.” He allowed himself a crooked smile, alluding as he had to her job as deputy. “I’m sure you understand.”

The man thought he was amusing, Claire thought. But onward. “Meg can be a free thinker. I will talk to her about all this.”

“I think if she understands that her mother is behind me, I will be able to get someplace with her.”

A sadistic bully. She forgot that teaching could be an ideal job for them and that country schools without easy access to good teaching stock might need to hire them just to fill the classrooms. Get someplace with her, indeed.

Claire stood. She couldn’t take this sitting down anymore. Mr. Turner wasn’t much taller than her, so they almost saw eye to eye. “How are Meg’s grades?”

He backed up to his desk and sat on the edge of it. “They’re in the B range.”

“So she’s not making a complete mess of it?”

His eyes bugged slightly, and his eyebrows were flying circles above them. “No, not at all. But we both know she can do so much better. All she seems to want to do is read books.”

“Not exactly a horrible problem, is it?” Claire asked.

“No,” he admitted. “But if all the other children are working and one is reading, that can be disruptive.”

“Reading?”

Mr. Turner nodded.

Claire thought for a moment. “Well, Mr. Turner. I was thinking that we should have a carrot to dangle in front of the donkey, and I suggest that if my daughter behaves and gets her work done, I will tell her you have given her permission to read as long as she is very quiet about it.”

She had him.

“Well, all right.”

She reached out and shook his hand. “So nice to meet you. I’m glad we had this talk.”

He sat down on the edge of his desk and looked relieved as she walked out of the room. She resisted adding, “Class dismissed.”

Stephanie woke up in real pain. They had been easing her off the Demerol. She was no longer on the drip. They had awakened her once in the night to give her pain pills, but that was four hours ago. Stephanie knew it was four hours ago because that’s how long the pills lasted. And then she woke up. And wanted to scream, but she resisted doing that again.

She buzzed the nurse and waited, counting the moments until she came. Stephanie knew she was getting better because even though the pain was bad, it was tolerable. It felt real because it wasn’t over the top anymore. At first it had felt as if the top of her head was going to lift off with the agony of it all.

They had had her sitting up in a chair yesterday, but today she was supposed to walk down the hall. They promised her catheter would come out and she would be completely mobile.

Her sight was returning nicely, the doctors said. Someone came in about twice a day and shone a little tiny flashlight into her eyes. They had set up an eye chart on the far wall, and they would ask her what letters she was seeing. She had them memorized by now, but tried not to cheat.

Today, she would need to analyze how her body was doing and figure out when she could leave. She hoped in another day or two. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry to let her out of the hospital, which was fine with her. She did feel safe in the hospital, always someone bustling around. She could stay here forever—except she missed Snooper.

Her brother thought she was going to go and stay with him, but she would not do that. Then there was the women’s shelter in Durand. But they would never let her have the dog there.

She would leave before they thought she was ready. She would bolt. She had thought it all out.

Sven would come and get her. He had helped her out before. She needed to thank him anyway for coming to her rescue on Thanksgiving. Deputy Watkins said Sven had been quite upset when he found her. Stephanie couldn’t remember a thing.

She would have him drive her right to Rich Haggard’s and pick up Snooper. She would ask Sven to dig out her car before she got home. It was still all packed. The deputy said they hadn’t touched anything. She was ready to go. She would put Snooper in the car and drive westward as long as she could, and then she would get a hotel room and sleep.

That was the plan.

There was another one.

She could tell Deputy Watkins what was going on. This plan had been growing stronger in her mind since Watkins had been in to see her. Points in her favor: she was a woman, she had taken care of the dog, and she promised that she would personally see that Stephanie was not hurt if she would just tell her who had beat her up. Stephanie believed her.

The only thing that worried her was that no one understood how hard Jack would fight to get at Stephanie. No one except herself.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the police this time, it was more that she didn’t think they were up to the task.

And she had Snooper to think about.

A few days after Mrs. Tabor had discovered her brooch was missing, Lily had come to work wearing it.

Mrs. Tabor couldn’t believe her eyes. Lily had the beautiful garnet brooch, as plain as day, pinned to her chest.

Mrs. Tabor couldn’t help herself. She had to say something. The words flew out of her mouth without her thinking about it. “Why are you wearing my brooch? I’ve been looking for that everywhere.”

Lily gave her a look and laughed. “Oh, Mrs. Tabor. I told you you might forget. You gave it to me. It was such a nice gift.”

The laugh was not a very nice laugh. Mrs. Tabor did not believe her. She would never, even if she had completely lost her mind, give her brooch away to anyone. And, of course, if it went to anyone, it would be her daughter. But Mrs. Tabor had planned on being buried with it pinned to her chest.

“I gave it to you?” she said back to Lily.

“Yes, don’t you remember? I always told you how much I liked it. Then, for my birthday, you gave it to me. Took it off your dresser and handed it to me. I thought I’d wear it so you could see how much I appreciated your gift.”

Mrs. Tabor felt as if her head was about to fall off. Would she do such a thing and then not remember it? How scary a land was this growing old—filled with land mines and booby traps. Not being able to trust your own memory. It was too much.

She had to get out of the room before she said something that she would regret. Truth be told, she was afraid of Lily.

“I don’t think I want to go out today, Lily. If you don’t mind going to the store for me, I think I’ll just have a lie down.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Tabor. You look a little tuckered out. You didn’t sleep good last night?”

“Sleep is very elusive when you’re my age. Sometimes it wraps itself around you and won’t let you go, and other times it runs away from you. Last night was one of the bad ones.”

Mrs. Tabor went to the bedroom, stretched out on her bed, and pulled a thin blanket over her legs. A little nap. She crawled back under the covers only when she was sick. For a nap in the afternoon, she slept on top of the bedclothes.

When she heard Lily leave the house, she pushed herself off the bed and went to the phone. She had marked the number in the phone book, and she punched it in carefully.

“Pepin County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Is Deputy Watkins there?” she asked the pleasant woman who had answered the phone.

“Hold a moment.”

“Hello, Watkins here.”

“You sound like a real deputy.”

“I am. Who am I speaking with?”

“Sorry, this is Mrs. Tabor. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, of course. What can I do for you?”

“Well, she’s at it again. That Lily. She can be nice when she wants to be, but I think she’s got a bad side to her. First it was the checks, but I let it slide. That was a mistake. And now she’s taken my brooch. Well, I’ve had enough of it.”

There was silence on the other end. Maybe she had said too much.

“What would you like me to do?”

“Get back my brooch.”

“How have you been, Claire?” Dr. Lynn Potter asked as she ushered Claire to a seat on a couch and took a chair close by.

Claire should have known she wouldn’t get away without talking about herself even though she had made it clear when she called that it was a business meeting; she would be asking advice on a case. Claire had persuaded the sheriff to pop for the half-hour fee. “Basically fine.”

“Covers a lot, doesn’t it? Fine.”

“I do a hard job. It stirs things up. But I feel like you helped me figure out ways to cope better. Is that what you want to hear?”

There was a pause while Dr. Potter looked her over. Claire realized her answer had been a little sharp.

“What I want to hear? You called and asked to see me.”

“Sorry. I’m having trouble with a case, as I explained to you on the phone. Abuse. A battered woman. I just don’t get it. How can women let men do that to them? Grown-up women.”

“Tell me about the case,” Dr. Potter suggested. She leaned forward in her chair and tucked her brown bobbed hair behind her ears.

So Claire did. Without giving any names, she told the doctor about Stephanie, Buck, the dog. She told her about the phone call, the car-through-the-ice murder of Buck Owens, the last battering on Thanksgiving Day. She felt her heart race as she talked about it and tried to calm herself down.

“You sound pretty angry, Claire.”

“She won’t give me anything. She won’t let me help her.”

“That has to be very frustrating. But you need to come to understand her and have compassion for her situation before you are going to get her to talk to you. That’s what I think.”

“Makes sense. Can you help me with the compassion part?”

“I can’t give it to you, but we can talk about it. Why don’t you start by telling me what you don’t understand?”

“Well, I’ve never let a man hit me and get away with it. Once, when I was at the academy, a guy I was dating grabbed me too hard and shook me. That was it. I was out of there!”

“Did you love him?”

“No.”

“Did you want to marry him, live with him the rest of your life?”

“No.”

“Makes it easier to walk away. One thing that might help is to think of someone you love. Think of what you would do if they hit you. Think how hard it might be to give up all that is good between you and walk away.”

“So like if Rich hit me?”

“Good, you’re still seeing Rich.”

“His mother came over for Thanksgiving.”

“Great, how’d it go?”

“A bit of an ordeal, but at least we’ve met.”

“So what would you do if he hit you?”

Claire tried to go there, but it seemed impossible. “He wouldn’t do that. I’m with him because he wouldn’t do that.”

“What about your husband?”

Claire remembered Steve getting really mad. Once he had broken the dining room window. She couldn’t even remember why he had been so mad. It had been just before Meg was born. Claire had been frightened, but as soon as he broke the window, he calmed down. He laughed. He apologized. What if he wouldn’t have done that? She was pregnant. Would she have left her husband if he had slugged her? “I don’t think I could have left right away. I would have warned him that I would leave if he ever did it again. I would have given him another chance.”