Glare Ice (5 page)

D
AMP
, thick clouds hung low over the lake, obscuring the bluffline across the water. From the window in her bedroom, Claire looked out. Clouds had settled into the crooks of the coulees on the far side of the lake, resembling lost sheep. The inside of Claire’s head felt like how the sky looked—muffled and woolly—but at least she was up and moving around.

She had slept until nine and eaten a large breakfast, knowing she would need the calories to get through the day. Rich, bless him, had already gotten Meg off to school without waking her. He had made her breakfast and told her not to worry about the dishes. If he was trying to make himself indispensable, she thought, he was doing a darn good job of it.

As she came down the stairs from her room, she saw he had his down jacket on and was ready to go out the door.

“Arctic out. It’s not even above zero yet,” he told her.

She groaned at the thought of the cold day ahead. The brutal cold made everything harder to do.

“What are you up to today?” she asked.

“Going over my books.”

“Counting your pennies?”

“That’s about it. Nothing as exciting as what you will be doing—looking at another man’s naked body.”

“Don’t forget, I’m also having pie with an older gentleman.”

“And I thought a cop’s life was tough. I’m going to have to meet this Dr. Lord sometime.”

They kissed an easy kiss, and she waved him out the door.

She called in to the department before she left the house to tell them she was on her way, and Julie warned her that the sheriff wanted to see her as soon as she got in. This came as no surprise. Claire had called him last night from the scene when she realized that the car going through the ice was not an accident, that they might be dealing with a murder. He had listened, and when she told him that the car was out of the water and they were ready to load the body into the ambulance, he said he’d be right down. He wanted to see the scene himself.

Claire stopped by Stephanie Klaus’s house before she drove on to work, but there was no sign of anyone. No car, no dog. She had knocked on the door of the small house just to see if a dog would bark, but she had heard nothing. Could another Stephanie have been seeing Buck Owens? One way or another, she needed to find out today.

Half an hour later, when she walked into Sheriff Talbert’s office, he seemed in a decent mood. Even though he was in some ways a figurehead, with Chief Deputy Swanson doing the hands-on in the department, he made his presence known. He had hired her, and they had always gotten along.

“Mighty cold last night,” he commented, then added, “Glad I could make the party.”

“Always glad to have you,” she told him.

He lifted his mighty eyebrows and then let them fall. It was a good sign. “Steve’s already talked to me. I know you’re on top of it. I’m not complaining. Don’t get snarly with me, Claire.”

“I’ll try not to.”

A smile crept onto his face. “Wish I would have been there a little earlier. I would have liked to see you go for a little swim.”

“Scott fished me out pretty darn quick.”

“He said it looked like someone had tied this guy up and then drove him into the lake.”

“Yes, I’m going over to get the results of the autopsy in a few hours, but I think it will just confirm what we saw.”

“What the hell’s going on? Any ideas?”

“Yes, sir, actually I am formulating something.”

“Care to share?”

Claire hesitated only for a moment, knowing that Sheriff Talbert kept a closed mouth as well as anyone. “Well, I could be all wrong, but there’s a woman in Fort St. Antoine who appeared to have been beaten up pretty badly last week.”

“I remember you asking around about that.”

“Right. From what I learned last night, there’s a chance she might be Buck Owens’s girlfriend.”

Sheriff leaned his head in his big hands and squeezed. “Shit. Not a burning mattress type-a-deal?”

“It’s a possibility. I don’t want to rule it out.”

“You’ll know soon.” It should have been a question, but the sheriff didn’t let it come out as one.

“I plan on finding out the girlfriend’s name and talking with her sometime today.”

“Keep me posted.”

Before she even went back to her desk, Claire tried to run Scott to ground. Julie said he had been in and out. Bob said he was in the computer room. She finally found him coming out of the john.

“How did his parents take the news?”

Scott leaned against the wall in the hallway and winced, remembering. “I hate that part of being a deputy.”

“No one likes it.”

“I like giving out tickets.”

Claire was glad someone did. “What was their reaction?”

“Let’s see. The mom sat right down on the floor and cried, and the old guy cracked his knuckles and swore.”

Claire felt her heart break a little for this couple she hadn’t even met. “Did they say anything about a girlfriend?”

“They said they knew he was seeing someone, but they had only met her once. They didn’t remember her name.”

“Did they tell you anything we didn’t know?”

Scott shrugged and then repeated, “They said everybody loved Buck. No one would ever want to hurt him.”

The map of the world was always pulled down near the front of the class, and Meg found her eyes drawn to it. She would imagine herself in a plane flying all over the world. She thought about all the places she would travel to when she got older, after college. Maybe her mom could come with her to some of the places: they could eat Chinese food in China, buy a kangaroo for Rich in Australia, shop for lovely lace in Switzerland. But the places she really wanted to visit were those little islands in the middle of nowhere. The most middle-of-nowhere islands were the ones in the Pacific Ocean, like Wake or Johnston or Midway. She wondered how big they were, and if you could walk across them in a day. She imagined that some of them, in a really bad storm, like one of those tsunami waves, maybe would get completely washed over with water.

“Meg, do you see something by the blackboard?”

“I’m just thinking, Mr. Turner.”

“Working on your math problems?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” he said.

She bent her head over her math paper. She was behind again. The time was almost up, and she had ten problems to do. She raced along and managed to get five more done before Mr. Turner began to collect the papers. But with five problems not finished, she couldn’t expect to get an A, probably not even a B. What was happening to her this year?

At least another school day was over. Everyone was getting ready for the bell to ring. She didn’t even feel like taking her homework home. She knew she had a bad attitude, but she wasn’t getting anywhere with Mr. Turner. She didn’t seem to be able to please him. She grabbed her history book, her math book, and her worksheets and headed for the door.

“Meg?” Mr. Turner’s voice stopped her.

“Yes.”

“Is your mother going to be able to make conferences?”

Meg felt her stomach drop. Conferences were the week after Thanksgiving. What would he tell her mother? “I think so.”

“I know she works during the day. I could schedule her to come in toward the end of the day.”

“You should probably talk to her.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.” Even the way he said that made her stomach turn. Maybe that’s why his name was Mr. Turner.

Mrs. Tabor was waiting for dinner. What was taking Lily so long?

Lily knew she liked to eat a big meal at lunchtime, right at noon. That’s when she had always eaten her big meal. When her husband was alive, she often baked biscuits, some kind of meat, potatoes, and a vegetable. He had never said much, but from the way he wolfed down the food, she knew it was appreciated. Once or twice a week, she’d try to make a pie. Herman had loved his pie. His favorite was raspberry. For a few weeks in the summer, she would go out and pick raspberries and make him pies.

She didn’t know what Lily did some days. Nothing seemed to get done. Then other days, she would whirl around and clean the kitchen and make a fine meal.

“Lily?” Mrs. Tabor thought of getting out of her chair to see if she could help.

“Don’t fuss, Mrs. Tabor, it’s almost ready.”

Mrs. Tabor put her watch under her magnifying glass. Nearly one o’clock. No wonder she wanted her dinner.

Then Lily came in, carrying a tray. “There you are.”

A pile of yellow—must be corn. A mound of brown—probably meatloaf. Then a blob of creamy white. Her favorite, mashed potatoes. Her dentures had been bothering her lately, so she was glad to eat mushy food.

A knock at the door.

“Who could that be?” Lily asked.

Mrs. Tabor remembered that the deputy lady was coming. She didn’t say anything, but started eating her food while Lily went to answer the door.

Then Lily ushered in the lady, who introduced herself again as Deputy Watkins.

Mrs. Tabor said hello and continued eating her food. She didn’t want to appear to be part of the questioning.

“Lily, the bank called us. It appears that someone has been forging some checks of Mrs. Tabor’s. Do you know anything about this?”

“Why would you even ask me? I just come in and make her a meal every few days. If anything shady is going on, it’s that daughter of hers. She only stops by to take something from her mother. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Tabor?”

Mrs. Tabor made a noise in her throat. She loved her daughter, but Lily was with her more often. She needed to watch her step.

“Could I ask you to write out Mrs. Tabor’s name on a piece of paper for me?”

“No, of course you can’t. Think I don’t know better than that? I watch the TV. I know my own rights. I don’t need to sign nothing.”

“This is a criminal offense. I can take you down to the sheriff’s office, and we can continue our conversation there.”

“Let me see those two checks.”

“I didn’t say anything about two checks,” Deputy Watkins said.

“Well, the reason I said that number is that I helped Mrs. Tabor with two checks last week. Her eyesight is getting so bad. Remember, Mrs. Tabor?”

It was hard always to remember everything. Lily helped her with so much. What would she do without her? “I think I do,” Mrs. Tabor said.

The deputy showed her the two checks.

“Sure enough. Those are the ones.”

“Well, the bank is overdrawn as a result of these two checks.”

“Her social security check should go in today, so they will be covered,” Lily said.

Mrs. Tabor wondered how she knew that. It went directly into her bank account. Had she told Lily that?

Deputy Watkins squatted down alongside Mrs. Tabor and touched her arm. “Is that what happened? Did Lily help you write those two checks? And then take them to the bank to cash them for you?”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure it’s fine, then. If Lily says so.” Mrs. Tabor could feel the deputy staring down at her. She didn’t dare look up and face those eyes.

Deputy Watkins voice was calm, not sounding like she suspected anything was amiss. “All right. I’m glad we got this cleared up. You call me if you ever need anything. Looks like a good lunch.”

“Lily’s a real fine cook. She takes good care of me.”

The deputy patted her on the shoulder, and Lily showed her out the door. Mrs. Tabor waited for Lily to come back into the living room, but she must have stayed in the kitchen. Her potatoes were cold, but she finished them.

She felt awful sleepy. She hoped Lily wouldn’t be mad at her today. She could be so mean sometimes. She never knew what to expect from her.

Buck Owens body lay gutted in front of Claire: chest cut wide, head opened up, and body parts removed. She could see that the bags they had placed over his hands were removed and the fingernails clipped down to the quick. Somehow that bothered her more than the chest torn stem to stern.

She had missed most of the autopsy, but had come in time to have Dr. Lord show her the damage to his neck. And his pièce de résistance—water in the lungs. “Lake Pepin water,” he had told her. “I’m guessing it’s Lake Pepin water. I’ll send it down to the lab. I’ll have to match it. Drive out to the lake later today.”

“Don’t go in yourself,” Claire warned him.

“Did you ever get warm last night?”

Claire ignored his jab and asked the next logical question. “So he was alive when he went into the water. Can you tell if he was conscious?”

“No conclusive way to determine that, but I would guess, unfortunately, that he was.”

“How so?”

“By the damage done to his neck. I think he struggled fiercely to get loose, and I think that probably happened when he went into the water.”

“Yes, I see.” Claire sat up on a high stool he had given her while Dr. Lord walked around the body, poking and picking and prodding at it. His last task was to draw blood directly from the heart for alcohol determination, toxicology, and blood typing.

“What do you think happened to him?” Claire asked.

“He got into his car after a beer or two. This is a guess, but given what I know, I think he strapped himself in with his seat belt. He leaned his head back, and someone grabbed him around the neck and tied him from behind to the headrest in his car. Didn’t you say the firemen had to cut him loose?”

Claire nodded.

“Then I think he passed out for a bit. His eyes show signs of strangulation. The perpetrator might have choked him first before he tied him up. Then the car was driven into the lake, and he drowned.”

“I’m trying to figure out how they got the car into the lake.”

“Car an automatic?” Dr. Lord asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Head it in the right direction, give it enough gas, and it will keep going until the ice cracks under its weight.”

“Did the strip of cloth fit the marks on his neck?” Claire asked.

“Yes. I think it was triple-strength around his neck. When it got wet, it really cut into his neck, but he couldn’t break it.”

“What do you think it is?”

Dr. Lord brought out the bag with a red strip in it. He held it out for Claire to look at. “I’m not sure. Some kind of rag, but why would it be cut like that?”