January Thaw (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) (8 page)

Seventeen

Every cell in my
body lifted its skirts and ran for high ground. I stepped back involuntarily, one hand fumbling for the phone and the other scrabbling inside my desk for something substantial to whack Ray with. Why had I left the stun gun in my car?

He kept moving toward me, and the closer he came, the clearer the tattoo on his neck grew. The barbed tail of a manta ray licked at his ear, leading to a widening of the body, most of which was tucked into the collar of his thick winter jacket.
Stingray
. I wondered if the tattoo had given him his name, or vice versa. I also wondered where he’d gotten the warm winter coat and how the helicopter I’d been stupid enough not to lock the door.

“Stop. I have a gun. And I’ve pushed the alarm.”

“Shit, this is a library. What you got that anyone wants to steal?” He stopped, though, and glanced behind him, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“That’s close enough. Now, you have exactly two minutes to get out of here before the cops arrive.”

“Two minutes all I need.”

Two minutes?!? Why couldn’t I have said thirty seconds? Our eyes were locked. His pupils were far less jittery than the night we’d met. He also wasn’t making that trapped baby animal noise. In fact, he appeared entirely calm. Still, when he began to draw one hand slowly out of his pocket, I instinctively raised my stapler.

He saw it and started laughing wheezily. “Stop! Don’t collate me.” He held up his empty hands in mock horror.

“That’s a pretty odd verb choice,” I said, still gripping the stapler.

He dropped his hands and shrugged. “I used to work in a copy shop. I got what, a buck thirty seconds now? Here’s the deal. I heard there was a chick detective in town and that I could find her at the library. I got a letter I was supposed to hand over to the police if anything happened to Mo.”

“Mo?”

“Maurice. My friend who was ganked. They found his body in the lake yesterday.”

“Wait,” I said, dropping the stapler by my side, “you didn’t kill him?”

Ray scrunched up his face. “What’s wrong with you, woman? We don’t kill our own. So you want the damn letter or not?”

“I thought you were supposed to give it to the police.”

“I look like I get along with the police?”

Point taken.
“Say, speaking of police, I don’t suppose you happened to shoot an officer of the law last night?”

His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I ask you one more time: You want the letter or not?”

I leaned over the desk and held out my hand. He pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his coat pocket and stepped forward as if he was going to drop it into my hand. At the last second, our hands so close I could feel his body heat, he balled up the paper and tossed it over my head.

“Sorry.” His eyes had gone as flat as a doll’s. “It must’ve slipped.”

He raised an eyebrow and started slowly walking backward to the door. My heart thudded a sick beat against my ribs. I held eye contact. In this brief interaction, I’d made the dangerous mistake of thinking he might be human since he’d done a favor for a friend. He was reminding me what he really was and who held the power in this room.

I let him walk out, neither of us blinking or dropping our gazes. When the door closed behind him, I snapped off the overhead lights and simultaneously flipped on the lights outside the door. The contrast made me feel a tiny bit safer. I watched him slip into a rusty white sedan. When Ray was out of sight, I darted out from behind the desk and locked the door, leaving on the outside lights. Then I scurried back to my desk and fumbled in the drawers until I located a penlight I’d received for free when I’d opened a checking account at Farmers and Merchants County Bank. I flicked it on and was pleased to see that the light was narrow but bright. I quickly located the crumpled paper and then tucked myself behind the tall counter where I could read the letter without anyone seeing me.

Eighteen

I smoothed the paper
on the carpeted floor and shone the flashlight beam into the center of it. I discovered it was a grainy photocopy of a handwritten letter:

18 January 1865

Dear Loretta:

I wish I could write with better news. In Minnesota, they do not believe the messages I bring. I do not think I can stay here. I pack my bags to return home tomorrow. Should anything happen to me, look to the tunnel of justice.

With a heart that beats only for you,
Orpheus Jackson

I flipped the letter over. It was blank. I flipped it back and reread it. The letter raised more questions than it answered. Was the date accurate, and was Maurice Jackson a descendant of Orpheus’s? If so,
who is the “they” and what were the “messages” referred to in the letter? And more importantly, what in the world did a hundred-and forty-year-old letter have to do with Maurice’s murder? I sighed and rubbed my temples. For all I knew, Ray and Hammer had killed Maurice and dreamed up this letter based on something he’d seen at the copy shop and were using it in a ridiculous attempt to throw the police off their scent.

I wish I’d had time to read the letter before Ray left so I could question him. Then again, I was happy that he was gone. I peeked over the top of the desk and pulled the phone toward me, bringing it down to ground level. I dialed Jed’s number from memory.

One ring.

Two rings.

Three rings.

Click
. “Hey, you! Thanks for calling me. You know it’s Jed, right? Well, I’m not here right now, so leave a message with the phone, and I’ll call you back when I get home.”
Beep
.

“Hey, it’s Mira. Hope you’re well. I’m calling to find out what you know about any recent drug or gang activity in the area.” To anyone else, that message might sound a little offensive; Jed didn’t operate on that level. “Give me a call back.”

I hung up and considered calling Johnny to ask him to walk me to my car. If I did that, though, where would it stop? I’d never be able to go anywhere on my own again. Besides, if Ray had wanted to hurt me, he would have. No way did he buy that I had a gun or an alarm. I just had to be alert from this moment forward.

But not stupid.

I called Gilbert Hullson and told him I’d be over in ten minutes to meet Jiffy and asked him to call the police if I wasn’t. I placed my skimpy research into the appropriate manila folders. Then I set the library door to lock automatically behind me and dashed to the car with such speed that my feet barely kissed the icy ground.

Funny. Running to my car, I’d wished for ol’ Z-Force, the stun gun, more than anything in the world. Now that I’d spent thirty minutes sitting across from Gilbert, who had Jiffy perched on one meaty thigh and a fishing scrapbook on the other, I was glad I didn’t have Z. I would have either zapped Gilbert to shut him up or myself to keep awake. He had struck me as odd during our first meeting in the hardware store, but I’d found myself warming to him by the end of the conversation.

Always trust your first impressions.

The tiny bungalow two miles north of town hadn’t been hard to find, and the neat yard with a shoveled path leading to the house gave no indication that Gilbert was a hoarder. The sheer mountainous concentration of stuff crowding the house’s interior was overwhelming. He’d carved a path inside the house mirroring the one outside, and it weaved through shoulder-high piles of food wrappers, fishing magazines, tackle, old life jackets, decoys, and more. It was as if someone had emptied a gigantic fishing boat into his house at the end of a trip, and it smelled like that trip had ended a decade or two ago.

“ … and that was 1984. My 1985–90 albums are more walleye-oriented. Let me grab—”

I sat up so quickly that Jiffy erped, which is how dogs that size must bark:
Erp
. “I really appreciate your time, Mr. Hullson, but I’m afraid I can’t stay. I just need a photo of Jiffy.” She wagged her stumpy little tail at the mention of her name. She was a darling miniature poodle, though she had that weird eye goop that breed of dog always seemed to sport. She’d been staring at me desperately since I’d arrived, almost begging for me to take her out of this paean to accumulation, fishing, and pop cans.

“Well,” Gilbert said, sensing, I imagine, that he was about to lose a 135-pound white girl, “you should at least see a picture of the hole she fell into before you go.”

“Really? You’re going to show me a picture of a hole?” Resignation, not surprise, colored my voice.

Jiffy
erped
again:
You have to save me, lady from the outside! This isn’t my life!

“Sher thing,” Gilbert said, pulling out a thick photo album labeled
Miracle Jiffy.
He paged through it until he found what he wanted. He flipped the album so it was facing me and thrust a sausage finger at a blurry square. “See?”

I leaned forward to look at the photograph. The Naugahyde ottoman I was sitting on—the only accessible piece of furniture besides Gilbert’s easy chair—squeaked as I did so. Gilbert flashed me a look, but I didn’t bother making excuses. He owed me that much.

In the photo, Gilbert had placed a paperback next to the ice hole to lend perspective.

“She must have just fit in there,” I said.

“Yup. She’s fished with me a hundred times and never fell in. If it wasn’t for those gangsters shooting up the ice, I never would have let her out of my sight. I think she was going after a fish. I almost lost her.” He bundled Jiffy into his arms and hugged her. She closed her eyes and ducked her head into his arm.

My ears pricked up. “Gangsters?”

“Two of them. Couldn’t get a good look at ’em because they were far away, but I could tell by their clothes that they’re not from around here. Hoodies, baseball caps. No fisherman wears that. They were shooting into the air, hollering. I turned around to ask Jiffy if she thought I should call the police, but she wasn’t there. I panicked. By the time she popped back out of the ice a few houses over, the kids were gone.”

“What night was this?”

“Thursday night. Right before they started setting up for the festival on West Battle.”

“Is that where you were? On West Battle?”

“Yup. Not far off from the ice castle.”

So, two men who were “not from around here” were near where Maurice’s body was found two nights before he died, and wearing clothes very similar to those Ray and Hammer were wearing that same night they attacked Mrs. Berns and me.

The letter supposedly written by Orpheus Jackson was looking fishier and fishier.

Nineteen

Monday morning dawned before
I did. I lay under my bed, eyes closed, wondering if I’d left the bathroom faucet on.
Drip. Drip.
Willing myself not to care, I snuggled deeper into my patchwork quilt in the dark safety. The alarm hadn’t yet gone off, which meant that I had more time to sleep, though I could tell by the light filtering underneath the edges of the bed that the sun was beginning to rise.

Drip
.

I sighed. The water wasn’t going to let me sleep. I rolled to the edge of my bed and cracked one eye. A knurdled pair of socks and yesterday’s jeans lay on the floor, inches from my face. I crawled over the fallen clothes, then like a puppet master, hauled my upper body into a sitting position. I ran my fingers through the front half of my hair, stopping when I met resistance. I’d slept terribly last night, fitful murmurs of rest pockmarked by nightmares of skating over a frozen lake, hundreds of corpses suspended in the ice, and just below that, undulating, predatory sea creatures waiting for the ice to melt enough to drop their prey.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the same nightmare featured a symphony of tiny white dogs popping out of holes that erupted like geysers. I’d tried to skate to safety, but the more I sliced at the ice, the farther away the shore moved.

Ugh. I stumbled into the bathroom and tightened both of the sink faucets. Still, I heard the drip. Next I tightened both faucets in the shower, even though the shower head was dry. The same was true of the kitchen faucet. Luna followed me to the center of the house, wagging her tail but also whining.

“What’s dripping, sweetie?”

She wagged and padded to the door.

“You want to go outside?” I yanked the front door wide open, hoping the fresh air would clear my mental cobwebs. There it was—the dripping, louder than ever. It was coming from the side of the house, where all the icicles were in a mad race to see who could thaw first. The snow had the ice-sheen of water melting in on itself, and the air smelled like the color green.

“Luna! A real January thaw! I guess those farmers knew what they were talking about.”

To have a smell other than ion and snow was a gift. I knew it wouldn’t last—it couldn’t—but in this moment, I was filled with the hope of spring. It temporarily pushed away my stress like only hopeful weather can do. “Whoo-hoo!”

Luna dashed outside and ran crazy circles over the snow drifts in the yard, picking up on my energy. I glanced over my shoulder at the wall clock hung in the living room. It was 7:12 AM. I had time to shower, drive to the Fergus hospital to show Gary the letter, and still open the library on time.

“Knock knock.” I’d arrived empty handed. I couldn’t afford to bring any more treats to people. I barely fit in my jeans as it was. All I carried with me was a fervent wish that Gary’s morphine dosage had been lowered. “It’s me, Mira.”

I ducked my head in. Gary was in the same position as yesterday, except his leg was no longer in the air, and he was wearing a crisp navy blue Battle Lake Police t-shirt and matching sweatpants. He also wore reading glasses halfway down his nose and was holding a newspaper. He did not glance my direction.

“Gary?”

He still didn’t stir. I stepped into the room. “I have something to show—”

“Halt,” he commanded, still not looking at me.

I stopped. I counted to thirty. He didn’t say anything. “Did they switch your meds?” I asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“When I came yesterday—” This time I stopped myself with his help. Was that a blush creeping up his neck? “You remember I was here yesterday, right?”

“I was on heavy painkillers. They shouldn’t have allowed anyone in.” His voice was sharp.

“You were pretty fun,” I said, beginning to enjoy myself. “A real laugh riot.”

The blush made a full migration to his scalp. He must have just enough memory of yesterday to be embarrassed. I tamped down a smile and pitched my voice serious. “You made me deputy, Gary. You promised we could start a task force as soon as you were released from the hospital, and that we’d go on stakeouts together. You don’t remember any of that?”

He turned the page on the newspaper with such force that it sounded like slap.

“Gary,” I said, making my voice soft and falsely injured. “You told me you loved me.”

He glanced at me, stricken. Then he caught my expression, and pure fire began to burn in his eyes. I swear I could have roasted marshmallows over it, which I normally would find funny except for the flash of unguarded emotion I’d just witnessed. It had been only an instant, but it was enough to unsettle me. Did he have feelings for me? I immediately discarded the idea as impossible. He was drawn to me like a cat to water. I must have seen something else in his expression. Indigestion?

He returned his attention to his newspaper. “Get out.”

“My pleasure,” I said, adopting a bravado I certainly didn’t feel. Whatever emotional roller coaster he was riding made me infinitely uncomfortable. I stepped out of the room, the letter tucked safely inside my jacket. No way was I going to show it to Gary now. I stomped out of the hospital, feeling more unsettled than angry.