Glare Ice (7 page)

Y
OU’RE
not going to believe it, but we got a latent off of Owens’s glasses,” Clark Denforth, the head forensic specialist at the state crime lab, told Claire over the phone at work. He was an excitable guy, and he was excited.

“After he was underwater?”

“Yes, and it wasn’t his own print. Checked that right away. Someone who, shall we say, perspires freely. For whatever reason, he had very greasy hands. We got a great, clear print off the lens. And best yet, it was a tented arch.”

Claire knew enough about fingerprints to know that this was one of the rare ones. “That will certainly help in identification.”

“You got anyone for us to look at?”

She paused and thought of Stephanie. “Not yet, but hopefully soon. Wish you could tell sex from a print.”

“I call with great news, and all you can do is complain.”

Claire walked down the hallway to confer with Chief Deputy Sheriff Stewart Swanson, known as Stewy to everyone. He ran the department while the sheriff did the public business. Not that the sheriff didn’t step in, but they seemed to have worked the division of labor out between them and were a good team. Stewy was riding this case with her.

She found him at his desk, looking out the window into the sky. “We’re gonna get some weather.” He continued to stare out the window as if he were hoping to catch the first snowflake that fell from the sky in his gaze.

“Do you feel it in the air?”

“No, heard it on the radio.”

“We could use some snow.”

“What’ve you got?” he asked her.

She told him.

“Great,” he said, “but we have no suspect.”

“We have one, but I don’t think she did it.”

“Who?”

“The girlfriend.”

“Not a bad choice.”

“She’s quite a small woman. I don’t think she could have wrapped that tie around his neck and secured him to the headrest.”

“Adrenaline.”

“Not even with adrenaline. I tried it on a friend, and I couldn’t keep the guy from getting out of the seat and breaking away from me. She’s a lot smaller and a lot weaker than me. I just don’t think she could have done it.”

“I trust you on this, Watkins.”

He was calling her Watkins. This meant it was very serious. She knew he wanted this case solved pronto. The Owenses were well thought of in the county, and winter was a long and hard season even without a murder case dragging everyone down. “Thank you, sir.” If he could be formal, so could she. “I told her to come down to the station so we could fingerprint her. She agreed to do that. Friday, she’s coming in.”

“She said she’d come down?”

“Yes, without hesitation.” Claire continued. “The problem is that her fingerprints legitimately might be all over his car and even on his glasses. They were seeing each other. She’s got the best excuse in the world. She told me that the rag was in his car because she dropped it there. So anyone could have used it to tie him up.”

“You don’t think she killed him.”

“I have no extrasensory perception, but she didn’t act that way to me. She acted like she was thinking about something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like she was thinking about how scared she was of who had killed him.”

“She wouldn’t tell you?”

“I couldn’t get it out of her.”

“Why didn’t you bring her down right then?”

“I didn’t think it was the way to play it. She’s not going anyplace. She’s got the dog. She’s got a good job. She’s established. Let me try to get through to her. I won’t let her slip away. I drive by her house at least twice a day. I’ll keep a good eye on her.”

“I’d say haul her down if it weren’t Thanksgiving.”

When Claire got back to her desk, there was a note telling her to call Dr. Lord. She dialed a strange number and found she had reached him at home. His wife answered and passed the phone to him.

“You’re not working today?”

“My patients are too busy shopping for turkey to come in and see me, which suits me just fine. My wife needed my assistance in making the cranberry sauce. We make quite a bit and put it up for the winter.”

“Organized.”

“I had a thought.” He paused and then went on. “It’s a strange thought, but I decided I should mention it to you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Yes, of course you are, my dear. But your hair covers them nicely.”

Claire didn’t honor that with a response.

“What I was thinking was that there is a chance that Buck killed himself.”

Claire sat down in her rolling chair and it rolled a little. She pulled herself back up to her desk and wrote down,
Suicide?
“You think so?”

“Not really. I mean I don’t think he did, but when I went over how it happened, I realized he could have tied himself to the headrest, drove himself out onto the lake, knowing he wouldn’t have been able to get the ties off in time to save himself from drowning.”

“Yuck.”

“A possibility.”

“Well, if Virginia Woolf could load her pockets up with stones and walk into the Thames, I suppose Buck could tie himself to his car. I’m going out to talk to his parents shortly, and I’ll try to find out more about his state of mind.”

An hour later, Claire drove down the driveway of a large farm on the bluff. The view of the lake up the valley was spectacular. She pulled over for a moment and looked down at the ice-covered lake glistening in the subdued sunlight. It did look as if some weather was moving in.

The farmhouse was set back from the bluff, so it didn’t have as much of a view, but probably got hit with less of the wind.

Claire’s knock brought a woman in her late fifties to the door. She guessed it was Mrs. Owens. She was tall and heavy with a pile of white hair on her head. Her eyes were very blue in her pale face.

Without saying anything to Claire, the woman turned her head and shouted into the house, “Herb, it’s the police. Come and talk to this lady.”

“May I come in?” Claire asked.

“Oh, lord, yes. Where are my manners? Please come in. We’re sitting in the living room. The TV is on, but we’re not really watching.”

When they walked into the room, her husband turned the sound down on the TV, but the contestants on a game show still tried to answer the silent questions. Mr. Owens was taller than his wife but lean as a whip. His lips were thin and drawn in his weathered face. He nodded at her, then pointed at the TV.

“It’s noise,” he said, “but sometimes noise is good.”

“Let me say how sorry I am for your son’s death.”

Mrs. Owens face cracked open, her mouth twisting, and she sat down on the couch and bowed her head.

“Thank you,” Mr. Owens reached out and shook her hand. “He was a good son to us. The best.”

“Do you have other children?”

Mr. Owens shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Did he live with you?”

“No, he moved out a few years ago. He thought it was time. We miss him, but he stops by nearly every day. He did. He moved into Bay City to be closer to work.”

Claire asked them for names of friends. Then she asked, “How’d Buck been feeling lately?”

Mr. Owens looked puzzled.

“Had he seemed in good spirits?”

“Well, you know that kid loved this time of year. He’s a hockey player, and he loves to get out onto the lake and skate. He’s always loved winter. Such a big kid, he never got cold. Did he, Mother?”

Mrs. Owens lifted her head and shook it. “No, it was hard to keep a coat on him. He moved too much. He got too warm all the time.”

“How old was he?”

This time Mrs. Owens answered. Claire had noticed that women kept track of such things. “He would turn twenty-five in January. He was born the first of the year. Our New Year’s baby. Remember, Herb?”

“I sure do. We drank champagne before and after he was born. That’s when women still drank when they had babies. I know they don’t do that now. But Mother was sure happy to have that baby.”

“Had anything been bothering Buck lately? Had he talked to you about anything? Anything new going on in his life?”

“Well, he was seeing this new girl,” Mrs. Owens said. “We only met her once. He brought her up here for a barbecue when Herb’s brother and kids were here. I didn’t get to talk to her much. She seemed kinda quiet, but nice enough. Wouldn’t you say, Herb? Nice enough.”

“Yeah, she seemed fine. Buck liked her. That’s the main thing. We wanted him to be happy.” The older man’s voice broke, and he looked at the TV, blinking rapidly.

“Were they getting along?” Claire continued with her questions even though she could see she was distressing them.

“Fine, far as we know.”

Claire decided to tell them more. They would need to know it sometime. “We’re not sure how your son came to die. It looks like someone tied him into his car and drowned him. But there is a chance he could have done it to himself.” There, it was out in the world. She watched the two parents’ faces sag.

“No, I don’t think so,” Mr. Owens said first.

“Not our Buck.”

“He wasn’t always the smartest kid in school, but he was certainly the happiest.”

“What if Stephanie had broken up with him?” Claire asked.

Mrs. Owens waved her hand as if it were her turn to speak. “No way. Buck didn’t abide by taking your own life. He was raised good in the church. He might have moped for a while. I’ve seen him do that. But he would never kill himself. I don’t want to hear no more talk about it.”

They had the whole week off school, and Meg was glad she was only halfway through the week. Her mother had let her go to the special school down in Stockholm, where she got to play with other kids and help out with the teacher. The kids were pretty little, but she had loved every minute of it. The teacher, whose name was Crystal, made her feel very special. Every afternoon she got to read to the kids.

Even helping Crystal clean up after the kids left was fun. Then they would sit in her big kitchen and drink tea and eat cookies. It made her think that maybe she would want to be a teacher when she grew up. Maybe she would start her own school.

When her mother came to get her, she jumped into the car and asked, “Hey, Mom, maybe you could home-school me and I could work for Crystal three days a week, or something like that?”

Her mother turned out of the driveway and then drove down to the highway before saying, quietly but firmly, “There are child labor laws.”

“What?”

“You need to go to school.”

“Lots of the kids around here are home-schooled.”

“You are not one of them. I am not one of those parents. Those families have two parents, and one or both of them work at home. There’s just me, and I go to work every day, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Rich could help.”

“No, he couldn’t.”

“I bet he would if I asked.”

“Aside from the fact that he would do anything for you, you are not his responsibility. Plus, he doesn’t have the time.”

“During the winter he does.”

“Meg, even if he could, we would not ask him.” Mom was talking in her preachy voice. “He’s a friend of ours. You don’t take advantage of friends. You only ask them for help when you really need it. Understand?”

“But I bet I could go to some of my friends’ houses and be home-schooled with them. Like the Swansons.”

“Even if you could, which I’m not so sure of, I don’t really believe in it. I think you should go to school. I think you learn things at school that you won’t at home. I think it’s good for you, especially as an only child, to be with a lot of other kids. But I’ll tell you the most important reason I won’t home-school you—”

“What?” Meg asked.

“I think the other kids in school need you. You are smart. You might be one of the smartest kids there. They need smart kids in school. It helps everybody.”

“But, Mom, I hate school.”

Her mom looked over at her and then said with real surprise in her voice, “You do? When did that happen?”

Meg knew she could not tell her mother about her problems with Mr. Turner. Mom had enough problems on her plate. “I don’t know. Just happened. Too much work and not enough play.”

“You’re probably right about that. Maybe we should be doing a little more playing at home. I think we’ll be able to go ice-skating very soon. Maybe tonight.”

“Yes, Mom. Please, please, promise me, whatever happens, we get to go ice-skating tonight.”

“Well, I will say this—if we get the house cleaned up, the table set for tomorrow, the cranberry sauce made, then we can go down and check the ice.”

“I know it’s safe. Everybody was talking about it today. Sven is going to clear the ice this year for an ice-skating rink right by the park. That’s what Crystal said.”

“Sven sure is a nice man.”

Snooper whined at the door.

“Yes, we’ll go outside.”

At the word
outside
, Snooper stood up on his back legs and twirled.

“How about a walk? I think we both could use a walk.”

An even more important word,
walk.
The twirling continued, and now the tongue came out.

Stephanie walked over to the hook by the door where she hung the nice new black leather leash she had bought for Snooper at the company store. She had bundled up in two long-sleeved shirts, a sweater, her Packers jacket, a polar fleece hat, old Red Wing boots with two pairs of socks underneath, and flannel-lined jeans. Snooper needed to get dressed too. Looking out the window at the thermometer on the tree, she saw it had dropped to near zero again. It was a brisk one.

“Come here, Snooper. You need to calm down.” She had also bought him a polar fleece coat at the store with a cutout in the bottom so he could pee without getting it wet. She made him put his two front feet into it, then Velcroed it over his back. It had a high red collar and a green body. With his heavy fur under that, he should stay pretty warm.

“Okay, let’s go.” She turned the porch light on and stepped outside. The stillness of the woods settled on her. Then she saw what was making it so quiet. Snow was coming down. It must have just started. A sifting of white. Lovely, lovely snow. Inside her something grew, a feeling of hope and possibility. If this soft confection could fall from the sky and transform the world in an hour, surely she could take charge of her life and make it into one she would want.