On Thin Ice (10 page)

S
itting in her pajamas by the fire sounded good to Megan. There was so much on her mind. Because a storm was coming in another day, Steve had made sure that all the cabins had firewood. They were stacks of split logs plus great piles of kindling.

She pulled on some boots and opened the back door to her cabin, and put the kindling basket under her arm. She gasped silently and shrank back into her kitchen. There was some sort of little black animal sitting on the top of her garbage can lid and moving around.

“Ugh!” she said out loud. What she didn’t need now was an encounter with a skunk. In the safety of her kitchen, she looked through her window at the animal. It was still there. But something about it looked curious. It looked as if it was bobbing its head forward and back and forward and back. What kind of an animal did that?

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement.
Brad was over behind his own cabin, piling firewood in the cloth carrier bags provided in the cabins. He held his belly with both hands as he gathered wood.

She might think he was a little weird, but she was also quite confident that she had put her foot down about the whole
sugar
thing. Maybe he could help her scare away the skunk.

She opened her door a crack. “Brad!” she called. He looked over. “Are you busy?” she asked. “There’s an animal on my garbage can. I think it’s a skunk.” She pointed.

“An animal? I don’t see anything.”

“It’s still there. It won’t move.”

She pointed to her garbage can. It was still there moving around the lid of garbage can. But why wasn’t it running away? Most animals would be scurrying away by now. Brad came toward it tentatively, a rather large piece of wood held over his head.

“Don’t kill it,” she said. “Just chase it away.”

“I don’t see anything. It’s on your garbage can, you say?”

“Well, of course you can’t see anything. It’s dark out here. I don’t see how you can see anything with sunglasses on at night.”

He stopped, looking up at her. “I have an eye problem. Doctor’s orders.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I see it now. A little black thing.”

“Right. Is it a skunk?”

He walked slowly, step-by-step, toward it. “Be careful,” she said. “If it’s a skunk you don’t want to be sprayed!”

“It couldn’t be a skunk. I think they hibernate in winter.”

“Well, something’s there.”

He moved slowly toward it, his boots squeaking on the snow. The animal just kept bopping. With the end of his piece of wood he poked at the animal.

“Ew,” Megan gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.

He started laughing. He held the stick toward her. On the end of the stick was a piece of black fur. She backed away from it.

“It’s not an animal,” he said. “It’s just a piece of fur or something. Look.”

She walked down the steps. He moved the piece of wood in her direction. Cautiously she came toward the thing. It fell into her hands. She pulled away and the thing fell onto the porch. It was a wig.
A black wig.

Megan’s eyes were wide, and she could hardly breathe.

“It looks like a wig. Is it yours?” Brad asked.

“No!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” She regained her composure. She didn’t
feel like telling Brad what was going on with her. “It just scared me, that’s all,” she said.

“It’s not yours?”

“No. It’s not mine.”

He stopped, put a finger to his chin. “I think it’s Vicky’s. I’m fairly sure this is hers.”

“Why would she have a wig like this?” Megan took it from Brad and examined it more closely. It was an adult wig of short, spiky, thick black hair. She placed the wig back down on the garbage can lid and noticed the head for the first time. A hairless doll’s head with a creepy smile was bobbing up and down. Brad picked it up. “It’s a bobblehead,” he said. He looked at her. “Is
this
yours?”

She shook her head rapidly. “It’s not mine.”

Brad picked up the wig and the head. He looked at her. “You look so scared.”

“Well, wouldn’t you be? A black wig on top of a doll’s head?”

“I admit it’s weird.”

“It’s more than weird. It’s like being in horror movie!”

He grinned. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

She asked, “What are you going to do with them?”

“I’ll give the wig to Vicky the next time I see her. Maybe the head is hers, too. You know how Vicky is. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she set these up on your can. Maybe she thought it was artful or something.”

Suddenly, Megan wanted to be in her little cabin with her doors locked and her windows shut and her curtains drawn more than just about anything in the world. “I’ve got to go in,” she said.

She picked up her basket of kindling and was about to say goodbye when she was conscious of Brad standing close behind her. “Allow me,” he said, opening her door for her. “Your hands are full.”

“Thank you.”

But once inside, he didn’t leave. He just stood there looking down at her.

He said, “I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be worried about me.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe you need someone.”

“Someone?”

“Megan,” he said, his voice breaking. “I was wondering something. I hope you can humor an old man. You and me.” He pointed at her and then at himself. “We…uh…we seem to have a connection. I don’t know if you’ve felt it or not. I certainly have. And I was going to ask you, if we could, if you would like to go out to dinner with me sometime. Maybe we can see each other. It would make me so very happy.”

“Brad, I…” She hesitated, backing away. “I’m seeing someone right now.” He thought they had a
connection?
They barely knew each other. “I thought you and Vicky were seeing each other,” she blurted out.

“Ah, poor Vicky. She has her problems, and I’ve
come to understand that she and I don’t have very much in common,” he said.

“But you spend so much time together.”

“She’ll tell you that I talk about you most of the time when I’m with her.”

Megan was shocked to her core.

He continued, “Did you get all the text messages I sent to you today?”

Megan nodded, swallowing. How was she going to get rid of him?

“Brad, I…I’m sorry. But I just don’t think…If I gave you the wrong impression, I’m sorry.”

He folded his big hands over his big belly, cast his sunglass-covered eyes downward and said, “Forgive me, Megan. I get a little carried away sometimes. And you said you were seeing someone. I should have known, a pretty young woman like yourself. Tell me, is it the sheriff?”

Megan wanted to tell him that it was none of his business. She didn’t say anything.

He continued, “I’m sorry if I offended you.” He paused. “I hope you are very happy together and I hope you’ll still consent to design my Web site. I live and work alone. Sometimes I don’t relate to people really well. I relate more to my camera.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do you think you can still work on my Web site?”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“But you promised.” His voice had taken on an intensity that for a moment startled her. It called up something in her memory, she couldn’t define it, but it filled her with a kind of horror.

Then in an instant it was gone and Brad was just Brad, a gray-haired pathetic old man who merely wanted a new Web site.

“I didn’t promise,” she said.

“You did. I remember.” He sank down heavily into one of her kitchen chairs. Oh great. Now he would stay and stay. How was she going to get rid of him without seeming to be unkind? She remained on her feet, her arms crossed across her chest.

Eventually he got up. “I suppose I should get going,” he said wearily.

She nodded. “It’s late. And thanks for your help with the skunk.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said as he shuffled out. She watched the back of him as he padded across the snow to his cabin. She put a hand to her mouth. There was something about him which was so familiar and yet it wasn’t.

In the morning, Megan called Alec. After the first ring it went to his voice mail. She left an urgent message for him to call her just as soon as possible. After ten minutes passed and he still had not returned her call, she tried again. It went again immediately to voice mail.

She paced the little cabin. Alec needed to know about the wig. Brad had taken both the wig and the bobblehead with him. She knew because she had looked out in the morning and the bobblehead was not on the trash can. What was Vicky’s involvement in all this? Who was she? Those were the questions she had asked herself all night as she tossed and turned in bed.

She also really needed to talk with Alec about his brother’s girlfriend. She tried calling him once more, but the call went to his voice mail. She packed up her computer, zipped up her jacket, put on her boots and grabbed her car keys. She wasn’t sure she even knew where Alec lived, but she needed to see him.

She headed straight for the Schooner Café. Maybe Marlene knew where Alec lived. And if Marlene wasn’t there, then someone else would tell her Alec’s address, she was sure.

The waitress, whose name tag proclaimed that she was Cindy, shook her head. She was new in town and didn’t know too many people. She didn’t know Alec. Megan looked around helplessly.

Two wizened old men approached her. One introduced himself as Pete and the other as Peach. The one whose name was Pete was only her height and had fine, thin, white hair and blue eyes.

“We couldn’t help but overhear you. You want to know where Alec lives? We can show you, Peach and I can.”

The man whose name was Peach said, “He lives right on this street. Two doors away from here on the left.”

“Yep.” Their heads nodded. They gave her directions and she soon found Alec’s house. It was an old row house with the snow neatly shoveled away on the walk. The small front porch was just feet from the road. There were lights on inside and she walked up to the house and pressed the doorbell.

Alec opened the door, a cell phone pressed into his ear. When he saw it was her, his eyes lit up and he motioned her inside. She entered and followed him down a short hall into a sitting room where they sat on mismatched chairs. Everything in his small house was like him, organized and clean and neat.

When he closed his phone, he said, “Meggie. I was just thinking about you. I need to talk to you about something….”

“Well, that makes two of us because I need to talk to you.” She went on without stopping. “There was a wig on top of my garbage can last night. It was on top of one of those bobble-headed dolls—like the kind Denise has in her house…” She told him that Brad said it belonged to Vicky and that Brad took the wig and bobblehead over to Vicky’s cabin. “Alec, could this be the person we’re looking for? She sort of fits the physical description. If you tucked her long hair under that wig, she could be my stalker! But why? I don’t even know her. I don’t understand.”

“Megan, slow down. A bobblehead doll? Denise reported one stolen from her house.”

“Well, it ended up on my garbage can lid. Don’t ask me how.”

“Megan, can you go over your story once more?”

She did, slower this time, while he wrote everything down. He shook his head. “I’ve got to get this information to Stu right away.”

“Plus, there’s something else.” She unzipped her computer case, pulled out her laptop and opened it to the bookmarked page. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the black-wigged stalker, but I found out that Lorena doesn’t exist.” She explained how “Lorena” was really a manipulated model image used for art shots.

Alec studied the image. His face fell. “This is what I’ve been suspecting.” His voice was quiet and, when he raised his head, his eyes were sad. “My brother’s in trouble.” He looked down at his notebook.

“I want to get this information about the wig and bobblehead to Stu. He’ll be handling this for a few days. I had to make a right decision.”

“A decision about what?” she asked.

“I’ve booked a flight for tomorrow night to see my brother.”

“You’re going away tomorrow?”

“I won’t be gone for more than a day or two, but…”

The silence lengthened. Megan didn’t know what
to say. How could he even think of leaving when there was a murderer around? “But what?” she asked.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.”

“Go on,” she said.

He began, “I’ve carried this secret for twenty years. I lied on the stand to protect my brother. I wasn’t with him the evening your grandmother was pushed down the stairs.”

“What are you saying?”

“I wasn’t with my brother that day. He asked me to lie for him and I did. I lied to protect him and I have deeply regretted that every day of my life since.”

Megan said, “You chose your brother over me.”

He nodded. “I did.”

“And you’re still doing that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m being stalked, and you’re flying out tomorrow night to see your brother. What if it’s your brother who’s doing all this in the first place? What if Vicky is Lorena? What if she and Bryan are doing this?

“I can’t believe you’re doing this again, Alec. Even when we were dating, poor, troubled Bryan always came first. You are more worried about Bryan’s safety than you are about mine.” She shook her head. She would regret saying this later, but she had to continue. “I don’t think there is a future for us. You’ll always be running to your brother, bailing him out.”

“That’s not true. I…”

She stood up. “Your family defended Bryan, even when my grandmother said he pushed her…She told me. I have no idea why he did it, but I believe what my grandmother said.” She backed toward the door. “I’m leaving. I came here because I thought you could help me with the wig. But you can’t, can you? All you can do is worry about your brother. I already know he killed my grandmother. But, what if Bryan killed Sophia and Jennifer and Paul? You can’t even face reality. What if Bryan is here?”

“Wait,” he called after her. “What do you mean by Bryan being behind this? Have you seen him?”

There was real concern on his face. Megan hesitated but only for a second. No, she hadn’t seen Bryan. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t behind this.