The Snow White Christmas Cookie

rain had frozen over in the hours before dawn, leaving a gleaming coat of ice behind. Mitch had to take a scraper to his pickup’s windshield and spray its door handles with WD-40 before he could pry the doors open. Frozen puddles remained here and there on the plowed road surfaces, although those would be thawing soon. It was supposed to climb into the toasty upper thirties by the afternoon.

He’d expected to find many cars parked outside of Paulette’s raised ranch on Grassy Hill Road. This was Dorset. Friends and neighbors always showed up when you were hurting. Yet only Casey’s blue Toyota Tacoma was parked in the driveway.

Rut sat in his heavy wool coat staring at the house. “She doesn’t have any family to be with her. Her parents are dead. And the folks at the Post Office need to get their work done. They’ll stop by later to pay their respects, I imagine. Paulette isn’t the sort who makes a lot of friends. But Hank had a million of them.” The old man heaved a reluctant sigh. “Guess we’d better go on in. It’s not getting any warmer in this here truck. You should have the heater looked at, young fella.”

“Rut, there is no heater.”

“Well then, that explains it.”

Paulette’s front walk and steps hadn’t been salted or sanded. The brick pavers were perilously slick.

“You’d better hold on to me, Rut. I don’t want you to fall.”

“I don’t want me to fall either,” Rut said, grabbing hold of Mitch’s arm with a grip of iron.

They made it up the steps to the frozen welcome mat. Mitch rang the bell.

Paulette opened the door, smelling strongly of wine and cigarettes. Her face softened when she saw Rut standing there. “Hello, Rutherford,” she murmured, blinking back tears.

“Hey there, young lady,” he said gently, stepping inside to give her a hug. “Anybody else here?”

“Not right now. A bunch of neighbors came by with casserole dishes but I sent them packing. Why do people always bring casserole dishes when somebody dies? Hank’s dead and so, what, I’m suddenly supposed to be in the mood for ham and scalloped potatoes?”

Mitch stood there salivating. Maybe she wasn’t, but he sure was. He had a nice big hunk of Harrington’s ham in the fridge, too. Plenty of Yukon Golds. Assorted bits of stinky Cato Corner Farm cheeses. Yummy.

“I didn’t feel like talking to anyone,” Paulette added, leading them inside past her cluttered living room, which Mitch noticed had a really cool vintage Lionel train set all laid out and ready to go. “Besides, a postal inspector from New York City showed up here at the crack of dawn and grilled me for a solid hour. Get this, will you? They’re bringing in a temporary supervisor from Norwich. I have to stay home for a few days.”

“That’s because you’re grieving,” Rut said to her. “You should take some time off. And I’m sure he wasn’t grilling you. Just following procedure.”

“No, he was definitely grilling me. Treated me like I don’t know how to do my job. He was a nasty little man. I didn’t care for his tone at all.”

There were two big recliners in the TV room, which smelled of cigarette smoke and dirty laundry. The television was turned off but Mitch could hear a TV blaring from somewhere else in the house. Paulette sat down in one of the recliners and lit a cigarette. A half-empty gallon jug of cheap Chablis and a wineglass were on the end table next to her.

She poured some wine into the glass. “Care for any?”

Rut said, “Kind of early in the day, isn’t it?”

“I’m taking a personal day. That means I can do anything I personally feel like doing, which happens to be getting slightly blitzed.” She gazed up at the old man, her eyes crinkling. “Why did he do it, Rutherford?”

“I don’t know the answer to that, hon.”

“I would have helped him. I would have done anything for him. He didn’t have to steal.”

“Slow yourself down. You don’t know for a fact that Hank was stealing.”

“He texted me. He said it was all his fault.”

“The man was preparing to take his own life. There’s no telling what he meant by that. He could have been referring to how unhappy he was. Trying to let you know that it was his own doing, as opposed to something you might have said or done. That makes sense, doesn’t it, Mitch?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Sure it does. So don’t get out ahead of yourself, okay?”

“I just wish … If Hank felt cornered and desperate he should have told me.”

“You’re right, he should have. But fellas aren’t made that way. We don’t go crying to mommy.”

Mitch nodded. “We’re taught from a very early age that it’s a sign of weakness.”

“Is that right?” Paulette shot back. “Tell me, what’s weaker than killing yourself?”

Mitch had no answer for that. “Do you mind if I get a glass of water?”

“Go right ahead.”

He went into the kitchen, where the counter was crowded with those casserole dishes from Paulette’s neighbors. He could hear the TV louder from in here-it was coming from down in the basement. The door to the basement stairs was open. A plastic laundry basket heaped with dirty clothes was parked there, which explained the ripe aroma. Mitch nudged the basket aside with his foot and started down the steep wooden stairs.

A lot of people who owned raised ranches made an effort to convert the basement into an extra room. They installed paneling and flooring. Dropped a ceiling to cover the electrical conduits and copper pipes that ran along the joists overhead. Not Paulette and Hank. Theirs was strictly a bare-bones, cement-floored basement. For decor there was a Kenmore washer-dryer and a clothesline with sheets and towels hanging from it. An electric space heater was doing what it could to fight the chill down there, and a towel had been shoved under the door to the garage to keep the draft out. But it was cold in the basement that Casey Zander called home. Also messy. There was a Ping- Pong table heaped with sports magazines and newspapers. A convertible sofa bed, which was open and unmade. Dirty clothes were heaped everywhere. A sprung easy chair was set before the TV in the corner.

Here Paulette’s pale, jiggly son sat in a flannel bathrobe watching last night’s NBA highlights on ESPN and eating a bowl of what appeared to be Cocoa Puffs. At least he had good taste in breakfast cereals. What he didn’t have was good taste in hair. His henna-tinted mop top made him look like a colorized member of The Three Stooges. He still had a bandage on his forehead from his unfortunate encounter yesterday with Kylie Champlain’s Honda Civic. There was a card table next to the TV that had a computer and printer on it. Stacked on the floor next to Casey’s chair were computer printouts of NFL game stats. Team stats, individual player stats. Mitch had never seen so many stats in his life. Many of the pages had been circled or flagged with Post-its.

“You sure are into stats,” Mitch observed. “Are you in a fantasy football league?”

“Fantasy football leagues are for assholes,” Casey replied coldly.

“I’m in a fantasy football league.”

“Gee, there’s a surprise.” He glanced up at Mitch, his surly gaze narrowing. “What do you want?”

“I brought Rut by to visit your mom.”

“No, I mean what do you want from me?”

“To tell you that I was sorry about Hank.”

“Okay, you told me,” he said, turning back to the TV.

“Also sorry about what happened yesterday on the causeway.”

Casey didn’t respond. Just sat there eating his cereal and watching the succession of slam dunks that passed for highlights.

“This is the part where you say you’re sorry, too, and then we shake hands.”

Casey heaved a sigh of annoyance. “Why don’t you go back upstairs and leave me alone?”

“Your mom’s pretty deep into the Chablis this morning. Is she okay?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“You two are tight, aren’t you?”

“She’s my mom. It’s not like we hang together.”

“Did you hang with Hank?”

He let out a derisive snort. “Hank played the tuba.”