A Wicked Snow

all of this. Hope she chokes on her money.”

A man who worked as a guard at the Stoneway paper mill disagreed. He was certain that Marcus Wheaton had killed his employer, probably in fit of jealousy over one of his competitors for her affection. The disappearance story was “complete and utter bullpucky.”

“She’s dead. I’m convinced that headless body was hers. Wheaton gave her what she deserved. I’d have done the same thing.”

Chapter Twenty

On the southernmost edge of the windswept Oregon coast, just north of the California border, Misery Bay was a pit bull’s bite out of the rocky coastline. It was all craggy cliffs and tumbled driftwood bisected by Fishfry Creek, which raged during the winter and trickled in the summer months. Misery Bay was far enough from Oregon’s congested I-5 corridor that it had escaped the influx of country wannabes who insisted on living in half-million-dollar homes with satellite television and hot tubs. Those soft-bellied crybabies from Seattle, Portland, and even the San Francisco Bay Area were not welcome in Misery Bay. They were seen as whiners who covered their cars at night with parachute-silk blankets and yet had the gall to complain about the high prices of video rentals and nonfat milk at the mom-and-pop establishments that make up the majority of the businesses on Oregon’s salty side. One Misery Bay local had even put out an unwelcome mat: DON’T CALIFORNICATE OREGON! Although the town seemed somewhat isolated, Misery Bay was accessible by car, sea, or air (it had an airport with three weekly flights to Oakland and Portland).

And yet, Misery Bay was far enough off the beaten track that when The Nightmare was over, it was the perfect place to send Hannah Logan. It was the ideal landing spot for Hannah to start over, fade into obscurity, and, God-willing, begin a normal life. The fact that Hannah had relatives living there was in a way almost incidental. One of the caseworkers from Spruce County had even suggested that it might not be prudent to have the girl raised by anyone associated with the family.

“What transpired at the Rock Point residence will follow this child for the rest of her life,” the social worker, a childless woman of forty who raised West Highland terriers, wrote in a purple-ink fountain pen. “Constant reminders in the way of continuing family contact with relatives who don’t support the investigation and its findings might prove detrimental to our efforts to assist in a complete and full recovery. These family members seem to want to care for the girl, but it is doubtful that they are equipped to do so.”

But Leanna and Rod Schumacher were above reproach and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Investigators hammered at the couple to see if they had any knowledge of Claire’s whereabouts, but they held firm. It was easy to do so. They didn’t have a clue where she was, and if they did, neither had any qualms about what they’d do to her with their bare hands. Nine visits by social workers and a representative of a victims’ rights group resulted in the decision by a Spruce County Juvenile Court judge that Misery Bay and the Schumacher home would be suitable after all. The social worker gave the family much-deserved Brownie points for keeping their silence throughout the run of their niece’s ordeal. Not once was there a word of com- ment from Misery Bay. Not a single utterance of support or condemnation for Claire Logan was made by the Schumachers. Nothing.

Aunt Leanna was a strawberry blonde with large hands and freckled skin, both physical attributes causing her great embarrassment. Leanna was five years younger than her only sister, Claire. She was a teacher, married to Rod, the owner and operator of Misery Bay’s first Speedy Mart, a wood-and glass-block box with a Slush Puppy dispenser and a pair of pinball machines. The Schumachers had no children. When circumstances called for them to step in and raise Hannah, they did so with the kind of assurance that comes from attending church, teaching school, and running a small business. The Schumachers had no choice. Their adult lives had been built on doing the right thing.

Besides her hands, the first thing Hannah noticed about her Aunt Leanna was that she perpetually smelled of citrus. Lemons to be exact. At first, Hannah assumed it was an air freshener or the scent of a particular brand of furniture polish that lingered on her aunt’s clothing. Her first night in Misery Bay, she learned otherwise. From a chair in the master bedroom where she lingered before bedtime, Hannah watched Leanna Schumacher rub fresh-cut lemons on her face and arms. It was a ritual Leanna performed, she explained, every night before she went to bed. She had done so, she told her young niece, for the past ten years.

“It reduces the spots,” she said with a laugh. Her woodpecker laugh rat-a-tatted throughout the porcelain confines of the master bathroom. After she split the lemons in half on a cutting board that she stowed under the sink, she let the juice run into a cup. Next, she emptied the juice into a spritz bottle and sprayed the sour mist all over her arms. She twisted the squeezed lemon halves on the knobs of her elbows. Last, she closed her eyes and misted her face.

“You’re lucky you don’t have to resort to this,” she said, patting off the excess. “You have your daddy’s skin,” she said.

“I guess so,” Hannah said, watching in awe at such a beauty regimen. “I guess I’m lucky about something.”

Their eyes met in the mirror. Leanna’s mouth went from a lemon pucker to a frown. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Your uncle Rod and I wanted a child of our own for so long and now we have you. This was never the way we would have wanted to have you, but we thank the Lord every day that He has chosen us to watch over you.”

And in a minute, both began to weep. They held each other in the lemony bathroom and convulsed into spasms of tears. Each time Hannah cried harder, Leanna let loose with her own anguish.

“In time, I do believe things will get better,” Leanna said softly.

Hannah wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her eyes were red, and spots mottled her complexion. “I wish I was dead,” she said.

Leanna put her big hands around the girl’s still-shaking shoulders and caressed her. “Oh everyone does a time or two in their lives. Even me. But we get by. Someday, I’m certain, that will pass,” she said, her composure complete. “It may not be for a while, but I know someday you’ll be all right.”

Hannah wasn’t ready to accept that. “I wish I was dead,” she said. “If I was dead then I wouldn’t have to think about any of this again.”

Leanna held her niece more snuggly. “Don’t be so dramatic, dear. Give yourself time. Lots of time. If you don’t—we don’t—put it out of our minds, even just a lit- tle, we’ll never be able to do anything but relive it over and over.”

“I don’t want to relive it,” Hannah said. “I want to forget it.”

Leanna folded a face towel and set it on top of the toilet tank. “I want to forget it, too.”

Hannah and Leanna were bound by the horror and unimaginable tragedy of what had transpired at Icicle Creek Farm. Leanna, of course, hadn’t been out to the site until after it had been partially cleaned up, but she’d read everything she could get her hands on and had the stomach-turning sense about what her niece had seen and endured. Though there were many times when she could have brought the subject up, she didn’t. She never asked Hannah a direct question, preferring to allow her niece to tell her in her own good time. But after weeks turned into years, it was apparent that there’d never be a good time to talk about it. And that, both figured independently of each other, was the way it should be.

For Hannah, it turned out, living in Misery Bay made it possible to live in obscurity. While the story was covered by all of the TV networks, the local stations in Portland and Salem rooted themselves in Spruce County, tilling the soil and turning every rock of the case for the evening news. TV reception was so poor in Misery Bay, people caught their news from the three stations in San Francisco that came in best. Obscurity hadn’t been a concrete plan of the Schumachers, it just happened. And it wasn’t that her aunt and uncle