A Wicked Snow

$200,000 and was never heard from again. Some said he died. Others insisted he made his way to Margaritaville and was working on his tan. Though far less gruesome than Claire Logan, Cooper was in a weird way a male equivalent. Infamous and notorious, he had captured the public’s imagination. A tavern hosted annual parties; there were many books and even a movie. Cooper was never found, which, like Logan, had kept alive the possibility that he’d gotten away with the crime.

Bauer caught the five-hour flight from Portland to Anchorage and a commuter flight to Kodiak, 250 miles south of Alaska’s largest, and some alleged only “real” city. Although it was 10 p.m., it was still light out an hour later when he landed at the town with the same name as the island.

As pretty as it was with its gorgeous and grand expanses of green forests, meadows, and a navigator’s nightmare of a craggy coastline, Kodiak had seen its share of hard times. Pretty, of course, doesn’t account for much when money is hard to come by. Sagging motel rates were only one indicator that the island hadn’t fully rebounded from the last downturn. There was work, but not enough workers for the kind of positions offered. Cannery jobs were advertised in every edition of the Kodiak paper. Times had changed. The scrappy folks who drank most of their days away before sobering up for the cash that came with a good Tanner crab or shrimp season were in dwindling supply. The money didn’t flow as it once did. Even a decade before, a man could make as much dough in three months with shares from a decent salmon run as he could with a yearlong stint working a decent-paying job on the mainland.

Bauer picked up a rental car, loaded it with his luggage and fishing gear, and checked into a room at the Northern Lights Best Western Motor Inn. As a courtesy, he drove over to the Kodiak sheriff’s office to say hello to the sheriff, Kim Stanton. An Aleut, Stanton was thirty-eight with almond eyes and the thickest, darkest hair imaginable. He’d been elected to the post twice and was considered one of the most competent public officials on the island. Bauer did not say whom he was there to find, nor did the pudgy officer on duty inquire. Bauer knew the drill—a kind of don’t-volunteer-information protocol. Over the years, Bauer had learned much about local and federal law enforcement and how the two factions seldom forged a viable working relationship. Territory, he knew, mattered; getting something right wasn’t as important, it seemed, as who got it.

“You know,” the officer said, “we spend half our budget taking people back to the mainland for extradition to God-knows-where they came from. People think Alaska is the last good place to hide. Like we don’t bother to catch them because we’re too busy dog sledding or snowmobiling.”

“Or ice fishing,” Bauer said, continuing the joke. He looked out the window at the dusky and nearly deserted street outside. A car slowly passed, then sped up, its tail-lights glowed red. “I’ll let you go so you can skin a grizzly.” He winked. “Be back when Sheriff Stanton’s in. Thanks, deputy.”

Letting the door swing closed behind him, Bauer walked across the street and ordered a BLT and fries to go from the coffee shop and returned to his room at the Northern Lights. It was 10:40 p.m. He had one more call to make, but given the hour he decided to put it off until the morning. Maybe the afternoon. Just later, he thought. He watched the tail end of the Anchorage news, though he paid little attention to what was being reported. His mind was fully occupied with Claire Logan. Was she here? Her Social Security number had long since been abandoned. After Leanna Schumacher died, surveillance was discontinued on her place in Misery Bay. Bauer never told Hannah about the wiretapping on the Schumachers’ phone line in the event that Claire contacted her younger sister. It was never that the Feds didn’t trust the Schumachers; they just had no other idea about whom Claire might call. The wiretaps were an insurance policy. But, of course, Claire never did call. They were discontinued several years after the murders, but the court order was always in place just in case.

And so Claire Logan remained a phantom. The only known photos of her were from her Bellingham High School yearbook. Sitting on the bed of his Kodiak motel room, Bauer studied the scan of Claire Berrenger’s senior picture. Admittedly, it was black-and-white and that could account for some of his reaction. But, he thought, the woman looked so cold. In the photograph her eyes looked black—there was no differentiation between her pupils and her iris. Just two small puddles of blackness. He’d seen the photograph a million times before. An FBI artist had created a fast-forwarded image of what Claire Logan might look like in her sixties. Bauer didn’t think much of the effort.

“She’s not going to let nature take its course,” he told his supervisor back in Portland before he left. “First of all, she has the money to have whatever she wants done as she got older. Secondly, she knows the whole fucking world knows her mug.”

“Could be,” the agent said.

“I know this woman,” Bauer said. “She’s a total control freak. She’s been pinched and pulled tighter than a soap opera actress.”

It was almost 11 p.m. when Bauer dialed Hannah’s number at home. It was Ethan Griffin who answered. His voice was a little rough, a little sleepy sounding.

“Sorry this is so late,” Bauer said, realizing the time difference between Alaska and the lower forty-eight. He identified himself and asked for Hannah. “It’s about her mother.”

“I hope my mother-in-law is dead,” Ethan said.

“Every guy wishes that a time or two,” Bauer said. But the joke fell flat.

“Right. It would be better off for everyone. Hannah and Amber, especially. Amber doesn’t know anything about her grandmother, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“I’d probably feel the same way,” Bauer said, “if she was my little girl.”

“Trust me. You would,” Ethan said.

“It’s bound to come out. Hope you’re prepared.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Ethan said. “But if you guys hadn’t screwed up when this all went down in Rock Point, we wouldn’t be talking about it now. Am I correct?”

“We did the best we could. You know that the law isn’t perfect.”

“Right,” Ethan was annoyed. He was the law. He thought he could have done better if he’d have been handed such a case. “Nice talking with you. Here’s Hannah.”

She stared into her husband’s eyes and took the phone. “You’ve already found her?” she asked Bauer, sounding slightly panicked.

“Not so fast. I just got here. I just wanted to let you know that it might take a while. Go about your business. I’ll keep you in the loop, but it has to be unofficial. You understand?”

“Yes,” she lied. How could she not be involved? If anyone in the world deserved to be “in the loop” it was she. She had waited a lifetime for the moment to arrive where everything she’d have ever wanted to know would spurt forth like a geyser. She hated Claire Logan the infamous murderess. But she loved her mother—or at least the good parts of her she could still remember.

“If you find her, there will be no hiding it from anyone, you know,” Hannah said. “People—if you can call Marcella Hoffman that—are already sniffing around.”

“I know. If we find her, it’ll blow bigger than Mount St. Helens did in 1980,” Bauer said before giving Hannah the phone number of the Northern Lights.

“Take care of yourself,” he said.

“You, too,” Hannah replied, laying the phone silently in its cradle.

Ethan was undressed and in bed, holding the covers open for his wife. Hannah refused his gesture and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“That means you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Hannah looked at her husband. “I think I should tell Amber something,” she said.

Ethan sat upright. “No,” he said. “We agreed. She doesn’t need to know anything about this. I don’t want her living with this. It’ll drive her crazy.”

“I’ve lived with it,” she muttered. “And I’m all right.”

“Are you? I mean, Hannah, look at you.” He held her by her shoulders, not really to shake her, but to snap her into some kind of awareness. “You haven’t slept in days. You’ve lost weight. …You aren’t the same person you were when you thought…” he stopped himself.

“Thought what?”

“Thought… she was probably dead.”

“Hoped. I had hoped all these years that she was dead.