A Wicked Snow

“That’s just awful. Summer’s short enough ’round here. Hate to be sick.”

“You got that right.”

“Anyone hear from Louise?”

When no one had, Morrison volunteered to make the call from the pastor’s office phone.

“Be back in a jiff,” she said cheerfully. “Go ahead and sample those peanut butter squares. Just out of the oven this morning.”

Five minutes later, Morrison returned to the table.

“I couldn’t reach her,” she said. “She must be on her way. Let’s get started.”

Two hours later the women, full of lime Jell-O cake, peanut butter squares, and decaf coffee, adjourned their meeting. Still no Louise Wallace.

“It’s not like her at all,” Morrison said as she made her way to her car.

The voice was shaky, but it was familiar even under splintering layers of worry and fear. The words “accused” and “Federal Bureau of Investigation” floated above the others. Marge Morrison grabbed the remote control and turned down the volume of her soap opera, General Hospital.

“Louise, what did you say?”

Morrison heard her friend Louise Wallace speak, but nothing computed.

“I think I might need a lawyer,” she repeated. “Something terrible has happened. A terrible mix-up.”

“They think you are who?”

“I know it is ridiculous. But he—this FBI agent from Oregon—says he thinks I’m that horrible Claire what’s her-name. Claire Logan.”

Morrison knew the name instantly. Most Americans over thirty did.

“That woman from Seattle who killed those men? What in the world?”

“Oregon or somewhere,” Wallace corrected, her voice cracking. She was crying now. And Morrison had never heard her friend weep before—not even during the black days of her husband Hank’s ordeal with inoperable colon cancer several summers before. “I think she lived down in Portland somewhere. I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve never even been to Oregon.”

“Of course not,” Morrison said as she tried to process everything. “You’ve never been there.”

Louise Wallace pulled herself together and gulped some air. “They don’t care. He wouldn’t listen. This could be bad. It has happened to others, you know. It doesn’t matter what the truth is anymore. Remember that guy they blamed for planting a bomb at the Olympics in Atlanta just because he found it?”

“Dear Lord,” Morrison muttered, “if our FBI can screw up so badly, no one is safe.”

Morrison remained clear headed in any catastrophe, which was why she made such an excellent chairwoman for the First Methodist fund-raisers. If Louise Wallace needed support and counsel, she’d dialed the right number.

“Get your lawyer on the phone, dear,” Morrison said. “Would you like me to come over?”

Louise said she didn’t want to be a bother. But before she hung up, she stated the obvious. “I could use some company, a little moral support. I have to admit I’m a little scared.”

“Of course you are. Who wouldn’t be?” Morrison said, grabbing a blue-and-white down-filled jacket from the back of a kitchen chair. “I’m on my way.”

Marge Morrison drove her two-year-old Dodge pickup like the proverbial bat out of hell. She didn’t even slow down to wave to neighbors out washing their car or stop to tell them that a running hose was a waste of water. Morrison had known Louise Wallace for years. As she spun around the corner to the highway, she tried to calculate the number. Was it a dozen years? More than that? Fifteen or twenty? After a while, she knew, numbers no longer mattered. At some point, friends become family. In her heart, she’d known Louise forever. A half hour after she spoke to a rattled Louise on the phone, Morrison was driving up the long gravel driveway that led to the Wallace place. As it always did, the sight of the grand yellow house took her breath away. There was no place lovelier in all of Kodiak Island.

Wallace ran over to the pickup. It was obvious that she had been gardening because there were smudges of soil on her chambray blouse. A basket of baseball-size tomatoes and another of rhubarb sat on the steps of the gazebo.

“Oh, Marge!” she called out. “Thank you for coming. This is just terrible. Terrible.”

Morrison got out of the cab and hugged Louise. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “Tell me what happened? What is this balderdash they are saying?”

“This agent from the FBI came today. Right here. Came here. And he asked me about those murders down in Oregon years ago. He said he thought I could be… no, he said he thought I was… that Claire Logan. I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t, he kept saying it. Said he knew. Knew it. Can you believe it?”

Morrison was dumbfounded. While words of any real substance eluded her, she kept assuring her friend that things would be sorted out. When she noticed Louise shaking, she suggested they go inside.

“Chamomile,” she said. “Let’s figure out what to do over some tea. Chamomile will relax you. Dear, you must relax. You know this is no good for your heart.”

Louise picked up the tomatoes and rhubarb, and the two went inside. Neither woman took off her shoes. Keeping Louise’s prized wooden floors free from garden grit just didn’t come to mind.

“I called my lawyer, like you said.” Louise turned up the flame under the kettle. “He’s not in. Out fishing until tomorrow.”

“I’m sure you won’t need him,” Morrison said, though she didn’t know why she offered such false assurance. The words just came out. “Now, tell me everything.”

The tea kettle whistled to signal the water was hot, and Wallace loaded a tray with a teapot, cups, and lemon cookies. They retreated to a powder-blue settee that overlooked the waters of the Pacific through ten-foot- high windows. Wallace was upset—more upset than Morrison had ever seen her. She kept a tissue crumbled in a ball and when tears came, she dabbed at them.

“There is something about me that you don’t know.”

“Of course,” Morrison said, “there are things we all keep private.”

“Well, this is certainly that kind of thing. I’ve never talked about it. I don’t particularly want all of Kodiak Island to know about it.” She hedged, carefully considering her words. “But it might be necessary, you know, for it to come out.”

Morrison was on the edge of her seat. She set her cup on a side table. She didn’t think that her friend could possibly be Claire Logan. Certainly not! Up to an hour ago, Morrison didn’t think Louise could have a dark secret of any kind whatsoever.

“Better than twenty years ago,” she began, “some-thing terrible happened.” Louise stood and looked out across the water. Her cup rattled in its saucer, and she turned to set it down. “I don’t like talking about this, but you are my friend.”

“Yes,” Morrison said. “Of course. Always.”

Wallace took another deep breath and steadied herself.

“All right,” she said. “Twenty years ago, I had some problems—some terrible problems that the doctors couldn’t help.” She stopped again, took another breath, and searched the horizon.

“What kind of problems?”

“Depression caused by a tragic loss,” Wallace answered. “There, I said it.” She turned to face Marge. “I lost my boys in a car accident. A terrible, terrible crash. I never got over it.”

Morrison felt tears come instantly to her eyes. “Oh, dear God, I had no idea,” she said. The First Methodist ladies had always assumed Louise had never been blessed with children at all. She had no inkling there had once been two boys who had died in some automobile accident. Morrison reached out to Wallace and felt her trembling hands. Her eyes had flooded by then.

Tears now rolled down her cheeks and collected under her chin. “I needed help. I just couldn’t do anything after the boys died. My husband couldn’t help me. He tried. I know he did. But I wanted no part of anyone. Not after the accident. I pulled the curtains and stayed in bed for months. Sometimes, even now, when I look back I can