A Wicked Snow

together to call Bauer at the Northern Lights in Kodiak. The front desk patched her through, but Bauer wasn’t in and the call went to voice mail.

“Jeff, Hannah here. That bitch Marcella Hoffman paid me a visit just now. She said Marcus Wheaton’s mother told her where to find me. How could that be? I’ve never even met Liz Wheaton. Call me. Hoffman says she’s sure my mom is alive. Please call me. I need you.”

For the next hour Hannah tried to put her mother, Wheaton, and Hoffman out of her thoughts as she attempted to refocus on the Garcia case. Her emotions had frayed, and she knew it. She was on the brink. A series of phone calls did little to provide the calming she needed. A phone call to Ethan at work was a zero; he was “up to his neck in alligators” and could only spare a moment.

“You don’t have to talk to Hoffman at all,” he said.

“It isn’t that simple,” she answered back, almost to herself. “I wish it were.”

Ten minutes later, County Attorney Bill Gilliand came to the door of her office. He seldom stopped as he passed by, preferring to offer a nod of recognition while he kept on moving. Handsome and charismatic, Gilliand was all politics. He saved his personal interaction for when it mattered. Staff meetings, court, and fund-raisers. But this time, the morning she was coming undone, Bill Gilliand strode into her office for the first time.

“Hannah,” he said with a concerned look in his eyes, “I heard that it didn’t go well at the hospital with Garcia. Ripperton says you almost jumped on her.”

I could kill him, Hannah thought.

“It wasn’t that bad, but I guess I was a bit physical,” she admitted to her boss.

“Yes, physical,” he mused. “That’s what we leave for the cops to do,” he said, a veiled reference and a not-so-subtle dig against her husband. “I’d like you to take the rest of the day off.”

She got up from her chair and walked around her desk, leaned back, and sat down on the corner of the desk. It didn’t bring her to Gilliand’s commanding height, but it didn’t make her feel as small as a school-girl, either.

“I’m fine now,” she said. “It was just…”

“I’m not asking. I’m telling you. I think it would be best. We don’t want to get into a problem with Mrs. Garcia, or anyone else for that matter.” He walked a couple of steps to the door and turned around. Then almost as an aside, he offered, “A hospital nurse called and complained. It wasn’t just Ripperton. And actually, hard to believe as it might be, Ripp was concerned about you.”

A few moments later, Hannah stood in the checkout line of Ralph’s Grocery not far from the Griffins’ place on Loma Linda Avenue. She bought a bottle of chardonnay and some Oreos. The cookies were for Amber and Ethan, who shared an incredible sweet tooth. She’d drink the wine. Considering what she’d been through, Hannah intended to drink a lot of it.

Chapter Thirty-five

The Griffin house on Loma Linda Avenue was so still, so hushed, that the omnipresent sputter of the air conditioner irritated Hannah. She wondered how it was that she had not made it a priority to have it repaired. The rumble noise coughed and hummed and rolled. Home early and alone, Hannah glanced over her shoulder as she stepped inside. A small figure ran toward her as she locked the door behind her. It was Amber’s tabby. Hannah ran her hand over the cat’s silky fur and cupped the animal’s chin.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, not waiting for an answer. Even at five pounds overweight, the cat always seemed hungry. It padded after Hannah as she went to the kitchen with her small bag of groceries.

It was ten minutes before six. Amber was still at her dance lesson, and Ethan was probably charming the other mothers as they waited in the parking lot of the studio. She emptied a box of brown-and-orange kibble into a dish set on a plastic place mat under the breakfast bar and poured fresh water into another bowl. A happy cat started to eat and purr. Hannah retrieved the bottle of the California chardonnay that she liked more for its label of a braided wreath of oak leaves than she did the taste of the wine, which she sometimes found too sweet and overly fruity. She poured herself a glass, a big glass. The globe of the stemware was almost grapefruit size. Hannah flipped through the mail and settled herself in a chair to watch the TV news before her husband and daughter interrupted her small moment of tranquility. Her mind raced. Her boss had sent her home and Marcella Hoffman was trying to snare an interview by sweet-talking Ripp. As a talk show ran its credits over the pockmarked faces of its guests and its sanctimonious host, she went over to the window to close the white plantation shutters. Coppery light reflected from the neighbor’s windows, the beginning of the evening sun as it dipped slightly lower in the smog-smeared sky.

The cat snuggled next to Hannah’s feet as she returned to her chair to watch the news. On the screen in front of her, helicopters careened in the air as images of the newsgathering process were paraded. A handsome man with a yellowish suntan and teeth too big for his mouth announced the lead story.

Wine splashed on Hannah’s thigh. It was an involuntary response. She looked at her hand holding the chardonnay as the chilled liquid rounded the lip of the glass and dribbled down the stem. It was almost the feeling of an earthquake, deep and hidden. Hannah set down her wine and stared straight ahead, absentmindedly using her hand to wipe at the spill. Yet all the while, she could not take her eyes off the screen.

“…speculation is running throughout the Northwest that an Alaskan woman named Louise Wallace is the notorious serial killer Claire Logan…”

She set the glass hard on the coffee table. Hannah could feel her heart pump faster and the bile in her stomach rise through her esophagus. She grabbed her hands together and gripped tightly.

The image of an elderly woman flashed across the screen in slow motion. It was brief. Hannah leaned forward as though closer proximity could enhance her view. But it only made the picture appear as though it had been a painting by Seurat, tiny specks of color with soft edges blurring from one side of the screen to the other. Besides, the video was out of focus and the woman’s head was turned in such a way that only the side of her head could be viewed, but not enough so that her profile could be made out. While the newscaster went on, more images filled the screen. A sign for the town of Kodiak. An old car. A dog barking in front of what appeared to be a fishing camp. In the last shot, the same woman held a blue-and-white windbreaker over her head in the fashion of felons who wish a semblance of anonymity, or anyone who has been caught on tape on a video-verite cop show.

Her eyes fastened to the screen, Hannah’s pulse raced as the anchor went on to another story. Fifteen minutes went by, but Hannah heard none of the other stories. Instead, she thought only of her mother. The ringing phone jolted her back to the moment. She grabbed at the receiver and pressed it to her ear.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hannah?” It was Bauer’s gentle voice. “Are you all right?”

“A little shaky, I guess.”

“You just saw her on the tube, didn’t you?” He let out an audible sigh. “Damn it,” he said, “I wanted to warn you before the news hit down there. Don’t you ever listen to your phone messages?”

Hannah felt the warm and numbing effects of the chardonnay. She glanced at the answering machine. Its red eye mocked her with a steady wink.

“I hadn’t played them yet.”

“Jesus,” he said. “I’m very sorry, Hannah. I wanted to—”

“Is it her?”

Bauer hesitated for a second. “Probably not. I mean, we really don’t know yet. You know the media runs with a story like this faster than we do. They don’t mind burying an apology in agate type in the classified section later or at the end of a newscast. We can’t. We never say we’re sorry, so we don’t like to rush.”

“Do you think it’s her?”

“Could be.” Bauer said. “I honestly don’t know.”

“What are the facts, Jeff?” Hannah reached for her glass and gulped more wine. She glanced at the clock. Their conversation would be cut short at any minute. A little dancer and her daddy would be coming through the