A Wicked Snow

front door.

“Sketchy. She’s doesn’t have a ‘Sosh’ number. No driver’s license either. Needless to say, she’s not talking. Not a peep. And get this—she has no fingerprints.”

“You mean she hadn’t left any prints at the scene?” Hannah asked, though after she said so, she knew fingerprints were of no real value. None had been left at the farm to compare with: the whole place was ashes and rubble.

“This lady’s fingertips have been scarred over or something. Somehow erased. She either had some terrible accident at the cannery like she says or she erased them with a blowtorch or an acid dip. I don’t know. But there isn’t a damn thing there. They are completely smooth.”

“I see. What does she look like? The TV shot was so quick, I could scarcely tell.”

“Like an old lady. Kind of tall, graying hair, blue eyes.”

“My mother had blue eyes. Has blue eyes.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“How tall is she?”

“Tall enough,” he said. “Look, we don’t know anything. So sit tight. Are you going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine. Ethan will be home soon.”

“Good. Hey, got your message about Liz Wheaton. We’re running her information now. I’ll let you know as soon as I get anything of interest. Sit tight.”

“Okay. Call me with anything at all. I mean it.”

Hannah hung up. Her timing was good. She heard Ethan park the cruiser and she heard Amber’s little feet run up the sidewalk to the front door. She did her best to shake the worry and concern, the coiled snakes of mixed emotions, from her face.

“Mommy!” Amber’s exuberant voice called out. “We’re home!”

Chapter Thirty-six

Bauer removed the plastic sheathing from a motel-room glass and poured himself a couple shots of Wild Turkey as he contemplated his next move. After the interview with Louise Wallace, he and S.A. Ingersol conferred about some details she’d learned about Liz Wheaton through Social Security and Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles.

“No shit,” he said when Ingersol told him that Marcus Wheaton’s mother had transformed herself and was working at, of all places, the Spruce County Clerk’s Office.

“She’s packed on at least sixty pounds, stopped bleaching her hair,” Ingersol said, excitedly, clearly enjoying the revelation. “And looking at the DMV photo in front of me, I’d say she probably had a little nip-and-tuck on her face, too.”

“I vaguely remember her as a faded party gal who could have used some work. And that was twenty years ago.”

“What’s more,” Ingersol went on, “she’s been a micro-film copier technician for Spruce County for almost a decade. She calls herself Liza Milton—Milton being the name of one of her old tricks, some dope that actually married her.”

Veronica Paine was stunned when Bauer called her cell from Kodiak with the revelation. Photos from the fire, torsos of dead men in uniform, and witness statements fanned out in front of her. She let out a sigh. She’d never noticed Marcus’s mother in all her years as a judge, and admitted she felt more than a little foolish.

“How could I have been so blind?” she asked.

“Ingersol tells me that the DMV photo looks nothing like the shots taken during the trial. You wouldn’t know it was the same woman,” Bauer said.

Further, Paine had seen the news report, but had regarded it with about as much credibility as the other dozen or so Claire Logan sightings over the years.

“It’s a guess, of course,” Bauer said, “but I think Liz Wheaton—or whatever her name is—sent the shoes to Hannah Griffin.”

Paine wasn’t so quick to jump to conclusions—a holdover from her days on the bench when hearing all sides was a necessary element to critical decision making. She conceded it was a good bet, however.

“If Wheaton’s mother worked in the Clerk’s office, she’d easily have access to the exhibits, like the shoes. Even though we keep a tight rein on them, they are public records, you know.”

“Right,” Bauer said, sipping his Wild Turkey, “but why would she send them to Hannah? Why do that?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a fortune-teller. But it seems to me that she must have wanted to elicit a reaction. Maybe to hurt Hannah or shock her into doing some-thing—like go with you to see Marcus.”

“I’ve thought about that. But why? Hannah was just a kid when the place burned down.”

Paine let out a laugh. “Haven’t you learned the key to investigations yet?”

Bauer was a little irritated by the question. Paine was enveloping her words in a kind of schoolmarm effect that he found a little condescending.

“What’s that, Judge?” He did his best to remain polite.

“Not everything makes sense, Jeff. There isn’t absolute meaning in everything these nut cases do. They’d like you to think so. The public would like it, too. But the fact is, sometimes people do crazy things.”

Bauer finished his glass and eyed the bottle, contemplating another drink.

“Maybe so. Thanks, Judge.”

“What’s your number at the Northern Lights?” she asked.

He gave it to her, hung up, and started to pour.

Ethan Griffin got out of the shower, dried off his thick, black hair, wrapped a towel around his love handles, and planted himself on the edge of the bed. Hannah was sitting up, the newspaper on her lap. She was not reading.

“Where are you?” he asked for the second time as his wife stared across their bedroom, then back to her husband on the bed. She thought of Bauer, Kodiak Island, and the woman that might be her mother.

“I’m here,” she lied.

“No. You’re not. Maybe body only. But nothing more.” He stared at her. He wanted to argue, and Hannah knew it.

Hannah could hear the toilet flushing, and she knew Amber had gotten up to go to the bathroom. It was after 11 p.m., and she was so tired. She turned away, looking through windows etched by misdirected sprinklers and smudged by her daughter’s small fingers. She studied the outside world, illuminated by garden lights, as if out there was some great clue as to what was happening. And, above all, what she should do.

“Hannah, I’m worried.” Ethan said, slumping beside her. “You’re not yourself and we need you.” He felt her slight recoil from his forced closeness and studied her profile. Her skin was ashen, her eyes sunken and underscored with faint smudges left from sleepless nights. She had lost weight, and her hair, though pinned back in a loose ponytail, was limp and dull. If Ethan Griffin had not known the reason why Hannah had begun to fall apart, he would have believed she was the victim of some grave illness. She was in need of medical attention. God, he thought, it was her mind that was fucked up. No MD could fix that. He wondered if any shrink could either.

Ethan offered her the afghan folded at the foot of the bed.

“You need to rest,” he said.

“I can’t rest,” she said, pushing it away. “I can’t sleep. I don’t even want to try anymore.”

When Ethan tried to put his hand on Hannah’s shoulder, she turned away.

“Ethan…” her words fell off to a near whisper. “I’m so tired of all of this.”