Winter's Child Read online

  Ever.

  The best I could do was swallow my jealousy and accept it. “Cal really is the best thing that’s ever happened to you, isn’t he?”

  “Till now,” he’d agreed, stroking my bare shoulder as we lay entwined.

  Happiness bubbled up then and washed away my jealousy. Jonna might have been Dwight’s first, but so what?

  I was going to be his last, and I’d had enough bourbon to be generous with his heart. “You don’t have to rank us.”

  He had laughed then, a low chuckle of drowsy contentment. “I know I don’t. That’s another reason I love you so much.”

  So, yes, I was pissed at Jonna when Dwight called me that first time. The second time, when he told me that his friend—his friend, for pete’s sake!—had asked if there was a reason for Jonna to fear him, I was beyond pissed.

  I was ready to drive to Shaysville and slap the entitlement right off her smug little face.

  “She may not be afraid of you, but she’d better damn well be afraid of me. I’ll unleash Portland, okay? She’s great at getting custody agreements amended or set aside. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have custody of Cal now.”

  “Whoa!” he said. “Slow down, shug. Let’s wait and see how this plays out first. There may be something going on that we don’t know about.”

  I hate it when he’s logical.

  He promised to keep me up to speed and I reluctantly let him go.

  That didn’t mean I was going to let the whole situation go, though.

  Portland’s been my best friend forever and we’ve always shared everything—well, most everything—from the time we were two small girls that the adults usually tried to separate because of the mischief we could get into together.

  As soon as I got to her house and was settled with a glass of wine, I told her as much as I knew about what was happening in Virginia. While she nursed the baby, we ran through all the scenarios we could think of, including the possibility that Jonna had decided to run off with someone so totally messed up that any court in the country would immediately give Dwight full custody of Cal.

  By the time we were finished, I was back to being angry.

  After all, even though Shaysville wasn’t as big as Dobbs, Jonna probably knew all the good hiding places.

  Little Carolyn Deborah made soft piglike snuffling sounds and my anger eased off as I watched her.

  Avery came home, did his daddy thing, and agreed with Portland and me that Jonna’s behavior was outrageous, but he was more concerned that I write down the numbers for both their cell phones in large numerals and keep them beside my chair. Portland handed me the baby to finish burping her and Avery gave me his now-this-is-serious-so-pay-attention look that he usually reserves for instructing juries.

  “When you put her down in her crib, be sure and lay her on her back,” he said, and Portland paused in the doorway to tell me how to warm the bottle of breast milk in the refrigerator should their daughter not be able to hold out the whole three hours they planned to be gone.

  “Will you people just go?” I said. “We’ll be fine. I promise you she’ll still be alive and healthy when you get back.”

  After a couple of satisfactory burps, the baby gave a big yawn and fell fast asleep. I held her for nearly an hour just to watch her delicate brows arch or knit, as if her dreams alternately astonished or bewildered her.

  Eventually, my arm went numb, so I carried her up to her crib and carefully eased her in without waking her.

  And yes, I did put her on her back. I’m not comfortable sleeping on mine, but this is the current baby-rearing wis-dom, and who am I to argue what’s comfortable for a one-month-old with a super-cautious tax attorney for a father?

  As I settled into the book I’d brought along so I could look intelligent when my book club meets next week, my phone rang and my brother Seth’s wife, Minnie, asked if she was interrupting anything.

  I explained that I was babysitting for Portland and she 7 very nicely inquired about my little namesake’s progress before she came to the point of her call. “Doris says the Weather Channel’s prediction is for that cold front to pass north of us and we’re due for sunshine and mid-fifties tomorrow, so we’re calling around to see who can help us clean our road. You and Dwight free tomorrow morning?”

  “I am, but Dwight’s gone up to see Cal and I’m not sure when he’s getting back.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, is there?” she asked perceptively.

  Minnie’s one of my favorite sisters-in-law, and she would be discreet if I asked her, but I wasn’t ready to start this story around the family. Instead, I told her how Cal had persuaded Dwight to drive up and be his show-and-tell. She laughed and invited me to come for breakfast. “If we get started by nine, we should be done before noon. Remember to bring a pair of old gloves.”

  I promised I’d be there.

  I roamed the house, poured myself a second glass of wine, and tried to settle back into the book, but it was a pompous tome full of coming-of-age angst, and when my phone rang again I snatched it up eagerly.

  “Still no word,” Dwight said. He sounded drained and exhausted, and after hearing the nonproductive details of how and why there was no word, I asked him if he’d had any supper.

  “Paul brought me home with him,” he said.

  I heard a woman’s voice in the background.

  “Sandy says tell you hey. They want you to come up next time so they can meet you.”

  “Tell her hey back and anytime. Are you spending the night there?”

  “No, I’ll go back to Jonna’s house and crash on the couch in case they come back tonight.”

  I told him that the family would be picking up road litter the next morning, which reminded me of J.D.’s death. “Did the autopsy tell anything?”

  “Nothing useful. I spoke to Richards about an hour ago and she says there wasn’t enough deviation to tell which side of the road it came from. The bullet entered almost at the center of the nape of his neck and lodged in his skull just below the hairline of his forehead. The ME

  thinks he might have been looking down a little, but hell, Deb’rah. He could have had his head turned to either side just as easy. They’re checking the alibis of all his known enemies. Sounds like there’s a line of ’em.”

  “I miss you,” I said.

  “Yeah, me too. Our first night apart.”

  “Bound to happen sooner or later.”

  “I guess. But let’s not make a habit of it, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  C H A P T E R

  8

  There is time for many words, and there is also a time forsleep.

  —Homer

  Friday night, 21 January

  “You sure you don’t want to stay over with us tonight?” Sandy Radcliff asked when the last biscuit had been eaten and Dwight had refused the offer of dessert. “Jimmy can bunk in with Nick and you could have his room.”

  “Thanks, Sandy, but I ought to check on Cal’s dog.

  Besides, if there’s any chance at all that Jonna might bring him home tonight . . .”

  It was only eight-thirty and Sandy and Paul were good friends, but Dwight was too beat to spend the evening making small talk.

  “You go and get a good night’s rest,” Sandy said.

  “Things will look better in the morning, right, hon?”

  “Sure thing,” said Paul. “I’ll call if we hear anything.”

  “Thanks, pal,” he said and trudged out through the freezing rain to his truck for the short drive over to Jonna’s house, which was still dark and empty when he got there.

  The stone with the door key beneath it was frozen to the ground. He pried it up, then nearly slipped going up the ice-glazed steps. All the same, when he had unlocked the front door, he went back into the rain and sleet to replace the key in the weary hope that Cal might find his way back and need it.

  Inside, Cal’s rollerboard and backpack lay at the foot of the stairs just where t
hey had left them. Only hours ago.

  It seemed more like a week.

  Bandit gave a welcoming bark from his crate in the utility room and Dwight let him out into the backyard for a few minutes, then dumped dog food into an empty bowl. As soon as the terrier finished eating, he trotted through the house and up the stairs to Cal’s room.

  Dwight followed.

  The thermostat was still set at sixty-five, and he didn’t bother turning it up because he never slept well in a warm room.

  He had intended to find pillows and blankets and bed down on the couch, but there was Cal’s unmade bed with Bandit curled up at the foot in what must be his usual place, so after using the bathroom, Dwight shucked off his jacket, pants, and shirt, checked that the safety was on before he put his gun under the pillow, then switched off the light and crawled in beneath the comforter.

  It felt so good to lie down and stretch out that he let his mind go blank with sheer exhaustion while frozen raindrops beat against the window outside.

  He was almost asleep when he remembered the conflicting reports of how Jonna was dressed today. A neigh-7 bor down the street had said she was wearing a red jacket and a white toboggan when she left home in midmorning on Thursday. The next-door neighbor said she had on a blue hooded parka when she took Cal this afternoon.

  Despite his protesting muscles, he heaved himself out of bed, switched on lights, and went into Jonna’s room.

  There was no red jacket in her closet.

  With Bandit at his heels, he went back downstairs and checked out both the front closet and the coat hooks in the utility room.

  No red jacket. No blue parka either.

  So where had she changed coats? At her work?

  Too tired to keep worrying at the puzzle, he went back to Cal’s room. Within minutes he was sound asleep.

  He awoke at first light the next morning from troubled dreams, his T-shirt and the sheet beneath him damp with sweat. Sometime during the night, he had pushed off the comforter, but it was not enough. The room was inexpli-cably hot and stuffy. He rolled over and saw that the door was closed even though he had left it open. Hot air rushed up through the floor vent beneath the window.

  And where was the dog?

  Automatically, his hand went to the gun beneath his pillow. With all his senses on full alert, he slid on his pants and eased open the door. The house was silent, but a welcome rush of cooler air swept past him.

  “Jonna?” he called. “Cal?”

  No answer.

  Bandit barked from the foot of the stairs and he hurried down, the gun still in his hand.

  The front door stood slightly ajar, which explained why the heating system was working overtime. Chilled by more than the cold north wind whipping through, Dwight clearly remembered locking that door behind him when he came in last night. And something else was wrong. His eyes swept the entry area.

  Cal’s backpack was still there but his wheeled suitcase was unzipped and the sweater that Dwight had packed for him was now gone.

  Jonna must have come back during the night, heard him snoring, and took what she came for without waking him. Surely it was not for a sweater alone?

  He walked through the house to see what else she might have taken. He had no idea what clothes she owned, but there did not seem to be any gaps in her closet. All the drawers were still closed and did not appear to have sustained a hasty rummage. After a thorough examination of the house, the only other sign that she had been there was the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

  The sliding mirror was half open, and despite his exhaustion, he was almost positive that he would have noticed had it been that way when he splashed water on his face last night. There were empty spaces on the glass shelves inside, but he was clueless as to what those spaces had held.

  He picked up a bottle of antihistamine and noted the name of the doctor who had prescribed it. Maybe he would know what Jonna had come back for.

  It was only six-thirty, too early to call Paul.

  Instead, he finished dressing, fed the dog, and put him in the wire crate before heading back through the house.

  Outside, tree branches drooped to the ground under 8 the weight of the ice they carried. Every individual needle of the evergreens and each separate twig of the oaks and maples was encased in crystal. A few limbs had even snapped off. Overhead, the sky was still a dreary gray with no break in the solid cloud cover for the sun to shine through and start melting the ice.

  Before locking the front door, he thought to check for the key. It was no longer under the rock.

  Now, why would Jonna take that key when she had her own? Unless Cal—? No, it couldn’t have been Cal. His son would surely have waked him. But it had to be one of them because Bandit was a barker, and no matter how tired he was, Dwight was certain he would have heard barks had there been any.

  When he and Jonna were still married, she used to hang their spare keys on a closet nail. A neat, methodical woman with a place for everything and everything in its place, she had done it in Germany and again in Arlington, so now?

  He slid his fingers along the inner jamb of the front closet door and immediately touched the nail. Two keys, and one of them fit the front lock.

  He put it on his own keyring, then slowly drove along the ice-slick streets, nearly fishtailing at a stoplight, until he found an open diner. After pancakes, sausage, and three cups of weak coffee, he stopped by a drugstore and picked up shaving gear and other toiletries. He would have liked fresh underwear and a fresh shirt, too, but nothing else was open this early on a Saturday morning.

  The sand trucks were out, though, and Jonna’s street had been sanded by the time he got back to the house.

  He showered and shaved and was lavish with the new stick of deodorant. It would have to do till he could get clean clothes.

  8:00.

  Deborah liked to sleep in on Saturday mornings, but if Minnie was expecting her for breakfast, surely she’d be up by now.

  “Just got out of the shower,” she said. “I’m standing here drying off. You get any sleep last night?”

  He told her what he’d found when he woke up this morning and they kicked it back and forth.

  “Something else is going on with her,” Deborah said.

  “There has to be. Have you talked to her girlfriends?”

  “I don’t know any of her friends.”

  “Then ask her mother. Ask her boss. Hell, ask Cal’s teacher. I don’t have to tell you how to do your job. But once you get a couple of names, they’ll give you some more, and sooner or later, you’ll get to whoever’s hiding them.”

  “You’re right,” Dwight conceded. “I’m not thinking straight.”

  “This is why they don’t let doctors operate on their own kids.”

  “Yeah. I need to quit acting like a dad and start acting like a cop.”

  “You’re a good dad.” Her voice softened. “And a very good cop.”

  “Who let his son be taken right from under his nose,”

  he said glumly.

  “Don’t beat up on yourself, okay? There’s no way you could have expected Jonna to do something like this.”

  After they hung up, Dwight went looking for an address book and found one beside the kitchen phone. He 8 leafed through it, trying to deduce which names were personal friends who might could offer suggestions or information about his ex-wife.

  8:15.

  Too early to start calling strangers. Instead, he dialed Paul’s number.

  “Radcliff here.”

  “Hey, Paul. Dwight.”

  “I was just about to call you,” his friend said.

  “You’ve got something?” Dwight asked eagerly.

  “Not the way you mean. Sorry. I’m at the office reading old background reports. You want to come over?”

  “Be right there.”

  He grabbed up the address book and took it with him on the off chance that Paul could help him sort out the names.

  At the police station
, Paul handed him a mug of strong black coffee and listened attentively while Dwight told him about his nocturnal visitation.

  “You know, bo, when Jonna walked away with Cal yesterday, I thought maybe she was just ticked off at you for something. And yeah, I put my people through the motions for you, but it was a slow day and there wasn’t much going on here.”

  He hesitated.

  “But now?” Dwight prodded.

  “But now I’ve got to say, whatever Jonna’s up to, it doesn’t feel normal. My chief clerk grew up here. Her dad was coroner when she was a kid so she knows a lot of the stuff the town tries to keep quiet. She put me onto this.” He tapped the open folder that lay on the desk in front of him. “Did you know that Jonna’s daddy shot himself?”

  Dwight nodded. “Yeah. She told me about it. She was just a baby when it happened, though, and I don’t think her mother ever wanted to talk about it much. He was cleaning a gun and didn’t know it was loaded, right?”

  “That was the official story that got in the paper,” said Radcliff. “You might want to read between the lines of these.”

  Radcliff slid the folder over to Dwight. In addition to the autopsy report, there were several written statements collected by the officers who had worked the incident nearly forty years ago, when the sudden death of one of the town’s most prominent businessmen would have been a noteworthy event. Not that there was anything suggestive in the one clipping that detailed the “tragic accident.”

  The police reports were a different matter. His doctor stated that Eustace Shay had been subject to bouts of depression for years, which probably contributed to his poor business decisions, which led to losing control of Shay Furniture.

  According to his secretary’s statement, he had been asked to vacate his corner office so that the new president could move in. On that day, he had overseen the packing up of his belongings, and she had stepped out to fetch someone to carry down the heavy boxes while he saw to the last of his personal items. “I had barely closed the door when I heard a gun go off and rushed back in.”