Chapter 6 Oh the snow, the sweet, sweet smell of the snow

I slept most of the way home. I came to as Tam pulled into my parking lot. The ground was glossy from the rain, the sky a beautiful purple grey. I loved rain. Did I mention that? But it had stopped raining. Slowly, I opened my eyes to the world once again rushing past me. I could hear the splash of water as the tires ploughed through a puddle. It was a weird rain. Usually rain brings green trees and fields, the smell of fresh earth and the memories of happy summers of the past. This rain only melted our cover, exposing the black dirtiness of traffic, the muddy mess of melted ground mixed with brown, dead grass. It was a monochrome of blah everywhere. Without snow, there was no activity outside, no life; no snowshoeing, no ice-skating, no skiing, no snowmen, no laughter from the children who made them and then started snowball fights. Even the roar of snowmobiles and snow-plows would be a welcome sound. The trees look naked and dead, a sad reminder of Persephone’s decent into the underworld. There is no life in winter without snow. I loved the rain, don’t get me wrong, however, I would rather have snow in winter: a constant fresh layer of snow to bring a clean, crisp, sparkly look to the sleeping earth. But I was not the one who controlled the weather.
“Good Morning,” I said to tam as I stretched.
“You might want to check your phone- it rang a couple of times.”
“Really? And I didn’t hear it?” I asked myself, but Tam heard it anyway.
“You were really out. I was even singing to the radio and not a stir...”
“You, singing? I can’t believe I missed it.” He blushed a little but I knew he was joking. Or maybe he wasn’t. His face was too innocent to really tell. We walked up to my apartment, and I took a quick glance at who had called: my mom, my sister, Melissa and Colleen. I started dialing Colleen as I walked through the door.
“Hi, there.”
“What’s up?”
“I have in my hands a fax from Tom. Guess what?”
“What?” I played along.
“The blood found on Will’s chest...” she paused.
“Yes?” I sounded a bit impatient.
“Tell me first, what you thought of it.”
“Oh, god, Colleen, just tell me.”
I could hear her huff over the phone. “It’s not his,” she relinquished.
“Really.”
“You’re not surprised?”
“Kind of. But not really.”
“Are you ok? Usually you jump up and down at news like this.”
“I just woke up.”
“Well... what do you want to do with this?”
“Is he running a DNA?”
“Yes, there’s a note at the bottom of the page.”
“Ok.”
“Is that it?” Colleen sounded disappointed and I felt bad that she did so.
“I’ll call you back in a few minutes. We just got home.”
We said goodbyes and I continued my slow, labored climb up the stairs. I was still so tired, all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch with the cats and sleep, but Tam already started to make dinner. With what, I don’t know. There was no food in the house that I would consider edible, but he was a genius in the kitchen. He had his head in the freezer, digging through blocks of mystery meat and leftovers.
“Hungry?” he called to me.
“Eh,” was all I could squeak out. I found the couch and Kali sitting on it, waiting for me. She immediately curled up to my chest as I slowly closed my eyes and drifted off into dreamland. “Don’t go outside; the armadillos will cut you to pieces,” said my mother to me right before I woke up. The apartment was dark except for the flicker of the television. Tam was sitting in the recliner, passed out as well. Kali still lay with me, Bala sat on my hip and Herman was on my feet. No wonder I felt warm and cozy. Kali must have been sleeping. I moved slightly to pet her ear and she jumped up, but when she saw that I was awake, she settled down again and allowed me to pet her. She purred loudly. I read somewhere that a cat purrs to relax themselves. I agreed; her purring was definitely calming me. I didn’t want time to pass. I just wanted to stay there, at that moment for the rest of my life. I couldn’t imagine a better place to be.

**************
A long pounding woke me up. I was the last to rise. Tam was already at the door followed by all three cats but they scattered as soon as he opened the door. I heard his voice greet someone he knew, couldn’t make out what he was saying though. I tried to move but my body was still asleep. I wanted to move it, but it just laughed at me. “Another ten minutes, Molly,” it said to me. Tam’s heavy footsteps creaked the floor indicating that he was coming back towards me. I pretended to all asleep. I heard him stop, and then turn around head back to the door. I couldn’t be sure if he was checking to see if I was awake or not, but he left the apartment, shutting the door quietly behind him. I could hear the silence in the room.
Kali jumped on my side, which in turn woke the rest of me. Her smiling face seemed to say hello, good morning, feed me. “I love you, too, Kal.” I scratched her sweet little face as I slowly sat up. My vision tilted a bit at the horizon line, but at least that’s all it did. I suppose I shouldn’t have taken both oxycodone at once. I steadied my feet to get up and arose without problem. Tam was talking with someone at the bottom of the stairs outside. I could barely see them through the dirty window glass. I couldn’t make out the other guy, but they were just standing there, talking, gesturing. It looked like they were making small talk but then I could see Tam shaking his head low, back and forth, nonstop. Whatever it was he denying, he wanted to make it clear to the guy that his answer was in fact “no.” I shuffled my feet closer to the window, but by the time I could get a clear view, Tam’s ‘friend’ had turned his back and was walking away. Tam stood there watching after him. He waited until the guy got into his car and started the engine. When he finally backed out of the parking lot, Tam turned to walk back up the stairs to the apartment. I panicked. I didn’t want him to know I was spying on him, so I turned to make a quick dive onto the couch but instead of diving to safety, I took a nose-dive onto the floor. I landed on my face. My hand revealed a gusher of blood pumping forth from my nose. My lip stung too, so I can only imagine how many sources this blood had. I slowly crept up onto all fours when Tam came in. He didn’t say anything that I heard, just the loud clomping noise of his boots. I felt his strong hands on my arms helping me up, awkwardly, of course, because my right arm throbbed under his touch. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t tell where my eyes where. My face pulsated with pain. Tam set me on the couch and within seconds has paper towels, ice in a baggie, and an assortment of bathroom items that he gathered in his arms in spilled on to the couch in disarray. He started to dab my face lightly with the paper towels and instructed me to hold one every now and then on various parts of my face. It seemed like forever so to pass the time I passed out.
When I woke up again, I could feel an intense cold all over my face. My fingers revealed that Tam had found a gel-eye mask Kat had given me for Christmas a few years ago. She had graciously said that it was a free gift from a purchase and so thoughtfully gave it to me for a present. I gave her an ipod that year.
“I told you it would come in handy,” said Kat. “It looks good on you, too.”
“Shut up,” I managed to mumble.
Kat just laughed.
“Where’s Tam?”
“He slid out of the door when I came in.”
“And?”
“’And’ what?”
“Where is he?”
“How the hell should I know.”
I huffed. “Is he outside or did he leave?” Silence. “Kat?”
“What?”
“Well?”
“I shrugged ‘no.’”
“You shrugged, great. Kat, look at m; I can’t see a damn thing. My EYE is swollen shut,” I shouted through clenched teeth and immobile lips.
“Yeah, the one eye. The other eye is fine.”
“It doesn’t help if you are not in the vision sight of that eye...” I hissed at her. We both sighed. My tongue checked to see if any teeth were missing. I think they were ok. My entire mouth was numb.
“Smile at me.”
I couldn’t. My lips were swollen to barely let a word escape.
“Do I look really bad?”
“Oh god, yes. You look horrible. You would frighten small children.”
I tried to touch my face but she stopped me. “Leave it alone. Tam put stuff on it to help with the swelling.” She came over to my good eye and demonstrated on her own face where my wounds were. “Here, above the eyebrow is split. Your right cheek has a big purple bump. Your lip is all cut up and your nose is purple.”
I nodded.
“It’s a good thing you have hardwood floors. Would those crime-scene clean-up guys freak out if they had to come over here to clean up your blood.”
I wanted to smile. I knew what she was trying to do. She was always good at trying to cheer me up.
“Bummer you won’t be able to sniff any crime scenes for a while...”
The thought of the morgue quickly filled my mind and I snorted out of my nose, accidentally blowing out a blood soaked tissue wad shoved up there to stop the bleeding. I could feel my face burn with embarrassment under all of the ice strapped to my face, but Kat just laughed. She slipped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me close. “Don’t worry, kid. You’ll be back in action in no time.”
We both turned our heads toward the door as loud bumps and crashes came from outside.
“Molly!” Tam yelled again. “There’s a lead. Quick, we need to run.” Tam burst through the door and grabbed my coat from the chair. He wrapped it around my shoulders and he pulled me to a stand.
“What’s going on?”
“Colleen just phoned. We have a lead to where Kylie might be.”
“Where is she?”
“At the monument.”
“Teller’s Cross?”
“Yes.”
“Who would know that?”
“Molly, we’re the closest. We need to go get her.”
“What if she’s not there?”
Tam paused a second to look at me as if I had suddenly transformed into an elephant. “Do you really want to take that chance?” He asked.
“No.” Where the hell did that question come from? Maybe I had turned into an elephant. I certainly felt like one.
“Come on!” He grabbed my keys to the Jeep.
I followed him out of the apartment, gritting my teeth with every painful bouncy step I took toward the Jeep.
“Good luck!” Kat yelled at us as we ran down the stairs.
Run, I said to myself. I had to stop wallowing in this funk I have been and jump-start my brain. I had to focus; I had to concentrate. I had to start to live again. I had to run.
“Tam, tell me what she said.”
“Kelly was canvassing out on Miller’s Road and he came across a set of small footprints. There was also some blood found on the trail. He followed it for about a mile when he called for backup.”
“Did he find the end to the trail?”
“At this point I don’t know.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and found that it wasn’t working. “Well, now I know why they didn’t call me,” I mumbled to myself. I tossed it into the back seat. Tam gave me a pained look.
“Hey! I just cleaned in here.”
I gave him a sideways glance. “Give me your phone. Please.” (I had such a lisp!) He reached into his breast pocket and handed me his phone. I called Colleen. There was no answer. I called Kelly, and again, there was no answer. “Where the hell is everyone?” We would be there soon, but not being able to contact anyone made me very nervous. Tam was driving as fast as he could with the police sirens. There was no one on the road to slow us down.
We pulled up onto the long dirt drive to Teller’s Cross. I sat up straight. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Before Tam could come to a complete stop, I opened the door and ran to her. She was sitting under the large Celtic cross replica at the top of the small hill. She had her knees to her chest and she shivered. There was about a foot and a half of snow with a nice sold ice crust from the rain. Finally, I reached her, flung my coat around her and held her. She put her tiny arms around me and I lifted her off of the snow with my left hand. Her skin was so cold. She whispered in my ear, “Miss Molly.” I smiled. I forgot that I looked hideous, but she still knew me.
“You’re going to be ok, pumpkin. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. I’m not going to let you go.” I started to step back into the first set of footprints to make my way back to Tam. His out-stretched arms met us both. She weighed nothing, like a feather pillow. Tam was standing near, ready to help. “I’ve got her,” I told him. He nodded and guided me down, breaking the rest of the snow to make it easier for me to walk.
It wasn’t until the sound of the sirens echoed off of the valley did I finally pull Kylie away from me a little. I just wanted to see her eyes. I told her softly that we were going to go to the hospital now, that her mom will be there and that everything was going to be all right. She had small tears in her big eyes, but she nodded her head and buried her face again into me. She felt a little warmer now. The ambulance pulled up behind the car, followed by the media. The circus was about to begin.
As I handed Kylie over to the paramedic, microphones were being pushed into my face. Voices swirled around my head, and not really understanding any of the words being shouted at me, I made a general statement that went something like this: Kylie White has been found. She is being taken to the hospital where she can be evaluated and treated. There is no word yet as to who took her or how she ended up out here. And that was all, because that was all I knew. I wasn’t holding anything back or exaggerating the truth. I heard voices comment on my face. Then I heard sentences strung that claimed I had tackled the kidnapper and wrestled Kylie away from them. I left them wondering and climbed into the Jeep with Tam.
The ambulance was getting ready to go. We were to follow them to the hospital. I was glad for this, not just to make sure Kylie got there all right, but for other, more personal reasons that weren’t as easily hidden as my arm had been. As I slid into the front seat, I caught movement in the corner of my good eye. I tried to steal a moment to look- purely an instinctive reaction. If I had a half of a second to really think about it, I would have wanted to know who or what it may have been, but to not let on that they knew that I was aware of their presence. Of course, I first had to convince myself that I might have, indeed, seen something to really worry about. It was just a deer, I thought. Trees have deer, and there are a lot of deer around here because there are a lot of trees, which gives the deer a lot of places to hide. A place to hide- he was hiding in the trees.
The motor brigade was on the move and I opted to stay in the Jeep instead of checking out my hunch. A bad move on my part, but my concern for Kylie and for my arm and face outweighed anything else at that moment. Tam also noticed me favoring my arm. He asked several times if I was “Ok” and I kept replying with a weak “Yes.” I took a quick mental inventory: two dead bodies, a recovered missing girl, a maniac on the loose, and a busted face and arm. My heart beat a little less difficult now that Kylie had been found. Of course, I had nothing to do with the fact that she wasn’t with her captor. I just picked her up out of the snow. Not to down play the extreme and horrific series of events, but that seemed a bit too easy.
“Tam?”
“How did you know she would be there?”
“By the direction Kelly described the footprints.”
“Yeah?”
“I know that area. She was on Parker’s trail which leads right to the Cross.”
“Why didn’t Kelly go to the other end instead of follow her on the trail?”
“He didn’t know where it came out. He didn’t grow up in those woods. He grew up on the farm and on the lake. I grew up with those trees, with that hill, with that whole landscape. It was my back yard, so to speak.” I nodded. He was always out there. More than I was, and my grandparent’s cottage wasn’t too far from there. Like Kelly, I grew up mainly on the Lake. I loved the woods, but the coyotes’ howling scared us too much to spend any time in there.
“How do you suppose she got away?” I asked after a few minutes of silence.
“No clue. We will just have to ask her about it when she is feeling better.”
“Hum.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Weird circumstances.”
“There have certainly been many of those lately.”
“At the diner yesterday, there was a news story on the radio. Did you hear it?”
“No, I wasn’t listening to it. What was it about?”
“Good news.”
“Really?”
“Shocking, isn’t it? The story was actually about something someone did to save the lives of a hundred people. And it turned out to have worked. No one was killed. Can you imagine? A happy ending...”
“Doesn’t happen too often, does it?”
“Not lately.”
I had a sudden and overwhelming urge to call my mom.
“Tam?”
“Yeah, Boss?”
“Do you think that maybe, whoever had Kylie might have let her go?”
“What makes you say that?”
“As we were leaving, I thought I saw something in the forest.”
“What kind of something?”
“Movement.”
“Animal?”
“Maybe, but maybe not. I’m leaning towards the maybe not.”
“When were you planning on telling me this?”
“In the car ride to the hospital.” I could feel his glare burn into the side of the face. I tried to not react. “Watch the road,” I said. He gave a heavy sigh. My ex-husband used to do that when I had done something wrong; wrong according to him, that is.
“Is there anything else you would like to tell me?”
I was silent. There were many things I would have liked to tell him, but when it came to him, words were hard to find for some reason.
“You have to start letting me in.”
When it came to work, I didn’t have to say anything- it seemed as though he could read my mind. I suppose I expected him to read my mind in every other instance as well. I also suppose, that maybe he can’t. He is good at his job; he knows what needs to be done at all of the right times. As for our relationship, I will be the first to admit that I am an enigma.
“Molly?”
“I hurt my arm,” I blurted out. I felt like crying, like this was some deep dark secret that I didn’t want anyone to know about. I looked at him with my good eye. He looked at me once then reached over for my good hand.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said to me. He didn’t let go of my hand until we pulled up by the emergency doors. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.” Tam left me to help the others escort Kylie into the emergency room. In the rearview mirror I saw Kelly pull up with Betsy White. He parked illegally and they both ran inside after the little girl. Following them were several news reporters in their huge top-heavy vans. I got out of the Jeep and gathered the remaining police and security force with strict orders not to let any of those vultures in. I made my way into the chaos. I tried to flag down someone to help me with my arm, but everyone seemed to be preoccupied. My lips were throbbing from talking too much. The pain in my arm had suddenly become very intense and it was clear to me that I really needed help. My breath came heavily.
“I heard you were on your way over here. I thought maybe you had come to your senses.” Melissa’s sweet voice came from behind me.
“What senses?” I asked her.
She just smiled, smirked, and giggled. “You’re welcome. Come one, you’re going into shock.”
“Shock? Nothing can shock me anymore. I’ve seen it all.” I was getting dizzy.
Melissa led me to one of the examining rooms. She sat me down just at the right time. Even though she worked as a morgue technician, she was still a licensed doctor. She took the x-rays that she made of my arm earlier that day and put them to the light. “I don’t know how you did it, but you managed to break your arm in three different places, with smaller fractures around the impact site.” She pointed out the small hairline fractures that seemed to weave themselves throughout my bones. “Two up here, and one down here. There are a few within this space, and a couple more down here. You’re going to need a full cast to stabilize the bones. What did you do? Jump out of an airplane without a parachute?” She turned to me and came up to me face to face, placing another ice bag on my throbbing arm. “Have you told Tam?” she whispered to me. Of all the people I encountered throughout the day, Melissa, whom I see on average two times a month, was the only one who knew about our relationship. We weren’t the best of friends, but friends nonetheless.
“Yes, I told Tam,” I said with as much ‘snotty-ness’ as I could muster.
She over-exaggerated her nod. “I’ll be right back.” She left the room chuckling.
I was sure she was on her way to get him. For some reason, I didn’t think she believed me.
I was alone in the semi-dark room with only the glow of the x-ray board for light. She had left the x-ray up so I decided to take a look at what went on inside of me. “Several fractures,” she had said. “Several” was an understatement. My bones looked like a road map of downtown Milwaukee at the Marquette Interchange. I let my fingers flow over the fissures, followed them along the lines that went everywhere, yet nowhere. The pattern looked so familiar. I’ve stared at so many road maps in my life, they seem the same after a while, especially when you’ve driven all of those roads. I couldn’t understand why I was thinking so hard about this. These were cracks on my bones, not a road map. There was no ethereal entity trying to give me clues by causing my bones to break. I was done with this shit. I needed to sleep. Maybe the vision, the hallucinations would go away with some simple sleep. None of this was real. None of this was real. I sighed and sat back down on the examining table. In a way, I was a bit disappointed. I suppose I could fool myself into thinking otherwise, but I had to stop lying to myself. The truth was in front of me. It was time I got back to reality.
Tam came into the room. He walked straight over to me and kissed me.
“You ok?”
“You say that so often.” I sighed, “I will be.” I looked up at him, his bright brown eyes shone in the dim light. His smile was like soft daisy petals. I was beginning to think I loved him. He brushed the hair from the side of my face. I wanted to melt into his hand. He felt so real. Melissa walked back into the room with Dr. Davis, breaking the spell. I had forgotten about the pain in my arm for just a moment.
“You did quite a number on yourself, Sheriff.” He wasn’t old, maybe in his early forties, but the way he talked reminded me of my grandfather. “Let’s see if we can’t get you patched up and back to work.”
“Does it have to be a full arm cast?”
“Do you want your arm to heal?”
“I’m in the middle of a murder investigation.”
“You are going to need stabilization.”
“If I need to draw my gun, I need to be able to shoot it.”
He looked at me, debating whether or not to play his hand. “I do have the authority to take you out the field completely if you prefer.”
My jaw dropped (painfully I may add), “You wouldn’t.”
“I can. So if you don’t mind, I will do what I can for you, but you need to meet me half way.”
My swollen lip quivered. I decided to keep my mouth shut and go along with the nice doctor. He looked at the x-rays with Melissa. Tam still stood by me, but he was sporting a smirk. I gave him a frown, but I got over it.
“How’s Kylie doing?” I finally asked him.
“She’s ok. She’s very dehydrated and may have some frostbite on her toes. Betsy, however, was given a sedative. She wouldn’t calm down, even after the doctors told her that Kylie was going to be ok.”
“I don’t blame her. Kylie is all that she has.” Tam grunted in agreement. Betsy’s parents died while she was still in high school, her brother was killed some years later by unidentified means and her sister died of cancer just a few years ago. Her husband was killed while in the military just several months after Kylie was born. She has had nothing but heartache over the years, losing one loved one after another. Kylie was her whole life.
Tam put his arm around the shoulder of my good arm. I still had my older sister and brother somewhere in the world. My parents moved away from here a year after I had graduated from high school. I immediately left for bigger and better cities, whereas my parents bought a house near my brother Brian and his wife to help out with their kids. Tina had had triplets. My sister Abby also had kids, but seemed to be a little more capable of raising them with her husband Lou. All of these kids were born so long ago. Abby herself just became a grandma to the sweetest angel in the sky and of course, our mom is there constantly, helping Lucy with the new baby. My mom says it helps to have him around, now that her youngest is gone. I will never learn how painful it is to have one of my children die before me. I feel that I am doing them a favor and keeping them from being born in the first place. They’ll thank me in the end.
“Ok, Molly. Are you ready for some plaster?” asked Dr. Davis.
“There is no way of getting out of this, huh?”
“Nope. In fact, you let this go for far too long already.”
“It just happened yesterday,” I said flatly. I knew I would get yelled at for that, but honestly, I didn’t think anything was really that wrong. I truly thought that it was just a severe bruise. I had no idea I had broken anything.
“Yesterday?”
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly, “and a little knock around from a couple of days ago.”
“What did you do?”
“Well...there was the fall on the file cabinet, and I fell the other day in my office, and then yesterday this girl banged the bathroom door into my arm. That’s it.”
“Molly, you have multiple fractures. Are you sure that’s all you did?”
“Yes, positive. Why?”
“As I said, you have several fractures. It just seems a little odd that a few bumps should result in this kind of injury.”
“See! That’s what I thought! So don’t go yelling at me...” the expression on everyone’s face went suddenly grim.
Dr. Davis walked over to the x-ray again and pointed to several cracks on the humerus bone. “Do see these simple cracks here? When a fracture occurs, these fibrous tissues form and grow around it, acting like an internal suture so that the fracture can heal. These fractures here have several days of fibrous growth. These here are only starting to grow. This information leads me to believe that over the course of the last few weeks, you fractured your arm several times in several different places. Being already damaged, and not getting it checked, may have allowed for further damage to occur.” I just realized that my mouth was open all the while he was talking. ‘Over the course of the last few weeks?’ rang loosely in my mind. Just three days ago I was with my family for the holidays. Oh yeah, and the funeral.
“I swear I did nothing!”
“I knew I should have gone with you,” scowled Tam.
“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you,” I sneered back at him.
“The proof is here, Molly. Something happened. But for now I suggest that we get your arm immobilized and stable so that it can heal and you can get back to your crime fighting.”
I am surrounded by lunatics. “Just get it over with, please.”
“Ok. Let me give this to you now for the pain. It should take affect in a few minutes. And then, we’ll stitch up your face.”
“Stitches?”
“Oh yeah. That one above your eye is very deep. And this one here (he pointed to my pip with his pen) will heal crooked if we don’t get it straight.”
I could have sworn I heard a little giggle from him. Payback was a bitch, and this bitch was getting stitches on her face. He gave me the shot of the miracle pain reliever, collected the x-rays and other paperwork, and shot me again with a sideways glance that left me with goose bumps. Meanwhile, no one said a word.
“All right, let’s go.”
Tam started to follow me. “Can you check on Kylie? See if she is ready to talk about the guy who took her?” His face showed no emotion. I think he’s mad at me.
“There’s a sketch artist from Tom’s office with her now.”
“Oh. Ok.” I had nothing more to say. I shut off my ‘give a damn’ mode for a minute and decided to concentrate on me until I was out of the presence of Dr. ‘Dull’ Davis. Melissa seemed to be enjoying my pain, however. She had a constant smirk on her face since the first time she saw me here. “We are totally even,” I hissed at her. “Go home!” That just fueled her smile. I’m glad someone was enjoying my misery.
Dr. Davis gave me a compromise- I had to wear a thin fiberglass cast from my shoulder to my fingers. He said I could still work, but I was not allowed to use my firearm, being that I am right handed and under heavy sedation.
“How does that feel?”
“Oh, fine.” I tried, but I was no longer capable of sarcasm.
“I meant the cast.”
“That’s what I thought I meant.” As Dr. Davis cleaned up his area, I took inventory of my senses: nothing. And it felt so good. No anxiety, no fear, no pain, no sorrow. No cares or worries. I wondered how long I could keep this up, legally.
I heard mumbles around me. The faces in the room all turned their attention to the hallway, so I did too. Tam ran out of the door, followed by Dr. Davis. Melissa took a hold of my arm. “Molly,” she whispered to me. “I’m going to take you to one of the rooms so you can lie down, ok?”
“Yeah, whatever.” S’all cool, I thought, until we walked out into the hallway. Melissa tried to divert my attention, but I could see what was going on. There was a commotion down in Kylie’s room. At first I thought maybe there was a security breach and one of the television reporters snuck in, but I didn’t see any police rushing, just doctors and nurses. And in Tam’s arms struggled a distraught Betsy. My heart sank when Betsy screamed.
“Mel?” I managed to squeek out.
“Nothing you can do anything about it, Molly. Come on, let’s get you into a bed...” I don’t remember how I got out of Melissa’s grasp but I slowly became aware that I was moving towards Kylie’s room. It felt like I was moving in slow motion, but I arrived there fairly quickly because Melissa had to run to keep up with me. I moved past Tam who didn’t see me at first, but I could see the look on his face as he fought to keep a hold of Betsy. I stepped though the door to Kylie’s ER room just in time to hear the flat-line. Betsy matched the pitch. Every emotion that I had tried to suppress came flooding through my veins. The vortex was back, swirling and spinning around me: twirling, whirling, rushing around me. It crated a tornado around me, sucking me in and twisting me in place, spinning my head 360 degrees around and around. The room stood still, I knew it; my feet were still connected to the floor. It was me that was caught inside; around, around, and around I spun. It was then that I stopped, bent over and vomited. Fortunately for me, I missed puddle of sick when I landed on the floor and passed out...

Chapter 5 The Truth is in the Bone

Tom graciously paid for lunch and we headed back to the morgue. My right arm was killing me. I already had a nasty bruise from the night before, but I could feel there was more damage done by the bathroom door when that girl burst in on me. I ate most of my lunch with my left hand, luckily the boys, as I will forever call them, hadn’t noticed. I was thinking that I, perhaps, have something broken. I was trying so hard to be the hero, but it hurt. I can’t be the hero when I hurt, just the loser. I needed a few moments to myself so I asked Tom if I could use his office. He said yes and took Tam back down to the morgue to see Sara Olny, I told them I would be down in a while. I wasn’t too anxious to see her. I had a feeling that she wasn’t going to give up any secrets to the whereabouts of Kylie White.
I could hear them talk as they walked down the hallway. Tom told Tam that there wasn’t anything unusual about her. His words ricocheted off of the flat walls. They hit me and stung my skin like little static sparks. After the boys went out of sight, I went in search of Melissa, the Radiologist.

“It really hurts, huh?” She lifted my arm and I winced from the pain.
“YES!” I said emphatically.
“Sorry.” She fitted my arm on the X-ray table and placed the lead apron over the rest of me. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
I smiled in sarcasm and she did the same back to me.
“Does Tam know you’re here?”
“He’s down the hall.”
“How does he feel about me checking you out instead of a proper doctor, like the one you should be seeing?”
I was silent.
“You did tell him about this?”
“No. Why should I?”
She exhaled sharply with a bite, “Uh, ‘cause he’s your boy, right?”
“My ‘boy’... That’s funny.”
“I don’t see why you have to keep secrets from him.”
“It’s not a secret, just not public knowledge...yet. I’ll tell him.”
“Yeah, right, sure,” she said over her shoulder as she walked behind the x-ray shield. “Ok, hold still.”
She took two photos and then set me free. “Thanks, Mel. I owe you.”
“Forget about it. I’ll have these ready as soon as possible. In the meantime, keep this ice pack on it. It will help with the swelling.”
“Thanks so much, Mel. I really appreciate it.” I put the small pack under my shirt and let it rest directly on my skin. Oh, it burned! I tucked one corner of it under my bra strap, but I could still feel it shift as I moved. It didn’t really cover the spot that throbbed, but it would have to do for now.
“Just out of curiosity, Molly. If there is a break, how are you going to sport a cast without Tam knowing?”
“I suppose I’ll have to tell him if it comes to that.” I rolled my eyes.
“Please do. And keep that ice pack on it.”
“I’ll try...” I wanted to say, “Cast? What cast? I ain’t got time for no cast!”
I walked around slowly in the hallway, looking at the doors and the dirty windows that led into very cold rooms. I could hear the boys’ voices from the room behind me. They had gone back to the lab, most likely to see if the test results were ready. My feet stuck to the floor. I didn’t feel like taking another step so I made no effort to try to free them.
“I hate this place,” I muttered under my breath.
“You’ll be ok,” I heard whispered into my ear. I looked up to see Kat standing beside me.
“I don’t know why you insist on coming here. Can’t you find a better place to hang out?”
“I could say the same thing about you. Besides, I like spending time with you.”
“Yeah, real quality time.”
She laughs, “Just keep thinking happy thoughts.”
“Oh, Kat, you are my happy thought,” I said half sarcastically.
“That’s sweet. Lame, but sweet.”
“I’m trying to think happy thoughts, but I’ll be lucky if I’m just be able to think in here.”
“Case got you worried?”
“I would be worried about it if I could keep my mind on it.”
“Am I bothering you? I would think you’d be sick of me by now.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “No, you are not bothering me. I’d take you forever if I could.”
“Again- sweet, but incredibly lame.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and she in turn wrinkled her nose at me.
“Did you see that girl yet?”
“What girl?”
“Sara Something-or-other...”
“Olny. Sara Olny.”
“Yeah, her. They brought her in the same time as Will.”
“What about her?”
“I take it you didn’t see her.”
“Kat, what are you getting at?”
“I think you should see her.”
“I was kind of on my way.”
“You weren’t moving.” I threw her a glance. She returned it with a shrug. “Well...You weren’t.”
“Tom said that there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary with her.”
“He doesn’t always see the same things you do. I really think that you should take a look at her.”
“All right, if you insist.”
She led me down the hallway where Sara was still laid out. The room was as cold as Will’s and I shivered a little as we walked in. Or maybe it was the ice pack frozen to my shoulder.
I walked over to Sara. She was so pretty: long dark hair and clear complexion. She had nice features that showed off her youthfulness. Lucky her. She’ll be young forever now. A folder lay on top of her chest. I opened it and took a quick scan of John the Coroner’s handwriting. Next to her on the silver tray that held various medical equipment sat a plastic bag with a thin gold necklace gathered at the bottom. I shook it around in the bag and noticed that the clasp was still closed and that the necklace had broken somewhere in the middle of the chain, maybe a bit off to the side. I took a look again at her face. My eyes fell upon her neck. I saw Kat smile at me.
“You see it, don’t you?”
“Humm...” I wasn’t quite sure what she wanted me to see. What I did see was what I had read in the autopsy report: Strangulation, bruises around the neck, broken neck, death was immediate, no usable prints. I agreed. The necklace intrigued me, though. I leaned in to look closer at her. The necklace left a little burn mark, barely visible, when the hands met her throat, pressing the chain into her skin. But there was something shinny in the folds of the impression. I looked closer. Kat clapped her hands, which caused me to jump a little. “Do you mind?”
“Sorry.”
I knew she was proud of herself, finding something before I did. I thought I’d let her gloat for a while. In the mean time, I went on with my work. I searched the drawers in the room for an evidence bag and a pair of purple latex gloves. The examining tray had everything else I needed.
“I told you there was something there.”
I used the magnifying glass on the end of the extender arm to take a closer look and followed the sparkle at her neck. Slowly and very carefully, I used the long tweezers and picked out a small gold jump ring.
“Well, technically you didn’t say anything about something being there...”
“I told you that you needed to look at her.”
“That you did.” A jump ring meant one thing; there was a charm that wasn’t there anymore. Where did it go? Did the maniac have it? Did it fall onto the road or into the car? I had a feeling that I would become obsessed with this charm. I wanted it. I wanted it in my hands so that it could tell me everything I wanted to know.
“Do you think it’s real gold?”
“Possibly.” I turned the tiny ring around in front of my face. I moved it as close as I could without going cross-eyed.
“What did you just do?”
“What?”
“You just sniffed it, didn’t you?” Kat sounded slightly offended.
“I didn’t sniff it, I was looking at it.”
She shot me a disbelieving glare and moved the magnifying glass closer to me. “Here, use this.”
“Why would you think I sniffed it?”
“It’s something you do.”
“I sniff things?”
“Yes. You sniff the air, you sniff the ground. You have even sniffed evidence! Face it, when you investigate, you sniff!”
I was speechless. I never noticed what I did when I investigate. I didn’t really care either. How am I supposed to know? People do things without realizing it; they clear their throats repetitively, slurp soup, tap pencils... “Does my ‘sniffing’ bother you?”
She had to think about that for a moment. “No,” she shrugged. “I just don’t want you to be sniffing the wrong things.” She burst out laughing at what she said.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that was a weird thing to say!”
“Sorry.” She wiped her eyes. I shook my head.
“You’re weird.” I pulled the magnifier closer to my eye and looked at the ring with better clarity. Tam opened the door behind me.
“What’s so funny?”
“Huh?”
“I heard you laughing down the hallway. Did you find something?”
I switched the tweezers to my left hand and very carefully, I lowered my right arm and shook it slightly to let the ice pack slide through my sleeve and into my hand.
“Yes, I found something, but that’s not what was funny.”
“Well, what then?”
“It’s nothing, just something... Colleen said to me yesterday. Or a few days ago. I don’t remember. It was just funny and it just popped into my head.”
He grunted in surrender. “It just popped into your head. In a morgue, it just popped into your head. Ok. It’s just good to hear you laugh.” He kissed my on forehead. “What did you find?”
I moved the glass over so that he could see.
“Is this significant?”
“Could be. John found a necklace but didn’t see this.”
“You’re just trying to one-up him.”
“I am not!”
He giggled.
“This is a legitimate find!” I handed the tweezers to him so he could take an even closer look. While he did, I backed up against the counter, opened a drawer and tucked the ice pack inside.
He nodded his head. “Nice,” he said flatly and gave me a suspicious glance.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I’ll believe you if you tell me what you were laughing at.”
“Oh, whatever.” I took the tweezers from him put the ring in an evidence bag. Pulling my gloves off, I snapped them in Tam’s direction. I picked up the necklace bag and the folder and headed for the door but something caught my eye. Tam ran into me when I stopped.
“Sorry. What’s wrong?”
“I just wanted to see something...” I walked over to Sara’s left side. There was something on the inside of her wrist. I opened the folder to see if John had taken pictures. There weren’t any in there. They might not have been processed yet. I couldn’t touch her without a glove so I grabbed the large forceps that lay on the tray on the other side of her. I saw Tam lurch forward, possible thinking that I was going to fall on her. I gave a slight glare in retaliation of his faithlessness. Using the forceps I twisted her wrist to have a better look. It was a tattoo of Wile E. Coyote. It was done well, and done recently. The color was vivid, the black outlining looked almost shinny. This couldn’t have been more than a few months old.
“Tam, can you ask Tom or John if pictures have been taken of Sara?”
“Sure, Boss.” He left before he could finish his answer. My mind spun. I had a weird feeling about this tattoo. I could feel that it was important. I held her wrist a little closer to my face so I could take in the detail, but had to stop in fear of dropping her hand; I was giggling. I was thinking of what Kat had said. I was holding her wrist close to my face; I could have easily sniffed it. My shoulders started to shake. I was trying to keep my laughter to myself but I almost started to spit from holding my lips tight shut. I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was coming. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t resist. I lifted her wrist up once again and sniffed it. I was shocked, really. I could smell something. I could smell a smoky scent, like a cigarette or a cigar. I took another sniff. It was a deep scent. I lowered her wrist and carefully set it back on the table. I took another glance around me and another sniff of the air and could smell a definite hint of smoke. I bent closer to her body and sniffed again. Oh god, if Kat could see me. The smell was coming from her skin. I could also smell formaldehyde, a soapy cleanser, and the sharp detergent used on the sheet that covered her, but there was also a very strong smoky smell. I stood straight up as the door clicked open. Tom waved some papers in his hand.
“Photos. As you requested.”
I opened the folder and let him place them in the fold.
“Don’t you want to look at them?”
“In a second. Tom,” I asked sheepishly, “what do you smell?”
“Smell? In here?”
“Yeah. Take a whiff. Tell me what you smell.”
He looked at me as though I had finally lost my mind. I nodded to him that I understood his thought. He did what I had asked. He took a sniff of the air. He listed the things that I had smelled, but not the smoke.
“Lean closer to her.”
He bent slightly and sniffed again. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Closer.”
“Closer?” he asked, still bent over.
“Yes, please.”
He looked down at Sara Olny and back up at me. “You want me to smell the body?”
“Yeah.”
“The dead body?”
“Why is that so weird?”
He moved his face closer to her, slowly, hesitantly. He came close to her shoulder and sniffed. He took another sniff. And another. His eyes flew open wide and turned to look at me. “Smoke,” he said.
I grinned. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, it’s there. It smells like... a cigar... “
“Not cigarette smoke?”
“No, cigarettes smell spicy, this is heavy... sweet. Smell me,” he lifted his elbow to me and I sniffed. His jacket smelled like fresh cigarette smoke and it did smell spicy in an odd, non-culinary way. The scent brought back quick memories. “This smell is heavy, like a pure tobacco smell, not mixed with other things, like impurities.” He took another sniff. “That’s what tobacco should smell like.”
“Where’s Tam?” I asked.
“He’s by Will. He wanted a moment alone.”
I nodded. I flipped the folder in the air, waving to Tom to follow me to the table that sat against the wall. I opened it and leafed through the photos. The picture of her neck reminded me of the jump ring.
“Oh, and I found this.” I held up the bag and he took it.
“Is there something in here?”
“A very tiny ring.”
“What kind of ring?”
“A jump ring- it’s used to hold a pendant or a charm to a necklace or bracelet... in her case, a necklace.”
“Only a woman would know that.”
I wrinkled my eyebrows at him and he shrugged a claim of innocence.
“I want to find what was once attached to this.” I took the bag back and laid it on the table with the necklace. I also took the photo of the tattoo and held it up.
“Why would a young girl have a tattoo of such an ugly creature?”
“Who knows,” I shrugged, “But I’m taking all of this along, if that’s ok.”
Tom nodded. “The blood tests aren’t done yet. I’ll fax them tot the office as soon as I get them.”
“Great, thanks.” I gathered everything and followed him out of the room. We walked down to his office. Tam must have heard us in the hallway and came to the office a moment later. He still had Will’s file and handed it to me. Tom gave me an envelope to put both files in, and I clutched it to my chest. Something that has been dormant for so long in me started to wake up: like a thaw- an odd feeling for the middle of winter. But at this point, I’ll take any feeling I can get.
We said our goodbyes to Tom and promised that we would call each other the moment we found something new. Tam and I got into his Jeep and started for the trip home. It was still January, but the sky looked different. I inhaled deeply.
“Smells like rain,” I said, breaking the silence.
“There’s barely a cloud in the sky.”
“Maggie said it was supposed to snow this afternoon,” I said in rebuttal.
“Snow, not rain.”
“Have you never heard of thunder snow?”
“You just said that it smelled like rain.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So... what is it? Rain or Snow?”
I stuck my head out of the window and sniffed. I smiled again at the thought of sniffing. “Rain.”
Almost instantly we could hear the roll of distant thunder. The electric sign on the bank claimed that it was 43 degrees, warm enough for rain. The radio weather guy announced the approach of the storm. He sounded confused. Just that morning he had announced an approaching storm that would produce snow, not rain. The wind had unexpectedly changed and caught everyone off guard. The rain didn’t bother me. I loved rain just as much as I loved snow. I sat back in my seat and listened to the thunder that chased us home.

Chapter 4 Cheeseburger in Paradise.

I had a large bruise on my right elbow from when I fainted last night. Tam said that I had hit it against the desk as I went down. I fumbled in my medicine cabinet for my Arnica gel. I applied it liberally as I walked out into the kitchen.
“Breakfast is ready,” he said as he placed two plates of hot steaming pancakes on the table. He didn’t waste any time to kiss me good morning, pulling the chair out for me at the same time.
“Thank you.”
“How are you feeling?”
I shrugged, and managed a small smile. It was impossible not to smile at him. He had the most beautiful brown eyes; deep and rich like the earth, with the tiniest flakes of gold juxtaposed throughout the iris. Every time I looked into his eyes I’d melt like chocolate. We ate in silence, which was fine with me, not that I didn’t have anything to say to him or that I didn’t want to talk to him, but rather the pancakes were incredibly delicious and I kept shoving them into my mouth so that the taste buds on my tongue wouldn’t have a second to lament the absence of the next bite. But as everything does, breakfast, too, came to an end, and though I could have kept eating until I died, I stopped and told Tam that he should make pancakes for me every day for breakfast. He said he would if I really wanted him to. I think I really wanted him to.
A knock came at the door and I immediately thought of Marissa and her lasagna. Tam was fully dressed, but I was not. He graciously offered to answer the door while I put on my uniform. From the conversation I overheard from putting my ear against the bedroom door, Marissa wasn’t at all surprised to see Tam here opening my door. From the outside, it looed like he had just stopped in on his way to work, and with the town knowing what kind of state I was in, it seemed natural to have various people who knew me well enough to stop in and see how I was doing. I heard rustling around in the kitchen and then a door close. I peeped out of the crack in the door and saw Tam bending over in front of the refrigerator. He was fighting for room with the crap piled up in there, trying to make the lasagna fit. I laughed at the sight of this big, strong man fighting with helpless moldy leftovers.
I walked out of the bedroom fully dressed and as ready as I could be to face another day. Tam smiled at me. “Ready?” I shrugged my shoulders. It started to snow lightly as we walked to Tam’s truck.

We were the first ones to pull into the parking lot. We sat there with the motor off for a few minutes.
“You don’t have to go in, if you don’t want to. I’ll take you home.”
I considered it. But then I thought of Kat, for some reason. “We’ve come all of this way. Tom is expecting us.”
“We’re early.” It was quarter after seven. “Coffee?”
“Yeah, that would be good.”
We stepped out of the truck and walked the two and a half blocks to Maggie’s Diner. Tom had taken me to lunch there one day many, many months ago and I remember their incredible coffee. It was just plain, old, ordinary diner coffee, as far as I know. $1.50 gets you a cup with refills, but as I took a sip, I felt that I was being undercharged. I would have gladly given more, so I left the waitress a five-dollar tip on two coffees. Something about this liquid was magical in the sense that it made me warm with one sip; it made me calm despite the caffeine. I would come to see Tom more often for just this one reason. We took refills in our to-go cups and headed back to Tom’s office. He had just pulled up as we stepped into the parking lot. He smiled and waved at us as he got out of his car. “Did you bring me one?” He half joked. We followed him in and sat in his office as he took his coat off and settled his papers for the day. He sat down too, wanting to talk to us before we went down to the morgue to take a look at Will. I asked myself if I was ready for this. This is what I do, I told myself. I arrive on scene, I examine the body and the surrounding area for evidence. Even the scent of death can tell me so much about the crime. The bitter and pungent odors of blood can lead you into directions that seem impossible, unthinkable. The blood is the life of a body; in death, the secrets of its life are revealed, even if those secrets don’t want to be told. I’m the one who figures out what it’s trying to say. And when I do, I get to chase down the bad guys. This is what I lived for.
For someone who was obsessed with death, I wasn’t taking this all very well. Will was one of those people I cared about and I wasn’t sure how I would react to seeing his body laid out, but I had to keep myself professional if not for the sake of my job, then for the sake of my sanity.
Tom cleared his voice and straightened several papers that he lay down before him on the desk.
“You both knew Mr. Brown well?”
“Yes, we did.” I answered. I was surprised to hear how clear my voice was. I was positive that anything I would say would come out raspy and broken.
“Do you recall him having a drinking problem?”
Tam and I looked at each other. Occasionally we would have to give him a ride home after hours because he would be too intoxicated to drive, or he would be too intoxicated to find his car. Either way...
“Yes, he would indulge once in a while,” said Tam. ‘Once in a while’ really was putting it lightly.
“Molly, Tam- the reason why I am asking this is because Mr. Brown had three times the legal amount of alcohol in his bloodstream at the time of his death.”
We looked at each other again. Three times the legal amount was a little excessive, even for Will. Hell, I’ve never been half that drunk!
“Do think that is what killed him?”
“No,” Tom said, “he most definitely froze to death.” He flipped through his papers and held one up, reading to himself, like a reminder. “Point three-five his blood alcohol was. He most likely passed out and froze before the alcohol could take full effect. There was no vomit found around him or on him. Blood vessel constriction shows an immediate freeze.” He paused, maybe to give us enough time to process. “He didn’t have a coat on, just a flannel shirt, under shirt, thin pants and socks. No shoes. No hat. No gloves, etc. In fact, he was so cold he was frozen. His skin, everything was frozen solid. He was barely thawed enough to perform an autopsy.”
“Tom, I hope you don’t think me ignorant, but why exactly did you want me to come down here? You could have told me all of this over the phone.”
“Ah, yes. Well... if you are ready, I’d like to show you the body.”
“As ready as I’ll ever be. Tam?”
“Let’s do it.”
Tom led the way down to his newly remodeled morgue. To me it looked like every other morgue- stainless steel refrigerated compartments, shiny stainless steel walls and examining table. Stainless steel is easier to clean, that’s why a lot of restaurant kitchens use it, too. I used to work in a restaurant that had all stainless steel in its kitchen. It had the same feeling as this place: dead.
“He’s over here.” He opened one of the refrigerated compartments and pulled out a wide, elongated tray. A white sheet covered the body of my friend. I took a semi-deep breath and exhaled as Tom pulled the sheet from Will’s head and upper torso. It really was Will- a little black and blue, but relatively the same.
“Do we have a positive I.D.?”
Tam and I nodded.
“Ok,” continued Tom, “look here-“ He pointed to Will’s torso.
There were markings on his chest; weird markings, like something scratched him. Etched into his skin were lines and crosses that were arranged in a more uniform pattern than just random animal scratches. The placement, too, were strange. They were only on his chest, nowhere else. Tam asked if there were photos taken. His voice slightly startled me; I had forgotten he was there. Will had been his friend too. I looked at him. His eyes, his beautiful eyes were slightly red. All this time I was so worried about how I was going to react, I had forgotten about Tam. I had become selfish in my sorrow. Tom was indicating the different marks and Tam was matching up the photos taken so that he could get a bearing on how they were laid across his body. The photos were marked, but Tam wanted something to do while we examined Will, perhaps to keep his mind busy so he didn’t have to think about how his friend lay dead on the cold, hard bed. I would have done the same thing if I had gotten to the photos first.
Looking closely at the markings, I could see that it must have been difficult to carve in. I shuddered at the thought that someone carved these lines into Will’s skin. The little bit of blood that it let out was dried around the wounds, making it easy for us to see. If he had been washed, as customary after an investigation, the blood would have been washed away as well as any chance of deciphering it- that was how lightly it was scratched into the skin.
“John Grimly, the coroner, believes that these were made pre-mortem, self inflicted, hence the light bleeding.” I could feel his eyes on me. He really wanted my opinion. I really didn’t want to give it to him.
“Boss?” asked Tam, “What do you think?”
“Did you find anything sharp on him?” I wondered.
“No, but it could have been left in the snow,” replied Tom.
I took a few seconds to just think about what I was seeing, and then, when I started to think of nothing, it came to me. “I don’t agree, Tom.” I could see him frown from the corner of my eye. I could see Tam frown too.
“Why’s that?”
I couldn’t answer right away. I tried to stall, giving me more time to sort out what I was thinking and to give me more time to actually believe what I was thinking. I moved my body to be in line with Will and showed with my left hand how Will would have carved it, if he was able to have done it. Honestly, I thought he would have been too drunk to do it. And too cold. And too harmless.
“Have you ever tried carving into a frozen turkey?” Tom asked.
“No,” I said slowly. I knew what he was getting at, but I ignored him for a minute so that I could think.
“Will was frozen solid. There’s no way someone would have carved him after he died,” said Tom.
“We have had below freezing temperatures since before Will was missing,” Tam chimed in.
I said nothing.
“And besides, it’s not legible. He could have done it with his right hand.” Tom paused. He was getting frustrated, and I couldn’t blame him. “There’s blood, Molly,” Tom so kindly reminded me.
I asked, “What if he was found immediately after he died?”
“That would be quite a coincidence. Someone would have to have been stalking him,” said Tom
“Either way, his skin would have been half frozen if these marks were made either before or after his death,” reasoned Tam.
This was weird. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Had Will done this? Or worse, had someone else? Perhaps it was my murderer? I shuddered cold chills. Then I remembered that I was in a refrigerated room.
“Do you have his effects?” Asked Tam.
“Yes, they’re in this room.” Tom started to lead Tam out of the room. Tam turned to me and touched my arm. I looked at him.
“Are you going to be ok?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine.”
“All right. I’ll be right back.” I nodded an ok. I stared fixated at Will’s markings. The images burned into my mind so that when I closed my eyes I could still see them. When I opened them again, Kat stood before me on the other side of Will.
“Hey, how long have you been here?”
She laughed. “For a while.” I nodded in acknowledgement of her statement. “Is this Will?” I nodded again. “He has a nice face.”
“He was a really nice man. I’m really going to miss him.”
“What’s with the markings?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“He didn’t do it.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“Can I quote you on that?”
She smiled. “Crystal ball...” She held up her hands and made a rounding motion like she was rubbing an invisible ball.
“Yeah, yeah. Kat, this is serious. If you have nothing to offer...”
“We are a team, remember? Ok, let’s think of this rationally.” She walked around to his head and looked at him from his head down the front of his body. “Was he right or left handed?”
“Left.”
“Look at the way the lines go-“
“Exactly. They slant right. To his right. If he was right handed, he could have made these, but it could be that some one else who was left handed could have done the same...“ I walked around to the side of him again and pretended to write on him with my own right hand. “No, not left handed, right handed, “ I corrected myself. I looked at my hand. It was my right hand, I think. For a moment, right and left seemed to be the same thing. “Come here- imagine if you stood in front of him-“ I stood in front of Kat and mimicked writing on her chest. “Kneel down.” I knelt down with her. “Will was found frozen sitting on a hill.” I pictured Will on the hill by the school. I then imagined myself squatting in front of him and trying to carve something into his body.
“This is kind of hard to do...” I mumbled.
“Is that his blood?”
“What?” I asked because I had been thinking of the same question.
“Is that his blood?” She repeated.
“I don’t think it was tested. There really is no reason why it shouldn’t be his blood...” I mumbled, again, this time because I didn’t exactly believe what I had said.
“There is no reason why a frozen dead man should have things carved in his chest, Molly. You know very well that you should always think about the impossible and the unreasonable; because even the impossible is possible and even the unreasonable has some reason to it.”
“How did you get so smart?”
“I learn from the best.”
“I’d like to meet who that is someday.”
“Maybe you should try looking in the mirror,” she said with a sly smirk. The last time I looked into a mirror, I was frightened at the sight I saw. It turned out to be nothing at all, but I still can’t bring myself to look into one. I brushed my teeth with my eyes closed this morning, and I don’t think my hair looks too disheveled in a basic ponytail. I glanced at the grinning Cheshire Kat. What secrets did she keep behind those big, beautiful eyes, I wondered. Tam and Tom started to make their way back into the room. They were chatting as they came through the door. I was still squatted on the floor when they saw me. Tam thought I was sick.
“Are you all right?” He asked as he made his way to help me up.
“Yeah, I’m Ok. Tam, I mean, Tom- do me favor, before I forget; can you have the blood tested around these wounds?”
“Tested for what?”
“I wonder if this blood is actually Will’s blood.”
“It crossed my mind, but the way it spreads out around the wounds it looks to be coming from him.”
“I know, and I agree, it does look like his blood. I just want to know for sure that it is his. Or isn’t”
“Ok, Molly. I’ll have those tests done now.”
“Thanks, Tom.”
“I think it’s time for a break. I have the photos. Let’s get a refill on the coffee.” Tam didn’t need to repeat himself, nor did he have to beg me to leave this place. I went willingly. Tom said that he would join us in a few minutes as he snapped on a pair of purple rubber gloves and proceeded to take a sample of the blood around the scratches.
Tam and I walked out into a very sunny day. As we crossed the street, Tam put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into him a little. I tripped and nearly fell into him instead. He caught me and righted me. He didn’t say anything. He was either used to my clumsiness or he felt the same way I did.
We chose a booth near the door so that Tom would be able to find us. Maggie served the coffee. We sat in silence, sipping the hot liquid, letting its magic work its wonder. We sat there for a few minutes before the sound of the radio drifted into my ears. The news reporter told listeners about the story of how the quick thinking of a pilot saved the lives of the ninety-nine people aboard the passenger plane. One of the plane’s engines exploded as they were trying to take off of the runway. I couldn’t hear the exact the details, but somehow he managed to halt the plane despite the high speeds they were traveling at when the engine exploded. The voices of the passengers sounded frightened as they recounted their experiences: “We thought we were going die,” said one woman. “I held my wife’s hand and just looked into her eyes,” said a man. “I pleaded with God, ‘Please, God, not today,’” said a woman. Another woman claimed that the man sitting next to her hugged her in fear that they were all going to die. The air was a jumble of muffled voices all expressing their gratitude for not dying. No one had said that they were happy to be alive. I know that “not dying” and “being alive” basically mean the same thing, but for some reason, they sounded so different. I wondered what I would have said if I were on that plane: would I have been happy that I didn’t die, or happy that I was still alive? Would I have been happy at all?
“The coffee is really good,” Tam said to Maggie as she refilled our cups. I looked up at her, surprised to see her. She smiled at me.
“I had a feeling I’d see you two again,” she chirruped.
“We try to stop by when we’re in town. We like it here,” replied Tam.
“I’m glad this is a good place for the both of you.”
“It is, Miss Maggie. We feel right at home.” The wrinkles around his eyes crunched together as he smiled a very cheesy smile. Tam was such a flirt. He couldn’t help it; he was handsome. He had a natural brown glow to his skin and a ruff and tough face, yet strong and sweet. But his eyes, his eyes are what made me take a second look at him. They are so large, so brown, so smooth and inviting, it was hard to not get pulled into them. Most people do a double take when they first meet him. His eyes remind me of a deer’s, but without the fear.
Maggie smiled at him again as she walked to the next table. Tam was still grinning so I threw him a dirty look. He immediately stopped and sipped his coffee. I smiled to myself behind my cup. He makes me laugh even when he is not trying. My eye fell on the envelope that contained the photos of Will. My smile fell and my stomach started to hurt. I didn’t want to look at those right now. I just wanted to plunge into my coffee, swim around in the warmth and maybe drown for a while. I could see Tam, I mean Tom, across the street, finishing his cigarette before heading over to the diner. The smoke that exhaled from his nose and mouth looked like smoke signals. I was mesmerized by the swirling smoke, unfurling in the air, dancing its way around the oxygen and hydrogen molecules, writing itself in cursive so that I could read it: truth, it said. “The truth is in the bones,” I said absent minded.
“Boss?” I jumped. I hadn’t realized how far gone I was. “You ok?”
“Yes, sorry. Just staring.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” I mumbled.
“Do you want some more coffee?” He asked me.
I looked over to see Maggie again standing by our table with new hot coffee. I set my cup down and said yes.
“How long was she standing there?” I asked Tam after Maggie left again.
“About a minute or so.”
“But she was just here.”
“About ten minutes ago. You’ve been kind of quiet, distant. Where were you?”
I laughed. “That’s what Kat said...”
“Kat?” His forehead winkled. I didn’t answer him.
“Will you excuse me for a moment?”
“Sure.”
I got up and walked to the back of the restaurant. I locked myself in the one toilet women’s room. I was taken back by the smell in there. Did something die in here? I flipped the fan on and looked for the air freshener that was usually kept on the shelf above the toilet. I washed my hands and glanced at my face in the mirror. I didn’t mean to, but I think it’s encoded in female DNA; we can’t pass a mirror without checking ourselves out, making sure we look good. I didn’t look too good. My hair was a mess in a clump of a ponytail and dark circles under my eyes. I had to take a double take. I noticed a faint redness to my cheeks, but when I looked closer I could see faint words shadowing the lines on my face. I reached up to touch my face with my wet hands, but the words would not wipe off. Instead, they became darker and I could read them in the dim light of the bathroom. They were everywhere; small words, large words: life, love, hate, scar, chance, run. But the word my eyes were most fascinated with was the word sunk in around my lips. It read: secrets.
I could hear someone walking outside of the bathroom door and I started to panic. I couldn’t go back out there with the words stuck to my face. I tried again to wash them off but the door flung open, hitting my right arm rather hard, knocking me off balance just so much that I almost fell into the toilet.
“Oh, sorry,” said a girl of maybe thirteen. “I thought the door was just stuck. Are you all right?” She took my throbbing arm and helped me regain my balance. I clenched my teeth to bear the pain. My left hand immediately flew up to my face.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
She didn’t say anything more. We danced with each other for a moment, not sure who was the one that was going to go to the left as the other went right. I finally took the right and moved fast to get around her. I caught a glance of my reflection in the mirror.. nothing.. no words. My face was clear. I sighed in relief, and inhaled with wonder. Tom was sitting in my seat when I got back to the table. Instead of having him move, I sat down next to Tam and pulled my empty cup close to me.
“I wasn’t sure if you wanted more,” said Tam. I nodded in comprehension.
“Molly, I was just telling Tam about the Jane Doe the boys found- Sara Olny. Her neck was broken, strangled, as well as a blunt trauma to the back of her head, most likely when she hit the pavement. But we’re working on it. John is over there now with her.”
Maggie stopped at our table with more coffee. “Hi Tom. How’s life today?”
“Loving every minute of it, Maggie.”
“Coffee?”
“Hate to say no, so I’ll say yes!”
Maggie laughs. What the hell was with all of this flirting? I was feeling a bit left out.
As Maggie poured more coffee into our ever empty cups, I noticed that she had a rather large scar in the inside of her left wrist. The scar wasn’t a straight line that might have suggested a suicide attempt, but instead it had a pattern to it, jagged with rounded corners. It didn’t look like a tattoo, but it had to have been a deliberate placement. There’s no way this design could have been an accident.
“A chance of snow today...” I heard a voice from somewhere. I looked up and realized that Maggie was talking to me. Tom and Tam were looking at me, as well, but tried not to be obvious about it.
“Huh?” I said dumbly. I wondered what was in the coffee. I was feeling a little, well...drunk. My ears even buzzed, like I had just been to very loud rock concert and spent most of the time right next to the speakers. I kept hearing words that somehow felt too familiar, like a song I couldn’t get out of my head. Plus, my arm was still throbbing.
“I said that I was hoping to get in a short run today after my shift ended, but they were just saying on the news that there is a chance of snow,” she kindly repeated. “More coffee?”
“Oh, no thanks. I think I’ve had enough caffeine.”
“Can I get you anything else?”
“Yes, please. Can I have the California Cheeseburger with fries and extra sauce on the side, please, and a glass of water. Thanks.” I was satisfied with my order. It was past noon and I hadn’t eaten anything since early this morning. I was hungry. The boys looked at me again, but I didn’t care. To my surprise, they took my lead. Tom ordered grilled cheese and tomato soup whereas Tam, sitting next to me, ordered the same thing I did. I smiled at him and he smiled back at me. My cheeks hurt from all of this polite smiling. Under the table I felt his hand nudge my leg. A certain kind of warmth grew from the spot where he touched me and spread through out the rest of my body. My heartbeat thumped against my ribs and I felt so good at that moment I wished that I could stay there for a little longer rather than going into the short few minutes it would take to pass through on our way to the next chunk of time when we would no longer be in the restaurant, but rather back in the morgue. I shut the thought of that time out of my mind and concentrated on this moment. The future would come soon enough. It always does.
But for the moment, for one glorious moment, I was away from all that was bothering me. The burger was excellent, and the fries were perfect. Tam was by my side. I was in heaven. Then that other thing came up again...
“Did you look at the photos?” asked Tom.
“Photos?” I asked as I slowly snapped out of it.
“The photos of Will.”
I felt a bit nauseous. My mood was once again darkened. Tam stood in for me.
“Yes, I looked at them. They really didn’t reveal anything different than what we actually saw on Will. What exactly should we be looking for? I just don’t get it.”
“John was quite taken back by it when he first examined Will. The first thing he said was to ‘Get Molly down here, She’d know.’ So we called you right away.” Tom swirled the photos around so that he could see them better.
I heard him, I just didn’t respond right away. Or at least, didn’t want to answer him right away. He stared at me. It was like he was trying to mentally extract the words out of my vocal cords where they were stuck and refused to come out. He started to win.
I sighed loudly. “The marks...” I shook my head. I inhaled and let it go... “John believes that the wounds were self inflicted.” My mind suddenly clicked. I actually heard it click. “They aren’t wounds; they are words,” I heard myself say.
“Elaborate?” asked Tom.
I paused.
“Molly?” whispered Tam.
“Not sure about that yet,” I said loudly, startling myself with my overcompensation.
He spread the photos further out on the table. “Please let me know when you might have an idea about them. ‘Cause I don’t see it.”
“You’ll be the first to know.” I took a few bites of my French fries that were at this point cold and limp. I dipped them into the left over salt and chewed them slowly, savoring the delicious disgustingness of them. “Can I take these along?”
“Please do.”
Several minutes passed without anyone speaking.
“Molly?” asked Tom.
“Yes?”
“You look pensive.”
I laughed. “I’m always pensive.”
“Yes, she is.” Tam agreed.

Chapter 3 Part 2

********
It took me more than an hour to get back to my apartment above the General Store, next to Will Brown’s Coast to Coast store. I couldn’t bring myself to go past the store so I parked in back and walked up the back entrance. I started to feel really bad about Will. His death was fairly straightforward; nothing pointed towards fowl play, but I would still like to know what had happened to him out there on the hill. Even in his death, he might have seen something. For now, I mourn his death, but not for long. He was just another piece of my past that would haunt me forever. I’ll have plenty of time to cry for him.
Oh, Shit. I forgot. The thought hit me as I flicked on the lights to my apartment. I was supposed to talk to Will’s wife. Damn it, I can’t believe I forgot!
“Forgot what?”
I jumped. “Jesus Christ! Will you stop doing that?”
She laughed. “Man, you are jumpy lately. You need to do some yoga or something to help you clam down.”
“If you would stop sneaking up on me I most likely wouldn’t be so jumpy.”
She made some sort of guttural ‘tsk’ at me and said, “Soorrrrrr-rrrrrreeeeee.” She walked around the room to the couch and slumped herself at the end.
“Comfortable?”
“Uh-huh. Thanks.” She yawns.
“Long day.”
She shrugged.
“What did you do?”
“Not much.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me about my day?”
“Oh, yeah! How did it go? Did you go out to the car?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Do have the case solved already?”
“No.”
She made that guttural ‘tsk’ again. “You were supposed to have this done by now.”
“I’m tired, Kat.”
“There’s a little girl out there alone and scared. Frankly, I’m not sure why you are here, when you should be out there looking for her.”
“It’s dark out there. And it looks like it’s going to snow again.”
“That is such a lame excuse.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Are you ‘thinking’ again?”
“Yes.”
“About?”
“I’m thinking that I need to go and talk to Will’s wife.”
“Who is Will?”
“He owned the Coast to Coast store.”
“Have I met him?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Where is he?”
“In the morgue. Two of them went in.”
“Were they both yours?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Damn. You do have a puzzle.”
I nodded my head in agreement. “Will, supposedly, died of exposure. The woman- damn it! I forgot to get her name from Kelly.” I huffed with disgust in myself. “The woman was killed by the man who took Kylie.” Damn it, I cursed myself. How could I be so stupid? I wanted to cry. In Kat’s words, where the hell am I? “Kat, I gotta go. Rain check on dinner?”
“Sure. But you owe me big-time!”
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Are going to the morgue?”
“I go where ever you go.”
“Then I shall see you there.”
I smiled at her. My head hurt as I tried to think of all of the things I have forgotten. I got into my Jeep and drove to the Brown’s house. The roads were clear while just a few flakes still fell from the sky. The lights were on downstairs in the living room so I went to the front door instead of the kitchen door as I sometimes did if I was patrolling in the morning. They were both early risers and I had an open invitation for morning coffee and possibly an egg or two, warm biscuits and always right-out-of-the-oven cinnamon rolls with homemade icing. I started to drool just at the thought of them.
She opened the door and smiled at me. “Hello, Molly. I didn’t expect to see you back so soon. Come on in. Would you like some tea?”
“Thank you, Marissa. That would be fine.” I sat down on their lush red velvet couch. Stepping in the Brown’s house was like stepping into the 1940s. The house had once belonged to Will’s grandparents. When he and Marissa were married in the Sixties, they signed the mortgage over to them and retired to Florida. The old victrola still stood in the corner where it was placed nearly seventy years ago. The lace that draped over the back of the couch was handmade by Will’s great grandmother. The lamps were his grandparents’ wedding presents. The rugs are so old that there were wear patterns from foot traffic, but if you lift the couch, you would be able to see at least twenty-five inches of original pattern. The wallpaper had been changed in the early eighties, when the original paper started to peel, but Marissa decided to keep it close to what had been there and special ordered a similar pattern. I know this because my brother and I were hired to help put the new paper up. I can still taste the fresh lemonade and an occasional splatter of wallpaper paste when we would ‘accidentally’ get messy whipping chunks of it at each other. Just don’t look behind the armchair.
“Here you are.”
“Thank you.”
She sighed as she sat down next to me. Words escaped me so I just took a very cautious drink. She spoke first.
“That Tam is such a nice man.”
“Yes, he is.” Why would she mention him? I wondered.
“He was so polite when he stopped by this evening.”
“Tam was here?”
“Oh yes. I asked him in, offered him some tea, but he just stood the foyer, hat in his hands. Will had always liked Tam. ‘Fine young man,’ he would say. I suppose that’s why he felt it was his duty to come over and tell me about Will.” She took a sip of her tea. Her lip quivered a bit as it hit the hot surface, but her hands stayed steady and smooth. Mine, on the other hand, trembled slightly. I couldn’t believe that Tam didn’t tell me he came here already. At least Marissa knew the truth about her husband. Finally.
“It’s been four weeks since he disappeared. I’m glad that he is not alone anymore.” She smiled at me. She looked so young for her age, and me, I felt twice my age. And looked it, too. “I appreciate you coming by, Molly. Will always liked you and your family. How is your mother doing? Was it a nice funeral?” She took a sip of tea. “It is so hard, isn’t?”
I started to itch.
“I lost a husband of almost forty years. I don’t know what I would do if I had lost one of my children. And so young...” She made a noise with her tongue and I just wanted to run away, screaming. I really liked Marissa, but her sympathy was poison. She was coping well with her loss; I was not.
“Yeah, well, I just wanted to make sure you were ok, and to see if you needed anything.”
“You are such a sweet girl. I am surprised to see you back so soon. I have a lasagna dish in the freezer for you. I was going to bring it by when you got back, but I didn’t think that was going to be until Wednesday. Did you have good driving weather?”
“Fine.” Yeah, fine.
“Dinner is almost done, would like to have a bite?” I took a deep breath. This was not the time to lose it. I smiled. It hurt. I shook my head no. She smiled a knowing smile, an understanding smile. “I’ll bring over the lasagna tomorrow on the way to the shop.”
“Thank you so much, Marissa. But I’m the one who should be bringing you dinner.”
“Oh! That’s sweet, but not necessary. I’m fine. I’ve been able to say goodbye to Will on my own terms.” She looked over into the darkest corner of the room and winked. I pretended not to notice and continued to sip my tea.
“Ah, well,” she said in the lapse of conversation. That was about all I could think to say, too. I finished my tea for an excuse to leave.
“Thanks again for the tea, Marissa. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiled and nodded. She was so happy that she could cook for me. Being of the older generation, Marissa knew the importance of comfort food. But not even all of the lasagna in the world could bring my little sister back from the dead. I excused myself and started off for the police station.
I got about a block away from the Brown’s house and I had to pull over. The tears flowed forth like never before. All through the funeral I hadn’t cried, well, maybe a few tears, but nothing like this. The feeling I had all the time I looked upon her frozen face made me more confused than any other feeling in my heart. I have seen several hundred dead faces over the course of my career as police officer, detective and sheriff and I had never had the need to mourn any of them, but when that face is the face that appears in your memory as bright and alive, smiling and laughing; the feeling of apathy turns into love and from love, complete and incredible sorrow. This face I mourned, because this face I loved.
The time was almost 7pm when the flow of tears finally subsided. I dried off as best as I could, but I could still feel the burn in my eyes. Who cares? I drove into the station lot and parked next to Tam’s truck. Colleen had already gone home and Kelly was still on the hunt. Tam looked at me as I walked through the door, but he didn’t say anything. He just came up to me and held me. That was one of the things I loved about him. I never need to say anything. I don’t even need to look at him. He was able to read my thoughts, I was sure of that and I was glad of that, because I don’t really feel like talking, ever, ever again. And I was even gladder of the fact that Tam doesn’t need to say anything to me. He knows there are no words; nothing that exists in this world of words that would make any difference in the way I was feeling, nothing that he could say that would in any way ease me. The only thing he needed to do was to hold me, and he knew this, and for that, I was so grateful.
I dried my eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time.
I leaned against Colleen’s desk as Tam brought me a cup of tea.
“It doesn’t taste very good but it’s warm.”
“Thank you.”
“Why are you back? I thought you were going to turn in early for once.”
“When did I say that?”
“You didn’t. You left early, so I thought...” He waited for me to catch up.
“Oh. Yeah, I suppose I was going to, but... I remembered a few things and...” I took a deep sigh. My breath was still off and I found it hard to try to right it. I took a couple of deep breaths, tried to calm myself at the same time. I think it was working. Tam has a calm affect on people. I think that was another reason why I loved him.
“I have it under control. You don’t need to be here,” he said softly.
“I know you do. I stopped by Marissa Brown. Seems that you beat me to it.”
“I didn’t want you to have worry about it.”
There was a silence. Then he said, “I should have told you that I was going over there.”
I shrugged. “I’m glad you did, but I wish you didn’t feel like you had to do it alone.”
Another pause. “Molly,” he said, “I loved Will, too. You know what he meant to me. I felt obliged... to at least... let her know what we found...”
I couldn’t help it; I started to cry again. It wasn’t even me that cried, it was like my eyes still had some tears in them that they needed to get rid of. It wasn’t me, I swear. Tam waited for the shivers to subside. He moved closer to me. I felt his body heat next to me. I silently wished that he would hold me again, but my hands gripped the teacup tightly, leaving no room open for an impromptu hug. Damn me. It was ok. I was ok; I just leak a little.
“Molly?”
“Yes?”
“I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer to him.
The CB on Colleen’s desk started to hum. We both lost ourselves for a moment as we looked at the machine in anticipation of a voice, but nothing came. In any case, it broke the tension a little and Tam stood up and walked over to the stack of files and papers he had been looking through before I came in.
“I did some research on Sara Olny.”
“Who?”
“Sara Olny, the Jane Doe.”
“Ha, that’s why I’m here. I forgot.”
He smiled at me. He had such a warm smile.
“She was originally from Wisconsin, but moved to Iowa for school two years ago. During then and now, she left school and lived in Chicago for a while. Her records are scattered; she signed up for classes but never finished them. She also had several places of residence in Chicago. We think she was on her way home for a visit. She still had another three hours to go.”
“Near Rockland?”
“Yeah, just east of there.”
“Have you contacted her family?”
“They are on their way down to identify her.”
The parents are coming here to identify the body of their daughter, their child. I felt dizzy and incredibly warm. My breath left me. The last thing I remember I had lowered my head and could see the ugly brown tile pattern of the station floor. I blinked my eyes and realized, slowly, that I was sitting on the ugly brown tile pattern of the station floor with Tam cradling my head in his arms. He had a paper towel in his hand soaked in cold water pressed against my forehead. I had the image of my mother and father having to go to the morgue to identify the body of their youngest daughter. A sight I couldn’t quite imagine, but also a sight I wish I had been there for. I could have held hands; I could have given a shoulder for them to cry on. I could have done something, what exactly, I don’t know. I just felt so far away from everyone. I think I needed them more than they needed me.
“You ok?” He whispered to me.
“No.”
He kissed me lightly on my cool forehead and rocked me like an infant. I didn’t mind. I felt like an infant, it seemed only fitting that I’d be treated like one.
“I’m taking you home.” I nodded. I let him. I let him walk me to his car; I let him walk me to my apartment; I let him undress me and I let him kiss me. I let him stay the night and I let him make me pancakes for breakfast.

Chapter 3, Part 1 Fear is the ultimate excuse for someone to not do what someone doesn’t want to do.

I drove out to the spot where they found the car. Another four miles and I would find myself at Grandpa’s cabin. I thought briefly that the suspect would have gone there, but there was nothing left of the place- the floors, the walls, the roof, it was all destroyed in the fire. There was a shed that might still be there, but after twenty years of neglect, I doubt that it still stands.
Tam came up to greet me. Kelly had beaten me to the scene. He followed Tam and I laughed to myself about what Kat had said- Kelly did look like a little puppy, bounding after Tam, so happy and jumpy. Tam turned to him before they got too close and Kelly headed off in the other direction, just as happy as the second before.
“Hey there, Boss. Anything new on the home-front?”
“Besides Kelly beaming with helpful joy?”
“Really? He did good? He just got here, too. Didn’t say much. He just grinned.” Tam looked into the direction Kelly went and shook his head in wonder of the kid.
“Well, he didn’t do bad. The information he gave me may be very useful, I just don’t know how yet.”
Tam laughed. I followed him over to where the car had run into a large Maple tree near the side of the road. Skid marks, footprints, no blood. Tam had taken photos of everything. He gave the tour; footprints lead to the North, they gave a good lead in the snow. Two units were already sent to follow them. Inside the car left little for detail except for the fingerprints on the steering wheel. In the trunk he found small bits of blood and blond hair. There were also bits of torn cloth, chunks of still frozen and melted snow, and one small toy in the shape of kitten, pink, attached to a hook that kids, in general, like to hook to their backpacks. I’m sure she snatched it off of her backpack so that she could have something that would comfort her as she was being taken from the world she knew. Now that we have the kitty, I wonder if she had anything that would comfort her now.
“Boss? Come over here and take a look.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a burn mark on this tree. The car itself doesn’t look like it burned, just smashed, but the tree here- look- it’s burned about one-foot square, just about the impact.”
“Could it have happened before the crash? At another time or another accident?”
“Ah, that’s what I thought, but feel it- it’s still warm.”
That is was. Warm to the touch as Tam had said. Tam had turned his attention away from the tree as another squad car pulled up behind us.
“Molly,” he nudged at me. I glanced behind me to see the squad car pull up with its bright lights still on. I was more interested in the burn mark than who this joker was. I growled under my breath at the interruption. I swallowed my annoyance as I turned to greet the approaching officer.
“Mark Gaunt, from County,” he introduced himself.
“Mark, how are things?” I stretched out my hand and he took it.
He shrugged his shoulders and continued. “I have a message from Tom. He has a few questions about the body found on the hill.”
“About Mr. Brown?”
“Yes.”
“Tom sent you fifty miles to find me? Why didn’t he call?”
“He said he did, but no one answered.”
“At the station?”
“Yes; I called the office and a... Colleen answered. She said she paged you, but you never answered. She said she was sure you were in the office, but, like I said, no one could get through to you.”
“Oh.” It must have been during my time on the floor. I blushed a little, but then felt the blood quickly flood away.
“You ok?” Asked Tam.
“What?”
“You look a little pale.” He moved closer to me and put his hand on my arm.
I looked at him like he was crazy. “Yes, I’m fine,” I lied. “I had stepped out. I guess I just missed him.”
“Can you come down?”
“What?” I had another feeling of not quite knowing where I was.
“Down to County, can you come down to talk to Tom?”
“Now?” I didn’t want to go. I was so tired, hungry, confused, and slightly miserable. I knew that if I went, it would be hours before I could sleep, even longer before I ate, and it seemed like forever until I could get some alone time. But I didn’t tell him what I was actually thinking, so I lied and said that I wasn’t comfortable driving the distance that late at night with the weather so volatile.
“He really needs you tonight.” He sighed. He had come all of this way for nothing.
“I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning.”
Tam chimed in, “I’ll drive you.” I looked at him with gratitude.
“Tam and I will be there by 8 a.m.”
He didn’t want to give in, I could see it on his face. He was on a mission and didn’t want to leave empty handed. Mark sighed again and gave a resigned “Ok.” He got into his car. He immediately flicked on the lights, which blinded us. I thought it might be rude to just leave and go back to the tree, so I waited until he pulled away, Tam stood vigilantly by my side. We had to shield our eyes from the bright glare. Mark moved around a little inside the car, probably called Tom to tell him that I wasn’t coming. After a few minutes he backed up and pulled away. Tam and I stood there and quietly watched him drive away. I knew he wanted to ask me why I didn’t want to go tonight- ordinarily I would have jumped into the car and sped away with the excitement of something in fruition. He could tell, though, that this time, there was something holding me back. If he had asked, I would have had to lie to him. How can you tell someone who looks to you for leadership that you’re tired and you just don’t want to. Kat will yell at me when I tell her what happened tonight.
“Tam, do you have all of your photos?” I asked with dry lips.
“Yes, Boss,” he said solemnly.
“Can you have the car towed back to the station?”
“Yes, Boss, I can do that.”
“Ok,” I let Tam do his job and turned to find the man-child. “Kelly?”
“Yeah?” He ran over to us.
“I’m leaving you in charge of this. Tam and I will be heading down to the County Morgue tomorrow. I want you to follow up on the units out there already and I want you to follow those tracks, take backup if you need them and see if you can borrow a couple of Daniel McCreeny’s dogs. We’ve used them before. They know the area well. I want you to call me the second you hear anything or come across anything. And I mean anything- do you hear me? I don’t care how insignificant you may think it is, I want to know everything you see and everything you don’t see. All right?”
“You got it, Molly.” Kelly gave me a little salute, which I ignored.
“Ok. I’m going home. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Ok.”
“Tam?”
“Yes, Boss?”
“Thanks.”
“Your welcome.”

Chapter 2 Pieces fall together like a puzzle that doesn’t fit, unless you force them...

I stopped cold in the snow. Tam turned around, opened his mouth to say something but then saw what I was starring at. There were bits of glass around my feet, sitting comfortably on the snow. Then I smelled it; rum. The bottle had smashed against a tree trunk, spraying the rum to make a half loop to the east, indicating that the person who threw it was standing down the hill, facing west. There was also the same set of footprints Tom had found leaving the area. Only these were leading up the hill, towards the schoolhouse, not away like the others. The rum was still slightly wet against the tree. He must have smashed it right before he took Kylie. My heart skipped a beat at the thought that I could have disturbed these footprints by my carelessness, but I pushed the feeling aside and told myself to be grateful that I saw them when I had. I took some photos of the glass shards and the rum spray and Tam collected as many pieces of the glass as he could, all the while snow lightly floated down on us, making our job very difficult.
“Do you think we got everything?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so. The snows really coming down, now. If we stay out here much longer we won’t find anything new anyway. Take those shards up to Tom, will ya? Ask if he can get any prints or DNA off of them.”
“Sure thing, boss,” he said as he started to climb up the hill. I stood still in the snow, just looking around. Tam looked back at me, “You coming?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You want me to wait for you?”
“Nah, go ahead. Ask Tom for a ride back.” My voice drifted of somewhere, couldn’t tell you where.
Tam nodded, “Ok.”
“And Tam?”
“Yeah?”
“Make you first priority Jane Doe. See if you can find anything on her- if anyone in town was expecting her...” My voice trailed off again and my mind started to spin.
“You got it, boss.”
I stood there for another minute, just looking around, watching the snowfall; watching it land softly on the ground. Thoughts went spinning through my head, yet I didn’t really think of a thing. I started to make my way up the hill, but the under-layer of snow was slightly frozen and very slippery, so of course, I slipped and fell about ten feet before I caught my foot on a sapling. My heart was racing and I tried to calm down. Stupid. I should have known better. I grew up on these hills, snow and no snow. I knew the ways of winter, but at that moment, I knew nothing. I sat there in the snow, ass freezing, but in a way it felt good; it was just what I had needed- a moment of frozen thought; the man came from the east. Did he drink the rum? Was he drunk? Is it worth my time trying to figure out where he came from instead of trying to focus on where he had gone with Kylie? He had a car belonging to someone who didn’t live in the town... an out of state license... of course! I smacked a mitten-clad hand to my forehead. I called out to see if Tom or Tam were still around. No one answered. As quick as my 33-year old legs could move, I scrambled up the hill back to my squad car. Damn me for not having my phone on me and I had stashed my radio back in the car at lunch. I was out of breath as I made it to the Jeep...
“Colleen?”
Static.
“COLLEEN!!”
Static.
“DAMN IT!! Is there anyone out there? Please respond!”
“Sorry, Molly. Potty break. What’s up?”
“Colleen, where is Kelly?”
“He’s getting us some coffee. Tam just came in frozen to the core. That fool walked back-”
“Put Tam on.”
“Ok, but let him warm up first...”
“NOW! Colleen, this is important!”
“Ok. Ok, hang on... Tam? It’s Molly...” I could hear the receiver rustle as it was handed over to Tam.
“Yeah, Boss. What’s up?”
“Is the paperwork Kelly filled out on his Red-light Runner there?”
“Yeah, right on top.”
“Read it to me.”
“Ok- Car- Tan 1996 Chevy Impala Four-door Sedan. License Plate XLK897 Iowa. Heading North on Main; ran the red light at Main and Hatfield; driver male, Caucasian, brown hair, blue eyes, unshaven with strong jaw line.” Tam snickered. “Strong jaw line?”
“Tam, find me that car.”
“What about Jane Doe?”
“She belongs to that car.”
“The Red-light Runner?”
“And I think that man killed her and has Kylie.”
“I’m on it. Tam Out.”
My head felt woosey. I leaned against the Jeep to steady myself, lost my consciousness in thoughts when BAM! Something hit the side of the Jeep. “SHIT!” I accidentally let slip. I looked up to see Kat laugh at me. “You scared me.”
“I could tell. Where were you?”
“When?”
“Just now. I’ve been watching you for the last ten minutes and you haven’t moved, staring at the ground. You didn’t even hear me calling you.”
“Huh,” I said, still lingering in my thoughts.
“What were you looking for, black holes in the pavement?” She gave me a couple of seconds to answer but I didn’t. I did hear her give a little laugh to herself. “Hello? Where are you?”
“Kat, come on. I’m working on a case.” I started to walk around myself in wide circles. I could hear the kids inside the school getting their books and jackets ready for their walks home. A van, in lieu of an official bus, was near by waiting for Dave to take a few of the kids back to their parents’ farms. I could already hear the whispers and murmurs.
“So what is it this time, detective; a murder?”
“Yeah. And a kidnapping.”
“All right! Cool! This is right up your ally! What do we do first?”
“We?”
She smiles at me. Cars started to slowly stream onto the small blacktop parking lot/playground to make sure their kids made it home.
“First, we get into the Jeep and get out of here before we are swarmed with children.”
“And Parents.” Kat made a grimaced face and slid into the passenger seat.
“You know, Kat, it really is good to see you, but... I find it a little disturbing that you think a murder/kidnapping is ‘cool’.”
“You know how much I love to watch you work. Such brilliance, such dedication! You’ve solved every case you had in Chicago.”
“Not every case.”
“Nearly every case.” She sighed, “You’ll do fine. I expect you’ll have this case solved by tomorrow.”
“Oh you think so, huh? I’m glad you have such confidence in me.”
“You are the best. Besides, you have me on your side.”
“Did you bring your crystal ball with you?”
She snickered with irony. “Yeah, sure, and my voodoo doll, too.” She smiled at me and pointed to the corner just before the police station. “Drop me off here. I’ll see you later.”
“You bet.” I watched her walk away.
Kelly was waiting for me in the parking lot. He looked white as a ghost. How can I ease it to him; tell him it wasn’t his fault that he let the Red-light Runner go.
I need a drink.
“Molly!”
“Yes, Kelly?” I barely closed the door as he ascended on me.
“We have the car!”
“Yeah? Where is it?”
“It was found abandoned about 13 miles north of here- near Lake Wilde.”
“Anything found inside?”
“Yes! Lots! We found several bags, a purse- a name for Jane Doe, some books, and a jacket.”
“Anything belonging to the man you saw driving the car?”
“Uh, no.”
“Fingerprints?”
“At the lab. Fingerprints were found on the door, the steering wheel and also on the trunk, which is where we think...”
“... he had Kylie?”
“Yeah.” He sounded so desperate, so sad.
“No one blames you, Kelly. It would have happened the same way if Tam or I had pulled him over.”
“You would have asked for registration. You would have asked for a driver’s license. I wished him to have a good day and sent him on his merry kidnapping way!” He shouted. Ok, yeah, I would have done it differently. I was just trying to be nice.
“You can help me now by telling me everything he said, everything he looked at while you were talking to him, What he looked like- everything, Kelly, do you understand?”
He nodded. He looked like a little boy waiting for his final punishment. It was a costly mistake, but it was a mistake. We’ve all made them and I am no exception. We walked inside the building to find a grim look on Colleen’s face as she filed her papers.
“Kelly, wait for me in my office.” He turned away with his head hanging low. “Colleen?”
She turned to me slightly, papers and files still in her hands. “He’s still on the loose, isn’t he?” she asked in a very hushed voice.
“Looks that way.”
Her hands started to tremble a little. “You will catch him, won’t you?” I could understand her fear. She had three children under the age of fifteen who attended school with Kylie White.
“I’ll do my best.” I didn’t resist the urge to place my hand on her arm. “Your kids will be fine, Colleen. Don’t worry.” She nodded at me with tight lips. “Did Ron pick them up?” She gave me another tight lip nod. “Ok, then. They’ll be fine. We’ll find Kylie.”
For the first time in a long time, I had a bad feeling about the events that took place. I couldn’t explain it, but I’ve had these feelings before and they’ve always been right. I walked into my office to find Kelly paging through mug-shot books. I smiled to myself. Good boy, Kelly. He is so desperate to prove himself. I felt a little desperate for him, too.
“Find anything?”
“No,” he said, flatly.
“Could you say how old he was?”
“It’s hard to say. He looked young at first, but when he turned his head, he looked really old. And then when he turned back to me, he looked younger than the first time I saw him.”
“He turned his head? Did you see what he was looking at? Or in which direction he faced?”
A loud rumble interrupted us. The glass panes started to shake. I quickly turned to see several leafless trees bending drastically in the wind outside. Fear struck me. Thunder rolled over the station, and as fast is it began, it stopped. I could feel my heart beat in my chest. It felt like a tornado had just passed over my building. What a horrible feeling.
“He was going north on Main and just past Hatfield. He looked over his left shoulder- past me. It seemed like he was just looking around. I didn’t think, at the time, that he was m-m-menacing.”
I turned my attention back to Kelly. “Are you ok?” I put a hand on his shoulder. He shook a little. “Do you want some water?” He nodded yes. “Some nice cold water on this nice cold, blustery day.”
“The wind really kicked up didn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I responded as I poured some water for each of us.
“Is it still snowing?” Kelly strained his head to see out the window.
“I don’t think so.” I handed him a cup and took a few sips of my own cup. It tasted fresh, so chilled and clean. The coolness reached my nose cavity and stung a little. “In any case,” I recovered, “if the snow hasn’t covered evidence, the wind will blow it away.”
“We’re really flying blind, aren’t we?”
“Aren’t we always?” I muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Let’s get back to the stranger- is there anything else outstanding that you can remember?”
Kelly took a minute to think until the look on his face was one of eureka. “He had the bluest eyes I had ever seen; even bluer than my dad’s. These were so piercing, so icy blue; they startled me.”
Blue eyes, icy blue. The thought of them made me shiver. “What else, Kelly? His hair- what color was his hair?”
“Yeah, his hair...” he proceeded with caution. “His hair. At first, I thought it was blonde, but like I said before when he turned his head, his face looked older- the same goes for his hair. It turned darker, almost like Tam’s hair- that rich, dark brown. But when he faced forward again, he looked blonde again. It was really weird- like one of those holograms that change when you tilt it to the side. This doesn’t make any sense to you, does it?”
“I have to admit, it is weird. But I know you’re not lying to me.” I looked at him straight in his eye. “I know you would tell me everything you know.” I think I used too much stress because Kelly’s eyes grew a little wider. He seemed to be afraid of something- most likely me.
“I’m telling you everything I know, Molly. I swear. I don’t know anything else.”
I immediately broke off my gaze. I was scaring the poor boy.
“I know, Kelly. Thank you. If you do remember anything else, though, please let me know.”
“Of course, Molly.”
“Why don’t you take these books into the lounge? I need to make a few phone calls.”
“Ok, Molly.” He gathered the mug shot books and a few stray bits of paper and left my office quietly. I exhaled long and bit harder than normal. The air hurt slightly as it escaped my lungs, like the burning sensation of the first time I tried a cigarette with my best friend Sherrie behind her father’s tool shed in 8th grade. I hadn’t thought about that memory in a long time. It made me laugh. We were in more trouble for stealing her father’s cigarettes than getting caught for smoking at such a young age. “Get your own,” he said in a gruff voice, “and leave mine the hell alone.” And that was it. Nothing more was said about the matter, and neither of us ever tried it again. How odd it is that I should think about that now.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“Hey, Kat. When did you get here?”
“Just now. How long have you been gone this time?”
“Not long. Just a stray memory.” I smiled.
“Any progress on the case?”
“Not much at the moment, but I’m waiting for the lab to get back to me on some fingerprints.”
“Well, that’s good! It will give you an I.D. on this asshole, at least.”
“Yes, but it won’t tell us where’s he’s taken Kylie.”
“How do you know that it won’t at least give a clue?”
“He’s not from around here. He might not even know the area.”
“Do you know that for absolute sure?”
“No.”
“Then there is a possibility...” She tapped her finger against her mouth as she leaned on the wall by the door.
“There are always possibilities, Kat. I think, maybe...” I lost my thought.
“Well there’s your problem! You’re thinking too much.”
“I am?”
“Oh, hell yes. I say, stop all of this thinking and get out there and do!”
“Do what?”
“Do what you do best! Solve the case.”
“I suppose I could go for a drive.”
“That a girl!”
“Excuse me?” Kelly knocked on the door.
“Yes, Kelly?”
“I don’t want to interrupt you, but I sketched out a ruff face of the suspect. And I was also thinking about what you said before- about what he did in the car- what he saw or what he said.”
“Do you remember something?”
“Yes. He said some things. A few things actually.”
I can’t believe forgot to ask him about what the guy had said, or if he said anything. Good boy, Kelly. “Go ahead,” I said calmly.
“When I pulled him over, he said, ‘Is there a problem officer?’ and I said, ‘Sir, you ran a red light.’ And then he didn’t say anything, like he knew very well that he had, but didn’t want to admit to it or deny it. And I did ask him for a license, but he said that he didn’t have it with him. He also said that his wallet was at the hotel he and his girlfriend were staying at and that the car was hers. He was using it to get some groceries.” Kelly scratched his head in thought. He continued, “I remember thinking that he didn’t have any grocery bags in the car, and that maybe they were in the trunk. And I told him that he needed to be careful around here, especially in an out of state car. He said that he was sorry and didn’t realize what he had done. But then he said something funny, just after he turned his head to look out of the window. He said, ‘Sometimes, we do things when we aren’t aware when we do them. Like we’re on autopilot; letting someone else drive our minds for a while. We don’t react like we should.’ I wonder what he meant by that.”
“I don’t know.” I tried to scratch everything he said down on the bit of paper. ‘We do things when we aren’t aware... we don’t react like we should.’ It’s true. I haven’t been reacting like I should. Though I’m sure he wasn’t talking about me, personally. But in general, the world- the world wasn’t reacting to things like it should. We’ve all been walking around like zombies lately, reacting lackadaisically to everything that’s been happening across the globe. Or it could be just the ranting of a lunatic.
“Thanks, Kelly. I really appreciate this.”
“Will it help? What he said to me, do you think it will help?” Kelly asked in excited anticipation.
“I’ll let you know. Thanks, Kelly.”
“Sure, anytime.”
Kat smiled at me from other side of the room. She was still leaning up against the wall behind Kelly. She lifted her wrists up, let her hands fall, stuck her tongue out and mimicked the panting of a dog with the same kind of excitement in her eyes as Kelly did. I smiled to myself, knowing that if I’d laugh, I’d have to explain. And I never was able to explain Kat.
“You can go now, Kelly. I’ll call you if I need you,” I said calmly as I pretended to leaf through some papers.
“Oh, Ok, Molly. I’ll be in the office room.”
“Ok.” Kelly left and half skipped to the room my officers shared. Kat immediately burst out laughing.
“Stop it!” I scolded her.
“I can’t help it! He is so cute! With his big puppy dog face- he is so adorable.”
“You are so mean...”
“I am not! He is cute! Don’t you think he’s cute?”
“He’s not my type.”
“You’re just angry because you haven’t been laid in a while.”
“Shut up!” I jokingly snapped at her. She rolled her eyes at me as she sat in the chair across from my desk. I sat down, too. The lunatic’s words still hung in my head. ‘Not aware of what we do- autopilot- don’t react like we should.’ I looked at Kelly’s sketch- the face was jumbled like the pieces didn’t fit, like they didn’t belong on a real face, but the eyes were interesting. They were round and square at the same time. I wondered to myself if these were really his eyes or just a part of Kelly’s imagination.
“Are you gone again?”
“Yes. And you should be, too. I need to get to work.”
“Please let me go with you. I love...”
“...to watch me work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some other time, my love.” I got up and walked around to her chair. Kat pouted at me with her own puppy dog eyes. I kissed her on the forehead and patted her hair. I did miss spending time with her, but this time, something from the far back crevasse in my brain told me that I had to go on alone. I think best when I’m alone, however, I could have used another pair of eyes. My head started to hurt. “I’ll see you later?”
“Fine.” She huffed as she gave me hug goodbye. “You better make me something fabulous for dinner.”
“Deal.”
I was alone. Finally.
I stood in the middle of my office and looked around the room. Suddenly, everything felt so unfamiliar, as though I had never been here before. Where was I? Who was I? My head swirled a little, spun slightly, a tightness gripped at my chest, and then the weight of it all crashed down upon me. I’m not sure how long I was there, but when I came to, I realized I was on the floor. At least I felt like I was back, or at least conscious. It was my office, my name is Molly, and I really need to sweep in here. The dust collected in the corners and around the legs of my desk. The door was slightly open and I could see Colleen walk around the office with papers in her hands. She hadn’t seen me go down. My right arm started to throb a little. I helped my self up on the chair and immediately went for my keys. The small drawer at the bottom of my desk was always kept locked. I opened it to see the array of bottles I kept hidden in there: Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Naproxen, oxycodone, chocolate, small bottles of airplane alcohol, and more chocolate. I reached for the Ibuprofen and the chocolate.
As I loaded a fist full of small chocolate bits into my mouth. I noticed the papers lying on my desk; fanned out to show most of their secrets, the papers themselves held nothing for me, but rather it was the shape that they made. The words on the pages, the lines of direction from Kelly’s crude drawing of what he thought the stranger looked like, the charts and diagrams of the objects found at the school, all looked extremely familiar to me- it was a map. Lake Wilde: the left eye was the island in on the north end of the lake, the edge of the face traced the edge of the water, the diagram of the objects found showed the points of the curves in the road that runs alongside of the lake, and the words from Kelly’s testimony looked like the splattered trees that surrounded it. There it was, as well: the cabin. What was Stalva’s cabin on the diagram represented the old cabin that sat in ruins along the West shore of the lake. I knew that cabin well. It was my Grandfather’s. He had built it in the 1940s. My father’s father’s cabin, we would spend the summer there, which I always thought was strange since our house was only sixteen miles down the road. Often I would ride my bike back to my house and sit in my room and listen to records and later bike back for dinner. If there were one day that I could re-live, I would pick a day when we were all at that cabin. Each one of us kids, mom, dad, grandpa, tons of aunts and uncles and a spattering of cousins. It wasn’t a big cabin, it wasn’t a glamorous cabin, but the family together made it perfect.
My heart began to beat hard. I was also finding it difficult to breathe. Why would this image appear to me? I felt a bit nostalgic for the place. I know it’s only a shell and everything around has grown up to make the yard unrecognizable, but I would still like to see it again. Perhaps I can stop by sometime when I have time. I don’t think the ghosts will bother me. I’m family, after all.