A Wicked Snow (25 page)

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

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

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

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

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

"...speculation is running throughout the Northwest that an Alaskan woman named Louise Wallace is the notorious serial killer Claire Logan..."

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

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

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

"Hello?" she said.

"Hannah?" It was Bauer's gentle voice. "Are you all right?"

"A little shaky, I guess."

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

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

"I hadn't played them yet."

"Jesus," he said. "I'm very sorry, Hannah. I wanted to--"

"Is it
her
?"

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

"Do
you
think it's her?"

"Could be." Bauer said. "I honestly don't know."

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

"Sketchy. She's doesn't have a 'Sosh' number. No driver's license either. Needless to say, she's not talking. Not a peep. And get
this
--she has no fingerprints."

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

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

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

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

"My mother had blue eyes. Has blue eyes."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"How tall is she?"

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

"I'll be fine. Ethan will be home soon."

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

"Okay. Call me with anything at all. I mean it."

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

"Mommy!" Amber's exuberant voice called out. "We're home!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How could I have been so blind?" she asked.

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

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

"It's a guess, of course," Bauer said, "but I think Liz Wheaton--or whatever her name is--sent the shoes to Hannah Griffin."

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

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

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

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

"I've thought about that. But why? Hannah was just a kid when the place burned down."

Paine let out a laugh. "Haven't you learned the key to investigations yet?"

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

"What's that, Judge?" He did his best to remain polite.

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

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

"Maybe so. Thanks, Judge."

"What's your number at the Northern Lights?" she asked.

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

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

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

"I'm here," she lied.

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

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

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

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

"You need to rest," he said.

"I can't rest," she said, pushing it away. "I can't sleep. I don't even want to try anymore."

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

"Ethan..." her words fell off to a near whisper. "I'm so tired of all of this."

"We're
all
tired," he said. Not knowing how to comfort her, Ethan left the room.

At that moment, and at countless other instances strung like a necklace of razor blades around her neck, Claire Logan could not be excised from Hannah's thoughts--her true memories of what happened blended with the tales created and exhumed by the news media in search of a story. Marcella Hoffman had been the worst of the offenders. Seeing her at the courthouse had done nothing but push Hannah closer to the edge.

A car passed by on the street, its headlights filling the bedroom with a brightness that brought Hannah out of her thoughts. Then the car was gone. Hannah thought once more of Hoffman and wondered if she had been casing Loma Linda Avenue. A shiver went through her and she got up, pulling the afghan over her shoulders. She walked down the hall and nudged Ethan, now asleep on the sofa.

"I'm going to Kodiak," she said.

Ethan lifted his head from the sofa pillow. "Oh, Hannah," he said. "That's not a good idea. Nothing comes of these trips. It just tears you up."

"I can't help it. I have to know."

"What are we going to tell Amber this time?"

"I have business in Alaska."

"Not that. What are we going to say to our daughter if this woman is your mother, her grandmother? Or what if Marcella Hoffman decides to write an update about you and your life? What are we going to say to Amber?"

Hannah didn't have an explanation, though she'd considered the problem a million times.

"Scoot over and hold me," she said. She climbed on the sofa next to Ethan and he put his arms around her. There was barely enough room to hold the two of them on the narrow sofa cushions, but it didn't matter. With the world spinning out of control, Hannah Logan Griffin fell asleep.

The next morning, Hannah found herself in bed at 6 a.m. Ethan was already dressed.

"How?" she asked sleepily, remembering the night before.

"Carried you here. The two of us don't fit on the couch," he said, patting his stomach. "One of us needs to diet."

Ethan said nothing about what they had discussed the night before. He saw no point in it. He told Hannah that he and Amber would "single-dad" it again.

"Thanks," she said, sitting up and sliding her feet to the floor. "This will be the last time."

"I hope so, but I doubt it."

She had printed out online airline boarding passes that included a commuter flight from Santa Louisa's airport to LAX and a connection in Seattle that would put her in Anchorage late that night. Another flight would get her into Kodiak around midnight. It was the best she could do. It gave her a few hours in the office. Everything was planned to the minute. She'd call Bauer from Anchorage. From home, she changed her office voice mail to indicate she'd be out in the field all day, but to please leave a message as she checked them frequently.

Marcella Hoffman was waiting outside the main lab door. Wearing an ecru suit and jade blouse, Hoffman waved at Hannah.

"Morning," she said.

Hannah felt her stomach drop. "What are you doing here?"

"Had breakfast with Ted Ripperton and just hoping that I'd run into you. Saw the news last night. Think she's your mom?" Hannah ignored her question, and Hoffman followed her into her office.

"What exactly is your connection to Liz Wheaton?" Hannah asked, setting down and opening her briefcase, revealing her airplane tickets among file folders bearing the name
Garcia
.

"Friends, I told you yesterday. We became friendly when I did my ten-year-after update."

"Do you know where she worked?"

Hoffman made a face as she sat down. Her eyes lit on the plane tickets, and seeing that, Hannah closed her briefcase. "I'm supposed to ask the questions," Hoffman said. "Unless, of course, I'm on the witness stand."

"Consider it just that. I'm sure you know all of this, but play dumb for my benefit. I got a package not long ago. A package from Spruce County. Stolen evidence."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Hoffman shifted in the visitor's chair.

"I said to
play dumb
, not
moronic
. Look, I know that you and Liz Wheaton and the package were connected. You know what surprises me? That you could be so cruel. God, I feel like a fool."

"I had nothing to do with the shoes. All I wanted was your address. Liz provided me the information. Got it from her son's parole folder. Your address was there... you know to be contacted in the event Wheaton ever escaped from prison."

"What does Liz Wheaton want from me?"

"She never said."

"Get out of my office. Or I will call security."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Watch me." She picked up the phone and pushed zero. "I'll have your ass in jail for stealing criminal records. I never said the package contained any shoes."

Like a cockroach terrified of the saber-beam of a flashlight, Hoffman scuttled out the door. An hour later, Hannah was at the Santa Louisa airport headed toward the one and only gate served by Orange Leaf Air.

The gigantic stuffed polar bear at the Anchorage airport was startling at any time of day, but in the evening, after flying for hours and a couple of glasses of wine, the fourteen-foot taxidermist's dream looked like a monster. Preoccupied with a volatile mix of hope, anxiety, and fear, Hannah Griffin didn't notice the white monstrosity until she looked up while fiddling with the contents of her purse after the long flight from Seattle. She nearly dropped everything. It was 11:30 and the travel gods had smiled on her: the flight to Kodiak had been delayed thirty minutes.

She composed herself, found a phone booth, and dialed the number of the Northern Lights Motor Inn. It rang a dozen times before an obviously snoozing night clerk answered and took her reservation for a room for that night, before patching her over to Bauer's room.

"I'm coming to Kodiak," she announced with an exaggerated confidence that even she didn't buy, despite where she was.

Bauer attempted to shake off his sleepiness and the residual fogginess of one-too-many glasses of Wild Turkey. "Not a good idea," he said. "Nothing you can do here."

"I'll be there in an hour. I'm at the Anchorage airport now."

"Jesus Christ," he said. "Can't you let me do my job first?"

Hannah looked around the airport and spoke quietly. "I've waited a long time for this, too. If Louise Wallace is my mother, I have a right to see her before the circus--the media circus--comes to Alaska and takes over."

Bauer exhaled a loud sigh. "Like I told you earlier, we really don't know who Wallace is or isn't. Really, I understand your position and I wish I had done a better job of preempting the shock of the news story yesterday. I wish I had."

"Can we discuss this in the morning?" Hannah asked.

"Okay, it's late," he said, feeling a little relieved. "Where can I reach you?"

"In the room next to yours," she said. "I just made reservations."

Bauer's relief evaporated. "Just great," he muttered. "See you at seven."

Right on schedule an hour later, Hannah, her big purse, and a small carry-on bag waited for a taxi on the curb in front of Kodiak's small-fry airport. The air was surprisingly warm--not California balmy, of course, but warmer than she imagined Alaska would be. She thought of the Orlando trip she'd made in search of her mother. She hated Florida because of the experience and even turned down the opportunity to participate in a sex abuse conference held just outside Walt Disney World. Amber, she knew, would have loved Disney. Waiting, Hannah hoped that Alaska, at the opposite end of the country, would be different. She even prayed it would be. She hoped that the woman Bauer had seen was indeed her mother.

Over the years, Hannah had seen flashes of her mother's visage in the faces of so many women. She saw her mother's features in a woman sweeping up spilled popcorn at the mall. The middle-aged woman was hunched over, shoving the broom as though she intended to scrape the surface of its waxy sheen. Hannah even tapped the woman on the shoulder in order to get a better look. She had seen her mother in the gestures of a college professor, in the voice and laugh of a colleague at the crime lab. Once, though she never admitted it to anyone and never would, she had even seen a fleeting glimpse of her mother in her daughter's laugh.

Veronica Paine had done everything for the law because she loved it. She had never broken the rules. She just didn't have it in her.
Never had.
As she sat at her gleaming walnut dining table, warm brandy in hand, cigarette smoldering, she knew that following the law wasn't always fail-safe. It wasn't the best course in being a human being. Not really. In front of her was the file she'd stolen from the vault in the basement of Spruce County Courthouse.