Cover of Snow (18 page)

“I've been trying to reach you for some time,” said the woman on the other line.

“You might've tried saying hello.” It was my sister's voice, coming out of my mouth.

There was a long silence, during which I studied the road.

“I was afraid to,” the woman said at last.

There was something in her voice. My body grew awash in chills, and I had to raise the heat in the car.

“I read about what happened to your husband,” the woman said.

This time I stayed quiet.

“I'm sorry,” she added

“Thank you.”

“It might—what happened to him might have something to do—I mean, I might know something about it.”

My hands on the steering wheel tightened into vices. I felt the imprint of ridged plastic on my palms. Suddenly the call I hadn't even wanted to take became the one I couldn't let go.

“What do you mean? What do you know?”

Whitened trees streamed by, flanking the highway, and cars fanged with ice dropped back as I sped up.

“I can't tell you—not here,” the woman said.

The meaning of her words penetrated instantly. My brain was on accelerate, making sense of things I once would've refuted. I crossed two lanes of traffic, hunting the next exit.

“In Wedeskyull, you mean? That's okay! That's fine. I'm not there now anyway.”

“Where are you?”

A big green sign appeared.

“Troy,” I said instantly, and swung onto the ramp.

The bars on the phone informed me that the call had dropped. As I tried to get it back, something sticking out of my bag caught my eye.

The sheet of paper my sister had given me at the Chinese restaurant. I smoothed it out, scanning the information. It'd be just Teggie's luck if there was something scheduled today. Sure enough, the flier announced that meetings were held on weekends and Wednesdays.

My car seemed to wend through streets of its own accord, no intention on my part. This place had seen more bustling and productive days. The houses were old but untouched, any work done on them the slapdash kind intended merely to keep a structure standing. The city's scattered restaurants and stores were largely unappealing. A river moved sluggishly through the center of town, unevenly frozen in shades of yellow and ivory.

The call finally went through, and the woman picked up as if there'd been no interruption. “Troy would be good,” she said. “Where?”

I read the address off the sheet of paper. It was one way to kill time. I guessed I'd be going to an SOS meeting.

The GPS took me to a steep street not far from the polytechnic institute. My tires clutched for purchase on the ice-slick incline before I thrust on the emergency brake.

I zipped my coat and tied my muffler, then emerged into the freezing afternoon sunshine. A series of decrepit nineteenth-century houses sagged against one another. I longed to stop, observe paint-choked details despite the cold. But I hurried along toward number 61.

The front door was unlocked. A makeshift penciled sign—
SOS meeting today
—pointed the way to a room down the hall.

I'd expected a funereal gathering of members dressed all in black. But when I peered into the ground-level room from the doorway, it was streaked with silvery winter light, and clumps of men and woman stood chatting and laughing, drinks in hand.

Someone appeared beside me. He was young—terribly young—and held a can of soda in one fist. I noticed that his nails were bitten.

“First time?” he said, offering a smile.

I nodded.

“That's the hardest,” he said. “Come on.”

I followed him to a table. The people hovering around it crossed the age spectrum and other spectrums as well, their clothes both designer and brandless, hairstyles chiseled to ragged.

A few people smiled at me, then an older woman, small and hunched over, indicated that everyone should head for a circle of folding chairs.

I sat down beside the boy.

The shrunken gargoyle of a woman took the lead. “Why don't we start with introductions while we wait for any latecomers?” She looked around the circle. “We're still short one regular.” There were nods all around. “And I see we have someone new with us today.” More nods.

I wasn't sure what to say—if I should say anything at all—but luckily someone else began to speak. He was heavyset with a hairy froth of beard. He wore overalls, and his hands were hidden, thrust into the pocket on his front bib.

“I'm Gary Burke. My daughter, Emily, killed herself two years ago. Swallowed pills, we still don't know where she got 'em, her stepmother and me. My wife Judy already done it, twelve years before, when Emmy was just a little girl.”

Silence spread over the last of the chitchat.

Two family members? This man had been through it twice?

A tall, glamorous woman spoke up next.

“I'm Peggy Ashton,” she said. “My son, ah, came out to the family. It was about a year ago, I think. And my husband had some trouble with the news. He had a young lady he wanted my son to meet, the daughter of somebody he worked with, really quite lovely. But my son—our son …” Peggy half turned in her seat, pressing two sharp, jewel-tipped fingers against her eyes. “He shot himself the night that was to be their first date. Before he'd even met her.” Tears ran freely down her made-up cheeks now, but she no longer tried to stop them. “My husband still won't come to these meetings, but I find they really help.”

A woman touched Peggy on her cascade of hair.

“I'm Betty,” said a stout lady in a plain dress. She was crying without seeming to be aware of it. “I still haven't said why I'm here yet.”

A second reassuring soul patted that speaker's arm, and I swiftly shut my own eyes. How much pain could one room hold?

The door banged open, and from the way everyone immediately looked up, you could tell they'd been waiting for this person to arrive. I looked over, too.

It was Ned Kramer.

We left the meeting early. A bereavement expert had come to speak about how the five stages of grief are altered in cases of suicide, and Ned and I were able to sidle out.

I stopped as soon as we got out to the street. “So much for being straight with me.”

Ned had the courtesy to look away. “Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

“Yeah, right?” I echoed.

“Maybe there've been some things I wasn't straight about.”

“
Some
things?” But then I sighed. “Don't worry, I'm not going to be the pot, or the kettle. This business of being straight isn't the easiest.”

Ned laughed. “No. It's not.”

A truck went by, spraying twin waves of salt. Ned and I both jumped back.

“Remember I told you how my house is a twin to the one I grew up in?”

I nodded.

“Well, that's only one of the reasons I bought, on my own, a seven-bedroom home in need of a massive overhaul.”

“It's true you're not exactly the prototypical client,” I agreed.

Ned eyed me. “It's also almost an exact replica of the house my wife had her heart set on in Connecticut. We couldn't afford it there. And then she died.”

I sucked in my breath. “Ned, I'm—”

“—sorry,” he said. “I know.”

“Sorry,” I said again, and we smiled wryly.

But then Ned seemed to gather breath. “Five years ago, my wife and four-year-old daughter joined a church,” he went on. “It was supposed to be religion for a different age, liquid, gatherings online, all of that. I stayed mostly on the outskirts, I've never been one for organized religion. But Sue got very involved. She'd lost her father young, and this guy was charismatic, I'll give him that. He began preaching about the rapture; he identified a date from Scripture. When he got it wrong, he had another revelation.” Ned paused. “They had to give the punch to the children first.”

“Oh, Ned!” I was dislodging a clump of snow with my boot. Another clump followed the first, a small avalanche begun with my foot.

He ducked his ruddy head. “That was my first big story—an exposé of the pastor who called himself Pater Iesus. I rushed it to press after the mass suicide. I think that's all I did for the first three months—investigate and write. That's right—I'm a reporter, but I didn't sense the story under my very own roof until it was too late.”

I opened my mouth, then shook my head. There wasn't a single thing I could think of to say.

Ned went on, his voice sharp as a blade. “The good pastor didn't drink anything himself, by the way. But he did get convicted on thirty-seven counts of fraud and extortion after my story ran. He's serving sixteen years.”

I continued to stare at Ned through the brittle air. The cold scarcely penetrated in the wake of his words.

“Shit, I'm sorry,” he said finally.

“You're sorry?” I said. “What for?”

Ned angled his head back toward the building. “One of the first things I learned in there is to stop elevating my tragedy. It doesn't matter how many people died with Sue and Tracy, or what kind of attention the event got. Your husband's—Brendan's death is just as important, even if it wasn't part of anything larger.” His mouth compressed in a way I'd seen it do before.

“Maybe Brendan died as part of a larger thing, too,” I muttered.

“What do you mean? I thought—are you talking about the ice-fishing accident?” Ned took a step forward, his eyes alight. “Did you find something out?”

“No!” I said. “No. I don't know anything about what happened twenty-five years ago besides what you told me. And I don't know much of anything else either. Except that I might not have been quite straight with you myself.”

Ned stared down at me. “Look, I've had a really shitty day so far. I didn't think I was going to make it to this meeting.” He scrubbed his gloved fists together. “Do you think we could go somewhere and warm up? You can tell me anything you have on Brendan.”

“Anything I
have
?” I repeated, distracted from what Ned had said about his day. “My husband's not a source, you know. His life wasn't material for a story. And neither is his death.”

“No, of course not—” Ned broke off. “I'm sorry. I told you, my day's been from—”

“And why do you always look like that when you talk about him anyway?”

Another frown transformed Ned's features. “Like what?”

I pointed. “Like that. Your eyes do a funny thing, they kind of drain. And your mouth gets all tight.”

Ned didn't answer and it occurred to me how closely I must be examining him to see all of that. Unaccustomed heat filled my face, a strange partner to our surroundings.

Ned turned around on the sidewalk. “Look, Nora, I don't speak ill of the dead, especially when the dead person was married to someone I happen to—to someone I'm with right at that moment. But Brendan and I didn't get along especially well, okay? He just wasn't my favorite person, and I'm sure he'd have said the same of me.”

“Why?” I asked smally.

He gave a hard jerk of his shoulders. “The few times I had questions to ask him—a story to do—he just didn't seem all that interested in helping. Onward and forward, he told me once. Don't look back. It was hard to get information out of him.”

“He didn't like hashing over the past,” I said, still in a small voice. “I guess his work and yours are kind of at odds.”

“Right,” Ned said. “We clashed a few times, and that's probably what you were reading in my face. So I'm sorry. I'm sure he was a wonderful husband to you.”

Before I could figure out how to answer, someone ran up and grabbed my arm.

“Nora?” the woman said as I swiveled.

I instantly recognized the voice of my mystery caller.

Ned took a step back, observing the two of us.

“There's a coffee shop over there,” she went on hurriedly. “Can we sit and talk?” She was already heading in the direction she'd indicated.

Ned held up his hand in a wave. “I'll, uh, see you. Or I could wait—”

“Yes, do,” I said, the words awkward and stupid on my tongue.

I turned to follow the newcomer along the sidewalk.

She paused as soon as we were alone.

She was dressed in the sort of long wool coat I had dispensed with during my first winter in Wedeskyull, after learning they were no better than a windbreaker against the cold. The one this woman wore was slightly threadbare, its hem frayed and a piece of lining torn at the collar. A dull brown muffler snaked around her neck and lower jaw.

“I don't really want any coffee,” she said. “Mind if we just walk?”

I was beginning to feel the cold, but I turned in the same direction she did, and we went down a side street.

“Sorry I interrupted you with your friend,” she said, from several paces ahead.

“That's okay,” I replied. “He's not exactly a friend.”

She stopped and looked back at me. “Who is he?”

I was unsure how to describe Ned. “Well, he's a reporter—” Before I could go any further, the woman's face blanched and she started walking again.

“I was told not to talk to reporters. That they wouldn't help me. But it didn't seem like friendly advice to keep me from wasting my time, if you know what I mean,” she added darkly. She drew me forward with a pull of her hand. “And it's not like anyone else has helped either.”

“Helped with what?” The woman was starting to sound a little paranoid.

She continued urging me along, away from the lighted houses. The weave of her silver gloves was ratty, threads springing loose, like a woman's first gray hairs. We traversed two streets and came to stand by a lone copse of trees at the edge of some woods.

“Look,” I said, before we could go any farther. “It sounded like you might have some information about Brendan.” At the woman's blank look, I added, “My husband.”

Understanding crossed her face. “I hope I didn't mislead you,” she said, and I felt something plummet beneath all the heavy layers of gear I wore.

“I'm not positive I know something about your husband,” the woman went on. She raised her shrouded face to mine. “But mine has disappeared.”