Cover of Snow (31 page)

Club and I rode in the same ambulance. By the time it came, I was weak and shivering, unable to move. I kept looking around blearily, whispering first aid instructions for Club from my position on the floor. Tim had refused to do anything before fetching blankets from the rooms of the inn and wrapping me up. Then he dutifully flushed Club's prone form again and again with tepid water.

Dick Granger's body was left behind so the staties could collect evidence.

All I remembered of our exit was that Weekend had been sitting high on the seat of Club's Jimmy, panting patiently. The paramedics released him into Tim's custody, but first Weekend bounded up to me, all snuffles and barks and licks of reunion.

That may have healed me more than anything the medics did.

I woke in a hospital room. Outside it was light, and I wondered if more than one day had passed. There was an IV in my hand. Except for a hot stitch in my side that somehow refused to trouble me, I felt refreshed, almost reborn.

A man with skin the color of tobacco came into my room. He took my chart from the bottom of the bed, then spoke in a strong accent.

“The good news will be first,” he said, and I nodded, which the doctor didn't appear to notice. “The good news is that the bullet did not come anywhere close to your baby. The not as good news is that you will probably require some rehabilitation on your hip.”

I struggled to sit up, and a meteor shower of pain sparked inside me, penetrating the cushion of meds I had to be on. It was the drug haze that made me mishear. Or the accent.

“What did you say?”

“Rehabilitation,” the doctor repeated. “Your hip was affected by the path of the bullet. We have quite a good unit here at the—”

“No,” I interrupted, and the doctor finally looked down at me. “The first part.”

He began flipping rapidly through the pages of my chart.

“Mrs. Hamilton,” he said. “Did you not know that you are pregnant?”

The weight Teggie thought I was gaining, how the pants Dugger's mother lent me were difficult to close. My aversion to coffee and the hunger that was rampant despite grief. Even the loss of my allergies, which I'd read once was a lesser-known side effect of pregnancy.

A baby.

Though a tinge of panic accompanied that thought—
How the hell am I going to raise a child alone?
—mostly I felt buoyed by a giddy, irrepressible joy. I could hardly even feel the pain in my side anymore and I refused a second dose of meds, even though the hospital staff assured me they were perfectly safe.

“You have a visitor,” a nurse announced from the door to my room.

My sister stood behind her.

She took one look at me. “What happened to you? I don't mean this.” She flung her hand out, indicating the hospital room. Then she looked again. “Oh my God. You're pregnant.”

I burst into tears. They were loud and furious, a tidal wave of feeling.

Teggie waited for me to quiet, then traced one finger along my brow. “You're going to be a wonderful mother.”

“You're going to be a wonderful wife.”

Teggie stared at me. “Way to steal my thunder. You think taking a bullet and finding out you're preggers all in the same week wasn't enough?”

I fought to smile through my wet face and dripping nose.

Teggie reached for some tissues on a bedside stand. “How'd you know anyway?” she asked.

I gave her a
duh
look, then touched the shiny stone on her left-hand finger.

“Please tell me you'll be moving back to the city now,” my sister said.

“Actually,” I said, “I think I might try out this town a little farther north.”

Night was falling when the door to my room was nudged open and a slice of light fell across the floor. I looked up, expecting a nurse at this hour.

But it wasn't a nurse. It took me a second to place the woman who did enter. She was holding on tight to a shopping bag and she crossed to the side of my bed.

I struggled to sit up, the thin hospital blanket a strangling force. The
call
button dangled and I reached for it.

“Don't,” Mrs. Weathers said.

The Chief's wife probably knew the nurse on duty, could slip in past visiting hours.

I swallowed, passing a hand across my belly. Pain flared in my side.

“The Chief is ruined,” she said. “If you only knew what you've done. Wedeskyull will never be the same.”

I tried to summon a reply. Was Vern here? If he came in, I was going to have to hit that button. No, I was going to scream. Would screaming do any—

“Why did you keep digging in this ground?” Mrs. Weathers demanded. “Brendan didn't ask you. He didn't even do it himself.”

I couldn't come up with a thing to say. Tiny Dorothy Weathers seemed a looming presence, accusing me of sacrificing her husband to protect the memory of my own.

“How could you do this? When all of us kept silent for so long? When I kept—” Something clenched in her face, and she looked suddenly old and ugly. “Do you have any idea what I've had to do?” Mrs. Weathers reached down and grasped my wrist, and then I did let out a scream, or at least a little yelp.

She looked at me on the bed and her expression was one of surprise. “Oh, Nora. Oh, no, you thought—” She broke off, releasing my arm. “I didn't come here to blame you, my dear. No, no. I came—because I wanted to see.”

“See?” I finally spoke. “See what?”

Mrs. Weathers peered down at me. “What it looks like to stand up to him.”

Ned showed up the day after that. I was almost ready to be checked out, eating a bowl of the chili macaroni casserole that Mrs. Weathers had brought, when he walked into my room. Ned's arm was bandaged, and his face was mottled with bruises. In and around the glow of color, his eyes stared at me with incredulity, then filled with relief.

“You're okay,” he said. “You're okay.”

“So are you,” I replied.

“I came back the second I could,” he said. Then he laid the front page of the
Albany Times Union
on my lap.

Police Chief Vernon J. Weathers resigned today, pending an investigation by federal officials into the department's activities.

Two arrests have been made. Officer Club Mitchell has been charged with one count of murder and one count of manslaughter and will be taken into custody after receiving treatment in a burn unit. Officer Gilbert Landry is being held on charges of kidnapping and assault.

Officer Timothy Lurcquer will serve as acting chief of police until permanent replacement can be found.

Members of the Weathers family have served in the role of chief of police in Wedeskyull for more than eighty years …

See “Hidden Face of Justice” page A-2.

Ned watched as I finished reading. My gaze flitted to the byline at the top.

By Ned Kramer

I shook my head, disbelief and wonder coursing through me.

I had thought I'd never feel safe again. Yet suddenly I did. “I think you might have that book you always wanted to write.”

Ned gave me a lopsided smile, wincing slightly. “I don't know. I've got the ending. But there's only bits and pieces from the middle. And the beginning took place twenty-five years ago. And that will never be known at all.”

“I have a few things that might help,” I said softly.

I reached for Brendan's yellow box. Tim had reclaimed it from the inn for me. Its lid sat askew, and would until I could repair it. I took out Dugger's DVD, and his cassette, as well as the bloody picture with Amber in it. DNA could probably still be recovered from that. The camera I'd used in the woods came next. Ned took all four items with an air of puzzlement.

Then I handed him Jean's Polaroid. And his whole face changed.

A nurse entered the room. “Mrs. Hamilton? You're all set.”

Ned was still studying the photo.

His head only jerked up when I started to rise.

Our eyes met. And we traded a smile that held many things—everything except what a smile should contain. No humor or levity. Sorrow, and satisfaction, and maybe just a hint of salvation.

“We could wait a little while.” Ned said, indicating the hospital window, which was dashed with snow. “This looks like it might let up.”

“I think we'll be all right,” I replied. My hip gave a few piercing twinges as I moved toward the hall, but I knew it would soon be numbed by the temperature outside.

I crossed my arms over my stomach to provide an extra layer of warmth.

Ned led the way out to his car, and we drove off into the snow still falling over Wedeskyull.

J
ENNY
M
ILCHMAN
lives in New Jersey with her family.
Cover of Snow
is her first novel.