Thin Ice Read online

  “Drink?” a female voice said from behind the bar.

  I squinted. The female voice didn’t belong to someone who looked like a female, but that seemed too rude to even think.

  The barkeep laughed. “It’s okay. Yeah, I’m a girl but I choose not to look like one so much. You’re not the first I’ve fooled.”

  I approached the bar. “I’d love a drink, but something light. I’m sorry if I looked … perplexed. That was rude.”

  She laughed. “Name’s Bonita. Call me Benny though. I’m just being the ‘me’ I need to be, and dressing the way I want to dress. How about a Bloody Mary, light on the bloody?”

  Dr. Powder and Gril left the small room and then the bar without seeming to notice anyone else.

  “Do I look like I need some vegetables?” I sat up on a stool.

  “As a matter of fact, you do.” She put a bowl of pretzels in front of me. “I’ve heard about the scar. You fell off a horse and you’re from Denver. Welcome to Benedict.”

  I took a pretzel and realized I was hungry. I’d lost track of the time and it must be at least lunchtime. I looked at my watch; not quite eleven. Was I ever going to get full? “Me in a nutshell.”

  Benny looked at the huddled customers in the booth and then leaned over toward me. “Can I see the scar?”

  I took off the cap.

  It was dark inside the Saloon but she could still see well enough. “Holy moly, that’s a scar. How are you not dead?”

  “I was taken care of quickly.” My words coming out around a pretzel.

  My eyes got big as I watched Benny create the Bloody Mary behind the bar. It was going to be huge, but true to her word, she put in very little booze.

  For whatever reason, I suddenly remembered I still wanted to call Dr. Genero.

  “And speaking of blood.” Benny placed the tall drink in front of me. She reached into a cooler and pulled out two stalks of celery. “Enjoy. You want a burger or something? I can call the café and they’ll bring it over.”

  “That’s convenient.” I thought about it a minute. “Yeah, I’d love a burger. Cheeseburger. Fries too. You can just call? I can walk over and order it.”

  “Two shakes of a cow’s tail and I’ll have it ordered.”

  Benny placed the order via walkie-talkie and then turned back to me.

  “How’s Vi treating you?” she asked.

  “Very well,” I said. “She scares me, but I like her.”

  “She’s large and in charge.” Benny laughed. “She’s my people.”

  I looked at her. “Literally?”

  “Yep. We’re sisters.”

  “Now I see the resemblance. Did you two grow up here?” I took a big pull on the drink. Best Bloody Mary ever.

  “We grew up in Juneau. Our parents drowned when we were teenagers, fishing boat. We ran away to Benedict so we wouldn’t be put into foster care.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “Nah.”

  “Had to be rough.”

  “We’ve survived so far.” Benny eyed the door to the back room.

  “I think Mr. Rafferty will be okay,” I said. “The doctor says … well, I’m not so sure I understand the diagnosis, but he thinks George will heal.”

  “If Donner doesn’t kill him, I suppose.”

  She’d mumbled and muttered the words under her breath.

  “Excuse me?” I took another pull of the drink.

  She lifted her eyebrows at me and then shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “That didn’t sound like a casual comment.”

  “It’s bad form of me to share so let me emphasize that it was just a rumor, and I have no proof of it, but there was a rumor that Donner and Linda Rafferty were involved.”

  Questions are important. Almost as important as the answers that go with them. It doesn’t take someone with my background and in my varying lines of work to know that. But sometimes asking the wrong questions will guarantee that you never get the answers you need.

  I thought about what I’d witnessed so far. Donner had picked me up from the airport and had seemed bothered to have to deal with me, but not upset, not distraught about anything. He didn’t mention Linda’s name. He’d hurried to help George. But why had we gone out to the cabin in the first place? He’d told me he was working but didn’t give me any other details. Why would he though? He had gone inside the Rafferty’s cabin by himself, the cabin that was still marked as a crime scene. But he was an officer of the law. Sort of. Or, was he trying to hide something, remove proof of some affair?

  “I see,” I said, still not zoning in on the right words, but hoping my tone prompted her to talk more.

  “Well, I don’t know, but it’s all pretty weird. I can’t imagine that being caught in an affair would cause Linda to take her own life. I can’t imagine anything that would make her take her own life. Now, at least. She made it through a tragedy some years ago. She was still sad but not suicidal.”

  “The loss of her son?”

  “Yeah, you heard.”

  “Yes. It’s very sad. You knew Linda well?”

  “Sure, we all know each other around here. You’ll see.”

  I nodded. “It can be hard to know if someone is hurting enough to take their own life.”

  “The day before she died, she came in to tell me she’d help out around here part-time. She was going to start tonight. Is that something someone who is going to kill herself does?”

  I shook my head once. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t think so,” Benny said.

  “Did you tell Gril?”

  “I did.”

  “How did he respond?”

  “Thanked me but didn’t get too wound up about it.”

  I cleared my throat. “George looks significantly older than Donner.”

  “So was Linda.”

  She made no further comment about the age differences and I didn’t either, but it was interesting food for thought. And Donner and George were in a room alone. If there had been an affair, did that matter?

  As I took another sip, Loretta came through the bar’s front door, bringing my cheeseburger and fries.

  “Hello there, roomy,” she said as she placed the plate in front of me.

  “Oh. Hello. Thank you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re wondering if parolees are allowed to have jobs while we’re getting free room and board. Well, we are, encouraged to, actually, but this is not a job. I’m volunteering, because they need some help over there, and I’m all about helping where I’m needed. I’m allowed to take tips, but no one’s paying me for this.”

  I was so lost in smelling and inspecting the mountain of food before me that her words didn’t immediately register.

  Loretta cleared her throat.

  “Oh. Of course.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out some bills. But as I extended them to her, I had a thought and I pulled them back. “What was going on this morning? Breakfast was strained. What were you talking about last night, something between Trinity and Viola?”

  Loretta looked at me with question and then admiration. She looked down at the five on the top of the stack. “Gosh, I’m not sure I can remember the ‘more’ you’re talking about.”

  I displayed a ten and looked at her.

  To her credit, Benny walked away. Her sister had been involved in whatever had been going on—sometimes curiosity did kill the cat, and ruin relationships.

  “Right,” Loretta said. “Well, I remember a little. Yesterday, during the day, Vi was upset at one of us. It wasn’t me.” She raised her eyebrows.

  I brought out another five and added it to the stack.

  “It wasn’t Willa either,” Loretta said. “It seems that one of us had an argument with someone here in town, and it was loud. Too many people might have heard it. That bothered Viola. She came back to the House yesterday, fit to be tied. She and the one I didn’t name, in turn, argued. Loudly.”

  “I see. Who did Trinity have a public argument with?
” I didn’t wait for Loretta to prompt, I brought out another five.

  “Linda Rafferty.”

  Oh. I thought about Viola’s visit to the Petition and her sudden need to leave, right after I told her Gril might suspect Linda Rafferty was murdered. “Any chance you know what it was about?”

  “Wish I did, but even though it was gossip, I never caught the deets, you know. Willa doesn’t know either, at least that’s what she says.”

  I nodded. “Anything else you’d like to tell me?”

  “No, just that the three of us girls were scared shitless this morning, because of that argument and because of the late-night weirdness that was all about some snowshoes.” Loretta looked up at Benny, who was ignoring us, and then back at me. “We don’t even think the snowshoe incident was real. We think it was just Viola’s way of rattling our cages after yesterday’s confrontation. Viola is in charge of our freedom, you know that, don’t you? Her being angry can delay that freedom. None of us wanted to spark the fuse we’d heard explode with Trinity. Willa and I wouldn’t have even gone to breakfast if we weren’t required. We got through it okay, but I hope things are better for dinner.”

  “Me too. Thanks, Loretta.” I gave her the money, plus a little more.

  She smiled at me. “Thanks, doll, you’re a peach.”

  I smiled and turned back to my food as she sauntered away. I put my wallet securely into a front pocket.

  “You might want to make sure she didn’t take your whole wad,” Benny said as she rejoined me.

  “I checked,” I said around a bite of the burger. “I’m good.”

  “Alrighty.” Benny smiled.

  She watched me eat for a moment, her eyes squinting. “You know, there’s a community center. It’s just an outbuilding down the road a piece. We do all kinds of things there. Evening craft things. Meetings. I hear you’re going to be writing the Petition,” Benny said.

  I nodded as I chewed.

  “You’ll hear a lot about the community center, and you might want to check it out. Everyone spends some time there. Everyone.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Benny looked over my shoulder as the door opened, filling the dark space with harsh light yet again.

  “Hey, Doc, Gril,” Benny said as they came inside with the bags of fluid that would be IV’d into George.

  It was a strange set of circumstances, but if anyone other than me thought so, they didn’t show it.

  The door to the back room opened just as the Saloon’s front door closed.

  Donner leaned out. “He’s awake, and he’s talking.”

  Gril and Dr. Powder hurried to the back.

  I looked at Benny.

  “This could be interesting,” she said before she excused herself to attend to something somewhere behind the bar.

  I wondered if she was somehow eavesdropping on the men in her back room. And I really wondered how I could get in on that action too.

  It wasn’t meant to be though. Other customers came in and Benny reappeared and did all the bartending and table waiting. I realized I might not be made of the right reporter stuff when I didn’t want to hang out in the bar to wait for the medical report. After I ate, I was full and tired. I finished the drink and wiped off the celery with a napkin.

  No one was paying attention as I left, but, happily, the three horses were hanging out by Ben, the fake bear. All I had to do was hold up the celery and the three large animals approached. They were gentle as they took their quick snack and then done with me when the celery was gone.

  As they walked away, I looked up at the blue sky. I was glad it wasn’t raining, but at least I’d have been ready this time. I had my boots on.

  Thirteen

  I couldn’t sleep. I’d tried. And tried again, but it was a battle I wasn’t going to win easily. Too many things were running through my mind. Mostly, I wondered what George Rafferty had said when he’d awakened. I’d spent the rest of the day cleaning up the Petition, enough work to keep my mind occupied but not enough to tire me out. I needed to get some exercise.

  Finally, at just after midnight, I moved the chair away from the door and ventured out to the hallway. The space was illuminated with night-lights intermittently plugged into the walls. I hadn’t noticed them the night before. As my eyes adjusted, I wondered if I could find any food or something to do to keep my mind off my once again hungry stomach.

  My first stop was the kitchen, but that and the dining room’s doors were both locked tight. I really needed to get some snacks for my room, as soon as possible.

  For a long moment, I just stood in the hallway and listened. Wind rattled something, but I wasn’t sure if it was rafters or a loose window, or maybe a loose door somewhere. I didn’t hear televisions or music coming from anywhere, but I didn’t know how the parolees’ rooms were furnished. Were they allowed to use laptops? I hadn’t asked Viola if there was any Wi-Fi in the building, but based upon everything else I’d seen in Benedict, it wasn’t likely.

  I wasn’t even sure which room was Viola’s. I crossed through the lobby and then down the other hallway, the one I’d first seen Willa walk down. Viola had mentioned that the parolees were all upstairs and that the stairway was at the end of the hall. I moved slowly with my ears perked. I didn’t get right up next to any of the doors, but I veered close to them, making a serpentine all the way to the stairway. I still didn’t hear any electronics, but I was pretty sure I figured out which room was Viola’s when I heard a snore coming through. If I’d had any doubt after that, I just had to read the plaque adorning the door.

  THE BOSS.

  And she was.

  Her room was at the end, right next to the stairway. Either she snored loudly, or her room was like mine and the bed wasn’t too far away from the door.

  I took the stairs up to the second floor, two at a time. There was no light in the stairwell, but I could tell that dark carpeting covered each step. It muffled my footfalls. Upstairs, the hallway looked just like the one downstairs, and was similarly lit with plugged-in nightlights. I found the item that was making the noise. A window at the far end was partly open, about six inches up. Even from where I stood, I could see it moving with the breeze coming through.

  It was cold outside. I crossed my arms in front of myself and hurried toward the window. Surely even parolees shouldn’t have to be too cold.

  But as I went to push it closed, I glanced outside. This part of the Benedict House backed up to thick woods. I couldn’t tell if there was a moon or if it was covered by clouds, but I could see the darkness of the woods; it was endless.

  Except, there was a small light in the distance. A white circle moved back and forth, up and down, and around the trees. Who was in the woods with a flashlight?

  “Why do I care?” I said aloud.

  Maybe it wasn’t an unusual sight anyway. I reached again to close the window.

  But then I saw something else.

  “Uh-oh,” I said when I noticed a rope had been tied to a hook that jutted out from the side of the building. The rope reached to the ground. I looked back out toward the moving light. I couldn’t tell how quickly it was approaching, but it was still moving. Either someone from inside the Benedict House had left, using this rope, or someone had or was using it to come inside.

  I looked back over my shoulder at the parolees’ doors. I knew I should wake up Viola immediately and let her know what I’d found.

  But I didn’t want to. It wasn’t that I sympathized that much with the parolees. I didn’t, not really. But where could they go? They weren’t violent offenders and there was no way to easily leave Benedict. However, was I seeing the person who’d stolen the snowshoes?

  I hoped that whatever was going on didn’t require a gun to squelch potential trouble that might be bubbling up, but I wanted to know.

  I turned and made my way back to the stairway, taking a seat on the first stair down. I put my back against the wall. All I had to do was lean a little to the right to be
able to see the window at the other end, and chances were good that I wouldn’t be noticed by anyone coming in; the hallway was too shadowed.

  It didn’t take long to feel the cold air seep under my skin, but I didn’t want to leave my spot to gather some of my warmer gear. I rolled my eyes at the idea that Donner would be irritated that I hadn’t been more prepared to snoop.

  I settled back and hoped I wouldn’t have to wait long for whatever it was I was waiting for. After I rubbed my arms and then sat back again though, I hit the back of my head on the wall. It hurt, sending a different sort of blinding pain up around the sides of my head. I hadn’t hit it that hard, but it must have been at just the right spot to cause the pain.

  Mine. You are mine. You will never get away from me. You are mine forever.

  Panic stopped my heart, or that’s what it felt like. I wanted to open my eyes and prove that Levi wasn’t there in front of me. But the pain kept my eyes closed; as it took an eternity to dissipate, I realized I could smell him too—the same smell I remembered when I’d seen Hank’s lumberjack coat. A distant sort of fascination overtook me. That smell—so bad, and so real.

  What the hell? Why couldn’t I get my eyes to open? But then, somewhere in my mind, I recognized that the pain was dissipating. If I could just not panic, I would be okay in a minute. Levi is not there. He’s is not here.

  “Hey!” a voice whispered forcefully. “Wake up!”

  It was a female voice. It wasn’t Levi.

  “Come on. Open your eyes,” the voice said, gently but filled with concern.

  Once the pain faded to a soft beat, I could get my eyes open.

  “Loretta,” I said. “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself, crazy girl from Denver. What the hell happened?”

  She was sitting above me on the landing. I’d never seen her in so many clothes. She wore jeans, a sweater, and boots. I could smell the cold, outside air coming off her and it wasn’t unpleasant. A flashlight was propped upright on the floor next to her.

  “Just a headache,” I said. “I’m okay now.”