SO WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED HERE?” SAID ELAINE, HER VOICE faintly slurred from drinking too much whiskey. “Where did this family go?”
They sat huddled around the fireplace, swaddled in blankets that they’d pulled from the cold upstairs bedrooms, the remains of their dinner littering the floor around them. They’d eaten canned pork and beans and macaroni and cheese, saltine crackers and peanut butter. A high-sodium feast, washed down with a bottle of cheap whiskey, which they’d found stashed at the very back of the pantry, hidden behind the sacks of flour and sugar.
It had to be her whiskey, Maura thought, remembering the woman in the photograph with the dull eyes and the blank expression. The pantry was where a woman would hoard a secret supply of liquor, a place where her husband would never bother to explore, not if he considered cooking to be a woman’s job. Maura took a sip, and as the whiskey burned its way down her throat, she wondered what would drive a woman to secret drinking, what misery would make her seek liquor’s numbing solace.
“Okay,” said Arlo. “I can come up with one logical explanation for where these people went.”
Elaine refreshed her glass and added only a splash of water.
“Let’s hear it.”
“It’s dinnertime. The wife with the bad hairdo puts food on the table, and they’re all about to sit down and say grace, or whatever these people do. And the husband suddenly clutches his chest and says, ‘I’m having a heart attack!’ So they all pile into the car and rush off to the hospital.”
“Leaving the front door unlocked?”
“Why bother to lock it? What’s in here that anyone could possibly want to steal?” Arlo waved dismissively at the furniture. “Besides, there’s no one around for miles who’d bother to break in here.” He paused and raised his glass of whiskey in a wry toast. “Present company excepted.”
“It looks to me like they’ve been gone for days. Why haven’t they come back?”
“The roads,” said Maura. She pulled out the newspaper that she had bought at Grubb’s Gas Station and General Store earlier that day. A lifetime ago, it seemed. Spreading it flat, she slid it into the firelight so they could read the headline, which she’d noticed when she paid for the newspaper.
COLD WEATHER RETURNS
After a week of unseasonably warm weather, with temperatures peaking in the high 60s, a blast of wintry weather appears headed our way. Forecasters predict that two to four inches of snow could start falling Tuesday night. A far more powerful winter storm is right on its heels, with the potential of even heavier snowfall on Saturday.
“Maybe they couldn’t get back here,” said Maura. “Maybe they left before the Tuesday storm, while the road was still clear.”
“It would explain why the windows were open,” said Doug. “It’s because the weather was still warm when they left. And then the storm came in.” He tipped his head to Maura. “Didn’t I tell you all that she was brilliant? Dr. Isles always comes up with a logical explanation.”
“It means these people must be planning to return,” said Arlo. “After the road gets cleared.”
“Unless they change their minds,” said Elaine.
“They left the house unlocked and all their windows open. They’ve got to come back.”
“To this? No electricity, no neighbors around? What woman in her right mind would put up with it? And where are all the neigbors, anyway?”
“This is a bad place,” said Grace softly. “I wouldn’t come back.”
They all looked at her. The girl sat by herself, wrapped so tightly in a blanket that she looked like a mummy in the shadows. She had been silent, lost in whatever music was playing on her iPod, but now the ear buds were out and she sat hugging herself, looking around the room with wide eyes.
“I looked in their closet,” said Grace. “The room where the mom and dad slept. Do you know he has sixteen belts? Sixteen leather belts, each one hanging on its own hook. And there’s rope there, too. Why would you keep rope in your closet?”
Arlo gave a nervous chuckle. “No G-rated purpose I can think of.” Elaine gave him a light slap.
“I don’t think he was a nice man.” Grace stared at the darkness lurking beyond the firelight. “Maybe his wife and kids escaped. Maybe they saw a chance and ran.” She paused. “If they were lucky. If he didn’t kill them first.”
Maura shivered inside her wool blanket. Even the whiskey could not dispel the chill that had suddenly settled over the room.
Arlo reached for the bottle. “Gee, if we’re going to tell scary stories, we’d better get some sedation on board.”
“You already have enough on board,” said Elaine.
“Who else has a scary story for the campfire?” Arlo looked at Maura. “With your job, you must have a ton of them.”
Maura glanced at Grace, who had retreated into silence. If I’m spooked by the situation, she thought, how frightening must it be for a mere thirteen-year-old girl? “I don’t think this is the time to be telling any scary stories,” she said.
“Well, how about funny stories then? Don’t pathologists have a reputation for morgue humor?”
Maura knew he was merely hoping for entertainment to help pass the long and chilly night, but she was not in the mood to be amusing. “There’s nothing funny about what I do,” she said. “Trust me.”
A long silence passed. Grace moved closer to the hearth and stared into the fire. “I wish we’d stayed at the hotel. I don’t like this place.”
“Well, I’m with you, sweetie,” said Elaine. “This house gives me the creeps.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Doug said, as usual offering the sunny appraisal. “This is a good, solidly built house. It tells us what kind of people might live here.”
Elaine gave a disparaging laugh. “People with really bad taste in furniture.”
“Not to mention their taste in food,” said Arlo, pointing at the empty can of pork and beans.
“You ate it fast enough.”
“These are survival conditions, Elaine. One does what one must to stay alive.”
“And did you see the clothes in the closets? Nothing but gingham and high collars. Pioneer dresses.”
“Wait, wait. I’m getting a mental picture of these people.” Arlo pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes like a swami conjuring up visions. “I’m seeing…”
“American Gothic!” Doug tossed out.
“No, Beverly Hillbillies!” Elaine said.
“Hey, Ma,” Arlo drawled, “pass me another helping of that there squirrel stew.”
The trio of old friends burst out laughing, fueled by whiskey and the potent joys of ridiculing people whom they had never met. Maura did not join in.
“And what do you see, Maura?” asked Elaine.
“Come on,” prodded Arlo. “Play the game with us. Who do you think these people are?”
Maura looked around the room at walls devoid of decorations except for that framed poster of the dark-haired man with the hypnotic eyes and the reverently upturned gaze. There were no curtains, no knickknacks. The only books were how-to manuals. Diesel Engine Repair. Basic Plumbing. Home Veterinary Manual. This was not a woman’s house; this was not a woman’s world.
“He’s in total control here,” she said. “The husband.”
The others watched, waiting for more.
“Do you see how everything in this room is cold and practical? There’s no hint of the wife in this room. It’s as if she doesn’t exist, as if she’s invisible. A woman who doesn’t matter, who’s trapped and can’t find any way out except through a whiskey bottle.” She paused, suddenly thinking of Daniel, and her gaze blurred with tears. I’m trapped, too. In love and unable to walk away. I might as well be shut up in a valley all my own. She blinked and as her vision cleared, she found them staring at her.
“Wow,” said Arlo softly. “That’s quite a psychoanalysis for a house.”
“You asked me what I thought.” She drank the last of her whiskey and set down the glass with a hard clunk. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”
“We all need some sleep,” said Doug. “I’ll stay awake for a while and keep the fire going. We can’t let it go out, so we’ll need to take shifts.”
“I’ll take the next shift,” Elaine volunteered. She curled up on the rug and pulled her blanket around herself. “Wake me up when it’s time.”
The floor creaked as they all settled down, trying to get comfortable on the braided rug. Even with the fire burning in the hearth, the room was chilly. Beneath her blanket, Maura was still wearing her jacket. They had brought pillows down from the beds upstairs, and hers smelled like sweat and aftershave. The husband’s pillow.
With his scent against her cheek she fell asleep and dreamed of a dark-haired man with stony eyes, a man who loomed over her and watched as she slept. She saw threat in his gaze, but she could not move, could not defend herself, her body paralyzed by sleep. With a gasp she woke up, eyes wide in terror, heart banging in her chest.
No one stood above her. She stared up at empty shadows.
Her blanket had slid off, and the room was freezing. She looked at the fireplace and saw that the flames had died down to only a few glowing coals. Arlo sat snoring with his back propped up against the hearth, his head lolling forward. He had let the fire die down.
Shivering and stiff from the cold floor, Maura rose and placed another log on the hearth. The wood caught almost immediately, and flames soon crackled, throwing off delicious waves of heat. She looked in disgust at Arlo, who didn’t even stir. Useless, she thought. I can’t even count on them to keep a fire burning. What a mistake it had been to throw in her lot with these people. She was tired of Arlo’s wisecracks and Grace’s whining and Doug’s annoyingly unflagging optimism. And Elaine made her uneasy, though she didn’t know why. She remembered the way Elaine had stared when Doug had embraced Maura up on the road. I’m the interloper, the one who doesn’t belong with this happy quartet, she thought. And Elaine resents me.
The fire was now burning hot and bright.
Maura glanced at her watch and saw it was four AM. It was almost time for her shift to watch the fire anyway, so she might as well stay awake until dawn. As she stood up to stretch, a reflected glimmer caught her eye on the periphery of the firelight. Moving closer, she saw that droplets of water had beaded on the wooden floor. Then she noticed, off in the shadows, a light dusting of white. Someone had opened the door, letting in a gust of snow.
She crossed toward the door, where the snow had not yet melted, and stared down at the fine powder. Pressed into that powder was a single shoe print.
She turned and quickly scanned the room, counting the sleeping forms. Everyone present and accounted for.
The door was unlocked; no one had bothered to latch it last night, and why would they? Whom would they be trying to lock out?
She slid the bolt shut and went to look out the window. Although the room was warming up again, she was shaking under her blanket. Wind moaned in the chimney, and she heard snow hiss across the glass. She could see nothing outside, only blackness. But anyone out there would be able to see her, backlit by the glow of firelight.
She retreated from the window and sat on the rug, shivering. The snow near the door melted, taking with it the last remnants of the shoe print. Maybe the door blew open during the night, and one of them got up to shut it, leaving the print. Maybe someone stepped out to check the weather or pee in the snow. Wide awake now, she sat and watched as night slowly gave way to dawn, as the blackness outside lifted to gray.
Her companions did not stir.
When she rose to feed the fire again, she saw that they were down to their last few logs. There was plenty of wood outside in the shed, but it was probably damp. If she wanted it to dry out, someone would have to bring in an armload now. She looked at her sleeping companions and sighed. That someone would be me.
She pulled on her boots and gloves, wrapped her scarf around her face, and unlatched the front door. Bracing herself against the cold, she stepped outside, closing the door behind her. Wind swept the porch, its bite as sharp as needles. The swing creaked in protest. Glancing down, she saw no shoe prints, but the wind would have scoured anything away. A thermometer mounted on the wall read twelve degrees. It felt far colder.
The steps were buried in snow, and as she set her boot down on what she thought was the first step, her foot slid out and she fell. The impact shot straight up her spine and exploded in her skull. She sat for a moment, stunned and blinking in the dawn’s brightness. Sun beamed down from a blue sky and glared on a world turned blinding. Wind blasted a puff of powder into her face and she sneezed, which only made her head hurt worse.
She got up and brushed off her pants. Squinted at snow glistening on rooftops. Between the two rows of houses was a swath of virgin white, inviting her to be the first to tread that perfect, untouched surface. She ignored the impulse and instead tramped around the corner of the house, struggling through knee-high snow to reach the woodshed. She tried to pull a split log from the top of the pile, but it was frozen in place. Bracing one foot against the pile, she tugged harder. With a loud crack, the frozen bark suddenly gave way and she stumbled backward. Her boot caught on something buried beneath the snow, and she sprawled to the ground.
Two falls in one day. And the morning was still young.
Her head ached and her eyes felt scorched by the sunlight. She was hungry and queasy at the same time, the result of too much whiskey last night. The prospect of pork and beans for breakfast wasn’t making her feel any better. She struggled back to her feet and looked around for the log that she’d dropped. Kicking around in the snow, she bumped up against an obstruction. She dug in with gloved hands and felt a hard lump. Not the log, but something larger, something that was frozen to the ground. This was what she had caught her boot on.
She brushed away more snow and suddenly went still, staring down at what she’d uncovered. Repulsed, she backed away. Then turned and ran into the house.