Hard Cold Winter Read online

  Just as the sun was starting to push its way into the sky, a black Escalade flew into the parking lot, barely slowing its speed from off the main street. It whipped to the right and stopped perfectly centered in a parking space.

  Willard had arrived.

  Banks stared as Willard got out of the SUV and managed to make it look smaller by comparison. Instead of one of his usual custom-made brown suits, he wore a red rain jacket over wool pants. His face, which always looked dour from his heavy brow and jaw, had sunk even lower, into mournful.

  “Sheriff kept me all goddamn night,” Willard said to me in his ground-glass voice. “I want you along when I go to—to see her.” He glared at Deputy Banks. “Okay with you?”

  It took Banks a second to find his words. “Sure thing.”

  The morgue was on the basement level of the hospital. It was the only room on its hall without a sign. The attendant, a stoop-shouldered woman with braided gray hair, unlocked the swinging doors.

  We walked into a frigid wind. Vents and fans worked noisily to keep the temperature somewhere under forty degrees. I smelled the sharp tang of antiseptic cleaning products, over the heavier scent of something like old leaves. Yellow tiles covered the floor. Most of the opposite wall was dominated by the faces of large stainless steel drawers, in two rows of four.

  “Normally we could do this with a photograph,” the attendant said, “but I’m afraid in this case—” She tilted her head sympathetically and checked a whiteboard—KH 02/20 D4 was written in blue dry-erase marker just above the lowest line, uf 02/20 D6. Kendrick Haymes, and unidentified female.

  The attendant led us around the flat metal examination tables to the wall of drawers, and then stopped and turned to Willard.

  “Go ahead,” Willard said.

  The attendant pulled hard on Drawer 6 and it opened slowly, releasing a thicker waft of cold air along with the rotting vegetation smell. A thick blue plastic sheet covered the body inside. The body’s weight made the long drawer sag a fraction of an inch, as if threatening to tip.

  She pulled back the plastic sheet very carefully.

  The face underneath was horrific. There was no other word for it. The bullets had gone through Elana’s nose and forehead and shattered every bit of bone and cartilage in their path, until the little nubs of metal and their shock waves had burst out of her skull altogether. Her splintered facial bones had collapsed inward. Even her hair was dull and grayish, as if trying to match her pallor. It was almost impossible to tell that she’d been young. Or even female.

  Willard stared at her, suddenly red-faced and breathing through his mouth.

  “There’s also this,” the attendant said, and drew back the lower corner of the sheet to reveal a tattoo in faded red and black on the body’s calf. Roses, in a loose bouquet, one tumbling out and down in a graceful curve.

  I reacted an instant before the deputy did, both of us grabbing Willard as he slumped. Damn, he was heavy. We kept him roughly vertical as the attendant grabbed a chair and got it under him.

  “Sir?” Deputy Banks said over and over.

  “’M all right,” Willard said, even as he threatened to topple to the floor. The attendant rushed to cover Elana and close the drawer.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” she said.

  “Mr. Willard, can you identify that woman as Elana Coll?” the deputy said.

  “I can,” said Willard. He shuddered and put his face in his hands. The deputy looked embarrassed, and the attendant edged away.

  “Give us a minute,” I said. The deputy nodded, not ungrateful, and they left the room.

  I sat on one of the examination tables. Willard took a dozen deep breaths, each getting longer and a little less ragged. When he took his hands away, his eyes were bloodshot but mostly dry.

  He fished out a pack of Camels and a lighter from his red raincoat. He offered me one and I waved it off, after an instant’s hesitation.

  He lit one. The smoke didn’t smell good, but it was better than the other lingering odors in the room.

  “Talk to me,” Willard said. I told him what I’d seen at the cabin. He listened. The busy fans caught the smoke as it trailed upward, yanked it from the air to vanish like a small, startled ghost.

  “So maybe the little shit killed her,” Willard said when I’d finished.

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “I think the cops will start with the obvious and see if the evidence backs it up. Was Kend nuts? Did they fight a lot?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t share her love life with me, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Would she have left him if he was getting rough?”

  He glowered. “You knew her.”

  The Elana I remembered wouldn’t have taken a guy who slapped her around. She’d have left, or stabbed him with a carving fork, or something. But I hadn’t seen her since we were teenagers.

  Willard tapped his ash and watched it fall. “She was still the same girl.”

  “Okay. So let’s say that violence was out of character for Kend. You said they went to the cabin at the last minute?”

  “I said that was the feeling I got.”

  “Kend had packed for a stay,” I said. “Elana hadn’t. She just brought her shoulder bag.”

  “So what?”

  “I don’t know. It just strikes me as weird, if they drove up together. Who doesn’t bring underwear and a toothbrush, at least? There were other tire tracks around the cabin. People had been there, and left. Maybe they saw something, or heard an argument.”

  “You said the gate was locked. Weren’t they alone?” he said.

  “Unless somebody decided to lock it behind them when they left. Maybe Kend asked them to.”

  Willard rumbled. “Possible.”

  “Call some of Elana’s people,” I said. “She must have shared secrets with somebody.”

  “I didn’t know her friends. She liked running with Kend and his crowd. I guess she thought they were exotic. Or rich, anyway.”

  “A new start? Was she running from something?”

  “We didn’t talk. She took the job with me because she needed it. But”—he dropped the cigarette to crush it under his size eighteen wingtip—“she didn’t share much.”

  That seemed to run in their family. “Maybe her parents know.”

  “Her parents are in Australia, last I knew, or cared. I haven’t seen my sister and that fried egg she married in three years. I’m not sure Elana has, either.”

  “But you and she don’t talk.”

  “Van. Let it alone.”

  I looked at him. “What’s going on, Willard?”

  He shook his head. There was something missing, I realized. The threat of violence, which was almost always present with Willard, which had been boiling right at the rim when he’d walked into the hospital, was gone.

  “Do you know something?” I said. “Did one of your scores lead to this?”

  “I don’t know shit,” he said. He took a slow breath. “I’ll check. I’ll make sure it’s not on me. But I already know the answer. My life has been quiet and level for a long time. How I like it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “There still might be a motive on Kend’s side.”

  “You think that’ll explain anything?”

  “How hard will the cops dig with the Haymes family?”

  He shrugged. Not knowing. Or not caring. But my question was almost rhetorical. If rich kid Kendrick had killed his girlfriend and then himself, the Haymeses would bury this faster than all his daddy’s excavation machines could manage.

  Willard looked at Drawer 6. “I’ve lost a lot of people, Van. You too, I suppose. Knowing why never gave me a damn scrap of comfort.”

  The masking smell of smoke had been scrubbed completely from the air by the cold artificial breeze. We were back to the lower notes of decay.

  “I’m sorry she’s dead,” I said.

  Long after I thought he wouldn’t answer, Willard turned
away from the drawer.

  “You were right the first time,” he said. “There’s no fixing it.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  BY LATE AFTERNOON I was back in my house on the east side of Capitol Hill in Seattle, trying to cook pancakes. Pancakes because a box of Bisquick was one of the few things I had in the pantry, and late because I’d skipped lunch after seeing Elana’s body. The trying part was courtesy of my elderly neighbor, Addy Proctor.

  “You need to use the spatula,” Addy said from where she perched like a stout cockatoo on the tall leather bar stool. She wore a wool sweater the color of cream with a Scandinavian pattern woven in blue around the shoulders. The sweater came down almost to her knees. Because the furnace was still struggling to warm the house, Addy kept her loose-knit scarf wrapped around her neck. “Separate the batter from the pan a little.”

  “I like them a little crispy.”

  “Did you oil the pan? That helps.”

  “I’ll make you your own, if you want.”

  She grimaced in horror at the idea. Her dog, Stanley, looked up from where he lay, ever vigilant where food was involved. Stanley took up most of the floor of the cramped kitchen, so that I had to step over him. I had no clue as to what breeds had combined to make Stanley. Pit bull crossed with white rhinoceros, maybe.

  Addy Proctor lived in a yellow house down the hill. Her home was small and quaint. Mine was big and dark blue and looked like a dented helmet on the top of our street. She had seen me return from the Peninsula in the truck, and within half an hour she was knocking on the door, inviting herself over to talk. She’d done that most every day in the weeks I’d been home. I didn’t mind. And even if I did, I owed the old woman a favor, or ten. She’d helped look after Dono while he was in the hospital. And she’d kept his house from falling apart, or being taken over by squatters, while I completed my final year in the Army. I’d spent one more short rotation in Afghanistan before impatiently waiting out my last few weeks at Fort Benning in Georgia. They’d assigned me to RASP—Ranger Assessment and Selection—where I was up hours before dawn every day, pushing the candidates to their limits, and usually beyond. I was discharged from the Army in better shape than I’d been in years.

  Just Donovan Shaw now, my grandfather’s namesake. No longer Sergeant First Class.

  The dining area of the house was right next to the kitchen, so that the two rooms made one large space. An ancient scarred oak table and three rickety chairs were the only furniture. The table had one of the better spots in the old house, with bay windows that looked out at the backyard with its overgrown lawn and tangles of wild rosebushes. I sat down at the table with my crunchy short stack and a bottle of syrup from the Pike Place Market.

  “Your friend, Willard,” said Addy, “he and his niece were close?”

  I wasn’t exactly a friend of Willard’s. Dono had been.

  “Willard isn’t even sure where Elana was living,” I said between bites.

  “But he’s upset. Of course he is, stupid of me to even ask. That poor girl.”

  “Mostly, he’s angry.”

  “That’s how men get upset. My Magnus once broke a plate that had been his mother’s—the only thing he had of hers, from his childhood in Sweden—and he shouted the rafters down about any little thing for a full week. I understood, even though I was perfectly happy not to have a reminder of that old witch around anymore.” She waved a hand, too late to stop me tossing a golf-ball lump of pancake to Stanley. He snagged the treat before it hit the floor. “Don’t encourage him.”

  “I’m just staying on his good side,” I said.

  “And I’m late giving him his dinner.” She lowered herself down from the bar stool. Stanley leapt to his feet, tail wagging. “I hope you’ll serve Luce more than burnt flapjacks.”

  I had told Addy that Luce would be coming over. It was the one night per week Luce allowed herself off from running things at the Morgen.

  “We’re going out,” I said, although I wasn’t really sure what our plans would be. I hadn’t wanted to tell Luce about Elana’s death over the phone during my long drive back from the Peninsula. However long the two friends had been out of touch, it wasn’t going to be easy for her to hear.

  “Good. Put on something nicer than a tank top, take her out on the town, and show her off.”

  “Addy.”

  “I’m simply saying young ladies like her don’t come around every day.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to take her out yourself? You could hitch up Stanley to a hansom cab.”

  We both turned at the sound of a knock and the front door opening. “Clearly it’s too late for you,” said Addy.

  “Hello,” Luce called.

  “In the kitchen,” I said. She came down the hall to where we were.

  I was always a little bit stunned at the sight of Luce Boylan. She was taller and more alive than my memory could hold, somehow. She wore a knee-length black wool coat, silver scarf, and black boots. Her blond hair was free and fell down between her shoulder blades, much longer than when we’d first reconnected last year.

  Luce leaned down to kiss Addy on the cheek. “Afternoon, Addy.”

  “Good evening, I believe. Which means I have my own date with Alex Trebek. You two have a lovely night.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Remember what I said.”

  She and Stanley left. Luce looked at me. “What was that about?”

  “Addy needs a hobby. Come here.”

  She put down her overstuffed shoulder bag and we kissed. I might have given it less than my usual enthusiasm.

  “What’s wrong?” Luce said.

  “Let’s sit down.”

  “Van.” She didn’t like suspense.

  “It’s bad news, Luce. Elana is dead.”

  The fact took an extra few seconds to sink in. It usually did. I’d had to tell a lot of people about unexpected death in the past few years. Mostly guys in my platoon. Soldier or civilian, the first reaction was usually stunned quiet.

  “Oh. Oh, Van. What . . . ?”

  “Take your coat off. Here.”

  We sat on the rickety chairs of the dining room, and I told her about the sad end of her friend, and of Kendrick Haymes. She cried. When I came to the part about it looking like Kend had killed them both, she stared at me like I was insane.

  “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “I don’t have the first clue. I guess you don’t, either.”

  Luce took another tissue but didn’t wipe her eyes, just twisted it in her fingers. “Last time I saw Elana was just after high school. I guess she would have been nineteen or twenty. That was before she followed some guy to Chicago, I heard.”

  “She do that a lot? Latch on to guys?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t really know who she was, as an adult. You know what her life was like, as a teenager.”

  I did. Better than most.

  “She was a really good friend, when we were kids,” Luce continued. “Helped me a lot, when I needed an extra hand taking care of Albie.”

  Luce and Elana had a lot in common, when it came to defective parentage. Elana’s folks were space cases. Luce’s mother had left the family when she was a baby, and her dad had wandered in and out of her life while Luce lived with relatives. She’d finally settled with her uncle Albert when she was ten. Through a combination of the bottle and his own misadventures, Albie wasn’t the most dependable, either, for as much as he loved her. Luce had grown up fast.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She nodded and leaned forward for a long hug.

  “We’ll stay in tonight,” I said.

  “No. No, I want to be out. That’s okay?”

  “That’s okay.”

  I found a clean pair of jeans and a shirt in the single bedroom upstairs. It was still odd to think of it as my room. Dono’s books filled most of the shelves, and the flat-screen on the wall was preset to his news and sports stations, with an emphasis on European football matches.

  We too
k my truck up the hill to the row of restaurants and bars on 15th Ave, and found a table with no waiting at Smith. One side of the restaurant had rough portraits of unknown people from the first half of the past century, and a long, very tall bar. The opposite wall was sparsely decorated with stuffed animal heads and the occasional pheasant trapped forever in flight. Our table was on the wall of taxidermy, under the head of something vaguely like an antelope. We ordered drinks—a cocktail with rum for Luce, bourbon neat for me—and held hands across the table. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. The second time since we’d left the house.

  “You’re not answering?” I said.

  “It’s either Marcie in a panic because she’s low on a brand of vodka or something, in which case she should learn to deal with it herself. Or it’s Fye, letting me know she’s really okay after her latest breakup, really. Either way, not tonight.”

  Or it was someone else. I’d been back in Seattle barely a month. Luce and I hadn’t talked about being exclusive. I knew other guys had called her.

  “Not tonight,” I agreed, and took a sip after we’d clinked glasses.

  Luce hesitated before drinking. Maybe the toast felt too cheerful, half an hour after crying for Elana.

  “Speaking of work,” I said. “I have a lead on something. It might even match our weird nocturnal hours.”

  “I didn’t know you’d been thinking about that,” she said. “Matching our schedules.”

  “I have. I’d be teaching night classes.”

  “In military work?”

  “Training, for police. Or at least survivalist types. A major from our battalion started his own firm. Eberley Tactical Instruction. He says there could be openings, if he lands a couple of contracts. It would be short-term, to start. He’ll let me know.”

  “Well. All right.” She grinned then, and I would have leaned across to kiss her but the waiter arrived to take our orders.

  “It might mean some travel,” I said when we were alone. “It wouldn’t be as close as working together at the bar.”

  “No.”

  “There are too many memories there. With Dono, and after.”

  “I understand,” she said. “I wouldn’t even set foot in the place, if I were you.”