A Wicked Snow

Chapter Three

Hannah could no longer wait. She threw on her favorite white terry bathrobe and, without slippers on her feet, went down the hall. She flipped on the coffee pot, and went out to her Volvo. It was not the Garcia case that brought her from a warm bed with her husband, though the abused little girl weighed heavily on her mind. The contents of the car trunk had been gnawing at her like a mosquito bite that wouldn’t go away despite the pink crust of calamine that had been dabbed on to soothe it. It was there. It was outside, and tossing and turning and avoiding it wouldn’t do a damn thing about getting it out of her thoughts. Though she doubted anything could wipe it from her mind, she knew confrontation was the answer. She moved quietly across the garage, opened the driver’s door, and flipped the lever that released the trunk latch. Her breathing quickened. Beneath a Pendleton wool blanket she kept in the event that she was ever stranded on a chilly night, she found the box loosely wrapped in the grocery sack. She held it close to her thumping heart and returned to the kitchen.

The box sat on the table in front of her, and just as she’d done when it was delivered to her office, she fell back in time; the memories began flickering by. Even to think it was to conjure the worst images a brain had ever captured in the gray and pink folds of its tissue.

It was black, very black. And cold. The temperature had dipped well below freezing, a heavy layer of talc-like snow had tucked in all but the largest of the Douglas firs that marched up the mountain from the little house in the valley. Ice daggers hung from the corners of a farmhouse. A wisp of smoke, then a raging storm of fumes spiraled into the sky, then downward to the shed and the pump house to the carport. God had said never to forget, never to forgive. In the window, two little boys cowered in fear… the images flashed like old 8-mm film. Scratches of light cut through the images and in time, tears ran down her face.

“Hannah!” Ethan rushed into the kitchen, grabbing a hand towel off the oven door handle. A river of brown was flowing from the Krups coffeemaker down the face of the lower cabinets. He dropped a towel to the tile floor and it turned from white to brown.

“You forgot to put the pot under the filter,” he said, his words slowed as he noticed his wife hadn’t turned around despite the commotion.

“What’s that?” he asked, moving closer and looking over her shoulder at the box.

Hannah remained mute. Her eyes were fastened on what was in front of her.

“What is it?” he repeated.

“Shoes,” she finally answered. She looked up at Ethan and then back down at the table. She’d been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red. “I think they are Erik’s and Danny’s.”

Ethan was astonished by the sight of the scorched boys’ shoes. “Shit,” he said, because no other word came.

Erik and Danny Logan were Hannah’s little brothers and they had been dead far longer than they had ever lived. Even though their lives had been short, they had made their marks in ways that history’s footnotes often are constructed—through stories told by friends, family members, and in a handful of photographs that had survived. They’d become legend (a pop group from the UK called “The Dead Boys” had a string of hits in the late ’70s). But because of who his wife was, Ethan also knew what kind of boys they had been. Erik was somewhat bookish for a little boy; Danny was more of a cutup. Though the boys were twins, they were not identical in appearance at all. Most people who discussed the twins’ role in the tragedy assumed they had been identical boys when, in fact, they were fraternal. Erik was fair like his sister and Danny was somewhat swarthy and dark eyed. The boys had just turned six when they left this earth for what their Aunt Leanna would call “their great reward in heaven.” Leftover angel-food birthday cake from their party was still in the refrigerator when their young lives literally went up in smoke.

Hannah’s attention stayed on the small shoes: Buster Brown oxfords. One pair had survived the fire better than the other; its laces were intact and its leather still showed hints of the oxblood color that had once covered the surface with a mirror-like luster.

“Jesus, Hannah,” Ethan said. “Those can’t be the boys’ actual shoes?” He set the coffee-soaked towel in the sink and slid next to her.

“I think they are,” she said. She cradled the pair with the intact laces. Inside was a notation made in ballpoint pen. It read: “JB/12/25.”

Ethan put his arm around her.

“I don’t know for sure,” she continued. “I never saw them except for the times when Erik and Danny wore them. They look like their shoes… and the…” Her words fell flat. “They could be.”

“Where in the hell did they come from?”

“Someone sent them to me. At the office.” Her words came slowly.

“Who sent them?” Ethan asked again, rephrasing the question for which he most wanted the answer.

Hannah shook her head. She didn’t know who or why. She thought she’d call Veronica Paine, the prosecutor who’d guided her through the courtroom so many years ago. “I’ll ask her,” she said, her characteristic resolve finally kicking in. “I need to know if these are from the evidence vault and, if so, who took them and sent them to me.”

Ethan noticed the Life magazine that held the photo spread that inspired their annual photo of Amber in the flower fields was open to the story about “the incident.” There was a photograph of a burned-out farmhouse, the skeletal remains of a family’s life stuck in the mud and scattered across the black-and-white images. Smoldering rafters and floor joists jutted from an earth that had been soaked with water and melted snow. The headline read: HOLIDAY OF HORROR: OREGON MURDER FARM DIES A SMOLDERING DEATH. A second photo, inset into the two-page bleed of the burned building, depicted a volunteer fireman. Stuck on the butt of his axe was a little boy’s shoe.

“I think that’s one of Danny’s shoes,” Hannah said as she took the magazine and placed it on the top of the refrigerator, out of view.

Ethan put his arms around his wife’s shoulders. She seemed so small and very frail. She didn’t make a sound, but she sobbed.

“There’s something else,” Hannah said, finally, pulling away and reaching for her purse. She unzipped a side pocket. “I got this from the receptionist handling the phones during the lunch hour.” She held out a slip of pale pink paper folded in half.

Ethan fixed his eyes on Hannah and unfolded it. Across the top were the familiar words: WHILE YOU WERE OUT. Underneath were the date, Hannah’s name, and a box with “Called” checked. The message was only two words, but they were heart stopping.

Your mom.