A Wicked Snow

Chapter Nine

Hannah sat up and stared into the darkness. Ethan rolled away, as though moving to allow her space to get in and out of bed. But she sat there, still. Her breathing so labored, so slow, she could see her nightgown rise and fall like a malevolent tide. In her sudden lurch to awakening, the memories she had sought to hold deep inside flooded her consciousness. There was no escaping them. As the foggy memory of the worst of days came into sharper focus, the words played in her head like the backbeat to a song that refused to die. She turned to Ethan, afraid she was saying them in a voice loud enough to be heard.

I should have killed her myself, she thought. I should have killed her when I had the chance.

A partial memory played…

It was about half an hour before midnight when an unexpected noise outside converged with the chill of a snowy December night and woke Hannah. She was only a thirteen-year-old girl then, but even so, she held a kind of strength within her that kept her both caregiver to her brothers and unwitting confidant to a mother she had ceased really trusting. But that night, more than ever, something was wrong. Certainly, she could feel and taste Christmas. Yes, there was the anticipation of a morning of surprises. All of it. But whatever spell the season had held in years past was annihilated by voices outside. It was her mother and Marcus Wheaton. Their declarations and murmurs overlapped, and it took Hannah a minute or two to grasp what they were saying.

She heard her mother first. It sounded as if she was calling out from across the snowy driveway in front of the wreath maker’s shed.

“Get moving! We have about ten minutes, and as you know, ten minutes is barely a breath of time to do anything right. If you can’t do it, I’ll take care of the boys myself.”

Marcus said something, but Hannah was unsure what it was.

Then her mother called out. “Pull yourself together. Jesus! Act like a man.”

Hannah strained to hear. Although the words were incongruous with the holiday, she allowed herself to think that they were arguing over the assembly of gifts or something. Maybe for the boys? A pair of bikes? She got up and quietly crept to the window.

She knew, despite his job as her mother’s so-called handyman, Marcus Wheaton wasn’t mechanically inclined.

Then Wheaton called out, but his voice remained lower and therefore harder to decipher. Snow was falling and the wind sent a breeze that snapped the Santa banners that were hanging in the yard. Molly, the Logan’s black lab, barked. There was commotion out there, but the two figures in the yard were maintaining some kind of control. This wasn’t, thankfully, a knock-down, drag- out fight like they’d engaged in in the past. Hannah peeled aside a window shade to get a better view. Light seeped into the room, and she rubbed her eyes. She stared down from her window to the odd and snowy scene.

Vapors of white puffed from Marcus Wheaton’s mouth. She’d tease him tomorrow about being a dragon or something. She waited to see bikes or whatever wheeled across the white yard, but nothing happened. Her mother was nowhere in sight, and Wheaton disappeared. Whatever they were doing was over. Whatever they’d been up to had to be some kind of Christmas surprise for her brothers. Hannah crawled back in bed, pulled the covers up to her neck, and fell asleep.

And Hannah, now grown, a mother herself, still couldn’t let the rest of the story play in her mind. She finally fell asleep. It was after two.

The next day was filled with paperwork for Hannah, though interrupted more than occasionally with thoughts of Jeff Bauer. Hannah examined documents she hoped would prove that little Enrique Garcia had been murdered by his violence-prone father, Berto. Each line needed to be examined. Tedious, to be sure, but necessary. It was difficult and slow going, with eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. A visit from Ripperton didn’t make it any easier. He sauntered into her office like he owned the place. There was boldness in his manner, more exaggerated than usual. It was obvious that he was still proud of his investigative work on the Garcia case. Hannah noticed that the white circles around his eyes were pronounced. He had been tanning again.

“Ted, this isn’t a good time,” she said a little too harshly when he asked if they could go over the Garcia interview report.

“Someone,” he said somewhat snidely, “got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” Next, he paused and dropped a nugget of information that made her nearly jump from her chair.

“Now Joanne Garcia says Mimi killed her brother,” he said.

Hannah was stunned. “What?”

“I know you heard me, but I’ll say it again. Mimi Garcia is the one who drowned the baby. Joanne says that she and Berto covered it up to spare the girl from living with such a horrendous deed.”

Hannah set down her paperwork. “That’s complete bullshit.”

“I wish. I just got off the phone with her so-called lawyer—Deke Meyer. They want to work out a deal so that Mimi can be spared any emotional trauma.”

If it hadn’t been so serious, Hannah would have laughed out loud. Ripp had a lot of nerve casting aspersions on anyone. He was, she was sure, the world’s worst at what he did. Deke Meyer was merely in the bottom ten percentile of his profession.

“Joanne Garcia is the biggest idiot or bitch. Maybe both. We’re going to put her away for a long, long time. This is complete bullshit,” she repeated, raising her voice. “Using a little girl to bail them out—unbelievable!”

“I’m just the messenger,” Ripp said, faking a cringe while he dropped another file on her desk before exiting, “remember?”

Alone once more, Hannah felt the color drain from her face. The Garcias were not going to get away with what she was sure was the most outrageous defense a parent could fabricate. It disgusted her. Despite what she’d heard, she still couldn’t concentrate. She tried Deke Meyer’s office, but his secretary (his fourth wife, Sheila) said he was out “running errands or something.” Her mind was preoccupied, and she couldn’t focus on anything other than the conversation with the FBI agent. At 11:30, she looked at her watch and called Ethan. When he answered his phone, she told him about her conversation with Bauer.

“He’s going to see Marcus on Friday,” she said.

Ethan knew his wife better than anyone. He knew what she was going to say next and was already exasperated by her, so he said it out loud.

“You’re thinking of going up there, aren’t you?”

“I am,” she answered, her words surprising her a little. “I guess I am.”

“Hannah, haven’t you been through enough?” he asked. “Haven’t we all? Remember when you told me— promised us—that Orlando would be the last time you went chasing after your mother? I hate to say it. I hate to think it, but you’ve got to pull yourself in and stop this before we go through this over and over.”

“This isn’t about her,” she said, stiffening in her chair. “Someone out there knows who I am. Don’t you get it? This could ruin our lives.” Her voice started to crack. “It could destroy everything.”

Ethan was in a no-win situation, and he knew it. “You’ve made up your mind. I already know that. Let’s talk about it tonight,” he said. His voice was uncharacteristically flat. There was no talking about it. The absence of emotion had more to do with resignation than lack of genuine concern. Ethan had stood by his wife as she chased the memories that haunted her. She’d pursued four Claire Logan sightings since their marriage. She’d gone after her mother when news agencies reported appearances in Orlando, Pittsburgh, Tulsa, and Cabo San Lucas. And though Ethan knew this time could be like all the others—a literal dead end—it appeared a bit more promising. The shoes were either a prank or a taunt. He wondered if Claire Logan herself had sent them.

Hannah had already packed and Amber was reading at the kitchen table by the time Ethan came home that evening. She’d told her boss, DA Bill Gilliand, that she needed a couple days off for personal reasons. And she’d be back in the lab on Monday. After some characteristic browbeating—mostly for show—he acquiesced. Gilliand considered Hannah among the brightest and the most dedicated of the county employees—lawyers and lab rats—in his office. He did not know her family background, even though there had been a hundred times when she wanted to talk to him about it. There were times when she wanted to talk to anyone besides Ethan about it. But outside of her aunt and uncle and a cousin in Georgia, no one knew. Until, of course, an unknown someone had sent the package.

Hannah also double-checked the refrigerator to make sure Ethan would find something to eat, though she expected he’d take their daughter out to California Pizza Kitchen or another of the little girl’s favorite places. The last thing she did was to call a message in to Jeff Bauer. She knew he’d be at the office and he’d given her his home number. Voice mail picked up.

“Jeff, this is Hannah Griffin. I’ll meet you at Cutter’s Landing in the prison parking lot at nine thirty tomorrow morning. I’m leaving as soon as I hang up, and I won’t have my cell with me. See you there. I want to see Marcus Wheaton, too. Bye.”

When she hung up, she turned to find Ethan standing beside her. He knew what Hannah was going to say, so he spoke first.

“You’re going to see Wheaton. Do you want me to go with you? We could get a sitter.”

“No,” she said. She couldn’t do that to Amber. “I’ll be all right.”

Amber rushed to her mother and wrapped her arms around her.

“I’ll see you and Daddy on Saturday. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.” She made the motion across her breast.

“Be careful, babe,” Ethan said without looking at her.

“You know I will,” she said.

Amber hugged her a second time. “Love you, Mommy,” she said.

“Love you more.”

It was around 8 p.m, and the sky was blush with an impending sunset when Hannah started north to Oregon. She planned to drive until midnight, hopefully reaching Janesville, a speck just on the south side of the California/Oregon border. There was a truck stop with a small motel and café there. Coffee would fuel her; thoughts of Marcus, her mother, and Bauer would keep her going. Hannah loved the solitude and the strobe of the golden, then dusky, scenery that flashed by the wind-shield. She made decent time and arrived at the motel at 12:45. She’d driven almost 330 miles in four and a half hours. A woman with bird legs and a uni-brow checked her in and gave her a room key.

“Free pastries in the morning,” she said. “Just pay your bill and you can take some eats for the road.”

Hannah opted to prepay and gave the woman her Visa card and was charged $55. She’d try to get four hours of sleep before heading out for Cutter’s Landing and the penitentiary.

The last thing she thought of before drifting off to sleep were the faces of Mimi Garcia and her dead brother, Enrique. His was lifeless, chalky white. His sister’s was full of fear.

I’ll take care of you, she thought.

Then thoughts of Erik and Danny came to her mind, and she tried to force them back to the darkness of her memory. She started to cry. There was nothing she could do for them—not then, not now. Even so, the memories came. It was snowy. She was only thirteen.

“Hannah?”

Her eyes opened. Marcus Wheaton held his finger to his lips. His eyes were wild, and the sight of his mammoth frame hovering over her caused Hannah to cry out. She thought of how her mother and he’d been yelling out in the yard earlier. What time was it?

“Shhhhh. Don’t say a word. Not an utterance. Hannah, you understand? You must keep calm and be still.”

To make his point, he pressed the palm of his hand over Hannah’s mouth.

Fear seized her entire body. He’s going to mess with me, she thought. Mom warned me. He’s going to touch me in a way that is wrong. She wriggled and bit his hand. Wheaton winced.

Not you, she thought. Not you. Don’t do this to me.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I’m here to help you.”

Her eyes pooled, and she trembled. She had reason to, of course. Wheaton was an intimidating figure, swarthy and imposing. He was crouched over her bed like a monster of some kind. Big. Heavy. Smelly. Oddly so. Like gasoline or something.

“I won’t harm you,” he whispered. “Promise, no matter what, you won’t say a word.”

Hannah wanted his cold, fat fingers off her mouth. The smell from his hands was so overpowering she could barely breathe. She stared hard into his eyes; her own were awash with fear. They begged Marcus Wheaton to ease up, which is what he did.

“Listen to me carefully. Your mother is leaving tonight. She’s going away. Far away. She’s never coming back.” He parceled his words in tiny batches as though he was acutely aware that the girl under her bedcovers would have a difficult time assimilating all that was going on around her.

Indeed, Hannah was paralyzed. She said nothing. She managed a nod of understanding. No words. Just the nod.

“I’m going with her,” he went on. “You aren’t. None of you are.” Wheaton’s good eye glistened with tears. Was he crying? “This is hard. This is nothing you should ever have to hear, but your mother wants no part of any of you. She’s not happy here and she’s going away. I’m afraid this…is…is forever.”

Hannah didn’t believe him. “I want my mother,” she said, holding her voice to a whisper.

“I know, but it isn’t what she wants.”

“But I’m her daughter.”

He shook his head.

“She’s not made to be a mother. You know that. She doesn’t have it in her. Never has. She doesn’t even look at you like she even knows you.”

“She is my mother and she loves me.”

“Hannah, you know that she really cares for nobody.”

She hesitated. The unspoken had to be said.

“But you? Is that what you’re saying? She only cares about you?”

“No. She probably doesn’t want me, either. But I am damned to love her until she tosses me aside. You’re too young to understand that sometimes things are bigger, stronger than what you know to be right.”

“I don’t want her to leave us.”

“Hannah, you don’t want her to stay. Trust me. You don’t.”

“You don’t know how I feel. Where are my brothers?”

He shook his head. “Set that aside for now. Just for a moment. This is my chance to do something for you. I don’t want anything to happen to you, Hannah. Bad things have been happening around here. I’m getting you out of here.”

“What bad things?”

“You know what I’m talking about. You know about your mother. You’ve seen it for yourself. Remember the big jar?”

Hannah’s eyes widened in the kind of full-out terror that comes with the realization that the mother who had rocked her as a baby, who had held her as a baby to her breast, was not really a mother. Not the mommy type. Hannah thought of the jar of bloody teeth she’d found when searching for ribbons above the wreath-fabricating bench. She thought the vessel held rusted screws or bolts. But it was lighter. She unscrewed the top and tilted the contents. It was a cache of blood-dried teeth her mother had put away like some grotesque souvenir.

Her mother asked her about it, after she noticed it had been disturbed.

“What were you doing in my things? I’ve asked you children to be mindful of what’s mine and what’s yours. My things are not toys—not to be played with. Don’t you ever listen?”

“I wasn’t playing with anything,” Hannah had said. “I mean, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Claire shoved the jar in her face.

“This is what I’m talking about, and don’t tell me again that you haven’t seen this before.”

“But I haven’t.” Lying was a necessity, and Hannah knew it. “What is it?”

Claire studied her daughter’s face, but Hannah stayed cool, almost remote. The idea that her mother was some alien force was setting in, slowly, but it was coming.

“I almost believe you,” Claire had said. Her eyes were ice. “But believing a practiced liar is a dangerous game.”

“I’m not a liar.”

“Don’t make me laugh and don’t make me mad. I’ve caught you before.”

“I’m not lying. I don’t know anything. Maybe someone else moved it?”

After she had said those words, Hannah would have done anything to retrieve them, reeling them in like a bed sheet knotted out a window for escape.

Claire smiled. She had caught the flutter of fear. It propelled her to push.

“Maybe Didi got into this. Like I’ve said a million times, she’s always straightening things where we don’t need it.”

“I didn’t see her here.”

Hannah wasn’t convincing, and she didn’t really try to be. Later, she wished she’d been more careful in what she said and how she acted. She never saw Didi again after that day.

“Just what is that in that jar anyway?” Hannah hesitated. “Looks disgusting…like bloody teeth.”

Claire laughed and spun the jar top and peered inside. “You watch too much TV. Just the bric-a-brac of buttons and sequins and pushpins… and some red paint.”

But the odor was acrid and unmistakable. Hannah knew the smell of blood. She’d been there when her mother snapped the heads of chickens who no longer laid enough to justify the sack of scratch. She did it with a kind of flourish that indicated more enjoyment than resignation that the heads had to come off to kill the birds. She didn’t even use a hatchet or a knife, but did it with her bare hands.

“Hands are easy to wash, and they don’t rust,” she said.

Hannah also knew the color of drying blood. It was a sienna tone on the edges, drying to a deep mahogany. What her mother had insisted was red paint could pass for the hue of blood.

Early the next morning the sky was indigo with stars popping from the darkness in a spray that looked like one of those fiber-optic bouquets that old ladies adore. Hannah Griffin was on the road, sans free pastry, by 4:15 a.m.

Just past the state line most of the conifers that had swathed the area had been reduced to a pillow fringe, as though one couldn’t see beyond it to the stump-barnacled field of fireweed and blackberries. Alders, the first tree to arrive on the scene of deforestation, filled in like harried brush strokes where they could. Nothing about the landscape was particularly pretty, though Hannah had to admit the cool colors of green and blue were certainly pleasant on the eye, a change from the dusty palette of Santa Louisa County. She thought of Christmas trees and the evil, wicked snow that had ruined her life… and sent her to that place.