A Wicked Snow

Chapter Thirty-four

Marcella Hoffman waited like a steely-eyed statue in the lobby of San Louisa County Courthouse. She’d read the local paper twice, including the classifieds and a Target circular. Hannah saw her right away. The first thought that crossed her mind was that the years had not been kind to the reporter-turned-author-turned-has-been. Hoffman had the kind of pink shrink-wrapped face that indicated Retin-A and a nip-and-tuck. Now in her fifties, her hair was colored to a solid black helmet that made her look older, not younger. She smelled of cigarettes and lattes. An oversized Coach bag was slung over her shoulder, nearly tilting her to one side.

Hannah gulped back the bitter taste of her own anger at seeing Hoffman and proceeded to the white marble stairs leading down to the basement lab and offices.

“Hannah?” Hoffman called out. “Hannah Griffin?”

Hannah ignored the voice and continued down the stairs, but Hoffman clacked across the cavernous foyer after her.

“It’s me! Marcella. Marcella Hoffman.”

Hannah swung around and shot her a frozen stare. There was no point in denying who she was. After all, if Hoffman had tracked her this far, to this obscure location, then she was a better reporter and had better sources than Hannah gave her credit for.

“I know who you are,” was all she could come up with.

Hoffman smiled. “Can we talk somewhere?”

“I have nothing to say to you. I never have.”

“Look, I didn’t come to make you angry. I didn’t drive out here all the way from Los Angeles to cause trouble. That’s not who I am or what I’m all about. You know that. I came for a story.”

“You’re wasting your time. There is no story here. Please go.”

“But there is and you know it. The people have a right to know.”

Hannah felt her face grow hot once more. Why was this woman coming into her life now? “We’re not having this conversation. Please go, or I’ll ask security to escort you from the building.”

Hoffman shook her head. “I have a lunch date with your associate, Mr. Ripperton. Hate to miss the date. I’d have to explain to Mr. Ripperton why I was barred from the building.”

A bailiff walked past the intense pair and offered his assistance.

“Everything okay?” the young man asked.

Hannah felt cornered, but nodded. “Fine. I just ran into an old friend. We’re going downstairs to catch up.”

Hoffman gave a fake warm smile, her big teeth reminding Hannah why she and Aunt Leanna had called the woman Dog Face.

“Old friends,” Hoffman said. “I like that.”

A couple minutes later the two women were behind the door of Hannah Griffin’s office.

“Let’s be direct. Okay? What in God’s name do you want?” Hannah said. “What more can you take from me?”

“Such attitude,” Marcella said, setting down her enormous bag. “I want to help you tell your side of the story. I’m a reporter.”

Hannah wanted to lunge, but she held back. “A reporter? As though that gives you license to pop into someone’s life anytime you see fit and wreak havoc. Please, don’t give me that bullshit about being a reporter. What do you want?”

“Such hostility,” Hoffman said, planting herself in one of the pair of visitors’ chairs in front of Hannah’s desk. “You have me all wrong. Didn’t you read my book?”

“It made me ill.”

“The truth can do that. You know that,” she said looking around, “given your job here.”

“I really don’t want to talk to you. I have a family. I want to put this behind me. Can’t you understand?”

“Yes. I talked to Ethan. Nice fellow. Amber sounds adorable. Wish I was going to be in town long enough to see her recital.”

“Leave my family alone.”

“I’m not after your family. I want to get the interview of a lifetime, that’s all.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I want to talk to your mother.”

Hannah wanted to reach across the desk and strangle Hoffman. Anything to wipe the smug look off her nip-and-tucked face.

“My mother is dead. Didn’t you write the book on it? Or have you forgotten?”

Hannah noticed Ripperton walk past the windows next to her office door. He glanced in her direction and eyed her somewhat anxiously—not because he was concerned about what was being said—but because he didn’t want to miss his chance for lunch with Hoffman.

“Liz thinks she’s alive. So do I,” Hoffman continued.

Hannah’s face must have betrayed her feelings. She didn’t know who Dog Face was talking about.

“Marcus’s mother,” Hoffman said. “Liz Wheaton. We’ve been friends for years. I’m friendly with a lot of the old gang from Rock Point.”

“I’m sure you are. I don’t know Mrs. Wheaton. Never met her.”

“But you’ve just seen her son, haven’t you?”

Hannah didn’t say a word.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Hoffman went on, oblivious. “I have sources. Better than you can imagine. There’s only one little thing I haven’t been able to figure out. And it is a doozy. Where did your mother go after she left Rock Point that night?”

“Who says she left?” Hannah thought about the box of shoes that had been sent to her. She wondered if Marcella Hoffman had been the sender, but she didn’t say anything about it.

“She was too smart. Too smart to let a house burn down around her and a piano fall on her.” Hoffman walked over to the door. “Now, Mrs. Wheaton knew how to find you. And here I am. Are you going to help me find your mother?”

She twisted the knob on the door.

“Or am I going to tell everyone who you are?”

“You wouldn’t. Even you couldn’t do that.”

“Watch me.”

“If I knew, I’d tell you.”

Hoffman was in her nasty mode. “I know you saw Marcus up at Cutter’s Landing. Liz told me. I know that Jeff Bauer went with you. So tell me. Where is she?”

“I really don’t know,” Hannah said, wanting to kill Hoffman. She found herself planning it as they stood there. She would take the cord from the phone and wrap it around her turkey neck. She’d pick up the crystal paperweight that Ethan had given her for passing the bar and she’d smash the woman’s skull. Everything she saw in her office could be a weapon used to end Dog Face’s miserable excuse for a life.

Ripperton knocked on the door and stuck his head inside.

“Lunch still on, Miss Hoffman?” Ripp looked concerned.

The reporter nodded and flashed a warm, but Hannah was sure, phony smile. “Sure. Hannah and I are finished for now. We’re getting together a bit later to continue our interview.”

The air hung with hostility, but Ripperton, the investigator who was forever incompetent and clueless, stayed true to form. He didn’t get wind of anything.

Twenty minutes after Ripp and Dog Face left for their “interview,” Hannah had sufficiently pulled herself together to call Bauer at the Northern Lights in Kodiak. The front desk patched her through, but Bauer wasn’t in and the call went to voice mail.

“Jeff, Hannah here. That bitch Marcella Hoffman paid me a visit just now. She said Marcus Wheaton’s mother told her where to find me. How could that be? I’ve never even met Liz Wheaton. Call me. Hoffman says she’s sure my mom is alive. Please call me. I need you.”

For the next hour Hannah tried to put her mother, Wheaton, and Hoffman out of her thoughts as she attempted to refocus on the Garcia case. Her emotions had frayed, and she knew it. She was on the brink. A series of phone calls did little to provide the calming she needed. A phone call to Ethan at work was a zero; he was “up to his neck in alligators” and could only spare a moment.

“You don’t have to talk to Hoffman at all,” he said.

“It isn’t that simple,” she answered back, almost to herself. “I wish it were.”

Ten minutes later, County Attorney Bill Gilliand came to the door of her office. He seldom stopped as he passed by, preferring to offer a nod of recognition while he kept on moving. Handsome and charismatic, Gilliand was all politics. He saved his personal interaction for when it mattered. Staff meetings, court, and fund-raisers. But this time, the morning she was coming undone, Bill Gilliand strode into her office for the first time.

“Hannah,” he said with a concerned look in his eyes, “I heard that it didn’t go well at the hospital with Garcia. Ripperton says you almost jumped on her.”

I could kill him, Hannah thought.

“It wasn’t that bad, but I guess I was a bit physical,” she admitted to her boss.

“Yes, physical,” he mused. “That’s what we leave for the cops to do,” he said, a veiled reference and a not-so-subtle dig against her husband. “I’d like you to take the rest of the day off.”

She got up from her chair and walked around her desk, leaned back, and sat down on the corner of the desk. It didn’t bring her to Gilliand’s commanding height, but it didn’t make her feel as small as a school-girl, either.

“I’m fine now,” she said. “It was just…”

“I’m not asking. I’m telling you. I think it would be best. We don’t want to get into a problem with Mrs. Garcia, or anyone else for that matter.” He walked a couple of steps to the door and turned around. Then almost as an aside, he offered, “A hospital nurse called and complained. It wasn’t just Ripperton. And actually, hard to believe as it might be, Ripp was concerned about you.”

A few moments later, Hannah stood in the checkout line of Ralph’s Grocery not far from the Griffins’ place on Loma Linda Avenue. She bought a bottle of chardonnay and some Oreos. The cookies were for Amber and Ethan, who shared an incredible sweet tooth. She’d drink the wine. Considering what she’d been through, Hannah intended to drink a lot of it.