A Wicked Snow

Chapter Thirty-six

Bauer removed the plastic sheathing from a motel-room glass and poured himself a couple shots of Wild Turkey as he contemplated his next move. After the interview with Louise Wallace, he and S.A. Ingersol conferred about some details she’d learned about Liz Wheaton through Social Security and Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles.

“No shit,” he said when Ingersol told him that Marcus Wheaton’s mother had transformed herself and was working at, of all places, the Spruce County Clerk’s Office.

“She’s packed on at least sixty pounds, stopped bleaching her hair,” Ingersol said, excitedly, clearly enjoying the revelation. “And looking at the DMV photo in front of me, I’d say she probably had a little nip-and-tuck on her face, too.”

“I vaguely remember her as a faded party gal who could have used some work. And that was twenty years ago.”

“What’s more,” Ingersol went on, “she’s been a micro-film copier technician for Spruce County for almost a decade. She calls herself Liza Milton—Milton being the name of one of her old tricks, some dope that actually married her.”

Veronica Paine was stunned when Bauer called her cell from Kodiak with the revelation. Photos from the fire, torsos of dead men in uniform, and witness statements fanned out in front of her. She let out a sigh. She’d never noticed Marcus’s mother in all her years as a judge, and admitted she felt more than a little foolish.

“How could I have been so blind?” she asked.

“Ingersol tells me that the DMV photo looks nothing like the shots taken during the trial. You wouldn’t know it was the same woman,” Bauer said.

Further, Paine had seen the news report, but had regarded it with about as much credibility as the other dozen or so Claire Logan sightings over the years.

“It’s a guess, of course,” Bauer said, “but I think Liz Wheaton—or whatever her name is—sent the shoes to Hannah Griffin.”

Paine wasn’t so quick to jump to conclusions—a holdover from her days on the bench when hearing all sides was a necessary element to critical decision making. She conceded it was a good bet, however.

“If Wheaton’s mother worked in the Clerk’s office, she’d easily have access to the exhibits, like the shoes. Even though we keep a tight rein on them, they are public records, you know.”

“Right,” Bauer said, sipping his Wild Turkey, “but why would she send them to Hannah? Why do that?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a fortune-teller. But it seems to me that she must have wanted to elicit a reaction. Maybe to hurt Hannah or shock her into doing some-thing—like go with you to see Marcus.”

“I’ve thought about that. But why? Hannah was just a kid when the place burned down.”

Paine let out a laugh. “Haven’t you learned the key to investigations yet?”

Bauer was a little irritated by the question. Paine was enveloping her words in a kind of schoolmarm effect that he found a little condescending.

“What’s that, Judge?” He did his best to remain polite.

“Not everything makes sense, Jeff. There isn’t absolute meaning in everything these nut cases do. They’d like you to think so. The public would like it, too. But the fact is, sometimes people do crazy things.”

Bauer finished his glass and eyed the bottle, contemplating another drink.

“Maybe so. Thanks, Judge.”

“What’s your number at the Northern Lights?” she asked.

He gave it to her, hung up, and started to pour.

Ethan Griffin got out of the shower, dried off his thick, black hair, wrapped a towel around his love handles, and planted himself on the edge of the bed. Hannah was sitting up, the newspaper on her lap. She was not reading.

“Where are you?” he asked for the second time as his wife stared across their bedroom, then back to her husband on the bed. She thought of Bauer, Kodiak Island, and the woman that might be her mother.

“I’m here,” she lied.

“No. You’re not. Maybe body only. But nothing more.” He stared at her. He wanted to argue, and Hannah knew it.

Hannah could hear the toilet flushing, and she knew Amber had gotten up to go to the bathroom. It was after 11 p.m., and she was so tired. She turned away, looking through windows etched by misdirected sprinklers and smudged by her daughter’s small fingers. She studied the outside world, illuminated by garden lights, as if out there was some great clue as to what was happening. And, above all, what she should do.

“Hannah, I’m worried.” Ethan said, slumping beside her. “You’re not yourself and we need you.” He felt her slight recoil from his forced closeness and studied her profile. Her skin was ashen, her eyes sunken and underscored with faint smudges left from sleepless nights. She had lost weight, and her hair, though pinned back in a loose ponytail, was limp and dull. If Ethan Griffin had not known the reason why Hannah had begun to fall apart, he would have believed she was the victim of some grave illness. She was in need of medical attention. God, he thought, it was her mind that was fucked up. No MD could fix that. He wondered if any shrink could either.

Ethan offered her the afghan folded at the foot of the bed.

“You need to rest,” he said.

“I can’t rest,” she said, pushing it away. “I can’t sleep. I don’t even want to try anymore.”

When Ethan tried to put his hand on Hannah’s shoulder, she turned away.

“Ethan…” her words fell off to a near whisper. “I’m so tired of all of this.”

“We’re all tired,” he said. Not knowing how to comfort her, Ethan left the room.

At that moment, and at countless other instances strung like a necklace of razor blades around her neck, Claire Logan could not be excised from Hannah’s thoughts—her true memories of what happened blended with the tales created and exhumed by the news media in search of a story. Marcella Hoffman had been the worst of the offenders. Seeing her at the courthouse had done nothing but push Hannah closer to the edge.

A car passed by on the street, its headlights filling the bedroom with a brightness that brought Hannah out of her thoughts. Then the car was gone. Hannah thought once more of Hoffman and wondered if she had been casing Loma Linda Avenue. A shiver went through her and she got up, pulling the afghan over her shoulders. She walked down the hall and nudged Ethan, now asleep on the sofa.

“I’m going to Kodiak,” she said.

Ethan lifted his head from the sofa pillow. “Oh, Hannah,” he said. “That’s not a good idea. Nothing comes of these trips. It just tears you up.”

“I can’t help it. I have to know.”

“What are we going to tell Amber this time?”

“I have business in Alaska.”

“Not that. What are we going to say to our daughter if this woman is your mother, her grandmother? Or what if Marcella Hoffman decides to write an update about you and your life? What are we going to say to Amber?”

Hannah didn’t have an explanation, though she’d considered the problem a million times.

“Scoot over and hold me,” she said. She climbed on the sofa next to Ethan and he put his arms around her. There was barely enough room to hold the two of them on the narrow sofa cushions, but it didn’t matter. With the world spinning out of control, Hannah Logan Griffin fell asleep.

The next morning, Hannah found herself in bed at 6 a.m. Ethan was already dressed.

“How?” she asked sleepily, remembering the night before.

“Carried you here. The two of us don’t fit on the couch,” he said, patting his stomach. “One of us needs to diet.”

Ethan said nothing about what they had discussed the night before. He saw no point in it. He told Hannah that he and Amber would “single-dad” it again.

“Thanks,” she said, sitting up and sliding her feet to the floor. “This will be the last time.”

“I hope so, but I doubt it.”

She had printed out online airline boarding passes that included a commuter flight from Santa Louisa’s airport to LAX and a connection in Seattle that would put her in Anchorage late that night. Another flight would get her into Kodiak around midnight. It was the best she could do. It gave her a few hours in the office. Everything was planned to the minute. She’d call Bauer from Anchorage. From home, she changed her office voice mail to indicate she’d be out in the field all day, but to please leave a message as she checked them frequently.

Marcella Hoffman was waiting outside the main lab door. Wearing an ecru suit and jade blouse, Hoffman waved at Hannah.

“Morning,” she said.

Hannah felt her stomach drop. “What are you doing here?”

“Had breakfast with Ted Ripperton and just hoping that I’d run into you. Saw the news last night. Think she’s your mom?” Hannah ignored her question, and Hoffman followed her into her office.

“What exactly is your connection to Liz Wheaton?” Hannah asked, setting down and opening her briefcase, revealing her airplane tickets among file folders bearing the name Garcia.

“Friends, I told you yesterday. We became friendly when I did my ten-year-after update.”

“Do you know where she worked?”

Hoffman made a face as she sat down. Her eyes lit on the plane tickets, and seeing that, Hannah closed her briefcase. “I’m supposed to ask the questions,” Hoffman said. “Unless, of course, I’m on the witness stand.”

“Consider it just that. I’m sure you know all of this, but play dumb for my benefit. I got a package not long ago. A package from Spruce County. Stolen evidence.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Hoffman shifted in the visitor’s chair.

“I said to play dumb, not moronic. Look, I know that you and Liz Wheaton and the package were connected. You know what surprises me? That you could be so cruel. God, I feel like a fool.”

“I had nothing to do with the shoes. All I wanted was your address. Liz provided me the information. Got it from her son’s parole folder. Your address was there… you know to be contacted in the event Wheaton ever escaped from prison.”

“What does Liz Wheaton want from me?”

“She never said.”

“Get out of my office. Or I will call security.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Watch me.” She picked up the phone and pushed zero. “I’ll have your ass in jail for stealing criminal records. I never said the package contained any shoes.”

Like a cockroach terrified of the saber-beam of a flashlight, Hoffman scuttled out the door. An hour later, Hannah was at the Santa Louisa airport headed toward the one and only gate served by Orange Leaf Air.

The gigantic stuffed polar bear at the Anchorage airport was startling at any time of day, but in the evening, after flying for hours and a couple of glasses of wine, the fourteen-foot taxidermist’s dream looked like a monster. Preoccupied with a volatile mix of hope, anxiety, and fear, Hannah Griffin didn’t notice the white monstrosity until she looked up while fiddling with the contents of her purse after the long flight from Seattle. She nearly dropped everything. It was 11:30 and the travel gods had smiled on her: the flight to Kodiak had been delayed thirty minutes.

She composed herself, found a phone booth, and dialed the number of the Northern Lights Motor Inn. It rang a dozen times before an obviously snoozing night clerk answered and took her reservation for a room for that night, before patching her over to Bauer’s room.

“I’m coming to Kodiak,” she announced with an exaggerated confidence that even she didn’t buy, despite where she was.

Bauer attempted to shake off his sleepiness and the residual fogginess of one-too-many glasses of Wild Turkey. “Not a good idea,” he said. “Nothing you can do here.”

“I’ll be there in an hour. I’m at the Anchorage airport now.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Can’t you let me do my job first?”

Hannah looked around the airport and spoke quietly. “I’ve waited a long time for this, too. If Louise Wallace is my mother, I have a right to see her before the circus—the media circus—comes to Alaska and takes over.”

Bauer exhaled a loud sigh. “Like I told you earlier, we really don’t know who Wallace is or isn’t. Really, I understand your position and I wish I had done a better job of preempting the shock of the news story yesterday. I wish I had.”

“Can we discuss this in the morning?” Hannah asked.

“Okay, it’s late,” he said, feeling a little relieved. “Where can I reach you?”

“In the room next to yours,” she said. “I just made reservations.”

Bauer’s relief evaporated. “Just great,” he muttered. “See you at seven.”

Right on schedule an hour later, Hannah, her big purse, and a small carry-on bag waited for a taxi on the curb in front of Kodiak’s small-fry airport. The air was surprisingly warm—not California balmy, of course, but warmer than she imagined Alaska would be. She thought of the Orlando trip she’d made in search of her mother. She hated Florida because of the experience and even turned down the opportunity to participate in a sex abuse conference held just outside Walt Disney World. Amber, she knew, would have loved Disney. Waiting, Hannah hoped that Alaska, at the opposite end of the country, would be different. She even prayed it would be. She hoped that the woman Bauer had seen was indeed her mother.

Over the years, Hannah had seen flashes of her mother’s visage in the faces of so many women. She saw her mother’s features in a woman sweeping up spilled popcorn at the mall. The middle-aged woman was hunched over, shoving the broom as though she intended to scrape the surface of its waxy sheen. Hannah even tapped the woman on the shoulder in order to get a better look. She had seen her mother in the gestures of a college professor, in the voice and laugh of a colleague at the crime lab. Once, though she never admitted it to anyone and never would, she had even seen a fleeting glimpse of her mother in her daughter’s laugh.

Veronica Paine had done everything for the law because she loved it. She had never broken the rules. She just didn’t have it in her. Never had. As she sat at her gleaming walnut dining table, warm brandy in hand, cigarette smoldering, she knew that following the law wasn’t always fail-safe. It wasn’t the best course in being a human being. Not really. In front of her was the file she’d stolen from the vault in the basement of Spruce County Courthouse.

She reached for her handheld phone and dialed Hannah Griffin’s phone number in Santa Louisa. Her heart pounded. A man’s voice answered.

“Mr. Griffin?” she asked.

“Yes, this is Ethan Griffin. Who’s calling?”

“This is Veronica Paine. I’m calling for Hannah. Can she come to the phone?”

Ethan sighed. “I wish. She’s not here. She’s away for a couple of days.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I know who you are,” he said, filling in an awkward silence. “And I know who my wife is. What do you want?”

Paine fiddled with her lighter, a habit so old and so bad she used to keep one out of view of the juries whenever she heard a case. The finger-fidgeting calmed her.

“I need to tell her something. It’s important. Where is she?”

Ethan was quiet. “I guess it’s okay for you to know,” he said. “She’s up in Alaska with that FBI agent friend of yours chasing her mother’s ghost.”

“Oh no,” Paine said. “Has there been another Claire Logan sighting?”

“Not exactly.” He glanced down the hall toward Amber’s room, the door shut, the little girl asleep. “Marcus Wheaton said she was up there, living on Kodiak Island.”

Paine gulped her brandy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I had called sooner. I could have saved her the trip.”

“Nothing would keep her from confronting her mother.”

“That’s just it,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Claire isn’t her mother.”

When the conversation ended some half hour later, Ethan Griffin had to sit down. He was thankful that Amber was asleep and didn’t see him just then. He felt his hands shake a little as his thoughts stayed riveted on Hannah. His eyes watered, but he didn’t allow himself to cry. What Veronica Paine had told him had shaken him deeply, but Hannah would need him more than ever. His last words to the former prosecutor echoed in the air: “Why didn’t you tell her? This could have changed everything for her?”

Veronica Paine hadn’t been able to shake the unsettled feeling she’d had back in the basement of the Spruce County archives. Had the whoosh of the air conditioner been a person lurking somewhere? She’d felt like she’d been watched since then, so even in her own home when she thought she heard the back door creak, she turned with a start. She squinted over the bright light coming from her lamp, into the darkness.

“Abby? Is that you?” Paine asked, calling out her dog’s name.

There was no answer, of course. And no dog came bounding through the house to the study for a treat.

A second later she saw a figure appear in the doorway, then a face.

“So it’s you!” Paine said, turning to reach the top drawer of her desk. A Ruger Blackhawk her husband had given her for their twentieth anniversary lay next to a caddy holding rubber bands and paper clips.

“I remember you,” Paine said, still reaching. A flash of light. The noise of gunfire. It happened so fast.

And then it was over.