Heart of Ice

Chapter Sixty-nine

Garden Grove

Olivia Barton had never been a stupid woman. No one could say so. But as the hours melted she thought back to the moment of truth, the time when her life’s lessons–forged brilliance should not have been dimmed by her love for Michael Barton.

What happened the morning her husband left for the Pacific Northwest weighed on her. It was an anvil on a chain around her neck, choking her, reminding her that what she had with Michael Barton might have been nothing more than an illusion. It was like a slice of the skin, an opening so wide and bloody that it would never heal. She played it over and over.

Late again! The truck from St. Vincent’s would be at the Bartons’ later that morning, after Michael left for the airport. On the corner of the bed sat Michael’s suitcase, opened, packed with everything but toiletries. While he showered, Olivia carried a stack of old kids’ clothes to some boxes he had set aside for the charity collection in the garage. She’d meant to be more organized and was grateful to get the things out of the house and into the hands of someone who could use them.

Olivia had always taken great care with Danny and Carla’s hand-me-downs. She’d been through hard times with her own family growing up, and knew how much a little boy or girl would appreciate that what they’d been given was truly a gift and not someone else’s garbage. Her mother told her that a decent person knew the difference between giving something to someone who needed it, and boxing up junk no longer wanted.

Four cardboard boxes were lined up next to the flawlessly organized workbench. Olivia bent down with the stack of baby blankets that she’d ironed into perfect squares and placed into separate gallon-sized plastic Ziploc bags. They were, she knew, as good as new. She imagined Danny and Carla as babies. A bittersweet smile came to her lips. She felt the surge of love that comes with the reminders of how tiny, how precious her children were.

Good memories in these blankets.

She looked around to see if there was anything else she’d be able to offer up before the St. Vinnie’s truck lumbered down the street. And there it was. A perfect candidate up on a shelf along with some paint cans, gardening supplies, and a minigraveyard of kitchen countertop appliances.

“Someone out there could use a pizza cooker more than we did,” she thought as she pulled the box from the shelf. It had been a wedding gift. Never used. Never really needed by anyone, but it was brand new and might make someone happy. She blew off a very thin layer of dust and the particles illuminated in the morning sunlight from the garage’s east-facing window fell like tiny stars to the cement floor. She looked back up at the space where the pizza cooker had been. Another, smaller box had been behind it. A picture on the side indicated that the box held a Waterford vase.

“I don’t remember getting that,” she said, aloud.

It was heavy, but not Waterford heavy. She pulled off the top and peered inside.

“What?”

Coiled like snakes were a half dozen dog collars and chains.

Olivia pushed her fingertips through the cardboard carton, moving the collars and chains to get a better view. She tilted the box toward the window to catch more light. A silver B and Z glinted from a slender cable chain. She recognized the Greek letters.

Michael stood in the doorway, proffering two steaming mugs. “Honey, coffee’s ready!”

Her back to him, Olivia slammed the lid shut and set it behind the stack of baby blankets. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d seen. She knew, however, that it was not meant to be seen. Her pulse accelerated. She spun around and put on an exaggerated grimace.

It was false affectation and she worried that he’d think so. He could read her so easily.

“So much to get rid of,” she said, taking a cup from Michael’s outstretched hand and willing her heart to stop pounding.

She didn’t know it, but her husband had been thinking the very same thing.

“Isn’t that the truth,” he said, his eyes moving across the garage from the box of hand-me-downs to the shelf where the pizza cooker and Waterford box had been.

The flight from LAX had been uneventful. Michael Barton changed planes in Seattle and took a midday flight that landed him in Spokane at a little after three. During his downtime at the airport, he had a cup of coffee and answered some e-mails from work and an “I miss you already” note to Olivia. They’d talk after he got settled in Spokane. He checked into the Davenport, one of Spokane’s grand old hotels, built originally in 1914 as the first hotel with air-conditioning—a monumental feat of its day. It had fallen on hard times, but had been restored in recent years to its former luster. Uniformed bell captains and front-desk clerks were back in force.

The Kmart on Spokane’s South Hill had one of those parking lots that covered about ten acres, though one or two would have sufficed even on the busiest shopping days of the year. On a rainy day, all slick and wet, it was a black sea anchored by a pier of blocky buildings outfitted with a giant red K.

Michael Barton parked his rental car farther from the front door than necessary and walked inside. Despite the season, he wore dark glasses. He wore a hooded sweatshirt that made him look like a Unabomber wannabe. He wore the getup so that he wouldn’t be noticed, couldn’t be identified. Past the Martha Stewart collection, past Jaclyn Smith, and on to the store’s well-stocked hunting section. There, he picked out a Camillus Buckmaster’s blade with a gut hook.

The nearly eight-inch blade looked serviceable enough.

“Need a whetstone?” the clerk asked, a roly-poly man with a walrus mustache and failed hair plugs.

“Is it sharp now?” He twisted the high-carbon stainless-steel blade in the flat light of the store. A nice glint deflected light into the clerk’s eyes. He looked back down at a little card extolling the virtues of the blade: Precision skinning is guaranteed. Hairsplitting sharp! No meat-souring “accidents” with this superstar blade at a chorus line price.

“You could gut a live deer in ten secs,” the clerk said, pausing for a gruesome punch line, “and she wouldn’t even feel it. It works almost like a zipper pull.”

Michael nodded approvingly. “Nice, but no whetstone.”

What he didn’t say was that he didn’t need a whetstone because he had no need to use the knife a second time.

“OK, $24.97, with tax. Guns and knives are paid for here, not up front.”

He put down a twenty and a five.

When the clerk attempted to hand over the three pennies, he shook his head and pointed to the share-a-penny dish on the counter.

“Put ’em in there.”

He looked at his watch. Everything was right on time. Jenna Kenyon’s online schedule had her back in Cherrystone already.

He was going to finish a job that he’d failed once before.

The trauma of the McConnell shooting had taken its toll on Jason Howard. He’d never fired his weapon at a person before. He’d been interviewed for hours by men and women from the state who’d never faced danger head-on. Hitting a suspect with a bullet to save his life did not guarantee absolution. One investigator suggested that if Emily’s deputy had killed the serial killing lawyer, there’d be less of an investigation. Less concern.

“No one would be screaming about his rights, if he was dead,” Chris told Emily as he went out the door for a couple of coffees. He’d stayed over a couple of days just to “make sure” she’d be all right.

“Back in fifteen minutes,” he said.

Emily never wanted him to leave. She knew just how much she loved him. If he asked her again, she told herself that she’d say yes.

Shali Patterson’s car was in the shop, so she walked from her house over to the Kenyons’. She’d had that old VW forever, and knew that it was about time that she’d have to quit fixing it, and buck up and buy a new one. For their shopping trip that day, Jenna would have to drive her reliable but boring Honda Civic.

A man approached Shali in front of the Kenyons’ big white Victorian.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi yourself,” Shali replied, never one to rein in her considerable flirting skills. He was a good-looking man, in jeans and a hoodie. Older than most of the guys she dated, but undeniably handsome with lively brown eyes and wavy black hair.

“My car broke down,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “My cell’s dead and I have to use the bathroom. TMI, right?”

Shali smiled. “That sucks. You can use my phone. My friend lives here and I’m sure you can use her bathroom. This isn’t the kind of neighborhood where we want guys peeing on the bushes.”

“I didn’t think so,” he said, a bright, white smile across his face. “Thanks.”

Shali knocked on the door and Jenna answered, looking quizzically at the man a step behind her best friend.

“This is?” Shali said, looking back at the man in the hoodie.

“Michael,” he said.

Shali turned her gaze back at Jenna. “Michael’s car broke down. He needs to call Triple-A or something. More than that he needs to use a bathroom.”

Michael shifted his weight from one foot to another once, then again. It wasn’t exactly the “gotta go” dance, but a subtle hint that there was a little urgency. He needed the bathroom now.

“Stupid rental car,” he said. “I’m here checking out the real estate. Thinking about moving here. Your hospitality is amazing. This just might be the perfect town to bring my wife and kids.”

“I’m Jenna Kenyon. You’ve met Shali.”

He smiled, his white teeth perfect on the top, crooked like a busted fence on the bottom. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for helping out a stranger.”

As he stepped into the foyer, Jenna noticed a bloom of water on the fibers of Michael’s sweatshirt pocket.

“Looks like you’re springing a leak,” she said.

He looked down sheepishly at his crotch.

“Oh, not that!” Jenna said as embarrassment took over. Her face went red. “Your sweatshirt pocket.”

He felt the damp bulge. “Water bottle,” he said, though he didn’t pull it out to tighten the cap.

“I hate when that happens,” Shali said.

He grinned.

“Powder room’s down the hall,” Jenna said.