The Snow White Christmas Cookie

CHAPTER 6

Add this to the list of 297 things that Mitch Berger, proud child of the streets of New York City, never thought he’d find himself doing: standing out on a rickety wooden causeway over the freezing waters of Long Island Sound in the middle of a blizzard pushing around a John Deere professional-grade snow thrower. The damned thing was a monster that had a fourteen-inch steel augur and a whopping thirty-eight-inch clearing width. Six forward speeds, two rear speeds, dual halogen headlights and a dash-mounted electric chute-rotation control. It even had heated handgrips. He could feel the warmth through his work gloves as he cut a swath across the causeway with grim determination. Mitch was dressed for outdoor labor. He wore his arctic-weight Eddie Bauer goose down parka over a wool fisherman’s sweater, twenty-four-ounce wool field pants, merino wool long johns, insulated snow boots and his festive C.C. Filson red-and-black checked mackinaw wool hat with sheepskin earflaps, the one that made him look like a Jewish version of Percy Kilbride in a Ma and Pa Kettle movie. But, hey, he needed every layer. Not only was it snowing like crazy but it was starting to get really, really windy out there on that narrow causeway.

Mitch was a screening-room rat. A man who got paid to sit on his butt in the dark. Working a snow thrower? Not part of his normal job description. But this wasn’t a normal day. His neighbor, Bryce Peck, was dead. A foot of snow had fallen. And someone had to get the causeway cleared so that the damned hearse from Dousson Mortuary in New London could pick up Bryce and deliver him to the Medical Examiner in Farmington. The hearse was hours late because of the storm and the poor guy was still lying there in his bed. It would have been comical if it weren’t so ghastly.

Just an awkward stage.

Mitch had stayed there with a shaken Josie while a detective from the Troop F barracks conducted a follow-up interview with her about Bryce’s state of mind and history of drug and alcohol abuse. Then a death investigator from the M.E.’s office had shown up to ask her pretty much the same questions all over again. It had been painful and tedious for Josie, but she’d remained calm and composed-despite the fact that the bald, middle-aged death investigator could not stop undressing her with his eyes. No wonder Des didn’t get along with most of the men on her job.

Supposedly the hearse would be along shortly to pick up Bryce. Mitch told Josie he’d be happy to wait there if she wanted to attend to her clients. He thought it would be good for her to get out of that house.

“Mitch, I can’t ask you to stay here with him.”

“You’re not asking me. Besides, I’m your naybs. This is what naybs do.”

She’d gone into the bedroom to say good-bye to Bryce. Mitch heard her murmur some words to him before she came out of there, wiping tears from her eyes, and headed on out to meet her clients.

As soon as she left Mitch got right the hell out of there. No freaking way he was staying in that house by himself with a dead body. When the hearse arrived at the foot of the causeway he’d see it through his window and raise the barricade. Besides, he was on deadline and still hadn’t posted his column on unheralded movie scores. By the time he’d sent it off the hearse still hadn’t shown up-and Mitch was quite certain that the causeway was no longer passable. So he fired up the snow thrower and went to work out there. For company he had Leonard Cohen’s haunting voice singing “The Stranger Song” from the opening credits of Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, which happened to be one of Mitch’s favorite movies. Every single time he saw it he rooted for Warren Beatty to get up out of that deep snow and keep walking, gut shot or not. Every single time he was devastated when Beatty succumbed to the inevitable and settled down into the snow to die.

Just an awkward stage.

Mitch had nearly completed his third full swath when he saw a vehicle pull slowly up to the barricade. But it wasn’t the hearse. It was Josie’s Subaru. She didn’t try to drive out. Just parked there and started toward him on foot in her ski parka and stocking cap. She looked pale. She looked terrible. Her left eye was swollen almost completely shut.

He set the snow thrower to idle, rushing to her. “Josie, what happened to your eye?”

“You didn’t hear?” Her voice was low and morose. He’d never known her to sound that way before. “I figured Des would phone you.”

He shook his head. “Not when she gets busy.”

“Kylie Champlain lost control of her car and slammed into my building. It was … unreal. I was sitting there with a client and suddenly the front end of her car was inside my office.”

“And what happened to your eye?”

“A ceiling tile fell and hit me. It looks a lot worse than it is.”

“How about your client?”

“Just a scratch on the head. We were both lucky. The building inspector thinks the whole building may collapse. I had to beg him to let me back in for my files. He went in with me. Then he declared it off-limits-so I no longer have an office.” She let out a hollow laugh. “When I decide to have a shitty day I don’t mess around, do I?”

Now another vehicle was making its way through the Nature Preserve to the foot of the causeway. Again, not the hearse. It was a blue Toyota Tacoma pickup.

Josie let out a low groan. “Oh, God, I don’t believe this.”

The Tacoma pulled up next to her Subaru and Paulette Zander’s son, Casey, climbed out and approached them, hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket, a Red Sox cap pulled low over his close-set eyes. Casey wore a pouty expression on his chubby face. Not a brooding, sensitive sort of pouty. He looked more like he was pissed off because Dada was too busy to play catch with him. “I need to talk to you, Josie!” he called out.

“Casey, now is not a good time,” she responded, politely but firmly.

He ducked under the barricade and started out onto the causeway anyway. “But we have to talk.”

“Casey, I have a personal situation to deal with right now. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“What time?”

“As soon as I can. I don’t know when it’ll be.”

“I just want to talk. Why are you being such a bitch?”

“Casey, this isn’t appropriate behavior. There are boundaries to our relationship.”

“Boundaries? What does that mean?”

“You know perfectly well what it means,” she said, maintaining that same polite, firm voice. “Now please leave.”

Casey didn’t budge. Just gaped at her in disbelief.

“Why don’t you take off?” Mitch suggested. “Josie’s had a hard morning.”

“You shut up,” Casey snarled in response.

“Mitch, please stay out of this.”

“Yeah, Mitch, mind your own business.”

“Actually, this is my business. You’re trespassing on private property. My private property. There’s a great big sign posted right over there, see it? Josie asked you to leave. Now I’m telling you to leave.”

“But I want to talk to her!”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you. That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?”

Casey curled his lip at him. “Oh, sure, I get it now. You want to do her, don’t you? Or are you already doing her?”

Josie let out a gasp. “Casey, you are way out of line.”

Mitch started toward him. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me,” he jeered.

“No, I’m not sure that I did. Would you like to repeat that?”

“Mitch, don’t do this,” Josie said pleadingly.

“I bet your girlfriend the trooper doesn’t know about you two. She was asking me a million stupid questions in the ambulance. She’s a total bitch.”

“You really like that word, don’t you?” Mitch stood face-to-face with Casey now. “You’re on private property. Leave.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Casey warned him.

“Leave.”

Casey shoved him. It wasn’t much of a shove. He was all blubber. Mitch wasn’t. He shoved Casey back and sent him tumbling onto his butt. Casey got right back up and came rushing at him. Mitch sidestepped him and shoved him to the causeway again, this time planting his work boot on Casey’s neck and plastering his fat face to the snow-crusted wooden planks.

“Are you going to behave yourself or do I have to throw you in the water?”

Casey started squirming and whimpering like a little school-kid. “Let me up, will ya?”

“Not until you promise to behave yourself.”

Josie put her hand on Mitch’s arm. “Mitch, his face is going to freeze to the causeway.”

“Good, it’ll be a vast improvement. Say you’ll behave yourself!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll … behave myself.”

Mitch removed his foot from Casey’s neck and helped him up. “Now get back in your truck and get the hell out of here.”

“You’ll be sorry you did that,” Casey vowed, shaking his fist at him.

“Look at me-I’m quaking with fear.”

Casey slunk back to his truck and drove off, his wheels spinning in the deep snow.

“Mitch, that wasn’t necessary,” Josie said scoldingly.

“I know, but it was fun.”

“This is a side of you I’ve never seen before. You have anger issues.”

“No, I don’t. I wasn’t the least bit angry.” He looked at her curiously. “He’s the client who you were with when Kylie went boom?”

“Yes.”

“He seems to have a major crush on you.”

“It happens. Some of my male clients, especially the younger ones, can get emotionally involved. Casey’s lonely. He needs a girlfriend.”

“He needs a new personality, too.”

Another vehicle was approaching the causeway now. This one was the black Cadillac hearse from Dousson Mortuary.

“Oh, good, they’re finally here.” Mitch inserted his coded plastic card in the security slot to raise the barricade.

The driver, a young black guy, rolled down his window and said, “Sorry it took us so long, bro. It is some kind of a mess out there.”

Josie drew in her breath. “Mitch, is Bryce still here?”

“I’m afraid so. That’s why I’ve been clearing the causeway.”

“Where do I go, bro?”

“Just follow the pathway that I’ve cleared to the big, natural-shingled house. He’s in the downstairs bedroom. I’ll be right behind you.” Mitch stepped aside so that the hearse could start its way out to the island.

“I–I can’t believe he’s still…” Josie started to shake. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. “This whole day … it’s some kind of a nightmare. I’m going to lose it, I swear.”

“No, you’re not. You’re doing great.”

“Mitch, I’m not doing great at all. My life is a total mess.” She let out a grief-stricken sob and then threw herself into his arms.

Mitch put his arms around her as she cried and cried, hugging him tight. She was more compactly built than Des but strong for her size. It was like being hugged by a python. “I know it all seems overwhelming,” he said. “But it’ll work out. We’ll work it out together. What you need right now, more than anything else, is a nice heaping bowl of Cocoa Puffs.”

She pulled away from him, laughing through her tears. “You always know how to make me feel better. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Mitch.”

“You’d do fine. You are doing fine.”

“No, I’m not. I’m going to be awfully clingy for the next few days.”

“Be as clingy as you want.”

“I won’t send you running for the hills?”

“Not a chance. I’m your naybs, remember?”

She gazed at him with her one good eye, which was huge and shiny. Then she hugged him again, gently this time. “Mitch, you are so much more to me than the guy next door. Don’t you know that?”