A Wicked Snow (6 page)

From a grimy window that needed a dousing of sudsy water and a squeegee, Hannah watched the sun shine against the backlit trees on the eastern side of the parking lot. Had the car she'd seen outside her window been a terrible dream? Had she only heard what her mind wanted to tease her with? Her eyes were slightly puffy and underscored by the dark circles of a sleepless night. She'd looked better; much better, and she knew it. She could hear a puffed-up, self-satisfied Ted Ripperton in the hallway talking about the Garcia case and how he was going to "nail that bitch for killing her son." She shut her door and went to her desk. In front of her were photographs of tragedy and love. Pictures of Enrique Garcia taken at the autopsy were blurry Polaroids of the unspeakable tragedy of abuse and possible murder of a child; framed snapshots of Ethan and Amber occupied another corner. Her husband and daughter smiled in a way she doubted Enrique or his sister, Mimi, could have ever experienced--carefree,
worry-free
. Her husband and daughter wore smiles that indicated they had been enveloped in uncompromising love.

At a few minutes before 10 a.m., Hannah answered Paine's call from Spruce County.

"Oh," was all she could manage when the former prosecutor confirmed that the shoes more than likely were genuine.

"I'm sorry," Judge Paine said. "And I'm worried."

"It's some prank, isn't it?" Hannah asked.

The judge didn't know. "It well could be, but I think it would be foolish to treat it as such. Hannah," she said haltingly, "I contacted Jeff Bauer. I didn't tell him where you are. But I told him I'd tell you where he is."

"Portland," Hannah said.

"Why, yes. How did you know?"

"I read it somewhere," Hannah said. She didn't want to say that she'd tracked Bauer's career for years. She'd never let go of him because he'd done so much for her. "How is he?" she asked.

"Fine, I suppose," Paine said. "He's concerned. He wants to help. I think you should call him. Here's the number."

Hannah pretended to take it down; on the "B" page of her address book, where she'd written it years ago. Just in case. Paine promised to do a little more digging at Spruce County, but she was unsure how much she could really find out.

"It's been a while since I've busted heads over there. You don't know it when you're building them, but reputations fade, my dear," she said somewhat ruefully. "My name used to invoke the fear of God, or at least a few hours in the cooler for contempt. Now, I can't even get the cleaning lady to do my refrigerator once a week."

"My mother's name still holds a lot of power," Hannah muttered before she thanked Paine and said good-bye.

Hannah considered calling Ethan to let him know what the judge had said, but she knew he'd want her to "take the ball and run the rest of the way." Ethan was the type to use a sports metaphor for nearly every occasion. Instead, she dialed the Portland field office of the FBI and asked for Special Agent Bauer. Her stomach twisted and she pressed her hand against her abdomen to stifle the pangs of anxiety. She pulled off an earring and pressed the phone against her ear. After a minute that ticked like an hour, a somewhat familiar voice got on the line. While Bauer's voice had deepened with age, his manner was still compassionate. For an instant, Hannah let herself feel safe.

"Hannah, is it really you? Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr. Bauer. It's me." Hannah shifted in her office chair. "Once again, it's me, a little angry and a little bewildered." She kept her confident tone; at least she imagined that she kept it. So many thoughts were racing through her, it was very difficult. She didn't want Bauer to think she was weak, not when he'd done so much to ensure that she'd be strong. And safe.

"It has been a long time," he said. "You're never outside of my thoughts. I hope you know that."

"I try to forget, but if I succeeded, I'd forget the good that came of this. Most of that good came from you."

Bauer didn't know what to say. He'd been an FBI agent for more than twenty-two years and he'd never been touched so deeply.

They talked a bit more. She told him that she was a CSI, was married, and had a daughter. She had worked hard, despite a media machine hungry for every detail, to remain out of the spotlight. Her life was her own and she wasn't about to be plucked from obscurity by someone playing games with her past.

"My husband's a cop," she said. "No shrink needs to tell me why, but that's what he was when I fell in love with him."

Bauer asked about the shoes, and Hannah described their condition, the grocery bag packaging, and how it came to be delivered to her. She also indicated she'd saved the packaging.

"In case you want to test it for DNA," she said.

When Bauer dug for her thoughts on why the shoes had been sent to her, Hannah drew a blank. She couldn't imagine what possessed someone to do such a thing, nor could she figure out how she could have been found in the first place. Her name had vanished from the pages of newspapers and magazines at least a dozen years ago.

"I've made my life a disappearing act," she said.

"Only one person's done it better," he said, an obvious reference to her mother. Hannah let the remark pass, knowing the two of them shared more than a history. They both believed that Claire Logan, the female boogie man, the woman whose name had been used by parents threatening their children when they didn't take out the garbage or pull all the weeds from the garden, was alive. She was out there somewhere. Maybe she was frightened that one day she'd be discovered. Maybe not. Maybe she didn't give a flying fuck about anyone, even now.

"Anything else but the package of shoes? Anything out of the ordinary happening down there?" Bauer asked.

"I'm not sure," Hannah said, hesitating slightly. "I didn't tell Judge Paine. I haven't told anyone. Not even my husband. But I have received a number of hang-up calls over the past month. Maybe a half dozen or so. I started keeping a log in my date book."

"Anything said? Anything to indicate any calls were associated with your mother's case?"

Silence fell for a moment. "Only one got through. The receptionist gave me a message memo that a call came from my mother. It was out of the blue. Just like that.
Your mother called.
I didn't say anything at the time because..." her voice went quiet once more. "Because," she took in a breath, "I didn't know
how
to explain why I was alarmed my mother had called. I thought, at first, that it was a mistake."

"I see. What of the hang-ups? At the office? At home?"

"Both--which is the troubling part. Our home number is unlisted. When I tried to trace the call back by using the redial function, the operator said that the call was 'out of area.' There have been a few cases of my own, including one I'm working now, in which people weren't happy with me. But those calls are local and are stopped easily."

She was thinking of Joanne Garcia. Joanne had called four times with epithets and threats since the investigation into her son's death and daughter's abuse had begun. She had even promised to make sure that Hannah didn't "dig up anyone else's baby." A visit from Ripp indicating that obstruction of justice charges could be filed against her had put the brakes on Garcia's campaign for revenge.

"Hannah?" Bauer's voice cut in. "You still there?"

Snapped back into the conversation, she apologized. She said she'd been distracted by someone outside her office.

"I'll send an agent from the L.A. office to get the package," he said.

"Fine. I'll be here most of the day. But Mr. Bauer--"

"Jeff," he cut in.

"Okay, though it sounds peculiar,
Jeff
, be discreet. Outside of Ethan no one knows I'm Claire Logan's daughter. I intend to keep it that way. For good."

"Understood," he said, "but I think you should know something from this end. I heard from Marcus Wheaton not long ago."

The name was a shockwave of its own, bringing back memories that Hannah held tightly within.

"Not that it is connected to the shoes," Bauer said, "but I'm going to Cutter's Landing on Friday to see Wheaton."

There was a long silence. Bauer waited until Hannah spoke. "What does Marcus want?" Her tone was ice.

"I'm not sure. You know that Oregon can't hold him much longer. His time is about up. His health isn't great, and the state has no cause to keep him beyond his original sentencing--no matter what you've read."

"Oh," Hannah lied, "I'd forgotten that it was coming up. I haven't thought about Marcus for a long time."

It was another deceit. It was the kind of lie she had told herself. She thought about Marcus all the time, but she felt comfort in her thoughts. He was in prison. She knew where he was. He'd tried to contact her after the trial. His mother phoned her Aunt Leanna once in Misery Bay on Oregon's southern coast, urging her to bring Hannah to the prison to see the man who'd once loved her mother. Leanna refused.

"How often do you think about
her
?" Bauer asked, meaning Hannah's mother, of course. There was no other
her
.

"The only time she doesn't come to mind is when I'm deep into my work," Hannah said, her voice catching a little. "It sounds pathetic, I'm sure, but I'm always a little too grateful for a really heinous case."

"It takes something real ugly to chase it from your mind," Bauer said. He felt sorry for her. "There's a lot to chase."

"You know," she said, her hands trembling, "the peculiar thing is that I've read
Twenty in a Row
so often that sometimes I'm not sure what I remember and what others wrote. Sometimes I think some memories that I hold to be true are just planted."

Bauer had a copy of the book on his bookcase. He instinctively glanced in its direction at its mention, its worn binding showing its age. "
Twenty,
" as aficionados of the case called it, was the first book on the Logan case and considered by most to be the best.

"One day," Bauer said before they said their goodbyes, "we'll know what really happened."

"Maybe so," Hannah said, wishing she didn't care anymore. "I hope so."

The hours flew by, though later, Hannah would plead with Ethan that she didn't even know what had preoccupied her to such a degree. It was not like her. Not at all. She was, she knew, a mother before anything else. A little after five, Hannah looked at her watch and jumped from her chair. In that instant she remembered how she had promised Ethan, who was busy with an inane ethics meeting, that she'd pick up Amber.
How could she be late?
She raced toward the after-school care offices, but by the time she arrived, they were closed. A janitor who spoke no English, at least that he admitted to, shrugged when she mentioned her daughter's name. Ten minutes later, she was in the driveway of their house on Loma Linda. Ethan's car was not out front, and her heart sank even lower.

Where was Amber?

"Honey!" she called out, but no one responded. "Amber, honey! Where are you?"

Hannah was frantic by then. She ran through the house, swinging open doors and pulling the covers from her daughter's unmade bed. She fell to her knees and peered under the bed.

"Let's not play the hiding game!" she called out. "If we are, then I give up. Come out."

She knew that was a ridiculous hope. They hadn't played that game for months, maybe longer than a year.

For any parent, the moment when a child is thought to be missing is the longest moment of a lifetime. Guilt, shame, fear, and hope converge in a stunning force that squeezes the breath from a person's lungs, male or female.
Catch a breath. Take a second. She's here. She's with her father. She's at Maddie's.

Hannah dialed Maddie's house, and Elena Jackson answered, her voice annoyingly chirpy, given the circumstances.

"Hi, Hannah. How are
you
? Saw your name in the paper about that terrible case you're working."

"Oh yes," she answered, glad for the chance to calm her voice. "Is Amber over there?"

"No. Is everything all right?"

"I'm sure she's with her dad. Sorry. Got home late. A million things on my mind and I forgot to call Ethan."

She thought of the woman walking her dog. Maybe she'd come by again. Maybe this time, she took Amber from the day care. Setting the phone down, Hannah noticed the red eye of the answering machine blinking at her. She pushed the button.

"Four new messages," the auto voice intoned.

There were three hang ups, each one ratcheting her fear to a new level.

Not more. Not her?

Hannah felt the warm flow of tears down her cheeks as she strained to hear. The last call was Ethan's voice. In the background she could hear the sounds of a public place, the clatter of dishes. Maybe music.

"Hannah," he said, with an irritated tone that she barely knew, "I'm trying to be understanding. But this is too much. You have too much on your mind. Or something. Amber's with me. We're getting something to eat. You know if I'd have left our daughter waiting alone, you'd have filed for divorce. Pull yourself together."

Ethan was right, of course. He almost always was. At that moment, she hated him for his cool head. She was floundering; a big messy mix of worry and fear had consumed her and held her hostage. There is a moment of truth for everyone, and Hannah knew hers had been squandered long ago. But knowing this only made her sick to her stomach at what she'd done--what she had somehow allowed to happen. She'd heard Ethan talk about family members, mothers mostly, who'd done nothing to save their children from unspeakable horrors of men with damp, sticky fingers, probing under the covers. She'd seen cases of her own come through the lab--the fragments of lives interrupted before they'd begun. Hannah had a sixth sense about cases like that. The Rorschach of bloodstains on a sheet. The minute tear in a child's underpants. A man's pubic hair under a murder victim's broken nail. Each spoke to her in a loud and menacing voice. They told her the words she hadn't heeded when she could have.