Cold Hunter's Moon (25 page)

Read Cold Hunter's Moon Online

Authors: K. C. Greenlief

BOOK: Cold Hunter's Moon
13.53Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“No, I asked him about her. He's been very concerned that someone else was killed. After more than twenty years here nothing surprises me, but I'd be shocked if he's your murderer. He's depressed, confused, and angry, but I don't get the feeling he's evil. Believe me, I've seen more than a few evil ones.”
Just as Lark was going to ask her another question, her beeper went off.
“No rest for the weary,” Mrs. Krejewski said, standing up to fish it out of her pocket. “Or was that the wicked?” She smiled at Lacey. “Gotta go. Never a dull moment.”
“Just one more thing,” Lark said as they headed for the door.
“Make it quick, dreamboat. I've got an admission.”
“Has Ron's father been up to see him?”
“Been here twice,” she said with distaste. “Both times reeking of alcohol. We wouldn't let him in. He took a couple of swings at the security staff. Thank heaven, he was so drunk he missed. We called the police but he left before they got here.” Her beeper went off again and she set off down the hall at a surprisingly fast clip for a woman her size. She turned around and waggled her fingers at them just before she rounded the corner. “His father, now there's a slice of evil who could use a little time with us.”
Lark and Lacey headed out the door, each lost in their own thoughts. They were pelted with a barrage of small stinging snowflakes. Lark forged ahead of Lacey to shield her from the blizzard. After cleaning three inches of snow off the Jeep, they crept out of town.
Joel had left a message on the car phone that all the Madison students' alibis had checked out. He also told them that Terry's car had been found in a strip mall parking lot in Wausau. They stopped at the Sportsman's Inn for lunch and devoured thick juicy burgers and fries in the nearly empty bar. They were back on the road by one-thirty.
NOVEMBER 27—SWENSON
Once they were out of town, Lark called and asked Flo to have someone search the area across the road from his house where Ann Ranson had her accident. She informed him that there had been two car accidents so everyone was out, and that Joel had called to let her know he was not going to make it to Big Oak. When Lark cursed, she offered to call Joel back. He apologized, telling her he felt it was best that Joel not drive in this weather. She informed him that the state police were thinking about closing the roads and that the county road superintendent was debating pulling the plows off until the snow slowed down. In the background, Lark heard someone on the radio, squawking at her to respond, and quickly got off the phone.
Lacey was focused on the road. The snow was creating near white-out conditions. Even with the defroster and the windshield wipers on full blast, it was difficult to see. One hour and twenty-five miles later, the Lake Tomahawk sign came into view.
“Do you think we should stop?”
“Let's go on to Minocqua,” Lark said, his eyes riveted to the road.
It took them another half hour to drive the ten miles to Minocqua. The radio stations were predicting a record blizzard and the police were asking all motorists to get off the road.
Highway 51 looked like a bumper car rink with several vehicles in the ditch and half a dozen fender benders. On the outskirts of Minocqua, they encountered a police officer detouring traffic. He informed them that Highway 70 and Highway 51 were closed and gave them directions to the motels up the road.
The detour, although less than ten miles, seemed endless. They moved at two speeds, crawl and standstill. There seemed to be as many cars in the ditch as there were on the road. The relentless snow reduced vision to the end of their headlights when they kept it under ten miles an hour. Ninety tense minutes later, they pulled into the brightly lit Northwoods Inn, the only place that still had a vacancy sign blinking.
The exhausted woman at the desk told them they could have her last room. When they told her they needed two rooms, she called the other motels in town and informed them this was all that was left, take it or leave it. They burst out laughing and rented the room.
Lacey went to the room and Lark went to park the Jeep. When he didn't return, she went to the lobby to find him. He came back half an hour later, lugging three plastic bags and his briefcase.
“I thought you dropped off the face of the earth, but instead you bought out the store,” she said, taking two of the bags from him as they plodded upstairs.
“A couple of stores were still open so I bought us some necessities,” he said, handing her his briefcase so he could unlock the door. It was small but clean, complete with a refrigerator, coffeepot, table and chairs, TV, and a double bed.
“Home sweet home,” she said, sitting down on the bed to investigate the shopping bags. She pulled out several travel-size toiletries, two cans of mixed nuts, a package of beef jerky, several candy bars, a bag of potato chips, and dip. He pulled a six-pack of beer and a six-pack of Diet Coke out of another bag. Two pairs of gray sweats emblazoned with the Green Bay Packers logo and two pairs of white socks embroidered with little footballs and Green Bay helmets were the last things out of the bag.
“At least we won't starve,” he said, rationalizing his junk-food fit.
“Did you get us a cheesehead, too?” she asked, holding up an extra large sweatshirt to check it for fit.
“It just about killed me to buy these, but beggars can't be choosers. The shelves were almost bare and they were closing when I got there.”
She glanced at her watch, surprised that it was only five-thirty. “Should we see if the restaurant is open or just depend on this feast?”
As she was talking, Lark called the dispatcher in Big Oak. Flo was getting ready to leave and informed him they had worried themselves sick over him driving in this mess. After a few minutes of reading him the riot act, she told him to call Ann Ranson at home and Brian Foltz in Duluth. He took down both phone numbers and dialed Ann first. She answered on the second ring, her voice irritable.
“You sound like you've about had it.”
“This phone hasn't stopped ringing all day,” she said. Lark could hear water running in the background. “And if it wasn't the phone, it was the damn doorbell. I don't know if people really care this much about me or they're just nosey.”
“Both. Did I interrupt your dinner? If so, I can call back later.”
“No, no, don't mind me. I think this attitude is from the concussion. I have a mother of a headache. The pain pills zone me out so I've quit taking them,” she chuckled.
“Flo said you called earlier.”
“I got an interesting phone call from a friend of mine in Madison. She's an instructor at the University. Barbara read about the bodies when she got home from Vermont last night. She knew Terry Foltz and Katey Lowery. What she had to say is news to me, but it probably won't be to you. First, you should know that Barbara is a lesbian. She's been out for quite a while and is very involved in some of the campus gay and lesbian groups. She called to find out how I was, and during our conversation she speculated that the murders might be hate crimes against lesbians. She was surprised when I asked her why. She was under the impression that Terry Foltz was a lesbian because she had seen her at several lesbian group meetings with Katey Lowery. Did you already know about this?”
“No, I didn't. Did you know that Katey Lowery was gay?”
Lacey, listening to Lark's side of the conversation while she put their purchases away, stopped dead in her tracks. “What the hell—”
He brought his index finger to his lips.
“I didn't have a clue, but now that I think about it, I've never seen her out on a date. A male date, that is. Maybe I've seen her on a date and
didn't know it. I'm ashamed to say this, but I assumed since she was so gorgeous that she was straight. I told Barbara that and she gave me one hell of a lecture on stereotyping. I should know better.”
“I do it, too,” he said, his mind racing.
“Cathy Lowery just left here. She's here for a few days to check up on her father. I wanted to talk with her about this, but I just couldn't make myself bring it up. I don't know if she has any idea that her daughter might be gay.”
“Ann, leave that to me,” Lark said with concern.
After some discussion about the weather, Lark hung up and called Brian Foltz. While the phone was ringing, he told Lacey he'd fill her in on the details once they got downstairs. He left a message on Brian's answering machine and they went down to see if there was any food left.
The dining room was packed. Two smiling men raced back and forth behind the bar, serving drinks. A hostess was taking names for the dining room. She told them it would be a forty-five-minute wait, but gestured towards the seating area behind the bar as a spot where they could relax until their table was called.
Despite the crowd, Lark was able to get a beer for each of them while Lacey found a small table near the sliding-glass doors to the deck. They had a nice view of the massive stone fireplace that crackled with a warm, cozy fire.
“Isn't this incredible?” she said. The deck was infused with a glow from the perimeter floodlights. Silvery icicles hung off the gutters and the railing was heaped with at least a foot of snow. The woods beyond the deck, a mixture of white birch, pine, and bare hardwoods, sparkled with layers of snow. Fine flakes of snow continued to pelt down.
“It's great if you don't have to shovel it or deal with accidents as the result of it,” Lark said, lounging down in his chair and watching the snow. “This is going to be a real bitch for us and the road crews. If it keeps up, we'll be lucky to get out of here tomorrow.”
“Worse things could happen,” she said, sipping her beer.
Lark studied her profile, wondering what was on her mind. He couldn't get the information Ann had just given him off his.
“Do you remember what it was like to get up after a huge snow and find out school was canceled?” she asked, grinning over at him.
A smile spread over Lark's face.
“Doesn't this feel just like that? Tons of work to do, but suddenly
everything is brought to a standstill by Mother Nature.” She raised her beer bottle in a salute towards the sliding-glass doors. “Not to change the subject, but what did Ann tell you?”
Lark pulled himself up, propped his elbows on the table, and filled her in.
“No shit,” Lacey said, putting more pieces of the conversation together. She ate a few of the pretzels from the bowl the waitress had dropped off. “If this is true, I can't believe no one mentioned it.”
“Someone did mention it. Ron Chevsky mentioned that he thought Gemma Patterson was gay during our first interview with him, but Ann's friend never mentioned Gemma,” Lark said, waving his beer bottle at the waitress and motioning for her to bring them two more.
“Everyone says that Katey Lowery, Sandi Waltner, and Gemma were always together. And that Katey, Sandi, and Terry Foltz were inseparable.”
“You're telling me you think Sandi Waltner's gay?” Lark asked, his eyes wide with disbelief. “She's a consummate flirt and engaged to Dave Banski.”
“So what? She could be deep in the closet or maybe she goes both ways.” Lacey waggled her hand back and forth.
“Ah. come on. Give me a break. No way.”
“You're like every guy I know. You see a pretty face and a great body and you can't believe she'd waste it on another woman. It never enters your mind. Most of the lesbians I know are feminine and attractive.”
“You're not one, are you?” Lark asked as he paid the waitress for their next round.
Lacey snorted as she sipped her beer and choked when it went up her nose. “Just call me grace,” she said when she finally quit coughing. “No, I'm definitely straight, but there were women I knew in college who tried it both ways.”
“Obviously, we're not done questioning Katey and Sandi. I can't imagine how the
Big Oak Bugle
will handle two gay hate crimes in their weekly summary of community news.”
The waitress shouted their name for a table. All but the most expensive items on the menu were gone, so they feasted on Chateaubriand for two with the usual trimmings and split a bottle of red wine. When they got back to their room, Lacey took a shower while Lark made notes from his conversation with Ann. He called Joel to fill him in on the latest information.
Molly answered, telling him Joel had been called out on an accident. She took their number and assured him Joel would call back.
While Lark showered, Lacey got into bed and checked out the TV channels. Lark came out just in time to catch the beginning of
McClintock
, an old John Wayne movie. They discovered that they both loved Big John and settled in to watch him fight it out with Maureen O'Hara.
The movie was over at eleven and they turned out the lights, agreeing they were exhausted. After sitting shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh while they watched the movie, they rolled over to go to sleep, backs to each other. Restless and wide awake fifteen minutes later, they turned over at the same time and rolled into each other's arms.
“I'm having a terrible time sleeping,” he said, scooting himself back so he could focus on her face but keeping his arm around her. “Maybe it's because I'm hot. Would you mind if I took off my sweatshirt?”
“No problem,” she said as he sat up on the side on the bed. “I'm hot, too, but I think there's more to it than that. I think we're attracted to each other.”
“You're attracted to an old man like me?” he asked, looking over his shoulder as he pulled the sweatshirt off.
“Hell yes. I'm attracted to you. What woman wouldn't be?”
“A woman who likes women,” he said, leaning back against the headboard, flattered by her admission.
“Men who like men would think you're a hunk, too.” She broke into peals of laughter.
“Touché. What are we going to do about this?”
“Two options. Cold showers or maybe just some snuggling—you hold me or I hold you, and we drift off to sleep.”
“Lacey, if I hold you right now, I don't think there's going to be much sleeping going on.”
“Then take a cold shower.” She stared down at the hillock her feet created under the covers.
“You're attracted to me but you don't want to sleep with me. Is that it?” He lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes.
“If we're going to start something, I don't want it to be while we're on a job together. If we decide to date later, that's one thing. This is something different.” She looked at him steadily.
“You're right.” He sighed. “I don't know what got into me.”

Other books

Resist by Missy Johnson
Salvation Boulevard by Larry Beinhart
Gray Lensman by E. E. Smith
Pass Interference by Desiree Holt
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance by Ashley, Jennifer, Day, Alyssa, Heaton, Felicity, Kellison, Erin, London, Laurie, Quinn, Erin, Vanak, Bonnie, Roane, Caris
Ali vs. Inoki by Josh Gross