Deep Winter

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Copyright © 2014 by Samuel W. Gailey

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gailey, Samuel W.

Deep Winter : a novel / Samuel W. Gailey.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-63156-0

1. Murder—Investigation—Pennsylvania—Fiction. 2. Suspense fiction. 3. Noir fiction. I. Title.

PS3607.A3594D44 2014 2013036456

813'.6—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For Ayn

D
anny had seen Mindy naked once before when they were just eight years old. A long time ago. Just the two of them, back in the cornfield behind Pickett's Bowling Alley. Mindy had stripped off all her clothes and stood shivering in the cold winter night waiting for Danny to do the same. Danny looked at her naked body for a quick, awkward moment, his eyes glimpsing all the places that her cuffed denim pants and flannel cotton shirts usually hid. She had smooth, soft skin dotted with a few bruises and scratches on her knees and shins. He felt curious for sure, but it didn't seem right looking at a girl when she was all naked. It made him feel funny. His stomach grew tight and ached like when he ate too much saltwater taffy. When Mindy told him that it was his turn to get naked, Danny's head felt even fuzzier than it usually did. He knew it was a bad idea. He would get in trouble for sure. If Uncle Brett found out, he would pull out his belt and put a good licking on Danny's backside.
Danny didn't want that to happen, didn't want another beating, so he took off running as fast as he could, through the dead stalks of corn, feet slipping on patches of ice, face and neck getting all scratched up by dried husks, but he didn't go far before he ran into more trouble. Mike Sokowski and Carl Robinson stopped him before he made it back to the bowling alley and beat him up pretty bad. Sokowski was the mean one. Even back then.

This was the second time he had seen Mindy naked. Her body sprawled out on the trailer floor next to Danny like a discarded rag doll. He knelt beside her with his hands folded and clenched together in his lap, like he was praying at his bedside. Blood soaked into the faded carpet from an open wound on the back of her head, and a few pieces of jagged glass were still stuck in her scalp. Mindy's legs were all twisted up unnaturally under her—arms folded over the top of her head as if in midstretch. Danny wanted to brush the blond, knotted hair that partially covered her eyes—still cracked open a half inch—but he was afraid to look at them. Afraid that they might be different from normal. Different from her usual wide-eyed, happy way.

He glanced over her thin, still frame—her legs, her stomach, her arms—but avoided those eyes. Mindy's mouth hung open as if stuck in the middle of a yawn. Both of her pretty white front teeth were chipped in half, making her look like she had vampire fangs.

Danny rocked back and forth, tears and snot running down over his lips, dripping from his chin like water from a slow-leaking faucet. He waited for her to wake up. Waited for her to move even a little bit. Maybe she was just hurt real bad. But Danny knew that she was probably more than hurt. He had never seen a dead person before—except on TV, but he knew that stuff on the television was only make-believe. Both his parents were dead, but he never got to
see his folks before they went up to heaven. Never got the chance to say good-bye to them.

“You're gonna be okay, Mindy. All right? You're gonna be okay.”

Danny clutched a small, hand-carved wooden robin figurine in his large left hand. His hands were bigger than most—football-player size. But Danny didn't play football or any other games that involved a ball, because he wasn't any good at stuff like that.

You're too goddamn slow and too goddamn clumsy,
Uncle Brett always said.

Danny's long fingers wrapped tightly around the wooden bird, and it cut into his soft, sweaty palm hard enough to leave little crescent-moon dimples. He gazed down at the figurine, turned it over a few times, touching the beak, the wings, the tail feathers, then placed it beside Mindy's head, careful not to get any of her blood on the bird.

“Made this special for your birthday. Hope you like it.”

Mindy didn't reply. She didn't thank him for the special gift. She didn't do anything but lie there in a growing puddle of her own blood.

Danny pulled an old baby blue crocheted blanket off the couch and draped it over her. He took great care to tuck the blanket around her, under her legs and hips, still trying hard not to look at her big, unblinking eyes.

This was the first time Danny had been in Mindy's home. After all these years, he had finally gotten up the courage to walk the three miles to her trailer and knock on her door—and this is what happened. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

He glanced around the trailer's living room and kitchen—Mindy's home. Everything in it hers. But it wasn't at all what he had imagined. On more occasions than he could remember, Danny had
daydreamed about Mindy's home. What it would look like on the inside. What it would smell like. Where she ate her cereal and watched soap operas and brushed her hair. He'd walked past her trailer dozens of times, slowing his stride in the hope that she would pop her head out and invite him in. They could drink a soda together, eat some cookies or crackers, and talk like friends were supposed to talk to each other. But that never happened, because Danny kept to himself, ate all his meals alone, didn't go to the town carnival or Fourth of July parade. He left people alone, because that's the way it was supposed to be. He was different from everyone else in town. He always would be—he'd accepted that now. Most folks just stared at him or crossed the street if they saw him coming down the sidewalk. But Mindy was always nice to him. She didn't laugh at him or make him feel dumb. She treated him like a real person.

Danny thought everything would be pink inside the trailer. Pretty pink walls, pink curtains, pink furniture. Kinda like where a Barbie doll might live. But everything wasn't pink, and it didn't look like a Barbie house at all. There was girl stuff that he didn't have back in his room. Plastic flowers in pots with fake butterflies and ladybugs on plastic leaves. A few bottles of red and purple fingernail polish sat on a TV tray beside a recliner chair. A picture of the ocean and a setting sun hung over the sofa. Stacks of girls' magazines spread out on top of the coffee table and a bookshelf leaned against the wall, crammed with books that were probably about girls and the stuff that they did. Lots of books, mainly paperbacks. Danny didn't have any books in his room.

Danny's knees began to hurt from kneeling for so long, but he couldn't move. Or
wouldn't
move. He wanted to be near Mindy just in case she woke up.

You shouldn't have come here, Danny.

Danny looked up and peered around the trailer for a moment, but he was all alone with Mindy. Nobody else. He didn't expect to see anyone else because he knew where the voice was coming from. He hadn't heard the talking in his head for a long, long time. The talking in his head usually just wanted to help him when he was in trouble or scared and never asked for anything in return. He waited to see if the talking in his head would say anything else. Waited to see if it would tell him what to do or who to go to for help, but it didn't say anything else.

Danny was so distracted by the talking in his head that he let his eyes drift over to Mindy's. It was a mistake, but it was too late. Once he peered into her big blue eyes, he couldn't look away. They held him still and stared back at him, but their sparkle was gone and little beads of blood stuck to her long eyelashes. Mindy wasn't there anymore. She wouldn't be working at the Friedenshutten anymore. She wouldn't be serving him eggs and bacon and hash browns anymore or asking him questions and making him feel special.

A low moan crept out of Danny. Starting from deep in his belly and working its way out his mouth, over dry and cracked lips and into the perfect silence of the trailer. He'd never heard this sound come out of him before. His heart felt funny, as if it might pop like a balloon, and his brain got real fuzzy. He usually tried his best not to cry. Uncle Brett used to say that real men don't cry like little babies. But this noise that came out of him now reminded him of the bawling sound a lost baby calf makes when it can't find its mama. The moan grew louder until his entire body shook with sharp, violent sobs.

Danny cried beside her for a long time, waiting for her to wake up. Waiting for her to get up and smile again.