Deep Winter (8 page)

S
now came down harder, a wall of white behind Danny, sticking to his cap and jacket in clumps. He could feel the heat from inside the trailer and thought it sure would be nice to warm up for a minute or so, but if the deputy was visiting Mindy, he didn't think he wanted to go inside.

“Whatcha doing out there, Danny?” Sokowski asked.

Danny looked up at him and put his hand protectively to his pocket, making sure Mindy's birthday present was still safe.

“Got something for Mindy, is all.”

Sokowski stepped out onto the porch.

“Yeah? Well, kinda late, ain't it?”

Danny dug the toe of his boot into the snow. “Suppose so. Got her birthday present.”

“Uh-huh.” Sokowski ran his hand over his beard. “Well, we got a little problem in here. Mindy had an accident, Danny.”

Danny looked at Sokowski, trying to figure out what that meant. Then he looked past him to Carl, who looked away real quick and wiped at his nose.

Sokowski went down the porch steps and stopped right in front of Danny. He never took his eyes off him. His movements were carefully measured as he put a hand on Danny's shoulder.

“Here's the thing, Danny. I need you to do me a favor. She's hurt kinda bad.”

Danny swallowed hard. Nodded.

“Me and Carl are gonna go get help. I want you to go inside and stay there. That's real important. You gotta stay here with Mindy.”

“Okay,” Danny said.

Sokowski kept his hand on Danny's shoulder. “Someone hurt Mindy, Danny. We got here, and somebody did something real bad to her. You need to stay here just in case they come back.”

All this scared Danny. He couldn't figure out who would want to hurt Mindy. She never hurt no one. She was nice and kind and for sure wouldn't hurt anyone.

“Can I count on you, Danny?”

“Yeah. I'll stay right here.”

“Good boy, Danny. We'll be back as soon as we can.”

Sokowski looked over his shoulder toward Carl, who stood very small behind him. “Let's go.”

Carl didn't say anything. Just walked down the steps still holding the jar of peanut butter and headed to the truck. He made sure he didn't look at Danny—wasn't able to look him straight in the eyes.

Sokowski found his keys and climbed behind the wheel. Gave Danny a final glance. “Counting on you, Danny.” He slammed the door shut and fired up the truck. The tires spun on the ice, finally
got some traction, and then the big black truck backed up and pulled onto the snow-covered road and roared off.

Danny watched the taillights disappear into the night and turned back to Mindy's trailer. Some snow blew in through the front door and settled on the floor, making a real mess. He felt scared, but Mindy needed him. Besides, the deputy was counting on him. Said so himself.

Danny walked up the steps slowly, peeked inside, and slipped into the trailer.

L
ester thought he heard the phone ring. It brought him out of a deep, solid sleep. Went to bed early these days. Lucky if he made it past nine
P
.
M
.

The phone kept ringing. God, how he hated that thing.

The wife nudged him with a solid elbow to his back and pulled a pillow over her head. “Phone,” her muffled voice said from under the pillow.

“They can call back in the morning,” Lester said as he glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes after midnight.

The phone didn't stop its awful clanging. Whoever it was, they weren't giving up, and since Lester didn't have one of those new answering machines, the phone would just keep on ringing.

Lester's wife gave him another shove. She wasn't going to let him sleep through this. She never let him sleep through phone calls
in the middle of the night. She said that he signed up for the job and by God he had to hold up his end of the bargain.

“Might be important,” she mumbled through half sleep.

“Hell.” Lester sat up and rubbed at tired eyes that had heavy bags under them, bags the size of mandarin-orange slices. He had short-cropped hair. Simple and neat. Gray had replaced the black, and his bald spot kept expanding. The unfortunate by-product of his thinning hair was to make his already big ears look even bigger. He'd heard it all: Dumbo, Alfalfa, Howdy Doody, and Gomer Pyle. Gomer Pyle was the worst. He really hated that one.

The phone kept clanging. An old-fashioned phone he got back before his hair turned gray, the ringer nothing more than a brass bell with a small brass hammer that kept tapping as fast as a hummingbird's wings, annoying as hell.

Lester grumbled to himself and swung his arthritic legs out of the warm security of the blankets. His knees were a mess, all the cartilage nearly gone. Bone rubbing on bone in the joints. Winter was the worst on his old body. The cold made his legs so stiff that it took over an hour every morning to get him walking without looking like Frankenstein lurching about.

Eyes half closed, he stumbled out into the hallway and jammed his toe on one of the damned porcelain cats that Bonnie had placed all over the house. Her obsession with all things cat drove him nearly out of his mind. Cat calendars, cat figurines, cat bookends, cat-embroidered sweaters. She even wore cat pajamas to bed every night. Lester hated goddamn cats.

They had two slinking around here somewhere. Sneaky little critters. Probably clawing at his favorite reading chair or taking a crap in the litter box that stank up the whole damn house. Early on, after years of trying to start a family, Lester and Bonnie had to accept
that kids weren't in the cards. Bonnie's body just wasn't built for it. Heck of a thing for a woman to endure. To make matters worse, Bonnie came from a big family. Six brothers and sisters. All of them had kids. Lots of them. Bonnie was the only one who couldn't produce. And now all of Bonnie's nieces and nephews had kids. Going to a family reunion was like attending a preschool with all the young'uns running around. So in came the cats. Thirty years of goddamned cats and Lester was ready to take a gun to either them or himself.

He fumbled for the phone that hung on the wall and answered it more to shut the damn thing up than to find out who might be calling. “Sheriff.”

Lester listened for a second, and then his eyes opened a little wider. It was his deputy. Sokowski was usually such a hard-ass, but his voice sounded a little shaky. Unchecked.

“Danny Bedford? You sure?”

Lester kept listening. His hand went automatically for his shirt breast pocket—searching for his pack of smokes—then realized that he was wearing a pajama shirt.

“Slow down and back up a little bit, son. How long ago did Mindy call you?” Lester rubbed the gray stubble on his head as was his habit when he was taking in troublesome information. “I'll be damned. It's after midnight. What the hell is that boy doing out there so late?”

Lester walked into the kitchen. The telephone cord uncoiled and stretched to its limit as he kept listening to the deputy. Sokowski might be a little hotheaded, and a bit hair-triggered at times, but the man took his job seriously enough to keep folks in line. He usually played the bad cop to Lester's good cop. Sokowski tended to be rough around the edges and rubbed some people wrong, but he was still young enough and would hopefully mellow over time. The fact
was, Lester knew he'd been growing soft over the years—hell, he'd always been pretty soft—and sometimes folks in town needed someone to keep them in line, or otherwise those same folks would just walk all over you. If you gave them an inch, they'd take a damn mile. Walk quietly and carry a big stick, that's what Lester always thought made for a good law-enforcement officer. Between himself and Sokowski, Lester walked quietly and his deputy carried the big stick. Besides, it wasn't like folks were exactly lining up to get the job of sheriff or deputy.

He grabbed his smokes from the kitchen counter and lit up a Camel and sucked in deep—he kept promising the missus that he would quit the habit, but it sure wasn't going to be tonight. Bonnie would throw out his packs of cigarettes when she didn't think he was looking, but he always kept a carton hidden around somewhere. Bad habits proved hard to break, especially when you'd been doing them for nearly fifty years. He would try to cut back a little. More for Bonnie than anything else. Maybe to half a pack a day. If he couldn't do that, maybe he'd try some Camel Lights. Baby steps, he told himself. Baby steps.

Lester nodded as Sokowski finished up what he was saying. “All right, then. Let me throw on some clothes. Meet you out there in ten minutes or so.”

He put the phone back on its cradle and looked over to Bonnie, who was standing there now, wrapping herself up in a big, thick terry-cloth robe.

“Everything okay?”

“I don't know. Probably nothing.”

Lester moved past her and turned on the hallway light. He kept working the cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he grabbed his
uniform pants off the hook and hiked them up and over his pajama bottoms.

“The Knolls girl called Mike. Got herself all worked up because Danny Bedford showed up at her doorstep tonight.”

“At this hour? What in the world for?”

He threw on his heavy sheriff's jacket and zipped it up to the neck. Didn't want to be catching a cold. That's all he needed right now. His immune system wasn't worth a damn these days. “Don't know. But according to Mike, Mindy was scared. Living alone and all, and Danny's a big drink of water.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake. That boy wouldn't harm a hair on her head.”

Lester nodded. Stabbed his cigarette out in an ashtray. “Maybe so. But she's got it in her mind that she needs us to get Danny out of there.”

Bonnie nodded. “Well, be careful. The roads are likely to be pretty slick.”

Lester plopped on his sheriff's hat, which had seen better days and could use a good washing. “You know me. Always careful.” He grabbed an old leather gun holster worn smooth from years of riding on his right hip, strapped it around his waist, and cinched it up tight.

“You really think you need your gun belt?”

“Nope.” He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “And don't let them goddamned cats into bed.”

She smiled at him. “You know me.”

“Yeah. I do.” He grinned right back at her.

“Want me to make you a cup of coffee?”

“Would love one, but I better get. Should be home in an hour or
so.” He headed for the door when he heard a jingling sound behind him.

“You might be needing these.” Bonnie held out a set of truck keys between her fingers.

He smiled, took the keys from her, gave her another peck, and shuffled out the door.

S
okowski could smell the piss in Carl's pants. The idiot was stewing in his own urine and stinking up his whole damn truck.

“Jesus, Carl. You smell like hell. Shoulda changed into a pair of my pants.”

“Huh? Naw. Your pants wouldn't fit me.”

“Better than swishing around in your own juices. Shit.”

Carl didn't answer. Just chewed on his thumbnail.

They had stopped by Sokowski's house to make the call to the sheriff. After Sokowski took care of that business, he made sure to grab a bottle of Wild Turkey—he had a few to spare in his liquor cabinet.

Now they were parked back in Mindy's driveway again, idling in the cold. Sokowski kept his eyes locked on the rearview mirror, watching and waiting. He wanted to suck dry the bottle of Wild Turkey nestled between his knees but thought better of it. He didn't
want to stink of whiskey when Lester showed up. Miserable prick was always silently judging him. Sokowski lit up a cigarette instead.

Beside him Carl kept rocking in his seat, twitching and jerking like a chicken at feeding time. “Christ, Carl. Don't be going and
shitting
your goddamned pants, too.”

“This is wrong, Mike. We're in a lot of trouble. Jesus. A lot of damn trouble.”

A set of headlights appeared down the road a ways. Sokowski turned to Carl and gave him a cold stare. “Just keep your pie hole shut. I'll take care of it. I don't want you saying shit.”

“But Danny's gonna say that we were here. That Mindy was already dead when he got here.”

“Goddamn it, Carl. I got it covered. Don't say nothing or you'll just fuck everything up.”

Carl nodded. He shoved his hands in his pockets, then took them back out again and resumed gnawing on his already gnawed-down thumbnail.

Snow crunched beneath the sheriff's truck tires as it pulled alongside them, white plumes of exhaust getting swept up in the unrelenting wind. Sokowski shoved the bottle of Wild Turkey under the seat, stepped out of the truck, and met Lester in the middle of the driveway.

“Well?” Lester worked a fresh cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

“Just got here. Haven't been in yet.”

“Seen Danny?”

“Nope. Not out here anyways,” Sokowski said.

Lester noticed Carl sitting in the truck. “What've you boys been up to?”

“Just doing a little drinking. Party up in Towanda.”

Lester noticed a few tiny specks of dried blood on the side of Sokowski's neck and on his mangled-up ear. “What happened to your face, son?”

Sokowski rubbed at the side of his head. Shrugged. “Got into a little tussle at this party. Somebody mouthing off. Stupid shit.”

Lester nodded and stepped up to the trailer door. Gave it a hard knock. No answer or sound from inside. He knocked again, harder this time.

“Mindy? It's Lester and Mike. You in there, missy?”

Again no response.

“Maybe Danny went on home,” Lester thought out loud.

“Maybe so, but I didn't see him walking on the road or anything on the way out here,” Sokowski offered.

Lester nodded. Better check and make sure. “Well.” He tried the doorknob and found that it was unlocked. He pushed the door open and stepped on inside. He stopped short as his boot slipped in something slick. He looked down at all the blood, and the color drained from his smoke-lined face at the sight before him.

Mindy's corpse lay sprawled on the floor in front of him, half covered with the crocheted blanket. Blood and chunks of glass everywhere. The back of her head looked smashed in. Her throat discolored, black and swollen. And there was Danny, kneeling beside her, rocking back and forth on his knees.

“Jesus, Danny . . . what have you done, son?”

Danny heard his name and looked up to Lester. His eyes were red and puffy from crying. His head quivered a little. “She won't wake up, Sheriff.”

“Son of a bitch!” Sokowski barked from behind Lester, spit flying from his lips. He shoved past Lester and threw himself right on top of Danny. Swinging wild fists that connected with the side
of Danny's face a few times, and Danny offered no resistance. He kept his hands at his sides and took the beating.

Lester reacted, but too slow. Before Lester could get to him, Sokowski hovered over Danny and delivered a violent steel-toed-boot tip into his gaping mouth. A loud popping sound echoed off the trailer walls as Danny's jaw cracked and shattered. Blood exploded over his gums, and Danny's deadweight fell on top of Mindy's body, snapping two of her ribs from the impact.

“Hell, Mike!” Lester grabbed Sokowski by the arm and tried to throw him backward, but the deputy outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. Even so, it was enough to knock Sokowski off balance. Lester staggered back, slipped on a patch of congealed blood, and fell into the kitchen table.

“Back off this now, Mike!” Lester's heart hammered in his chest—hammered too damn fast. His face turned a bright shade of crimson, and his eyes bulged in their sockets near to the point of popping right out of his skull. He plopped down on a kitchen chair to catch his breath and watched as Danny rolled off of Mindy.

Danny whimpered like a puppy pulled off its mama's teats. He grabbed at his jaw and moaned again. He didn't even try to get up. He just lay there on the carpet and stared up at the trailer ceiling. His eyes flickered a few times before they rolled into the back of his head and he shut down. His arms went limp and folded at his sides, and blackness enveloped him and swallowed him whole.