One Frosty Night

Ben nodded.

“But he says he’s happy running his side and letting me handle the hardware side. Claims he doesn’t know much about keeping the books, but I’ve found him to be sharp when we sit down to try to figure out directions to go.” She took a couple of bites before her next question showed that her thoughts had reverted to Jane Doe. “Have you talked to the police?”

“Sure.” The Crescent Creek Police Department consisted of the chief and five officers, two of whom weren’t that long out of high school themselves. It was the chief himself who had been to see Ben immediately, the morning Marsha found the girl. “Chief Weigand’s first thought was that the girl had to have friends here in town. Why else would she be here? It was at his prompting that I called the assembly. He spoke to the kids, described her, asked for a call if she sounded familiar to anyone. He borrowed an artist from the sheriff’s department, and they got out a sketch as soon as possible.”

Again, Olivia nodded. Presumably they hadn’t been able to make a dead girl look alive enough to want to flash around a photograph. Especially to kids, he thought, although he worried about the liberties the artist had had to take to give that illusion of life.

“Did he notice the reaction you described?” she asked.

“He didn’t comment. I didn’t, either. How could I, when I don’t know anything?”

And, God—when he’d been excruciatingly aware that Carson had been out the night before. Supposedly spending it at a friend’s house, but who knew? He was one of the students whose reaction to the news had been subtly off. Who had been more withdrawn than usual since. And until Ben knew what role, if any, his son had in the events being kept hushed up...he’d as soon the secret wasn’t sprung open.

Seeing the slight crinkles in Olivia’s high, usually smooth forehead, he was assailed by guilt. She thought they were having an open and honest exchange of information, and really he was holding something in reserve.

But how could he help it? His first loyalty went to Carson. It had to.

“So...what do we do?” she asked.

He was warmed by that “we” even as he shifted on the bench in renewed discomfort because he was holding out on her.

“I don’t know what we can do but keep an ear out.”

That dimple quirked again. “Thumbscrews,” she suggested.

It felt good to laugh again, to let go of the guilt. “Keep some in my desk drawer.”

He was pleased when she asked how he’d ended up in administration instead of teaching, and especially how he’d gotten himself hired as principal when he was younger than most of the teachers at the high school. He hoped it meant she was curious and not just scrabbling for a topic to get them through the rest of the meal.

He told her about going back for his master’s degree even as he taught high school history and government, then making the decision to return full-time for a doctorate in education. “I always liked to be in charge,” he admitted. He opened his mouth to say, I guess you knew that, but he changed his mind when he saw the way her eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t have had a chance at a position as principal anywhere but here, not so soon. I gather they weren’t getting many quality applicants, and, well, I was the hometown boy.”

“So that’s why you moved back.”

“Partly,” he said, then shook his head. “Mostly it was for Carson’s sake. You know I have a stepson?”

Her “I’d heard” wasn’t very revealing.

“I thought he needed family.” He shrugged. “This seemed like a good opportunity all around.”

She nodded. He waited for her to ask about Carson—why he was raising a boy who wasn’t his biologically—but she didn’t go there. Either she wasn’t curious, or she didn’t want to admit to being.

So he asked what her plans were, and she told him she really didn’t know.

“I never intended my return to be permanent. When I first came, I thought I was just filling in for Dad.” She sighed. “Then I was so focused on him, I didn’t think much about the future. It was just day to day.”

She looked so sad, Ben wanted to lay his hand over hers, but he didn’t dare.

“And now it isn’t necessarily in your hands.” He’d no sooner heard about Charles Bowen’s death than he’d worried that it meant Olivia would be returning to whatever life she’d temporarily laid aside. That was when it struck him that her mother must now own the store. And Marian had never, as far as he knew, so much as worked part-time to help out. If she could get a good price for the business, why would she want to keep it?

The “if” was a big one, though; in small-town America, “Going Out of Business” signs were more common than transfers of ownership were.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Her smile was small and crooked. “That hit me about the same time she announced she was selling the house. I’ve been having fun running with some ideas—only suddenly, it was bam. Not my store, not my decision.”

“Tough,” he said with a nod.

She told him some stuff she and her mother had talked about—including the fact that they had talked last night. Made up after their lunchtime debacle. He liked all her ideas for the business and was impressed at how well thought out they were. The hardware store had always been solid, and, from all reports, her dad had made a success of the lumberyard, too. Ben couldn’t imagine that Charles had done much to build the business into anything bigger and better in recent years, though, not the way she seemed to do by instinct.

“Was opening the lumberyard your idea?” he asked.

“Well...we talked about it.” She showed some shyness. Didn’t want to imply she was smarter than her father, he suspected. “Hamilton’s went out of business the summer between my junior and senior years in college. So...I guess I might have prodded Dad some.”

Ben nodded. “Your mother was receptive to your ideas?”

“Willing to think about them, anyway.” Olivia made a face. “As she pointed out, the higher the receipts, the better price she’ll get if she does decide to sell.”

Was it possible the business had been in Charles’s name alone, meaning Marian now had to wait for probate to sell it anyway? The house had presumably been in both their names, so she wouldn’t be hampered the same way. Could that be why she’d so generously encouraged Olivia to try to build business? If so, Ben wished she’d been honest with her daughter. Otherwise, Olivia was going to be hurt when probate was complete and her mother brought down the hammer.

Damn, he hoped that wasn’t the case.

“You’d be working for your mom,” he pointed out.

She made a horrible face at him. “I am so trying not to think of it that way.”

He laughed and didn’t argue when she then decided she really needed to get back to work. A glance at his watch startled him; they’d been talking longer than he’d realized.

She was so insistent on splitting the bill, he had to agree. He reminded himself of his philosophy with teenagers: don’t push. Olivia was as wary as any adult-leery sixteen-year-old.

He winced at the thought. Yeah, she had been sixteen when he’d broken up with her. Not a good memory. Leery was probably a good word for what she felt, though, assuming it wasn’t way stronger.

During the short drive, she said suddenly, “Chief Weigand has been really closemouthed about the girl. Everybody talks about her freezing to death, but is that really what happened? Was she injured? Sick? Drunk? Has he said anything to you?”

“I think it’s clear the freezing to death part is accurate, but you’re right. He hasn’t wanted to say what else he knows. I’m actually surprised he’s been able to keep so much information close to his chest.”

Olivia would know what he meant. Small town translated to few secrets and gossip transmitted at a speed faster than light. Which made the mystery all the more shocking—and it all the more improbable that nobody at all knew anything. Nonetheless, Ben didn’t like the idea that any number of people might know little bits of something, puzzle pieces that, if shared, would put together the whole picture. Yes, there was lots of talk about her death, but he’d have expected some of those puzzle pieces to be slotted into place by now. And yet not a one had been.

The girl had to have hitched a ride with someone, for example. And since the highway closed in winter only a few miles past Crescent Creek, that ride had been with someone going to Crescent Creek, not a trucker passing through. If she’d been in good health, not drunk, not injured, she wouldn’t have died out there however cold the night. If she was drunk—she probably hadn’t gotten that way alone. If injured—how?

And, God, he had a sudden thought he should have had earlier. The autopsy would have revealed whether she’d had sex recently before her death. Was there any chance Phil Weigand had some DNA and was waiting patiently for a suspect to emerge to whom he could match it?

No, I’m reaching, he told himself, trying to tamp down that anxiety. There’d been no suggestion of murder. Sure, everyone wanted to know how she’d gotten there and why she hadn’t asked for help, but mostly they wanted to know who she was.

Still—damn, he wished he knew whether Carson had been at that kegger.

Olivia gave no sign of noticing his abstraction. The moment he braked in front of the hardware store, once again double-parking, she reached for the door handle. “I’ll let you know if I hear any more,” she said breezily and hopped out. “Thanks for listening.”

He barely had a chance to say goodbye before she was gone. There was not the slightest suggestion she’d enjoyed talking to him, would welcome a call asking her out.

On his way to pick her up, he’d been worried about what she’d heard but had also felt...hopeful. Having her call the very next day after they’d talked... Now, half a block from the hardware store, he had to sit briefly at one of the town’s four red lights. The hope had leaked out, as if it were air in a balloon she’d punctured.