Page 9

9

SHELBY

“It vanished into thin air,” I tell Mack when she asks why I’m setting up a new iPhone when I just got an upgrade for Christmas a few weeks ago.

She brought a couple of day-old boxes of eclairs for the gang to have and we sit together in the front office, rocking in the old leather chairs and eating custard out of the middle of the pastries with our fingers. She feeds broken-off ends to the dog wrapped inside her coat.

“You had to have dropped it in the snow and it died, and that’s why it can’t be tracked. What else makes sense?” she says and I shrug, uninterested in talking about it any further. I’ve been on calls with the phone company and in the damn AT&T store half the day already. She’s also acting off. I know she tried to tell me about the security footage before it showed up on the news, and what else can either of us say about it except that it’s creepy but not helpful? But it does bring up the question of whether or not there is a second person involved because of the scarf. A feminine scarf, she points out, but I don’t know about that. It seems like a stretch. I’m not apathetic to the video—of course it’s horrifying to see, but it’s seemingly worthless.

“Can I put him down?” she asks as Gus wiggles off her lap and shakes out his ears. Before I even answer he’s marched out to the common area, and I can hear a symphony of squeals and kissy noises as the residents delight over him.

“Do you have a gun?” I ask her out of nowhere, and her face changes, tenses, she puts down her eclair.

“Somewhere” is all she says, and we both stare out at the skeletons of trees and the frozen parking lot outside the front windows. We were both lovingly forced by our husbands to learn how to use one in case of a self-protection emergency, and just like me, she probably forgot how, and where it even is.

I told her about Winny and the note and how it named us—how it was some sort of warning to us. We’ve both been quietly paralyzed in fear that this could happen—that since Leo’s disappearance is a mystery and nobody was ever caught for my attempted murder, whatever insane, evil, freak thing that happened that night isn’t over. She was quiet when I told her—just petted Gus’s head and stared. We’ve exhausted every possible suspect, angle, theory, and fear over the last months. And all the tears and the rage too, so what’s left to say? We’ve always felt someone lurking in the shadows.

“I’ll find it,” she says.

Herb appears in the doorway, holding Gus in his arms.

“This little guy took a big ole Stanley Steamer right in Bernie’s slipper.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” Mack stands. Gus wriggles from Herb’s arms and runs over to Bernie who’s laughing and slapping his knee at the ordeal.

“Who knew all Bern needed was a pile of dog shit to cheer him up,” Herb says. Mack and I stand in the door frame and look out to see Gus hopping around, getting pets from everyone and then taking off with one of Millie’s half-knitted pot holders, which makes Bernie hoot even louder.

“I thought he wouldn’t leave your side,” I say, smirking at Mack. She shrugs and watches Herb play tug-of-war with him over the pot holder.

“Well, that’s just rude,” she says, hands on hips, both of us thrilled to be changing the subject. “You could take him overnight if you…”

“Yes,” I answer before she finishes. “I think everyone could use that right now,” I say, and I can still see the techs through the side window—the guys from Willard’s finishing up some final wiring that was damaged. It’s been a handful of days since the electricity was purposefully cut, and even though that was fixed, now they are repairing the generator. And although everyone is back in their routine, there is a quiet pensiveness around the place, and it’s clear the residents are still frightened to some extent. Back inside the office, Mack shrugs on her coat and picks at the rest of her eclair.

“You wanna tell me what Evan Carmichael is doing hanging out at the Ole? I thought I was having a high school flashback.”

“You think I’m setting you up with him,” I say flatly, but a smirk plays at my lips.

“I mean, I was there the other day with Billy. Your subtlety was Oscar-worthy.”

“Well, for your information, I got him to work here part-time while he fixes up his dad’s place.”

“Well, they all seem to be getting along,” she says, pulling on her hat and nudging her chin in the direction of Herb, Evan, and Florence, who are huddled around the old computer at an ancient particle board desk in the corner of the room.

“Yes, Evan is showing them how to use Instagram, I think.” Mack laughs at this then calls Gus over and kisses his face a few times.

“I’ll be back, buddy. You have fun, sweetheart. If it doesn’t work, I’ll pick him back up anytime,” she says to me and then hollers at the gang, who wave and thank her for the treats.

After a lazy attempt at some paperwork, I give up and go over to nose in on what the gang is cooking up over at the computer. I try to eavesdrop as I make a cup of tea in the kitchenette and then flop on the couch next to Millie. Gus is curled up in Bernie’s lap on the recliner and the rest are still hunched over the computer.

“What’s going on with them?” I ask as she knits a new pot holder.

“Mort has a podcast.”

“No he does not,” I say.

“Oh, Shelby, I’m glad you’re here, there’s something I’d like to…run past you,” Florence says, but she’s interrupted by Evan, who gasps as he points at the computer screen.

“Mort! You have over a hundred thousand subscribers,” he says, pushing his chair back from the keyboard and shaking his head in desbelief. Florence and Mort have kitchen chairs pulled up next to him and they look at one another.

“Is that a lot?” he asks.

“Oh my God. Are you…? Yes! You could be making a lot of money. Do you even—” he stutters, stops, and looks utterly bewildered. But Mort just shrugs.

“Right now we’re discussing the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I guess people like Poe. He married his thirteen-year-old cousin. Most people don’t know that. And he died of ‘brain congestion’ but that was just a nice way of saying alcoholism.”

“Nobody even knows who you’re talking about,” Herb says, busy tossing plastic darts at the dartboard on the wall and drinking a Pabst, but still can’t contain himself.

“Poe? Are you serious?” Mort takes off his glasses, giving his attention to Herb.

“The mascot for the Ravens?” Herb asks.

“The mascot is literally a raven taken from a Poe story,” Mort says, flustered.

“This guy’s a nut,” Herb says, looking around for passive agreement.

“Okay,” Evan laughs. “Listen. Mort. You could be selling ads. You could be getting sponsors. This is amazing,” he says.

“I just like talking about literature,” Mort says flatly and Evan blinks at him, clicking away at the keyboard some more and poking around in Mort’s apparently fascinating YouTube account.

“Whoa. Okay. So what happened in the last day that gave you half a million views? Holy crap,” Evan says, and Mort takes over the keyboard and clicks about for a moment. He plays a recent video podcast he recorded. It’s him in the frame with a tweed suit on, and he’s standing in front of the corkboard in the craft room holding a pointer and giving a lecture. We all watch for a moment to see what amazing content there could be to explain all this, but all we hear is Mort’s monotone voice on camera.

“Edgar continued his studies in Richmond. He entered the University of Virginia in 1826 at the age of seventeen. During the year he attended the university, Edgar excelled in his studies of Latin and French…” Evan clicks Pause.

“Kill me,” Herb says, tossing another dart.

“I think I know what happened. Shelby, dear, this is what we’d like to discuss with you.”

“Mort’s podcast recounting the young life of Edgar Allan Poe…? Is that what you want to talk to me about?” I ask.

“No. Mort let us guest host his podcast yesterday, and I imagine that’s what the fuss is about,” Florence says.

“You didn’t tell me it went up online. I didn’t even get to see it yet,” Herb says, coming over and sitting on the arm of the couch, peering between Evan’s and Mort’s heads to see the screen.

“Oh Lord. What did you do?” I ask, partly in jest, but getting increasingly concerned for some reason.

“Will you keep an open mind?” Florence asks.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I demand, and Mort presses Play. The video shows the whole gang sitting around the fireplace in this very room. Herb in his armchair, pulling apart Oreos, Mort with his tweed and pointer standing near the hearth, and the rest on the couch sharing a bottle of wine and picking at Christmas chocolates.

The video starts out with Mort announcing that Florence will be guest hosting, and he will allow her to lead the discussion about the very ominous goings-on in Rivers Crossing. He thinks the tone of the story is in line with his Poe series, and so it’s an appropriate adjunct to his series.

Then on-screen Florence nervously smiles at the camera and lays out the facts of Leo’s disappearance and the night of my assault, and then starts talking about Otis and Winny. There is a tightening in my chest that starts out as a fist of pain, morphing into full-blown anger very quickly.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snap. I stand up and Mort pushes Pause on the video. Evan looks horrified.

“Well, it’s not the best quality video ’cause the lighting in here sucks, but Mort says posting the video on YouTube will help grow the audience, so we thought people would look past the lighting,” Herb says, cluelessly.

“Herb, please,” Florence says, then places a hand on Evan’s shoulder. “He didn’t know anything about this until just now.”

“Why would you do this? I told you not to get involved. For your own safety,” I say, vibrating with frustration…and fear, if I’m honest, about the possible implications.

“Well, dear. I know that’s what you did say, but it looks like a lot of people watched this, and what better way to catch the son of a bitch than blast this all over to Timbuktu and back? It could help. We can’t do nothing .”

“I gotta agree with Flor on this one, as much as it pains me to do so. Cops came out when the HVAC and generator were destroyed. But what can they really do? I guess it’s not exactly their fault, even though the detective has a head full of chipped beef still. They can file a report, whoopee. We have security now, fine, but there’s a slim chance anyone will be caught. This could actually help in a big way, not a report in some drawer Chipped Beef scribbled up,” Herb says, and I must say I’m surprised at his conviction. And it’s not that he doesn’t have a point, it’s that they have no idea how much danger they could really be in.

“I’m trying to protect you,” I say.

“We made it this long, we can take care of ourselves, Shel,” Millie pipes in.

I run my hands through my hair and blow out a deep breath. “Well, what the hell else is on the video?” I ask, and Mort presses Play. Herb passes around an oversized container of Cheese Balls as we all watch. Heather comes in and doesn’t know what’s going on but sits and watches anyway, taking her share of Cheese Balls in her palm when they come her way.

The video continues. The gang is still having what seems like a cozy fireside chat with drinks and wooly sweaters, only they’re talking about me.

“Someone in this small town of ours knows who’s doing this. Someone you probably know—a friend, a neighbor—is responsible and yet, no leads, no clues. And now Otis has been murdered in his own hospital bed, and it’s time we take justice into our own hands if the police can’t get to the bottom of it, and that’s all I have to say.” Florence ends her speech, a bit over-the-top if you ask me, but then it turns into a free-for-all with the whole gang piping in.

“Oooh, we have a serial killer. How exciting,” Millie says.

“We don’t have a serial killer. Leo is missing, no one has said he’s dead, and let’s be honest because we are all thinking it, he’s probably involved,” Mort says to my utter surprise, and they all turn and look at me apologetically at this comment before turning back to the screen.

“So he probably doesn’t want to be called dead is all I’m saying. We only have Otis dead and that comes with a lot of question marks, so let’s take a pill and not say serial killer just yet.”

“Take a pill yourself, Mort,” Herb says.

“Yeah, up yours, Mort,” Millie echoes, and Mort tries to keep control of things. They go on to argue about whether there is a woman’s scarf in the frame the news showed of the security footage, and what motives Otis’s killer might have—how all the cases have to be connected. Once Mort finally pushes Stop on the video, they all turn to me.

“We learned that most people only watched about a third of the video, so Evan is gonna help us learn how to edit,” Florence says and Evan holds up his hands in a gesture that says, “I didn’t know you didn’t know.”

“I mean, only if that’s like, okay with you,” he says with wide eyes that look a little bit terrified of what my reaction might be. “I just—it’s gone viral, apparently, so…”

“Oh, that’s terrible,” Millie says.

“Mill, join us in the twenty-first century, will you? That’s a good thing,” Herb says, wiping orange cheese crumbs from his fingers onto his pant leg.

“He said viral, Herb! Do you have your listening ears on? Viral… Like the pink eye you probably carry around. That’s not a good thing,” she says.

“Oh my God,” Herb mutters, shaking his head.

“It’s not okay with me,” I say. “None of this is okay, Florence. What the hell?”

Florence stays very calm and speaks in a soft voice.

“I know, dear, but I read about some podcasts that helped bring someone to justice—don’t you think the best way to protect your girls is to make the details public? There’s a much better chance of finding him or at least maybe scaring the person into not making themselves susceptible to getting caught if they continue to do more terrible things?” she says with conviction in her voice, and I sit back down and take it in. My girls , I think. Could this really be the way to make a difference?

“I don’t know,” I say quietly to my lap.

“Evan says people must have liked how candid we were. Not a rehearsed single host like they’re used to, but us silly antiques sitting around just chatting, I guess,” she says.

“It’s refreshing,” Evan says, staring at the screen and scrolling. “The comments are saying that, I mean. I’m not saying that. There are a lot of comments. Wow, this is nuts.” He keeps looking through them all with a bewildered look on his face.

“Mort says he was going to take a break from English literature and move on to bread making and nobody wants to hear about that,” Florence says.

“Hey.” Mort pushes up his glasses and glares at her.

“The real mystery to solve is how Mort has so many followers,” Millie says.

“He’s very charming,” Evan defends. Millie and Herb look at him. “No, really, Mort, I looked at some of your stuff today. I watched your talk titled ‘Holden Caulfield Was the First Karen . ’ Brilliant, I can see why people watch you.”

Mort blushes. “Want me to tell you what a Karen is, Millie?”

“Karen Wallington? Who works at the Dickie’s dry cleaning? Which other Karen do we know?” Millie asks.

“That’s it,” Herb says in an exasperated tone, picking up his cigar and a lighter and walking out the front doors.

“Of course we won’t continue if you don’t want us to, right, Florence?” Evan asks, and even though he’s just showing them how to edit and get sponsors, I appreciate him taking the lead on this. They won’t care if I say no, though. He may think he’s being noble by asking, but if the five of them have their minds set, they would film this in the middle of the night in Mort’s room on their smartphones and block me from accessing it…or something like that. I need to think about it.

“I don’t know yet,” I say.

“I could see a woman wanting Leo dead for—you know, being involved,” Heather says out of absolutely nowhere. Everyone turns to look at her.

“I’m just saying I agree with the thing in the video—a woman’s scarf. I mean, I don’t know about that, it looked like a plastic bag flapping to me, but before I worked at the hospital—like when I was younger—I worked at Pipers Pizza that Leo owned and all the girls hated him. He never paid us on time, never gave us enough shifts. Erin Wylie had a kid to support and there were like three customers a day. I guess that’s not enough to kill a guy, but sometimes I wanted to… Making us split our tips with him. I mean, I hope nobody killed him. He’s probably alive stealing tips from someone else, just on a beach in Mexico, like everyone says.”

“You worked at the hospital?” is all Florence responds, after all that. Then… “When Otis was there?” Heather nods, and suddenly I hear the front doors fly open and the sounds of giggles and yelps only six-year-olds can make as Poppy and June skip into the rec room with Clay following behind, holding Happy Meals in one hand and purple glitter backpacks hanging from the other.

“Hi, Mom,” Juju says, and then they’re both on their knees at the coffee table screaming over Gus and asking if they can have him.

“He’s Bernie’s,” I say, and Bernie looks up with a surprised expression and a suppressed smile. They go and sit by Herb the way they usually do because he sneaks them Fruit Roll-Ups or rock candy or some other garbage, and don’t ask me why a grown man has any of those things. Today it’s peppermint bark. He slides it to them under the table so I don’t see it, and I pretend not to.

June hugs Florence and asks her if she wants to see the drawing she did in school, and Florence kindly makes a big to-do about how she should be an artist, then Poppy bounces over to sit next to Millie.

“Can you knit me red mittens?” she asks and she’s asked Millie this every time she’s seen her since before Christmas and is still trying to eke a late gift out of her that will never come.

“She only knows how to make a square. Maybe one day, years from now, she’ll figure out how to put all of her squares together to make a scarf instead of forcing pot holders on everyone,” Herb says, and before Millie can say “Up yours,” I shrug my coat on and announce I’m leaving early.

I pull Clay away from Herb’s box of Cubans he’s trying to sell to him, and explain that we are taking the girls ice fishing this afternoon. Mort and Florence have moved away from the computer and she is putting a pot of tea on the stovetop in the kitchenette, and he is looking at his feet, and I know they are ready to defy every word I just said and jump back into this podcast armchair detective thing the minute I walk out.

On the car ride to the bait shop, I think about what they said. I think Mack would lose her mind if she found out this was being discussed publicly. But it also feels like something. Something more than anyone else is doing to unravel all this—give me my life back, my family’s safety back. Still, I have to put a stop to it. It’s my fight, not theirs.

It’s dusk when we arrive at the bait shop. The girls sit on milk crates by the minnow tank while they eat their French fries and name the fish until they lose track of who’s who. Clay sits in his oversized red flannel on the stool behind the counter that’s covered in kitschy trinkets—a miniature Paul Bunyan statue, a plastic football, a piggy bank, a talking fish, a handful of Smurf figurines, a vase filled with beer bottle tops. He brushes the nugget crumbs from his fingers, takes a beer from the minifridge under the counter, and adds the bottle top to his vase.

The place looks more like it could be on an episode of Hoarders than it does a profitable bait shop, but he stands by people loving the cozy nostalgia of the place. The girls sure do at least. They’re always unearthing new crap from the piles of boxes and collectables he tells them are not toys, but still lets them play with whatever they come across—a 1970s Hot Wheels or one of Mr. Potato Head’s feet. I once made the mistake of telling him the place would make a better secondhand shop than bait store, but I won’t make that mistake twice. Breaking about even each month was not what I imagined when we opened the shop six years ago, but now I try to enjoy the cozy kitsch and not dwell on how much money it’s not making us, at least for a little bit longer.

The girls don’t like ice fishing, but they do love the hot chocolate and playing in the ice hut that resembles one of those ever popular tiny homes equipped with a fireplace, card table, and board games, and even mounted fish on the wooden walls. The hut, which Clay’s named Salmon Slayer and loves more than anything, is everything you’d expect from a northern Minnesotan fisherman—a man cave on ice.

The girls bring electric blankets we plug into a portable battery pack and curl up with hot chocolate and a movie on their tablet, and I drink a mug of wine and chat to Clay about the new contestants on Survivor or how the pawnshop on 1st Street is rumored to close. Anything but the news, or that note on my car, or Otis, or anything having to do with real life, and we are both happy to pretend nothing is wrong when we’re with the girls.

On the weekend, the lake is peppered with a handful of other ice fishers, and their trucks are lined up near the snowbanks by the bait shop where they tailgate and drink beer half the day. But on weeknights, most of the other ice huts are empty and the extreme temperature has folks waiting until the promised warm-up coming next week. And by warm-up, I mean single digit temps instead of subzero.

The girls ask if they can skate on the ice after the thrill of cocoa and time in the hut has worn off, and I remind them they didn’t bring skates, and it’s dark.

“We just wanna go ice shoeing,” June says, the clever name they made up for sliding around the ice in their boots without skates.

“Five minutes, and I’m watching you from the door, so don’t go out of my sight.”

“Take the lantern, Pops,” Clay says, and she brings the lantern with her and sets it on the ice. I watch them hold hands and set out, giggling and squealing with each almost fall. They charge and slide across the ice and then back again. I smile at their simple joy and feel lifted that they seem happier as time passes—adjusting well.

And then I hear something. Something that stops my heart.

There is a loud crack in the darkness that echoes, and then a guttural, terrified scream.

“Poppy!” I scream so roughly my throat feels like it fills with blood. Clay jumps up and follows behind as I run, screaming wildly, across the ice to where June stands weeping and shaking, watching Poppy grip onto the edge of the broken ice with her tiny pale hand as she starts slipping under. The ice is broken wide open even though the lake has been frozen solid enough to drive on for weeks. It’s impossible. What’s happening?

“Poppy,” I scream again, Clay is behind me with the lantern so I can see her, but she’s not there. Her gripping fingers let go and all I can see are wisps of blond hair being pulled under the icy black water.

“Baby, no!”