Bill Pronzini - Snowbound

Which was true enough. Peggy had waited until their fourth evening together at the motel before bringing up the subject of money; she had done it very casually and very deftly, as always, saying that her dentist had told her she needed some work on her wisdom teeth but that she really couldn’t afford it and she supposed she could endure the minor toothache discomfort a while longer… As she had anticipated, he had been sympathetic and had readily offered to pay for the dental work, a token of his affection for her, wouldn’t even think of it as a loan; she had told him she couldn’t possibly, and then allowed him to talk her into accepting. And when she said that her dentist would not accept credit from her, that she would need cash, he gave her a hundred dollars that same night and insisted that she tell him when she needed more. She had needed more two weeks later, another hundred dollars, and tonight she had been going to ask him for an additional fifty-proceeding cautiously-and here he was telling her that he was going to make her a cash gift for Christmas. Wonderfully beneficent, wonderfully pliable Matt Hughes!

He said, “I don’t think I’ve been generous enough. And besides that, I want to do it, I want to give you something nice for Christmas.”

“You give me something nice every time we’re together,” she said, but the words were automatic, disassociated from her thoughts; she wanted to ask him how large the present was going to be-the way he talked, it was a substantial sum-but she did not want to seem overly expectant. Three hundred? Five hundred? Just how generous was he going to be?

“And you to me,” he said. “Tomorrow night, then?”

“Yes, Matt. Tomorrow night and any night you want.”

He drew her full against him, kissing her eyes as if in gratitude. Excitement stirred in her loins again, as much a result of anticipation of his Christmas gift as in response to his warm and naked masculinity. He clung to her, whispering her name, as she began to stroke him, make him ready again. And while one part of her mind concentrated on their rekindled passion, another part dwelled on the twenty-one thousand dollars she had saved thus far and the concomitant knowledge that if his present was as large as he had led her to believe, if she could prolong the affair with him and he continued to supply her with money, the time when she would finally be able to leave Hidden Valley was very close at hand. Another six or eight months, maybe even less; certainly no later than mid-fall of next year, before her twenty-second birthday, before the cold winter snows came.

Oh yes, long before the snows came…

Wrapped in mackinaw and muffler and waterproof boots, Lew Coopersmith had just finished shoveling thick powder drifts from his front walk when Frank McNeil came to see him shortly past nine Tuesday morning.

It had stopped snowing sometime during the night, and the air had a crystal quality, clean and sharp like the slender ice daggers which gleamed on the front eaves of the house. A high, thin cloud-cover shielded the winter sun; but visibility was good, and you could see portions of the white-laced peaks marking higher elevations to the east. You could also see the thickening black snowclouds which obscured their crests, and you knew-sourly, in Coopersmith’s case-that there would be another heavy snowfall later in the day.

He leaned on the long handle of his shovel as McNeil’s ten-year-old Dodge plowed through the snow on Alpine Street and drew up just beyond his front gate-thinking irascibly: Fine, can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have come calling this morning. With McNeil, he saw, was the cafe owner’s son; the two of them got out of the car and came over to the gate.

“Morning, Frank, Larry.” Coopersmith’s voice was bland, without particular interest. “Something I can do for you?”

“I sure as Christ hope so,” McNeil said. His eyes shone with dark outrage, and his blunt face was flushed. “Somebody broke into the cafe last night.”

“What?”

“That’s right. Broke the lock off the rear door and then propped the goddamn door wide open. Storeroom was filled with snow when Larry and me went in to open up a few minutes ago-snow all over everything.”

Coopersmith abandoned his careless manner. “What was taken, Frank?”

“Nothing. Not a single thing.”

“You positive about that?”

“Hell yes. First thing we did was check the register and my cash box. They hadn’t been touched.”

“No supplies missing, either?”

“No.”

“Vandalism?”

“Just the rear door, that’s all.”

Coopersmith frowned. “Any idea who could have done it?”

“Damn it, no. It doesn’t make a bit of sense.”

“You report it yet?”

“I wanted to talk to you first.”

In spite of his dislike for McNeil, Coopersmith felt mildly appreciative of the implied confidence. He said crisply, “All right, Frank. Let’s go have a look.”

He propped his shovel against the cross-slatted fence and went with father and son to the Dodge. McNeil started the car and drove the four blocks to the Valley Cafe, pulled into the narrow, snowpacked alley that ran behind the building. He parked close to the cafe’s rear entrance, and Coopersmith got out immediately and went to look at the door.

The lock, old and flimsy, had been cleanly snapped by means of inserting a crowbar or some similar tool between the door edge and the jamb. There were splinter and gouge marks in the wood there which told him that much. The door was closed now. Coopersmith said, “You wedge it closed from the inside, Frank?”

“No. Latch still holds, even with the busted lock.”

Coopersmith opened the door and stepped into the small, somewhat cluttered storeroom. The floor inside was wet, still mounded in places with the snow-melting now — which had blown in during the night. To one side was a half-filled crate of oranges; indicating that, McNeil said, “Crate there was holding the door open.”

“That where you usually keep it-by the door?”

McNeil shook his head. “It’s supposed to be over there with the other fruits and vegetables.”

“Way it seems, then, whoever did it had nothing in mind except letting a lot of snow whip in here.”

“Yeah. But what the hell for?”

“Could be a practical joke.”

“Some joke, if that’s it.”

“Or it could be somebody wanted to harass you a little.”

“Why’d anybody want to harass me, for Chrissake?”

“Well-you ruffle any feathers lately?”

“Not me. I get along with everyone, you know that.”

Yeah, Coopersmith thought. He moved slowly around the storeroom, found nothing, and pushed open the swing door that led to the front of the cafe.

Following him, McNeil said, “Like I told you: nothing taken, nothing disturbed.”

They went back into the storeroom, and Coopersmith said, “Best thing for you to do is report what happened to the substation in Soda Grove; but if you want, you can tell them not to bother sending a deputy over. Tell them I’ll look into it-ask around, see if anybody saw anything last night, and then check in with them later on.”

“What about fingerprints, stuff like that?”

“Frank, nothing was stolen, nothing was vandalized. Now I’ve got a fingerprint kit at the house, and I can get it and come back here and dust the door and the orange crate and everything else in the place, wet as it is. But what’s the point? Like as not, whoever did it is a valley resident, and I can’t go around taking prints of everybody who lives here. Besides, cold as it was during the night, he was probably wearing gloves anyway.”

“I’m supposed to just forget about it, then, is that it? Who’s going to pay for the damned lock?”