Hannah Alexander - A Killing Frost

“You think she’s still in her thirties?” Jama asked. “She seems older than that.”

“Lots of things make a person look older. Stress. Bad experiences, whatever.”

“Hello?” came a slightly annoyed voice from the hallway. “Am I being psychoanalyzed by people who don’t even know me?”

Jama and Zelda looked at each other sheepishly when Ruth entered the room, arms crossed, chin out.

“Well, it was supposed to be a private conversation,” Zelda said. “We didn’t expect our eaves to be dropped.”

In spite of herself, Jama couldn’t help reevaluating her director’s appearance. There was a stiffness in the way she held her mouth, a tightness around her eyes-which were, now that Jama was paying attention, pretty-in fact, Ruth looked as if she could be friendly. If she ever smiled. The lines in her face were not deep.

“I’m thirty-eight-not that it’s anybody’s business. And neither is my private life your business. I’ll thank you to keep your thoughts about me to yourselves.”

“Well, folderol,” Zelda muttered. “That yanks it. Even if I did want the job, I’m not getting it now.”

There was a surprised pause. “I thought you weren’t interested,” Ruth said.

“It’s not like I’m ready to give up and sit at home, so what else am I going to do? Lately I’ve been working three or four times a week, long shifts, long drives to Columbia or Jeff City. It’d be easier and quicker to walk across the street than drive halfway to the moon and back.”

“Then you’re hired,” Ruth said. “That’ll get one position filled and cut down on the interviews considerably.” She turned and walked out, leaving Jama and Zelda to stare after her.

“She doesn’t waste much time, does she?” Jama asked.

“Suppose she’s that desperate?”

“I warned you,” Ruth called back from the hallway. “Jama? Are you coming? We need to get someone hired to answer the phones.”

Doriann opened her eyes to the sight of gray-pink wood. She froze. She’d fallen asleep again! What if…

She turned her head slightly, straining to see if someone might be standing next to her, listening for the sound of Clancy or Deb breathing above her, for the sound of footsteps, sniffing for rotten breath.

All she smelled was damp dirt beneath her, and a faint green scent of grass. All she heard was a loud snort, then a quiet snore from inside the barn.

Relief.

Carefully, Doriann pushed herself to her knees and tried to see through a crack low on the barn wall. There was something in the way. She stood and rose up on her toes to a crack higher on the wall, but she heard a sudden noise, a brush of movement inside.

She froze, scared to breathe for several long seconds. Then came the snoring again. She probably wouldn’t be able to see inside where it was shadowy, but if there were other cracks in the walls, and if Clancy and Deb had left a door open…just maybe she’d be able to catch sight of something.

She leaned closer to the wall, until her nose touched the rough wood. She saw shadows that took shape as she focused. She saw the skinny body of Deb, all angles and sharp points, where she lay on a broken hay bale. They had left the door open-or it had fallen off. Clancy was stretched out beside Deb, lying on his back, arms under his head.

Deb was the one snoring, her mouth wide-open, jaw slack.

Doriann studied the two of them. They didn’t look so scary in their sleep. She wondered what kind of people they might have been if not for the speed. Aunt Renee said the drugs did awful things to people.

Of course, most people didn’t turn into killers just because they took drugs. But sometimes, according to Aunt Renee and Mom and Dad, drugs could take people over and turn them inside out, make them do things they’d never do if they were straight.

So if Clancy had never taken drugs, maybe he would be a schoolteacher or a bus driver. Or maybe a doctor or a famous chef with his own cooking show. Maybe Deb would be an airline pilot or a captain of a ship or a senator.

What did their parents think about them? Aunt Renee said that if any of her kids got into drugs, she’d be heartbroken. She’d wonder what she did wrong. But Doriann couldn’t understand why anybody else would be to blame for Clancy’s choice to do drugs. He made the decision. Same as Deb.

But they probably had some very sad parents somewhere in the world.

The way Doriann saw it, she could never do drugs because she had parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins who would all be heartbroken. She wouldn’t be Doriann any longer. She’d be somebody with rotten teeth and bad breath and, as Aunt Renee always said, a dirty soul. Sure, Jesus could clean her up again, and make a good person out of her, but she’d still be a different person, and she didn’t want to be a different person.

Doriann closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Somebody needed to call 911 and stop the killing-and only she knew where the killers were.

She crept around the side of the barn, came to the barn door-or what used to be the door. Now it was just a few pieces of wood cobbled together with barbed wire and nails.

She didn’t want to make any noise so she crept on around to the other side.

She looked at a hole in the side of the barn. It looked as if some of the slats of wood had been kicked out by a horse or a mule or bull. She studied the tractor door, where the wood gaped in several places, and the side door, which hung on one hinge. She could slip through that opening without making noise.

This wasn’t as easy as it had seemed when she was safely in the woods out of sight of the killers. She leaned forward and tried to peer through another crack.

Aunt Renee said that when a drug addict crashed, they could sleep for days, but still, Deb was the only one asleep for sure.

Doriann couldn’t see anything. Maybe she didn’t have the right angle. She stood on her toes and pressed her nose against the rough wood.

All she saw was something white. It darkened, then whitened again.

She caught a scream before it could leave her mouth. She was staring at an eye.

Jama returned the receiver to the phone and braced herself. She called Ruth’s office instead of walking back to break the news. Might as well practice the new system.

“Hi, Ruth. Sorry to interrupt your interview, but I just received word from River Dance Winery that we can expect at least three more patients, two with smoke inhalation, one with a possible broken arm. Zelda’s gone. Want me to call Tyrell now?”

“Yes, call him. Let me know if I’m going to have to cancel interviews this afternoon. Keep taking calls if you can, try to get that appointment book filled. We need a ballpark figure of how many patients to expect next week, so we’ll know how to staff this place.”

“Got it. I’m getting another call.”

Ruth disconnected without replying.

The call was from the mayor of River Dance.

“Jama Sue, what’s going on down there?” Eric Thompson had the deepest, smoothest bass voice, which he used to good effect when running for office or presiding over a town meeting. “Yesterday, Ruth said she wouldn’t have the clinic ready for a full load of patients until next week. I just heard down at Mildred’s café that you’ve already treated some patients.”

“It seems we’ve been forced into operation a little sooner than expected. I just hope nothing serious comes in, because we certainly aren’t set up for it.”

She thought of Monty. Of the fire. Serious had already broadsided them.

“How many slots have you filled in the appointment book for Monday?” Eric asked.

“Most of them, and we’re working on Tuesday. What did you do, advertise in every paper along the Missouri?”