Linda Hall - On Thin Ice

“And you think there’s a connection between these cards and the person who was shooting at us on the lake, plus the deaths of Sophia and Jennifer?”

He nodded. “There is no doubt in my mind.”

She shuddered and pulled her sweater tightly around her.

Alec took a notebook and pen out of his breast pocket and began to write. He was quiet for a few minutes. The only sound was the rhythmic clanging of a clock on the mantel. Megan’s mouth felt dry.

He looked at her for a few more moments and then asked, “Where is it that you live now?”

“Baltimore.”

“What do you do there?”

“I’m a Web designer.” He wrote the answers carefully in his coil-bound notebook. She knew his handwriting; his tall, compact letters. She had received love letters in that careful script. She had gotten rid of all of them. Back when she had burned her wedding dress and ribbons and decorations and candles, those love letters were in the same pile.

“Do you work for a company?”

“Alec, are you questioning me? Interrogating me?”

A look of surprise crossed his face. “Yes, Megan. I want to get to the bottom of this.” He smiled at her.

This bothered her and she didn’t know why. She looked away and felt slightly insulted. She was not some suspect. She was personally involved in the case. She found herself retreating from his gentle smile.

He was a cop, trained to get information and confessions from suspects by any means possible. If that meant cops had to pretend to have feelings they didn’t possess, they would. And for the briefest of moments she’d actually thought he was showing her kindness. She needed to be on her guard.

“I’m not at fault,” she said, sitting stiffly in her chair. “Something is happening to me and I’m not the cause of it.”

His voice was soft. “I never said you were. I’m just trying to get a handle on things. This is the only way I know how to work, by asking questions.” He put his pen down. “I’m sure you’ve thought about this. Do you know of anyone who might want to do this to you? Maybe from your work?”

“I have dozens of clients, most of whom I’ve never even met.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“That’s the way I work, Alec. I am alone.”

“I can’t imagine you working in a job that doesn’t include people….”

“I told you. I’ve changed. I could ask you the same question. Is there anyone you know who would want to do this to us? Besides, why would one of my clients target you? I’ve never told anyone about you. No one knows my history.”

He took a breath and looked down at his notebook. If her words stung, that’s what she wanted.

She sighed. This was getting them nowhere. “In answer to your question.” She paused. “After the trial I went to Baltimore to live with my godmother, a close friend and college roommate of my mother’s. Her name is Eunice Schneider. She came into my life after my grandmother died. She offered a place for me to stay in Baltimore. I went. I had no place else to go. She was good to me. I went to school there, took a graphic design course. For the past ten years I’ve been designing Web sites. I do okay for myself. I lead a quiet life.”

He said, “So, we’re looking at someone from before…”

“From before what?” she asked.

“From before our lives now. It may be painful, but I think we’re going to have to go back to the early days, when we were…together. Whoever is doing this is obviously from…then.”

She could tell it was hard for him to say the words, but she too realized it had to be someone from those days. Isn’t that why she had come here? After she had gone over and over Sophia’s and Jennifer’s deaths in her mind, had spent many sleepless nights in Baltimore wondering if she might be the next target, she had decided to come and talk to Alec.

“Someone from before,” she said. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“We begin at the beginning.”

“Right.”

He was looking at her, his expression so tender, so questioning. She knew. She knew that he wanted to ask about their child.

And she wasn’t ready to tell him about that. Not yet.

It was late afternoon by the time Alec arrived home. He had told Megan that he would keep in touch and let her know what forensics found out about the invitations and if they found anything out on the lake.

Every time he had looked at her, something inside of him went to pieces and he completely forgot all police procedure, everything he had ever learned.

He tried to concentrate on the case. He remembered Sophia Wilcox as a short, pudgy, flighty, dark-haired girl. Megan and Sophia had been friends since kindergarten. His brother Bryan had dated Sophia briefly. Then again, his brother Bryan seemed to have gone out with everyone briefly.

He went on to the police database and looked through the report on Sophia’s accident. Her car had gone over an embankment on a highway in California and had tumbled down a cliff into the sea. There wasn’t much left of the car and driver, but bits and pieces seemed to indicate that the brakes had been seriously worn down. She left behind a husband and two children.

He turned to the report about Jennifer. Once upon a time, before he met Megan he’d had a crush on Jennifer. However once he met Megan, he judged all other women by her. Jennifer had wanted to be a missionary he remembered. She planned to go to Africa or China. She always said that as soon as she graduated from high school she would leave Augusta, leave Maine for good.

But out of all their friends, she was the one who stayed in Augusta. Jennifer had died in precisely the same manner as Sophia had. She had drowned when her car went over a hill into a reservoir near her home in Augusta. She left behind a husband and three children.

Alec looked at his watch and decided that with the time difference, it wasn’t too late to call California. When he was put through to the officer investigating Sophia’s death, he identified himself and asked if there was any new information on the car accident.

It took a while for the detective to even find the case report on his computer or in his files. Finally he said, “We’ve put that death down to an accident. We are thinking that maybe she simply fell asleep.”

“The report said the brakes failed.”

“The brakes were not good. But the car was so destroyed we couldn’t know for certain,” the officer said.

“Anything about the crash strike you as strange?” Alec asked.

“The family insisted that she had had her car in for a service that very day.”

“You talk to the mechanic?” Alec questioned.

“Yes. He said the car was in good working order when she drove it out of the shop. He checked the brakes and they were fine. Just curious. What’s your interest in all this?”

Alec said, “A second person died the same way here in Maine. Her brakes failed. The two were friends.” He told the officer about the wedding that didn’t happen. He omitted the fact that he was to have been the groom.

“That’s interesting. Maybe this case deserves a second look,” the officer said.

“I guess it does,” Alec said.

They exchanged names, numbers and e-mail addresses. They promised to keep in touch. It was a start.

It was probably too late to call Augusta, but Alec did anyway. He found Detective Brantley Peterson, the officer who had handled Jennifer’s case, still in his office working.

Alec identified himself and told him the same story he had told the officer in California.

“Things have happened here,” Alec said. “Another member from that wedding party came to see me today. She’s worried for her life.”

“Why’d she come to see you?”