Carla Neggers: Cold Dawn

It would all come out. Her and Derek, her and Nick. There’d be no more secrets. No discretion. Everyone in town would know her private business.

Ranger was asleep on his back, paws in the air. She didn’t want to wake him, but he rolled over on his own and got stiffly up onto all fours. She grabbed his leash and snapped it back on. For the past eight years, he’d been her constant companion. They’d done so much together. He’d been tireless, solid and reliable, but he was slowing down.

She couldn’t bear to think about that now and headed outside with him. Across the street on the common, kids and teachers from a local nursery school were building snowmen. Rose could hear their laughter and hoped what she’d seen that morning had been a terrible accident.

She crossed Elm Street and continued up Main, passing the only flower shop in town, cyclamen and pots of ferns in its window, but her mind was back at the Whittaker estate. She could smell the smoke and see the pieces of glass embedded in what she knew, in her gut, was Derek Cutshaw’s burned body.

There was no question in her mind. The fire hadn’t been an accident.

Derek had been murdered, and his killer could still be in Black Falls.

By the time she and Ranger reached O’Rourke’s, a bar and restaurant whose owner, Liam O’Rourke, was a longtime friend of all three of her brothers, Rose was aware of Nick ambling behind her. He caught up with her as she started up the stone steps to O’Rourke’s front door, a couple of big green shamrocks already stuck on the glass ahead of St. Patrick’s Day.

“Pretty town,” Nick said as he eased in on her right side. He’d zipped up his coat, his only apparent concession to the cold walk up Main Street. “Did you ever build a snowman on the town common when you were a tot?”

“Not that I recall, no.” Rose cast him a sideways glance. “I’ve participated in a few snowball fights, though.”

“My fair warning.” He glanced out at the quiet street. “A lot of questions were raised back at the café.”

She pulled her hand from the door. Ranger sat quietly, expectantly, next to her.

“Rose, last March, Derek Cutshaw and two of his ski-bum friends got into a fight here at O’Rourke’s with the owner’s cousin, a local stonemason.

“Bowie O’Rourke,” Nick said.

“Sean told you the story?”

“That’s right. He, A.J. and Elijah were all in town that night. Derek insulted Hannah and wouldn’t leave her alone. His friends joined in, but he was the ringleader. Sean hauled Hannah out of here before she could rip out a few eyeballs. Bowie stayed and ended up getting arrested.”

“He’s still on probation,” Rose said. “No charges were filed against Derek and his two friends. He hurled most of the insults. He cut close to the bone, even bringing up Hannah’s mother, who used to work here before she died, and implying Hannah—well, it doesn’t matter now.”

“You weren’t here that night.”

Her mouth was dry, her heart beating rapidly. “No, I wasn’t.”

She yanked open the door and bolted inside ahead of Nick. Ranger flopped down in a corner. O’Rourke’s only did a light lunch business, and she knew Liam wouldn’t mind. She climbed onto a high stool at the dark wood bar. Nick stayed on his feet, taking in the scattering of empty tables, the deep red walls and the black-and-white framed photographs of old Black Falls. Tall, broad-shouldered Liam was behind the bar, polishing a glass with a white cloth and regarding Rose with open suspicion, as if she’d brought bad luck.

She couldn’t pretend not to know Nick, and introduced him. “Liam, this is Nick Martini of Cameron & Martini.”

“Yeah, I know,” Liam said. “He was with you this morning. I heard. This town’s too small for something like that not to get around fast. The dead man’s Derek Cutshaw, isn’t it?”

Rose nodded. “I’m almost positive, yes.”

Liam filled the glass he’d been polishing with water from a small stainless-steel sink, then set it in front of her. “He was in here last night.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah. I haven’t seen much of him this winter but I knew he was back in Vermont. He had coffee and a sandwich and left. No alcohol. He’s a mean bastard when he drinks.” Liam sighed. “Or was, anyway.”

Rose contained any reaction. “Have you seen Bowie yet today?”

“He’s working out at the lake. He’ll stop in later.”

If Nick knew what “out at the lake” meant, he kept it to himself. Bowie O’Rourke and Hannah Shay had grown up together in an isolated hollow a few miles past the Whittaker place. Bowie still lived there.

Rose drank some of the water Liam had placed in front of her. “Given Bowie’s history with Derek and where he lives—”

“The police will want to talk to him if they haven’t already,” Liam said heavily. “I’ve had my issues with Bowie, but he had nothing to do with Cutshaw’s death. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course,” she said, resisting the temptation to look at Nick for his reaction.

Liam grabbed his cloth and another glass. “What about you, Rose? Have you had much to do with Cutshaw lately?”

“I barely knew him.”

“Then what was he doing out at the Whittaker place?”

She drank more of her water, just to give herself something to do and repeated what she’d told the police and then Myrtle Smith. “I have no idea.” She slid off the stool and stood up straight, turning to Nick, who hadn’t said a word since entering O’Rourke’s. “I’m sure I’ll see you back at the lodge at some point.”

Ranger jumped up and followed her outside. Rose grabbed his leash in one hand and broke into a run. He matched her stride, his tongue wagging, as if he thought they were finally playing—finally having the fun he’d anticipated at dawn.

The wind and cold whipped tears out of her eyes, and when she reached her Jeep, she choked back a sob and got Ranger into the back, patting him, hugging him. He was so damn soft, so warm and reliable.

“I can tell you anything, can’t I, buddy?” She sniffled and stood up straight, laughing at his eager expression as he panted at her. “Good dog, Ranger. Good dog.”

She shut him in and climbed into the front seat. She checked her rearview mirror but didn’t see Nick on Main Street. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was having a beer with Liam, getting what he could out of him about her, Derek Cutshaw and life in Black Falls.

In his place, Rose thought, she’d probably do the same.

She started the Jeep, picturing the backpack and sleeping bag in the shed. Had Derek planned to camp there, waiting for her? He wouldn’t have come to her house. He’d have known she wouldn’t have let him in. Out at the boarded-up farmhouse on the river, he’d have been able to catch her by surprise, force her to talk to him. But why now? Why after a year?

Nick .

Had Derek found out Nick was in town and would come to see her?

But how would he know, and why would he care?

I still care about you, Rose.

She knew better. Derek had never cared about her in any of the ways that mattered.

She pushed back her questions and circled around the common—the children and their teachers still hard at work on their snowmen—and drove out toward the lake and Bowie O’Rourke, hoping this time Nick Martini wouldn’t follow her.

Four

Rose navigated the dirt road—now covered in snow and ice—along the shore of a spring-fed glacial lake a few miles outside the village and pulled in behind Bowie O’Rourke’s mud-and-salt-encrusted van. He’d parked in front of the dozen small, run-down cabins on twenty acres that her father had left to Jo Harper, a shock to everyone in Black Falls, including Rose. She sometimes wondered if he’d suspected, at least intuitively, that his end was near and had deliberately put Jo into close proximity to Elijah, his second-born son, who had built a house just through the woods while on visits home from the army.