A Cold and Lonely Place: A Novel (3 page)

He listened without a word. “Fully dressed?” he asked when I stopped.

I closed my eyes, and I could see the contorted figure in the block of ice. One arm, off to the side, fingers splayed. A shiver ran through me. “Yes. Coat. No hat. No gloves, at least on the hand I saw.”

“He was a drinker?”

“Oh, yeah. And he smoked weed, I think. He never seemed entirely sober.”

I’ve never seen the logic in drinking to excess—it makes people act stupid and feel bad later. But plenty of locals drink hard and regularly, and many vacationers seem to think it’s a requirement for stepping foot in town. More than once I’ve hollered out my bedroom window at two a.m. at firemen here for a convention and so drunk they couldn’t find their way back to their motel. Maybe visiting horse-show people got plastered as well, but didn’t wander the streets being loud about it. Maybe they sat around in their trim riding jodhpurs and neat buttoned shirts and got quietly, desperately, privately drunk.

Even I knew if someone had imbibed enough they might think it a great idea to amble across a half-frozen lake. Alcohol seems to go a long way toward convincing people they’re immortal.

“They’ll do an autopsy,” Jameson said. “Even the basics will take a few days; tox screens take longer. Then they’ll likely know if it’s anything besides him just falling through the ice. But tell your roommate not to talk about this. To anyone. Not even casually.”

“What about the police?”

Silence for a moment as he negotiated between his sense of duty and what was best for Jessamyn. “She doesn’t want to impede the investigation,” he said finally. “She should tell them what’s relevant: when she saw him last, who his friends were, but nothing that’s not facts—nothing they can misinterpret. Not without a lawyer.”

“Okay,” I said, and suddenly it was. Without me having to spell it out he knew I was worried, and he knew why. If I had noticed Jessamyn’s fat lip and pained way of walking, other people would have too. It wouldn’t be a giant leap for someone to assume that Tobin had been the one to hurt her, and that she might have decided to do something about it. Because the Jessamyn before Tobin came along wouldn’t have put up with anyone raising a hand to her.

“Let me know what they find out,” he said.

“I will,” I said, and hung up.

I did realize that on some level there was a thread of something deeper between Jameson and me, but neither of us seemed to want or need to acknowledge it. Jameson was single, and that was the extent of what I knew about his personal life. And of course he knew how intertwined my life had been with Philippe’s last summer after I’d rescued his son.

It was getting late, and had gotten colder. But I needed a walk, and Tiger could use one. It’s one of the great things about dogs—they’re always ready for an outing. I pulled on my wool-lined Sorel boots, zipped up my parka, and wedged my neck warmer under my hat so only my eyes and nose were exposed. This is my secret to beating the cold: blocking the little crevices that let the cold creep in. This, plus my puffy insulated gloves.

I didn’t bother with a leash, because Tiger always walks or runs beside me. No credit to me; she was born that way, pre-trained. I let her know what I wanted, and she’d do it. We headed out past Town Hall and the police station and turned onto Mirror Lake Drive for the three-mile loop around the lake.

I love this walk at night, especially in the winter. Almost no one is out; the air is still; the snow and ice crunch underfoot. As you move along you can forget the bad stuff that happened during the day.

Or almost, anyway.

I don’t often have female roommates, because usually it’s guys who show up looking for rooms. And guys are easier to live with.
They don’t care if you don’t feel like talking and they don’t get involved with your life, except around the edges. They never want to make the house rules or take over running things, and they don’t complain about the décor or much of anything.

But Jessamyn hadn’t been the typical female roommate. She didn’t want to take over anything. She didn’t want to always be doing things with me. She didn’t want to tell me her problems or hear about mine, and she was tidier than most of the guys. Tobin I’d seen a lot of, because he was often at the house, and nothing had given me a reason to change my impression of him. Not that I’d told Jessamyn. She hadn’t gotten where she was in life by listening to good advice. Few of us have.

As I walked I pictured Tobin, drunk or foolish or both, crunching across the early winter ice of Lake Flower until he fell through, or passing out or falling asleep, then sliding under as the ice gave way. At least then, I thought, he would have been spared the shock of plunging into the frigid water and that final awful moment when he knew he wasn’t going to be able to save himself, that today had been his last tomorrow.

Or he could have been ice diving. It’s crazy, but people do it. I’d seen it during Winter Carnival—unofficial, of course. Someone dives through a circular hole cut into the ice, a rope tied to one leg, and comes up through a second hole nearby, presumably after drinking enough to decide it’s a good idea. Maybe Tobin had missed the second hole and had no one to haul him out. Or tried it without a rope, or the rope came loose, or his friends lost hold of it. It would be a terrible secret to keep through the winter, waiting for the body to be found. But because of Winter Carnival and the vagaries of the lake, it had appeared sooner rather than later.

It didn’t yet cross my mind that someone might actually have a reason for wanting Tobin gone.

My eyelashes were beginning to freeze. I broke into a jog, taking choppy, short steps, all you can do in clunky boots on icy ground. Tiger kept pace without missing a beat. I switched to a brisk walk when I reached town, passing restaurants and gift
shops, the Olympic Center and then the speed-skating oval with its skaters in tights and long blades, bent low, gliding around the track.

In the kitchen, Brent glanced up and nodded. He was working his way through a plateful of spaghetti and a paperback copy of
Of Human Bondage
, a book I’ve never been able to make myself finish. Brent, like most of my athlete roommates, was quiet and dedicated—a biathlete who spent long hours skiing, lifting weights, and dry-firing his rifle at a tiny target taped on his bedroom wall. He’d lived in the Olympic training center a while, but I suspected there’d been too many boisterous bobsledders and snowboarders for him.

I wondered if I should tell him Jessamyn’s boyfriend had been found frozen in the ice of Lake Flower. But it’s a hard thing to work into conversation:
How’s your book? Say, did you hear Tobin Winslow was found dead today?
I nodded back at him and climbed the stairs to my room.

I pulled on the sweatpants and old pullover I sleep in, and thought about e-mailing or calling Philippe. But I didn’t feel like talking, and this wasn’t something you could rattle off in an e-mail. I’d tell him about it, but not now. I grabbed my favorite Josephine Tey novel, and forced my eyes to follow the words until I could go to sleep. It took a while.

I awoke abruptly, with that disquieting feeling you have when the world has shifted on its axis. I pulled on boots, parka, hat, scarf, gloves in quick and practiced succession. Some mornings I just let Tiger out the back door, but this morning I needed movement, brisk movement. I went up the hill behind the house and down Parkside Drive, then circled down Main Street. As we neared the house I saw a Saranac Lake police car pull up. And my brain, without pause, went straight to:
The police must think Tobin’s death wasn’t an accident
.

The policeman got out of his car as I approached. He was young, probably not long out of high school, and wore his uniform like a suit of armor.

“Does Jessamyn Field live here?” he asked. Something, his tone or how he stood, made me think he’d become a policeman for all the wrong reasons. I imagined he’d been a gawky kid, bullied, never taken seriously.

I nodded.

“She dated Tobin Winslow?” he asked.

I nodded again. “Off and on,” I said, as if this made it less significant. Never mind that the “off” parts had been Tobin’s choice.

“I need to talk to her,” he said.

“I’ll go see if she’s here,” I told him. I wished I’d been able to warn Jessamyn, to pass along what Jameson had said. The policeman followed me into the front hallway, as if I’d invited him in. At the base of the stairs I turned and said, “I’ll be right back,” so he wouldn’t try to follow. Jessamyn didn’t need to wake up to see a cop at her door. Policemen seldom arrive with good news—they don’t come knocking to tell you you’ve won a sweepstakes or a home makeover.

I tapped on her bedroom door. No answer. I tapped again and called out her name. I pushed the door open a few inches and peered in. The room was empty, covers pulled up tidily. Normally Jessamyn wasn’t an early riser, but the day after your boyfriend was found frozen to death wasn’t a normal day. Not even here in the Adirondacks.

“She’s not here,” I told the policeman as I came down the stairs.

“Not here?” he echoed. “Doesn’t she live here?”

I tried not to sound sarcastic, but I hadn’t had breakfast and wasn’t in the best of moods. “Yes, she lives here,” I said. “But at the moment she—is—not—here.”

“Do you know where she is?”

I suppressed the urge to tell him I didn’t have my roommates sign in and out. I shook my head. “She works at a restaurant up on Main Street, but it’s not open yet. Maybe she went for a walk.” Not that I’d ever known Jessamyn to walk anywhere unless she had to.

At that moment the front doorknob clicked, and we turned. The door opened and Jessamyn entered, carrying two steaming cups and a paper bag giving off a rich, buttery smell. She smiled at us.

“I thought you might like some coffee,” she said, handing me a cup. “Cream, right?”

I nodded. I was surprised she knew I ever drank coffee, let alone how I took it. She turned to the policeman. “Would you like a croissant?” she asked, holding the bag out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here or I would have gotten you a coffee.”

I tried not to laugh; she was acting as if this were an early-morning date. The policeman’s ears turned red, and he shook his head. I had no idea why Jessamyn was suddenly playing Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, but I reached into the bag when she held it out to me. It was from the bakery next to the movie theater, too pricey for my budget, and usually for Jessamyn’s. The croissant was warm, the crust flaky. I bit into it.

“Are you Jessamyn Field?” the policeman asked.

She nodded, setting down the bag and shrugging off her jacket.

“You knew Tobin Winslow?”

She nodded again.

“You know he’s dead.”

I thought,
You idiot; if she didn’t, that would be a heck of a way to tell her
.

Jessamyn took a sip of coffee. “Yes,” she said. “Troy told me.”

The policeman looked at me, almost accusingly.

“I was there when he was found,” I said.

He frowned, and turned to Jessamyn. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

Jessamyn didn’t respond, and something uneasy flickered through her eyes. Suddenly this didn’t seem like a game.

“What sort of questions?” I asked, to buy her some time.

He glanced at me. “Where he’s from, full name, date of birth, all that.”

Jessamyn took a deep breath and her eyes shifted. I doubted she knew much of this, and for her and Tobin this was perfectly normal. Jessamyn didn’t tell anyone about her past and she didn’t ask any questions about anyone else’s. But to this policeman it was going to sound odd that she didn’t know these details about someone she’d dated for months. And Jessamyn being Jessamyn, she might make up stuff that would come back to bite her in the ass.

I spoke up. “His name was Tobin Walter Winslow.” They both looked at me as if the kitchen table had spoken. “I saw it on his
driver’s license. He was showing us his photo.” It had been one of those comparing-awful-driver’s-license-picture things. And it wasn’t as if Walter was a common name: I could think only of one of Anne of Green Gables’ sons, after she’d grown up and married, which had seemed strange to my eleven-year-old self. Children in books aren’t supposed to grow up and turn into married ladies with kids. They’re supposed to stay children forever.

“Birth day or year?” the cop asked.

“Didn’t see it.”

He looked at Jessamyn, and she shook her head.

“How long did you know him?” he asked her.

“Since June,” she said. “I met him at Mud Puddles. Across the street.” That bar’s called Wiseguys now, but it was Mud Puddles for a very long time.

“Do you know where he was from?”

She shook her head.

“It was a New York license,” I said.

“Family?” he asked.

Jessamyn looked blank.

“I think he had a sister,” I said. Now they both looked at me as if I were the annoying kid in class who kept supplying answers. I shrugged. “He once said someone was like his older sister nagging him.”

“Friends?” said the policeman, frowning. This Jessamyn knew. She rattled off names, although she didn’t know full names for some of them. Now she looked unsteady, and the policeman noticed it.

“I’m sure this was a shock to you,” he said belatedly, and she nodded. I don’t think she was acting.

“Why don’t you call if you have more questions?” I said, moving toward the front door to urge him out. He seemed none too happy, but he must have realized he wasn’t going to get much more out of Jessamyn at the moment.

As the door closed behind him I turned to Jessamyn. “My gosh, coffee and croissants. What’s next, you start cleaning house?”

She gave a crooked smile, and the last of her façade of functionality disappeared. Whatever impulse or energy had sent her out that morning was gone, and she looked thin and tired. I followed her to the kitchen, where she sat and put her head on her arms. I sat down across from her.

When she lifted her head, she opened the pastry bag and took out the last croissant. “How did you know that stuff about Tobin?” she asked.