Frozen Stiff Read online

  FROZEN

  STIFF

  A CLAIRE WATKINS MYSTERY

  MARY LOGUE

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  In the infinite winter of space,

  heat is tiny;

  it is the cold that is huge.

  —PETER STARK, Last Breath

  to Alison and Ben, for persevering

  PEPIN COUNTY is in the grips of an icy winter; twenty degrees below zero as the new year rolls in. Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins is happy. She’s been living with Rich Haggard, and as they sit together awaiting midnight, she feels ready to step into the marriage he’s wanted all along.

  But not all marriages last. Car mogul Daniel Walker is celebrating New Year’s Eve alone, roasting in his sauna with a bottle of Belvedere vodka by his side. His soon-to-be-ex-wife Sherri has left him at their cabin, and he’s glad to be starting fresh. What better way to symbolize his new freedom than by a quick roll in the pure white snow? Daniel braces himself for the cold and, naked, heads outside.

  He’s found the next morning, frozen and covered in snow.

  Claire must investigate Daniel Walker’s family and friends as doctors pump warm fluids into his body, struggling to thaw and revive him. Meanwhile, the new year brings new life to Pepin County as a local teen gives birth to an unexpected child.

  In the chill of midwinter, Claire discovers that every warm body has the potential to house a very cold heart...

  The Claire Watkins Mystery Series

  Blood Country

  Dark Coulee

  Glare Ice

  Bone Harvest

  Poison Heart

  Maiden Rock

  Point No Point

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  Blood Country

  Also Available

  NEW YEAR’S EVE

  11:55 pm

  Even though it was twenty below zero outside, wind blowing up a storm, Daniel Walker was stark naked and sweating like a boxer in the beyond balmy two hundred degrees of his cabin’s new sauna.

  This is the life, especially in the dead of winter, Walker thought as he tilted his head back and blew smoke from his Davidoff double corona up toward the cedar ceiling. The cigar wrapping was wet and unraveling, but he was almost done. A bottle of Belvedere vodka, nestled in a rapidly melting block of ice, sat on the wooden bench next to him. Wynton Marsalis was blowing his horn through the Bose speakers.

  All was so calm. Taking a large swallow of vodka, he could feel the liquid easing its way into his stomach, then sliding into his veins while the sweat beaded up all over his naked body.

  Toxins in, toxins out.

  Slowly he poured another shot of vodka down his throat, enjoying the feeling of the freezing drink cooling his insides. He had much to celebrate—a terrific new land deal that was going to save his ass, even as his car dealership was struggling. And he was pretty sure he was going to be able to step out of his marriage without giving Sherri a penny, bless his pre-nup.

  In the end, he would probably throw her a bone, just to make up for any hard feelings. She wasn’t a bad sort, but he had grown tired of her.

  Dan wouldn’t have minded some sweet young thing in her birthday suit sitting next to him, ready to massage any part of his anatomy that required it, but women did bring problems no matter how careful you were. Much as he loved them. He tried not to think about his latest fiasco.

  He wondered what his darling daughter Danielle was up to tonight. She certainly took after him. She enjoyed partying as much as anyone he knew. Too busy to come out and see her old dad. But you were only young once.

  Yesterday, he had texted her an invitation to join him in the sauna for the new year, but she had texted back: “Big Pop, no way. Hanging with bffs.” That was his kid!

  Glancing up at the clock in the sauna, he saw it was nearly midnight. Perfect timing. He was so hot he thought his liver was going to melt. He banged through the sauna door, took a gulp of the cooler air in the ground floor basement. Not cool enough.

  Dan braced himself, then pushed open the back door and stepped outside. When the frigid air hit his naked skin it burned hotter than the sauna.

  Glorious. Looking down from the edge of the bluff, he couldn’t see a house from his place to Lake Pepin. The snow glittered like the exterior of a new white car and the air smelled almost as good.

  After taking a couple long strides, Dan threw himself into a snow drift. His skin pulsed hard and deep all over his body. He rolled over on his back and looked up at the pattern of pinprick stars. Who needed anything more than this? His breath rose up in plumes. He was his own Mt. Vesuvius.

  Dan felt like he could lay there all night, staring at the stars until they fell into his brain. Moments passed as he slowly felt the warmth ease out of his body. No worry. The sauna would heat him back up.

  His skin stung as if it had been scrubbed with a hard brush. Pins and needles all over. He crawled to his knees, then stood up and spread his arms wide.

  Happy New Year to me!

  The wind was picking up, blowing the snow into him, which felt like BBs hitting his skin. His feet were freezing and he could feel the warmth of his core leaving him. Time to get back into the sauna to warm up before he headed off to bed.

  Dan hopped on his stiffening feet to the door and, shivering, pushed down the latch. Nothing happened. Must be stuck. He pressed it down harder, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he slammed his shoulder into the door, but no movement.

  Why wouldn’t the door open? He couldn’t have locked it. He didn’t have the key.

  All he could think was that it had somehow gotten jammed.

  Stepping back, he thought of running around the house, but remembered that he had already locked the front door for the night.

  Dan shivered hard—fear and cold cracking down on him. He had to get into the house. The cold was searing his skin. He slammed his whole body against the door, but it wouldn’t open.

  Break a window, that’s what he needed to do. He pounded on the picture window by the back door, but his hands were worthless. They just bounced off the glass. Damn those custom windows he had special ordered for the ground floor. Unbreakable, they claimed.

  Squatting down, he tried digging into the snow to find a rock, a branch, anything, but he was getting so cold. He was shaking so hard he could hardly think. His whole naked body was racked with convulsions.

  Finally his hand hit a piece of cement left over from a project last summer. He lifted it in both his hands and walked up to the window, hoisting it over his head, he slammed it into the window.

  The chunk of cement bounced back and hit him square in the face. He stepped back and tried to keep his balance.

  Dan looked back toward the door and saw a form in the window. He tried to remain standing but his head ached and his legs gave out. His eyes rolled back as he fell.

  Blowing snow covered him like a blanket.

  CHAPTER 1

  New Year’s Day: 1 am

  I’m ready, thought Claire as she watched the fire pulse deep red in the woodstove, I want this for the rest of my life.

  She was reading
a bird book Rich had bought her for Christmas. He was nodding off in the chair next to her, his head bent over and the book in his hands about to fall. The stroke of midnight had come and gone. They had clinked their glasses and finished off the bottle of champagne and then, too comfortable to get up from their chairs, decided they would watch the fire for a while longer.

  Claire couldn’t believe they had made it past midnight. They hadn’t managed to stay up so late the last few years. She tried to convince herself that she wasn’t waiting up for Meg to come home. Her daughter had gone to some friend’s house to play her new Wii game, and had promised she’d be home by one. Only one time had she not made her curfew, with disastrous results. But since then, she had been Johnny-on-the-spot.

  Hard to think that in less than two years, Meg would be gone. She was slowly pulling out of their lives already, working at the Red Wing YMCA on Saturdays and taking a college class in River Falls, driving an old Toyota Corolla that Rich had fixed up for her. Claire found it hard to imagine life without her energetic, darling daughter breezing through it.

  For eight years she and Meg had been living with Rich in his family farmhouse, longer than she had lived with her husband. Rich reminded her of the Mississippi, which flowed just a block away from where they were sitting: down the driveway, across Highway 35, and through the Fort St. Antoine park. He moved along steadily, but those waters ran deep and, every once in a while, he would surprise her in an amazing way. He was her able companion and had been next to her, supporting her through some very hard times.

  Claire knew that he had trouble with how involved she got in her work. Being the lead investigator—the only investigator—for the Pepin County Sheriff’s department did put a crimp in her home life from time to time. Rich would complain, and then have a good meal waiting for her when she finally showed up.

  For all his griping, Rich more than supported her. He had grown up in Pepin County, unlike her, and he understood how vital her police work was to the health of the community. He knew how information moved through the county, he knew who was related to whom, he knew the lay of the land. He was her guide in what had been a new country for her and often told her what she could not see.

  He was a good man and the love of her life.

  Claire turned to wake him. The book was wavering in his lap. When it fell, Rich jolted awake. Claire laughed.

  He glanced over at her to see what had happened and then smiled with warmth in his eyes.

  “Time for bed?” she asked.

  “I guess.”

  She rose from her chair and knelt down next to him. A touch of gray showed in his black hair. She reached up and brushed his face. “Will you marry me?”

  He shook his head as if to clear it, then said, “I don’t know. I kinda like it the way it is.”

  She swatted at him with her hand. He pulled her up into his lap and took her face in his hands. The kiss wasn’t like the hungry embraces they had at the beginning of their relationship, it was deeper and more satisfying. A kiss that said I’m here, next to you, where I will always be.

  Claire heard the back door open. Rich and she pulled apart as if they had been caught doing something they shouldn’t. Then they laughed. Her daughter was home. She heard Meg open the refrigerator door, always her first act when she walked into the house. Like most teenagers, she was constantly hungry.

  “Hey, old fogies! You stayed up.” Meg came to the doorway of the living room and yelled in her outdoor voice, “Happy New Year!”

  New Year’s Day: 3 am

  The woman lounged in bed, waiting. She knew he would be here soon. She loved this time before he came, the anticipation of his energy, his desire. In many ways, her imagining what was to come was better than what actually happened. Her New Years’s Eve would start when he walked through the door.

  She had gone out with Carly and Petra for a few drinks at midnight, but when some guys starting hitting on them, she cut out. The girls were like, You can’t leave now. But she knew those two could handle the men all by themselves.

  The radio was playing party music. She had taken a long bath, done her nails, put on a silk t-shirt, then taken it off, and climbed into bed. She had thought of getting a bottle of champagne for the occasion but he was more of a Budweiser kind a guy. She had a six-pack waiting in the fridge.

  While she lolled in bed, she imagined her life to come. Just travel for a while. Paris sounded good to her. Her French wasn’t half shabby. She knew how to say, “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” As long as she could say that, order a glass of wine, and buy some clothes, she’d be set.

  A knock sounded on the door of her apartment. Finally. She waited a minute. The next series of knocks came louder, harder.

  She rolled out of bed and walked to the door, swishing her hair back over her shoulders.

  She opened the door and watched his face open when he saw her standing there, naked.

  “Whoa,” the tall boy said.

  She led him to the bed without saying a word. There would be time for talking later.

  New Year’s Day: 6 am

  Clyde Hegstrom knew the cows didn’t really care that he had been up late last night, way past his usual bedtime of nine o’clock, nearly closing the bar. He milked them at six in the morning because that’s when they needed to be milked, their udders filling up to the point of pain otherwise.

  His herd of six cows also didn’t care that his 17-year-old daughter Bonnie had delivered a baby two nights ago, and almost lost her life doing it. That he had drunk himself silly last night. That his wife was so upset that she couldn’t even talk. That she hadn’t been home in two days. The cows didn’t care that it was twenty below zero with windchill too low to measure.

  Clyde could hear their soft lowing as he trudged to the barn. His head felt heavy on his neck and filled with compost.

  The barn smelled of cud and sweet hay. The cows turned their heads to him and greeted him with loud snuffles and moans, all in their own familiar sounds. He didn’t have to think about what to do. The pail came to his hands, the stool sat on the ground. He still milked his small herd the old-fashioned way. He was sure he got more milk out of them that way, and he was even more sure that they enjoyed it more.

  He started with Hilda, the oldest cow, who was pushing eighteen, the upper end of her life span. Her mother had rejected her so Clyde had raised her with a bottle. She was his big baby.

  He leaned his head into her warm, soft hide, his hands started their work, milk hissing down into the pail. The warmth of the cow’s soft body comforted him and he found tears bathing his face.

  New Year’s Day: 9 am

  Sherri Walker was not looking forward to going back to the “cabin” as Dan called it. She hadn’t been there in a month, since Dan had dropped the divorce bomb on her as they were having drinks.

  He had chucked her under the chin, like a little girl, which she hadn’t been in thirty years, and said, “Don’t think this marriage is working any more.” She had started to cry, but tears never worked on him. The only thing that worked was sex and while he hadn’t turned her down that night, he hadn’t been overly enthusiastic. A week later, he had divorce papers served on her.

  As she slid down the long, ice-rutted driveway in her blond Saab, the car Dan had given her for her birthday this last year, she figured he was probably nursing a nasty hangover. Any excuse for overdoing it.

  She had decided, come what may, she was going to keep the car. As his gift to her, she didn’t think Dan could take it away from her. But she knew she wasn’t going to walk away from this marriage with much else. Plus, she didn’t know how she was going to support herself since she had been out of the work force for five years. When they had married, Dan had insisted she quit her job, saying he didn’t want to have her working for him anymore, or at least just in bed.

  Her eyes prickled as she came into view of the house they had built during the flush of their first year together. Dan had wanted it to be a cabin so th
ey had kept it under 4000 square feet. The structure sat on the edge of the bluffline slightly closer than was legal, depending on where you measured from. After the inspector had been there and signed off on it, Dan had moved the stakes. He was proud of that. He never liked anyone telling him what to do. Especially not her.

  While the footprint was modest, the house soared three stories high: the master bedroom filled the whole top floor. The structure felt like a treehouse. Shingled in cedar, it had a green metal roof. She had insisted on that color so it would blend in to the treeline. Dan had let her have her way on that one decision. He must have loved her then.

  Sherri wished she could hate Dan. She wished she could be really angry at him, but the person she was mad at was herself. What a fool she had been. When your boss takes you on a business trip and then buys you a sexy outfit while his wife doesn’t even know you’re with him, you have to know what you’re getting into. How could she have ever thought he would change his ways?

  Dan was what they called a puer. Sherri remembered this term from her college psychology class. A Jungian term, it described a man who never wanted to grow up: Peter Pan, Mick Jagger. Bill Clinton for that matter.

  Sherri parked the car right by the front door. They had had a pretty civil conversation two nights ago. She had asked Dan if she could come to the cabin and get some things. She was staying in their house in town, but wanted a few of her sweaters and a book she had left out here.

  The front door was locked. Sherri shook her head. Dan brought his city mentality with him. When she was staying alone at the cabin, she never locked the doors. But then she had grown up in a small town where no one ever locked anything.

  She dug her key out of the bottom of her purse and unlocked the door. Stepping in the house, she could smell the faint whiff of cigars, one of Dan’s many vices. The kitchen light was on and the house was very still. She had noticed how the snow blanketing everything also muffled sound. Dan must still be sleeping. She hoped to god he didn’t have a visitor with him. Even he couldn’t be that crass.