In the Midst of Winter

By now it was snowing again, and they realized it was high time they disposed of the car before the track became impassable. They had no time to discuss it anymore; they were in agreement that Kathryn’s body should be found, and so they would have to transfer her to the Subaru before they got rid of the Lexus.

Richard gave them disposable gloves, with strict instructions not to touch the Lexus without them. He positioned the car alongside the Subaru and then cut the wire with a pair of pliers. Kathryn Brown had been there at least two or three days and nights, but very little had changed: she still looked fast asleep under the rug. When he touched her she was frozen but seemed less stiff than when Lucia had tried to move her in Brooklyn. Seeing her body brought a sob to Richard’s throat: in the radiance from the snow this young woman curled up like a child looked as vulnerable and tragic as Bibi. He closed his eyes and gulped down lungfuls of freezing air to rid himself of this pitiless flash of memory and force himself back into the present. It was not Bibi, the daughter he adored; this was Kathryn Brown, a woman he did not even know. While a paralyzed Evelyn looked on murmuring prayers, Richard and Lucia began the task of removing the body from the car trunk. They finally managed to turn Kathryn over and saw her face for the first time. Her eyes were wide open. The round, blue eyes of a doll.

“Go inside, Evelyn. It’s better you don’t see this,” Lucia told her, but the girl stood rooted to the spot.

Kathryn was a slender, short young woman with cropped, chocolate-colored hair and the look of an adolescent. She was wearing a yoga outfit. There was a black hole in the middle of her forehead, as precise as if it had been painted on, and some dried blood on her cheek and neck. They stared sorrowfully at her for two long minutes, trying to imagine what she could have been like in life. Even in the contorted position she was in, Kathryn retained some of the elegance of a dancer at rest.

Lucia took hold of her legs, while Richard grasped her under her arms. They lifted her and struggled until they succeeded in transferring her to the Subaru. They pushed her into the trunk, covered her with the same rug, and put a tarpaulin on top in case the trunk had to be opened for any reason.

“She died of a single shot from a low-caliber pistol,” Lucia said. “The bullet stayed lodged in the brain, there’s no exit hole. She died instantaneously. The murderer is a good shot.”

Still shaken by the vivid memory of the moment when he had lost his beloved Bibi more than twenty years earlier, Richard was crying without noticing the tears freezing on his cheeks.

“Kathryn must have known her killer,” Lucia added. “They were face-to-face, possibly conversing. She was not expecting the bullet. You can tell from her challenging look, it’s obvious she was not afraid.”

Evelyn called them over. She had overcome her paralysis and was cleaning the marks off the trunk of the Lexus.

“Look,” she said, pointing to a pistol in the bottom of the trunk.

“Is that Leroy’s?” asked Richard, carefully picking it up by the barrel.

“It looks like it.”

Holding the weapon between his thumb and index finger, Richard went back inside the cabin and laid it on the table. If the bullet had come from Frank Leroy’s pistol, they now had to face yet another unwelcome decision: Whether or not to hand over the firearm to the police. To protect a guilty person or perhaps incriminate an innocent one.

“What shall we do with the gun?” Richard asked Lucia once the two women had joined him in the cabin.

“I say we leave it in the Lexus. Why complicate our existence still further, we have enough problems as it is.”

“It’s the most important proof we have against the murderer. We can’t throw it into the lake,” Richard objected.

“Well, we’ll see. The most urgent thing right now is to get rid of the car. Are you up to it, Richard?”

“I feel a lot better. We need to take advantage of the light, it grows dark early.”



THE TRACK THAT PROVIDED the only access to the bluff was almost invisible in the snow, which made everywhere look the same. Richard’s plan was to take both vehicles, tip the Lexus over the cliff, and return in the Subaru. In normal conditions it was possible to cover the short distance on foot in twenty minutes. The snow was a hindrance but had the advantage that it would cover their tracks within a few hours. He decided he would go first in the Lexus, carrying a shovel, and Lucia would bring up the rear in the other car. She argued it would be more logical for the Subaru, which had four-wheel drive, to clear the path. “No, let’s do it my way, I know what I’m doing,” said Richard, impulsively kissing her on the tip of her nose. Taken by surprise, Lucia gave a little yelp. They left Evelyn with the dog and instructions to keep the curtains closed and to light only one lamp if necessary. The less light the better. Richard calculated that if all went well they would be back within the hour.

The tree branches were bent toward the ground by the weight of snow. Guided by the distance between them, Richard drove slowly along the twisting track that only he could make out because he had traveled up it before. Lucia followed behind. On one occasion they had to retreat several feet when they lost the trail, and a short distance farther on the Lexus became stuck in the snow. Richard got out to dig around the wheels with the shovel, then instructed Lucia to push with the other car. This was not easy, because it kept skidding. It was then Lucia understood why the Subaru had to go behind: it was hard to push, but it would have been almost impossible to pull. This maneuver cost them half an hour, while the sky grew darker and the temperature dropped.

Finally they came out to where they could see the lake, an immense silver mirror reflecting the gray-blue sky with the intense stillness of a painted Dutch landscape. The track came to an abrupt end, and Richard got out to explore. He walked this way and that, observing the bluff, until he found what he was looking for some thirty yards from where they had come to a halt. He explained to Lucia that this was the exact spot where the water was deep enough, and that they had to push the Lexus themselves, as it would be very dangerous to drive the car that far. Lucia again understood why Richard had wanted the Lexus to go first; the space here was so narrow it could not have gotten around the other car. Pushing the Lexus proved complicated: their boots sank into the soft ground; the wheels became stuck in the deep snow and they had to clear them with the shovel.