Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

Perhaps because... because something really ugly had happened?

Availing myself of a median crossover, I switched sides to southbound Telegraph and motored along, Red-ford-bound. I made fairly good time despite the old snow, new snow, and traffic. I thought about Virginia’s flinty eyes, the set of the scowl on her face, the tone of utter contempt and loathing in her voice as she spoke of her errant husband. The sense I had had that this was a woman who threw things with grim purpose and deadly aim. I remembered how she had tried repeatedly to wave me off the case. Oh, my imagination did all kinds of things as the big Mustang wheels ate up several snow-packed miles. I pictured Virginia aiming a pistol. Randy going down. Blood splattering a beige wall. His body wrapped in plastic, entombed under a snow-covered pile of boards behind the garage...

Of course the scenario was dumb and obvious, but most real-life murders are just that. I played around with different elements as Tel-Twelve Mall approached. This was always one of the worst traffic choke-points in all of metro Detroit, and today was no exception. As the traffic lurched along in its stop-and-go fashion, I wound back the tape in my mind and replayed how it might have gone down. Randy leaving the church, inspired, fervent, anxious to get to her. Motoring south on Telegraph, just as I was doing. Except that this had been Thursday afternoon when the blizzard hit, the big Alberta Clipper, right? So he was in a hurry, trying to get there before everything shut down. He had come flying along here and—

And just as I was doing now, Randy had approached the interlocking cloverleaves where Telegraph met Reuther Freeway/Lodge Freeway/Northwestem Highway.

But Thursday there had not been snowpack on the macadam and lines of crawling cars and walls of plowed snow on both sides and flurries flying in the air. Thursday had been, as Father Dave had said, “the day of the storm.” The Alberta Clipper had struck right about the time Randy barreled south on Telegraph. There had been a howling wind and snow pouring down like porridge. The pavement had slickened up, and there’d been nothing on the sides of the road to stop him from—

And that’s when it came to me.

Leaning forward, gripping the deep-dish Mustang wheel, I stared through the windshield. I thought about angles and distances and timing, the vastness of the clover-leaf. The great expanses of open land with its slopes and gullies and blind spots. I thought about Virginia Ryan again, too, but this time there was no gun in her hand, as I knew in my heart there had never been.

Hitting the brakes, I halted the Mustang in the left-hand lane, right in the middle of the cloverleaf. Traffic continued to pass on my right. I mashed the four-way lights, shut off the engine, and got out.

Instantly the wind tried to bite me through. I turned up the collar of my peacoat and buttoned it tight and jammed the cell phone in my back pocket. The wall of snow rose eight feet or more, a slanting slope of grayish white interspersed with big black icy chunks. Bracing myself, I began to climb up the wall of icy snow, virtually on all fours, freezing my hands as I clambered up, shoes slipping, fingers freezing as I fought for purchase.

I was halfway up when a male voice hollered from down below. “Hey, moron!”

Looking down, I saw a big beefy guy leaning through the window of his white Olds Intrigue. “What’re you doing parking there, ya idiot? Jamming up all the traffic here!”

“Got business” I called back. “Possess your soul in patience. Jackass,” I added, just for his information.

“You move that damn car,” he bawled, “or I’ll rearrange your face for ya!”

I hesitated. From inside came that dark chuckling feeling I remembered so well, the feeling of all-righty-then, let’s party.

And I thought about going back down there and dragging him through the window and using him for a pogo stick or something.

But “no rough stuff,” Carole had said.

And I had promised.

And all the man wanted was a clear ride home.

So I grinned and waved. “Back in a minute,” I called and, with final scrambling effort, propelled myself over the summit of the snowdrift and down the other side.

Stretched out before me was a rising snowy plain, truly tundra as far as I could see, unmarked by anything, manmade or otherwise. I was calf-deep in the icy white stuff, but down here it was loose and wet, biting like frozen fingers through the soles and sides of my utterly inappropriate shoes. My enthusiasm for my brainstorm began to wane. I mean, there was no evidence here, none that I could see. Unless you looked a certain way at the surface of the snow. Was there an unnatural unevenness there? Kind of like faint ruts, way way down? Hard to tell, especially in the gray light with flurries angling down. We’d gotten, after all, twenty-one inches of snow on Thursday. Plenty enough to cover his tracks if he’d come skidding through here early enough.