Dead of Winter Read online

  “Super brave. Right, I will. But won’t you be afraid?”

  “Nah,” Jiffy lies.

  People should never be afraid. His Dad isn’t, and he has the scariest job in the world except for whatever you call those guys who study sharks from underwater cages. Oh, and ninjas.

  “If you get kidnapped,” Max says, “I can save you, and then we’ll both be super brave. And famous.”

  Hmm. Two super brave and famous guys might be one too many for a little town like this.

  “How would you save me exactly? In a helicopter?” Jiffy has always wanted to ride in one. His dad does sometimes.

  “I guess. By the way, where would I get it? And who would drive it?”

  “You’ll have to get an army guy.”

  “Okay. Your dad?”

  “He just rides in helicopters. He doesn’t drive them.”

  “Well, maybe I can find you the regular way. Like, you could call and tell me where the kidnappers are hiding you.”

  “You don’t have a cell phone, by the way.”

  “Maybe my mom will give me one. Or Santa.”

  “You better give her the golden present before Christmas, because if you don’t get a phone, I won’t be able to call and tell you where the kidnappers are hiding me.”

  “Wait, I know! Maybe you can tell Spirit to tell your mom or Odelia or someone, and then they can tell me and I can rescue you.”

  Jiffy shrugs, rapidly losing interest in the rescue if there aren’t going to be helicopters. Anyway, they’ve reached his house.

  “See you later, Jiffy,” Bella calls, and he turns to see that she’s almost caught up to them.

  “Hey, are you doing another little painting project today? Because me and Max can help you again.”

  “Not today.”

  “Are you sure? Because me and Max loved painting, and this time we can be more careful not to get it on the rug and the cats and the toilet.”

  “Oh, I’m positive, but thanks anyway, Jiffy. Max and I have to run an errand.”

  “But me and Jiffy are going to ride scooters,” Max protests.

  “Jiffy and I,” Bella corrects him. “You can do that when we get back. We have to go to the hardware store.”

  “Can I come? I go over there all the time to visit my friend Mitch.”

  “By yourself?” Max asks, impressed.

  “Yep.”

  Bella tilts her head at him. “That’s a long way to ride your bike, Jiffy.”

  “I know. That’s why I want to ride in your car this time.”

  “Well, I think Max and I will just go on our own today because you’d need your mom’s permission. Looks like she’s busy with clients, and I know you’re not allowed to interrupt her readings.” Bella points to the big black SUV parked in front of Jiffy’s house.

  “She won’t care if I go. Please? I love it there. Mitch has cool stuff like metal detectors and peanuts in a barrel, and—”

  Mean pilgrims, he remembers.

  “Never mind, I’ll stay here,” he tells Bella. “How many minutes will you be gone?”

  “Maybe fifteen.”

  “That’s how long it takes to sing ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ five times.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “’Cause my phone has a stopwatch app, and I like timing stuff. So when I sing it five times, you’ll be back. By the way, Bella, what’s your phone number?”

  “Why?”

  “So I can call you and tell you fifteen minutes are up if you forget.”

  Smiling, she rattles it off. “Don’t you want to write that down?”

  “Nope,” he says, “I got a great memory. See you in fifteen minutes. Then me and Max can ride our scooters. I mean, Max and me.”

  “You mean I,” Max says.

  “I mean I and Max.” Hoping Bella will mention his good manners if she does talk to Santa, Jiffy scampers into the house, singing. “On the first day of Christmas . . .”

  A lady is sitting on the padded bench by the stairway. “Hello,” she greets Jiffy.

  He stops singing, wondering if she’s a regular person or Spirit.

  “Are you waiting for my mom?”

  “Is your mom Misty Starr?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then yes, I am.”

  If she’s here for a reading, then she’s not Spirit. She’s trying to talk to Spirit or maybe just find out what’s going to happen in her future. Mom sometimes knows that, too.

  The door to Mom’s meditation room cracks open, and she peers out. “Hey, you’re home already? I lost track of time. Go watch TV until I’m done here, okay?”

  On a regular, not warm and sunny day, that would sound like a great idea to Jiffy. Not today.

  “I want to ride my scooter.”

  “But you can’t be out there alone.”

  Surprised, Jiffy asks, “How come? I’m always out there alone.”

  “Not today. Okay?”

  “But Max is riding scooters, too, and Bella is watching us.”

  Mom looks relieved. “Okay, then. I’ll come find you when I’m finished here. Sorry, Barbara. I just need a little more time,” she adds and shuts the door again.

  The lady makes a loud breathing sound and leans her head back.

  “Hey, can you move your butt?” Jiffy asks her and remembers to add, “Please?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Bella says I need my helmet, and you’re sitting on it.”

  Her eyebrows rise, but so does she.

  Jiffy opens the hinged bench top and peers inside. No helmet, but hey, there’s his red sneaker. He thought he left it outside in the rain one day when he took off his shoes to see how mud felt squishing on bare toes. He found out it feels pretty good.

  He digs through the stuff, tossing some of it over his shoulder—last week’s science project, a folder full of papers that scatter all over the floor, an empty soda bottle with a folded straw in it, a remote control without batteries, some Sharpies, which he’s been looking for ever since the ninja on the wall incident, and . . .

  “Hey, my hockey puck!” He hasn’t seen it since the day his hand accidentally dropped it into a bowl of tomato soup that stained his yellow shirt and Mom’s white one.

  “Do you like the Sabres?” asks the lady.

  “When they’re not stinky,” he says as he checks to see if his yo-yo might be in the bench, too.

  “They’ve been winning all week.”

  “You like hockey?”

  “I love it,” she says. “But my team is the Maple Leafs. They’re playing the Sabres tonight.”

  “Don’t worry. Your team is going to win eleven to zero.”

  “Eleven to zero? I don’t think so, kiddo.”

  “I do think so.”

  “Why?”

  “I just know.”

  Unable to find a helmet or a yo-yo, he plunks the bench top down again and pats the cushion. “There you go. Thanks for moving out of my way.”

  “You’re very welcome . . . what’s your name, again?”

  “I didn’t tell it to you yet.”

  “You’re pretty sharp, aren’t you, kiddo?”

  “Yep. And I’m named Michael J. Arden the third.”

  “Is that what your friends call you?”

  “No, they call me Jiffy. But you and me are not ’xactly friends, since I’m a kiddo”—her phrase, and he follows it with a tactful one of his own—“and you’re a kind of older lady.”

  “True, but we’re going to be friends anyway.”

  “Can you predict stuff, too?”

  “Not nearly as well as you can. See you later, Jiffy.”

  Chapter Six

  “Wait, did they just say three feet of snow?” Bella asks, gaping across the counter at Mitch and then at the plate glass window. It’s hard to imagine any snow at all dropping from that blue sky by this time tomorrow.

  But the store’s speakers are tuned to WDOE, the local radio station, and the forecaster just sai
d . . .

  “Three feet,” Virgil Barbor confirms from the corner by the woodstove. “That’s what they said, all right.”

  A strapping grape farmer with a full dark beard, he grew up in the Dale and still maintains several properties there, now choosing to live nearby in his sprawling farmhouse with acres of vineyard. He wasn’t around much during the harvest season but seems to be here whenever Bella visits the store lately—not necessarily to shop, but to shoot the breeze with Mitch and whoever wanders in the door.

  “Wow,” Bella says. “I heard we were only going to get six to eight inches. Although, back where I come from, we wouldn’t say ‘only’ for that much snow.”

  “Where I come from, that’s nothing.” Mitch, who comes from here, grins at her. In his midseventies, he has thick white hair and warm brown eyes in a pleasantly weathered face. Like Virgil, he’s wearing a flannel shirt, well-worn dungarees, and thick-soled Timberland work boots.

  WDOE goes back to playing Christmas carols in the background. Mitch hums along with “Do You Hear What I Hear?” as he rings up the nails, bolts, and screws that Bella had selected from open bins, along with joint compound and spreaders, more drop cloths, another can of Sylvan Mist latex, rollers, brushes . . .

  “Mitch, I almost forgot—do you have any paint remover that’s safe to use on a kitten?” she asks, remembering that little Spidey’s black fur still bears Max- and Jiffy-sized Silken Taupe fingerprints.

  “A kitten? You’d better check with your vet about that. But if you need to remove paint from anything else . . .”

  “I do. A shower curtain. Oh, and a toilet seat.”

  “Had some help painting the bathroom, did you?” Mitch chuckles and nods toward Max, who’s busily shelling peanuts from a barrel. “Let me see what I can find.”

  Humming, he heads toward the shelves, past a garland-draped endcap display and beneath a hand-lettered sign.

  50% Off Gifts for Everyone on Your List

  There’s only one person on Bella’s list.

  The Christmas music in the background is a reminder that her shopping days are dwindling. If she finds something Max might like, she can ask Mitch to put it aside for her now so that at least she’d have one surefire gift for him.

  Too bad a six-year-old has no use for a Crock-Pot, though she wonders if this one might suit Odelia’s purposes. Nor would a little boy like jumper cables, a toaster oven, a power screwdriver, a—

  No, wait, there’s an idea—a metal detector. Over the summer, Max and Jiffy had enjoyed playing pirate and digging for buried treasure along the lakeshore.

  “A star, a star,” she sings along in her head, picking up the box. A metal detector might not turn up gold doubloons, but there might be some interesting relics out there, and at least it would distract them from digging in the lawn.

  “I hope you’ve got a good, strong snow shovel,” Virgil comments, watching her browse.

  “I hope your weatherman was wrong.”

  “Hard to be right or wrong in lake effect country. It all depends on wind direction, air temperature, the temperature of Lake Erie . . .”

  As a science teacher—former science teacher—she’s familiar with basic meteorology. As a busy, broke innkeeper with guests due tomorrow, the last thing she needs is a massive storm.

  “I’ve driven through a blizzard to find it dry and clear a half mile up the road,” Virgil goes on. “But around here, we don’t let a little bit of snow stop us.”

  “What about Santa Claus?” Max asks. “Does it stop him?”

  “No, see, he’s from the North Pole. People up north are even more used to it than we are.”

  “Good, because Lauri and Dawn are also from up north,” Bella comments.

  “The North Pole?”

  “Buffalo.”

  “Some people might have a tough time telling the difference. Who are Lauri and Dawn?” Virgil asks.

  “Guests who have reserved two rooms for three nights—unless they’re snowbound and don’t show up.”

  “Must be nice to have the place all to yourself, though.”

  “I’d rather have guests.”

  “Get spooked there alone at night, do you?”

  She thinks of Yuri Moroskov, murdered and dumped in the lake. Luther said his killer is long gone, but who knows?

  She pushes the troubling thought from her head and explains that she gets a commission on off-season reservations, and they’ve been scarce lately.

  “I wish visitors were scarce on my farm. Had a squatter in the hayloft overnight. Animals were all riled up this morning, and I saw footprints in the mud by the barn door. Now it’s got me thinking about what happened in the lake this morning. Did you hear? They found—”

  Bella puts a finger to her lips with a nod at Max.

  “What? What did they find?”

  “Nothing,” Virgil tells him and mutters to Bella, “Maybe I should sit out in the hayloft with my shotgun tonight.”

  “You have a shotgun?”

  “Sure do,” Virgil tells Max and shakes his head at Bella. “Kid has sharp ears.”

  “Why do you have a shotgun?”

  “For hunting.”

  “What do you hunt?”

  “Deer, mostly.”

  “And squatters?”

  “Not yet. You sure don’t miss a trick.” Virgil laughs.

  “What is a squatter?”

  “An unwelcome guest.”

  Mitch returns with a small rectangular can. Noticing the box in Bella’s hand, he asks if she’s taking the metal detector, too.

  “Not today,” she says quietly with a nod toward Max. “I’ll come back.”

  “I’ll put one aside, just in case. They’re selling like hot cakes this year.” At Virgil’s doubtful expression, he insists, “I sold one just before you came in. Fellow was a quite a character. Takes all kinds.”

  “Was he a squatter?” Max asks, and Mitch grins.

  “I don’t think he was, no.”

  “Do we have squatters, Mom?”

  “No, our guests are definitely welcome. I just hope they can get here.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Mitch says. “It takes a lot more than three feet of snow for western New Yorkers to be snowbound.”

  “How much more can there be?”

  “We had seven feet in one storm a few years back.”

  “Seven?” Max is delighted.

  “Yes sirree, Bob.”

  “My name is not Bob.”

  “That’s just a saying. But do you know whose name really is Bob?”

  “No.”

  “Mine. But my nickname’s been Mitch for years, ever since I bought this place from the original owner.”

  “Was his name Mitch?”

  “It was, but everyone called him Pookie.”

  “That’s a crazy nickname! Got any other ones?”

  “Oh, sure, let’s see, there’s Big Joe Yo and Little Joe Yo. They’re both named Josef Yoder, and they live on the same road, so that’s how we tell them apart.”

  “Are they a father and son?”

  “I don’t even think they’re related,” Virgil comments. “Are they, Mitch?”

  “No, Yoder is a popular Amish name around here.”

  Naturally, Max wants to know what Amish means.

  “I’ll tell you later. Let’s let Mitch work, Max.” Bella usually appreciates Lily Dale’s unhurried pace, but at this rate, they’ll be here until bedtime.

  “I am letting him work. What other nicknames do you know, Mitch?”

  “Boxer, Frenchie, Alley Cat . . .”

  “Frenchie!” Virgil echoes from the woodstove corner. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Whatever happened to him? Or do I not want to know?”

  “Probably not.”

  From Max, “I want to know.”

  “Trust me, you don’t.”

  “Well, what about Alley Cat? Is he a guy or a cat?”

  “He’s a guy. Lives over on Glasgow Road on
the farm next to Virgil.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  “Alan Katz.”

  “I know a town called Allentown. My friend Jiffy went there and—” Max breaks off to sneeze, one, two, three times.

  “Gesundheit times three.”

  “Huh?”

  “It means ‘God bless you’ in German.”

  “Hey, Mrs. Schmidt is teaching us to sing ‘Silent Night’ in German,” Max informs Mitch, squirming as Bella feels his forehead.

  “Are you coming down with something?”

  “Yep. I better stay home from school tomorrow.”

  His prompt reply earns hearty laughs from Mitch and Virgil and a “Don’t count on it” from Bella.

  Max frowns. “Well, school will probably be canceled anyway because of all the snow.”

  “Don’t count on that either,” Mitch says.

  “What can I count on?”

  “In this world, kid?” Virgil shakes his head. “Nothin’ at all.”

  “Oh, I’d say a white Christmas would be a safe bet.” Mitch slides Bella’s bags across the counter. “Should I put this on the Valley View account?”

  “Everything except the extension cords.” She fishes in her purse for her wallet. “Max and I are going to decorate. I found some old light strings in the basement.”

  “Need some new ones? We have a whole bunch on that display over there.”

  “That reminds me,” Virgil says. “I need to get some new ones to hang around my pond next month.”

  “Well, I like my old ones just fine,” Bella tells Mitch. “They’ll cheer up the guesthouse for the holidays.”

  “Sounds like a business expense to me.”

  “No, it’s personal.” Bella hands him her last ten dollar bill.

  Mitch hands it back. “Extension cords are on the house.”

  “Since when?”

  “Store policy.”

  “But—”

  “Merry Christmas, Bella. You, too, Max.”

  Virgil meanders over to hold the door for them, opening it with a silvery tinkle of sleigh bells attached to the handle. They step out onto the low porch in front of the store. White Christmas lights twinkle from the eaves, and the pillars are wrapped in more lights and green garlands.

  Dusk isn’t far off, and the air seems to have grown a little sharper already. Bella reminds Max to put on his mittens and wishes she’d put on her gloves before grabbing her bags.