Snow Creek(36)

Merritt’s woodworking shop is in an aluminum Quonset hut. Its form reminds me of the arching ribs of a chicken carcass. My mother wasn’t much of a cook, but whenever she made her favorite—and no one else’s—she started by simmering a whole chicken in a pot with onions and carrots. And, yes, her chicken and dumplings smelled so good. Her dumplings never came out of the pot tender. Always hard, like little doughy rocks.

Like her heart.

Merritt’s shop is filled with the odor of cedar and fir. Balsam, I think. It’s like one huge potpourri bag that I wish I was able to give to Maxine. I can’t, of course. The thought that passes through my mind is only good, not snarky. I liked Maxine. I didn’t like how her place assaulted my olfactory senses.

I tell Copsey to search the north side. I note a flattened area on the floor, an imprint of something that had been there a long time.

Carpet?

“I’ll start here, on this end. We’ll meet in the middle. Seriously, Deputy, if the hammer we’re looking for is anywhere on the property, it will be here.”

“Got it, ma’am.”

“Please,” I say. “No more ma’ams.”

“Yes, sir,” he says.

I keep my mouth shut and wonder if I should grow my hair longer. Or maybe slather on the peacock shadow.

There are a bevy of galvanized storage bins on Copsey’s side.

We search by grid, first sweeping every inch in a methodical manner. We take photos too. Not of everything. Copsey also uses a metal detector. I didn’t think to bring one. I make my way around a couple of chairs and a table, works in progress, toward the wide workbench that runs the length of that side of the hut. Merritt Wheaton might have been a monster, but it was clear that he was a very neat one. An array of tools hangs neatly on hooks against a pegboard. He’d outlined with a Sharpie each tool.

In the row of hammers, I note several with the distinctive claw that the coroner indicated was the cause of death.

One in particular draws me close. As I lean over the bench, an errant nail cuts through my clothing.

“Shit!”

Startled, Copsey looks up from the hovering head of the metal detector.

“You okay, Detective?”

I grimace as I touch the tear in my shirt. Thankfully, it didn’t puncture the skin. My father’s DNA would really confuse this crime scene.

“Okay.”

“Gotcha,” he says.

I fumble with my phone to turn on the flashlight app. Its tiny beam is all that I need to be sure.

Blood.

A few strands of hair too.

“I think we’ve found our murder weapon, Deputy.”

Copsey ambles over as I put on my latex gloves and take the hammer from the pegboard. Davis joins us too.

I turn the hammer in the light. It is unmistakable. The long blond hairs wrapped around the picks of the hammer are the same color as Ida Wheaton’s. There are a million ways to kill someone. At that moment I cannot think of a worse one. I almost say a prayer, but I don’t pray. If I did, it would be simple:

Dear God, let the first blow from that motherfucker be the one that killed his wife.

Copsey holds out a large brown paper bag and I carefully place the hammer inside.

“Holy crap!”

It’s Joshua. He stands in the entrance. He looks like he’s about to crumble.

“He really did it. He beat Mom. Didn’t he?” His eyes are red, and he’s obviously been crying. “He killed our mom here. Right here.”

Bernadine appears and puts her hand on the teen’s shoulder.

“Let’s go back inside, Joshua. Let me help you and your sister.”

I lock eyes with her and nod. Her iridescent lids shutter. I can tell she’s within a beat of crying too.

I tell the deputies to secure the scene. We’ll get a tech over here to see what story Luminol will tell us.



Inside the house, Bernie and the kids are in the living room. Joshua, who’s calmed considerably, moves from a recliner to the sofa. Sarah has pulled herself together too. She’s sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the sofa. Bernie sits across from them, like a sympathy Buddha, if there were such a thing.

My eyes glide over all of them. “I’m really sorry.”

Bernie unfolds her arms. “It’s a terrible tragedy,” she says. She’s about to say more, but Joshua cuts her off.

“You’re going to find him, right?” he asks, his tone more hopeful than angry. “He really needs to pay for what he did.”

“We’ve got a BOLO all along the West Coast. His picture. Everything we have on him. This will likely hit the news tonight and I expect social media will follow suit. Everyone will know he’s out there and we have reason to believe he’s dangerous.”

“What about Mom?” Sarah asks. “We want to bring her home.”

“The funeral home will take care of things.”

“No,” Joshua says, “no funeral home. Home. Here. She wanted a green burial. We all do.”

I’d never heard of anyone doing green burial and I ask him for details. Joshua tells me that the body—not embalmed—is wrapped in a mushroom-spore-infused shroud and is deposited just below the surface of the ground. It’s watered daily during dry months—which is where we are now—and as the body decomposes, it nourishes the soil. I can see the appeal, but I don’t think it would be for me. I don’t like the idea of being food for mushrooms.