Read Online Glare Ice by Mary Logue - Free Book Online Page A

that I helped Mrs. Tabor with two checks last week. Her eyesight is getting so bad. Remember, Mrs. Tabor?”
    It was hard always to remember everything. Lily helped her with so much. What would she do without her? “I think I do,” Mrs. Tabor said.
    The deputy showed her the two checks.
    “Sure enough. Those are the ones.”
    “Well, the bank is overdrawn as a result of these two checks.”
    “Her social security check should go in today, so they will be covered,” Lily said.
    Mrs. Tabor wondered how she knew that. It went directly into her bank account. Had she told Lily that?
    Deputy Watkins squatted down alongside Mrs. Tabor and touched her arm. “Is that what happened? Did Lily help you write those two checks? And then take them to the bank to cash them for you?”
    “Oh, yes. I’m sure it’s fine, then. If Lily says so.” Mrs. Tabor could feel the deputy staring down at her. She didn’t dare look up and face those eyes.
    Deputy Watkins voice was calm, not sounding like she suspected anything was amiss. “All right. I’m glad we got this cleared up. You call me if you ever need anything. Looks like a good lunch.”
    “Lily’s a real fine cook. She takes good care of me.”
    The deputy patted her on the shoulder, and Lily showed her out the door. Mrs. Tabor waited for Lily to come back into the living room, but she must have stayed in the kitchen. Her potatoes were cold, but she finished them.
    She felt awful sleepy. She hoped Lily wouldn’t be mad at her today. She could be so mean sometimes. She never knew what to expect from her.
    Buck Owens body lay gutted in front of Claire: chest cut wide, head opened up, and body parts removed. She could see that the bags they had placed over his hands were removed and the fingernails clipped down to the quick. Somehow that bothered her more than the chest torn stem to stern.
    She had missed most of the autopsy, but had come in time to have Dr. Lord show her the damage to his neck. And his pièce de résistance—water in the lungs. “Lake Pepin water,” he had told her. “I’m guessing it’s Lake Pepin water. I’ll send it down to the lab. I’ll have to match it. Drive out to the lake later today.”
    “Don’t go in yourself,” Claire warned him.
    “Did you ever get warm last night?”
    Claire ignored his jab and asked the next logical question. “So he was alive when he went into the water. Can you tell if he was conscious?”
    “No conclusive way to determine that, but I would guess, unfortunately, that he was.”
    “How so?”
    “By the damage done to his neck. I think he struggled fiercely to get loose, and I think that probably happened when he went into the water.”
    “Yes, I see.” Claire sat up on a high stool he had given her while Dr. Lord walked around the body, poking and picking and prodding at it. His last task was to draw blood directly from the heart for alcohol determination, toxicology, and blood typing.
    “What do you think happened to him?” Claire asked.
    “He got into his car after a beer or two. This is a guess, but given what I know, I think he strapped himself in with his seat belt. He leaned his head back, and someone grabbed him around the neck and tied him from behind to the headrest in his car. Didn’t you say the firemen had to cut him loose?”
    Claire nodded.
    “Then I think he passed out for a bit. His eyes show signs of strangulation. The perpetrator might have choked him first before he tied him up. Then the car was driven into the lake, and he drowned.”
    “I’m trying to figure out how they got the car into the lake.”
    “Car an automatic?” Dr. Lord asked.
    “Yes, it is.”
    “Head it in the right direction, give it enough gas, and it will keep going until the ice cracks under its weight.”
    “Did the strip of cloth fit the marks on his neck?” Claire asked.
    “Yes. I think it was triple-strength around his neck. When it got wet, it really cut into his neck, but he couldn’t break