There was no word spoken. Nothing but the fire’s simple crackle. As he warmed, Franz became increasingly unnerved by the dead silence, and once he felt capable of leaving he said, “Thanks,” in a subdued voice. Mazarine walked with him, the few steps to the door. As he reached out to open it, he asked in a low voice, “Do you want me to come back?”
The no came out automatically, her voice a white scratch on the tiny syllable.
* * *
JUST IN TIME, everyone agreed, the snow began to fall. It came in picture-postcard flakes that sifted down straight through a windless day. Everyone came out of doors, exclaiming with pleasure. The children caught flakes on their tongues and planned great doings, dug tunnels in the drifts, fought snowball wars. At last the sleds could be used. The Christmas trees had a backdrop. The carols and the church nativity scenes made sense. The wind so rarely stills on the plains that the singular piling of light flakes was a marvel. Fence posts grew caps. Tree branches were outlined and pine trees were dressed in puffy shawls. The people of Argus went out walking just to marvel at the odd shapes that the new snow gave everyday objects as it landed gently and stuck atop automobiles, doghouses, trash bins, bleak grape arbors, the statue in front of the courthouse, steps, and ornate railings. Argus suddenly looked sweet and amusing, like a village in an old fairy tale.
Clarisse, emerging from the back of the funeral parlor, had this very thought as she buried her hands in a knitted fleece muff and walked home. She thought of the house made of gingerbread, deep in the forest, the roof made of iced ladyfingers trimmed with sugar gum drops. She thought of the quaint Swiss hut pictured on the tin of chocolate she’d bought for herself. When she got home, she decided, she would treat herself to a great pot of cocoa. She would scald the milk and drizzle sugar into it, then shave the chocolate into the pan and stir until it melted. There might even be enough cream left in the bottle she’d bought at Waldvogel’s, from Delphine, to whip for a fancy topping. The question she now confronted was whether she should ask Delphine to join her, and maybe bring along some extra cream. She reached her house. Suddenly, there was more to think of. In the new snow leading up to her front door, there were tracks, great and solid tracks, a man’s tracks. And there he was, waiting on her porch.
AT LAST, on the strength of his associations, and after dogged application and reapplication to Judge Zumbrugge, Sheriff Hock had obtained a warrant permitting him to search the home of Clarisse Strub. He was a very neat man, meticulous and fussy about his surroundings. His house was immaculate; everything he owned was stored and filed, his clothing was neatly folded in his dresser or hung in his dusted closet. He kept his badge, well polished, in a small wooden bowl just beside his bed. He could have told anyone whether such a thing as a red tubular gleaming glass bead was wedged into the crack of the floor of his closet. He would have noticed. In contrast, Clarisse saved her precision for her calling and let her house go, kept her rooms in a state of feminine disarray. After Delphine had removed the dress from her closet, some time ago, she had swept the floor. But she hadn’t examined the cracks between the boards with a powerful lamp and a shrewd, scanning eye, the way Sheriff Hock did now.
“This won’t take long,” he said to Clarisse with a firm and even kind formality. “I apologize for discommoding you and impinging on your privacy.”
“With all due respect to your office,” said Clarisse, in despair, “go to hell.”
“I’ve been there,” Sheriff Hock said, looking up at her with deadening simplicity. “You put me there, Clarisse.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Tears started into her eyes. She held them back, then let go. Maybe, if he felt sorry for her, he’d leave. “I don’t want you to feel badly—”
“Then,” said Hock, setting down his lamp with a surge of unruly hope, turning toward her, “you must feel something.”
Clarisse stared at him, paralyzed, hearing fuzzy noises as though wires in her brain had just crossed.
“For me,” he pursued.
“I’ve always felt that we could be friends.” Clarisse felt her voice rising, higher, higher, toward a shriek. She tried to take a deep breath. She got some air, but a red tide was choking her. Sheriff Hock shook his head with sorrowing gravity and aimed his beam back at the floor. Clarisse watched him, thoughts swirling. Of course, he’d find a bead, a thread, a bit of cloth, something to implicate her. Then he’d have her cornered and she’d have to decide between him and a murder charge, wouldn’t she?
“Leave,” said Clarisse. “This is my room. Get out of here.”
Hock rose and though he didn’t move toward her she felt his energy, a menacing and self-righteous energy, surge at her in a wave. She stepped back. With a small, pursed smile and a low, disarming whistle, Hock turned away. Arms folded, lips set, Clarisse leaned in the doorway of her bedroom and watched the awful, strained, cheap, twill material that stretched across the buttocks of the kneeling sheriff. His belt cut into his belly. Above that, his torso filled his shirt in a way that made it look like it was wadded with heavy quilting, not flesh. But there was flesh beneath, a body, make no mistake about that! A body that had decided it owned her. Clarisse let her thoughts go. Why not just murther ‘m…. It would be so simple to slip a knife beneath those padded ribs. Her fingers shook slightly on the door frame.
“Please go away,” she whispered, and when he didn’t respond she said something that her mother used to say. “Don’t make me lose my temper.”
Hock glanced up at her. “Oh? What will happen then?” His voice was pleasant and indulgent.
“I don’t know,” she turned aside. “I have never lost my temper before.”
What would she do with him? Stuff him in her closet? Run away? Let him rot? She would have to disappear. Here it was the holiday season, her favorite time of the year, and really not a good time for her to leave Argus. She’d always enjoyed the bitter blue air of Midnight Mass, walking to the church, and it seemed unfair that she should be forced to miss out on a ritual that had been hers since childhood. Her fingers were still shaking so she flexed and rubbed her hands to still them. She watched the sheriff root through her underthings with a delicate hand that made her feel more perused and invaded than if he’d flung her panties due north.
She had to contain herself, had to control the jolting of her heart, but the awful sense of outrage was too rich a soil. Instant, snaky, quick-growing weeds were bolting up inside her. She wrung her hands together, suddenly giving way. Catching hold of herself again, she calmly left the sight of the sheriff in her bedroom, and she walked down the stairs. She kept her hand on the railing, so as not to trip. Why should she be the one to trip and fall? Perhaps he would trip, Sheriff Hock. She imagined his huge bulk slipping and windmilling down the first flight, breaking in two pieces at the landing, and then in quarters at the bottom like a china pig. She almost laughed at the sight. The picture lightened her frame of mind. Maybe she’d step outdoors, have a rare smoke to calm herself. After all, what was there to find? The dress was gone — dug up and disposed of in a clever way. She congratulated herself, and then she thought of how, once ripped by Hock, the damn thing dripped beads. She remembered the broken threads, the thousands of broken threads, and there was suddenly an icy little whirl in her chest.