Secrets of the Snow

My neighbors disappeared last December. Susan and Marty were a troubled couple—he drank too much, she was the angry one. In the summertime, when we all had the windows open, we would hear the shouting and slamming of furniture. We decided that we would rather brave the heat than listen to them fighting.

So it came to no one’s real surprise that Marty didn’t show up to work one December morning. That’s what the detectives told us. Detective Crenshaw knocked on our door in the afternoon, asking if we had seen anything unusual going on at Susan and Marty’s house the previous day.

“Define unusual,” I said, when he asked. “I mean, they were always arguing, but I haven’t heard or seen anything recently.”

“No fights, no shouting, no intruders?” Detective Crenshaw was the picture of efficiency, holding his little notebook at the ready, poised to take notes.

“No, no intruders here that we know of. You have talked to Susan, I assume?”

“Yes, this is an ongoing investigation. She is a…” he coughed. “…person of interest.”

I nodded. “They weren’t happy, you know.”

Detective Crenshaw nodded and scribbled in his book. “Anything else you want to share with us?”

“No, nothing comes to mind. I mean, it snowed yesterday, could you get any clues from tracks or something?”

“The front walkway and sidewalk were shoveled clean. Not much info there.”

“Yes, Susan usually was on top of that. She always told us to keep the sidewalks clear, because if someone slipped and fell, we’d be liable.”

He nodded. “Good advice. I can see you have followed it,” he said, looking at our clean walkway.

“Yes, my daughter, Joanna, likes shoveling snow. Says it’s a good workout.”

“Well, if you think of anything, be sure to let me know. Here’s my card,” he said as he pulled it out of his back pocket, “and don’t hesitate to call.”

“Thank you, detective, I sure will.”

Detective Crenshaw grunted and shook my hand. “All right then. Let me know.” He walked from our front door and got into his waiting car.

I shut the door, my head buzzing. I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Joanna was due home from school any minute. She burst through the front door right as the kettle began to whistle, her cheeks red from the cold. She dumped her backpack and coat on the couch and met me in the kitchen.

“Tea?” I asked, as I pulled out two mugs.

“Yeah, Mom, thanks,” she said, flopping on a kitchen chair.

“How was school?”

“Fine. The bus slid in the snow on the hill near the school. They should have cancelled school today. I mean, six inches of snow is a lot.”

“Yikes. Well, glad you’re okay. What kind of tea?”

“Black. With milk.” She slouched in her chair as I put the teabag in the mugs and poured the water.

“Thanks for shoveling the walkway, by the way. That was nice to do before school.” I handed her the mug.

“Sure. Got my workout done early, today.”

I sat down next to her at the table after pulling the milk jug out of the fridge. “So…”

“So what?”

“So Marty, our next door neighbor? He’s missing.”

Joanna blew on her tea. “Missing? Since when? That’s weird.”

“He never showed up to work today. I talked with a detective, Detective Crenshaw. You didn’t see anything this morning, did you?”

She poured the milk in her tea after taking the bag out and putting it on the table. “Nope. Just me and the snow.” She blew on the tea again. “It was really quiet.”

I nodded. “Yes, that’s what I thought. But if you think of anything, you’ll tell me, okay?”

“Was Detective Crenshaw cute? I can tell him that I didn’t see anything.”

“I didn’t notice, you.” I smiled. “What’s your homework situation?”

“Geometry. Lots of geometry. Mr. Danville hates me.” She went into a long litany of injustices while she sipped her hot tea, leaving me to my thoughts about what could have happened to Marty.

“Oh look, it’s snowing again. Hope they close school tomorrow.”

Snow piled, snow on top of snow, days on top of days. Marty stayed missing. The cold and snow persisted for weeks, only getting warm enough at the height of the day to melt the top layer of snow, to freeze again at night.

Susan went about her business, quietly. I brought her a lasagna, and she thanked me, looking glassy-eyed. I wondered if she was the one day drinking, now. I noticed she stopped shoveling her walkway, and Joanna picked up the slack when she could, piling the snow up against the forsythia bushes. The piles from the snowplows along the street grew to be as tall as me.

Then Susan stopped coming outside at all. The curtains remained closed, and even though her steps and walkways were cleared by Joanna, no footprints led out or into her house. After a week of not seeing Susan, I went to knock at her door. No answer. I went home and dug up Detective Crenshaw’s number.

“Crenshaw here.”

“Hi, this is Susan and Marty’s neighbor?”

“Yes, hello. What can I do for you?”

“Right, so I haven’t seen Susan in a while. Maybe you could go and check on her?”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“I’m not sure, maybe a week ago? Have you made any progress on the case?”

“Not much. Most of my leads haven’t panned out. Maybe he just didn’t want to be found. He covered his tracks well, if that’s the case. But this is an ongoing investigation, I can’t really comment on it.”

“Yes, of course. But could you please come check on Susan? I’m starting to get worried.”

“Mm-hmm. I’ll stop by on my lunch break. I need to ask her a few questions, anyway.”

I hung up the phone. What if she were sick, dying, drunk in a stupor, choked on a ham sandwich? How do people live alone, anyway?

A couple of hours later, Detective Crenshaw got out of a car in front of Susan and Marty’s house. He walked up to the front door and knocked. No answer. He crunched through the snow along the side of the house, cupping his hands against the windows. Walking to the back of the house, he peered in through the back-door window. He came back out and came to our front door. I greeted him.

“So what did you find? Is she okay?”

“The doors are locked, windows closed, dishes washed, everything is tidy. I would give it another week. It could be that she’s upstairs. I mean, she did just lose her husband.”

“Yes, I guess so. Still, I’m worried.”

“I understand that. Looks like she’s shoveling her walkway, though.”

“Oh, that’s being done by my daughter.”

“That’s nice of her. So listen, give me a call if you see Susan. I’ll be back in a week or so to check on things. In the meantime, I’ll do some nosing around.”

Detective Crenshaw canvassed the neighborhood again, and the next week broke down the door of the house when no one had heard from Susan. It was empty. She had officially become a missing person, along with her husband.

The snow finally began to recede. The huge piles of snow along the streets and against the houses remained, freezing, melting, and re-freezing at night, forming a thick crust of ice on the piles of snow. Detective Crenshaw came by once in a while, to check on the house. No Marty, no Susan.

One warm March afternoon, I noticed something sticking out from the pile of snow that had built up in front of Susan and Marty’s place. I pulled on my boots and squished my way through the mud to look. It looked like a bare foot. I peered closer. There were toes. It was a foot.

Shrieking and scrambling backwards, I fell in the mud along the dry walkway, feeling sick. I got to my feet and ran home, calling 911.

Soon the block was crawling with police cars, forensic vans, and all of the people that come with those vehicles. I stayed on our front walkway, talking with Detective Crenshaw.

Little by little, the forensic guys excavated the body, ice layer by ice layer. Marty emerged, looking as if he had just lain down in the snow and forgotten to get back up again, but for his glazed eyes and sunken skin. There were some dark stains on his shirt. I shuddered as I got a glimpse as they loaded Marty into a black body bag and onto the gurney. Forensic people took their shovels to the rest of the surrounding snow piles, looking for other clues. Or, god forbid, another body.

Joanna came home from school, looking fresh-faced and clear, with her winter coat unzipped. “What’s going on? They find something?”

“Well, yes, they found Marty. Marty’s body. It was in the snowdrift over there,” I said, pointing.

Joanna paled, her fresh face turning gray. “There? Oh my god. He was there the whole time?”

Detective Crenshaw stepped in. “Did you see anything buried there? When did you start shoveling their path?”

“I don’t know. After Marty disappeared. Susan did it for a while, and then I took over. Then Susan disappeared.” Joanna flushed now. “You haven’t found Susan, have you?”

“No. When was the last time you saw Susan?”

“I don’t know… maybe a couple of weeks after Marty… you know… died,” she said quietly. “What could have happened?”

“We have reason to believe that Susan might have fled. Upon further examination of their belongings, we have found evidence that she left. No purse, no wallet in the house, that kind of thing. She could be anywhere. She has a three-month head start.” He pocketed his notebook. “Let me know if you think of anything. Especially you, young lady. You were burying the body.”

Joanna shrank from this comment and turned pale again. “I will,” she said in a small voice. “Can I go inside?”

“Yeah, okay, honey. I’ll be in in a minute.”

Detective Crenshaw nodded at Joanna and we both watched her go into the house. “Well, I guess that’s that. I don’t think we’re going to get anything else. Our primary suspect is out of the country, I’d guess. Mexico.” He took a breath. “At least we know what happened to Marty.”

“Do we have a cause of death?”

“Pending more investigation, the medical examiner thinks it was a blow to the head. Though it could have been exposure, I guess. We have a lot of unanswered questions.”

“Do you think you’ll ever find her?”

“I doubt it. Unless she does something reckless. But she was smart in everything she has done so far.”

I nodded. “Well. I’m going inside for some tea. Would you like some?”

“No, I gotta get back to the office. Lots of paperwork. But let me know if you think of something, anything relevant, okay?”

“Sure. See you.”

I walked back up the walkway to my house, rubbing my backside where I had fallen. Good for you, Susan, I thought. You finally got away from Marty. Good for you.

*         *         *         *

Sometime early in the morning, the first snow started falling heavily. The only sound is the whisper of flakes falling on other flakes, feathers upon feathers. The snow is already a few inches deep, covering the brown grass, encasing each blade in white to form an uninterrupted blanket broken only by the tracks imprinted on the sidewalks. I sit up in bed and look through my bedroom window at the giant sycamore in front of the house, each branch and errant leaf that held on for too long becoming etched in white.

Scraping sounds. A neighbor must be shoveling their sidewalk, even though it’s still snowing. The snow shovel crunches against the concrete of the sidewalk, followed by the soft floomph of the snow being deposited to the side. I get to my knees in bed, looking outside, and there is Susan in a red parka, wielding a snow shovel. She stops and takes off her beanie and hangs it on the handrail to her porch. She takes off one glove and wipes the sweat from her brow, then puts the glove back on. She continues shoveling, scrape, floomph. Scrape, floomph. The snow is coming down practically as fast as she shovels it.

Then I hear her husband, Marty, yelling from inside her house. I can’t hear what he says, but from the cadence and timbre I can tell he’s been drinking, even though it’s before six in the morning.

Susan ignores Marty’s voice and continues shoveling. She has mostly finished her front walkway, even though the snow follows her shovel, undoing her work. More shouting, and then Marty appears on the porch, wearing only a tee shirt and sweatpants.

“The fuck are you doing?” he slurs, holding onto the handrail, the other hand wrapped around a can. Susan ignores him and continues shoveling. “Get inside, it’s still snowing,” he sways.

She turns her back to him. Scrape, floomph. A car drives slowly down the street, the tires crunching against the compressed snow tracks of previous cars. She stops for a moment, watching the car go by.

Marty shouts again, this time so slurred I can’t understand what he says, but it seems to have hit home. Her shoulders stiffen and she turns to look at him, her face tight and mouth set in a thin line. “What. Did. You. Say.”

With careful diction, he says, “Put that shovel down and go make pancakes. That’s your job. Iz my job to shovel.” He starts to go down the porch stairs and slips, landing in a heap in the drift by the porch.

She slowly walks up to him, carrying the shovel. “If I waited for you to do it, it would never get done.” She holds the shovel in her hands, standing over him.

“The fuck?!” he says, struggling to get to his feet.

With one neat movement, she whacks Marty on the back of the head with the shovel, knocking him down into the snowdrift. I expect to hear an echoing howl, but I hear nothing but silence. He lies, crumpled, half covered by snow against the forsythia bushes in front of the house. A line of crimson runs down his neck, pooling on his white tee shirt.

Susan walks slowly into the house without looking back. I hear the front door click shut, and then there is nothing but the silence of the snow. I carefully close the curtains of my window and continue listening to my heartbeat, looking absently at my geometry book.

It looks like Susan needs help.