Free Frozen Stiff by Mary Logue

inside of her grow warm and sank into his kiss. Finally, she pulled away from him and said, “Good. Should we set a date?”
    Rich snuggled his head into her neck and whispered in her ear. “Sure. When would you like?”
    “Something easy to remember. How about Valentine’s Day?”
    “I think that can be arranged.”
    “Let’s keep it simple. Not too many people.”
    Rich laughed. “What’re you talking about? We’ll do it justlike all the other weddings around here. We’ll put a notice in the paper inviting everyone in the county and see who shows up.”
    “I like it.”
    “Hey, how’s your abominable snowman?”
    “Daniel Walker?”
    “You have more than one?”
    “He appears to be out of danger,” Claire rested her head against Rich’s chest and put her feet up next to his on the ottoman. She could feel the fire’s heat on the bottom of her feet. “But when I left the hospital, he still hadn’t come around yet. Did you hear that he and his wife were separated?”
    “Suspicious.”
    Claire looked over at Rich, his face lit by the fire. He was wearing the red skullcap that Meg had knit him for Christmas pulled down to his ears. Claire thought he looked like a lumberjack, but a cute, good-hearted one. “Yeah, maybe.”
    “So is it true that someone locked him out of his house? And was he really naked?” Rich asked.
    “How’d you hear all that?”
    “Donuts,” he explained.
    Claire shook her head, then let it fall back on the chair. “After all these years, I still can’t get over how news travels around here.”
    “What else have we got to do but talk about each other?”
    “Point taken. As far as Walker goes, all we’ve got is his wife’s word for it that the dead bolt on the back door was locked. But I can think of no reason why she would lie about that.”
    “How can someone do that? Freeze and then come back to life.”
    “How they do it is very slowly, by what I saw today in the hospital. And very carefully. They cut a hole in his stomach, then gently washed his innards with warm water.”
    “Really? A hole in his stomach? Amazing. Is he going to lose anything to frostbite?”
    “Hard to tell. The doctor said he might lose part of an ear and a couple toes. I can’t believe he is coming through this as well as he is.”
    “The body is a remarkable machine.” Rich thought for a second, then added, “Course I’ve seen piglets come back to life after they were frozen. I guess it might have helped that Daniel Walker was a bit of a pig.”
    “Rich, you don’t like the guy?” Claire asked, not a bit surprised that he didn’t like Walker, but surprised that he would express it so clearly. Even with her, he didn’t usually say much negative about anyone.
    “He doesn’t care for anyone but himself. Anyway, anyhow. I bet there’s ten people right in Fort St. Antoine that wouldn’t mind getting rid of him if they thought they could get away with it.”
    “Could you give me that list?”
    He slid his hands under her shirt and said, “Maybe we can strike a deal. I might need some warming up myself.”

CHAPTER 9
    2 January: 9 am
    I tell you what, that man must not have the sense that god gave geese. Who’d a guessed that a sauna needed to come with operating instructions,” Sheriff Talbert said as he sat stuffed into his swivel chair.
    Claire was worried about the sheriff. He had gained weight over the holidays—just like everyone else in the department—in the county for that matter—but those extra pounds on top of the others that he had been accumulating for the last few years were not looking good. His face was constantly flushed and he wheezed. He was approaching sixty-five years old and his age wasn’t sitting well with him. But she couldn’t imagine the sheriff’s department without him.
    “We just about lost Mr. Daniel Walker,” Claire said. “If that new woman doctor up at the hospital hadn’t known how to handle hypothermia, he would have been a goner for