Free Meadowlark by Sheila Simonson Page A

unharmed and perfectly safe." But sick at
heart.
    "I'm sorry, darling." Jay almost always hears what I don't
say.
    My eyes teared, and I broke the connection.
    Marianne was crying hard, her hands covering her face. I
stuffed the phone into her jacket pocket and touched her shoulder.
"Come on, Marianne. We should move out of this area."
    I led her a few yards down the road and stood for awhile
patting her and making sympathetic sounds. I felt numb, but little
jolts of awareness warned me of the reaction that was bound to
come. I was fiercely glad I had not got to know Hugo well.
    The wait seemed interminable, but no more than ten
minutes passed before I saw the revolving blue light of Dale's car. He
was not using the siren. There was no real reason to use the light
either. He pulled the car over and parked on the grassy shoulder a
good distance from us. He and Bianca got out. So did Keith
McDonald.
    Bianca ran to us. She was crying, and she and Marianne
clung to each other. McDonald and Dale moved at a less impetuous
pace. They had the identical look of men trapped in a female
emotional display. The hell with them. The situation demanded
emotion.
    I went up to Dale, and we shook hands. "It's in the ice
house?" Dale, improbably fair and pink-cheeked, always looked
guileless. His eyes were worried, however.
    I described what I had found, and he thanked me for not
mucking up the crime scene, though we had trampled the area by the
door and done God knew what damage inside. I told him Jay was
coming.
    He looked even more worried. He was carrying a battered
35 mm. camera by the strap. The camera swung in a tiny arc. "I
dunno, Lark. The county budget--"
    "Think of him as my husband," I snarled. "He won't charge
you." That was unfair. Dale thought of Jay as a mentor, and the
sheriff's budget was in bad shape from the earlier
investigations.
    Dale flushed. "I always like to have Jay's opinion of these
things. Speaking of which, I'd better have a look."
    "Feel free." I wasn't going into the ice house again.
    Keith McDonald started to follow Dale, but Dale waved him
off. Keith looked at me. "You're sure it's Hugo?"
    "How many of your people are missing?"
    He chewed his lip.
    I relented. "Yes, I'm sure. I recognized his sneaker. It was
unmistakable."
    Keith closed his eyes, opened them. "He always wore his
clothes until they fell apart. It was a matter of principle."
    "There are worse principles."
    "Hey, I admired that. Hugo's a good guy. I mean, was." Mr.
Profundity.
    I was being unfair, probably because I was upset. By way of
a peace token, I said, "I guess you've known him for a long time." I
was watching Dale. He had taken a couple of snaps of the ice house
and a close up of the lintel. He entered the building with exaggerated
care, though Marianne and I had probably obliterated any clear sign
of other pedestrians.
    "I've known Hugo twenty years. Almost half my life," Keith
added, sounding surprised. He ran a hand over his beard. "Christ. Old
Hugo."
    At that point Bianca pulled herself together. She gave
Marianne a last pat, wiped her own eyes on the sleeve of her anorak,
and came over to me. "He's under the ice?"
    I nodded.
    "You're sure he's dead?"
    For a panicked moment I wondered. Maybe I should have
dragged him from the bin and tried CPR. Sanity flooded back. "He's
been missing a week, Bianca."
    She gave a small, hiccupping sigh. "It's all my fault."
    "What?"
    "I knew something was wrong when he disappeared. I
should have called in the cops then." She shot me a sad, reproachful
look.
    I almost bit. I almost said that was what I had told her to do,
which was true. She was not making sense. People react to shock in
strange ways. Bianca was like a black body, absorbing and radiating
guilt.
    I said, carefully, "You did what you could."
    "If I'd only known..."
    I waited. She was running through a list of standard
responses, almost as if she had a script. That didn't necessarily mean
her reaction was insincere.
    Keith said, "You'll have