Free The Wind Chill Factor by Thomas Gifford Page A

all, but as I sat there in the chintz, it hit me, waves of revulsion. What had Austin Cooper’s peculiar political preferences to do with me? But there it was. In the end you never escaped your past. It lay in wait for you, somewhere in your future.
    Arthur looked at his watch, went slowly to the desk, and consulted his calendar. “I have an appointment at one o’clock and I will certainly want a nap after that. What do you say to five o’clock, Paula? John, you could perhaps stop by here at four thirty and we could go to the library together. Paula?”
    “Yes, I’ll be at the library. … I think Cyril would have wanted us to turn to you.” She had dried the tears. I was very happy that Cyril had left her some money. At least, she would never have to worry about money again.
    We left Arthur together and in the lobby I heard someone call my name. When I turned, the fellow behind the desk smiled obsequiously at a Cooper boy and said that there was a call for me.
    It was Olaf Peterson.
    “How’s the head, Mr. Cooper?”
    “All right,” I said noncommittally.
    “Well, that’s good to hear. We’d hate to lose another Cooper. You’re the last of the Coopers, you see, the very last one.”
    “Did you want something, Mr. Peterson?”
    “Well, yes, I did. I’d like you to stop by my office over here in the courthouse. We’ve gotten an autopsy report and I think you’ll find the results, ah, diverting.” There was a grin implied in his voice. The man had no sense of decency.
    “Diverting, Mr. Peterson?”
    “More than a little. Why don’t you come on over now and I’ll buy you lunch, how’s that?”
    “All right,” I said.
    Paula and I were walking down the steps to the Lincoln, which still stood in the No Parking zone, against the growing drift. I told her what Peterson had said and she sucked in her breath. “Murder.”
    “Don’t jump to conclusions,” I said lamely.
    I drove slowly through the veil of snow until I reached the library, standing like something from an Ingmar Bergman film.
    Impulsively I leaned across the cold space between us and touched Paula’s face, turning it to mine, and kissed her again. She didn’t move away.
    “I like kissing you,” I said.
    “It’s all my money,” she said.
    “No, no, I don’t believe it is.”
    “Well, I like kissing you, too. It must be the Cooper charm. I’ve had the full course, John.”
    She finally moved away to get out of the car. “It’s very strange, kissing you like this. It doesn’t seem quite real.”
    “I know,” I said, “but there it is.”
    “You know when we were trying to figure out why Cyril came back? Up in Arthur’s office?’
    “Yes?”
    “Well, I had a theory about it, too.” She laughed reticently. “I thought maybe I was the reason he came back.”
    I didn’t know what to say.
    She squeezed my hand.
    “See you at five o’clock.” Then the door slammed and she was swallowed up by the snow.

Thirteen
    P ETERSON’S OFFICE WAS ON THE second floor of the old frame courthouse. Inside, the dry wooden floor creaked noisily underfoot and the radiators hissed and pounded. Snow-soaked overcoats hung on a rack in the front entry. A typewriter clacked away in some records office. Stepping into the hallway, I felt as if I’d entered a tomb.
    A middle-aged woman sat at a desk in the anteroom to Peterson’s office. Half a sandwich lay on wax paper beside her typewriter. I could smell hot coffee. Like most people in Cooper’s Falls the woman was vaguely familiar.
    “Oh, Mr. Cooper,” she said. “Mr. Peterson is expecting you. He asked me to find out if you wanted a turkey sandwich or a meatloaf sandwich and how you wanted your coffee.” She grinned expectantly like a woman of good heart who had at one time many years before tried to teach Cyril and me to dance.
    “Turkey, cream, and sugar,” I said and walked on into Peterson’s office. He was sitting in a swivel chair behind his desk with his feet up on the