The Cold Winter Read online

  John was not far from his son's condition, his three sciatica had worsened just before he retired and underwent two operations, but he was not well. On days like these, snow and cold, he resented the back and, consequently, he lost his balance, and had lost nearly twenty kilos in the last five years and was now the closest thing to a walking zombie. But, unlike his son, he had a sharp eye and did not wear glasses so thick, only some to read the novels while he lays down to rest on the couch.

  "Dad, let's get some food," Peter said taking him from the arms softly. His father pushed aside one of them, but eventually, he dropped himself into the arms of his son. How have you climbed the stairs? Asked his son, as he put his father's arm around his neck and took the crutch.

  John looked back and smiled.

  "The truth is, those fucking stairs are fucked up," he said.

  Dad! The bad words. A smile flickered again under his spectacles, which came down to his cheekbones.

  "I can say them."

  And they went downstairs to eat sandwiches with cheese.

  5

  "Burt Duchamp?" The voice on the other end of the line sounded like a cicada. The heated living room, thanks to the chimney, made one forget that it was a cold of thousand devils. But the noises of the line returned to the reality to him.

  "Yes, speaking," said Burt with a few cans of beer in his stomach. "Who is?"

  "William. William Forrest," the voice in the telephone handset answered. In the background, intermittent clicks were heard, which made it appear that the communication would be cut short by a technical breakdown.

  "And to what do I owe the honour of speaking with William?" Burt opened another can of beer. There was a sound like a shotgun shot, and then the foam filled the edge of the can until it spilt onto the floor. He remembered her ex's voice and laughed.

  "What's going on?" Asked the voice that came and went in the modulation of the tone.

  "Nothing."

  "I'm the forensic doctor at Road Main, the nearest city to Boston. You sent me the corpse of a young girl to perform the autopsy. I've done it and made it known to Sheriff Steve, from here ..."

  "Steve? And who the hell is Steve supposed to be?" Burt cut him off burping at the same time.

  "I've already told you, I'm calling from Road Main, and Steve Hammer is the sheriff who has jurisprudence here ..."

  "But not in Boad Hill," Burt cut again, his eyes bloodshot. He walked, circling the dining room with the cordless phone pressed to his ear as if he were listening through the hollow of glass.

  "I know. That is why they sent us the corpse here, where there are more resources for these cases. You are there, isolated, in a village that could be ruled by a single agent, by yourself. And they do not even have a court of their own. We are within the same county, so yes, we have jurisprudence there." The voice reminded him.

  Burt nodded. Nearby was a village where a large dog went crazy and killed several people. They had to go to another city to carry out the investigation.

  "Here we arrange things by visiting the neighbours," Burt explained, more serene. He had gotten nervous. "And that, when something happens. Today was a present."

  "A Present?"

  "I was talking to myself."

  "Ah!"

  Burt left the conversation in a long, ominous silence, broken only by the sound of the wind brushing against the corners of the houses' eaves, and the trees. The snow hit the windows as if they were small stones. Finally, the voice spoke again.

  "Are you there, Mr Burt Duchamp?"

  "Of course." He paused for a moment, then added. "My ear is heating up."

  "Well, let's get to the point," said the other voice, and again there was an electric click on the line.

  "Ok, go ahead," Burt said, sitting down on the couch. He lifted his feet without the heavy boots and set them on the table of the living room, right in front of the TV off. A cold forty watt light bulb flung a dim light on his face in the gloom.

  "The girl's name was Rachel ..."

  "Geller," Burt said, then took a sip of beer.

  "Are you always so conceited?"

  "Almost always, and more with strangers," said Burt.

  William's voice continued to speak from the other end of the line with a dry, harsh tone.

  "She probably died of a heart attack from the pain of the tears. It must have been a metal bar or something like judging from the tears I have found in the vagina and anus. It is also true that I discovered, before death, a significant lack of oxygen. That must have been while he was strangling her. It is probable that the murderer did both at once. Must be a strong man to do this. The hour of the death is not exact, but I can say that she died near midnight, so, she was dead all night, which explains her freezing state. If I remember correctly, there you have a temperature of about five degrees below zero."

  Burt looked out the window, in the distance, and saw the snow falling on the streetlights. He pursed his lips and nodded as if William were watching him.

  "Are you there?" It was William's voice.

  "Yes." He finished another short silence, only broken by the continuous clicking of the line, and added. "This year is quite cold, yes."

  "There are no footprints, and that spot you said looked like frozen semen is nothing more than a vaginal discharge, but it's hard to believe. She lubricated before. Do you have any idea why?"

  Burt took another sip of beer and set the can on his hip.

  "Should I know these things about women?" Are not you the intellectual man?"

  "It's okay. The bottom line is that we have no trace of the killer."

  Burt's body curled up on the couch as if it had been pushed by a spring. His eyes widened a little. The beer can lay on the sofa and foam came out, which devoured the velvet of the seat.

  "Shit!" Burt yelled caused of the spilling of the beer.

  "That's what everyone says."

  "No. I referred to the beer can."

  There was another pause they could publicise if they wanted to. Burt picked up the can and tossed it to the floor. That only made things worse. Now he had a spot in his crotch that looked like piss.

  "Beer?"

  "Don’t’ you ever drink beer when you relax?"

  "I Do not."

  "Well!"

  "What I was saying. There is no trace of it. The killer got it all!

  "Not even a sample of saliva?"

  Suddenly, a high pitched beep began on the line, not very strident and continuous. William had cut off the communication.

  Burt took the beer can from the floor, into a puddle, and checked that there was still liquid in it. He brought it to dry lips and went to the window, again, to watch the snow and make guesses.

  6

  At nine o'clock at night, John turned on the television to watch the local news on Channel four. He had left his crutches on one side of the couch and left his feet on the floor, wrapped in brown cotton lined slippers. They were warm. He moved to find the right posture and looked closely at the TV screen.

  Peter was in the kitchen, washing dishes, and the noise was heard from the living room. A small chimney, with a handful of lit birch logs, cast a faint reddish light on the floor as if it were a large carpet. On the walls and the ceiling, dozens of strange figures writhed in the crackle of wood.

  That night they had eaten tomato soup and mashed potatoes. It's a combination, John thought, but something is something. Since his wife had gone to the other side, the ribs and pasta dishes were missing from the table and ... He stopped thinking to hear what the bald man was saying, holding a microphone in his right hand, as if it were a relic.

  "The victim, an eighteen year old girl, was named Rachel Geller, and it was found this noon buried under the snow. Local police have not said anything about it. There is an absolute silence, so we cannot tell if it is an accident or a murder."

  John's brow wrinkled until he let out a couple of drops of sweat.

  "Have you heard that, Peter?" He shouted, turning his neck as if on a wheel.

  "A murmur, that's all." There was a chuckle from Peter at the rattling of the plates.

  Outside the wind snorted.

  "Tom's daughter has been found dead this afternoon!" He exclaimed from the same position, while the bald man continued to speak with his clenched fist around the microphone exaggeratedly.

  Suddenly, it stopped listening to the beating of the plates, and then the footsteps were approaching the hall. Peter stepped through the door frame and stared at the television. Here was! A photograph of Rachel of, at least, two years ago. The bald man gave way to a small woman with blond hair and big tits resting on the table. It was Christie, the woman on Channel Four. Now she was about sixty, and she was still there, with her long fingers, clutching at a handful of pages she read continuously.

  "It's the first time in my life I've heard anything like it," said Peter in astonishment. His eyes shone in the dim light of the lamp. And for a moment, the glasses of his glasses seemed to shine like the headlights of a car.

  He moved around the sofa and sat down on the armrest, squeezing it hard, since he weighed little. It was as thin as the edge of a door.

  "In my seventy years, I haven't seen anything like it," his father complained, moving again, to fit the best posture to mitigate the pain in his back. He had taken his medicine of every night, but only it started to make the effect when he went to bed and sometimes woke up in the middle of the night with a painful ache in it that made him scream.

  "Ann German is in danger," Peter announced, his grey eyes lost on the television screen, where, again, was Rachel's photograph.

  "Are you still obsessed with that woman, son?"

  Peter saw into his father's eyes and gave a faint smile that barely curved his thin lips.

/>   "You know I love her, Dad," he said, forgetting Rachel and the TV.

  "But she doesn’t' t love you back."

  The sound of the television had now become a murmur.

  "I know one day, she will be mine."

  "We all say that," John complained, his voice torn. A phlegm had come between the air he breathed and the words. He coughed and brought his fist to his mouth.

  "Look who's talking." What did you do with Mom?

  "Well, that was different. Between us, there was what today is known as a crush. I was a handsome man ..."

  "And what am I?" Peter cut him off by touching his shoulder with his bony hand.

  "A man. My son. he paused to watch him in the dim light. "But look you in the mirror, even if only for once. You're neglected. You unkempt. Ler's say, those glasses don't fit very good on you, and the hair is dirty. You are always wearing that dull raincoat, even in summer. You are old fashioned. You are out of style.

  Peter pinched the cheek affectionately and brought his lips to his father's forehead. Once he felt the warmth of him, kissed him.

  "I'll change, Dad. I promise."

  "You always say so, my son."

  The two laughed for a while the wind grew in intensity and the snow fell with fury and crashed against the windows and cars buried in hours.

  "You haven't formed a family; you have not a permanent job, you have not given me a grandson who could annoy me all day ..."

  Peter put his forefinger to his lips, laughing.

  "But I have a gift," he said in a whisper.

  "I know."

  Then he took him by the hand, and he saw it all very clear. The soft contact with the palm of his hand was the way to connect with him. Suddenly he felt a slight tingling in his hand and entered in a mental block, sombre and dark. After the darkness, he could see his thoughts, present, and past. Someone had called it splendour in a book.

  Peter had the gift of telepathy, but he needed to touch your hand to connect with you. Then everything seemed dark and got inside you.

  For now, he'd only tried it with his deceased mother and his father, not even with his best friend, Denny German, Ann's brother, his platonic love.

  And he saw that his father had severe pains in his back and that he had become obsessed with the idea of ​​death.

  7

  Burt made suppositions during the rest of the night lying on the mattress, one hand on his forehead and one can of beer in the other. He could not understand who would have done such a thing. To Tom's daughter, an honest man, who manages a bar with whores who sneaked in there, yes, but honest. When he saw, them coming, he took the hunting shotgun, although was unloaded, was only to intimidate the prostitutes that with the adrenaline to the limit after a shot, had their eyes wide open. It was not a metaphor but the eyes were orbiting slightly, pushed by the blood pressure behind the eyes. They could stand up to a total of three millimetres and look like a toad. It was pure science. When they saw the weapon in such hands, they trembled and went out of there like a bat out of hell. Later, Tom laughed and hung the gun on the wall, over the coffee pot and the liquors. He was a great guy, who had two daughters, a twenty year old named Samantha, and Rachel, the youngest, who went to high school and always greeted Burt as she passed in front of him.

  Burt felt an internal fury very difficult to calm, except with beer. Little by little, his eyes turned white, and he saw fog and everything became blurry. He did not sleep that night because of the fucking storm of the century. It was windy, and it was snowing copiously. And he thought, among other things, that the next day he would have another problem: snow.

  And he thought about Miriam, Rachel's mother, in how she would throw herself like a cat on her daughter's coffin when she returned from who knows what Road, he did not remember the name, only that it was somewhere between Boston and Portland.

  And in those red panties.

  Until he fell asleep and the beer spilled on the mattress like the great skein of a dog.

  8

  Larry was the young priest at Boad Hill Church, who was stationed there when the Father Sam dies, who fed the neediest. Only the oldest of the place knew his real name. Larry had been there for about a year, and he seemed to do his job well with God. It was the nuns who said that whose every Sunday and every burial came to the church at the end of Culver Street, almost a district and quite far from the Masterson's, the last home.

  But this winter has been particularly difficult with the snow, and they could hardly go to church. With big scarfs wrapped around her necks like stoles, this morning they had to go to Rachel's burial mass, and that was undisputed. So, they had to leave the cars at home and cross the thick blanket of snow, and yet they gathered. Larry was waiting for them with his eternal smile and his brown eyes behind glasses with a golden frame.

  Everyone who was there, in the warmth of the central heating, was known. Everyone knew each other and, besides family members, they came from neighbours and friends and even the most curious. It had wakened a gale worse than in the cold winter. Everyone wanted to hear Larry's words and, above all, see the coffin and Rachel's makeup. Also, her parents crying over the coffin in an attack of hysteria and then the weakness of the mother.

  The situation was critical and raised an absolute expectation in a city of no more than two thousand inhabitants.

  Burt was in the front row, in front of the pulpit, where Larry climbed with a dazed slowness. Burt thought he was clumsy and therefore the unnecessary care to take a step. Now he was in the middle of a hangover and still wearing his sheriff's vest, with his felt hat and a big yellow stain on his pants.

  Tom and his wife and their other daughter had not yet arrived, and everyone was mumbling like parrots on the top of an electric line. The church walls picked up these voices and sent them back like waves across the room. When there was finally something behind the church door, which was not the grip of the wind, the murmur increased the quality of a cry, and then there was silence. All the eyes of those present were almost out of their sockets and black lips tight as a thin zipper sewn into the mouth.

  Larry looked up from the Bible that was open in the pulpit, also known as the choir lectern.

  Suddenly, the doors of the small church opened, and with them, a gust of icy air and millions of snowflakes entered. Two tall men, dressed in black and leather gloves, pushed the doors and now, completely covered in a white robe, simply opened the door to the back of the hearse, with a metallic grey scent. On the sides of the car, there was no wreath of flowers and the wheels were covered by thick chains. The snow had piled at the foot of the gates at the entrance, but now it was being reduced to miserable sheets of ice, thanks to the footsteps of both men. The exhaust pipe spat in the wind a line of dark grey smoke. The engine purred like a big cat.

  "My daughter!" Suddenly the mother of the deceased cried out as she stretched out her arms like a zombie and started to run through the corridor of the crowd. The clattering sound of heels was heard, and finally, the fleshy blow of her body hugging one end of the coffin, which peered out like a dark tongue from the hollow of the car.

  The murmur rose to an annoying noise, and the hands waved in front of the grave faces, making crosses with the fingers. The most heard were, Rachel is dead. Tom burst into tears like a child supported on the bench of the front row; held with his hands tight. He also had snots and felt its salty taste of them. After all, it did not feel so bad, he thought, in a loophole of sanity because the rest was madness.

  "Please, friars, let us be silent for a moment," said the voice of Larry, the priest, or the pastor to some, though there was a great difference between them, from the loudspeakers installed throughout the modest church, which it lacks a Christ the size of a tree.

  The crowd continued murmuring, drowning Larry's words, which became the whistling wind of the snowstorm. Cold air began to fill the room like the inside of a refrigerator, drastically lowering the temperature. Now the words had turned into vapour halos rising to the ceiling. At the entrance to the corridor, which separated the sides of the benches, the snow began to rest in a thin, slippery layer.