Read January Thaw (The Murder-By-Month Mysteries) for Free Online Page B

honest with myself, we hadn’t seen each other lately as much because I’d been avoiding him. At this moment, though, I felt cold and scared and wanted him here. I dragged in a deep breath, relieved to discover that I wasn’t shivering as much.
    “I can see your hard-on,” Mrs. Berns said.
    “What?”
    “You. Remember you’ve got the poker face of a kindergartner? Are you thinking about Johnny or the Chief?”
    For a moment, I thought she meant Chief Wenonga, the 23-foot-tall fiberglass statue that resided just over the hill from our present location. He was shirtless and sculpted, and in my lower moments, I’d harbored some adult thoughts about him, but I’d thought I’d played those cards closer to my chest. A full-on blush was warming my cheeks—a relief from the horror—before I realized who she was really talking about. “Gary Wohnt?! I’d sooner eat a toe.”
    She nodded sagely. “I know how confusing it can be to the lady parts when we realize an officer of the law is one of the hottest cookies in town.”
    “Please,” I said. I stood and turned, just catching sight of Gary’s back before he disappeared into the ice castle with a deputy. What were they doing over there? Darwin’s Dunk was a good hundred yards away.
    “Is that a request?” Mrs. Berns asked, smirking.
    I shook my head. “I’m begging. I need to get out of here, take a shower, and wash the dead body juju off of me.”
    “I recommend steel wool for that,” Mrs. Berns said, patting my shoulder before tipping her head toward Jed. “Since you’re in good hands, I’m going to leave you and go find out some more about that Good Samaritan who saved you from throwing yourself under a Zamboni. Like, his phone number.”
    She strode off before I could reprimand her for driving the Zamboni in the first place. A shudder ran down my body as I thought of Maurice’s silent, screaming face again, and more details came to me, like his one shoeless foot.
    “You sure you don’t want the hot chocolate?” Jed asked worriedly.
    I realized he’d been standing next to me in the cold for nearly a half an hour, leaving his post at the warming house, and desperately wanted to do something for me. “Thank you,” I said appreciatively. I took the hot chocolate, but it was his friendship that I was grateful for.
    “Do you want me to drive you home?” He was focused on me, but I could tell he wanted to check back at the warming house. There wouldn’t be any more skating today, and maybe not for a while, but he’d still need to clean and lock up. At this very moment, a gaggle of adults were milling around the door of the little hut, unreturned skates in hand. The children and most everyone else had been cleared off the lake. I could feel those who remained staring at me.
    “I’m fine. Really.”
    “You positive?”
    I smiled reassuringly. “Positive.”
    It wasn’t true.

Eight
    Although I’d told Jed I was driving directly home, I was too unsettled to be confined to my house. I’d probably make Luna and Tiger Pop crazy with all my nervous energy. I wasn’t quite ready to tell Johnny I’d skated upon a dead body, either, though I’d have to come up with a story before our date tonight. He’d always been sympathetic to my bad luck, but even someone as amazing as him must have limits. It’s not like I needed to quit smoking or snore more quietly. I had to stop finding dead bodies . It was honestly a surprise I had friends left. Or, I mused as I drove, maybe the safest place to be was close to me, like inside the calm eye of a hurricane.
    Who was I kidding? I was Typhoid Mary, and that was almost more distressing than the memory of Maurice’s wide eyes and final frozen scream. I shuddered. It was like he had a secret he needed to tell me, something that only the person who’d killed him and the fishes who’d swum with him would ever know.
    I pulled into the library parking lot out of habit, realizing that I’d assumed Maurice had been