Read The Wind Chill Factor for Free Online Page B

police in Madison?” There was a hint of incredulity in his voice.
    “No.” I shook my head. “I know I should have but, my God, it was the middle of the night, I was dead tired, it was over, and I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. And I didn’t want to run the risk of having to stay in a Madison hospital a couple of days.”
    “Impatience,” he said softly. “What a curse it must be. I remember the night you were born out at the house. Your grandfather was very excited and impatient.” Doctor Bradlee smiled at me and stood up, his shoulders stooped with age. “When I finally came down those long stairs he was waiting in the foyer for me, waiting to hear the news, and when I told him he took me into the library, where your father was sound asleep on a couch and we toasted you, all three of us, with champagne your grandfather had had on ice for a week.”
    I nodded. He patted me on the arm and told me to get some extra sleep, take some of the pills if my head got worse, and to check back in a couple of days. He hadn’t bothered to ask why I was home after so long a time. Maybe time had no particular meaning for him.
    I stopped back at the library in midafternoon. Paula was typing file cards and smiled brightly, saying she had finished her tasks for the day and could be ready to leave in five minutes. While she busied herself in the back I glanced through some mystery novels, noted a couple of exotic titles, and hummed quietly to myself. I saw no point in asking to see the boxes of stuff from the house. It was none of my business: the Nazi thing was ancient history as far as I was concerned.
    We drove back to the house in her car, a spiffy little yellow Mustang convertible; she called it her freedom symbol. She’d bought it in California and driven it back to Cooper’s Falls. We stopped at a grocery store where I bought a few things for the cottage larder. The snow was positively gaudy, gathering an entire new thickness on the road. What the wind had blown from the trees was being replaced. The soldier in the park was only a vague shape, marching ever onward. My ancestor read his book.
    The snow in the driveway was deeper. The lawn seemed to be a glacier. It took several minutes to plow through it but the Mustang was a determined little bastard and made it. Living through storms of this sort was like living through a war, and Paula and I were smiling when we got into the front hall, stomping our feet and shaking snow off.
    “Well, he’s not here yet,” she said. “Let me make some coffee. Or would you like a drink?”
    “Coffee would be fine. I just don’t drink anymore, except for brandy or port.”
    “You should be very proud of yourself, John.” She walked away from me toward the kitchen. She had long straight legs and I was admiring them when she looked back at me. “Why not lay a fire?” she said.
    I put a match to the wood stacked in the library grate, warmed my hands before the flames. Darkness was coming on outside. The heavy drapes were drawn back and what lay beyond was a vast emptiness. When she came back in with the coffee I said: “Paula, I’m worried about Cyril. Why hasn’t he arrived?”
    “Look, why don’t you call the telephone office? See if there have been any long-distance calls. And check the telegraph office. You haven’t been here to receive any messages and he may have tried to get hold of you.”
    We sipped the hot coffee, the fire crackled, and neither the telephone office nor Western Union had any record of incoming messages or calls. There was nothing to do but wait, and our conversation was desultory, random reminiscences.
    Finally, to kill time, I said that I wanted to go upstairs and see my old room, go through my books, see if it was all still the same.
    “Let me go with you,” she said. “I don’t want to be down here all by myself. Do you mind? That wind is driving me a little bit crazy.”
    I turned on the lights in the front hall, flipped the switch