Page 35 of Snow Creek

“What neighbors?”

“The Wheatons.”

“Oh them. Religious weirdos. Don’t have much else to say about ’em. The girl and the boy are all right. Came over here a few times with food for my cats. Want to come inside and see them?”

I know I will throw up if I get any closer to that door; the acrid smell of feline urine is literally punching at my nostrils. I’d give anything for Ruth Turner’s wintergreen deodorant right now. I’d shove the whole stick up my nose.

“No,” I say. “Thank you. I’m highly allergic.”

It’s a lie. I actually like cats. Not a hundred at a time, though.

“That’s too bad. After my husband died, a pregnant cat showed up and, you know how it goes. Ten become twenty. Then more. I’m probably the luckiest woman on the planet. Never, ever lonely.”

I turn the conversation back to the Wheatons.

“Did you meet Ida and Merritt? What was your take on them?”

“Why are you asking about them? Folks out here don’t have block parties. We mind our own business.”

“I imagine that’s very true,” I say as a cat circles my legs, leaving a trail of gray fur on my pants.

“Cotton likes you,” she says.

The acknowledgment softens Maxine.

“She’s beautiful,” I say. “I so wish I wasn’t allergic.”

Maxine nods. “The Wheatons were weird. He did all the talking. His wife just stood around and looked lost. I couldn’t figure out the relationship. I even asked the kids one time if things were okay at home.”

“What did they say?” I ask.

She picks up Cotton and a cloud of fur scatters in the breeze. “Nothing really. It was a while ago. It was the last time I saw ’em too. They were real regular visitors. After that, nothing. Why all the questions, Detective—”

“Carpenter,” I tell her, giving her a card. “The parents are missing. Been gone for a few weeks now. Supposed to be in Mexico at an orphanage. Never got there.”

“Orphanage? What for? To get another worker?”

I look at her eyes. They’re slits now, but she’s studying me.

“No, to do some work for charity.”

Maxine lets Cotton slide from her arms to the ground.

“That’s a crock,” she says. “That man had a mouth like a sailor. Always yelling at those kids, especially his wife and the boy. Charity? What a joke that is. I bet they were headed down there to get another boy. Joshua wanted to bolt.”

Cotton is back to rubbing against my legs.

Help me, I think.

“He told you that?” I ask.

“Yes, he did,” Maxine went on. “He told me that he didn’t want to live out here. It’s not for everyone. Kids don’t have a choice. Parents get to decide everything. My husband moved us out here and I hated it for the first twenty years; now I wouldn’t trade places with the Queen of England.”

I imagine the queen would feel the same way.

I ask her if there are any other neighbors up the road, off the grid.

“Not anymore. Since marijuana became legal in Washington, our local growers packed their tent—and I do mean a tent—and moved on. Nice couple. No one else up this far. Few folks back the way you came. Saw ’em a time or two, but don’t know them by name. Not even by sight. Sorry.”

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