Chill Factor

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Despite her anorexia?”

“It could happen.”

“I’m sure you’re wrong, William.”

“From my observation point in the store, I see a lot and retain everything I see. One day Scott and Millicent were in a booth at the soda fountain, all over each other. Her hand was in his lap. Need I get more explicit?”

“No.”

“I was about to tell them that if they couldn’t control their impulses, they’d have to leave. They must have come to the same conclusion. They couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He even forgot to pay the bill.”

“And your point is . . . ?”

“The next time they were in the store at the same time, no more than a week later, he wouldn’t even look at her. Something happened in the interim. Something huge. My guess would be a late period.”

Marilee shook her head decisively. “I still think you’re wrong. If Millicent was pregnant, Scott would have accepted his responsibility. Even if he’d been disinclined, his parents would have seen to it.”

William blurted a laugh. “Wes would not allow anything to jeopardize his plans for Scott’s future. Nothing. Not even the wild sowing of his own seed. And we all know how extremely proud Wes is of his seed.”

His last remark annoyed her, which she believed was the purpose behind it. “I’m confident that not Scott, certainly not Dora, not even Wes, would dismiss—”

“I didn’t say they would dismiss an unwanted and inconvenient pregnancy. Wes would simply do whatever was necessary to make the problem disappear.”

Uneasily Marilee conceded that William was right. Wes would.

• • •

“What the hell was going on in there?” Begley asked under his breath as he and Hoot carefully made their way down the icy front walkway of the Hamers’ home.

“I couldn’t tell you, sir.”

Once they were inside the bureau’s sedan and Hoot had the motor going, Begley said, “But you sensed something, right? I wasn’t imagining those undercurrents?”

“Not at all. I felt like we were watching a play where everybody was carefully reciting his lines.”

“Good analogy.”

Begley took off his gloves and briskly rubbed his hands together as he watched Dutch and Wes say good-bye to each other at the Hamers’ front door. The police chief then walked to his Bronco and climbed in.

Looking back at the front of the house, Begley mused out loud. “The mother seemed on the verge of disintegrating. Wes Hamer was too loud, too cooperative, and too jaunty by half. I didn’t swallow a frigging thing he said. Burton was playing both ends against the middle, shielding his lifelong friend from us and not really giving a damn about Millicent Gunn because he’s preoccupied with his ex-wife. And the kid was—”

“Lying.”

“Through his teeth.”

Hoot waited until the Bronco had pulled away, then steered the sedan behind it and followed at a safe distance.

Begley directed a heating vent toward him, although the air coming from it was still cold. “But what was he lying about, Hoot? What was everybody but us dancing around? That’s what I can’t quite figure.”

“I don’t know, sir, but I don’t think Burton was clued in either.”

“He appeared confounded, too, didn’t he?”

After a moment of private reflection, Hoot said, “Even though he and Wes Hamer are supposedly best friends, I sense a friction between them. An underlying . . . rivalry.”

Begley turned in his seat and fired an imaginary pistol at him. “Dead on, Hoot. I get that from them, too. They say the right things, go through the motions of being bosom buddies, but I don’t know, there’s something under the surface.”