The Wind Chill Factor by Thomas Gifford

Paula’s body. “What’s the story on this one?”
    “We had an appointment to see Paula,” I said. “We got here half an hour ago and found her like this.”
    “What have you been doing for half an hour, Cooper? What? What were you doing in the basement? Brenner, for God’s sake, why didn’t you come back to the office? What, what, what in hell is going on here? Talk to me, gentlemen, talk to me!”
    “There’s quite a lot to it,” I said.
    “I’m sure there is.”
    “It’ll take some time. …”
    “Oh, God,” he said, shaking his head, fingers clenching. “There’s no telephone here. Can you believe that, no telephone in the library? You fellows just have a chair, a box, something, and I’m going to call the office, get Danny over here to wait for Bradlee.” He stood in the doorway huffing, arranging his thoughts. Then his face cracked into that unexpected grin, sharp and predatory. “The plot thickens, Cooper.” And then he went outside.
    “We’ve got to tell him,” I said.
    Arthur nodded, heavy flesh sagging away from his cheek and jawbones. “No real choice,” he said, resigned. “I hope he has enough sense not to let it all out again.”
    When Peterson came back he was clapping his hands against the cold. “Snowing like hell again. All right, do you want to start your little tale here or wait until we get back to the office?”
    “Let’s wait,” I said. “It’s long and I want to get it right.”
    We waited in silence until Doctor Bradlee and Danny, Peterson’s assistant, arrived. Bradlee looked sad and tired, caught my eye, and gave me a weary smile. “I’m sorry, John,” he muttered. Danny, all curly hair and bright blue eyes, seemed to be enjoying the excitement. Peterson told him to do whatever Bradlee told him to do and we all set off in Peterson’s Cadillac.

Fifteen
    T HE COURTHOUSE WAS DARK AS we followed Peterson up the creaking wooden stairs to his office. The building was still overheated. Peterson flipped on the lights, threw his coat on a chair, and jerked open the window facing the street. Snow blew in, silt-fine, rattling on the sill and hissing on the radiator.
    “We’re all alone now,” he said patiently. “So start talking.”
    “Paula knew why Cyril came home,” I said, “and why he wanted me to come home. She found some strange material in boxes of Austin Cooper’s stuff at the library. She told Cyril when he called her last week and his response was to say he was going to come home and that he was going to get me home, too.”
    “Strange material? You’re a writer, you can do better than ‘strange material,’ Cooper.”
    “She wasn’t sure but it had to do with my grandfather’s political activity, his involvement with the Nazis. There were letters, documents, official-looking papers. She could identify some names, or so she told me, but apparently they were in German and she didn’t understand what it all meant. But when she told Cyril about it he said he was coming back.”
    “Letters, documents, papers. …”
    “Diaries my grandfather kept. And she said there was a metal box that was locked.”
    “The metal box you are holding,” Peterson said.
    I handed it to him and he put it on his desk, tapping the lock.
    “We’ll have to get it open. What do you know about this, Mr. Brenner?”
    “Only what John has told you.”
    “You didn’t talk to Paula Smithies?”
    “I talked with both John and Paula at the hotel.”
    “But that was the last time you saw her?”
    “Yes, the last time.”
    For almost an hour Peterson went over my every move since returning to Cooper’s Falls: my arrival, my first conversation with Paula at the library, the discovery of the body of my brother Cyril, my conversations with Paula during the night, and our meeting with Brenner. Back and forth he crisscrossed everything I said, then switched to Arthur, then asked for a rundown on my grandfather’s involvement. Then it was my father, his career, his