In Winter's Grip (15 page)

“Maybe. I guess that makes sense.” Something was bothering me. “I've spoken to some people. . .”

“Oh?”

“Just casually, you know, to try to find out about my father's last few days.” I spoke quickly, not wanting Tobias to know I'd been striking out on my own. “A few of them said my father seemed scared, or worried at the very least. Somebody might have been threatening him.”

Tobias stared off as if he was pondering what I'd said. “Touchdown,” he said.

“What, you've figured something out?”

Tobias pointed up at the TV. “No, touchdown. Florida State just scored.”

I punched him lightly on the biceps. “It's coming back to me. Concentration wasn't your strong suit in high school.”

“Only if the subject interested me.” Tobias turned and looked me in the eyes. “I used to like sitting behind you in class so I could watch the way you pushed back your blonde hair when you were thinking about something and the way you'd raise your hand when nobody else could come up with the right answer. You were something back then, Maja Larson. Something to behold.” He took another sip.

“I'm not liking your use of the past tense.”

Tobias set his glass on the bar and grinned. “I'll let you know if you've still got it after I've studied up for a bit. A true scholar does their research before jumping to a conclusion.”

“You've never given up the art of bullshit, have you, Tobias Olsen?”

He laughed. “It's what sets me apart from all the others.” He reached out, took a handful of peanuts and popped them into his mouth one by one as he talked. “Nobody seems to have anything but nice things to say about your father. He worked the night shift at the border so the guys with families could have a life, and he was sociable enough. He had buddies at Hadrian's where he spent an hour or two the evenings he wasn't working. He kept to himself a lot this past year, but that could be a result of working nights. There is something odd, though.”

“Oh? What's that?”

“Your father had a lot of money for someone who worked at the border. For instance, leaving eighty thousand to his grandson. He also had a lot of expensive sports equipment and electronics in his house, not to mention a new boat and car.”

“He was frugal,” I said, but I also began to wonder where he'd gotten the money. I'd been so shocked by him leaving the property to me that I hadn't thought much about the rest. “Perhaps my father bought those things with the expectation of selling the house and land, or maybe he got a signing bonus?”

“I checked that out too. As you know by your trek to the lawyer, your father signed away his land quite recently; however, he hadn't collected any money from the sale as of yet. That makes the fact that he didn't owe any money to anybody even stranger. Not one red cent. Nada. He liked to pay up front in cash.”

“Well, I don't know what to tell you.” I took a swallow of my caesar, and my eyes teared up while I tried not to choke.

“Hadrian has a heavy hand with the tabasco. You should stick to beer. No surprises.” Tobias chugged down the last of his for emphasis.

“I like surprises.” I couldn't believe I was having this conversation with Tobias, who wasn't known for being much of a talker. He'd been one of those quiet boys in my class who was always hanging around with the guys, drinking beer on the weekends and skipping class. He'd never come across as all that bright, which seemed snobbish to say, but he'd never given me any reason to think otherwise. He'd also never given me the time of day.

“Your father left you the bulk of his estate. Plan on moving back to Duved Cove with Saul?”

“Sam, his name is Sam, and no, I won't be moving back.”

“Did you know about the will?” Tobias focused his green eyes on mine, waiting for me to respond. The strength of his gaze was disconcerting.

“I was completely in the dark about my father's business affairs,” I said. “We weren't all that close, as you may have gathered.”

“That's why I find it odd, him leaving the house and land to you. A more logical choice would have been your brother, so I can't figure out why your father changed the will so spur of the moment. Could it be he'd had a fight with Jonas and told him what he planned to do? We're talking a lot of money.”

“Jonas didn't know.” I swallowed the last of my drink and pushed myself off the stool. “My father was not someone you could pin down. He liked to keep people guessing as to what he would do next. It was like a game to him. Stick in a pin and see which way they squirm, especially if you happened to be related to him.”

I turned to go, kicking myself for having said anything. I'd given Tobias an insight into our family that I wished I'd kept to myself, because I'd just remembered something else about Tobias Olsen. In high school, he'd played hockey and football and was probably the most talented athlete Duved High had ever had the luck to have enrolled in all its years of operation. He'd come complete with a stubborn streak two miles wide that kept him from giving up once he got involved in a game, even if his team was long past winning. If he turned his attention to Jonas or Claire, I feared they wouldn't escape unscathed from his bloodhound tenacity. It was time I started thinking outside the box. I needed to search farther afield, to try to make sense of all the loose ends that were flapping around me, before Tobias got to the finish line ahead of me.

FIFTEEN

B
illy didn't come to see me that night. The nightmare didn't darken my door either, and I awoke rested for the first time since my arrival in Duved Cove. With my battery recharged, I leapt out of bed just past six a.m. and dressed in jeans, a navy turtleneck and white pullover fleece. I gave my hair, flattened in sleep, a good brushing before pulling it back into a ponytail. My ministrations over, I stood momentarily transfixed in front of the mirror, trying to see into the eyes of this woman who was me. I stretched and swivelled my neck like a pendulum, slowly back and forth, searching for clues of the girl I'd been, twenty years, thirty years before.

I was halfway through my life. The tired lines in my face had softened in sleep, but there was no escaping the changes time had wrought on the line of my jaw and the papery lines around my forty-year-old eyes. This was my face, but also the face of my mother and of my grandmother and great-grandmother before her. I should be proud of this face which was mine and not mine. People might find it odd for a plastic surgeon, but I had no desire to alter this process and make myself appear younger. What I did for other people did not interest me. The slow settling of my features into those of my mother's was a comfort I couldn't explain.

I left a note for Claire on the kitchen table saying that I'd be back early afternoon and grabbed an apple from the fridge and a granola bar from the cupboard before putting on my parka and boots. The door barely acknowledged my exit as it swung shut behind me on silent hinges. The darkness, punctuated by fingers of pinkish light above the tree line, enveloped me like a shroud as I walked toward my car. I pulled the hood of my parka over my head and nuzzled into its rim of fur as the wind cut across my face.

This time, the car engine wasn't so eager to turn over. I turned the key five times before the motor grudgingly whirred into life, and at that, it took some coaxing to keep it from sputtering out. I let it run a full five minutes before putting it into drive and turning on the headlights. The heater blasted cold air, and it probably wouldn't warm up inside at all before I reached my destination. I cursed the feeble heater as I eased the car down the tire ruts in the snow onto the main road and pointed it towards the main highway, the headlights piercing the darkness in two long streams. Once at the highway junction, I swung the car north toward the Canadian border.

The drive took less than an hour, but it was an hour of beauty as the sky brightened from black to pink and orange, finally settling on a pale blue. The coniferous trees along the side of the two-lane highway emerged from a wall of black to a feathery line of boughs heavy with snow. At staggered intervals, copses of birch and alder nestled in amongst the denser pines and fir. Highway 61 wound through the Sawtooth Range, traversing corridors that cut through towering cliffs of rock. Every so often, I'd round a corner and discover a clear view of the lakeshore, rocks covered by snow and chunks of ice in the coves. Hardly another soul was on the road except for transport drivers heading south to take their produce to market. Each waved at me as we passed. I could have driven forever, but it wasn't long before the houses of Grand Portage came into view, scooped into the silver-white winter landscape of Arrowhead country. I stayed on the highway until I pulled into the parking lot at the Canadian border.

When I stepped inside the U.S. Customs office, Charlie Mallory was standing behind the counter, chatting with a tall Native woman with long black hair. Both were dressed in navy uniforms with badges on their shoulders and guns at their hips. Next to her, Charlie looked short and stocky, his red curls tied back in a ponytail. His eyes took me in as he looked over her shoulder. Recognition gleamed, and he nodded. I waited by the door as he said goodbye to the woman and grabbed his black duffle coat from the coat rack. He ambled over to me, his eyes friendly. I was careful to enunciate now that I knew he was deaf.

“Hi, Charlie. I wonder if I could buy you breakfast?”

“Sure. I could do with some grub before I crash. Why don't we meet at the restaurant on the highway just the other side of Grande Portage?” His low, even voice was pleasing to the ear. It was surprising considering the pugilistic state of his face.

“Sounds good.”

With a population of under a thousand, Grand Portage was situated between Lake Superior and Pigeon River. From 1730 to 1800 or so, Grand Portage had been a trading post where hundreds of traders and voyagers from all over the world met to barter goods and furs. An Ojibway community still called Pigeon River home, making up about half the town's population. As I waited for Charlie in the restaurant booth, I thought back to the days I'd camped in Grand Portage State Park, with its Grand Falls, and climbed trails up Eagle Mountain, the highest point in Minnesota. I would have liked to have camped under the stars with Billy, but we'd never managed to escape our lives for more than snatched hours. My father would have killed him and maybe me if he'd known I'd fallen for an Indian. My father had been as racist as the day was long. I'd hidden my love for Billy because it would have shamed my father and unleashed his unpredictable temper. I'd had an abortion to save my family name and to keep the peace. In the end, it had not been enough. I had lost Billy and any chance to be whole. I might have borne it yet and managed to find happiness but for my mother's death. The noose that encircled her white neck had killed my dreams as surely as it had ended her short life. That was my reality, and as I sat waiting for Charlie Mallory, the enormity of what I had sacrificed welled up and threatened to destroy the safe haven I'd carved out with Sam. Fiona, with her psychologist's insight, had been right. I was not happy—had not been happy for some time. Coming back to Duved Cove had loosed all my ghosts and turned my world on end. It had made me face what I'd tucked away as carefully as the memories in my mother's trunk.

The bell on the door jangled and Charlie entered, stomping snow off his boots onto the rug before walking over to the table I'd chosen beside the gas fireplace. The room had narrow windows and was lined in dark cedar panelling. It would have been dingy except for the red and white checkered tablecloths and hurricane lamps hanging overhead. Charlie slid in across from me. The waitress appeared with a steaming pot of coffee, and we placed our orders. I had intended to request bacon and eggs but ended up ordering the waffles with sausage. It was an odd trait—my mouth speaking a different meal than the one I'd chosen in my head. I looked across at Charlie, who was watching me intently.

“I'm sorry about your father,” he said after the waitress was out of hearing. “It must have come as a shock.”

“Yes. I thought my father would live forever. Funny how we don't really believe our lives will change, that people will always be there and defy time. It's a lie we tell ourselves to keep the certainty of our own deaths at bay, I suppose. I wanted...I wanted to ask you about his last year or so. It might help make me understand why he died the way he did.”

Charlie nodded but took time preparing his coffee—two heaping spoonfuls of sugar and three plastic containers of cream. He stirred the mixture for some time before looking up at me again. “Your father was a complex man. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that.”

“You seem to have more insight into him than most people.”

Charlie nodded and smiled. His crooked nose and scarred cheek suddenly didn't look so disfigured. “I've had to make better use of the senses I have. I've learned to be more observant than most. I also read lips, and people forget. They say things...”

I returned his smile. “Of course. People would be more discreet if they realized they were being overheard.”

“In a sense, I
am
listening in,” Charlie shrugged. “Your father was the one who suggested I work inside. They were thinking of moving me off the border, because my hearing loss was giving me difficulty doing my job. They began to think it was unsafe if I was checking cars and couldn't hear what was going on around me. I didn't want to be sent to an office building doing paperwork, so your dad said he'd work with me on the night shift when it was quieter. I thought at the time that he was good to help me out.”

“You sound unsure.”

“I don't mean to badmouth your father. I just came to know that sometimes he did things for reasons he didn't share. Usually, whatever he did benefited himself more than anybody else.”