In Winter's Grip (20 page)

“I believe I owe
you
lunch for all your help.” I got to my feet. “How about Frida's?”

“Let's take my car,” David said while putting on his parka. “We should be late enough to escape the lunch crowd.”

David and I took the window table—the one that was becoming my usual place to sit. I ordered a club sandwich with salad and a coffee. David went for the breakfast special: fried eggs, slabs of ham, hash browns and heavily buttered brown toast. We tucked in like two starving waifs, and it wasn't long before my plate was clean. Not far behind me, David soaked up the last of the egg yolk with a piece of toast and popped it into his mouth. He leaned back and sighed contentedly, rubbing a hand across his shaved head.

“This is the time I really miss smoking. There was nothing more enjoyable than a hit of nicotine to finish off a meal.”

“How long since you quit?”

“Two years, three months and four days.” He laughed. “Not that I'm keeping track. You ever smoked, Maja?”

Had I ever smoked?
I thought back to the summer Katherine and I found half a pack of Players that we'd stashed in the hollow of a tree trunk at the back of her property. We'd managed to smoke three each before rain filled the opening and the cigarettes became too soggy to light. Katherine had taken up smoking in her teens, but I'd somehow refrained, even though I'd liked the taste and the feel of the cigarette between my fingers.

“Luckily, nothing more than the experimental puff. It's never good when a doctor smokes. Hard to give people medical advice when you're doing in your own lungs.”

David reached for his coffee cup. “So, you hadn't spoken to your father in a while before he died?”

I shook my head. “We weren't close. I don't know if I regret that now or not.” I was speaking more to myself than David, but his head tilted as he studied me.

“Your dad was a hard man to know. I had the feeling he wasn't all on the surface.”

“You're the second person this week to say that.” Charlie Mallory had made the same observation the day before. Maybe Dad hadn't hidden his true nature as well as we'd believed when we were younger. “Do you know why my father was dismissed from the police force?”

“What have you heard?”

“That evidence went missing that my father had been in charge of, and he chose the job at the border over an investigation.”

“That sounds about right. It was all before my time, so I can't add much more.” David took a drink of coffee, his eyes never leaving my face. He grinned and his voice became playful. “I gather your father never kept a journal...or a safety deposit box full of secret tapes or anything.”

“Nothing I'm aware of. He wasn't a man to spend a lot of time reading or writing, as I recall. Introspection was definitely not on his to-do list.” Then I remembered the boxes of books in my old bedroom and shifted in my seat. I'd have to look through them more closely when I was alone. Maybe their subject matter would give a clue to the man he'd been at the end.

“Do you know what evidence went missing?” I asked.

“You've circled back to that, have you? From what I was told, it was money, which is never a good thing.”

“A lot of money?”

“Several thousand. Nothing that would keep anyone wealthy.”

“Where did the money come from?”

“A raid of some sort, apparently. Afterwards, some of the cash went missing, and it was never recovered.”

“I can't think that my father would chance his career over a small amount of money.”

“It was never proven that he took it. He accepted the border job instead of putting the force through an outside investigation, which would have been stressful for everyone. Chief Anders said your dad had been looking for a change anyway.”

“Convenient that the border job opened up just then.”

“Yeah. Sometimes life works out that way.”

David's eyes shifted towards the door. My eyes followed the direction of his gaze in time to see Tobias crossing the short distance to our table. He stopped a few feet from me. He was dressed in uniform under his open jacket and stood looking down at us, his hat in one hand. His green eyes flashed like flecks of jade in the sunlight streaming in through the plate glass window. He stared at me for a moment before focusing on David. His expression was grim.

“I'm glad you haven't made it home yet. We have a missing person call.”

David's face transformed from relaxed to on-duty. He stood quickly and shrugged into his parka. “Child?”

“No.” Tobias glanced from me to David. “Kevin Wilders reported Becky missing about an hour ago. I've been searching all the places she might be but could use help.”

A fluttering rose in my chest. “I thought a person had to be missing forty-eight hours before the police got involved.”

Tobias looked at me again. “She didn't come home last night. Kevin's worried.” He shrugged. “It could be nothing, but it's not like Becky.”

“This is on me,” I said to David as he reached for his wallet. “Let me know if I can help with the search if you don't find her right away.”

“Thanks, Maja. Been good talking to you. I hope to see you again before you go.”

Tobias nodded and smiled quickly at me before following David toward the entrance.

I wasn't ready to think the worst about Becky's disappearance and chose to believe she'd left town voluntarily, maybe to get her head on straight. Her disappearance and revealing her affair with my father couldn't be a coincidence. If they didn't find her by nightfall, I would definitely let Tobias know about her relationship with my father. Their affair would be a secret that I could no longer keep.

TWENTY

I
decided to return to my father's house to continue working. It wasn't quite four o'clock, and the fatigue coursing through my body had been replaced by a nervous energy at the news of Becky's disappearance. I needed to keep busy. I needed to stop thinking about the bad things that could have happened to her. The hardware store was practically empty of customers, and it didn't take long to gather up cardboard boxes, garbage bags, newspapers and tape. I intended to pack up my father's smaller possessions and put them into storage before returning to Ottawa. I'd phone for storage space first thing in the morning.

This time, I bypassed the kitchen and living room and climbed the stairs to my father's bedroom. I wanted to sort through what remained of my mother's possessions first, to make sure they were safely handled and organized in boxes. I ignored the ruined mattress and slit pillows and kneeled beside the maple hope chest, careful not to crush any of the scattered photos and ornaments that had been tossed about like so much garbage. I began with the photos, carefully piling them into a smaller box that I found amongst the jumble. I'd have to place them back into the albums when I had more time.

The pictures were a trip into my past—Jonas and me at different heights and ages, holding hands, smiling into the camera; my father and mother in front of our house; Katherine and me on the swing; me walking down the road with Katherine and my mother. I held up the last photo and placed my fingertips on my mother's face, tracing its outline as if I were reading a story in Braille. I could find no sign in her eyes or the curve of her mouth of what she would do to herself. In the photo she is smiling patiently into the camera while Katherine and I stand a little apart. We are thirteen years old, and the budding breasts and soft curves of the women we are becoming are visible through our cotton blouses and shorts. Our legs are coltish and brown from long summer days in the sun.

The details of the day came rushing back to me. My father had a new Nikon camera and had followed us up the road, clicking pictures and fancying himself a photographer for
National Geographic.
No matter what he did, he always believed himself the best, or at the very least, the expert. We knew better than to question his omnipotence. I looked closer. My mother and I are playing along with his latest obsession, posing prettily with demure smiles. Katherine is staring at the ground, her arms wrapped around her middle as if she is cold. She doesn't look happy. She'd been quiet that afternoon, and it wasn't long afterward that we stopped hanging around together. With a flash of insight, I see that by the time this picture was taken, she'd already taken up with the wilder crowd and was on the verge of leaving me behind. The realization of what lay ahead for each of us as I stared into our long-ago faces was difficult to take. I dropped the photo into the pile and scooped up the rest of the photos without looking at them.

I spent another hour wrapping the ornaments that hadn't been smashed before placing them gently into a larger box, tossing broken glass and ruined mementos into a garbage bag as I went. Partway through, I turned on the overhead light as the shafts of sunshine shortened and the room darkened into semi- gloom. I drifted towards the window but left the blinds raised as I looked through the dark, plumy branches of a spruce tree. It would soon be night, and I didn't want to be alone in this house much longer. It was silly, but I'd experienced a feeling of uneasiness in the restaurant that hadn't left me. I was trying my best to keep fear and grief from overwhelming me. My mother's and father's spirits hovered beyond reach in this house, and sadness rose in my throat. I wanted to sit down and cry, but once the tears started flowing, I knew I wouldn't be able to stop.

I returned to my task with renewed concentration, determined to finish the work I'd laid out for myself. The more progress I made now, the quicker I could return to Sam and the security of our lives in Ottawa. Once I was sure Jonas was safe and back on track, I would leave and never come back.

When I had wrapped and stored as many of my mother's possessions as I could find, I stood and stretched. My legs had cramped, and I walked gingerly around the space to ease the aching in my joints. Near the bed, I stopped and put a hand to my wildly beating chest. I turned toward the door and froze in place. Something had struck the floor in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs and clattered across the floor. Seconds later, a floorboard creaked.
Somebody was in the house.
Had I locked the back door? Was somebody even now creeping up the stairs hoping to catch me by surprise?

I forced myself to leave the bedroom and walk the length of the hallway, eerily layered in darkness. I stood at the head of the steep stairs and peered down into the shadowy blackness. “Tobias, is that you?” I called, my voice echoing hollowly in the stairwell. “Claire? Is anybody there?”

I could sense another person in the house. It was as if the walls surrounding us held their collective breath, waiting for me to make a move. I took a tentative step forward then stopped. If someone was here to do me harm, I would face them square on. I would not go gently. I stepped more determinedly back onto the landing and felt along the wall until my hand touched the light switch. The stairwell leapt into brightness. Nobody was standing on the stairs or in the hallway. I raced back into the bedroom that my father had made into a workout room and searched for a weapon by the light from the hall. My hand closed on a five pound weight, which should give me a chance. My movements were reflected back at me in the semi-gloom by the mirror lining the wall.

Seconds later, I was back at the head of the stairwell. A scramble of footsteps and the backdoor banging sent me racing down the stairs two at a time. I was too late to catch them. I flicked on the outside lights, but whoever had been in the house had disappeared into the night. Mushy footsteps were visible on the deck, but half-filled with water. They offered no clue that I could see. I leaned against the doorjamb and considered my options. I could give chase, or I could lock up the house and tell Tobias what had happened. I preferred the second option. I'd used up all the bravery I had in my frantic rush to meet the intruder. I shut the door hard and locked it before going in search of my jacket and boots.

I drove faster than I should have down the country road to my brother's house. It was a relief to see Claire's van in the driveway. Lights were on in the kitchen and living room as well as the back porch. I parked behind Claire, took my glove off as I walked, and slid my hand along the hood of her van. Heat radiated from its engine. Claire must have just gotten home not long ahead of me.

I found her reading a magazine at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of her and a fresh cigarette burning in the ashtray at her elbow. Her head was tilted and resting on a hand cupped under her chin. She looked up as I entered. Sometimes I forgot how beautiful she was. When the tension left her body and her features were relaxed, she was striking.

Black hair tucked behind her ears emphasized high cheekbones and wide doe-shaped eyes, steel grey in the bright kitchen light. “There you are, Maja. I was about to send out the troops.”

“I was at Dad's most of the day.”

“Ahh. Well, I had a pleasant surprise today. I came home and found Jonas sleeping on the couch.”

“He's home?”

“He is. He was discharged in the morning but didn't tell me. Says it felt good to walk outside again, and he didn't want to bother me at work.”

I dropped into the chair across from her. “That's good news anyhow. Where's Jonas now?”

“Sleeping upstairs. I nipped out to get some cigs, and he was heading up to bed. Said he was still exhausted but feeling more like himself. Gunnar is spending the night at his friend's.”

I watched her eyes. “Have you heard that Becky Wilders is missing?”

Claire's gaze didn't waver. “No, I didn't know. Has she skipped town?”

“What makes you think that?”

Claire picked up her cigarette and inhaled deeply. She blew the smoke out in a stream. “It didn't look to me like she and Kevin were getting along all that well. He's at the garage all the time, and she's stuck at home with his brats.”