"Why did you do that? She's tired."
"I have to be able to see her. Please turn off that lamp. The colour makes her look pinker than she is."
Anne examined Andrea, noting the blue tinge to her lips, her gasping respirations and the sibilant wheezes and coarse crackles in her chest. Andrea's eyes, full of fear, met hers and her cold, bony hand clutched at Anne's. "Am I—"
"You will be fine. I'm going to give you another shot of antibiotic and I want Brad to give you your puffers more often."
Andrea squeezed Anne's hand. After a moment, Anne freed herself and injected Andrea with antibiotic. She needed to talk to Brad. He sat a little distant, his eyes downcast and his hands curled into one another.
"Brad."
When he looked up, she jerked her head towards the door.
"How is she?" he said.
"Let's give her some quiet. You come outside with me."
"I'll be back in a minute, Mom. I want to talk to Anne."
In the hall, Brad slumped against the door and rubbed his face with his hands, knuckling away some tears. "She's dying, isn't she?"
"I don't know. She's gravely ill but she hasn't been on the antibiotic long. If we keep her going until rescue comes, I think she'll be okay."
"Thank you, thank you."
"Make sure you're hopeful with her."
"I'm trying."
He had a plan, she thought. What was it? But she had work to do and knocked at the door of the children's suite.
"Come in," called Eloise, after Anne knocked.
Eloise sat in the rocker with Olivia on her knees and a book propped against the arm. Hamish stirred in his crib. His respirations sounded easier, with no audible wheeze. At least one of her patients was improving, Anne thought.
"How is he?"
"Bien, Bien. He ate a little and he's been drinking."
"When was his last puffer?"
"About two hours ago."
Anne examined the little boy, checking his chest and his ears. Not much wheezing and no indication of pneumonia. "Fever this morning?"
"Thirty-eight Celsius when he woke up, but down since then."
"Good. I think he's on the mend. Keep up his puffers and let him up for a little while if he wants to."
Eloise sat back in the rocker and sighed. A tear rolled down her cheek.
Olivia reached up and brushed it away. "Don't cry, Eloise. Hamish is getting better," she said.
"I know."
"You love the children very much," Anne said. "How long have you been with them?"
"For four years. David's father hired me and after he died, David kept me on."
Something in the way she said David's name brought a smile to Anne's face. "How long have you loved him?"
Eloise swung her eyes to meet Anne's and then away. "From the first moment. But there is no hope."
"I wouldn't be so sure."
After a few more minutes of conversation, Anne left to attend her most difficult patient. Every time she went to Carmel's room, she expected the worst.
Before Anne reached Carmel's room, Thomas bounded up the back stairs and along the hall. "We have to talk. he said.
His dark eyes held that worried look that meant something had gone terribly wrong.
"What—"
"In our room."'
"I have to see Carmel. I'll be quick."
"After, then."
She turned the knob and walked in. Trevor sat at his wife's bedside, wiping her face with a damp cloth.
"She's too weak to wash herself. Don't tire her."
"I'll just be a few moments. Will you feed the dogs? I didn't have time yet."
"Sure."
Carmel lips twisted into a weak smile. "He loves animals more than people. I think that's why he's a vet."
"A veterinarian? I didn't know that."
"Yes."
"I brought you a cookie," Anne said, "and a bottle of juice."
Carmel twisted her head away to face the wall and shuddered. "I'm not hungry."
How could she get through to this woman? "You are getting weaker. Did you walk by yourself to the bathroom this morning?"
Carmel turned to the wall. Her narrow scapulas tented her pyjama top, two sharp-peaked mountains of ivory silk. Anne felt a rush of compassion for her, so ill and yet still caring about what she wore to bed.
She put her arm around Carmen and helped her to sit. The bones of the young woman's shoulders could be an anatomy lesson for beginners. "A small bite and sip of juice.”
Carmel sighed and took the cookie. She nibbled an edge and then drank from the straw Anne held for her.
"Good," Anne said.
Trevor opened the door and the dogs bounded in. Carmel smiled and reached down to pat their heads. She loves animals too, Anne thought. Perhaps she could use that to reach the starving girl.
Outside the room she hurried down the hall to Thomas.
Anne opened the door to their room to find Thomas sitting by the fire, his dark head bent over a book. He preferred to read in print on paper, not on an electronic device. She lugged hers everywhere. With the power out, she was left with nothing to read when it lost its charge. He raised his head and grinned, his eyes crinkling, and a look of triumph on his face.
"What's happened?" she said.
"We got through to Culver's police."
"Culver's? How on earth did you do that?"
"The old man who owned this place had call letters for Vermont. One of them was in Culver's and it still worked. They're calling Bancroft OPP for us."
She sat on the arm of his chair for a moment and he pulled her onto his lap and kissed her. She rearranged herself and snuggled into his arms. "That's good news. In the meantime, we should talk about who and how?"
"You don't want to wait for the cops?"
"I don't think we can afford to. I think the motive is Hamish and his trust fund."
She moved to the chair across from his. Thomas raised his eyebrows and sat back. "To control the baby is to control the money?"
"David changed his will today, but the courts are unpredictable and there have been two murders in this family. I think we should make a list of who has drugs and who had opportunity."
Anne, restless when she was thinking, prowled the room, stopping to check the storm—still snowing—before coming back to the fire. She shivered and drew a soft cashmere blanket around her shoulders.
"Who heads the list?" Thomas said.
"Brad and Andrea, one or both. She has a pharmacopeia of drugs and several that would do the job."
"What about opportunity?"
"I'm trying to remember that dinner before Vanessa died. If she was poisoned, and I think she was, someone must have slipped drugs into her wine or her coffee."
"Do you remember who filled her glass or brought her coffee?"
Anne took paper from the desk between the windows, dropped back into her chair, and propped a book on her knee. She listed the names of all the others, starting with Brad and Andrea. A second column she devoted to known access to drugs. "Several people, including me."
"What about motive for killing Vanessa?"
"With her out of the way, are the courts less likely to favour David, a single man, over say the grandmother and uncle or the aunt and her husband? I'm going to make a chart."
"Brad, Andrea, Eloise, Trevor, and Carmel all had access to narcotics."
"How do you figure Trevor and Carmel?"
"He's a vet. If he has his bag, he'll have something with him to tranquillize an animal. Powerful sedation."
"And Eloise?"
"Tylenol threes for migraine."
"What about Mike?"
She looked at him and shook her head. "I have no idea. You've been working with him. Do you think he's a killer."
"I don't think so."
"Beth and Kevin?"
"Normalcy personified. I haven't heard anything about them wanting kids, or needing money, or hating Vanessa, or anything like that."
>
"Who hated Vanessa?"
"Brad, Andrea, Eloise."
"Who had opportunity to poison David?"
"Again, me. I made the coffee and brought it in. Trevor handed it around, and someone else brought out the cognac. I forget who."
"Likely Brad."
She nodded her head. Brad was always bringing drinks to people, especially Andrea. "Possibly. I don't think Eloise would poison him and I don't think she had opportunity anyway."
Anne drew another column, and headed it motive.
“Where are we?" Thomas said.
"Motive. Hamish for Brad, Andrea, Trevor and Carmel. Hatred for Vanessa or wanting David for Eloise. Nil known for Mike, Beth or Kevin."
"So nothing definitive?"
"I think we can eliminate Eloise, and I don't see what Mike had to gain."
"True and he's been helping to get to the police."
Anne leaned back in her chair and sighed. "I hope they get here soon."
"When the weather breaks. I have to go back down. We're running out of wood."
"I'll be down to see about food, more food."
Outside Anne and Thomas's room, the killer turned the doorknob and edged it ajar. He listened. That woman was getting too close and she was a doctor. People told her things, thinking it was safe. It wasn't. She'd have to go. Lots of doctors committed suicide. She'd have to.
He returned to his room and his stash of narcotics. She was a small woman; it wouldn't take much to sedate her and then he would take her into the bush.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Thomas dropped his pile of split wood on the floor and shucked off his parka. He was stacking the logs in a basket by the wood stove when the door to the kitchen from the stairs opened, and Kevin bounded in.
"Hi, I wondered if you needed any help?"
"Sure. Can you stack in the porch while I finish these?"
Afterwards, they sat at the table over cups of coffee.
"How's the investigation going?" Kevin asked.
That's a first for him, Thomas thought. Hadn't been interested before.
"Not so well. It's hard to narrow down the list."
"Motive?"
"Almost everyone."
"We don't. I want to get my wife out of here and away from her crazy family."
"Brad or Andrea?"
"Both. That stunt she pulled and his getting her booze whenever she wants it. And now she's sick, maybe dying, and Beth is full of guilt, even though her mother never loved her."
That was odd. Why tell him that? They weren't buddies.
"What's the problem with the mother?"
"Beth won't have kids and won't try to adopt Hamish. Andrea seems to think that any connection with Karen will be good enough for the courts."
"You don't want kids?"
"Not right now."
What did that mean? They couldn't or wouldn't?
"Anne's worried about Andrea."
"Yeah. She shouldn't have come here. None of us should have, especially Trevor and Carmel. That poor woman has been sick for years."
"You know them well?"
"Not so well, but everyone who's ever been around them knows that."
"You live in New York City?"
"Yeah, and that's something else that gets up Andrea's nose. She thinks we should work in Toronto."
"So you're closer to her? Most mothers would want that, wouldn't they."
"The only reason she wants us there is so we are in the correct jurisdiction to adopt Hamish."
"She sounds obsessed."
Kevin raised a single eyebrow at him and snorted. "What gave you that idea? The plunge into the ice storm with the baby? She's a drunk and a fool. I'm going to keep Beth away from her."
"Big trust fund."
Kevin reared back and anger flashed across his face. "What's that supposed to mean? We don't need a baby's money. We manage on our incomes fine. I'm not saying we'll stay in the US forever, but for now, it suits us and a baby isn't in our plans."
So much for that, Thomas thought. If he was telling the truth.
"You didn't say if you made any progress with the radio?" Kevin said.
"Yeah, we reached the OPP. They're coming when it clears."
"Did you tell them about the downed wire."
"Yes."
"Good. Shouldn't be long now, then?"
"No."
Relief flooded Kevin's face. He wasn't very old, Thomas thought. Maybe 30 or so. They had time for kids and other plans. "Can't be too soon for me. Let me know if you need any help later."
"I'll do that."
Kevin clambered up the back stairs, passing David on his way into the kitchen.
David swung into a seat at the table, poured a cup from the carafe and cocked his head towards the stairs. "What was that about?"
"He wanted to know the state of the investigation. Apparently, Andrea and Beth don't get along because Andrea wants her to try to adopt Hamish and they don't want kids, at least not now."
David shook his head and his lips drew into a long hard line. Besieged, angry, and fed up, Thomas thought. A lot of jolts this weekend.
"That woman will try anything to get Hamish."
"And Brad to get the money? Including murder?"
David drew his brows together and frowned. "I wouldn't go that far, but when this is over, they're not getting access if I can stop it."
Better change the subject, Thomas thought. He was getting agitated and there was work to be done. "We're almost out of wood in the shed. What say we try to find some deadfall in the forest?"
David pushed away from the table and stood up. "Sure."
They suited up in snowmobile gear and took snowshoes from the hooks by the mudroom door. Before they left, Anne came into the kitchen, tense lines around her eyes betraying her worry. Again, too much on her, Thomas thought.
"Are you looking for Mike?" Anne asked.
Thomas shook his head. "No, we're going to look for deadfall. The wood supply is almost out and we need that before we can worry about where he might have gone or why," said Thomas.
"What about Mike?" said David.
"Took off. Remember last time, he arrived suddenly. Maybe it's his way?"
"To leave without saying anything? I doubt that. He usually tells me when he's going and why would he go anyway? He knows it's not safe in the bush," said David.
"We'll look for signs," Thomas said and followed David out the door.
Their snowshoes carried them over the fresh snow to the forest beyond.
"We want old trees, not growing ones brought down by the storm," said Thomas.
They entered a fantasy landscape, a foreign planet of misshapen trees humbled by ice that transformed them into statues of monks, clothed in green and white. Silence. No birds, no forest creatures startled into flight. And then an explosion of sound as a forest giant fell, toppled by its burden.
"It will take a while for the forest to recover," said Thomas.
"The bush has been through worse. A fire gutted this area in the last century and logging took the old growth before that. It will survive."
"I hope we will too."
"They know we're here now."
"The killer knows they're coming, so whatever the long game, it's got to happen soon."
"You think there's a plan."
"Sure."
Hillocks of snow defined locations where dead trees might be found, but too often all they found was a boulder or bush. But they worked steadily for an hour, releasing deadfall from the ice, and piling it on the sled.
On the way back, Thomas spotted a dark shape on the ground, a few yards distant from the path they were following. "You see that," he said.
"Where?"
"There to the left," he said, pointing.
David veered off the path and bounded over to the spot. "Get over here, Tom. It's Mike."
David knelt beside the body and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Blood, lightly covered with snow, stained the area around t
he body pink. "He's been here a while."
"No hope," said Thomas, squatting beside David.
"None."
"Why kill Mike?"
"Why kill anyone. Is the radio working?"
"At times. We'll leave him here but we better blaze the trail on the way back."
David axed a raw wound in the tree that guarded the body and they hauled the wood and their heavy news back to the lodge.
The kitchen, warm from the stove and fragrant with the aroma of baking bread, welcomed David and Thomas when they came through the back door.
Anne chopped vegetables at the sink, piling the results on a platter beside her. "You found more wood. Terrific," she said.
"That's not all we found. You better sit down."
Thomas's dark eyes, full of worry, met hers. What could have gone wrong, she wondered. What have they found? She dried her hands and folded them on the table.
Thomas and David took chairs opposite. "Mike has been killed," Thomas said.
Anne fell back in her chair. A wave of cold washed over her and she shuddered. An accident. Surely it was an accident. "No. Oh, no. Did he touch a live wire out there or did a tree fall on him?"
"No. It wasn't an accident."
She gripped her hands together until the knuckles turned white. She tried to ask the next question but her throat closed and she struggled for breath.
Thomas swung around the table and put his arms around her. "Don't struggle. Take a shallow breath," he said, as she had taught him to say when the panic hit her.
In a moment she had control. She reached up a hand to pat his. "Thank you. How did he die?"
"Stabbed, likely. We didn't disturb the body but there was blood, a lot of it, on the snow and under the most recent fall."
"He died where you found him?"
Tears stung her eyes and she covered them with her hands. She had liked Mike, liked his casual approach to life.
"Yes."
"Sedated and taken there or overwhelmed by someone bigger and stronger."
"No one here is like that. He must have been sedated. A woman couldn't have shifted him."
"No."
"That only leaves three."
The Ice Storm Murders Page 16