The Winter Road

by Caron Todd

  “Okay. Thanks, Mom. Do you mind if I keep looking?”

  Julia gave her a fierce, one-second glare.

  “All right. Sorry. No more poking around in your stuff.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “YOU HAVE LOTS OF PHOTOS from Three Creeks’ early days, from both sides of your family, don’t you? You can tell Matthew a story to go with each picture?”

  “In other words,” Martin said, “bore him to death, but keep him here as long as I can.”

  “But don’t let him know it was my idea.”

  “No problem.” He looked at her curiously. “What’s going on, Em? You having your naughty adolescent years at last?”

  “I’m not doing anything naughty. Why would you think that?”

  “Let’s just say you couldn’t stand beside an empty cookie jar right now and convince me you didn’t take any. Sometime you’ll tell me what’s up?”

  “Sometime,” she agreed.

  “Well, I’ll roll out the invitation. Too bad there’s no time to get to an engraver. An Evening of Coffee and Local History With Martin Robb. Hey. It sounds good, doesn’t it? Maybe I’ve been in the wrong business all this time.”

  EMILY DIDN’T WANT anyone to see her car parked and waiting, so she walked from home, crossing the creek and going through woods and grain fields to the meadow at the end of Daniel’s street. Her only plan was to try to find out what Matthew was doing and what was behind a door it made no sense to lock.

  She hung back until the Accord pulled out of the driveway, and then, with watching neighbors in mind, strolled the rest of the way to the house. Not too slowly, or someone would come outside to visit. Not fast, either. Rushing down the road would be newsworthy.

  The key from the desk fit the side door. She stepped inside, pulling it shut behind her, and turned the dead bolt.

  So far, so good.

  She didn’t think exterior and interior locks were the same, but just in case, she went carefully down the stairs to see if the key would also work on the furnace room door.

  Not even nearly.

  Back up to the desk, then. She checked every inch of it this time. In every book, box and container, under every sheet of paper. She pulled the drawers right out to look at the bottoms and inside the crevices where they fit. Then behind the pictures on the walls, on the undersides of furniture, in the toilet tank and medicine chest, in vases, in cups in the kitchen cupboards. She searched the downstairs bedroom, then the two rooms upstairs.

  Nothing. No more keys. Nothing to show Matthew was exactly who he said he was, and nothing to show he wasn’t. She stood, hot, thirsty, and out of ideas. Did she have fifteen more minutes or the entire evening? She looked out the living room window. No Accord yet.

  All right. Back to the basement. Maybe a key was hidden closer to the door it opened—she should have thought of that sooner. It could be taped under any of the metal shelves, or in the hollow angle of the units’ frames.

  No such luck.

  She began to check the boxes of equipment. There were too many, and too many bits of machinery with compartments to open and unscrew.

  In one box she found a set of screwdrivers. She looked at the furnace room door. No visible hinges to pry off. No visible screws on the knob. Her frustration was growing. She knelt in front of the lock, tempted to bash it until it or the screwdriver broke.

  “Daniel?”

  He wasn’t there, he wouldn’t be there after all this time. Matthew wouldn’t be keeping him prisoner.

  With the thought of Daniel and prisoners in her mind, a memory clicked into place. Daniel owned lock-picking tools. If she could find those—

  “Here we are again.” The voice came from the stairs. “You should have let me know you were coming. I would have made sure to be home.”

  Slowly, Emily got to her feet. Matthew stood on the top step. She hadn’t heard a thing. Not the car. Not the door. He pulled something out of his pocket.

  “Looking for these?”

  Keys on a chain.

  “You’re not cut out for this, Emily.”

  No, she had noticed that, too. Whatever was going on, she wasn’t cut out for it.

  “I knew you took the house key from the drawer, so your cousin’s sudden interest in my family history project wasn’t very convincing.”

  He wasn’t just back early. He hadn’t fallen for the plan at all.

  “I didn’t think you’d notice the key was gone. It was so far back in the drawer.”

  Calm, flat conversation. As if they were both trying to figure out what should happen next.

  “Would you like to see inside the furnace room?”

  She shouldn’t. There was a lock, there were bars on the windows, shutters so no one could see in. As stuck as she was now, she would be even more stuck in there. In there was the whole point of the exercise, though.

  He started down the stairs.

  “Matthew—”

  He stopped.

  “You’re scaring me.”

  She saw a flash of anger. He reached the bottom of the stairs, unlocked the door, pushed it open. “Go ahead.”

  She went as far as the doorway. It was a spotless furnace and laundry room, brightly lit, walls painted white, gleaming tile floor. To one side was a cot and a suitcase.

  Matthew reached past her to turn on a light over the right side of the room. She saw a wood-and-glass partition, and behind the glass, a desk. On it, a large LCD monitor and a telephone. Thin cupboards, no more than three inches deep, covered most of one wall.

  He used another key to open a door in the partition. “Help yourself.”

  Another lock between her and the outside.

  The computer was turned off. Was it Daniel’s, or had Matthew brought it? The desk was more like a table, with no drawers to look in. She wondered if Daniel had made the cupboards. They were very simple, plywood painted white.

  She tried one of the doors. Finally, something that wasn’t locked. When it opened she saw why the cupboards didn’t need to be deep. Inside, instead of shelves, there was a corkboard covered with neat rows of maps and yellowed newspaper clippings.

  The center doors concealed a whiteboard, a large one, at least six feet across. A horizontal line was drawn from one side to the other. Shorter, vertical marks and handwriting divided it. A timeline.

  Along the bottom of the board squares were marked off. She recognized Daniel’s handwriting in the first several spaces, notes like Frank arranges job with Northern Transport, G. invests in new combine, tractor.

  Then a new hand took over. Value of books, No travel, Minimal Upkeep, No hired man—money an issue? Envy?—Rich b-in-l, cousins who travel. $$$ linen, china, silverware. Printed in large letters underneath were the words, SO WHAT?

  Numb, she opened another door. There was her mother, through the kitchen window of their house, reading.

  There was Hamish.

  And there she was. The day of the picnic, picking raspberries.

  SHE LOOKED STRICKEN. He could see her effort to concentrate, to believe her eyes. He wanted to go to her and explain, tell her that he would look after everything, that it would be all right. It wouldn’t be all right, though. What he was doing would hurt her. Had hurt her already.

  “Who took the pictures of my mother and me?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Background. It’s routine.”

  Her mouth tightened. She began to look at the other photographs on the corkboard, staring for a long time at one of her father and Daniel with their arms over each other’s shoulders in front of the Legion Hall.

  “They were friends,” she said.

  “That’s what I’m told.”

  “Why are they up here?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t know if she was ready to hear.

  “More background?” She moved to the picture of Frank Carruthers smiling beside his deHavilland Beaver. “That’s the pilot Uncle Will was talking about at the barbecue.”<
br />
  “Yes.”

  “I saw his picture on the microfilm.” She shot him a look. “I’ve been following you, Matthew. Watching you.”

  She went back to the center panel and began to read the timeline drawn on the whiteboard.

  March 8, 1979—Moore leaves transport route. Reports equipment problems.

  March 9—Gold bars trucked from Snow Lake mine to Flin Flon airport.

  March 10—0900hrs. Carruthers takes off.

  1000hrs. Flin Flon airport no contact.

  1200hrs. Winnipeg airport no contact

  March 13—Moore returns three days late.

  She stopped reading. With disbelief and the beginnings of anger she said, “You think my family had something to do with this?”

  “I’ve been looking into the possibility.”

  Her voice rose. “You’ve been looking into the possibility?”

  For a second he thought she wanted to punch him. He wouldn’t have believed she could get this angry.

  She hammered the whiteboard with one finger. “Moore leaves transport route, returns late? Who are you saying this is? Some relative?”

  “It was your father.”

  She blinked at him for a few seconds, taking that in. “My father didn’t have a route to leave. You’ve got him mixed up with someone else, someone with a similar name. He was self-employed, a farmer, you know that.”

  Matthew didn’t argue the point.

  “This is nuts. You’re trying to connect my father to that missing gold. Handy for you that he’s dead and can’t defend himself. Who are you, anyway? Does Daniel know you’re here? Have you even talked to him?”

  “Of course. He asked me to come, Emily.”

  She nodded. “Right. Because he’s been jotting down these friendly little observations, too.” Her voice was getting louder, tighter. “G. bought a combine. That’s sure nefarious. Farmers never buy combines.” The corner of her mouth trembled. She put a hand to her face to stop it. “You’re what, a cop?”

  “Not anymore. I’m a private investigator.”

  “Not, as you claimed and discussed in detail, an insurance assessor.”

  “I contract with insurance companies. Also museums, art galleries, mining companies. Anyone who has something of value to recover.”

  “Anyone? So a gold thief could hire your services?”

  “No. Not a gold thief.”

  “I see. Because you have standards.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “And where is my dear friend Daniel? Obviously not with his poor sick aunt.”

  “He’s up north checking out the Carruthers end.”

  “The Carruthers end. You’ve divided the job. He’s doing the Carruthers end and you’re romancing your dead suspect’s daughter. Lovely.”

  “Emily, that’s not it.”

  She brushed past him and out the door.

  EMILY SAT on the steps. Hamish lumbered over from the hedge to put his head on her knee.

  “Hey, you sweet old thing.” She rubbed behind his ears the way he liked. “Fine old man.” The brown eyes looked at her with all the understanding in the world. How did dogs do that? Look so wise and sad and compassionate. She slipped down to the next step to be closer to him.

  She couldn’t bring herself to ask her mother if her father had ever worked up north. Even if he had, it didn’t mean he’d done anything wrong.

  She didn’t want to think about Matthew. Couldn’t stop, though. Somewhere along the line while trying to decide if she liked him she had fallen in love with him. If she could call it that. But who had she fallen in love with? A warm-underneath-it-all, make-no-trouble-for-anyone insurance evaluator or a downright scary private investigator who lied through his teeth with no trouble at all?

  Her chest was tight with anger. She hoped it was anger and not undiagnosed heart trouble. Because it sure felt like heart trouble. It hurt.

  She took a deep breath. Not to relax, to get oxygen.

  It looked as if he really was called Matthew Rutherford. At least he hadn’t kidnapped Daniel and locked him in the furnace room.

  She swore. She never swore, but she couldn’t help it—tears were coming out of her eyes. She never cried. Nearly never. Hated it.

  The dog’s wet nose touched her cheek.

  “Shh. It’s all right, boy.”

  Of course, she was going on the assumption that he’d told her the truth in the basement. Why on earth did she believe him so easily? She was the most gullible person in the world. Hamish was less gullible.

  Matthew could say anything. He wasn’t very likely to tell her, “Well, as a matter of fact, I’m a crook and a con artist and I killed your dear friend Daniel and took over his house. And of course, now that I’ve told you this, you’re free to go.”

  Her mother’s voice came from behind her, through the screen door. “Are you all right?”

  That was the end of Emily’s self-control. She put her head in her hands and wept.

  It felt like a minute, but it must have been longer. She heard an engine and looked up to see a blurry truck rumbling along the road followed by a dust cloud. It turned into the driveway and rolled slowly to the house.

  Susannah awkwardly climbed down from the cab. “Oh, dear.” Leaning back, tummy out, she felt her way down to the step and sat beside Emily. “Your mom called and told me to come. ‘Right now,’ she said, all bossy. What’s wrong, Em?”

  Susannah’s arm came around her shoulders. It felt wonderful because it was Susannah and because she knew, by proxy, it was her mother, too.

  “Matthew did something, didn’t he? Only men can have this effect. Cry all you like, and after that we’ll send Alex to box his ears.”

  Emily choked on a laugh and then had to lean over her folded arms to contain the ache in her stomach. This couldn’t be hugged or laughed away. Not even boxed away. Matthew was a liar, a cheat, and a sneak, and he thought her father was a thief.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  IT WAS AMAZING what a fitful night’s sleep could do. By morning, a jumble of information and feelings had settled into a pattern that was at least clear enough to examine.

  Matthew, she thought, was probably really Matthew, not some unknown crook. And every sneaky thing he had done had hurt him, too. That pleased her and gave him a degree of absolution. All she had to do now was prove he was wrong about her father.

  She washed and dressed and headed to town. He let her in as soon as she rang the bell.

  “I have some questions.”

  “Good. I’ll do my best to answer them.”

  She went past him, down the stairs to the basement, where she waited for him to unlock the furnace room door. She tried not to notice his look of concern.

  “How’s your leg?”

  “How’s your conscience?”

  “Hurting,” he said, with a wry look. She tried not to notice that, either. The tired graininess he’d had when they first met was back. If she didn’t watch out she was going to start feeling sorry for him.

  They went through to the partitioned area, and he unlocked that door, too. Emily sat in the chair by the desk. “This is quite an office. It seems more advanced than Daniel would need.” Calm and logical. That was the plan.

  “It surprised me, too.”

  “I didn’t think he had a computer. I’ve seen him use a portable typewriter at the kitchen table.”

  “He just pretends to be low-tech.”

  “Neither of you has been entirely honest.”

  “Because of the job.”

  “Maybe you could start by giving me a quick review of this whole thing. The plane disappearing. I didn’t really listen to the talk at the barbecue.”

  The room only had one chair. Matthew leaned against the partition. “Twenty-six years ago fifteen bars of gold on their way from a Manitoba mine to a refinery disappeared. Either the plane crashed or someone who prevented it from reaching its destination stole the gold. The company that insured it is my client.”r />
  “Someone?”

  “Theoretically it could have been hijacked, but the evidence points to Frank Carruthers.”

  “Fifteen bars doesn’t sound like a lot.”

  “I’ve heard of smaller thefts and bigger ones. A while after Carruthers disappeared twenty-six million pounds’ worth of gold was stolen in England. I don’t know offhand what that is in dollars. The thieves melted it down, added pennies and poured new bricks.”

  “They can do that?”

  “They brought in people with the necessary skills, bought a used smelter from a foundry. The copper in the pennies disguised the gold. The bars were no longer the same quality so they were impossible to identify.”

  She swiveled the chair back and forth, thinking. “And the fifteen bars. What were they worth?”

  “That depends what the market’s doing at the time of sale. They weighed a thousand ounces each—that’s over sixty pounds. Pure bullion is ninety-nine point nine percent gold. These were eighty-five percent. The refinery they were bound for would have removed the silver and copper that was still in the mix. So, fifteen bars that each hold about eight hundred and fifty ounces of gold…” He looked toward the ceiling and closed one eye while he did the math. “If we found it today it would be worth about five and a half million dollars.”

  Enough to solve a few problems, Emily thought.

  “But in January of 1980 when gold spiked to eight hundred and fifty dollars an ounce it would have been worth nearly eleven million.”

  Eleven million. Emily could feel barriers going up in her mind. There was too much to think about all at once.

  Of all the questions she could ask, one surfaced. “Why do you have Ontario plates on a car rented in Manitoba?”

  “Our cover story was that I drove from home to take care of the house, so I arranged the plates to back that up.”

  “Home?”

  “I told you, didn’t I? I live in Ottawa.”

  “I looked you up. Couldn’t find a phone number or address or anyone who knew you.”