by Caron Todd
“I’d like to see it.”
He decided to lead up to his main evidence gradually. That way she’d see it coming. “The plane was found with no human remains and no cargo. I’m supposing Frank either died from injuries or exposure and someone who came across the wreckage buried him and took the gold, or he was able to leave the site with the gold himself. If so, where did he go, and how? He couldn’t just hike out. The gold would be too heavy. It suggests a person waiting on the ground with a method of transportation.”
“Maybe someone with a dogsled.”
“It’s possible.”
“You don’t need to say it grudgingly. It’s a realistic suggestion.”
“According to the records of the transport company your father worked for, he took a tractor and sled off the main road to make a delivery around the time of Carruthers’ flight. That’s unusual. It’s dangerous for a cat train to operate with only the driver, but a lot of people were out with the flu and he volunteered. He was away three days longer than expected. He told them the tractor needed repairs.”
“Did they believe him?”
“Seems like they did.”
“Can’t you accept their judgment?”
“You know how fast a cat train goes? Without its usual load, maybe eight miles an hour. A person would need a couple of days to go any distance.”
She looked at him the way she often did, as if she had no idea who on earth he was. Sometimes he’d got the feeling she enjoyed the uncertainty. Definitely not now.
He reached into his briefcase and brought out a long rectangle of folded paper. He set it in front of her. “This is a copy of the deed to your farm.” He turned the paper over to show her the back.
“Notice in exercising power of sale,” she read. “My dad was going to sell the farm?”
“Not your dad. The bank. They had begun to fore-close on your parents’ mortgage.”
Emily stared at the paper, shaking her head. “My parents wouldn’t have had a mortgage. The house and land were a wedding gift.”
“Yes, but then your father took out a mortgage on the property. A two-hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage.”
“He wouldn’t have! He wouldn’t risk it.”
“He needed money to buy more land and larger equipment and chemicals if he was going to stay competitive. Your relatives must have talked about the seventies. The family farm was on the way out.”
Emily nodded. “A lot of people lost their land.”
“Your parents weren’t immune.”
“All right. So he borrowed money.”
“Look underneath the notice.”
“Disposed of by discharge,” she read. “What does that mean?”
“That your father paid off the bank loan.”
“Paid off two hundr—” She stopped.
“He did it over a three-year period, starting the year the gold disappeared. I suppose he could have had three astonishingly good crops in a row.”
Emily didn’t say anything. He could see what she was thinking—that crops never got that good. She looked shaken, but she held her position.
“My father wasn’t a criminal, Matthew. He was a wonderful man who took my mother out of herself for a few years. He didn’t do this. I know it. And you’re right, I hardly remember him, but I know it without remembering him.”
If determination could change history she would have done it by now. “I admire your faith in your dad, Emily. It’s not my job to hurt him, or you and your mom. It’s my job to find the gold.”
“That’s all?”
He nodded before realizing there was more. For the past couple of weeks his mind had been on fifteen gold bars, his uncle and Emily. On keeping them all safe. But if the gold was gone, sold, his job moved to the next step.
“To find it, or to recover the insurance company’s losses. That means if the gold has been converted to assets, I seize the assets.”
It didn’t sink in right away. “You’d take the farm?”
“Anything bought with the gold.”
“You’d take the farm.”
“You don’t see a problem using the proceeds of a crime to buy things?”
“No proceeds of any crime bought my farm! That land has belonged to my family since the 1880s.” She gripped the arms of the chair and pushed herself up, then walked stiffly to the door and out.
She wouldn’t forgive him. That was clear. He hadn’t realized before this how much he’d been hoping she would.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HALF AN HOUR before Daniel was expected Matthew and Emily settled in at a table for four in a corner of the motel’s coffee shop.
“He won’t come early,” Matthew said. Daniel had told him he wanted to check one more thing on his way from Snow Lake to Cranberry-Portage. “We might as well get breakfast.”
They both ordered the special—two eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast and coffee. Restaurants in the area were too far apart to risk a light meal.
“Did you sleep?”
“After a while. Matthew?” She stopped while a waitress put their plates in front of them, and then continued, with frequent pauses, as if it was hard to find the right words for what she wanted to say. “I was thinking things over last night. If there’s proof, real proof, that my father…that he paid off the mortgage with money he got…illegally—and I’m still confident that he didn’t, but if he did—would the people you’re working for take payment? Rather than the farm. From me, over time?”
He’d make sure they would. “We can work it out, Emily.”
“Because losing the land— The first William bought it all those years ago, thinking of the future. No one in my family has ever—”
“I understand.” If he had to, he’d pay the debt himself.
“Okay, good. Thanks.” She smiled weakly. “It would take me a while to pay back two hundred thousand. My grandchildren would be paying the insurers’ grandchildren.”
Eight o’clock came and went with no sign of Daniel. Matthew began to watch the door.
“Are your phone batteries working, Matthew?”
He nodded. “And the phone is switched on.”
“Maybe he slept in. Or had car trouble.”
“Cellular service isn’t widespread up here.” If Daniel couldn’t call, it meant he wasn’t near town.
Matthew got up, reaching for his wallet. Their waitress met him at the cash register. “Did anyone call this morning wanting to leave a message for a customer? It would have been Daniel, for Matt.”
“Can’t remember anything like that.”
He thanked her and led the way outside. “I want you to stay in my room, Emily, in case he gets in touch using a land line. I’m going to look around town, make some calls, check in with the police. I won’t be more than a hour.”
HE WAS TWO. The whole extra hour Emily paced the motel room checking out the window every time she heard a car in the parking lot. Finally he came through the door, his face set, more with alertness than tension.
“Daniel didn’t call,” she said right away.
Matthew nodded, as if that was what he’d expected. “He stopped here when he first came north, contacted the local RCMP and tried to pump them for information, then left.”
“Pump them? I thought he was working with them?”
“That’s what he told me. I would have been up here so fast if I’d known he was on his own—”
“So the police couldn’t help?”
“Not much.” He picked up his briefcase and overnight bag and made a final check of the room as he talked. “They said they’d ask Highways and Natural Resources staff and lodge owners in the area to keep their eyes open. If there’s no word from him by the end of the day, they’ll start a search.” He glanced at her, then away, opening the door. “I want you to go back to Three Creeks. It isn’t safe, Emily. I can’t in good conscience take you further.”
“I was worried about bears. That’s not what you mean.”
“I’m talking
about serious criminals, Emily. Not people like Frank or your dad.”
Odd to be pleased at that. He didn’t think her father was a serious criminal. Just a regular one. “What do we do?”
“I put you on a southbound bus.”
“And I get off. Then what?”
“Remember in Swan River you said you’d listen to me?”
“If you said ‘run’ or ‘duck.’ You’re only saying you’re worried.”
He gave her one of his intense stares. She could see when he reached a decision. “We’ll go to Snow Lake. Daniel stayed there for about a week. He wanted to talk to a trapper who knew Carruthers. Turned out the man died a few years ago, but Daniel spoke to his son. I’ve arranged to meet him.”
THE ROAD TO Snow Lake went west through Grass River Park, past lakes and peat bogs and a dense evergreen forest. Matthew was more concerned than he wanted to admit to Emily. If Daniel was ready to meet he must have found something. Not the gold. He’d sounded too calm for that. But he’d found something, and then he’d disappeared.
An hour into the drive a small car zoomed past them.
“I think that’s Mrs. Marsh’s honeymoon couple.”
Emily said, “Churchill here they come.”
“Or not.”
“Even if they only get as far as Thompson, they should have a good time. There’s supposed to be some beautiful falls near there. And bald eagle nesting grounds.”
A few miles outside Snow Lake there was a break in the trees. Water sparkled, looking cold and clear. Rough cabins wound along the lakeshore. A larger building, a combination office and restaurant, stood closer to the road.
Matthew parked near the office door and went inside. A middle-aged woman looked up from doing paperwork. A name plate on the desk said, Doreen Wells, Proprietor.
“You must be Matt. Daniel not with you?” She handed him a key. “It’s cabin four.”
Not only was it the right place, but he was expected. “How long is it since you saw my uncle?”
“Just yesterday. He left bright and early and said he’d be heading back with you in tow. You didn’t run into him?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, he’ll be along. What’s he up to, anyway? Prospecting?” She kept talking, as if she didn’t expect an answer. “He’s been going out every day on his own, sometimes by car, sometimes by boat, stays away till dark. Friendly as can be, but after a week I still don’t know what he’s doing.”
“That sounds like my uncle.”
“He’s not fishing, that’s for sure. Nobody’s luck could be that bad! Even my three-year-old granddaughter’s been throwing them back. So I figure prospecting.”
She looked at Matthew curiously, giving him a chance to tell her if she was right. He signed the register, thanked her for the key and went to find Emily.
She was on the dock. She didn’t turn when he stepped onto it, making it bob on the water.
“It’s so peaceful here,” she said.
It seemed that way. The water was calm enough to reflect the evergreens around the lake. A duck with a reddish-brown head swam near shore. There were more further out, a mother followed by fuzzy babies, all moving together, changing direction at once, like a single, larger bird.
“Don’t get too relaxed. Until we know where Daniel is I want you to assume you can’t trust anyone. We’re in here blind, Emily.”
“You think someone was watching Daniel?”
“Could be. So let’s have a look at the cabin and then set things in motion.”
“You mean get someone watching us.”
“Want to go home?”
She shook her head, but he thought she looked frightened. He should have parked her at the Cranberry-Portage detachment, asked them to lock her up if she wouldn’t stay put. However much she wanted to help her father—needed to—she didn’t really understand the stakes. To her, it was simple. Nice people populated a pleasant world. If someone was hurt, you helped. If they were lost, you found them. It was a mind-set he barely remembered.
They carried their bags through the screened porch and into the main room, a sitting-cooking-eating area that stretched across the front of the cabin. Two smaller rooms at the back had just enough space for a set of bunk beds each. Between the bedrooms was a tiny bathroom.
Matthew took a quick look around. He was disappointed to find Daniel hadn’t left anything behind. Like a map, marking where he’d gone. That would have been nice.
Emily was checking the cupboards. “There’s a teapot.”
“You can stay and make a hot cup, if you like.”
“I’m going with you.”
THE COFFEE SHOP adjoined a gas station off the main road into town. Like Doreen Wells, Ross McNabb must have noticed the Rutherford family resemblance. He waved as soon as Matthew and Emily walked in, and called to a waitress to bring two more cups of coffee.
While she poured, a man a few tables away called to her.
“Denise! Hey, good news. I was up in the fire tower last night, saw this little curl of smoke out by the lake. Darned if it didn’t come from MacGregor’s chimney.”
She glanced up from Emily’s cup, the pot angled so it wouldn’t drip. “Don’t you start bugging me about MacGregor.”
“Poor guy couldn’t stay away.”
“You saw somebody’s campfire. He never comes south this early.” The waitress paid attention to the coffee again, muttering, “The man must be ninety-three.”
Ross McNabb gave a snort. “Try sixty.”
“Uh-huh, and it’s a young sixty. I know. Like I’d live in a shack in the bush skinning rabbits all winter. I don’t think so.”
McNabb grinned, watching her stalk away. “Nobody avoids the bush like that woman. Don’t know why she stays.” He smiled again. “Unless it’s for MacGregor. It’s a pretty spot out there, too, with a nice little lake where she could rub her laundry on the rocks—”
Matthew decided he’d given the man enough time to get comfortable. “Anywhere near your dad’s old trapline?”
“My dad’s was further north.” McNabb changed direction easily, and after a few more questions from Matthew to set the route he seemed happy to talk about his father and Frank Carruthers.
“They had plans, those two.” He shook his head, traces of affection and frustration still apparent. “One day it would be a restaurant serving caribou at an abandoned Hudson’s Bay Company post. Another day, a fly-in lodge. That was their favorite idea. Frank the pilot, Dad the guide.”
“It sounds realistic, given their skills.”
“But not given their bank accounts.”
“Did they seem serious about it? Or was it just talk?”
“I was a kid. Who knows? It’s the kind of thing people like to dream about, that’s for sure.”
“Especially a couple of old friends over a beer.”
“Yeah, exactly. They were always at it. And they had other ideas. Northern Lights tours. Taking people to Churchill by snowmobile, tucked under buffalo robes—they went as far as looking at machines for that one. Took me with ’em.” He smiled briefly. “I went on a lot of rides that day. There was this old Bombardier they really liked. You know those big old things, curved roof, closed in?”
“Little round windows like a ship?”
“That’s it. They carry ten or twelve people. It was a museum piece even then. My dad told me later Frank promised to give him one, but he never did.”
“Give him one? A present, you mean?”
“He liked talking big like that.” McNabb’s expression changed. “Once he saw me drooling over this ten-speed in the Eaton’s catalog and told me he’d get it for me.”
“Not a nice thing to say to a kid if you don’t mean it.”
“He meant it. For five minutes. Forgot it after six.”
“What did your mother think of him?”
McNabb shrugged. “As long as my dad was having fun she was happy. Oh! Then there was the history brain wave. Retracing the fur-traders
’ route along the Seal and Grass Rivers. They thought for sure city people, teachers and stuff, would go for that.”
“Most of their ideas sound workable.”
“Given enough money and drive. My dad and Frank, they weren’t like that.”
“Too easygoing?”
“If you’ve got customers, you’ve got timetables, rules.”
Having dreams, wanting money. That covered just about everybody. He couldn’t call it evidence. Of course, not everybody had access to gold and the opportunity to take it. Frank and Jock did. And so did Graham Moore.
“Your dad lived at his cabin in the bush all winter?”
“Mostly.”
“That wouldn’t have been an easy life. How did people get supplies in those days?”
“Some guys had dogsleds, others snowmobiles. The train would bring things in, leave ’em on the siding, and it was up to you to get it where it was going.”
“Cat trains, too?”
“Not so much. Least I don’t think so. Those were more for the big fishing and logging companies. Mines, too.”
“Did my uncle say anything about his plans this week?”
“He didn’t talk much, except for asking questions. He wanted to know where all the old mines were, cabins, ghost towns, airstrips. You get the picture. Does he figure Frank’s been holed up somewhere all this time? The gold wouldn’t be doing him much good then, would it? Anyway, somebody would have seen him.” Ross smiled. “Your uncle’s an energetic guy, isn’t he? I don’t know if I’d be able to keep up with him.”
TREE ROOTS FORMED natural steps down the hill to the lake, holding in the sandy soil. Through a band of birches Matthew could see water, and floatplanes tethered to a dock. Further down was a small one-story building with Frontier Air Service painted in block letters on one side.
The door was open, and an older man, maybe in his sixties, sat at a desk. He looked up from a clipboard when they approached.