Where the Ice Falls
Page 17
Dennis answered everything, ending with, “My mom is never depressed. After all the shit she’s put up with in life, things are finally going right for her now.”
After he promised to contact his mother’s best friend back in Ontario in case she knew of other friends nearby, Lacey disconnected.
“Sandy seems far too conscientious to wander off when she knows we’re expecting her. She could be stuck at Big Hill Springs. No cell coverage down there, as I recall.”
Dee busied herself with the coffee. “Didn’t she mention someone owed her money? Maybe she went to see them on the way and decided to stay when the weather turned.”
“Could be. If only we knew who, and where. I’ll check with the RCMP to see if any red Civics hit the ditch last night. If not, I’ll drive the route in the Lexus. It’ll take me a couple of hours there and back. What else did you have on today?”
“I wanted to reshoot the chalet pics this afternoon, minus the decorations. The outside ones were a bit dim, too. With the sun on all this fresh powder, though, it’ll be awesome. But I don’t like to leave Mom here by herself.”
“I’ll call Tom’s wife to see if she can stay with Loreena. I bet she’d like an excuse to escape her post-Christmas children.” And Lacey wanted solitude. Why hadn’t Sandy phoned from wherever she was stuck? There were acreages all along her route if her phone wasn’t working, and this morning’s temperature and visibility were fine for walking.
“Happy holidays,” she said when Tom answered. “Can I talk to Marie?”
Once the situation was explained, Marie said she’d come after lunch. If the nurse arrived meanwhile, she’d take herself and her book to the nearest coffee shop and sit blissfully reading for an uninterrupted hour.
Ten minutes later, Lacey was in the Lexus with a fresh mug of coffee. She headed north toward Cochrane. Everything was pure and clean this morning, blanketed in new powder. Off to the west, white peaks soared, brilliant in the morning sunlight. Highway 1 was heavy with ski buses bound for the Rockies’ famous winter playgrounds: Sunshine Village, Nakiska, Mount Norquay, Lake Louise. Next to them, Black Rock Bowl was little more than a backyard bunny hill.
No sign of any small red cars in the ditches so far. At the intersection of the range road, she slowed. A Taurus with snowboards strapped to its rack sped away from the gas station, its tail sliding into her lane. She veered automatically, felt the SUV’s tires bite the softer snow of the shoulder. The Taurus zipped across Highway 22, far too close to a farm truck’s grille, and kept going. Powder hounds, risking it all for a few extra minutes on the slopes.
The lone road into Big Hill Springs wasn’t plowed, but mounds along the sides showed it had been at one time. Now it was drifted over, higher in some places than the Civic’s front bumper. If Sandy was down in the park, she’d had a cold night. Lacey’s car had an emergency kit in it with all the necessities: candles, space blankets, protein and chocolate bars, drinking water. What it didn’t have was traction enough for snow this deep. They’d have to send a tow truck. If Sandy was there.
As Lacey rounded the next bend, the bare valley spread out ahead, with the Calgary skyline visible in the distance. Her phone made that peculiar ping telling her she’d lost signal. Trees flanked the spring that gave the park its name, the pines laden with snow and the aspens stark against the sky. The park’s car lot was a flat white field snowed up to the guardrails. No Civic there, and no Sandy, either.
Sunlight glinted off two older-model SUVs parked by the narrow concrete bridge. She turned around on the road and stopped beside them. When she stepped out, a hawk called overhead. Its shadow floated over the snow toward a group of picnic tables. A cluster of adults had cleaned the snow off one and set up a propane ring, with a battered black kettle just beginning to send out puffs of steam. Kids of various sizes scuttled around on neon plastic snowshoes, pushing each other into the drifts.
Lacey headed for the picnic table. “Have you guys been here a while? I’m looking for a friend of mine who might have been here earlier. An older woman driving a red Civic.”
A man with a walrus moustache shook his head. “No tire tracks when we came out. You’d never get a little car out that road, anyway. Too deep.”
The woman by the kettle said, “There was a red car here yesterday, before the storm. Tara and I saw it when we came in from skiing the valley.”
“What time was that?”
“It was just starting to snow, so …” She shrugged. “Maybe five-thirty?”
“Was a woman driving?”
“Couldn’t tell. It was over the bridge before we reached the parking lot.”
The timing fit. “Did you see which way it turned at the highway?”
“No, sorry. It was out of sight when we got there.” The kettle whistled. “If it was heading east, it would have had to be really moving to keep ahead of Tara. That woman drives like she’s in Grand Theft Auto.” Lacey thanked her and trudged back to the Lexus.
Getting out of the Springs was no worse than getting in. She pulled over at the first gas station on the outskirts of Airdrie and called Sandy’s son. “Dennis,” she said when he answered, “any news?”
“I left a message with Mom’s friend in Ontario, but she hasn’t called back. This really isn’t like Mom. My dad used to say she was flaky, but I’ve never seen it.”
“She mentioned last week that someone around here owed her money. Any idea who that could be?”
“No.” Dennis sighed. “If I hear from her, I’ll tell her to call you right away. You’ll do the same for me?”
“You bet.”
Lacey drove down Highway 2 with blinding winter sunshine flooding her windshield. A dozen vehicles still lined the ditches. Chewed-up snow in the median showed where many more had already been hauled away. She stopped to question a lone RM sheriff who was directing traffic.
“You guys pull a red Civic out of this mess?”
He sized her up from behind his aviator shades. “I’ll check.” While he leaned into his car, she watched the gawkers impede the speeders, laying mental bets on which was most likely to cause another pileup. The sheriff slid a finger down his clipboard. “No red Civic. You lost one?”
“It’s overdue. Single female driver, fifties, stocky with dark-blond curly hair — she left Airdrie during the storm yesterday and hasn’t turned up at her destination.”
“No single female drivers in the accident reports I saw. Want to file a report?”
“Not yet.”
“Your choice.” He lifted an orange flag and a stop sign and stepped to the roadside to make space for an emerging tow truck.
Lacey drove off as soon as the lane was clear. The sheriff’s question had given her ease for the first time since waking up that morning. However personally inconvenient it might be, Sandy’s absence wasn’t her problem alone. There was a whole state machinery to deal with a missing person, if she and Dennis chose to activate it.
She’d never met Sandy’s son, and she wondered if he might be lying to her about not knowing his mother’s plans. Could he have reasons of his own, to do with money or family secrets, for wanting to keep police out of it for a bit longer? People were funny about involving the police in their private affairs. They didn’t realize the cops were only interested in whatever was relevant to the immediate investigation, and didn’t care that you’d had a fight with your parent five years ago unless it gave you a motive for killing them now.
That last thought brought her back to Zoe’s collapse yesterday. It might have been, as Kai said, that she was coming down with something and shouldn’t have skied so far. Or it might have been a reaction to the news that JP Thompson’s pet intern had been murdered. Was Zoe even now rethinking an earlier decision to protect her boss over something that seemed unrelated to Eric’s death? Making a mental note to follow up with Zoe in case she could shake some new information loose, Lacey cruised down to the Stoney Trail exit and followed it over Calgary’s far north side, where the dist
urbed snow indicated many more vehicles had hit the ditches. Some were still there, but no red Civic. She’d have to check with Calgary police, too. Some mess she’d be in if Sandy didn’t come back at all: no car and no respite from caregiving. Surely, by the time she reached home, there would be word from or about Sandy.
Bragg Creek’s snow-laden pines and spruces were postcard perfect in the late-morning sun, but they didn’t warm Lacey’s heart like the sight of her Civic would. But it wasn’t there. She parked by the deck, kicked the snow off her boots, and stomped into the mudroom. “Any news?”
“Nothing,” said Dee from the living room. “Mom’s in bed. I was just about to call Dennis again.”
“Ask if his mom has his contact information with her. If she was in an accident and only had her Ontario ID, the hospital might be looking for relatives out east.”
A short time later, Marie arrived. Lacey introduced her to Loreena before hauling Dee’s camera equipment out to the Lexus. As they hit the highway, Dee called Dennis back for the third time. When she disconnected, she met Lacey’s sideways glance with a shake of her head. They drove on toward Black Rock Bowl in silence.
The chalet’s vast living room was a dim cave overlooking the great white Bowl. Zoe leaned closer to the hearth, drawing illusory warmth from its feeble flames. The bundle of birch she’d bought at that gas station wouldn’t last long, and she absolutely could not face going into the woodshed to get more. Not even to keep at bay the sick feeling of freezing to death that was surely Eric’s, not hers. Did he understand he’d been murdered? Maybe that was what he’d been trying to tell her all along. Maybe he knew who killed him.
“You want to talk to me? I’m here now. I’m listening.”
The house creaked around her. Eric’s emotions, so intrusive at other times and places, were quiet except for a bone-deep chill that gripped her. Maybe if she went to the woodshed …
She heard a vehicle’s engine rumbling outside and the sound of car doors slamming. She scrambled up as the front door opened. Dee Phillips hobbled in, her plastic walking boot smothered in a thick, fuzzy ankle warmer. She stopped in the act of unwinding her scarf.
“Oh … hi … sorry, I thought the place was empty.”
“My van’s in the garage.” Zoe tried to keep the resentment from her voice. “To discourage anyone from stopping by expecting to see JP and Phyl.”
“Sorry to disturb you, but with the sale delayed, I have to take some non-Christmas-themed photos of the place. Lacey’s outside taking outdoor shots now. Do you mind if I sit in here and wait for her?”
Zoe nodded. Hopefully they’d be done quickly, and she could salvage some of the afternoon for her ghost-whispering attempt. She wouldn’t dare do it after dark. Too creepy. “You want a cup of tea?”
“Sure.” Dee followed Zoe into the kitchen. “Honestly, some of Lacey’s original photos were so murky they looked like crime scene shots in a movie.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you.”
“I can’t really forget.” Especially after yesterday. Learning that the police thought Eric had deliberately been left to die in that shed had changed things. This wasn’t about her being crazy so much as it was about finding out who had put him there. If it was someone she knew, someone connected to the company or to his family, other people she knew might be in danger. That was why she needed to try talking to him, and she couldn’t do that until Dee and Lacey were out of here. Could she ask Lacey outright who the police thought had done it? Exposing her interest directly felt too risky. Maybe Dee was in Lacey’s confidence and would open up if Zoe established a rapport.
“You and Lacey have been friends a while, eh?”
Dee draped her coat over a chair. “Fifteen years.”
“You know, I can’t quite picture her as a cop. She doesn’t seem hard enough.”
“Believe me, she was plenty closed off when she first left the Force. If I hadn’t gotten injured, she’d be off in her own apartment somewhere, still encased in that emotional armour. I don’t know what I’d have done without her.”
“I’m sorry to pry, but how did you break your leg?”
“I was hit by a car while I was out biking. Lacey looked after everything while I was in the hospital. Now she’s helping look after my mother.” Dee’s polished smile slid away, and she looked down at her laced fingers. Zoe instinctively reached out a hand. Dee jumped at her touch.
“Sorry.” Zoe jerked her hand back.
“No, I am. You startled me, that’s all. It’s just …” Dee twisted her fingers tighter. “Well, my mother has terminal cancer. She came here for Christmas with her nurse in tow. I wanted to make it a joyful time, but all she wants to talk about is applying for assisted dying.” Her face disappeared behind trembling hands. “Do you know what it’s like to live with someone who’s more than halfway out of this world?”
“More death.” Zoe closed her eyes. “I don’t know if I can take any more.”
“I’m so sorry. Everything I say reminds you of that.”
“I never forget. In fact …” Zoe hesitated. “I feel like he’s around me all the time.” Saying it felt like giving up a state secret. She held her breath waiting for Dee to recoil or, hopefully, to volunteer that the police were closing in on the killer. Then she could reassure Eric and herself that it would all be over soon.
Dee did neither. “That’s how I felt when my father died. He had a stroke, and although he lived for a few more months, I never had an actual conversation with him again after that night. In my mind, though, it was like we were having a silent conversation every time I sat by his bed. Doesn’t that sound crazy? But it was actually very comforting.”
What a strange turn for the conversation. Zoe sat back. She’d already told two strangers about Eric, and here was Dee, all but issuing a personal invitation to confide in her, too. But she couldn’t help thinking that Dee might tell JP about it, and JP needed to trust her right now. But what if JP was involved in Eric’s death somehow? Maybe she was foolish to trust him. That thought shook her. Suddenly, talking about seeing a ghost seemed less risky than letting slip anything about JP’s business to Dee, who might report it to Lacey, who would then report it to the police. Zoe busied herself making tea.
“If you think that’s crazy,” she said over her shoulder, “I can top you. Some of my relatives talked to ghosts.” She told the safely distant story of her grandmother’s cousin and the dead villager’s adulterous love affair.
Dee laughed.
As Zoe reached for the sugar bowl on the windowsill, she caught a glimpse of the woodshed, and suddenly there was Eric at her shoulder. She could sense him, almost see his arm pointing at the little shed. Why was it locked? Why was I in there? The panic from her dream swept over her again. She clutched at the counter to steady herself. Eric didn’t know he’d been murdered. She’d have to tell him. Roaring filled her ears.
Dee’s voice came to her as if from a great distance. “Are you all right? Come and sit down.” She put an arm around Zoe’s shoulders and guided her to a stool. “Lord, you’re freezing. Lacey said you conked out after skiing yesterday. You might have pneumonia.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” Dee grabbed her coat off the chair and wrapped it around Zoe’s shoulders. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You’ve hit it in one go.” Dee might think she was genuinely nutty, but what trouble could she cause beyond hinting to JP that Zoe wasn’t all there? That wouldn’t even be a lie. “I have seen one. And talked to him. This isn’t my own cold. It’s kind of … I’ve acquired a memory of Eric freezing to death — his last memory.” Zoe scrunched up her eyes, afraid to open them in case Eric was standing right there, staring at her, his eyelashes rimed with ice crystals. “I dreamed it the other night, and when I saw the woodshed just now, it all came crashing over me again.”
“You’re being haunted by the ghost of the dead intern?”
There. It was out. Zoe held her breath.
Dee shrugged. “If they have, they haven’t told us. They’re still plodding through the usual investigation, is what I gathered from Lacey.” She looked up. “Why? Is there something you think they should know?”
“I’m not sure,” said Zoe with complete sincerity. “I’m still struggling to believe anyone would kill him. I mean, Eric could have been one of my kids. It’s unthinkable that this should happen to someone I know. Knew. I think I need that tea now. You?”
After she’d poured for both of them, careful not to look out the window this time, Zoe wrapped her hands around her mug. “It doesn’t seem like Eric realizes he was deliberately locked in and left to … to die. So there’s nothing I can do about that, even if I knew how to start investigating. I just want him to be at peace and move on.”
“In university,” Dee said, “I saw a film about a Tibetan death ritual. The monk went every day to this dying woman’s house and read her a few pages from his book. It was instructions on how to let go of the things of this world and move on toward the place of reincarnation. He kept going and reading for thirty days, even though the woman died before the book was finished.”
“Then you get where I’m going with this Eric thing. I didn’t even believe in ghosts until last week, and I don’t believe in reincarnation, but that woman I was referred to, she suggested I ask the ghost if there’s any way I can help him let go of this world. That’s what you were doing with your dad, maybe. It was like a Tibetan monk reading a book to someone who wasn’t dead yet. Only you, yourself, were your dad’s unfinished business. Did you ever ask your mom if she talked to him, too?”