Where the Ice Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  “Galactica. Eric’s backup.” Zoe’s shoulders slumped. “I took it from his room after the funeral.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “Your coat?” Lacey asked. “That burned, remember?”

  “No, it was in the pocket of my sweater.” Zoe pointed toward the master suite. “It’s in the bag with my other clothes.”

  “Stay right here, both of you.” Bull marched off and came back a minute later with the black bag. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from the packet in his pocket and fished Zoe’s sweater out. He lifted the grey plastic spaceship from the pocket and held it up. “This it?”

  Zoe nodded.

  “And are these your keys?”

  “Marcia’s.” Zoe stared at the linked rings of keys. “They were on the dash in the van. I grabbed them. She has mine. Or had them, anyway.”

  Bull’s thick fingers splayed the keys. “There’s a USB stick on here. Also a Honda tag and a Canucks bottle opener. McCrae, can you identify those?”

  The sound of a helicopter drowned out Lacey’s answer. The doors rattled in their frames. A bright light poured in through the front windows, then vanished as the copter roared over the house.

  Lacey ran to the kitchen and flung open the back door. Bull and Zoe followed.

  They watched as the chopper set down between the back porch and the woodshed, sending up a blizzard of snow and twigs. A young man jumped down and turned to help a woman get out. A third man, taller, came out behind them, ducking as the blades whirled overhead.

  Zoe screamed, “Nik!” and ran down into the snow in her socks.

  Arliss Thompson stomped up the steps and glared at Lacey. “You said you’d call us right back.”

  EPILOGUE

  Five days after the fire, Lacey sat with Loreena in the Lexus as the sunset painted the condo building’s windows with pinks and tangerines. “Buying a single condo to rent out? Are you sure this is what you want to do with your life savings?”

  Loreena nodded. “As partners, with my money paying for it and Dee managing the tenant, all the rent beyond the reserve is ours to split as long as I’m alive. I’ll have what I need to cover my last months in a nursing home, and she’ll have a top-up to cover her mortgage on the Bragg Creek place. When I’m gone, the property transfer will be seamless.” She turned her pale-blue eyes toward Lacey. “I’ve worried so much about you two. When I was your age, my husband and I were ten years into a reasonable mortgage supported by two incomes. When Dee’s dad died, the insurance paid it off. Now I see so many young women like you and Dee struggling to pay for a home and a vehicle, and everything else on a single salary. Women’s financial lives are precarious. Look at Sandy. It took her twenty years to be able to afford her own home. She’d barely unpacked. And Dee could have lost her home because of that hit and run last summer. This will give her security now and in the future.”

  Boney and Beau shifted in the back. Lacey checked the mirror. They were watching a standard poodle stroll past with its owner. It seemed like a good neighbourhood, at least in the daylight. Somewhere she could be at ease. As if she could ever afford to live here.

  “It’s true, Loreena, and the older we get the more is at stake. Marcia’s a good example. If Phyl Thompson had left her alone to work her small-town job and pay her small-town mortgage, she would probably still be there, bored and lonely maybe, but not tempted to commit computer fraud, let alone murder. Not that I’m condoning her actions. Murder is inexcusable. But I can see how she got to the point of stealing money from a company that seemed to have plenty in order to afford her one-sided friendship with Phyl. And then she became even more desperate to cover up her theft when it looked like it would be exposed. She would have lost everything, Phyl included. If Phyl had told her their friendship was already over, would Marcia have killed Eric, or just sold up and gone sadly back to her old life in Ontario?”

  “She made those choices, though. You can’t know what she might have done.” Loreena turned to the window again. “I don’t want that desperation for my daughter. I don’t want it for you, either. I want you free of Dan, for a start.”

  “I’ve already contacted a divorce lawyer.”

  “I know. You might not want to talk about it, but before I leave I’m going to give her an affidavit about our conversation on Christmas Day, that night you told me about.” She didn’t say “the night he raped you,” but her meaning lingered in the air. Lacey’s hand automatically went to her throat; the memory of those bruises still ached at moments like this. Loreena didn’t seem to notice. “I want it all on record so it can be introduced in court if you need it, whether I’m capable of testifying then or not. And I think you should talk to a domestic violence counsellor, both for evidence purposes and for your own healing. The local women’s shelter can point you in the right direction. If you need money, I’ll pay.”

  Lacey lowered her hand. She felt on firmer ground here. “Wayne recommended me to his friend who runs a private investigations firm. He may have some work for me.” Sitting surveillance for hours on end would be dull, but the pay was respectable. She would have to pass the Alberta PI course, but that surely wouldn’t take long.

  Both dogs got to their feet and whined.

  “Here she comes.”

  A moment later, Dee chucked her cane into the back seat and eased herself in after it. She propped her tired ankle up on the armrest between the front seats. “That went very well. We can start the paperwork first thing Monday morning and be the official owners before you leave for home, Mom. I’m starving. I wonder who else is invited to the feast. What do people eat on Russian Orthodox Christmas Eve, anyway? Not turkey, I bet.”

  “Boiled wheat with honey,” said Loreena, “but that’s all I know.”

  “Sounds delicious,” said Lacey, as she pulled away from the curb.

  When they arrived at Zoe’s house, Lacey parked in the driveway close to the front steps. Kai and Ari rushed out, boots on but coatless, to open the vehicle’s doors for them. “No wheelchair ramp, sorry,” Kai told Loreena. “Will you trust me to carry you in, Missus?”

  She smiled. “I’d be delighted.”

  Ari gave Dee his arm and took the bag with the dogs’ travel dishes in his other hand. Lacey got the leashes and opened the tailgate. Once they were clipped on, she let the leggy pair jump down. By then, Clemmie and Lizi were beside her, properly jacketed and wearing toques. Clemmie crouched down and gave the dogs a thorough greeting. Lizi ran her gloved hands over their heads.

  “We’re going to the store for more whipping cream. Can we take them with us?” Lizi asked.

  “We’ll be careful,” Clemmie added.

  Lacey saw them off before taking the wine from the back seat and locking the car. She paused on the sidewalk, admiring the traditional green Christmas tree in the picture window glowing with multicoloured lights. The whole holiday season had been shadowed by death and worry. This was a chance to set it all behind them and start the year afresh.

  Zoe met her at the front door with a warm hug. The tantalizing aroma of roasting meat hung in the air. “I’m so glad you could be here. Come on in. Aidan and Nik will join us after work.”

  In the living room, a log fire crackled. Loreena was already tucked into an easy chair, her feet resting on an ottoman. Ari took orders and brought drinks out for everyone. As Lacey swallowed her first mouthful of wine, Kai started peppering her with questions. “While the kids are gone, what can you tell us about what’s going on? What is Marcia being charged with? When is the trial?”

  Lacey lowered her glass. “What I’ve pieced together, from Zoe and Arliss and the police, is that it all started four years ago in Ontario. There was a cyber attack on the nursing home, and Marcia caught it, like any halfway competent financial accountant. That’s where the malware script came from. She hardly knew Phyl Thompson then, but Phyl made friends with her. Marcia confessed that she’d withheld old Mrs. Thompson’s flu shot, hoping she’d die
, and even steered sick volunteers toward the old lady. She said that Phyl had told her on the phone what to do. But there’s no evidence beyond her word.”

  Zoe’s lip curled. “Phyl won’t admit to anything. She’ll come out of this unscathed.”

  “Regardless of whose idea it was, it worked. Mrs. Thompson caught an upper respiratory virus and was dead two months later. When Sandy threatened to tell JP about the nursing home incident, that’s what Marcia thought she meant. But Sandy almost certainly meant the malware; she’d heard me and Dee talking about it and jumped to the conclusion that Marcia had been covering up her own theft years ago when she got Sandy to accept the blame. But Marcia hadn’t stolen from the nursing home; she just kept the script as a trophy. At TFB, she only started using it in her second year, when she couldn’t cover a payment on her cabin. In her mind, stealing was a crime she had to commit in order to stay friends with Phyl.”

  “She should have been charged with the murder of that old lady,” Ari muttered. “They both should.”

  Lacey shook her head. “There’s no evidence they caused her death. The old woman might have died that winter, anyway.”

  “Phyl Thompson, from all you say,” said Loreena with a frown, “was young, glamorous, and rich. She could easily have manipulated a plain, friendless, middle-aged woman with implied promises of a more glamorous life.”

  Zoe nodded. “Just like the blond Cylon and the Battlestar admiral.”

  Lacey shook her head again. “Can’t be proven. And it doesn’t need to be to keep Marcia behind bars. She had a prescription of the same type of sedatives found in both Eric’s and Zoe’s systems. Plus, the RCMP found Eric’s phone number in her incoming calls list from the same afternoon he vanished. They’d assumed at first that it was a work-related call, but what it means is that she knew he was out at Black Rock Bowl that day, and so was she. He called her when he realized JP had left. She admitted she told him to come to her place to wait until JP returned, knowing full well JP wasn’t coming back. She claimed she only drugged him with laced hot chocolate to give herself time to think.”

  “Hah,” said Dee.

  Lacey shrugged. “I doubt she knows exactly when she decided he had to die. She panicked when he insisted on going back to JP’s, even though she knew nobody would be there. So she followed him, and told him she’d take his backpack and stuff indoors while he got more firewood. But her dear friend Phyl had never given her the updated entry code, so she couldn’t have gotten inside. She didn’t tell Eric that. She just followed him to the shed and locked him in, then dumped his car.”

  “That’s really cold,” said Kai. “Premeditation makes it murder, right? It would back home.”

  “It’s hard to prove premeditation,” said Lacey. “Sergeant Drummond told me Marcia swore she didn’t intend for him to die, just to be delayed until she could figure out what to do. Same with dumping the car — another delay. Then she drove back to her cabin, chucked his backpack into the incinerator, and settled in to wait out the storm. Oddly enough, if she’d left his car in JP’s yard, she might be in the clear now. But she couldn’t count on the area being snowed in for long, and it would have been a disaster for her if he’d been found alive. That one action she took to throw searchers off the scent is now the evidence that seals her fate.”

  Kai asked about the nurse’s death. Mindful of Loreena’s sad expression, Lacey shook her head. She wouldn’t go into the brutal details that she had seen in that agreed statement of facts on Bull’s desk: how Marcia had arranged to meet Sandy at the deserted summer camp near the Ghost River bridge, tried to talk her into waiting for her money, and bludgeoned her in a fit of rage at being refused. Major Crimes had decided to send that version to the prosecutor even though they suspected she had planned to kill Sandy regardless. An angry attack already confessed to was more certain of conviction than going to trial and trying to prove premeditation for a first-degree charge.

  “Marcia confessed, that’s the important thing,” she told him.

  When he asked again for details, Loreena changed the subject. “Is that pretty embroidered towel in the window part of your holiday tradition, Zoe?”

  Zoe nodded. “It’s hung on Christmas Eve to let the dead know that they’re welcome.”

  “And you’ll see a bowl of hay on the dining table,” Ari added, “but I can’t remember what that symbolizes.”

  Zoe grinned. “I’m not sure I remember myself. Religion hasn’t been a big part of my life since I was a child. But the twelve dishes are for the twelve apostles. We’re having roast pork in place of a suckling pig, plus a goose, smoked salmon, and a bunch of side dishes. Speaking of which, Lacey, can you give me a hand in the kitchen?”

  Lacey left Ari telling Dee about their skiing adventures and Kai showing Loreena the tree decorations he’d made for his father years before.

  Once in the kitchen, Zoe turned to Lacey. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, but I think you should send JP an invoice for your investigation.”

  “I’m not a licensed PI.”

  “No, but you’re the one who solved it for him.” Zoe rearranged a few carrot sticks on a plate. “I was with you for quite a bit of that time, and I know there were other times you were investigating when I was elsewhere. You could bill for dozens of hours, especially considering the amount of travel back and forth between Calgary and Black Rock.” She looked up. “Lacey, don’t sell your skills short. I’ve seen this all too often in the oil industry: highly competent women not getting our due because we’re not as convinced of our value as barely average men are of theirs. At the very least, discuss it with Wayne. If you put in an invoice, or if he does it for you, I’ll make sure it gets paid.”

  “You’d do that for me? Even though all I wanted was to clear up the mess so Dee could collect a commission off the chalet sale?”

  “Women must watch out for women in any industry. Arliss taught me that.” Zoe handed her a knife. “Can you slice the radishes for the salad?”

  “As many as you like.”

  After a few minutes, Lacey asked, “How are you doing with the … with Eric? Has he stopped haunting you?”

  Zoe rested her hands on the counter and gazed out the window at the snowy backyard. “You know, now that everything has calmed down, I’m starting to wonder if it was ever him at all, or if my subconscious mind was just putting together clues, and it chose that bizarre route to bring them to my attention. Try as I might, I can’t think of a single thing he told me that I couldn’t have guessed from things I’d heard and seen over all the years I worked around the Thompsons, hearing about their kids and neighbours.”

  “Even the Galactica thumb drive?”

  Zoe gave a half laugh. “Now, that I’m not so sure of. Nik watches a lot of sci-fi shows, and it’s possible he once showed me that thumb drive as a hint for a stocking stuffer or something. Since I’ve seen half the series myself now, I have no idea what I knew before and what’s fresh.” She scooped steaming veggies into a bowl. “I have to stop myself from calling Clemmie ‘Clemster,’ and I have no idea where I might have heard that nickname. I’m also debating whether to tell Lizi about any of it. Considering it seems to run in the family, someday a ghost might try to talk to her, too. She’ll probably think I’m nuts. I just don’t want her questioning her own sanity, I guess, if it ever happens.” She set an empty pot in the sink. “As for Eric, I still think of him all the time. I wish he’d been allowed to finish school and become an environmental scientist and help save the world. I feel like I know him now on a level nobody else did, or ever will. This might sound strange to you, but I might have a private ceremony to, you know, send him on his way.”

  Dee wandered into the kitchen. “I came to help, but it looks like you two have things in hand. Those young men, Zoe — what charmers! Mom’s giggling like a teenager.”

  Zoe laughed. “They sure are. So, what will your mom do now that her nurse is gone? Stay with you?”

  Dee sho
ok her head. “No. Sandy’s friend Pat is coming out for Sandy’s funeral, and she’ll fly home with Mom afterward. They knew each other a bit before, and now they talk almost every day. Pat’s going to walk the assisted dying path with Mom, and she’s going to be getting another visiting nurse to help at home.”

  Zoe handed Dee a washed cucumber and a cutting board. “You seem a bit calmer about the situation.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ve been thinking a lot about it. You both could have died last week, with no warning, no chance to say goodbye. My mom has given me that opportunity, and I’m going to take it gratefully. She promises to keep me in the loop about her health as it changes, so I can plan when to be there without it being an emergency. And I promised to hit my physiotherapy exercises hard so I’ll be in shape to go when she needs me.”

  They heard boots stomping across the deck, and Lizi appeared at the window. Zoe opened it, dislodging a row of tiny icicles. The girl leaned in. “Ms. Phillips, do the dogs have a ball or something to play with? The Clemster says we should tire them out before supper.”

  “Meet me out front. There are some toys in the truck.” Dee handed the cucumber to Lacey and shuffled out.

  Zoe shut the window carefully and turned to Lacey. “‘Clemster.’ She must have heard that from me, right?”

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As well as computer crimes and murder, I’ve touched other potent topics in this book, namely intimate-partner sexual assault and medical assistance in dying. For the first I’ve included a list of resources on pages 408–9. For the second, I am grateful to not only the people to whom this book is dedicated, but to other terminally ill patients, their family members, and the doctors and nurses who shared thoughts on the principle and act of helping people to die. If you want more information, please visit Dying With Dignity Canada at dyingwithdignity.ca or its appropriate provincial counterpart.

  Since I’m an unabashed miner of my friends’ areas of expertise, many other people also gave of their time, wisdom, and experience to help this story feel as real as possible. So thanks also go to: Darlene Wong, whose decades of experience with oil company financials underpinned Zoe’s sales-preparation process for TFB Energy; Kevin Jepson, whose technical expertise in oil company computer systems and network security supported the purely fictional hacking of that old machine; Worship Pastor Peter Justine, whose long experience directing church music wrought the Blue Christmas service; Rosemary Abram, rental properties investor and a great temporary landlady, who contributed the logical solution to Dee’s money woes; Keith Cartmell, the series’ location scout and tireless photographer of potential body-dumps in all weathers; Eric Arrata, for sharing his hiking adventures in the Ghost Wilderness, where I only planted my fictional ski resort on a real mountain and carved a road to reach it; and the held-nameless manager and police officer who shared their first-hand knowledge of the northern edge of Stoney Nakoda First Nation.