In Winter's Grip

by Brenda Chapman

  “It had started snowing just after lunch. I thought I’d shovel off Dad’s back steps before I went inside to see him. I tramped through the snow to his shed and took out the first shovel I grabbed for. The sun was setting, but there was still enough light to make out shapes in the shed. The shovel wasn’t hanging up as usual but leaning up against the wall. You know how meticulous Dad is about putting things back in their place, and I guess that was the first indication that something wasn’t right. Didn’t seem like much at the time, though. Anyhow, I started back towards the steps. Dad has his outdoor lights on a timer, and it was bright enough. I was about to start shovelling when I looked over and saw him next to the woodpile.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah, Dad. He was covered in snow, but I could make out his shape. The snow was dark around his head.” Jonas hesitated. “I took off a glove and brushed the snow off him. I don’t know why, since I knew he was dead. He was lying on his stomach, but his head was turned to the side like he was listening for something deep in the ground. It was a shock to see his eyes open, frozen in place. His mouth was gaping as if he’d been trying to yell. The back of his head was caved in like a melon. I...I grabbed the shovel and leaned it up against the steps. I just left. Man, there was blood...everywhere. It looked like somebody’d spilled a bowl of cranberry sauce in the snow.”

  “You didn’t call the police?”

  Jonas shook his head. “I couldn’t seem to make myself think. I sat in the truck for I don’t know—a minute and then drove to Hadrian’s bar. That’s where they found me. I sort of blanked, I think. All that blood. It got to me, you know?”

  “Oh, Jonas. I’m so sorry.”

  Jonas lifted one shoulder in a shrug. He didn’t raise his head. I put my hand around his wrist that rested on the table. “Did they tell you what happened?”

  “Somebody thwacked him in the back of the head with the shovel.”

  “The shovel that you got from the shed.”

  Jonas nodded. His eyes met mine. “The shovel with my fingerprints on it.”

  “But surely to God they can’t seriously suspect you.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  I let out a sharp laugh. “Why, you were the one who stuck by him. That has to count for something.”

  “I had as much reason to want him dead as anyone.” Jonas moaned, then rolled his body sideways and stood. “I can’t talk about this any more now. Claire and Gunnar are home.” Jonas rubbed a hand through his hair as he walked towards the backdoor to meet them.

  I realized then that I’d heard tires crunching on the snow in the driveway even while my brain was taking in what Jonas had said. I kept my eyes on Jonas, but my mind was scrambling to make sense of what he’d revealed. What had happened between Dad and Jonas that could have Jonas wanting him dead? We’d all have understood if I’d done the murderous deed, but that anger was a long time past. I stared at Jonas’s back, at the way his shoulders hunched forward and his hand rubbed the nape of his neck. He was more than just worried. Something was on his conscience. My stomach clenched in a spasm of dread. I’d always wondered what would happen if Jonas was pushed too far. I wished for that moment that I had never left the safety of Sam and Ottawa.

  I’d lived a coward’s life, avoiding anything that resembled strong emotion. I’d done it deliberately, accepting the sacrifices it had caused. My whole adult life had been spent avoiding just what lay before me now...and I would give anything to go back into the safety of my cocoon, back to the time before Claire’s phone message had burst the illusion.

  Claire and Gunnar brought in a blast of cold air and a lot of activity that eased the tension that had built up in the kitchen between me and Jonas. Gunnar was a slender blond boy, as Jonas had been at the same age, a jumble of gangly legs and arms that marked the beginning of his transformation into a man. He had Claire’s eyes, soft, dreamy orbs that seemed to look right through you into another world. He accepted my hug without hugging me back before stepping back beside his father.

  Claire wrapped her arms around my back and squeezed. She smelled of vanilla and Ivory soap. “So glad you’re here,” she whispered into my ear. “Come with me into the living room. Jonas will put the groceries away and start supper. He loves to cook.”

  “I’ll bring you some wine in a minute,” Jonas said, already pulling food out of a bag on the counter. “Sure, you can have a cookie before dinner, but just one,” I heard him say to Gunnar as we started down the hallway. “Aunt Maja has brought pie for dessert.”

  The living room was lined with pine and as cozy a room as I’d ever been in. Logs burned in the stone fireplace, radiating a circle of heat into which we lowered ourselves after a quick tour of the room. We sat facing each other at each end of a deep, velvet-covered couch. A hooked rug of brown, red and plum rested cheerfully under my feet. Claire tucked a long leg under herself and leaned back into the pillows. “This is my one indulgence,” she said, rubbing her hand along the couch’s plush surface.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “The bottle green colour is exquisite.”

  “I know it’s impractical, but sometimes you just have to go with something you like and to hell with the consequences.” She laughed, and her grey eyes narrowed as she looked past me. I turned and saw Jonas standing by the bookcase holding two glasses of white wine. His eyes lowered quickly, but the set line of his mouth let me know that he was not happy. He’d have been running a hand through his blonde curls if not for the wine.

  “Thanks, darling,” Claire said, reaching toward Jonas. Her long elegant fingers closed around both glasses, and she passed one over to me. Gold bracelets clinked and slid down her arm. She was wearing a tight black turtleneck that showed off her muscular arms and boyish chest. Claire had been a champion cross country skier in her early twenties and obviously still worked at staying in shape. She’d cut her black hair short and spiky, and I thought it suited the strong lines of her face.

  “Supper in an hour,” Jonas said before disappearing back into the kitchen.

  “Thanks, hon.” Claire took a mouthful of wine and looked at me over the rim of the glass. “Has he told you about finding your father?”

  I nodded. It looked like I wasn’t the only one who could cut to the chase. “It’s absolutely ridiculous that anyone would think Jonas capable of murder. I don’t care how many times he grabbed the shovel.”

  “I know. It’s craziness.” Claire’s fingers slid up and down the stem of the wine glass. I noticed how pale her skin was now that the rosy glow on her cheeks from the frosty outdoors had disappeared. Her eyes were tired and haunted. “He won’t talk to me about what happened.” She bit her lip. “We’ve had a hard day. We’re both tired, and we had words this morning. Please know it’s nothing, Maja. I stand behind Jonas a hundred per cent.”

  “I know that, Claire,” I said. “We’ll get through this. Truth has a way of coming out.”

  I took a long drink of wine, looking away and pretending not to notice the tear that was sliding down Claire’s cheek.

  “We’ve...we’ve drifted apart,” she said, and at first I thought she meant me and her. I opened my mouth to reassure her that time had not changed us, but she spoke again before I did. “He needs constant reassurance, and the down times...it’s been hard. Jonas has so many secrets, and I’m not a saint. How could I be?” Her voice lowered and tailed away. She seemed to want me to understand something that I was beyond comprehending. It was a shock to know that she and Jonas were in difficulty—a shock, but perhaps, not unexpected. I stared into her grey eyes, wide with torment and another emotion that looked a lot like fear.

  “Jonas loves you,” I said by way of benediction. “Love will get you through the worst.”

  “Will it, Maja? Will it really?”

  “Yes,” I said, but I turned my eyes away from hers to settle on the flames dancing up from the crackling pine logs in the cast iron grate.

  FOUR

  The next morning I woke early. I tr
ied falling back to sleep, but too many thoughts were clamouring for attention. After a restless hour, I rose and dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a red fleece pullover before making my way into the kitchen. Claire had set up the coffee maker the night before with instructions to turn it on if I got up first. After two cups and a bowl of cereal and blueberries, I was ready to face the day and went in search of my boots and coat.

  The rest of the household was still asleep when I stepped outside into a bitterly cold day. Sometime during the night, a north wind had blown away the cloud cover, and a high pressure system had pushed its way in. Already the sky was turning from black to midnight blue and frosted orange as the sun slipped over the tree line. Every so often weak, silvery sunshine glistened through the trees, casting slender lines of brightness in the snow. I’d gratefully accepted Claire’s offer of her parka the night before and nestled into its fur-lined warmth. The coat fit well even though I was not as tall or slender as her.

  I was relieved when my car started after two tries. I let it idle while I cleaned off the roof and windshields with a snow scraper. As I worked, my breath came in moist, white puffs as though I were chain smoking. With the plummeting temperature, the car should have been plugged in overnight, but it hadn’t come with a block heater. It seemed negligent in this country, but the man who’d given me the keys hadn’t had many to choose from in his lot. This particular car had just been driven up from Florida by a businessman. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to see Jonas, I’d have taken a taxi to a rental place in town, but I was too anxious to spend the extra hour driving into Duluth. The rental guy had assured me that the car would start no problem, but his confidence wasn’t much help with the frigid temperatures in Northern Minnesota.

  The drive to Dad’s house took all of fifteen minutes. If the roads hadn’t been slick with ice, I’d have made it in ten. The route took me to the outskirts of the village, the road hugging the shoreline and winding slowly north. My car’s tires valiantly gripped the road as I crept at a turtle’s speed up a steep hill and deeper into the woods. Luckily, the plow had been around early and the road was passable. Only a few houses dotted this back road, small homes with smoke pouring out of the chimneys and wood stoves the main source of heat. If I opened the window and leaned out, the smell of wood smoke and pine would fill my nostrils like a love note from the past. There was a time when I knew every family along this road, and might still, if the town held true to form. Most of the older people in Duved Cove lived their entire lives in the same house, and their children married locally and moved into homes nearby. My generation was the first to go farther afield, to university then to towns and cities with better jobs.

  Duved Cove had been a fishing village in the 1800s and a logging centre in the early 1900s. The mill was still operating, but on a much smaller scale than in its heyday. My father hadn’t liked working with his hands and had broken with tradition by becoming a cop, a profession Grandpa Larson had viewed with a jaundiced eye, but even he had to admit that Dad would have made a poor logger. As it turned out, Dad wasn’t much of a cop either. The year after I’d left for Bemidji State University to work on a chemistry degree, my father was implicated in a coverup of some sort and quietly dismissed from his duties. If he hadn’t had such a good reputation, and if all the higher ups in the chain of command hadn’t liked him so much, they might have made a harsher example of him for the benefit of the younger officers on the force. As it was, rumours of the dismissal were punishment enough in such a tight-knit community. Dad never told us the full story, and we knew not to press him for details. His dismissal was quiet enough that he was able to get a job as a customs officer at the Pigeon River crossing about an hour’s drive from our house. It was a job he’d held until Friday.

  My father remained in the house where I’d grown up even after my mother died. He owned a good twenty acres of land that had never been developed—land handed down from my great-grandfather, along with our house on the north-east corner. The house I’d loved as a child, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods and rock that led to the rocky shoreline of Superior. The house where my father had found my mother hanging from an attic rafter one cold October morning.

  I slowed the car and fought to keep the memory from surfacing. My hands had been clutching the wheel, and I tried to flex my fingers. If I allowed myself to think about the horror of that day, I would never be able to make this journey—one I’d been unable to make when my father had been alive. I’d visited my brother twice, the last time when Gunnar was six, but I’d never made the trip to my parents’ house, even though Jonas believed it would help me to heal.

  “I have nothing to heal from,” I’d said angrily, and Jonas had watched me with veiled eyes. I’d tried to appear unaffected. “I just have no reason to go back there. I’m over it.”

  The last mile was almost too painful to bear, the big rock where I used to meet my best friend Katherine Lingstrom so we could walk to school together, the crooked tree Jonas and I had climbed, the path into the woods that led down to a sand beach where Billy and I had lain in the shadow of the woods. I took each landmark in with starved eyes. This was the part of me I’d shut away since my mother’s death.

  I could see her in my mind’s eye, walking down the road, a cattail in her hand, twirling back to smile at me and tell me to hurry up. If I pretended time had stood still, if I believed hard enough...her hair had been white blonde like mine, and falling almost to her waist. She worn it braided, but the days she’d let it loose had seemed a gift. She had a smile and blue eyes that had warmed me always, even when she was trying to contain me. Back then, I’d been a carefree and careless child, rushing headlong into every situation. My disregard for rules had gotten me into trouble with my father over and over again. I’d rebelled against his harsh, unyielding nature that turned monstrous when he drank. My mother had been powerless to protect me, to protect herself from his anger. I’d loved my shy, tormented mother with my whole being, and when she’d killed herself, she’d killed any part of me that could forgive my father. And yet part of me needed to with childish desperation.

  I was surprised to feel my cheeks wet with tears as I started up the long driveway to our house. I lifted my brimming eyes to my old bedroom window on the second storey on the right side of the house. The blind was halfway down, as if it couldn’t make up its mind. The symbolism was not lost on me. I parked the car and stepped outside. I’d come home at last.

  I circled around to the backyard. The sun had risen above the treeline, and the snow had taken on a rosy hue to match the sunlight filtering through the trees. I purposefully averted my eyes from the woodpile and scanned the yard. Dad had kept it free of clutter. I could see poles in the ground where he’d planted tomatoes and beans in Mom’s vegetable garden. A concrete birdbath rose above the snow pile with a mound of ice capping its basin. Directly in front of me were a stand of birch trees and two spruce with birdfeeders hanging from the lowest branches. As I watched, a squirrel parachuted onto one of the feeders and scattered the last of the seed into the snow. Like so many properties in Duved Cove, there was no fence to encircle the yard except around the garden to keep out deer. I looked down. The ground had been trampled by a number of boot prints. I could only imagine what must have taken place after they’d found my father’s body.

  I turned and walked slowly towards the deck. When I reached the bottom step, I hesitated with my glove on the railing. I forced myself to look. The snow was piled in uneven patches around the spot where my father had fallen. I could see red and pink through the layers, and it was an eerie feeling to know that this was his blood. The place he had met his maker. I moved closer and squatted in the snow. They’d dug around the area, probably looking for clues. As a crime scene went, it would have been a hard one to keep. Even now, the wind was blowing swirls of snow in intermittent gusts. I moved back towards the stairs, careful not to leave more footprints than necessary. I grabbed the handrail and leaned on it heavily as I maneuv
ered the icy steps. Once I reached the landing, I fumbled in my pocket for my keys. The key to this house was still on my keychain. I didn’t know why I’d kept it after so many years, but I had. I supposed it could be construed as more symbolism, if you were bent that way.

  The yellow and black tape across our back door made me pause a second, but it would not stop me now that I’d come this far. I pulled the yellow tape aside and fit my key in the lock. It turned as if I’d used it every day for the past twenty years. The familiarity of the key’s weight in the lock brought back memories hooked onto feelings long forgotten. Once inside, I slammed the door shut and leaned against it with my eyes closed tight. I sucked in air like a drowning swimmer and tried to still my frantic heart.

  “Mama,” I whispered.“Your Maja’s come home.”

  My father’s kitchen had changed little since the last time I’d been in it. The same green linoleum on the kitchen floor, lifting a bit around the edges; the original tired oak cupboards; the old Frigidaire in the corner. A new rectangular pine kitchen table and matching chairs looked out of place in the otherwise drab room. I circled the space, trailing my fingers along surfaces. The house was still on its programmed heating cycle, and I heard the furnace kick in. I’d hardly noticed how cool it was until that moment. I heard the clock ticking loudly on the wall over the stove, the same clock that my mother had picked out of the Sears catalogue thirty years before. The room smelled stale, the dankness heightened by a mixture of cooking grease, overripe bananas and rotting potatoes, and I suddenly couldn’t wait to leave it. I went quickly down the darkened hallway into the living room. Here Dad had splurged on a new couch and leather recliners that encircled a big screen television. He’d acquired a state of the art sound system too that had place of honor on top of a shelving unit. The ornaments and pictures Mom had collected were gone, but lower down on the shelving unit, my father had placed a framed picture of himself and two buddies dressed in hunting gear and holding rifles. In the photo, Dad was grasping a handful of dead ducks by their feet and grinning into the camera.