Snow Bond

by Ross Richdale

"So what can I do?" Aza asked.

  "Nothing. Just remain cold towards Hardy and continue to avoid him at work. He'll become suspicious if you suddenly appear cooperative or friendly."

  "That won't be hard," Aza replied. "So our original dates and organisation of that symposium won't need to be altered?"

  "Not a all. It's still all go on that front."

  AFTER OVER TWELVE HOURS flying between Auckland and San Francisco, an hour of waiting for the connection to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and another two hour flight north, Joseph Hardy was tired and grumpy. As usual, both his legs began to throb after being stood on all day. Damn surgeons could have done a better job. He would file a complaint with the hospital board when he returned home. Perhaps he should have taken business class but double the ticket cost had put him off. He made his way from Concourse C where his Alaska Airways flight gate was and spent another half an hour before he found a tiny desk designated Local and Charter Flights.

  The young woman behind the counter was quite attractive and appeared to be interested in helping him. "Of course Sir," she said. "There have been several others who have taken flights to the symposium you mentioned." She typed on her keyboard monitor and looked up. "You said your name was Professor Joseph Hardy?"

  "Yes."

  "There is a local charter flight booked for you with Border Air that will take you to Avey Field State Airport." She grinned. "It's a grandiose name but is really a small local field but has the advantage of only being half an hour from your destination. The others took a larger airline but had a two-hour drive at the other end. Due to your late arrival, the organisers arranged this faster route."

  "Thank you," Joseph replied and followed her directions to a small counter close by where a young guy came out and shook his hand.

  "Well, hi there," the man said. "I'm your pilot, Leam. Just follow me. The plane's all ready. I've got a bit of luggage aboard but there's room for your stuff. If we hurry we can get a good slot on the taxiway between the big fellows taking off."

  The aircraft was a tiny one engine Cessna with seating for four, including the pilot but he was the only passenger. After the usual wait they took off and headed east. Leam's constant chatter annoyed Joseph but his abrupt replies soon stopped the chatter so most of the flight was in silence. The Cessna flew low over hills and later forest until they came to a small valley where Leam pointed out to their left. That's the lake where your retreat is being held. I've heard the facilities are quite upmarket. We'll be at Avey Field in a few minutes."

  Joseph glanced out and was glad he was almost there. He hated these little planes that bounced around the sky and would be glad when the flying was all over. Even more annoying was that the pilot began to whistle an irritating tune as he brought the Cessna down to come in from the south. It was a lonely looking place with a few buildings beside the road that ran parallel to the runway and small evergreen trees, probably hemlocks, covered most of the area.

  They landed with a bump and the pilot continued onto the end of the runway before he stopped and turned the Cessna. As he did so, the engine gave a splutter and stalled.

  "Damn," Leam muttered and turned to Joseph. "I'm afraid you'll have to get out here and walk away or wait while I restart the motor."

  "Why?"

  Leam shrugged. "I stalled the motor. I know what I did wrong but regulations state that in a case such as this, I can't have a passenger aboard when I restart."

  "That's ridiculous."

  "Just safety regulations for these small planes. If you walk back to the terminal I can restart and will taxi across with your luggage. Your transport should be waiting."

  "If you say I must," Joseph muttered. He opened the door, gasped when a cold breeze hit him and zipped up his jacket before he stepped to the ground and walked away under the wing.

  Mere seconds later, two white police cars roared in from opposite sides of the runway and stopped facing each other in front of the Cessna. Four police officers alighted from the vehicles, two armed with rifles that pointed directly at them.

  When one officer stepped forward and held his hand up Joseph realised that something was horribly wrong. He noticed a stylised blue rider on a horse painted near the taillight of each vehicle and the words Canada and RCMP as well as a familiar coat of arms on the front door. These were Royal Canadian Mounted Police cars!

  What were they doing in Washington State?

  "Joseph Neil Hardy?" the officer asked.

  "I am Professor Hardy, yes but must protest at this unlawful act. I do not believe Canadian police have any authority in Washington State."

  "You are quite right, Professor Hardy. However, we do have authority in our own country, which you are standing in. The runway crosses an international boundary, you know. That is why your pilot so kindly stopped his Cessna and didn't taxi across the border back into USA"

  The officer signalled to the only other policeman who wasn't carrying a rifle who grabbed him by an arm while the first one spoke.

  "Joseph Neil Hardy, you are under arrest for the murder of Ethan Yang at the Hemlock Valley Resort on the third of December in 1999. Anything you say...."

  Handcuffs were clapped on his wrists and he was bundled in a police car.

  "You knew," Hardy spat at Liam who had left the plane and had come up to join them.

  "Me?" Liam said but the grin on his face told him everything.

  AFTER THE FIRST COUPLE of days when the New Zealand and Canadian news outlets covered the arrest of Hardy, it disappeared from the media until two months later when his trial was held in Vancouver. Ian linked Aza and Sofia with a Canadian streaming service that provided more details of the trial than any of the main television networks in either country.

  Aza, though was more interested in a daily summary in the three week long trial that she could watch after she came home from work in the evening.

  To her surprise, there was only a small mention about how Hardy was tricked into stepping onto Canadian soil. Ian explained that the unique situation wasn't really covered by Canadian, US or even international law. There was plenty about aircraft flying illegally over an international boundary but in this case it landed in Washington and taxied across into Canada. Also, Hardy had not been physically forced to cross the border and the only comparison was a scenario of a crew from a yacht, say after a storm, who mistakenly landed in the wrong country. In that case, the crew would still be subject to the laws of the country where they had stepped ashore.

  In this trial, even the defence had to concede that the RCMP arrest was legal.

  It became a long and somewhat boring trial with complicated theories from experts about the DNA and what it could or not prove about the murder or, as his defence advocated, it was not even a murder at all and that the original coroner's report of it being an accident should be upheld.

  The worse part was the waiting after the jury retired to make their decision. This happened just after two in the afternoon, local time, but by the evening no decision had been made though the chairwoman did return to query the judge on one point of law. They were out all the following day and into the third one.

  Aza was at work giving one of her lectures that morning to over two hundred students in one of the massive lecture theatres that was set out like a commercial theatre with tiered seating. She disliked these massive places but the only alternative would be to give the lecture three or four times and even with fifty students, it was impersonal. Of far more interest to her were laboratories and tutorial groups where she actually knew the students and could interact with them on a personal basis.

  She was three quarters of the way through this hour lecture when her mobile vibrated in the silent contact mode. This was her mobile that was only used for emergencies and not her personal one.

  She glanced up at the sea of faces. "Excuse me a moment," she said to her audience and put the phone to her ear.

  "Associate Professor Aza Perry speaking," she said, expecting someone from admini
stration to be at the other end.

  "My, aren't you formal today," said Ian's cheerful voice.

  "I'm in the middle of a lecture but how did you get this number?" she muttered.

  "Does it matter?"

  Aza grinned. "Okay Ian, what is it?"

  "The jury has just come in. I'm streaming it live on my television. Want to see it?"

  "No. Not here! Get back when you know."

  She continued her lecture but her heart was racing and her mind several thousand kilometres away across the Pacific Ocean. She sort of stumbled and stuttered a little but forced her mind back to the lecture and managed to successfully conclude it. The students were all filing out when her mobile vibrated again.

  "Hello," she said forgetting to be formal.

  "Hello Aza," Ian sounded quite formal himself and her heart sank.

  "So he got off?" she whispered.

  Ian suddenly laughed. "No, the jury found him guilty of first degree murder and the judge is, at this very moment sentencing him to the mandatory twenty five years prison."

  "Twenty five years," Aza gasped. "That's a long time."

  "Yeah, They're tougher here than at home but like in New Zealand, Canadians don't have capital punishment. At his age, I doubt if he'll ever be free again."

  "So justice has been done?"

  "True. It's still a pity we never got him for shooting Sofia but that's academic, I guess."

  "I'll have to tell Sofia," Aza said and received another surprise.

  "Hi there," Sofia said and her face appeared on the mobile. "I'm watching the TV stream with Ian and heard every word of this conversation."

  "Cheeky," Aza said. "Hope you haven't forgotten to pick Alice up from Busy Hands."

  Sofia glanced at her watch. "Oh my God," she gasped. "I'd better go."

  Her face disappeared from screen and Ian came on view. "I'll get all the details later. Perhaps we could all go out for a meal together to celebrate tonight. I'll shout."

  Aza smiled. "That's a wonderful idea, Ian. Meanwhile, I'll call Renee and Tyler. I'm sure they'll be as concerned about the outcome as we were."

  She clicked off and gazed around the now almost empty lecture theatre. Somehow it seemed just that little bit more friendlily than just minutes before.

  CHAPTER 18

  Fredrick Brooks Holdings was no more. Replacing it was the newly formed Thelma Brooks, Steven-Walsh Enterprises. Renee had wanted to retain Thelma's name as well as their hyphenated name since their marriage earlier in the year.

  They were in Auckland staying with Aza and Sofia to sign the final papers disestablishing the original company and creating a new one. It had been a long drawn out exercise but, in both Tyler's and her own opinions, a successful one. As Tyler said, with Jett now a toddler and Renee pregnant again with a little girl arriving in two months, they needed to think of the future generations, just as Thelma had done.

  In this new arrangement, all the properties except one owned by Fredrick Brooks Holdings in Auckland as well as the business itself were passed onto the new company after the debts and mortgages were paid off. This actually took nearly all the capital value of the company with nothing except one Auckland property and East Ridge Village Farm remaining after sales to pay off the company's debts,

  Renee found that this property was a villa in Ponsonby, an upmarket inner city suburb, that was now valued at over a million dollars. Her research found that Thelma and Fredrick had originally bought it for twenty-five thousand dollars in the nineteen fifties and had lived in it for most of their lives. Due to Thelma's astute business sense, the villa had been transferred to the firm after his death so was part of Renee's inheritance.

  With the rampant increase in property values in Auckland, they turned down an approach by two real estate agents to auction it off for them. Back home at East Ridge they decided to keep the three houses and several hectares of land stretching up to and including the dam. The rest of East Ridge Village Farm was sold for a good price to the owners of East Ridge Station who feared, Tyler suggested, having some other company purchase it.

  The final act was to transfer their existing property to this new company. Thelma Brooks, Steven-Walsh Enterprises now owned their home, old Ministry of Works depot, the shop and other buildings as well as the land up to the top tank, dam and the bush area where they had built the new tourist track. As well, Tyler's contract to maintain the section of the highway was transferred to the new company with Renee, on Tyler's insistence, becoming the managing director.

  "I hope Thelma would approve of everything we have done," Renee said as she sat in Aza and Sofia's kitchen and closed the large legal document that they had earlier signed.

  "She would have," Tyler said. "She was a lady well ahead of her time."

  Renee nodded, placed the folder in her satchel and glanced around. "I know Aza's working this evening but shouldn't Sofia and Alice be home soon?"

  "Sofia sent a text saying she was getting some pizzas and would be here in half an hour or so."

  "I see," Renee said. "Did she say anything else?"

  "No Why?"

  "She hinted that she would like to tell me something and I have a feeling she wanted to do it when Aza wasn't here."

  Tyler laughed. "Oh come on, Renee. I think your imagination is running wild."

  "Perhaps so," she replied. "We'll see."

  She walked into the bedroom to place the documents in a suitcase and checked on Jett who was still fast asleep. She smiled, tucked his blanket up around him and glanced out the window when a car drove in.

  Sofia and Alice had arrived home!

  "SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?" Renee asked Sofia after Tyler discretely left to go to the supermarket and Alice began watching children's television.

  Sofia glanced up across the sofa where they were both sitting. "I'm like you," she whispered.

  "In what way?"

  "I'm pregnant. I'm thrilled that Alice is going to have a little half-sister or brother but..." She glanced away and looked anything except excited.

  Renee frowned as she absorbed the news. On word in particular made her mind whirl. Why did Sofia say 'half'? Did this mean that the two children could be biologically related?

  "So Ian is your baby's father?" she asked.

  Sofia sat with her fingers clasped and thumbs rotating. Her eyes faced the floor and tears began to roll down her cheeks as she gave a brief nod.

  Renee reached out and placed her arm around her friend that turned into a hug as Sofia placed her head on her shoulders and burst into sobs. "It's okay, Sofia. I think it's wonderful news."

  "Me too but what's Aza going to think?"

  "You haven't told her?"

  "No. Even faked a period I missed."

  "Okay, so how far along are you and why keep it a secret from her?"

  "Seven weeks but I don't want to lose Aza. I wanted a baby but not at the expense of losing our relationship."

  "So why would you even consider that? She loves you, I can see it every time I visit."

  "She's meant to be the bi-sexual one and not me."

  "So you think she'll be jealous that it is you who became pregnant and not her?"

  "It's more than that. We talked about artificial insemination but Ian and I..." She glanced up. "Well, you know?"

  "Had sex naturally?"

  "Yes."

  "And it never just happened after just once did it?"

  Sofia shook her head and sobbed. "That's the trouble, I'm not only going to ruin my life with Aza but also his one with Paige. They've been together for ages now."

  "So you haven't told him either?"

  "You're the only one I've told."

  "But you don't mind if I tell Tyler?"

  "That's okay."

  "Right. As you know we were going home tomorrow but we'll postpone our trip. Say nothing to Aza yet and we'll help you out before we leave." She hugged Sofia again. "And that's a promise."

  TYLER CAUGHT UP WITH Ian at the Auckland District
Court just before noon the following day. He waited in the corridor near the court where Ian was working while several people filed out for the lunch break. Finally, Ian arrived and saw him. He walked up, looking curious.

  "We need to talk," Tyler said in a stern voice.

  "Sure. Do you have a problem?"

  "No but you do," Tyler said. "I'm here to help as a friend."

  Ian frowned. "I have a room I can use here. We'll get away from the crowd."

  A moment later in a small office, Ian invited Tyler to sit before he also sat and waited with an expressionless look on his face.

  "You've become our friend since we met you down at East Ridge," Tyler said. "But do you have to unzip your trousers for any skirt around?"

  Ian frowned. "Okay, what's all this coming to?" he asked in almost a whisper.

  "You impregnated Aza and now you've gone and done the same to Sofia." Tyler was angry.

  Ian half stood in surprise, shook his head and sat down again. "I thought she was on the pill," he muttered.

  Tyler laughed sarcastically. "Oh don't be so naïve. Why would lesbians need to use the pill?"

  Ian looked embarrassed. "Point taken. So I take it, Aza doesn't know."

  "That's right. Sofia was in tears when she told Renee last night. She's afraid it will ruin their relationship." He glowered. "And if she goes to Paige, yours isn't going to be too hot, either."

  "She wouldn't." Ian, however, didn't appear confident.

  "Probably not for she's too decent a person to do that but unless you decide to come clean with everyone, that is exactly what I am going to do."

  "You can't tell Paige," Ian said. "We're getting on well but this will ruin everything."

  "Forget Paige," Ian hissed. "What you do in that relationship is up to you and I won't tell her if you come clean with Aza and admit you impregnated Sofia. You don't need to go into the sordid details about having bedded Sofia for months but some sort of explanation needs to come from you; not Sofia, not Renee, not myself but you, Ian. Be a man about this and take responsibility for what has happened."