Where the Ice Falls Page 2

  “This isn’t the crime scene. Shouldn’t you be taking pictures of that shed instead?”

  “Actually, my friend and I are here to take photos of the chalet for a sales portfolio. My friend’s a realtor.”

  “Mr. Thompson is selling?” Lizi tossed her scrunched-up tissues onto the coffee table. She pulled her own phone from the pocket of her hoodie. “Maybe I should tell my friends what’s going on. They’ll be wondering why I haven’t sent them pics of this place yet.”

  “Don’t say anything about that body until the police give you permission. What if that person’s family finds out he’s dead from a social media post?”

  “Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t be cool.” Lizi frowned. “I didn’t think of that. Too stunned from finding him there.” She blew her nose.

  “So, you found the body?” Lacey asked. No wonder the kid was a mess.

  “Uh-huh. Mom started the fire with the kindling that was left in here and I went out to get more wood. They didn’t dig out the shed when they did the driveway and the porch. That’s why I’m so cold, really: my legs are soaked. I had to wade through waist-deep snow the whole way, then hack the ice off the door.” Lizi shivered. “It was thicker than my hands. I thought I’d need a blowtorch to melt everything off the crossbar. But it all fell off with a few good whacks, and I pried the bar up so I could open the door halfway. I sort of scrunched in sideways. Then the light came over my shoulder and fell, like, right on his f-face.”

  Lacey tensed for another bout of weeping, but Lizi only breathed heavily and tugged on a loose strand of hair. “It was awful. I screamed and I just kept screaming, I guess, while I ran back here. Mom made me wait here while she went to look. Then she called the police.” She scrubbed her streaky face with the backs of her gloves and stared at the smeared wool. A wood splinter was caught in a dangling shred of pink wool on her palm. She tugged it out. “Mom doesn’t want to say who it is, but I think I know.… A university student went missing last month in a blizzard. If he fell asleep and got hypothermia, or whatever … that could be him, right?”

  “There can’t be too many missing persons in this area.”

  “It isn’t so empty on holidays. When we went to get the keys from Mr. Thompson, he bitched the whole time about how the old ski trails were better and how the new stores down there attract people who don’t even ski — they just clog up the parking lots and stink up the fresh air with exhaust fumes. Maybe that’s why he’s selling the place.”

  Bull Drummond reappeared in the doorway. Behind him, Lizi’s mother carried a steaming mug. “Here, honey, I found some hot chocolate. It’ll make you feel better.” She turned to Lacey. “Thanks for sitting with her.”

  “She’s been very brave.” Lacey got up and faded back toward the foyer as Bull moved to the couch. His turf now.

  Lizi peered at him over the rim of the mug. “Was it that guy?”

  Her mother sat down beside her. “I’m fairly sure it is Eric Anders, although the last time I saw him he was even younger than you. But you can’t tell anyone that, honey. Don’t text it or tweet it or tell your friends. You don’t want his family —”

  “I know. She” — Lizi jerked her head at Lacey — “told me already. It’s gonna be hard for them, finding out he’s dead so close to Christmas.” Her voice wavered. “Imagine if it was Kai or Ari? Dad would totally lose it.”

  “We all would.” Zoe tugged the quilt tighter around her daughter’s shoulders. “We have to help the sergeant now, so he can go tell that family right away. He needs to take your statement, since you were the one to find Eric.”

  Lacey managed to catch Bull’s eye long enough to twitch her head at the door. Can I leave? He shook his head once. No. She leaned against the wall, listening to the calm questions and clear answers, Lizi’s repetition of the account she’d given Lacey earlier. But something wasn’t quite the same. Lizi had told her she’d knocked the ice off, then lifted the bar to open the door. If the bar was the usual kind that fell into a bracket and couldn’t be raised from inside, the victim couldn’t have lowered it into place from inside, either. It had either fallen shut or someone had barred the door. Lacey tried again to snag Bull’s attention, but he was walking Lizi through the sequence a second time, looking for anomalies.

  “Your mom tells me you were the first person to go to the woodshed. Is that right?”

  Lizi nodded. She set down the mug and picked at another splinter in her glove.

  “Can you tell me again, in your own words, what you did, and what you saw?”

  She repeated everything pretty much exactly, except she again left out the part about raising the crossbar. Bull repeated it all back to her. “Is that everything?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Lacey gritted her teeth. Think, Lizi. Don’t make me interrupt or it’ll seem like I’m coaching you. But Lizi only sniffled and reached for her hot chocolate. With a mental sigh, Lacey shifted until she was directly behind the couch and waved her hand until Bull looked at her. She pointed to her palm, mimed pulling the wool. His eyes sharpened.

  “How did you snag your pretty glove, Lizi?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lacey stood outside in the deep-blue dusk, watching Zoe back her minivan past the other vehicles. “So, can you?” she asked Bull as he came around the porch. “Can you move that bar from inside the woodshed?”

  “Not a chance. When it’s not in the bracket, it hangs straight down. Good catch on the mitten. It seems to match what’s snagged on the bar. I’ll get a crime scene unit out here.” Bull was silent for a minute, then said, “That woman was hiding something, you reckon?”

  “She looked over at the kitchen once or twice, almost like she heard something. Could be a guilty conscience. But why on earth would she send her kid out to find the body?”

  “Not likely, when you put it that way. She works for the owner of the place, though. Maybe she knows something about him, or suspects it.” Bull resettled his hat. “Thanks for standing in. My nearest female constable is on a rollover with fatality near Morley. She could be hours yet.”

  “Won’t that bounce to Traffic Services to investigate?”

  “You still think like a townie, McCrae. Urban practice is to clear the scene fast and restore traffic flow, and so it should be. But Morley is not only rural, it’s also a First Nation. If there’s a death, we offer the family time for a ritual — smudge or prayers or whatever.”

  “Hours of it?”

  “It takes as long as it takes.” He thumbed through his phone. “Drive safe.”

  As they drove down the chalet’s driveway, Dee asked, “What the hell was that all about? You go in to ask the cop to move his car, and the next thing I know, he’s getting in and driving me up there. I texted my mom’s nurse to say we’d be a bit late. She won’t get it until they’re off the plane, but at least she’ll know we didn’t forget.”

  Lacey concentrated on keeping the Lexus between the snowbanks. “He didn’t tell you what happened?”

  “You were ‘assisting the police,’ is all he said. If it’s a break-in, I need to tell JP.”

  “They wouldn’t send two vehicles for that. They found a body in the woodshed, frozen, and it looks suspicious. That’ll tie up the scene for days. Your photos will have to wait.”

  Dee’s face paled. “But I have to sell that place ASAP. If I don’t get a decent commission in the bank by February, I’ll have to sell the roof over our heads.”

  “As bad as that? Shit, Dee. I’m sorry. I’ll email Dan when we get home. Maybe he’s finally had an offer on our house. Or I can coax him into buying me out.”

  Dee huffed. “Eight months and he hasn’t had a single offer? When the Lower Mainland is the hottest market in the country? Please! Anyway, I won’t have you grovelling to that asshole to get me out of a jam. Lord love me, what a disaster. Don’t tell my mom, either, eh? She’s got enough on her plate.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Zoe steered the van with trembling hands. She
cast another glance into the rear-view mirror, looking for that black smudge that had been following her ever since she touched the dead boy’s cheek. Of course there was nothing there, but the distinct feeling of a presence remained. It was the same feeling she’d had years earlier, that had haunted her day and night until she’d ended up in a psych ward.

  The passenger-side mirror grazed an overhanging bough. “Whoa, Mom,” said Lizi. “Are you okay?”

  Zoe straightened out the car, white-knuckled, as her reassuring-mom mode beat back her terror that she might be having another breakdown. How could she manage the full hour’s drive back to Calgary if she started hearing things? And maybe seeing things, like she had back in grade ten? She pulled up at the Y junction, near a sign for Waiparous Village, and opened the window to suck in some cold, crisp air. Focus, Zoe. Keep it together for Lizi. Yes, Eric’s dead, but everyone at TFB knew this was a possibility. If you start hearing voices, you go ask for your old prescription, and you’ll be fine. Just get Lizi home safe. The wind knifed into the vehicle, clearing her mind. I have to tell JP. He’ll have to make a statement on behalf of the company. He’ll get in touch with Eric’s parents. That was the next step: tell JP. She closed the window, cranked up the heat, and held her fingers over the air vent.

  “Sorry about that, honey. Just needed some air. Hang on a sec while I call JP.”

  “We aren’t supposed to tell anybody.”

  “That means on social media.” Zoe dug for her phone. “So the family doesn’t find out before the police get there. But I have to tell JP what’s going on at his place.”

  “You can’t call him now. It’s like three in the morning in England.”

  “Oh damn, you’re right.” Zoe stowed her phone and put the van into gear. “I’ll email him when we get home.”

  “What are we gonna do about the holidays now?” Lizi picked at her fingernail in the absence of the gloves the RCMP sergeant had bagged. “I won’t stay there. I just can’t.”

  “I won’t make you go back there. We’ll figure out something else.”

  As they passed a lone street lamp, Zoe glanced over at her daughter. In the yellow glow of the pole lights, Lizi twisted a lock of her shaggy blond hair between two fingers. A sure sign of stress.

  “I mean it — you don’t ever have to go back, honey. If you’re upset, use your words. Talk to me.”

  Lizi lowered her hands. “If I tell you something really weird, will you promise to be chill about it?”

  “I can try.”

  “Okay, well, ever since I ran out of the woodshed, it’s like there’s … like there’s something, um, following me.… Or somebody.”

  Zoe’s chest squeezed with a new fear. It wasn’t only her, then, who felt that creeping presence. Was this curse inherited? Mama would say, “Just pray, Zoe. Trust God to take the demon away.” But prayer hadn’t worked for Zoe, and it wouldn’t work for Lizi, who had hardly ever been to church. And it wasn’t a demon, anyway, unless a trick of brain chemistry counted as demonic. What could she say without giving away how freaked out she was? Moms had to seem in control, even when they were hanging on to sanity by their fingertips.

  “You’ve had a horrible scare, honey. It’s natural to be creeped out. Once we’re home, with some hot food and Toomie to cuddle, the feeling will fade.” Please, let it disappear!

  Zoe forced out a breath and tried to concentrate on driving, searching in the glare of the headlights for anything moving across their path. But each time she looked in the rear-view mirror, she held her breath, terrified she might see a set of cold, dead eyes looking at her from the back seat.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lacey wheeled Dee into Calgary International Airport twenty minutes after the flight from Hamilton had landed. Passengers were still trickling out from the Arrivals doors to congregate by the baggage carousels. Last came the wheelchair passengers. Dee’s mother was third and clearly the most ill, her sallow skin sagging under her green cap. The backs of her hands were badly bruised from months of IVs and blood draws. Her nurse, who was pushing her chair, wore a puffy winter coat that covered her from ears to knees. Her toque — from which a few sandy curls escaped — was white with pink sparkles, and it matched the mittens that hung from her sleeves on strings. Against that snow-white purity, Loreena looked more corpselike still.

  Dee sat in stunned silence, her fingers clutching the arms of her own wheelchair in a death grip. Lacey took a deep breath, stepped forward, and stooped to kiss Loreena’s weathered cheek. “Hello, missus.”

  Loreena’s thin lips quivered with the effort of a smile. “Lacey. How nice to see you, dear.” Her once-vivid blue eyes squinted in the glare of the overhead lights.

  The nurse shoved a sturdy paw toward Lacey. “Hi, I’m Sandy Walsh. You’re Lacey? And you must be Dee, then,” she said, turning to face Dee. “I’ve heard so much about you. I hope you’ve both had your flu shots. Your mother’s immune system can’t fight off the germs, you know. Speaking of which, can we get her out of here? She’s very tired. Plus there are so many people around, coughing and sneezing everywhere. Who knows how many strains of flu were circulating on that plane?”

  Dee forced a smile that wavered like her mother’s. “Of course. The sooner we’re all settled at home, the better we’ll all feel. We’re parked right out front.” She gestured at her wheelchair. “One perk of needing this thing, at least.”

  Being the last passengers off, their suitcases were already at the roundabout. Once Loreena was bundled up to her chin in a coat and blanket, Lacey led her and Sandy outside with the first two cases, leaving Dee to guard the third. Sandy lifted Loreena into the prewarmed front seat while Lacey opened the back hatch. She had to fold down the dogs’ kennel to stand the suitcases along the rear seat and still leave room for both folding wheelchairs. Then she went back for Dee and the last bag.

  As Lacey approached, Dee hastily wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “God, Lacey, she looks so much worse than I expected. She should be in a hospital.”

  “It’s one thing to be told she’s sick, and another to see for yourself. Chin up, now. You’re giving her a last good Christmas, remember?”

  “Right.” Dee sighed and gripped the arms of her wheelchair. “Let’s go home, then.”

  As the vehicle reached the snowy fields on the outskirts of Calgary, the city lights fell behind them. Snow-capped peaks kissed the velvet sky ahead. The wind sent tendrils of snow skirling across the road. Loreena dozed in the passenger seat. In the back, Dee sat chewing her lip, and Sandy looked out into the darkness. “I forgot how bright the stars are here,” she murmured.

  When they pulled up in front of Dee’s house, Lacey and Sandy got Loreena’s wheelchair out of the back. Sandy wheeled Loreena to the house while Lacey ferried in the luggage. Dee, she found, had stayed in the vehicle. “Pull into the garage,” she said. “I need a minute.” She sat, tears streaming, brushing her cheeks with the back of her glove. “Oh, God, Lacey, she’s dying. That nurse must be costing her a fortune. How can I even think of asking her for a loan now?”

  “I didn’t realize you were going to.”

  “I have no choice. I was counting on that commission to keep us afloat in February. It’s pretty hard to remortgage a house like this on long-term disability with no idea when I can go back to work. Every project I had has moved on without me. Even if I went back tomorrow, I’d need months to catch up.”

  Lacey stared bleakly at the rear wall of the garage. She’d coasted since Dee’s injury, buying groceries on the part-time work from Wayne, rationalizing her lack of action against Dan with how much energy it took to cope with Dee’s medical appointments and shopping and the household chores. Now things were dire, and she was no closer to getting her equity out of the house in Langley. “I can maybe get some work as a mall cop through Christmas.”

  “I’ll need you here, though, Lace. Mom’s nurse is going to her son’s for Christmas. And look at her. I can’t possibly care for her when I can
barely take care of myself. Adding an outside job right now is impossible.”

  There was no counter-argument to that. “Maybe the case at JP’s will be closed quickly. We’ll get your photos, and that chalet will sell fast once it’s all gussied up for the holidays.” Lacey gave Dee’s hand a squeeze and opened the car door. “It’s been a long day for all of us. Let’s just get through tonight and worry about the rest tomorrow.”

  Screams shattered the still night. Torn from a troubled doze, Zoe rolled from her bed as her husband woke. Ignoring his muttered “What the fuck?” she raced to Lizi’s room. Putting her hands on the flailing girl’s shoulders, she said forcefully, “It’s okay, baby, wake up, baby. It’s just a nightmare.” She repeated it over and over until Lizi came awake, her screams fading to a whimper.

  “It was him. Oh, Mommy, it was him. He followed me home.”

  Zoe groped for the bedside lamp, panic seizing her chest. It had to be just a nightmare. But she couldn’t stop herself from peering fearfully into the shadowy corners of the room, searching for … what? Shivering from a chill more atmospheric than real, she tucked the blankets tighter around Lizi’s shoulders and rocked until both their breathing settled. Eventually, Lizi drowsed, and Zoe eased herself off the bed. “I’ll leave the light on for you,” she whispered, then crept back to her own room.

  As she snuggled up to her husband’s back, he asked, “What was that all about?”