Where the Ice Falls Read online

“She had a nightmare about the dead boy.”

  “Not surprising.” Nik rolled over and wrapped his arms around her. “How are you doing? No nightmares?”

  “I haven’t been asleep long enough to dream.”

  “You should try. Tomorrow JP will have a whole bin of new jobs for you. Maybe enough to pay for rebooking a vacation somewhere else. The boys and Lizi are counting on real powder skiing, and last-minute chalets at a decent hill will bite us bad, especially at Christmas.”

  He was asleep in minutes, his chest warm against her back, his thick arms holding her close, his steady breathing stirring her hair. He was so calm, as if the biggest issue with finding Eric was that the kids might not get to go skiing. Learning that his wife and possibly his daughter were sensing ghostly presences would be a nasty shock. He hadn’t known Zoe back in high school, when she’d driven herself into that breakdown trying to escape from the whispers that nobody else could hear.

  After trying in vain to fall asleep, Zoe got up, grabbed her fleece hoodie, shoved her phone into the pocket, and headed downstairs. Since they’d probably be having Christmas at home, they’d need decorations. Soon she was pulling out strings of lights, winding garlands around the banisters, and setting out twenty years’ worth of Christmas-themed knick-knacks on the mantle and the bookshelves. She sorted through miscellaneous boxes of tree ornaments: store-bought sets that needed hooks, glitter-and-glue creations Lizi had made, Popsicle-stick reindeer and stars that Kai and Ari had mailed to their dad years ago. Eric’s mother came to mind. She might be weeping over his childhood decorations this very night. He’d been missing for a month, but she had to have hoped he’d still miraculously come home. How could any mother face the tinfoil stars and hand-painted snowmen of a child she now knew was gone forever? How could she ever celebrate Christmas again?

  Lizi came down an hour earlier than usual, her face ghostly white and her eyes smudged thumbprints. She was wearing her warmest fleece pajamas. “Can’t sleep either, eh, Mom?”

  “I don’t know what to do about Christmas,” Zoe said, not entirely lying. “Your brothers expect skiing and snowmobiling and snowshoeing, not sitting around the house for two weeks.”

  “I was, too … looking forward to the skiing, I mean.” Lizi slouched into the kitchen. “Tell me we have some of that double-dark hot chocolate.”

  Zoe watched her go. Lizi hadn’t mentioned the nightmare, and maybe that was all it was. A result of shock. But for Zoe, the feeling persisted that someone else was in the house with them. All night, she’d felt like something was just beyond a doorway, or behind her, or leaving a room two steps ahead of her entering it. There hadn’t been any sounds she couldn’t explain, no strange fluttering of a curtain. Still, every time she passed a mirror or saw her reflection in the window, she’d expected to see the young man standing behind her.

  Truthfully, she had no real recollection of what Eric looked like when he was alive. He was JP’s old neighbour’s son and had hung out with JP’s son; they’d probably come into the office together when she worked at TFB, but that was years ago, when the boys were pre-adolescent. When JP had contracted her to start the corporate cleanup process, Eric wasn’t one of the staff members she’d met. He had already been missing for two weeks by then. Worrying about hearing the voice of a dead young man she wouldn’t even recognize was probably pointless. She wouldn’t have been this anxious under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, these weren’t normal circumstances. Instead of controlling her own schedule with her handful of small-business clients, she had the daily downtown job’s stress, plus her adult stepsons’ pending arrivals for a vacation that would be spent crowded in their small house with nothing to do. If she did end up seeing or hearing a ghostly presence in the middle of all this, she might start screaming louder than Lizi.

  She pushed herself out of the pile of decoration boxes and followed Lizi into the kitchen, telling herself firmly that the worst was over. They’d found the body, they’d called the police, she’d messaged JP and, sooner or later, presumably she and Lizi would be called in to sign a statement. Otherwise, they were done with the investigation. Food, sleep, routine. That was what she needed. Those would bring her back to herself. And Lizi, too.

  When she heard the shower start upstairs, she pushed the button on the coffee maker and got Nik’s mug out. Routine.

  Her phone rang. It was JP. “Sorry, did I wake you?” His voice was hushed and urgent. “You’ll have to be the company’s point person with Eric’s family. He only drove out there that weekend because he wanted to talk to me. Since I didn’t ask him to come, it’s a grey area as to whether he was on company business, but his parents could sue me or the company for negligent death. That’s a huge problem with the sale looming, so …” His voice trailed off. “Zoe? Are you there?”

  “I’m moving into my office. Take a breath, JP.” With the door shut behind her, she went on. “Do you honestly think your neighbours for years, the parents of your children’s friends, are going to sue you because their son went out in a blizzard? You didn’t ask him to. What is there to sue over?”

  “He’s their son,” he said. “I can’t imagine how bad they feel right now. They’ll want somebody to blame.” A rustling sound came over the phone line, and the sound of a lighter clicking. He was smoking again, then. “I asked Arliss, but she says she has to be their neighbour and friend first. I want you to be available to them instead, for whatever they need. Take my condolences in person. Tell them how he was found.” He checked himself. “No, maybe not that. If they ask, assure them it was peaceful. Freezing to death is peaceful, right? Promise them the company will look into whatever needs doing, find out if they need help with the burial expenses. But, you know, phrase that tactfully.”

  Her hand shook as she pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. I found that boy’s body, she wanted to scream at him, and I’m not feeling very damned peaceful about it. I don’t owe you this. But she didn’t say any of that. After all, he had contracted her to ready the company for sale, and biting the hand that signs the paycheques wasn’t good policy. During all the years she’d been his firm right arm, she’d managed the “people problems” at the company because he was so damned inept at it. He trusted her to be unflappable and competent, so that was what she would be. She needed the money, and even more than that, she needed the routine, the distraction of work to prove to herself that she wasn’t losing control of her own mind.

  “I’ll say what’s fitting depending on how I find them. There’s not much more I can do, JP. Not to sound cold, but I have to reorganize my family Christmas, too. The chalet will be surrounded by police for a while yet, and anyway, I can’t take my daughter back to a place where she found a dead body.”

  Typically, JP didn’t bother pretending to care about Lizi’s possible distress. “Why would the police keep it taped off? He died in the blizzard, didn’t he? It’s terrible, but it happens.”

  “The sergeant said yesterday they’d have to figure out why he didn’t just go into the chalet where he’d be warm and fed and safe. Or why he didn’t stay in his car, wherever that is. It’s going to be a while before they finish up out there.”

  “Shit on a stick.” JP’s voice dropped further. “Look, Phyl’s back from her massage. I have to go. I promised no work on this trip. You deal with whatever and email me every day with updates, okay? Call for anything urgent and leave a message.”

  Zoe set the phone down on her desk. Her head dropped onto her arms. There she sat, slumped over, exhausted and angry, as the midwinter sun crept over the snowy yard and delineated the window blinds in strips of golden light.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lacey admitted a slow-merging transport truck to the main lane and glanced sideways at Loreena. Dee’s mom was gazing out the passenger side window, smiling. Her skin hadn’t entirely lost its yellowish cast, but this was not the corpselike woman they’d picked up from the airport two evenings ago. A couple of days in bed had helped her recov
er in body and spirit, and now she was looking forward to the Christmas market. Unbelievable.

  Dee leaned forward from the back seat, pointing. “Up here you get a good view of Cochrane and the Bow River Valley.”

  “It’s beautiful,” said Loreena, “with the blue sky and the golden-brown of the grass sticking up through the snow. Or is it hay? This is big ranching country, right?”

  Lacey pointed to a sign. “We’re on what’s called the Cowboy Trail, which runs through the heart of Alberta ranch country. Bragg Creek is another stop on it.”

  Dee called her mother’s attention to the wide, flat bench of land on the far side of the valley. “All that used to be one ranch, from here almost to Calgary. The owner left it to the province in his will, and now it’s protected parkland.”

  “So there are environmentalists in Alberta,” said Loreena. “Another myth demolished. Dated any tree-hugging cowboys?”

  “No,” said Dee. “Cowboys smell like horses, which I understand some women enjoy. If they smelled of dog, now …” She laughed. “Like most Calgary office workers, I own the obligatory cowboy boots to wear during Stampede, and I know to say ‘ya-hoo’ like a local instead of ‘yee-haw’ like a tourist.”

  Thanks to Dee’s handicapped placard, they snagged a prime spot near the end of the Old West downtown, almost at the hay-bale barricades. The snow had been piled high around the light standards, leaving the pavement bare, so pushing the wheelchairs around was no problem. Lacey handed Dee the extra lap blanket to cover her legs, and followed Sandy, who was briskly rolling Loreena toward the rows of brightly decorated booths.

  Dee pointed. “Look, holiday gifts for dogs.”

  Sure enough, the second booth advertised all-natural pet treats: hard biscuits in the shapes of bells, candy canes, and stockings, some studded with dry-roasted peanuts and others with jewel-like dried cranberries.

  The man behind the display turned out to be Dee’s neighbour, Eddie Beal. His faded sheepskin hat covered his shaggy hair, its ear flaps folded down over his cheeks. His straggly beard stuck out over a faded red scarf that didn’t match his red plaid coat. He grinned as they approached, exposing stained teeth. “Over here, Miz Dee. I got treats for them young dogs of yours. All good stuff. Cleans their teeth and their breath. Keeps ’em regular, too. Nice fat shits.”

  Only Eddie would think that yelling about dog crap was a good sales strategy. But then, responsible dog owners picked up the stuff on every walk, so maybe his pitch wasn’t such a stretch.

  Dee introduced her mother and Sandy to Eddie. While he extolled the virtues of his homemade rawhide peanut butter rolls and cinnamon pig’s ears, Lacey looked up the street to where the sunlight glinted off red and green foil garlands that looped between the shopfronts and lampposts. Plastic candy canes as big as barber poles bracketed the doorways. Giant Christmas balls hung from a huge blue spruce tree. Two Clydesdales stamped, jingling their harnesses, while parents lifted tots up to a straw-filled wagon. A teepee anchored the far end of the block. Nearby, members of a children’s choir warmed their hands around a firepit. Their next performance, advertised on a billboard nearby, was in half an hour. The teacher with them looked faintly familiar.

  “Hey, Dee, are those the kids who sang at the museum opening last summer?”

  Dee looked the group over. “I think so. But my memories from June are pretty shaky. If the teacher comes over, introduce yourself quickly so I can get her name in case I’ve already met her.”

  Sandy and Loreena rolled away, lured by warm gingerbread aromas coming from a booth filled with snow-topped gingerbread houses and candy-eyed cookie people. Bidding Eddie goodbye, Lacey pushed Dee after them. Eddie waved. “I’ll be over in the mornin’ with yer eggs, Miz Dee!”

  A woman from the first booth hurried after Dee, calling her name. Lacey turned the chair as the stranger caught up.

  “Marcia,” Dee said, with a bright smile. She introduced the woman to Lacey as an accountant at TFB Energy, JP Thompson’s company.

  This woman must have known the dead intern. Lacey mentally catalogued this potential source of information just as she would have done back in her RCMP days. Marcia was a sturdy woman on the north side of fifty, with dark, thick curls that spilled around the edges of her red, white, and blue knitted ski cap. She had what was called a generous mouth, which Lacey had always taken to be a nicer way of saying “large.” Firm lips, square jaw, and penetrating brown eyes gave her the look of a taskmaster.

  “Are you working here?” Dee asked.

  “Yes. Backcountry Safety Association,” said Marcia, her voice deep and assertive. “I teach a winter wilderness survival course and lead cross-country ski trekking, too. Everyone needs a life outside the office, right?”

  “Especially right now.” Dee clucked her tongue. “The death of that TFB intern is just terrible, isn’t it? How’s everyone over there dealing with it, now that his body’s been found?”

  Marcia glanced back at her unattended booth. “It’s not as if it was unexpected, after he’d been gone so long. To be honest, he wasn’t a good fit at the company. No understanding of office manners, these young people. But it’s come as an awful shock to JP.”

  “Oh, I know. On JP’s property, too,” said Dee. “You know, we were there that day, when they found the body.”

  Marcia recoiled. “You found the body? I thought —”

  “Not us, no. We happened along soon after the police arrived. Lacey’s a Victim Services volunteer for the RCMP, so she stayed to help that poor girl who found him.” Dee wrinkled her brow. “What was he doing out there anyway? Wasn’t it a long weekend? When he went missing, I mean.”

  “Taking paperwork out to JP, I suppose. If you remember that weekend, they’d announced a blizzard from hell was coming. JP heard it and headed back to town early, but it seems he and Eric missed each other. I spent the whole next week trapped at my cabin across the Bowl. JP asked me to keep an eye out, but there was no sign of Eric or his little red car, and no smoke coming from that chimney, either.” Marcia frowned. “Where was he found? Did they say?”

  Dee shrugged and raised her eyebrow at Lacey. Unsure how much detail the police had released, Lacey avoided the question by instead asking, “You were snowed in for a whole week? How did you stand it?”

  “Oh, I’m used to it. I’m from Ontario.” Marcia shifted in place and glanced again at her booth, where a lone person stood poking through the brochures. “In case you’ve never seen lake-effect snow, it’s massive there. Wet and heavy, and way deeper than anything you get out here. Nothing to see out the windows but white. On the farm we survived with stacks of library books and lots of wood for the stove.”

  Dee tipped her head farther back, keeping Marcia’s face in sight. “Will there be an office memorial service? I mean, you all worked with Eric, didn’t you? And wasn’t he a pet project of JP’s? When we first spoke about selling the chalet, he said couldn’t relax there anymore because his protege was missing in the area.”

  Marcia’s eyes narrowed. “What? Selling the chalet? It can’t be. Phyl would have told me if they were thinking of selling.”

  Lacey read sudden unease in the way Dee plucked at the blanket on her lap, so she pulled the chair back, putting some distance between them. “We’d better move on, Dee. Your mom and her nurse are halfway around the market already. Nice meeting you, Marcia. Happy holidays.”

  As soon as they were out of earshot, Dee let out a big breath. “Thanks for getting me out of there. I shouldn’t have mentioned the sale, but I didn’t think they were keeping it a secret from their friends.”

  “She’s a friend of JP’s as well as an employee?”

  “She hangs out with his second wife. But it’s not my business to overshare about a client. I wish I knew when Sergeant Drummond will be releasing the chalet. It’ll be a lot harder to sell it if we’re almost into the spring.”

  “I’ll phone him when we get home. Let’s see if your mom’s ready to bail yet.”
r />   As they caught up with the other wheelchair, Loreena greeted them with a yawn. “I got the cutest gingerbread-man puzzle for the little girl next door. And a few ornaments for your tree. When are you planning on putting the decorations up?”

  “Soon,” said Dee brightly. “Ready to head home?”

  “So,” said Lacey, when they were alone making supper, “where do you hide the decorations?”

  Dee grimaced. “I don’t own any. We, um, used to hire a decorator who brought all that stuff with her.”

  “How were you going to decorate that chalet, then?”

  “Borrow from the neighbours, of course! Jan and Terry have reams of holiday tatting from when his mom sold her house, and they told me I could help myself. Actually, I’d better email Jan. There might be some stuff she doesn’t want me to mess with.”

  “I’ll do it. You stir that pot.”

  Closing the office door behind her, Lacey dialed Bulldog Drummond’s personal number. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Whaddya want, McCrae?”

  “Wondering if you’d released the crime scene yet.”

  “All but the woodshed. What’s it to you?”

  “My roommate wants to get the place on the market ASAP. When can we go back and take the photos?”

  “If she’s got the owner’s permission, I can’t stop her. But stay away from the shed.”

  There was a pause while Lacey tried to calculate how much she could ask about the investigation. Bull saved her the trouble. “On rechecking the scene, we found a poppy pin in there, down between two logs. Nobody said the victim was wearing one, but he went missing Remembrance Day weekend, so it might be his. I’ve sent it for fingerprints.”

  “If it’s not his, it might belong to one of the Thompson family. They were there that weekend too, until a few hours before he drove up.” Lacey pictured the young man struggling through the blizzard, the gale whipping his face and tugging at his clothing. “He was found wearing a scarf, right? Were the ends loose or tucked in?”