Where the Ice Falls Read online

  Zoe poured tea into three mugs. “Uh-huh. I’ll donate any extra stuff to one of the kids’ charities TFB supports. There’s more sports stuff his kids have outgrown at his Calgary house. If this had happened a few weeks earlier, there’d be Christmas charities lining up for it. It’s all high-end and barely used.”

  Lacey’s eyebrows popped. “You have keys to his Calgary house?”

  Dee gave her an indecipherable look. “She was JP’s confidential assistant for years. I didn’t realize that. He trusts you completely, doesn’t he, Zoe? He said you’ll give access codes to the realtors when he sells it.”

  Zoe looked up from the tea things. “So, he’s going ahead with that, too? Or, more accurately, his wife has convinced him to sell every Canadian asset. He warned me it might happen.”

  Lacey exchanged a glance with Dee. “What else is he selling? This chalet, his house in Calgary, and?”

  “The company. He’s got me digging through old files, making sure all the loose ends are tied off, assembling a package for potential buyers to show assets and liabilities and quirky little deals that have yet to play out. All confidential so far, because the vultures will start to circle if they think the company’s vulnerable. Phyl, his wife, wants them to live in England, where she comes from. They’re house hunting over there as we speak.”

  While Dee and Zoe sipped their tea and discussed the possible arrangement of Christmas decorations, Lacey clambered through snowbanks shooting the chalet’s exterior. After a complete circuit, she stamped and brushed the excess snow off herself on the front porch before bringing the camera into the foyer. She’d tried to follow Dee’s instructions: don’t shoot into the sun, get some unusual angles, and if you’re shooting windows, check what they’re reflecting. The windows on the end opposite the drive were all blank, smothered in heavy, dark drapes, a complete waste of her effort traipsing through drifts that were up to her thighs in places. Hopefully Dee didn’t want any more photos of those. Did Bull realize the owner of this crime scene was selling every possession that tied him to Canada? If he’d only decided to do so after the death of his intern … well, there could be something there …

  The thought nibbled at her concentration through the next hour, while she coped with Jan’s mother-in-law’s giant white Christmas tree. Under Dee’s direction, she looped it with silvery-blue ribbon and moved it between the big front windows and the fireplace ell, adjusting the ribbons according to Dee’s directions to better catch sunlight or the camera’s flash. While she was outside fighting snowbanks, Zoe had looped garland up the stairs and added clusters of Christmas balls at intervals. Those got close-ups. Dee had arranged a display of figurines over the fireplace and twined lacy white garland around them. She shot those from several angles, too, and then sat down to go through the images while Zoe helped Lacey repack. The whole process took barely two hours. Staging 101, indeed.

  As Lacey toted the decorations back to the Lexus, she pondered Zoe’s helpfulness. How much of her motivation was loyalty to JP, and how much was a determination to put this place and its connotations behind her? Would she cover for JP if he had accidentally — or on purpose — locked his intern in the woodshed and left him to die?

  As the sun slipped down behind Black Rock Mountain, lengthening shadows stalked the SUV down the road. Under the yellowish smudges of parking-lot lights, a few weary snowboarders and skiers trudged toward their vehicles. An Alberta Sheriffs truck made a slow circuit around the town square, a visual warning to the snowboarders against lighting up their pot before they drove. She’d done the same thing times out of mind as a patrol constable in the Lower Mainland — not around snowboarding sites, but outside skateboard parks, rock concerts, any venue that attracted the young and heedless. Oh, the old days, when she’d had access to the whole Canada-wide RCMP database to check up on people who did something suspicious. Not that she was completely cut off. Besides Bull, there was Tom, who owed his life to her quick action when he was stabbed seven years ago. He now worked Commercial Crimes in Calgary. If there was anything fishy about JP’s oil company, Tom or someone he worked with might know about it.

  Dee looked over at her as they crossed the log bridge. “That Zoe woman … when I first caught sight of her, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fireplace, holding a piece of firewood over her head and talking out loud. I thought there must be someone else in there with her, in another room, maybe. But she was alone.”

  “Her phone?”

  “Nope. It was in the kitchen. She turned it on to check messages later.”

  “A bit weird.” Lacey slowed to admire the swaths of coloured lights in a lone, snowy yard. “She seemed generally level-headed over the statement yesterday.”

  “Yeah. It’s like she’s two different people: one rational and competent enough to be completely trusted by JP, the other talking to people who aren’t there. When I came in, I tapped the snow off my cast and she said, ‘If that’s really you, tap again.’ I said something like ‘I beg your pardon,’ and she leaped up like a scalded cat.” Dee flicked to the next image on her camera. “It was just weird.”

  They reached home too late to eat with Dee’s mother. Loreena had eaten some soup, Sandy reported, and was already upstairs for the night. “She’s taken it into her head to go to a Blue Christmas service in Calgary tomorrow. She saw it on the evening news and figures it’ll ease you into the grieving process.”

  Dee shrugged off her coat and slung it over its hook in the mudroom. “I’ll go up and see how she’s doing. Lacey, can you scrounge us up something for supper?”

  “Oh, and I want to run you through her bedtime routine,” Sandy added. “Tomorrow night is my first overnight with my grandkids. You can phone me there if you need additional instructions, but I’ll feel more comfortable leaving her if we go through it all thoroughly tonight.”

  Briefly alone in the kitchen, Lacey rested her forehead against the gleaming black fridge. For a decade she had handled dozens of emergencies per shift and bounced back, but now that her life was mundane, she was exhausted by the months of caring for Dee. No gym, no winter running, no outlet for the unending buildup of stress hormones except the regular dog walking, because if she slipped and fell and was out of commission, both she and Dee would be up the creek. Now Sandy was prepping to leave, adding the weight of Loreena’s physical and emotional well-being onto Lacey’s shoulders. The end of her rope was knotted in her hands and there was nothing else to stop her from falling. If she fell, Dee and Loreena fell with her. The reflection of her tired eyes stared back at her from the glossy black depths of the fridge door.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Kai and Ari were quiet on the drive home, worn out from jet lag and their high-energy afternoon. The silence suited Zoe. Her brain bounced between two distinct personalities: the calm, focused executive assistant who was enjoying the challenges of JP’s massive life-and-business transition, and the woman who had just tried to talk to a ghost by tapping on the fireplace grate with a piece of wood.

  When they got home, Nik was making supper. “There’s a message for you on the house answering machine,” he said. “You should take it in the office.”

  “Only telemarketers use that line. Who’s it from?”

  “You’ll see.” He splashed balsamic into a sauce pot. “I’ll call you when we’re ready to eat.”

  Zoe ditched her coat, poured a glass of wine for herself, and shut the computer room door behind her, muting the family’s voices. She slumped in her office chair and pushed the button on the old answering machine.

  “Hello, Zoe? It’s Arliss Thompson. I realize it’s been a few years since we spoke, but JP finally got around to telling me you’re back at work.” It was JP’s first wife. She’d been the company’s office administrator for its first decade, a blunt general who kept everyone marching in the same direction. Zoe had waffled for days now about shunting responsibility to her for Eric Anders’s family. It meant disobeying JP’s direct command, but if Arli
ss wanted to be involved, Zoe could leap off of a particularly unwelcome hook.

  Arliss went on, “JP says you’re the company’s representative to the Anders family. If you haven’t spoken to them yet, you might want some background. Call me back if you do. Hell, call me back regardless. I’m still a twenty-five percent shareholder in TFB, after all. I have a right to know what’s going on.”

  Uh-oh. She sounded militant. JP had clearly been his usual tactless self.

  “Nik,” Zoe yelled over her shoulder. “How long until supper?”

  “Twenty minutes, give or take.”

  “Yell really loud in fifteen, can you, please? If Arliss is on the warpath, I’ll need an out.” She picked up the landline. Until she knew what mood the older woman was in, no way was she revealing her current cell number.

  “I blame you for none of this,” were the first words out of Arliss Thompson’s mouth.

  “Thank you.” What else what there to say?

  “How long have you known JP’s moving to England?”

  Her loyalty to JP had never necessitated lying to Arliss. “Less than two weeks.”

  “And what about the company sale?”

  “He first approached me in mid-November. Succession planning, he said then. I didn’t find out he actually planned to sell until December.” Zoe gulped down a mouthful of wine. “He sprang the rest on me when he offered me the chalet for the holidays. It was a scramble to get Nik’s boys here.”

  “I can imagine.” Arliss’s voice was grim. “Well, I found out on the fifteenth, when my eldest informed me that they’re all going to be spending Christmas not in Calgary or Black Rock, but in a fancy hotel in London. JP is supposed to consult me about any holiday plans. Frannie and Ben are both still minors. He needs my permission to take them out of the country. If not for that fact, I probably still wouldn’t know.”

  “TJ chose to go, too?” Arliss’s older boy had been navigating between his parents since he was ten.

  “He says he has to fly over with the younger ones.” Arliss grudgingly added, “He’s got a point. They’ve never flown unaccompanied before. But we usually split the holidays — one house for Christmas and the other for New Year’s. Now JP says the kids will be in England until the school term starts, and he’s not coming back at all. I’m supposed to let my kids go jetting off to England for holidays for the rest of their lives and not say boo about it? I can’t compete with that. JP’s net worth tripled the first year after our divorce. Mine flatlined. Now the kids are aging out of child support and this house is just plain aging. I’m losing ground, Zoe, and he’s retiring at fifty-five to live like a bloody English country squire.” She ranted away for a bit longer, then veered back on topic. “Anyway, about Eric. Of course I knew he was missing — I still live next door to his family — but now they say he was found at our ski shack. What the hell is going on?”

  Zoe’s mind snapped back to that bright winter afternoon: Lizi’s screams, the police, the cloud that had hung around her ever since. “I’d like to know what the hell is going on, too. Lizi found his body in the woodshed. We called the police. We had to give formal statements. She’s had nightmares.”

  “Oh, god, I’m so sorry.” Arliss paused. “I had no idea it was you who found him. Poor Lizi! And here’s me dumping all my crap on you. How are you coping?”

  Being haunted by your dead neighbour. “I’m not sure. I just get up every day and tackle the to-do list.”

  Arliss clucked. “And cry later, because that’s how us women get through.”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “Listen, honey, I’d take this off your plate if I could, but the Anders are my neighbours. If they think I’m being supportive just to keep the company off the hook, it could backfire. Their daughter is Frannie’s age, and Eric and TJ were inseparable until they hit puberty and went off to separate schools. Eric’s brother and sister — Aidan and Clematis — need a stable adult right now like never before, and I’m all they’ve got handy.”

  “What about their parents?”

  “God, no. Eric was Leslie’s darling. She’s been weeping in her room since the day he disappeared. Her husband, Brian, he travels a lot with his well services company. Even when he’s home, he’s completely checked out. Aidan — he’s the eldest — more or less raised his little sister. He has his own apartment, but he’s been staying at home a lot lately.”

  “I don’t quite understand what JP expects me to do. ‘Keep them from suing,’ seems to be his entire game plan.”

  Arliss sighed. “It’s to everyone’s benefit for this not to get uglier. I’m sure you and I can cope together. Check back with you in the morning?”

  Zoe set down the receiver with new hope in her heart. The load was shared. Arliss knew the family and could help Zoe be supportive with minimal time away from work and her own family. She went to supper smiling and had a truly enjoyable evening playing board games with the gang. No ghostly faces, no work calls, no shadow over the evening — but, still, the looming problem of how to give the kids their skiing getaway without breaking the bank. She went to bed tired and almost happy as the first local evening news report came up on the rec room TV.

  The house phone rang when she was on the fuzzy edge of sleep. The bedroom door opened. “Hey,” Nik whispered. “You still awake? It’s Arliss again. She says it’s important.”

  Zoe reached a hand out from under the duvet and wrapped her fingers around the phone. “Uh-huh?”

  “I hoped you’d stayed up for the news. I’ve got a way for you to do something for Eric’s family that will be fairly low stress but still force them out of their bubble.”

  “Yeah?” Zoe struggled to sit up. “I’m listening.”

  “You ever heard of a Blue Christmas church service?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  As the pipe organ’s deep tones swelled, Lacey found herself standing at parade rest in the pew as if she were in the RCMP chapel at Depot. Except for a few weddings in the intervening decade, that was the last time she’d been to church. No sea of red serge here, though. It was a motley congregation — all ages, sizes, and modes of dress. On her left, Dee sang valiantly along to a hymn neither of them had heard since high school. On her right, in a wheelchair slot cut out of the pew, Loreena sat with her eyes closed, trembling lips whispering the words she lacked the energy to sing. Around them, voices lifted and trailed away. Someone’s cellphone chimed and was hastily silenced. Lacey’s phone was in her jacket, muted, but that text from Bull, received as she was walking into the building, reverberated through her bones. Plow guy never left his machine. The chalet was officially a crime scene. The case would go to Major Crimes on Monday. She hadn’t told Dee the news yet. Let her have this hour, this evening, to be with her mother and not stress about that chalet sale.

  The organ’s last note faded and the readings on grieving — some biblical and some secular — began. The readers’ faces floated in cones of old-gold light from antique hanging lamps. The glow hardly reached the huddled groups and solo strangers in the pews. How many had come to mark a murder victim? How many domestic violence? Alberta had the highest rate of domestic violence in Canada. According to the ratio of abusive spouses to non-abusers, some in this room had to be abusers themselves. Statistically, more abusers occupied these pews on Sundays, probably unashamed because the church preached the subordination of women to their husbands. To drive the message home, one stained glass window showed women kneeling at the feet of a man. So much domestic violence had its roots in buildings like this one.

  Someone in the row behind her stifled a sob. A pew creaked as someone else shifted, murmured comforting words. A few rows up sat a man with one thick arm slung over the shoulders of the boy beside him. The boy was staring down at a handheld gaming device, his dark curls haloed by the blue light from the tiny screen. The same light kissed a tear rolling down the man’s cheek. So much sadness gathered into one building. Did this Blue Christmas service really comfort people?
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br />   Loreena’s hand touched hers. Lacey wrapped her fingers around the frail ones and understood from their twitch that she should take Dee’s hand. Around them, other pairs and groups linked up, too. There they all sat during a final melancholy musical performance, and none of the three let go, not even when the reverend offered a blanket invitation to a post-service social down in the church hall. Holding each other together for whatever lay ahead. Next December she would suggest to Dee that they come again, to remember Loreena and this moment. There was comfort in that thought. She squeezed the yellow fingers gently before releasing them.

  As people stood and fastened their coats, Dee leaned across. “Mom, do you want to attend that social?”

  “No. Can we wait here until most people are gone, though?” Loreena leaned away from the crowded aisle. “I’d like a few peaceful minutes near the altar, if they’re going to leave the candles lit. Lacey, you can go get the car if you want. I don’t expect you to stay a minute longer here when this all makes you uncomfortable.”

  “I’ll wait and get you up to the front. Dee, can you hobble that far?”

  “I’ll stay here.” Dee stopped short of pulling out her phone, but Lacey had seen her fingers twitch toward her pocket more than once during the service. She was probably dying to get back online and tweak her photo layout to send out to prospective buyers at the earliest possible moment. Lacey would have to kill her hopes once they were home. Promoting a Christmassy chalet the day it was featured in the local news as the site of a suspicious death could seriously damage its prospects for sale.

  Lacey parked Loreena’s chair close enough that she could see the cross and breathe the spicy scent of the evergreen baskets on their dark wooden pedestals. “How’s this?”

  “Perfect. Thank you, dear. I really appreciate what you’re doing for me, and for Dee. I’m glad you’ll be with her when I’m gone.”