The Ice Storm Murders

by Virginia Winters

  When breakfast was over. Thomas and I sat in a remote corner of the room. I thought over the various motives that had surfaced during that ghastly meal. Barrington's financial trouble could have inspired one of them to consider the chances were better with Melinda. Brad, maybe, in spite of what his wife thought. We only had Melinda's word for it that she was cut out of the will. Perhaps she thought her husband was tired of her and ready to move on to wife number four.

  And what about other children. There were other people in the house. Who was Kevin Argyle, and what about the pair in the kitchen? One or both of them could have killed him. David said Mike was a stranger, but they were friendly for guys who had just met. Even Beth Barrington was a possibility.

  I looked around the room. The Barringtons were huddled together at the breakfast table, but Melinda had disappeared.

  For the rest of the morning, I read, and Thomas napped. The Barringtons moved restlessly between their rooms and the living room, all except for Royce who slept soundly on a sofa matching the one Thomas was on. The storm raged on outside. Snowstorms that went on for days were rare in Ontario, but this was day two with no sign of it letting up.

  At lunchtime I suggested we all help ourselves in the kitchen. As I finished washing dishes, and how I got elected chief of that chore I didn't know, Karen burst through the door, screaming until Andrea grabbed her and shook her.

  "Melinda's dead. I knocked on her door to talk to her, and she's lying on the floor," she gasped when she had regained control.

  I dried my hands and towards the stairs. "Why do you think she's dead?"

  "She's pale and still and lying on the floor."

  “Where's her room?"

  "I'll show you," offered David as he followed me out the door and up the stairs.

  Melinda and Cooper had separate rooms. Melinda's was surprisingly austere, but perhaps they hadn't spent enough time here for her to bother with décor. A white iron double bedstead stood against one wall. Melinda lay on one corner of the pale-blue bed-cover that had been dragged or thrown onto the floor. She was dead and had been for some time. Her skin was cold, and a dark stain of lividity spread along her underarms. The arm had stiffened, so rigor mortis had set in but had no time to leave again. As far as I could remember, that meant it had been several hours since the time of death. Dark purple stains circled her neck. Strangled, I thought, and by a large pair of hands.

  David stood in the doorway, keeping the others out of the room. "What killed her? "

  "Strangled, I think."

  "What in God's name is going on here?

  "We're leaving this as we found it," I said as I walked past him out the door and into the crowd in the hall.

  "Is she dead?" Thomas said as he put an arm around my shoulders.

  "Yes. Let's go downstairs."

  The group around the table was past fighting and accusations. Everyone was afraid, or at least all but one. I told them that Melinda was dead but didn't go into any details about what I had found.

  "What the hell? That's all you're going to say? She's dead. How did she die?"

  Brad Barrington again, angry and blustering.

  "Strangled, and I'm saying nothing more until I talk to the police. One of you is a murderer," I said, "and the rest of you shouldn't know what it looked like in there."

  "But I do," Karen protested.

  "Keep it to yourself," I said.

  "What are we going to do?" Beth said.

  "Stay together, wait for the storm to stop, call the police," Thomas said.

  And we did, moving to the other end of the room, each little group staking out its space and staring uneasily at the others. I like to draw, but I thought that would cause a stir in the current atmosphere, so instead, I looked at each face as though planning a sketch.

  Karen's ultra-thin modern face had started to fill out and soften with her pregnancy into her fourth month. She gazed at me, her eyes met mine, but slithered away, perhaps uncomfortable with me looking at her.

  The Barrington children both had a strong resemblance to their mother. She must have been attractive when she was younger before alcohol had swollen and distorted her face. I'd thought of it as comfortable, but now she looked boozy and aged to me. Beth and Brad shared her short, upturned nose, round blue eyes and broad jaw.

  Kevin Argyle's crooked nose dominated his sharply etched face with its tight skin and angular cheekbones. He was sitting across from David McKnight who looked towards me and away. I had a sudden flash of what?—recognition, I suppose. Those large fleshy ears and that space between the front teeth were those of the dead man. Ears can be a strong genetic trait, even thought as individual as fingerprints. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Surely, in all the time that they lived together, someone mentioned the resemblance.

  Time for me to retreat to the bathroom to think. My mother always told me to be careful about my face because my thoughts showed. Better to be alone while I decided what to do. I told Thomas where I was going and walked up the stairs. Behind me, David told Mike that he was going to try the radio again.

  Karen called to me through the door. "Anne, are you almost finished? I feel sick."

  She was a big woman, and the force of her attack drove me back into the room. Her hands reached for my throat as I tried to get my arms up to protect it. I twisted away from her, my elbow hit the bridge of her nose, and she howled in pain and rage. She had her knee on my chest and pulled back her fist. I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't fight her any longer.

  "No, you don't." Thomas wrapped his arm around her neck and dragged her off me and out into the hall. Then he was with me, holding me.

  "Where is she?" I asked when I could speak again.

  "Kevin and Dave have her."

  Thomas thought I should lie down, but one stupid mistake was enough. I wasn't going to be alone again until I was back in my little house in Bridgenorth, even if Karen was under lock and key.

  The faces of the remaining Barringtons turned toward us, silent and pale.

  "Why?" Brad's question. "Why?"

  David McKnight answered as he came back into the room. "She had an affair with Cooper last year. That baby she's carrying is his. When he wouldn't leave Melinda to marry her, she killed him. She killed Melinda so that only her baby would be left to inherit the company."

  "That's still true," I said.

  "No, Cooper left the company to me and dealt specifically with any minor children living at the time of his death. His will gives me the responsibility for looking after their financial needs through a trust he set up in the will."

  "How many are there?" I said, fascinated by this Victorian approach to parental responsibility.

  "An older boy and a little girl as well as Karen's baby if it lives."

  "Why did she attack me?"

  "She said you stared at her. She thought you knew what she did"

  "Why did he leave the company to you?" Thomas asked.

  "I'm his son.”

  Later that day, the storm cleared, and we contacted the O.P.P. Thomas and I flew out the next day on the little yellow plane. I looked down at the lodge and David McKnight's solitary figure, diminishing as we spiralled up into the bright blue sky.

  My feelings for Thomas had grown stronger, but I wasn't sure whether the emotion was love or gratitude for saving my life. A problem to be solved later. He took my hand as the plane levelled off and he sank back into his seat and closed his eyes.

  The Ice Storm Murders

  Chapter One

  The limousine backed out of the driveway of Anne's grey, field-stone house and took the road south towards Peterborough.

  "Are we flying fixed wing or in a helicopter this time?" she said.

  Thomas's brown eyes met hers. "The company helicopter is meeting us at the airport in Peterborough. It's only ninety kilometres flying so it will take less than an hour to get up there. I'm sorry I rushed you but the weather report for the next two days isn't good."

  Poor weather for
a wedding, she thought. Perhaps a bad omen for David and his bride.

  "I didn't check—"

  "High winds and snow."

  "It's only November, so maybe it won't last."

  The route took them down Highway 28, bypassing most of the city, turning east and then south again to reach the small regional airport.

  "Should we talk?" she said.

  "Not here."

  They needed to some time, she thought, although she wasn't sure what answer she would give him and what would happen to them if she said no. Eleven months since the killer stalked her in Culver's Mills, six since his mother died and three since the conference with his children left him with the estate in Vermont and the burden of caring for it. And now this decision for her. He was certain of his life, of what he wanted to do, and of what he wanted from her. Certainty had eluded her through the night before and into daybreak. Perhaps the wedding this weekend would bring the question into focus for her.

  At the airport, Thomas handed her out of the car and walked with her to the waiting helicopter. The rotors on the blue and red aircraft rotated as they clambered aboard. They donned the headphones that allowed them to speak to each other and the pilot, but there was no privacy here either. They rode in the belly of a fabulous insect, she thought. The land below fell away, and the aircraft described a lazy arc to the west and north.

  The linked waterways of the Trent-Severn canal system channelled into the waters of the Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park. They passed over Haliburton Village and a clear blue lake, inexplicably called Head even though it resembled a giant's foot and headed north towards Algonquin Park and their destination.

  Below the Bell helicopter, the lodge and its outbuildings, a red-roofed cross against the snow, rose to meet them. The pilot off-loaded them and their luggage and took off.

  "He's in a rush," Anne said.

  "Weather."

  They hurried away from the downdraft towards the house to meet the couple coming towards them.

  Two figures huddled at one end of the expanse of porch around the lodge.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Came for your wedding, darling."

  "Came to screw it up for me, you mean."

  "Do you want to share all that lovely money or do you want me to mention—"

  "How much?"

  "Half."

  "I'll see you dead first."

  "I'll be back."

  Could she pull it off, he wondered.

  The incoming helicopter drowned out the conversation, and the couple parted, she towards the front door and he to the back.

  David and Vanessa waited in the protection of the verandah.

  "Who's this, David?" the willowy blonde at his side said.

  With her arm tucked into his, David McKnight leaned over and kissed her. How lovely she was, he thought, and how lucky he was. "Anne McPhail and Thomas Beauchamp. He and I do business. She was a doctor and now she travels with Thomas, but I don't think they live together. She's retired but investigates her family history and looked into ours for me. She helped me a lot when Karen killed my dad."

  "How?"

  "She's observant. Shall we walk out, they've landed."

  Ahead of them, the couple rushed away from the aircraft, bent over against the downdraft. Thomas, fiftyish, a lithe 5' 10" or so, towered over his companion, a slight, trim woman in her forties. Her dark red coat set off her face, still wearing a wash of tan. He wondered if she skied with Tom or if they had vacationed somewhere warm and sunny. A little grey in Anne's blonde curls but her face was unlined and cheerful, David noted. Not much changed since her last visit.

  When they reached Anne and Thomas, he kissed Anne's cheeks and shook Thomas's hand. "Welcome," he said. "My fiancee, Vanessa Donland."

  The formalities over, they strolled back to the expansive log building. Behind them, the helicopter, its jaunty blue and red a bright spot against the darkening sky, flew off to the west.

  Inside the lodge, David took them up to their room where someone efficient had already brought in their luggage. Anne remembered that there were back stairs from the kitchen to the upper hallway. Their room opened off the hall on the opposite side to the one they used before. Corner windows opened to the east and north.

  "Come down when you're ready," David said.

  "We won't be long, and congratulations again, David."

  "Thank you for coming," he said. "I have the children with me, and I think you will enjoy meeting them as well."

  "Oh, yes."

  After David left, Anne and Thomas unpacked and stood in front of the window, its view of the lake overhung with snow-laden clouds. No creatures disturbed the landscape, and the trees were still. Big storm coming, Anne thought. She hadn't checked the weather for the weekend, beyond knowing the forecast was for snow and packing accordingly. There was a ski hill somewhere close that she knew Thomas would want to try. He'd been a world-class skier as a young man, on the European circuit for a while. Or had that been a cover for his more covert activities? She'd never asked him.

  She turned back to the room, its log walls disguised with plaster and hung with Inuit paintings. Two club chairs, covered in a print of birds and flowers, flanked a fireplace of grey and pink granite at one end of the room. Tiffany-style lamps stood on simple pine tables beside each. Navaho rugs in the colours of the American southwest—desert pinks and sage—anchored the setting. Thomas added a small log of white birch to the flames that flared and flickered. The familiar smell of burning wood filled the room.

  "David's had a haircut," she said. "Do you think Vanessa's influence?"

  "I took a meeting with him a month ago. He had short back and sides then but those ears of his showed a bit too much. He's wearing it longer now. Perhaps the responsibility of all those kids motivated the haircut."

  "So he would look more conventional to the court? Do any of them live with him full-time?"

  "The baby and the little girl. He called the boy Hamish and fought for custody and got it. Proved Barrington wasn't the father. Barrington didn't want the child anyway, David said."

  "So he has a ready-made family. Do you know her?"

  "Never met her before. Are you okay being here? No flashbacks?"

  Flashbacks, she thought. Not yet. The bathroom where a murderous woman trapped her was at the other end of the hall from where they stood. For a moment she was back there, Karen's strong hands at her neck.

  She smiled at Thomas and lied. "Not so far."

  Thomas stirred the fire with a poker from a set of brass tools that leaned against the fireplace. He spoke to the flames. "Have you an answer for me?"

  An answer? Not here, at least not yet. He crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed. Anne reached for his hand and caressed it. The broad fingers of his other hand covered hers and held them still. She shook her head.

  He put his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him, his tweed jacket rough against her face. "Soon?"

  Would it be soon? She hoped so, hoped that she would see her way to him and give him the answer he wanted.

  "By the time we leave."

  The arm around her shoulders tightened and released her. “We should go down. David said cocktails."

  They changed into jeans and colourful sweaters, the usual lodge wear, and joined the others in the great room.

  At the foot of the stairs, the room opened to a living area, easily thirty by fifty feet, with log walls rising at least ten feet. Brightly-coloured Navaho rugs and overstuffed furniture upholstered in a faded print warmed up all the exposed wood. Fires, releasing the scent of pine and apple, crackled at either side of the room. Along one wall, bottles in vibrant blues and reds and cut-crystal glasses reflected in a horizontal mirror. An impersonal room in spite of the comfort, Anne thought. Nothing changed from when Cooper Thwaite or his decorator chose the rugs and the fabric. Nothing here that reflected David or his taste in art or furnishings or colour.

  A white-coated waiter circu
lated with trays of shrimp and one-bite pastries, but a television set beside the further fireplace absorbed the attention of the assembled guests. Brad Barrington, a lanky forty-year-old with prematurely-greying hair and acne-scarred skin, his square jaw reflecting his mother's, settled into an armchair and kept his eyes on the television. He ignored his mother, Andrea, who perched on a nearby sofa. His eyes focussed on Vanessa when they slanted away from the television. He was a heavy, steady drinker, Anne recalled.

  Another couple, Beth and Kevin Argyle, sat together on a loveseat with a clear view of the screen. Beth, too, shared her mother Andrea's square jaw, round blue eyes, and upturned nose. A historian for the City of New York, she had no children, whether by design or not, Anne didn't know. Her husband worked as a city planner. His crooked nose dominated his sharply-etched face with its tight skin and angular cheekbones.

  The long-legged woman reading the weather gestured to a weather pattern that encompassed all of eastern Ontario. Her sing-song voice barely concealed excitement at the coming storm.

  How odd of David, Anne thought, to replicate the house party of the weekend his father died. Except for Karen, of course. She shivered.

  "Cold?"

  "Goose on my grave," she said, the answer from her childhood.

  David waved them over. "I think you all know Anne McPhail and Thomas Beauchamp."

  Terse murmurs acknowledged the introduction, but everyone's attention swivelled back to the screen.

  "Ice storm warning," David said.

  "When?" asked Anne.

  "Tonight and tomorrow. I'm sending the staff home now."

  He left them, spoke to the waiter, and hurried with him to the kitchen.

  Anne had lived through two major ice storms and the havoc they brought—downed power lines, no communication, and people cut off for days with little food or fuel. Perhaps it was all weather-expert hyperbole.