by Vicki Delany
The woman watched her go, her strength was almost enough to call the girl back, to run after her and envelop her in her arms, to stroke her back and say that everything would be all right. Almost strong enough, but not quite.
The man leaned across the seats and shouted out the open door, “You remember now, when you’re good and married you can come back. Not before. You hear me?” The girl continued walking. She did not look back.
The man spat on the floor of the truck. “Storm coming, let’s go, woman.”
Slowly the woman climbed back into the cab and slammed the door after her. Overhead, thick, black storm clouds gathered. Flakes of snow swirled wildly to and fro in the winds, unable to decide in which direction to fall. With the instincts of northerners, the few people out on the streets quickly finished up their business and headed home. Tossed about by the wind, an old garbage can lid clattered down the street, narrowly missing the minister’s wife as she turned into the neatly shoveled path leading up to the church. Tonight she was in charge of the semi-annual charity bazaar and bake sale to raise money for those less fortunate than the good citizens of North Ridge. She said a quick prayer that the snow would blow over and not ruin the evening. So much work had gone into planning this event; she was positively worn out. Someone would have to venture out once again to clear off the church entrance. A thin layer of snow was already covering the tidy walk.
The old truck turned and drove slowly down the street. The woman twisted in the cab and watched the five-and-dime receding into the distance until they turned the corner and it was gone. With a sigh and a quick wipe at her cheeks she settled back into her seat. She had left the baby at home with the boys. She hoped they hadn’t forgotten about her and gone off to play.
Chapter 28
Simultaneously the snowplow arrived to do the driveway and a truck pulled up with a load of chopped firewood. Joanna didn’t know which of them she was more excited to see.
The driveway and the entrance to the road were cleared in a matter of minutes and with a wave the plow operator drove off to his next job. He would send Joanna a bill in the mail. The deliveryman stopped to talk after he had stacked several cords of firewood in orderly rows under the cabin and covered them with a tarpaulin.
A combination of the increasingly threatening weather, the sense of desperate isolation after the warm companionship of Elaine’s visit, and the reoccurrence of the strange dreams, the most recent only last night, had Joanna jumping at every creak of the old cabin floor. She was all too glad of the chance for the deliveryman’s company and warmly invited him in for coffee. As he thawed out in the warmth of the kitchen a small puddle formed around his chair. The man apologized profusely but she waved his protests away.
His knuckles were so gnarled they rose up like tree stumps out of his old hands and Joanna could hardly help noticing that he was missing two fingers off his left hand as he wrapped them gratefully around the steaming coffee mug.
He looked around her home with interest. “How’s old John McKellan doing?” he asked. “We don’t hear nothing from him since he moved over to North Bay.”
“Sorry, I can’t tell you anything,” she said. “I rented this place through an agency. I didn’t deal directly with the owners themselves.”
The man politely but vainly attempted to suppress his surprise. No doubt every time he did business he talked face to face with the persons involved. No man would want a stranger knowing his affairs.
He bit eagerly into a chocolate chip cookie. In her restlessness Joanna had accomplished an amazing amount of baking over the last several days, most of which she would never manage to eat.
“Terrible thing about Luke. Sorry to hear about what happened. Good man, Luke. You found him, I hear.”
Joanna nodded. “Unfortunately, yes. I did find him. Poor old guy.”
The deliveryman sipped his coffee in silence for a few moments out of respect for Luke’s memory. She waited for him to speak again.
“I hear that the police are asking lots of questions about Roy McMaster. Good cookies these.”
“Please have another.” She pushed the plate toward him. “Have as many as you want. What do you mean? Do they suspect McMaster had something to do with it?”
“Well.” He seized a cookie in one massive three-fingered paw and swallowed it whole. “I shouldn’t be telling tales out of school, if you take my meaning…”
“I won’t tell a soul,” Joanna breathed. No lie that, she didn’t have anyone to tell anything to.
“My sister, what works in the police office part time, answering phones and doing paperwork and what all that I don’t really understand, she tells me that Luke and Roy McMaster had a real set to about a week before the murder. Uh, any more coffee?”
She leapt to her feet and grabbed the coffeepot. “I saw that fight. It was nothing really, just a lot of bombast and bluster. I’ve been told that Roy and Luke were always fighting. People said that they had been enemies ever since they were in school.”
He nodded thanks to the refill and chucked. “That’s right. I was there myself that day. Roy called Luke’s sister, Jean, a real nasty name. Won’t repeat it to you, ma’am.” Joanna covered a smile. It was a long time since a man had watched his language around her. Come to think of it, had any man, ever?
“Luke come after him like a bat out of hell, excuse me. Beat the tar out of Roy. I guess it would have all blown over ‘cepting that Roy figured himself for a real fighter, told everyone that he would be a heavyweight contender some day. And there in front of the whole school, skinny little Luke kicked him into the dust. Roy always was a nasty piece of work, even then. None of us kids were sorry to see him get it.” The man smiled at his memories.
“Was Jean Nancy Miller’s mother? I think Nancy told me that she is his niece.”
“No, ma’am, they was a large family, like most farm families round here in those days. Jean was the oldest sister, Betty, the youngest, she were Nancy’s mother.”
“I know that Nancy’s mother died sometime in the sixties,” Joanna said. “But Jean? What happened to her?”
“Nice girl, Jean.” He continued talking and eating cookies. “Real pretty she was, and smart too.” His deeply lined and weather-beaten old face took on a soft, sad glow and thirty years dropped from him in an instant. Joanna had only kept him talking to make conversation, to pass the time of day. But she could see that he was leaving her warm little kitchen and reaching back into the past. This story would not have a happy ending.
“She became a nurse, went off to one of them foreign places, one of those places having trouble all the time. The whole town was so proud of her.” And you, most of all, Joanna thought.
“Somewhere in Africa, I think it was. Died there. We heard she caught some disease and just up and died.”
“How sad.” Joanna reached out her hand as if to touch his, but she quickly remembered her place. This proud old man would not want her sympathy. She leapt up to refresh the cookie plate in order to give him a moment to recover himself.
She put the cookies down on the table and refilled his cup. “So the police think Roy McMaster killed Luke. Seems a pretty far stretch, that he would finally kill the man who humiliated him some, what, thirty years later?”
Back in the present, he shook his head. “No one thinks he been waiting all those years, and let me tell you little lady, it’s been much more than thirty years since I was a schoolboy, to do the deed. Nope they had a big fight right behind the liquor store in Hope River. Must be ten, twenty people heard them. Luke said Roy was having parties on his property at night. Said Roy was bringing in all his liquored-up friends and running wild through the woods at night.”
Joanna laughed. “You can’t be serious. Roy McMaster running through the night like a Shakespearean wood nymph.” An image flashed through her mind of the fat old drunk dressed in garlands of leaves and flowers, performing pli�s among the trees. She laughed again. “I can’t believe that.”
&nbs
p; He looked somewhat offended at her laughter and Joanna quickly brought herself up short.
“Well, I don’t reckon I know what a nymph is, but that’s what they fought about and that lady policeman is pretty interested in Roy McMaster right now, let me tell you.”
“Have they arrested him?”
“Not yet, my sister tells me they don’t have enough evidence.” He pushed his chair back from the table and lumbered to his feet.
“Thank you for your hospitality ma’am. Right nice to sit a spell. You need more wood, you let me know. Thanks for the cookies.”
Joanna quickly laid out a strip of aluminum foil and wrapped the rest of the baking into a little bundle. She thrust the package at her guest. “Please take some home with you.”
He accepted the gift with a nod.
She stood at the front window and watched the old man plod up the driveway to his truck, a silver package containing homemade cookies tucked under his arm. The snow continued to fall, softly and steadily. Already the tracks of the snowplow were disappearing under a soft white blanket.
If the police had another suspect, then Tiffany should be in the clear. Joanna certainly hoped so. But she couldn’t imagine a feud of, what-forty, fifty years?-suddenly erupting into murder. She had the impression that Luke and Roy rather enjoyed their reputations as crusty old men who never forgot a slight to their supposed honor. Neither of them were exactly pillars of the community, but they both enjoyed a position of some respect, a position earned in large part because of the long running vendetta.
The woodcutter had placed a large stack of ready to use firewood neatly beside the old iron stove. Joanna stoked up the embers and laid the fire once again. The dry wood caught quickly and a lovely warming blaze spread out to fill the little room.
The next day as she was settling onto her hands and knees to scrub the old kitchen linoleum, Joanna had a visit from the police. It had been so long since they had bothered her that she was daring to hope she had been forgotten. No such luck. She peeled off her plastic cleaning gloves and opened the door to Inspector Erikson and Staff Sergeant Reynolds.
Reynolds was crumpled and relaxed in his standard issue winter uniform. He tucked his state trooper-style hat under his arm and sat down with much huffing and puffing to pull off his galoshes. Erikson slipped off her delicate ankle boots and refused Joanna’s offer to take her coat. She merely unbuttoned it in recognition of the warmth of the room. Underneath she wore a severe and highly unflattering suit in a shade of brown best described as mud. No scarf or pin broke the stiff perfection of the tailored jacket. Her blond hair was fastened into a sharp, shapeless bun at the back of her head. Idly, Joanna wondered if the inspector ever let her hair down or if she slept at attention, every hair properly pinned into place, panty hose primly pulled up, knees crossed.
As usual Erikson left Joanna’s mouth gaping open, about to offer coffee or any other hospitality, and proceeded straight to the point.
“I was going over your previous statement this morning, and wanted to clear up one minor detail.”
Joanna snapped her mouth shut and smiled stiffly. “Yes?”
Erikson flipped open her methodical little notebook and consulted it in silence for a few moments. “When you found the body of Luke Snelgrove down by the lake, it was partially under an overturned canoe. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Erikson looked up from her notes. “Did you at any time turn the body over?”
“Of course not,” Joanna spluttered. She wondered what they were getting at. The police had not been around for more than a month now and she was very happy about that. No matter how completely innocent she knew herself to be it was disconcerting to have this authoritative, no-nonsense officer questioning her movements and her motivations. She took a deep breath and tried to control her shaking voice. “I’d like to say that I didn’t touch him - it - because of my sense of civic duty, but unfortunately I was just scared out of my tiny mind.”
“Did anyone else come along after you found the body? Perhaps while you were up here, phoning the police?”
“I didn’t see or hear anyone. Anything could have happened, but I don’t think so. Why are you asking me this? Did you get the information I phoned in about what I learned about the Bulls jacket?” Joanna glared at Reynolds, daring him to tell her that he had forgotten to pass on her hard-earned piece of intelligence. Instead the staff sergeant smiled with satisfaction. For once he had done something right and the inspector had actually been pleased.
“Your information was very helpful,” Erikson admitted grudgingly. “We went to the bar and spoke to the staff, and they did admit that the Jordan girl was there that night and that she did complain that someone had stolen her jacket. So Tiffany was missing the jacket sometime before you spoke to Luke Snelgrove on the road after one AM.”
They asked her to go over her movements on the day she found the body, one more time. Erikson snapped her notebook shut in the aggressive gesture that Joanna had come to recognize as marking the end of the interview. Before the police could get to their feet, she interrupted with a question of her own.
“Why are we going over all this again? I would appreciate it if you could tell me what’s going on. You can’t believe that Tiffany did it,” she couldn’t bring herself to say the word killed, “not after what we found out about the jacket.”
Erikson tucked her notebook and pen back into her bag and marched briskly to the door to slip on her boots. “That the jacket was reported stolen on the date in question actually proves very little. Maybe the girl simply misplaced it and found it later.”
Joanna opened her mouth to object, but Erikson raised one hand. “However, I don’t think that is the case.
“Of more significance, we are sure that the body was moved after Mr. Snelgrove was dead. We do not know where he was killed, but it is unlikely to have been anywhere on your property or the surrounding land.”
Joanna felt a rush of relief so intense she staggered and barely kept herself from collapsing back into the chair. She managed to keep both her posture and her voice. “How do you know that?”
Erikson slipped on her leather gloves and pressed each finger into place. “Absence of blood, mostly. The wounds that he suffered would have produced quite a lot more blood than that which was found in the vicinity of the body.”
Sergeant Reynolds had his coat and boots on now and was holding open the door. He shifted from foot to foot as tiny snowflakes drifted lazily into the room, to melt wherever they chanced to fall. The women ignored him.
“After death the blood settles in pools on the body, on the underside as any liquid would. The autopsy report shows that Mr. Snelgrove likely fell onto his face when he was killed and remained in that position for some time after he was dead. Not onto his back, the way in which you found him.”
“And the jacket that was with him?” Joanna forced herself to remember the terrible moment that she found Luke. She drew the picture carefully in her mind’s eye. One part of her subconscious tried to put up a veil, to keep her from seeing it all again, but she forced herself to concentrate. She was determined to understand. If the body was moved after death then the jacket couldn’t have been torn off… torn off who… whoever… the killer… And anyone who had the presence of mind to cart a dead body God knows how far was very unlikely to accidentally leave evidence the size of a winter coat lying behind them in the snow for all to see.
Erikson smiled ever so slightly. “I think you are following me, Ms. Hastings. Because the body was moved after death, we suspect that the jacket was deliberately placed with it. I hope we’ve answered all your questions. Now we must be going, good day.”
She turned abruptly and almost bumped into Reynolds who stood behind her as he continued to hold the door open, still letting in the snow, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.
Joanna watched them leave with a growing feeling of elation. She did a clumsy pirouette across the living room floor
and jabbed one fist into the air. “Yes!” she shouted. This was great. Not only was Tiffany not the prime suspect any longer but there hadn’t been a murder committed right outside her front door. She felt like celebrating, but instead refreshed the soapy water in the kitchen bucket and settled back onto her knees to finish the floor. She was getting back into a careful rhythm when a horrible thought thrust itself through her elation. She dropped the sponge in shock. Luke may not have been killed on her property, but someone put him there on purpose. No one could think her cabin was still deserted; signs of habitation were everywhere. Surely there were a hundred easier places to dump a dead body. Luke must have been placed there for a reason. Joanna shivered, kitchen floor forgotten. She hoped those reasons didn’t have anything to do with her. Dirty floor and damp rag abandoned, she rose abruptly to her feet and rushed to lock the front door and check the latches on the windows.
Chapter 29
The snow continued to fall and the temperature outside the little cabin dropped along with it. All Joanna could see when she peered out her front window was endless white stretching off in every direction. White sky, white trees, white ground, white air. She prayed that it would stop snowing. At long last it did, but after a few days of coal-black clouds, threatening skies and stark brown and gray forests she found herself wishing the snow would come back. At least the snow could be pretty, provided it was falling gently in thick fluffy flakes, and not the sharp, brittle clumps more like ice pellets than snowflakes that seemed to have been falling for months. Color would be nice, she thought dreamily, a bit of red or blue or leafy green. Anything but this endlessly monotonous white and gray and brown. She forced herself to go for a walk or a short ski everyday, in an attempt to keep in some sort of shape.
