I went downstairs and tried the phone. It was still out. I could wait for the service to come back, keeping warm and trying to limit the bleeding. Or I could try to get out of here. Trouble with that was it was a long way back to the town. Two miles in this weather, in the shape I’m in… Not a great idea. Even if I just tried to get down to the road, how long would I have to wait for someone to come by?
I could go the other way, I thought, to Mrs. DeMarco’s house. But what good would that do? I’m sure her phone is out, too. For that matter, I hope she’s all right over there. She probably has oil heat, but with the power out… No, wait, I saw a good wood-burning stove in her kitchen. I’m sure she’s staying warm.
Wait a minute. I remembered seeing the medical alert tag, hanging around Mrs. DeMarco’s neck. You just press the button and help is on the way.
I went into the guest room. Natalie’s mother’s open suitcase was on the floor-all these clothes she would never wear again. I couldn’t touch them.
I went into Natalie’s old room, saw her clothes piled up on the bed. The room was a mess. I grabbed one of her shirts and wrapped it around my neck. All of a sudden I could smell her scent, just as if she were right there in the room with me. I had to stop and close my eyes. I took a deep breath. Then I went back downstairs and headed out the door.
The wind had died down a bit. It wasn’t snowing as hard. I had that much going for me. I made my way down the driveway-hell, if I got lucky, I might even see somebody driving a snowplow on the road.
When I got down to the road, I looked in both directions. It was a lonely road to begin with. Now it was like some ancient site where a road once ran, a thousand years ago. I put my head down and kept walking, thankful for the level ground at least, and for the fact that the wind was at my back. I could hear its low moaning along with my own breathing, and nothing else. My feet started to feel cold.
Mrs. DeMarco’s house was a half mile down the road, or so I thought. It seemed a lot longer than that as I worked my way through the snow. I was starting to feel like I had made a terrible mistake. But at last I saw a break in the tree line and I knew her driveway was just up ahead.
I trudged on and finally saw her house. The snow seemed to cling to every inch of it. There were no footprints, no signs of shoveling or any human activity. Worst of all, there was no smoke coming out of the chimney.
You’re a total idiot, I told myself. She’s not here. They came and took her away.
I went up the driveway, just to confirm my fears. I went to the front door and knocked, then without waiting I tried turning the knob. The door was unlocked. I pushed it open and stuck my head in.
“Hello?”
Silence.
I stepped inside. At least I’d get out of the cold for a few minutes before heading back. I’d make apologies later, if it ever came to that.
But damn, it was almost as cold inside as it was out. The heat had obviously been off for hours. I’ll make a fire, I thought. Get that stove going, warm myself up.
I went into the kitchen and opened up the stove. I found a pile of old newspapers and started to crumple them up. I looked around for some wood.
Then I heard the creaking. It was coming from somewhere above me. I stopped and listened.
Nothing.
I opened the pantry door, looking for the wood. Then I heard the creaking again.
It’s just the wind, I thought. The house is shifting in the wind.
But then I heard it again. There was someone upstairs.
“I hope that’s you, Mrs. DeMarco.”
I headed for the stairs and went up slowly, step by step. I made a few stupid jokes to myself about whistling in the dark. After what I had seen in the barn, I’d be whistling for a long time.
When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw four different doors. It was darker here, away from the windows. As my eyes adjusted, I saw an old kerosene lantern on a small table-either an antique for decoration or something the old woman had actually used long ago. There was no time to try to light it now.
I moved slowly to the first door and peeked around the frame. It was a sewing room, with a big black Singer machine, the kind with the treadle underneath. I heard a sound and spun around, ready to hit somebody. But the hallway was empty. I went to the next door and looked inside.
I saw Mrs. DeMarco, standing in her bedroom between a wooden armoire and her big four-poster bed. She was dressed in white undergarments from head to toe. On the bed she had half a dozen outfits laid out, all black.
She turned to look at me. If she was remotely surprised to see me standing in her doorway, she didn’t show it.
“I can’t decide what to wear,” she said.
“Mrs. DeMarco,” I said. “Are you all right?”
“I shouldn’t have to think about this,” she said, staring at the clothes on her bed. “Not today. Someone should just tell me what to wear.”
“Mrs. DeMarco, it’s so cold in here. Why don’t you have a fire going?”
As I moved closer to her, I could see that her skin was blue.
“Should I wear this one?” she said, picking up one of the dresses. It was all black lace, and looked like it should be hanging in a museum.
“You need to get warmed up,” I said. As I got even closer, I saw that she was shivering. Her medical alert tag hung from her neck.
“Funerals should be on cold days, don’t you think? Somehow it seems fitting.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “Do you think we could maybe press the button on your tag? For both of us?”
She looked down at it, like she had no idea what it was. “This won’t do,” she said. She took it off, struggling with it as it got caught in her hair. “I think I need the pearls. What do you think?”
“I agree.” I took the tag from her and pressed the red button. I wasn’t sure where the signal would go-if there was a station here in Blind River or if they’d have to come from Sault Ste. Marie.
“I’ve always hated funerals,” she said. “Not that anyone likes them, I suppose.”
“Come on, we need to get you downstairs. I’ll make a fire and get you some hot tea or something.”
I was going to pull the blanket off the bed, but then I would have had to move all of the dresses. That probably wouldn’t have made her very happy. I saw an old handmade quilt folded up on top of the armoire, so I took that down and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“I don’t have time for tea,” she said. “The funeral is in one hour.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t let you miss it. Let’s go downstairs.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I led her out of the room and down the stairs, staying in front in case I had to catch her. She took each step with care until we were at the bottom. When I had her sitting at the table, I wrapped the quilt tight around her and started looking for the wood.
“I suppose you’re wondering how I’m holding up so well,” she said.
“Is there some more firewood around here, ma’am?” The wood holder next to the stove was empty.
“I think I’m probably a little numb,” she said. “It’s always a shock, no matter how many times you lose someone.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m just looking for the firewood here.”
“It’s out back,” she said. “There’s a whole pile out there.”
I looked out the back window. If there was a pile of firewood out there, it was covered by an even bigger pile of snow.
“Do you have any dry wood, ma’am? Something that might be stored here in the house?”
“I’m wondering if perhaps I’m not entirely surprised,” she said. “That is to say, perhaps this is something that was bound to happen, sooner or later.”
I tried to open the back door. The snow had drifted all the way up to the window. Turning, I saw yet another door on the far side of the kitchen. When I opened that, I saw steps leading down into the darkness. This time, someon
e had the sense to hang a flashlight from a nail in the wall.
“It’s such a terrible business,” she said. “I think I’ve always known it would come to a bad end.”
I stopped and looked at her for a moment, thinking about what she was saying. I couldn’t imagine which funeral she was getting dressed for. Maybe her own son’s death had somehow forced its way into her consciousness. She closed her eyes and started to rock back and forth in her chair.
“Okay, I need to get this fire going right now,” I said. I grabbed the flashlight and turned it on, saw the firewood stacked neatly, right at the bottom of the stairs. Beyond that was the dead oil burner. I went down to get as much as I could carry, getting another blast of that same old basement smell. When I had a few small logs on top of the paper, I took the book of matches that was sitting on top of the stove and got the fire going. Then I filled the teapot with water and put it on the stove.
“This will take a little while,” I said. “Are you okay, ma’am?”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes were still closed. I pulled a chair close to her and sat down.
“Mrs. DeMarco, can you hear me?”
She kept rocking back and forth. “What a time,” she finally said. “What a time.”
“What time are you talking about?”
“What a way to celebrate New Year’s.”
“The man next door,” I said. “Jean Reynaud. Is that who you’re talking about?”
She opened her eyes.
“What’s happening?” she said. “How did you get here?”
“It’s okay, Mrs. DeMarco.”
“You were here before.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve called for help.”
I showed her the tag. Then I noticed the receiver unit sitting on the kitchen counter. You press the button, the signal goes to the receiver… which was dead. Even if it had a battery, it probably connected right to a phone line. Which was also dead.
Alex, I thought, you are officially the biggest idiot who ever lived.
“Mrs. DeMarco,” I said, “someone will come to check on you, right? Your day nurse, maybe?”
“Yes,” she said. “Flo will come, eventually. Or the men from the town.”
“The fire will be hot soon. We’ll get you warmed up.”
She looked at me. She looked at my face, the bruises and the tape and the new blood smeared all over my neck.
“You’ve had some bad luck,” she said. “Either that or you don’t know how to stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m a little tired now,” she said. Her eyes were starting to lose their focus. I put my right arm around her and pulled her close to my body.
“We’ll be okay,” I said. “Just hold on.”
The fire burned. The wind blew. The old woman slept against my chest. The other woman, Natalie’s mother, she was back in the barn, beyond the reach of any warmth at all. Natalie herself… I had no idea where she was at that moment. That was a complete mystery.
“Where are you?” I said. “Where the hell are you?”
Chapter Sixteen
The truck came, slipping its way up the driveway. As I looked out the window, I saw an insignia on the front grill that read “North Channel EMT.” The nurse must have found some way to contact them. Two men got out and knocked on the front door. They were surprised to see me open it.
They took us all the way down to the General Hospital in Sault Ste. Marie. I sat in the front seat while one of the men attended to Mrs. DeMarco in the back. On the way, I told the driver to call the police and to tell them that there was a dead woman in the barn behind the Reynaud house and that Natalie Reynaud herself was missing. On top of all that, I had a stolen truck to report, too.
He looked at me, then back at his partner. Then he made the call.
By the time we got to the hospital, the Ontario Provincial Police were waiting for us. The EMTs took Mrs. DeMarco right into the emergency room, but the OPPs had different plans for me. I had to run through the whole story while the doctor examined me. An officer stayed with me while I got my X-ray. As the doctor sewed up the wound in my neck, he told me the gunmetal fragment had just missed a major artery, and that I should officially consider myself the luckiest human being on the planet.
“Yeah, take a picture of me,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll use that as the caption.”
“This other guy was aiming a shotgun at you,” the doctor said. “You’re telling me it exploded in his hands?”
“I think so.”
He shook his head. “I can’t imagine what he looks like right now.”
“How did he get away?” I said. “How come I blacked out but he didn’t?”
“I couldn’t help but notice your other scars,” the doctor said. “Not to mention the little souvenir in your anterior mediastinum when I saw the X-ray.”
“What about it?”
“When were you shot?”
“In 1984.”
“So you’ve been there before. I’ve never looked down a gun barrel myself, but if somebody pointed a shotgun at me right now and blasted away, I imagine I’d pass out. Even if I wasn’t hit.”
“It was a different state of mind for Grant, you’re saying.”
“The man who fired the weapon? Exactly. He wasn’t expecting it. It was a total surprise.”
“So how far could he get? I saw the blood on the ground.”
“Hard to say for sure,” the doctor said. “Only thing I do know is that he’d better be getting himself to a hospital.”
It was hard to imagine. I almost felt sorry for him.
When I was all taped up, the doctor told me I could leave if I wanted to. I didn’t have a truck, of course, but the police officers were more than happy to escort me from the hospital. In fact, they even had a place for me to stay for a while, instead of going all the way home. In their polite Canadian way they made it quite clear I had no choice in the matter.
Before I went with them, I asked if I could see Mrs. DeMarco. One officer took me up to the sixth floor and let me peek into the room. She was sleeping. She took up such a small space in the bed. I stood watching her for a while. Her mouth was open, her breathing so thin you could barely tell she was alive. I couldn’t imagine how her heart kept beating. Almost a century old, this tiny woman in the bed. How much sorrow had she seen in her lifetime? How many hard winter nights like this one?
We left the hospital then. I rode in the back of the OPP car, across town to the main station. There I was shown into an interview room and asked to tell my story again. When I was done they asked me, again very politely, if I wouldn’t mind sticking around a little while longer, as there was somebody important on his way down to see me. I had no idea who they were talking about.
They let me lie down on a couch while I waited. I looked at the white tiles on the ceiling for a while, then I closed my eyes. I saw the body on the floor of the barn. The long wooden handle. I saw the two barrels of the shotgun pointed at me.
A noise woke me. I sat up, my heart pounding, ready for the gun blast all over again. An officer had come into the room and switched on the light.
I laid my head down again. My heart rate slowed back down to normal. I closed my eyes again. This time I saw Michael Grant holding the shotgun. It had already exploded in his hands. He looked down at what was left of the barrels. As he dropped the gun his hands were on fire. He held flames with each hand and the smoke rose to the ceiling of the old barn. He reached out to touch me with his burning hands.
I woke up then. There was a hand on my shoulder. The face looking down at me was familiar-the white hair, the rugged features.
“Mr. McKnight,” he said.
It came to me. It was Staff Sergeant Moreland, Natalie’s superior officer from the Hearst Detachment. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“What time is it?” I said. I looked out the window.
“It’s around eight in the morning.”
“Oh man,” I sa
id, touching my neck. “I need some more drugs.”
“Perhaps we can talk first?”
He sat down at the table. He was moving slowly, and looked almost as worn out as I felt. I got up and joined him.
“Did you drive all the way down from Hearst?” I said.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I take it you remember me.”
“You’re Natalie’s commanding officer.”
“Do you remember what I told you the last time I saw you?”
“You told me to go back to Michigan and to never set foot in Ontario again.”
“I think it was more like a suggestion,” he said. “But yes, that was the general idea.”
“And obviously I didn’t.”
He rubbed his forehead. “Mr. McKnight, you understand why I said that, don’t you? You were involved in the worst homicide case I’ve seen in thirty-eight years on the Provincial Police force.”
“With all due respect, sir. I’m not sure ‘involved’ is the right word.”
“You were there, eh? You were right in the middle of it. Obviously, the whole thing took a toll on Constable Reynaud. When she went on administrative leave, I was hoping she’d be able to put it all behind her. Imagine my surprise when I find out now that she’s missing and that her mother has been murdered with an old ice hook.”
“An ice hook?”
“Yes. For moving blocks of ice around, when they used to cut them out of the channel. Someone stuck it right through her, McKnight, all the way to the floor. Once again, you’re right in the middle of everything.”
“Sergeant Moreland, I don’t know what happened to Natalie, but-”
He put his hands up to stop me. “If you’re involved in some relationship with Officer Reynaud, that’s none of my business,” he said. “Never mind what I’d say to my own daughter about it, who happens to be around the same age.”
I shook my head and looked away.
“But enough of that,” he said. “When she’s back home safe, then you and I might talk a little more, eh? Right now, I’m sure you’ll agree, our first priority has to be finding her.”
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