In Winter's Grip

by Brenda Chapman

  I smiled reassuringly in Kevin’s direction, but the truth made my cheeks hot. I thought guiltily of the confession I’d pulled out of her. It had upset both of us, and I wondered if it was the reason she had disappeared from Duved Cove, if she really had left on her own steam. There was no way I was going to tell Kevin that Becky had slept with my father in high school.

  Kevin might have bought my story, but Tobias didn’t look satisfied. He gulped down the last of his coffee and pushed himself out of the chair. “I’ll see you to your car, if you’re ready to leave,” he said to me. His offer had an edge to it.

  I took a first taste of hot coffee and set the cup on the end table. “It’s getting late, and I’m sure you’re tired,” I said to Kevin. “I’ll call again tomorrow to find if you’ve heard anything.”

  “Sure thing,” Kevin said. “See yourselves out. I have to go check on Timmy. He’s having trouble sleeping since his world was turned upside down by this. Becky always tucked him in. He asks for her over and over again, and I have no idea what to tell him.”

  I hugged Kevin before he left the living room. Tobias shook his hand.

  I saved my wet boot for last and grimaced as I pushed my foot into its cold depths. I straightened and Tobias opened the front door, letting in the cold air. We stepped outside onto the porch. Tobias looked down at my face illuminated by the overhead light. A gust of wind collected snow from the roof and swirled into our faces.

  “Why don’t we go to your house to talk? I know you’d like to change into something more comfortable,” he paused, “or dry anyhow. I’ll follow you over.”

  “Thanks. It’s going to be a pleasure to get out of these boots, but that’s all I’ll be taking off, just so you know.” I pulled the hood of my parka over my head for emphasis.

  Tobias smiled. “A man can dream. No harm in that.” Then he lifted a hand to brush snow from my cheek before he led the way down the steps.

  I sat Tobias at the kitchen table and went about making coffee. I hadn’t had a chance to drink much of mine at Kevin’s and craved a steaming cup to warm me up. Tobias said that he could manage one more mug. I poured a splash of Scotch into mine, but Tobias waved it off.

  “Still on duty,” he said, but he sounded regretful.

  I slid the cups onto the table and sat across from him. Claire and Jonas were upstairs, and we had the kitchen to ourselves.

  “What did you hold back in your Becky story?” Tobias asked. “It’s obvious you have more to tell.”

  I took a sip and shuddered at the bite of the liquor. I’d poured a heftier swig than I’d intended. I took a cleansing breath. “I wouldn’t normally talk about this to you, but her disappearance changes things.” I hesitated, weighing options in my mind. I couldn’t come up with a good reason not to tell Tobias something that might explain Becky’s disappearance. “I’m really not sure how many know, probably everyone in town except you.” I eyed him like he should have known since he was a town cop. “But it seems Becky was having an affair with my father the last year of his life.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “She told me herself a few days ago, and she admitted it again last night.”

  “She was risking a lot, a husband and three kids.” Tobias pondered what I’d said. “Still, it does fit the fact that she left Kevin last year, which would indicate she wasn’t happy with her marriage.”

  I concentrated on swirling the Scotch and coffee in my cup and brought the mug closer to my face to inhale the comforting fumes. It would be easy to stop here and not reveal anything further about my father. I didn’t enjoy sharing our family secrets, especially with Tobias. When I looked across at him, he was waiting for me to continue. It was his non-judgmental approach to the information that I’d already given that decided me. I set my cup on the table and spoke in a rush, getting the words out before I changed my mind.

  “Becky told me last night that she’d had sex with my father when she was in twelfth grade—just once, but it made it easier to turn to him when she and Kevin were having trouble this year.”

  “That must have been painful for you to hear.”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s not sitting well, but I don’t doubt my father did it. He was a man who didn’t think through how his actions might hurt somebody. They got together just after she and Jonas broke up.”

  “That’s right. Your brother left Becky for Claire. It’s a tangled web, Maja.”

  “Not one I’m proud to tell you about. There’s slightly more.”

  “Another skeleton?”

  “This I’m not sure of, and you have to promise to have an open mind.”

  “I always do.”

  I studied his face, badly in need of a shave, and his eyes, tired but observant, and decided to trust him. I didn’t know how much longer I’d have in Duved Cove and needed to see an end to the suspicions— not for my father now, but for my mother and for Jonas.

  “I think, and it’s just a half-substantiated rumour, that my dad may have been seeing Claire too. I have absolutely no details or proof, just a gut feeling.”

  The green in Tobias’s eyes darkened. “Why would your father have chosen your brother’s ex-girlfriend and his wife to sleep with? Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

  I had trouble getting the words out and couldn’t look at Tobias as I spoke. I’d never talked about these things with anybody but Jonas and Billy. “My father was sort of...abusive, you might say. Verbally, mentally, not so much physically, but sometimes. He was the master, and we were there to serve.” I tried to speak lightly but didn’t succeed. “If he chose Jonas’s women, it would be to prove he was a better man than my brother.”

  “And your mother...?”

  “I don’t think she knew about the time in high school with Becky. Becky never told a soul, and my father never would have. He liked to show off, but there was a line he wouldn’t have crossed with my mother.”

  Tobias’s eyes were flat and hard to read. He spread both hands on the table and pushed himself to his feet. “What you’re telling me explains a lot and could be linked to your father’s death. It gives a different direction for the investigation, that’s for sure.”

  He leaned towards me and for one crazy second, I thought he was going to kiss me. I could smell his spicy cologne, and his green eyes were staring into mine. Before I could react, he straightened and ran a hand through his grey hair. He sighed and took a step backward. “Well, I have to go. I’ll be doing more digging. Thank you for this information. I’ll have to think about where it all fits in and reassess who might have killed your father and what Becky’s disappearance means in all of this. There is still an outside chance she just got fed up and split.”

  “For her sake, I hope so.” I wasn’t convinced, but I wanted to be.

  “For everyone’s sake. Get some sleep, Maja. How much longer are you staying?”

  “I’ll work on cleaning out Dad’s house for a few more days. I want to make sure Jonas is okay too. If nothing breaks in the case soon, I’ll be leaving by the weekend.” I thought of Sam and his ultimatum. I could make the trip if I left Duved Cove in a few days. It would be easiest if I gave in to the trip, and my life could go back to the way it was before Dad’s murder.

  “Good enough. Hopefully, we’ll have some answers by then. Thanks again, Maja. I’ll only use this information if I have to.” His eyes softened into green pools of concern that reverted quickly into brilliant hardness.

  If I hadn’t known Tobias better, I’d have believed my revelations had affected him. Still, I was glad he hadn’t collapsed into a show of pity or sympathy. I didn’t want any when I was a kid, and I couldn’t bear any now.

  After Tobias left, I tiptoed upstairs and soaked in Claire’s claw-footed bathtub for nearly an hour with a tumbler of Scotch on the rocks and a book that I borrowed from their downstairs bookcase. The bathroom had been recently redecorated and papered in vertical mauve stripes with pine wainscotting. It was a restful room, steamy f
rom the heat in my bath and lavender-scented from the generous dollop of bath oil I’d added to the water. The book was a history of Duved Cove written by someone I’d gone to school with. It took my mind off the day’s events and relaxed me enough that I fell asleep almost immediately upon climbing into bed.

  My sleep was filled with dreams so vivid, I remembered them in detail when I finally woke up. I began by chasing my mother through the darkened hallways of our house only to find her dead at the bottom of the basement stairs. Without knowing how I got there, I was beside her, kneeling on the concrete floor and cradling her head in my lap, her blonde hair spread around her like corn silk, her blue eyes open and staring. I looked back up the stairwell to see my father and Jonas laughing together in the kitchen. Jonas lifted his head and looked at me, and I realized that he had been crying, not laughing as I first thought. Tears streamed down his face, and his eyes were the haunted eyes of our childhood. Then, a quick shift, and Katherine Lingstrom and I were walking along the beachfront searching for cigarettes. She was laughing at me and running in the direction of the lake. I ran after her, calling her name, but she disappeared into the frigid waters of Lake Superior. I sank onto the sand, and suddenly I was in Billy’s arms with him saying that he’d wait forever.

  The dream sequences wove into each other like a whirlygig, no clear ending or beginning. I awoke with the taste of salty tears on my lips and a feeling of unease so strong, I felt sick to my stomach. Some revelation about my father was circling just out of my consciousness, and I struggled to make out the message through the fog of my dreams. It was futile. I drifted back into a sleep so deep that I didn’t waken again until sunlight was pouring thick and bright through the bedroom window.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Jonas came with me to Dad’s early the next morning. We made decent progress packing up the living room and clearing out his bedroom. It was sweaty work, but it felt good to be doing something physical. It took our minds off the horror of our father’s murder, for time was making the enormity of it sink in, not fade around the edges like one of the black and white photographs in my mother’s albums. Around one o’clock, Jonas went to town to pick up some sandwiches and coffee. We figured a few more hours work in the afternoon, and we’d head to Hadrian’s for something to take the dust out of our throats.

  After he’d gone, I climbed the stairs and found myself outside the door of my old bedroom. I’d forgotten about the boxes of books. One box had been upended by whoever had ransacked Dad’s house, and books lay scattered on the floor. The flaps of the other boxes were opened and the boxes were half-empty. I counted ten boxes in all, ten boxes of books for a man I’d never known to crack a book in his life. I crossed the floor and found a bare space to kneel. I picked up several of the paperbacks and examined their covers, then shook them from their spines so the pages fanned out, hoping something would fall to the floor. Nothing did.

  “What were you up to, Dad?” I asked and began stacking the books back into the empty box. Inspecting each one seemed futile. “Why the books?”

  When they were all put away, I drifted through the upstairs and down into the kitchen. I was packing pots into a box when Jonas returned. He stomped up the back steps and entered the kitchen with a small box that held two large coffees in Styrofoam cups, submarine sandwiches and bags of potato chips. A skein of frost coated his beard. His upper cheeks and forehead were purplish red from the cold wind.

  “Temperature’s dropping again,” he said as he set the food on the table and shrugged out of his parka. “Must be way below freezing.”

  I stood and stretched. “I’m starving”

  “Me too. It’s the first time in a long time.”

  We set to work eating, and for a little while, the only sound was our chewing and swallowing. Jonas looked tired but not as frantic as he’d been before he’d gone into the hospital. His eyes were clear and his hands had stopped trembling. I smiled at him between bites.

  “You remembered I like lots of onions.”

  “But no tomatoes.”

  “Yes, this is perfect.” I wiped my mouth with a paper napkin.

  “What do you know about the books in my old bedroom?”

  “What books?”

  “There’s ten boxes—paperbacks, hardcovers and Bibles. I never knew Dad liked to read, or pray for that matter.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Then why does he have ten big boxes of books upstairs?”

  “He was storing them for somebody. Chief Anders, I think.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense, Jonas.”

  “I guess. Never thought much about it before.”

  “How long has Dad had the books?”

  “I’m not sure. I saw them in the fall when I was putting on storm windows. There were more than ten boxes though.”

  Jonas’s eyebrows rose, and his forehead crinkled as he pondered the implications. “The room was half full as I recall. I asked Dad what was going on, and he said he was just storing them for Anders. Yeah, it was Anders. Do you think it could mean anything?”

  “Seems odd to me. I know Dad and Anders stayed friends, but why store books for him? Anders has a big enough house.”

  “It’s coming back to me now. Dad said that Anders’ wife was renovating, and they needed storage space.”

  “Well, that might explain it.” I reached over and touched Jonas on the arm. “You know I’m going to share the money from this place with you, Jonas. You deserve it more than me.”

  Jonas lowered his sandwich to the table and seemed to fold in on himself. He tucked in his chin so that his beard was touching his chest and kept his eyes focused on something straight ahead. He spoke dispassionately. “If Dad wanted you to have it, that’s cool with me. I don’t care about the money.”

  “Well, you should care. It was cruel of him to cut you out of the will, and it makes me mad. I’m not letting him get away with this.” I was surprised at the anger that rose from deep in my chest. “Somebody should have stood up to him a long time ago.”

  Jonas turned his head so that he was looking at me. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter. The money doesn’t matter. You don’t need to do this for me, Maja.”

  “Maybe not, but I need to do it for myself.”

  I stood and swept up our sandwich wrappers into a tight ball in my fist. I banged my hand down on the table. “I’ve spent my life pretending that what he did to us, to our family, didn’t matter, but you know something, Jonas? It left its mark under my skin, where it will never heal. I won’t be the victim any longer. Our father is not here sleeping with a loaded gun under the bed. He doesn’t have that hold on us any longer. We owe it to our mother to rail against this...this acceptance of what we’ve become. You can’t give in. I won’t let you give in.”

  Jonas lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes reflected the light, the opaque eyes of a stranger. His voice was flat.“This emptiness sometimes, it makes me question...sometimes it’s like I’m not sure I can keep it going. I’m not sure anything really matters in the end.”

  “You can’t give in to it, Jonas. Promise me you’ll never give in.” I knelt beside him and rested my head on his arm. “I don’t want you to leave me, Jonas,” I whispered. “You can’t check out on Gunnar and Claire. Not that way.”

  “Sometimes I think they’d be better off without me.”

  I closed my eyes. The tears seeped out from under my eyelids.

  Jonas stood then, and I felt the sudden strength of his arms wrap around me and pull me to my feet. “It’s okay, Maja. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” His voice was penitent, the one he’d always used to keep the peace. I didn’t trust it.

  “You have to really promise.” I was crying now in big gulping sobs.

  “I really promise.”

  “You have to mean it.”

  I could hear the smile in his voice.“It’s like we’re kids again, Maj. You tell me I have to mean it, and I say it’s the meanest mean-it you’ve ever seen.”


  I laughed through my hiccups. “A mean mean-it is binding.”

  “Till the end of time.”

  I stepped back. “I love you, little brother,” I said.

  This time, Jonas looked me in the eyes. “And I love you back.”

  We were middle-aged and we were young, forever joined by blood and the years we’d shared as children. His pain was my pain, and it was impossible to tell where his began and mine left off. This blood connection meant I would never be free of Jonas’s torment nor he of mine. What joined us was as simple and as uncomplicated as the coupling of our parents’ flesh, the randomness of birth. Yet, it was so much more. I could no sooner walk away from Jonas than I could walk away from myself, and God knew, I’d tried for over twenty years. My flight had led me back to where it all began—back to Duved Cove and this house where my mother had hanged herself and my father had lain dying in the snow—back to my brother who had been slowly dying inside from the moment he tried to breathe life into my mother’s lifeless body.

  Jonas wanted to skip Hadrian’s and go home to rest. By the progressive paleness of his skin as the afternoon wore on, I didn’t argue. He hadn’t been out of the hospital long, and the packing had zapped his energy reserves. He sat at the kitchen table while I wrapped the last of Dad’s coffee mugs in newspaper before placing them into a box on the counter.

  “Does Dad still have that wine stored in the basement?” I asked. He’d had a wine rack built into the coolest part of the basement and had kept it well stocked when we were kids. If he had anything half-decent stored there, it would be a pleasant addition to my evening. It might help Claire relax and start talking to me.

  “I think so. He was always talking about how much he paid for a bottle. He took wine courses a few years ago, so of course he became the expert.” Jonas snorted. “From alcoholic to sommelier. It’s all in the way you market yourself, I guess.”

  “It’s the yuppie idea of class.” I thought of Sam and his pretentious palate. He wouldn’t touch a glass of wine from a bottle worth less than some arbitrary price he’d set. Trouble was, if you only drank the expensive wine, you grew to tell the difference. Luckily, a wine’s pedigree hadn’t mattered all that much to me. I’d grown up on cheap wine and Minnesota beach parties.