“Sam. His name is Sam, and yes, Ottawa has its cold snaps too.” I leaned closer so I could watch his face in the dashboard light, “What was that all about anyhow?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You and Wayne Okwari. In the men’s room.”
“You are one curious woman, Maja Larson. I never met Wayne in the washroom.”
Tobias looked at me then over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking spot. He glanced at me again as he straightened the wheel, but he didn’t say anything more about Wayne. After a while, he made smalltalk about changes to the town. I half-listened. I was mulling over why Tobias suddenly seemed to be hiding something and why a feeling of unease made me wary of confiding in him. Perhaps it had to do with the look in his eyes when I’d asked him about Wayne. His words had been light, but his face had been guarded. After all, what did I really know about Tobias except from when we were kids? People changed. If my father had been up to no good, who better to help him than Tobias, who’d told me the first time we talked that he was planning to head south, just like my father and Chief Anders?
The connections in my brain started to become disturbing. Wayne Okwari was always hanging around the bar, and I’d seen him the day I went to visit Billy and Fortune Bay Casino, the same casino my father frequented—my father, who worked at the border. Now, Tobias and Wayne were giving each other signals across a crowded bar and holding a secret meeting in the public washroom. Small town police forces got into things they shouldn’t all the time. They could be as corrupt as big city forces. They had better ways of covering up than the average citizen. The law was on their side and a good front for illegal activity.
Once the ideas started falling into place, it was like a set of dominos tumbling across the floor. There were hidden relationships in Duved Cove, and I needed to get away from Tobias to think them through. I needed to come up with a plan to bring the truth out into the open.
“You seem lost in thought,” Tobias said as we pulled into Jonas’s driveway. “A penny for them.” He flashed me a smile. His face was open but his eyes were holding back secrets. I was wary.
I swung my door open and set one foot on the ground before I turned to give him a shaky smile. “I’m just tired and maybe had one more Scotch than I should have. Thanks for the lift, Tobias. I owe you one.”
I darted out of the car and slammed the door without giving him time to respond. My feet slipped dangerously as I made my way up the icy driveway to the back steps. I kept my head down and concentrated on keeping my feet under me. There was no way I intended to fall with Tobias watching.
TWENTY-FOUR
Billy Okwari visited me that night—not in person, but in my dreams. This time, his visit filled me with sadness. We sat in the shadows of the spruce trees in my front yard, nestled against the roots of a giant cedar. Billy needed to tell me something, and his words kept slipping in and out of my consciousness. His eyes were inky pools burning into mine. I tried putting together the pieces of the dream as I drifted back to sleep, but by morning, the threads had nearly disappeared from my memory. All that remained was a bittersweet heaviness, like honey on my tongue that would stay with me throughout the day.
A long time after the sunlight had begun to weakly filter through the bedroom window, I lay on my side, focusing on the play on shadows on the wall and trying to piece together all I’d witnessed over the past week, trying to reconcile this new reality with images from the past. Somebody had dumped Becky’s body in our house, and the choice of location had to mean something. Following the trail of relationships, her killer was logically someone who knew of her affair, with my father and who harboured hatred in their heart. Becky’s husband Kevin Wilders, Claire and Jonas had all been hurt by the affair and each had opportunity. I refused to believe that it was Jonas. That left Claire and Kevin, but I didn’t like either option. Was somebody else part of the equation of whom I wasn’t aware? Could that person be Tobias? It was a small town, and he was a single, attractive man who had flirting down to an art form. His path would have crossed Becky’s often, not to mention that she was needy, or had been needy. I still couldn’t believe she was dead.
I climbed out of bed and changed quickly into jeans, a white turtleneck and emerald green fleece. It was Saturday, and nobody was up. I went through the morning coffee ritual and drank the first cup while eating a bowl of cereal. Sam would be leaving in two days for Bermuda. I had no doubt Lana would be going with him. I wouldn’t think about it yet. I felt restless and knew I needed some exercise. I was used to going to the gym at least four mornings a week in Ottawa and keeping a full work schedule. While packing up my father’s house was work, it wasn’t the workout my body was used to.
I put on my parka and boots and went outside, intending at first to go for a walk along the highway. A second look at the tree line made me suddenly long for a view of the lake, and I went back inside for my car keys.
I parked my car in the barely plowed parking area and started down the path towards the beach. It was slow going, because the puddles of melting snow had frozen over, but I took my time and stepped carefully. Another set of footsteps was visible, leading the way toward the lake. Perhaps, I should have been cautious, but there was no other vehicle in the parking lot, and the prints had to have been made the day before. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied, I might have noticed that the footprints were leading to the beach with none returning. That would occur to me later.
I kept my head down, watching where I was going. A strengthening in the wind was the first signal that I’d exited the woods, and I lifted my face in the direction of the lake. When I looked past the huge chunks of ice along the shoreline, I could make out the blue-grey water that bled into the horizon. The sun was a watery ball hovering in the sky, obscured by ribbons of cloud. The snowmobile trails that crisscrossed the snowy beach were icier than on my first visit but still manageable. I started walking, glancing around me as I went, inhaling the fresh air in deep drafts and enjoying the gusts of wind that buffeted me at steady intervals. I wasn’t a quarter of the way into my journey before I stopped to survey the wide expanse of beach, and it was then that I spotted the dark mass ahead of me, closer to the frozen shoreline. It looked like a black blanket, lying in a sea of white, billowing when the wind caught under its folds.
I moved cautiously closer, visions of Becky’s body flooding back to me. I was a few hundred yards from the dark form when she lifted her head to look back at me. The relief I felt that this was not another dead body was equaled by trepidation. I moved closer, not taking my eyes off the round, pale face and grey strands of hair whipping across her forehead and plump cheeks. The eyes, when I got close enough, were older and faded, but they were the eyes of my childhood friend.
“Katherine,” I called across the distance that separated us. “Katherine Lingstrom! It’s me, Maja Larson.”
I continued to step cautiously closer even as she turned her hooded head back towards her study of the lake. I was sure she’d heard me. I came alongside her and squatted on the ground, not certain how to approach her, matching my silence to hers. Katherine was sitting squarely on the snow, her long black parka protecting her from its coldness. Even still, she must be feeling the chill of the ground and the wind off the lake. I was close enough to smell her acrid sweat and unwashed hair. At last she stirred.
“I knew you’d find me,” she said, her eyes still on the horizon. It was Katherine’s voice, but it was not. The youth and strength had gone.
“It’s good to see you, Katherine.” I wanted to hug her but could see no indication that she would welcome my touch. Instead, I waited and kept my eyes also focused on the horizon. I felt her body shift as she turned to look at me.
“You came to visit Mother.”
“Yes. She said you were away on holiday.”
“That’s what Mother would like to believe. Katherine’s on a holiday somewhere warm and safe. It’s easier than believing her daughter has gone mad.”
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“Surely not, Katherine. We all struggle now and then. It’s no sin.”
“The sin is what’s behind the pain.”
I looked in her eyes and saw a raw emptiness that spoke of torment to which she’d surrendered. I said gently, “If I can help in any way, Katherine, I would do anything.”
She looked back toward the lake and was silent for a long time. When I’d almost given up that she would speak again, she began to talk. It was a toneless monologue that needed an audience and so I sat quietly next to her on the snowy beach and listened.
“Brent and I were never good from the beginning. I tried to act like a good wife, like I liked being married, but I was no good at it. We have two kids, two girls, and I never wanted them. I did everything I could to give them a good beginning, to act like I loved them, but I’m so damaged, Maja.” Her voice broke and she stopped talking. When she started again, her voice was dreamy. “I come here every day. Every day, I sit here and wait. I saw you that day you walked along the beach. I wanted to talk to you, but I was afraid then. It was too soon after...I had to figure out what to do. Mother wanted me to go away. I come here every day and I wait....” Her voice trailed away.
“What do you wait for, Katherine?”
“I didn’t mean to kill your father.”
A shock travelled up my spine like an adrenaline rush. I closed my eyes and tried to will away the black dots blocking my vision. I was close to passing out and breathed deeply to still my heart. “What did you just say?” I whispered.
“I went to see him. To confront him. All those years ago, he ruined me. All through my teen years, when I should have been so innocent. He ruined my chance to be a wife to Brent.”
I bowed my head. “Oh my god, Katherine. I am so sorry.”
“I wanted to tell you, Maja. I felt so dirty every time it happened. But then, I’d see your father again and I...it would happen again. I wanted him. I hated him.”
The monster in our house was real. I needed to get up and run. Run as far away from Katherine Lingstrom and what she was telling me as I could get. But I couldn’t move.
“You did leave him though...eventually. You can be strong, Katherine.”
“I only left him because the guilt I felt for your mother was more than I could face.”
“But my mother wouldn’t have known. He always made sure she didn’t know.”
Katherine turned to look at me again. “She knew. We were in her bed when she came home early. The next day...she was dead.”
“Oh my god. Oh my god.” I wrapped my arms around my middle and rocked backwards and forwards.
“The afternoon she found us together, your father left with me. He didn’t go back that night because he took me to a motel. I told my mother I was spending the night with a girlfriend. When your dad went back home the next morning, your mother had killed herself. Jonas found her hanging in the basement. I never slept with him again. I just left town and went to work in Duluth, where I met Brent. He was my chance to save myself, but I can’t do it any more.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You were too young to know, and my father was so manipulative.”
“I knew enough. I was thirteen the first time, but I could have stopped it. That night last week when I told him he’d destroyed me, you know what he did? He laughed. He laughed and said I was being ridiculous. Can you believe it, Maja? After all the years I’d lived hating myself? He couldn’t have cared less.”
“I believe it, Katherine. I forgive you. You have to let this go.”
“I begged him not to sell his land for the new highway. They wouldn’t pay for Mother’s property, and it wouldn’t be worth anything once word of the highway got out. She only wanted to spend her last years in quiet. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? Your father should never have laughed at me. He owed me that.”
“No, he should never have laughed at you, Katherine, but he wasn’t a giving man. It wasn’t in him to show compassion.”
“I told Mother that hiding what I did wouldn’t work. I needed to tell you the truth. I can’t do this any more.” Katherine had begun wringing her hands, red knuckles chafed from the cold. I covered them with my own.
“Katherine, I’ll come with you to tell Tobias Olsen. He’ll understand and make this easy. It was an accident.” I could understand why she would kill Becky too. She’d have known that they were sleeping together, and Becky would have been as tainted as my father. She might even have seen them together. Katherine was mentally ill, and that would certainly be a defense. I didn’t dare leave her alone.
“I don’t care any more, Maja. I’ll talk to Tobias. Mother is going to be very angry that I told you, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Let me help you, Katherine. I’ll stay with you. I’ll explain.”
I stood and tried to get the circulation back in my legs. The cold had seeped into my bones, and my knees creaked in pain. I bent down, took Katherine’s arm and helped her to her feet. We huddled together and walked like two damaged women as we made our slow way through the icy snow and down the forest path to the road. We reached my car at last, and I kept one hand firmly grasped to her arm as I searched for the keys in my pocket with my other. Katherine stood motionless facing the deeper woods, her eyes fixed on a point somewhere over the car roof.
“You never told me what you were waiting for, sitting on the cold beach day after day,” I said, the wind snatching away my words so that I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. I didn’t expect an answer. Her behaviour had lost rational moorings long ago. “It probably doesn’t matter,” I said to myself.
I unlocked her door and swung it open. I used both hands to guide Katherine toward the door. Before she sank into the cold interior, she leaned against me. She spoke into my ear, and strands of her hair whipped against my cheek. Her words were a breath of frost against my cold skin. She turned her vacant eyes toward me, and her desperate words held no emotion. “I was waiting for the ice to melt so I could walk into the lake and never come back.”
I drove Katherine to the police station, and the woman at the desk radioed a call to Tobias. He arrived with David Keating following in a separate car soon afterwards. I explained what had happened on the beach while Katherine sat zombie-like in the waiting area, still huddled in her black coat with the hood up. Tobias and David listened without comment until I finished all I had to say.
Tobias glanced over at Katherine and back to me. “Okay, Maja. David will take your statement and then we’ll try to get Katherine’s.”
“Please...well, she’s not well, Tobias. I don’t want her to suffer any more.”
“We’ll go easy.” Tobias walked across the space toward Katherine. He knelt in front of her and took one of her hands in his.
David lingered in front of me. “You okay?” His eyes were concerned.
I nodded. “I’m glad to know the truth, but it’s difficult.”
“Let’s go into the back, and I’ll get your statement. Shouldn’t take long.”
“Okay.”
He took my arm and called to the officer at the desk, “Could you make some tea for Maja and Katherine? Milk and lots of sugar. They both need something to warm them up.”
Within an hour, David had typed up my statement, and I signed the two sheets of paper. He helped me into my parka.
“Will you be heading back to Ottawa soon?” he asked.
“I think tomorrow. I was going to stay for Becky’s funeral, but I need to get home ,and it looks like I have the answers I came for.” I was suddenly very tired.
“Don’t worry about Katherine. We’ll see that she gets medical help. Off the record, she may never go to trial for the murders. She’s obviously off-balance.”
“Has she confessed to both?”
David shrugged. “We have to go carefully. She’s very confused. I’ll be helping Tobias to sort it through.”
“This is all so sad. At least we have some answers though. Thanks for everything, David.” I reached out and shook his
hand.
“No problem. You take care, Maja. My condolences again for your dad.”
I walked to the front door, meeting Chief Anders on my way. He was standing at the desk talking into the phone. He hung up the receiver and held out his hands to me. I extended mine. His eyes were sad and the lines on his face had deepened.
“I’m so sorry about all this, Maja. I had no idea.”
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “Nobody could have known.” I didn’t want him to spell out what my father had done, the lives he had ruined. I felt a rush of guilt for ever thinking badly of Chief Anders and Tobias. It looked like the casino angle had been nothing but a red herring. I was glad I hadn’t made any accusations that would come back to haunt me, and yet, greed might have been easier to deal with than my father’s black soul.
“What will happen to Katherine now?”
“Well, we can’t let her go free. I’ve asked her psychiatrist to admit her into the hospital in Duluth. She’s spent some time there over the last few years, sad to say. I just spoke with her mother, and I’m sending someone to bring her here to stay with Katherine. The two have a strong connection, and Katherine needs all the support we can offer. I also want to find out what the mother knew. I suppose we’ll let her go with Katherine to Duluth.”
“Good. I don’t want Katherine to be alone through this.”
“No. I’ll make sure she gets the best treatment. You take care too, now Maja. Put this behind you and Jonas. It’s all you can do.”
“Easier said than done, but thanks, Chief Anders. We’ll try.”
“I know you’ll both make it through okay. We’re here if there is anything we can do to help.”
TWENTY-FIVE
We ate a late dinner of herb and cheese omelets that Jonas prepared while Claire and I sat at the kitchen table drinking the red wine that I’d picked up on the way home from the police station. We were all in a state of shock and had spent the last hours together in the kitchen, while the fingers of sunlight deepened into dusk, trying to sort out the enigma that was our father and the broken people left in his wake. Claire, at first, had railed against what she’d called the slandering of our father, but she hadn’t been able to hang onto her version of the truth for long. By the time we started into the second bottle of pinot noir, her disbelief had been replaced by anger at my father for all he had done: the lies, the betrayal and the seduction, for I had no doubt that he had seduced Claire too. I could see it in her eyes and in the depths of her revulsion once she accepted the truth. My sorrow for her wasn’t as strong as it was for Katherine, Becky and my mother, but I still grieved for her, because she’d been a victim too.
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