Framed for Murder

by Cathy Spencer

  Chapter 22

  I was on the road headed to Jessie’s cabin within the next thirty minutes. The sky had cleared, and sculpted white clouds drifted across an azure blue sky. As I drove west on Highway 22X, the blue-grey mountains appeared before me on the horizon. The leaves on the trees were a vivid green, and blue and yellow spring wildflowers waved alongside the two-lane highway. Spring was my favourite time of year. I rolled down the windows a few inches, enjoying the cool air that blew through my sunny car.

  The road climbed and twisted as I drove into the mountains and Kananaskis Country. I checked the directions that Erna had given me from time to time and sang along with the radio. It felt good to be doing something proactive about the woman who had lied to the police about my son.

  After about forty-five minutes, I turned off the highway and onto a secondary road. The road crews hadn’t gotten to the potholes that had opened during the bitterly cold winter, and I navigated around them at reduced speed. I was watching for a one-lane bridge that would take me over the river. The road twisted a couple of more times before I spotted the bridge up ahead. It was short with concrete buttresses supporting it. The water was moving fast between the river banks, swollen with the winter runoff. I bumped over the bridge and carefully steered onto a gravel road on the other side. A side-road immediately diverged into the trees, but I stuck to the shoreline and watched the river sparkling in the sunlight until it curved away out of sight. Just another minute or so, Erna had said, before I should see a wagon-shaped mailbox marking the laneway to Jessie’s cabin. I slowed down until I spied the mailbox, and then parked a little way beyond it on the shoulder of the road. The overhead branches masked my car, although I couldn’t imagine there’d be much traffic going by to see it.

  I locked the car and walked back up the road to the laneway. Looking around to ensure that no one was watching me, I turned in, walking on the grassy verge next to the gravel. I could hear water flowing close by, but the dense trees bordering the driveway hid the source. I listened for sounds of movement, but heard only birdsong. A magpie startled me as it burst from the trees, scolding me for invading its territory. After a couple of minutes of walking, the trees thinned into a clearing. Suddenly, I could see the house.

  What a beautiful spot! The log cabin was perched on a rocky slope overlooking the river. The side of the cabin nearest the river had floor-to-ceiling windows, making the most of the view. The river formed a mini-rapid just below the slope, crashing over rocks and spraying white mist into the air. I enjoyed the scene for a few moments before heading up the drive to the cabin.

  The place looked deserted, as if it hadn’t been aired out for spring yet. The prairie garden out front of the house was littered with leaves and the dried stalks of last year’s grasses. The window boxes beneath the two front cabin windows were draped with shrivelled black plants. A couple of Adirondack chairs were tipped back against the wall on the small front porch.

  I climbed the three low stairs leading up to the porch and peeked in one of the windows. The sun shone through the side windows, illuminating a great room that combined kitchen, dining and living room space. A black wood-burning stove was tucked inside a wide stone hearth, a couch and rocking chair facing it. Two doors led off the great room, presumably into a bedroom and bath.

  Backing away from the window, I tried the front door, but it was locked. I stretched up on tiptoe to feel for a key around the door frame, but couldn’t find one. The dense fibre mat in front of the door didn’t yield up a key, either, nor did the window boxes. I left the porch to follow the drive along the front of the house.

  The far side of the house had a carport attached to it with a padlocked wooden shed. I glanced inside the shed window, but saw only garden tools and a riding lawnmower. Leaving the shed, I followed along the side of the house, walking on yellow-green grass and dried leaves. Peering in the kitchen window, I admired the espresso-coloured hardwood floor, granite countertops, and an island complete with a built-in grill. The kitchen had all of the latest bells and whistles.

  There was a deep wooden deck spanning the back wall of the cabin. I climbed onto it and looked inside the two sliding glass doors. One opened into the kitchen and the other into the bedroom. The bedroom door was draped in a luxurious fabric, a kind of golden, flowered tapestry. The bed was king-sized with a tufted blue headboard piled high with pillows. Soft, plush white carpet lay on the floor on either side of the bed. A beautiful white vanity table with a scalloped mirror and an upholstered stool caught my eye. The bedroom had a feminine, pampered appearance, and while it was very different from my own taste, I would have loved to have owned such a room.

  I tore myself away from the door and began searching for a key. The deck contained a covered barbecue and some overturned wooden planters, but no key.

  About to give up and go home, I heard something. It sounded as if someone were knocking on the front door. I froze and someone shouted, “Anna, where are you?” After a moment, I heard, “Anna, I know you’re here. I saw your car parked out on the road. Don’t play games with me.”

  I couldn’t believe it. It was Tremaine! How had he known that I was here? Amy must have ratted on me, the fink!

  I could hear him rustling through the leaves along the side of the house, getting closer all the time. I couldn’t let him catch me spying for a second time, but I was trapped. The only way out was the narrow strip topping the slope beside the river, but I was afraid to go that way.

  “I warned you, Anna. I can’t believe you’re doing this again. Anna, answer me!” I pivoted, looking for a place to hide, but the back lawn was too deep to have time to run into the woods.

  He rounded the cabin, dressed in his usual suit and tie. His mouth was compressed into a tight line and his eyes flashed with anger.

  “There you are,” he said, starting toward me. I panicked and took off at a run for the other side of the cabin. “Don’t be stupid,” he shouted, chasing after me.

  Wild rose bushes grew in a patch along the edge of the slope. I stumbled over a root and almost lost my footing.

  “Be careful!” he yelled, springing forward and catching hold of my arm. I whirled and jerked my arm out of his grasp. The abruptness of my movement unbalanced him. He tripped backward, lost his footing, and fell over the side. I stared in horror as he tumbled down the slope in a shower of stones and dust and dropped into the river. He didn’t re-appear for a few agonizing seconds until I saw his head break the surface. He coughed and sputtered before the river snatched him away.

  “Tremaine!” I screamed, running to the front of the house and down the driveway. The river would be freezing with the runoff, and even if he managed to stay afloat in the fast-flowing water, the cold would kill him. I tore down the gravel road at top speed, following it through the trees. After what felt like an eternity, the road ran parallel to the river again. I slowed and loped through the stones to the river bank, not wanting to twist an ankle. My chest was heaving from all of the running. I paused to look up the river for a glimpse of him.

  I was afraid that he had already swept by, but I saw him coming toward me. His blond head was smooth as a seal’s, bobbing up and down in the water. He tumbled past me. My only hope was to catch him at the bridge. I turned and ran again, past the spot where the other road branched off, pushing myself forward until I reached the bridge.

  He was still upstream from me, thank God. He was draped over a boulder in the middle of the river, his head resting on top of his arm.

  “Tremaine, over here,” I shouted, jumping up and down and waving my arms. I wasn’t sure that he could hear me over the water’s roar, but he raised his head and seemed to see me. I waved again and waded into the water, my right hand pressed against the first concrete buttress.

  The water was shockingly cold. I had never been in water so cold before. I shuddered convulsively. How could Tremaine bear it? I forced myself in deeper, feeling the slippery riverbed beneath my shoes, the water cours
ing against my calves.

  “Oh dear Lord, please don’t let me fall in the water,” I prayed. I knew that we would both be goners if I did.

  I waded in further, pressing one hand against the second column, until the water was waist deep. I could feel the river catching at me as it rushed past, and I was desperately glad for the solidity of the buttress beside me. I turned and flattened my back against it, looking for Tremaine. I screamed his name again and again, but this time his head did not rise from the boulder.

  “Come on, come on!” I shouted, frantic that he might be unconscious. Then I watched as he slipped off the boulder. The current carried him forward, his face in the water. When he was within a few feet of me, I strained forward and snagged him by the shirt collar. The pressure of the racing water almost tore him away, but I dragged him back with all of my strength and clasped him to me. His long body lay draped over mine, his head drooping on my shoulder.

  I bent my mouth to his ear. “Tremaine, can you hear me?” I shouted. He didn’t answer. His eyes were closed. He seemed to be unconscious.

  “We’re going to wade ashore now. Try to walk with me, if you can.”

  His body was a dead weight on top of mine as I inched through the water, my back pressed against the second buttress. I was terrified that I might lose my footing on feet numb with cold. Glancing up, the shore still seemed so far away. How was I going to make it? Then I heard a miracle, a woman’s voice shouting.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming. Hold on, help is on the way!”

  I looked over Tremaine’s shoulder and saw a woman running down the shore toward us. She held a rake in her hand, and her longish skirt flapped open to reveal knee-high rubber boots. I had never seen anyone so beautiful in my life. She ran to the water’s edge and splashed in up to her calves, holding the rake handle out to me.

  “Here, take hold of the end.”

  I had to edge across the space between the two columns to reach it, the weight of Tremaine’s inert body pressing me down while the water clawed at us. She took a step in deeper, her flowered skirt floating on the water. I stretched forward and managed to grab the handle.

  “Very good, you’ve got it. Take another step – and another. Come on, nearly there. Got you!”

  She grabbed my wrist and dragged me forward. I tripped on a rock and splashed onto one knee, still clinging to Tremaine. The woman drove the rake handle into the riverbed and grasped the back of my shirt with her free hand. She hauled me to my feet and pulled the two of us into her arms.

  “There we are. I’ve got you now. Let’s get you out of the water,” she panted. We shifted Tremaine’s body between us and staggered out onto the shore. Laying him face-up on the ground, the woman knelt beside him while I shuddered nearby.

  “Is he still b-breathing?” I cried.

  She laid her ear to his chest and looked up into his face. Watching him for a few long seconds, she tilted his head back, pinched his nostrils shut, covered his mouth with her own, and gave him two quick breaths. She watched for movement in his chest, and then gave him another two breaths. His chest began to heave, and she leaned back while he coughed and sputtered up a lung-full of river.

  “Very good,” she said, turning him onto his side and cradling his head from the stones. “Better out than in, eh young man? What’s his name?”

  “Charles Tremaine. I’m Anna Nolan,” I said, hugging myself for warmth.

  “Frieda Kuntz. Now that we’re sure he’s breathing, let’s get him to my house and warm him up. You could do with some dry clothes and warming up yourself, Anna,” she said, eying me as another convulsion wracked my body. “It’s not very far – my house is right up the road there. Help me to lift him.”

  We flipped Tremaine onto his back, where he lay gasping and panting. Taking his arms, we hauled him to his feet and began dragging him up the road to the house. We didn’t talk much, saving our breath for our exertions except when Frieda asked where Tremaine had gone into the water and how long he’d been in it. I told her where and guessed maybe six minutes.

  “Six minutes! He must be a tenacious soul, to be in that freezing water and still alive after six minutes. Good for you, Charlie. Come on, Anna. Not much farther. You can see my house through the trees over there.”

  She jerked her head to the left, and I saw a timber A-frame through the brush. We dragged Tremaine up the drive past a little red Volkswagen Beetle. A dog barked frantically inside the cabin as we staggered up the wooden stairs onto the porch.

  “Quiet, Schultzie! Stop that barking,” she shouted as he threw himself against the back of the door. “These are friends. Get back,” she commanded. Frieda wedged Tremaine against the wall with her hip and flung the door open. A large German shepherd jumped up at her waist, nearly knocking her over.

  “Down, Schultzie, get down! Go lie on your bed. Go!” The dog slunk away as we hauled Tremaine through the door, Frieda kicking it shut behind us. We lugged him to a wooden chair beside her dining table and lowered him onto it.

  “Anna, hold onto him. Don’t let him fall off. We’ve got to get these wet clothes off him. I’m going to fetch some towels and blankets for the two of you. I’ll be right back.” She hurried across the room as I turned to Tremaine.

  He lay in the chair with his head lolling back and his arms hanging down, hands almost touching the floor. With my whole body shaking, I tried to loosen the tie at the base of his throat. The knot was beyond me, so I stripped off his sopping wet jacket and began unbuttoning his shirt. I was aware of Frieda bustling around behind me.

  “You’re doing fine, Anna,” she called. “Get his shirt off. I’m going to start a fire in the grate and push the bed over to it. I’ll be right there to help you.”

  I managed to unbutton the sleeves at his wrists. “I-I can’t get his tie undone, and I can’t get his shirt off,” I said.

  I heard her mutter something as she rushed past me into the kitchen. She hurried back clasping a very efficient-looking carving knife in her hand and a bundle of towels under her arm. I got out of the way as she dropped the towels onto the floor and knelt beside him. Carefully inserting the blade between Tremaine’s tie and his throat, Frieda sliced through the fabric.

  “There you go,” she said, pulling the rest of the tie through his shirt collar and flinging it onto the floor before she rushed off again. I bent over Tremaine, grabbed either side of his shirt, and pulled it back over his shoulders and down his arms, dropping it onto the floor. Grabbing a towel, I rubbed his upper body briskly, trying to warm him and get his blood circulating again. The skin on his torso was white with fine golden hair, muscle and bone etched beneath. I knelt before him, picked up a dry towel, and rested his smooth chest against my face, reaching around to dry his back. A fire crackled in the grate and Frieda muttered as she shoved the bed toward the hearth on a round area carpet. She manoeuvred it into place with a series of grunts and glanced over to see how I was doing. Scooping up a pile of blankets from the bed, she hurried back to us.

  “Good, Anna, you’ve got the job half done. Time for you to get out of those wet clothes yourself. Take some of these towels, and when you’re dry, wrap up in a blanket. Then come back and help me with Charlie.”

  Shivering, I stumbled over to the fire, standing as close as I could while stripping off my clothes and dropping them in a soggy pile on the floor. I was too miserable to feel self-conscious about my nudity, and Tremaine’s eyes were closed, anyway. That worried me. Had he slipped into a coma? I wrapped a blanket around myself, tied a knot under my arms, and stumbled back to help.

  Frieda had removed Tremaine’s shoes and socks and was wrapping him in a blanket. She tied a stout knot over his shoulders, the blanket covering him like a toga.

  “Just in time,” she said. “Help me get his pants off.” We stood him up between us and I held him while she tied a towel sarong-style around his hips before taking off the rest of his dripping clothes. I gazed down at his bare feet and thought that they looked awf
ully vulnerable without his oxfords.

  “Good, now let’s put him to bed,” she said. I wrapped my arms around his chest, she grabbed his knees, and we carried him over to the bed, heaving him onto the side closest to the fire. Frieda had already turned down the bedclothes, and we pulled blankets and a duvet over him before tucking a pillow under his head.

  “Very good,” she said, “now you get in, too.”

  “Wha-at?” I stammered.

  “Get in the bed with him. We’ve got to warm both of you up. I’ll call 911 and tell them what happened. I know it will take them a little while – this place can be tricky to find. I’m going to get a hot water bottle for his feet, and once the two of you are tucked in, I’ll drive up the road and watch for them.” I hovered beside the bed. “Now don’t get prudish on me, Anna. For pity’s sake, you’ve already seen most of him, and it’s not like he’s going to force himself on you. Go on, get in the bed!”

  “Yes ma’am,” I said, grabbing the bed clothes and crawling in beside him. I was exhausted and still bitterly cold myself, and it felt heavenly to get beneath all those covers. Frieda nodded and went off to make the call. I could hear her giving instructions as I turned my head to look at Tremaine. His face was as white and lifeless as marble. I reached under the covers and found an icy hand, chafing it between my own for a few seconds. Then I slid an arm under his shoulders and pulled him closer, dragging his head across the pillow. His breathing seemed a little slow, and I tried to stop shaking long enough to monitor it. It was definitely sluggish, which frightened me. I pressed against him and lay my head on his shoulder.

  Frieda hurried back with a hot water bottle wrapped in a hand towel, and came around the bed beside the fire. She smiled at me before slipping the bottle under the blankets beneath Tremaine’s feet. My own lay on top of his and I could feel the heat surge up from the bottle, making me shiver.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Frieda said. “Schultzie, come.” The furry brown and black dog lumbered quickly to the bed.

  “Up, Schultzie,” Frieda said, patting the foot of the bed. The animal sprang up and settled across our feet. “He’s warmed my feet on many a cold night, that’s for sure,” she said while studying Tremaine’s face. “I think Charlie’s colour is improving, Anna. Keep cuddling him, and I’ll come back with help as soon as I can.” Before she could turn away, however, I reached out from under the bedclothes to take her hand.

  “You saved both our lives today. I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

  “Never mind. When we get through this, you can tell me the whole story of how Charlie ended up in the river. I bet it’s a humdinger. For now, just worry about getting you and Charlie warm. I’ve got to go. Don’t worry, I’ll be back with help soon.”

  Frieda left the house, slamming the door behind her. Schultzie lifted his head and listened as she crossed the porch and descended to the drive. A minute later, her car started up and she drove away. The dog laid his head back down, closed his eyes, and sighed. The room was quiet except for an occasional pop and sizzle from the fire. Lying cocooned in the blankets with Tremaine, I began to feel drowsy.

  A tremor ran through his body, and I was instantly alert again. I peered at his face and waited. After a little while, he started shaking. He drew in a shuddering breath, released it, and opened his eyes

  “Thank God,” I said softly. Tremaine turned his head on the pillow to face me, and smiled.

  “You saved my life,” he said in a weak, raspy voice.

  “Yes, Frieda and I both did.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured, his eyelids drooping.

  “You’re welcome. It was my p-pleasure,” I said, my teeth chattering.

  Tremaine started laughing. His body shook with cold and laughter until his eyes streamed with tears. I started laughing, too, and we clung to each other and laughed like a pair of loons until Frieda returned with the paramedics.