Murder on Ice

by Ted Wood

  He flew backward and I turned and punched Margaret in the abdomen, a clean, short click of a punch that doubled her over and let the gun clatter to the floor. Rachael was cowering back, covering her eyes with her hands. I pointed to her and told Sam "Keep" and he jumped in front of her, snarling, poised to leap.

  I glanced at Tom but he was out of it, clutching his throat, gagging, dying. I knelt and patted his pockets—they were empty—then his mother's. She lay looking up at me sightlessly, and then her breath came back in a long, howling whoop.

  I stood up. I was trembling all over. In that second I could have wept, but slowly, one breath at a time, I calmed myself and stood looking down at Tom, who was going blue in the face. Then I felt the first man at my elbow. I turned and recognized Dr. McQuaig. He said nothing, just dropped to his knees beside Tom. "Quick. Your knife," he commanded. I took out my clasp knife, black from the smoke of the chimney of hours, years before when I had straddled the roof of the cottage. He opened it, pausing to wipe the blade on the front of his shirt and made a small incision in Tom's throat. Blood welled out and the doctor shouted, "Quick, a ballpoint pen."

  I was too stunned to move but he shouted it again and someone ran up holding a pen. He unscrewed the body and tossed aside the mechanism, then crooked his finger around the exposed windpipe, slit it, and inserted the tapered end of the tube into the slit. Tom kicked and tried to grab it but the doctor held his hands. "Leave it alone and ye'll live," he shouted. Then to me, "Bennett, hold his hands."

  I took one, Walter Puckrin took the other, and the doctor sat on his legs and slowly Tom's kicking subsided and air whistled in through the pen body. His color came back. The doctor looked at me and grinned.

  "Haven't seen so much excitement since the day we landed in Normandy," he said. Other men came in to take over holding Tom and we all stood up. The doctor retrieved my knife from the floor, wiped the blade on his handkerchief, and said in a voice as Scotch and clear as Irv Whiteside's beloved J & B, "I believe the rascal will live."

  "Thanks, Doc." I reached out and shook his hand and as we shook he added, "Y'know, there are times when I wish I weren't quite so damn handy at m'job."

  Slowly it was all put back together. Men went out and brought the women back into the Hall. Other men took turns holding Tom's hands and feet while the doctor supervised. Me, I took off my burnt, itchy leather hat and went to the bar. Men were clustering about me, banging me on the back, trying to shake my hands. I was the King. I was the guy who had saved their lives, made good triumph over evil, and most important of all, given most of them the only exciting memory they would ever have. All of which would be forgotten the first time I had to write them a summons for failing to come to a complete stop at the stop sign on the highway.

  The barman pushed the bottle of Black Velvet at me, with a tall glass. I poured myself a solid drink and took a good long pull on it. I nodded my thanks and walked over to Sam, who was watching both the women. Margaret had her breath back by now and Rachael was sitting with her knees drawn up and her hands over her face. I ignored them both and stooped to fuss Sam, tickling him under his good ear and telling him he was a good boy.

  And then I heard a sudden angry bellow behind me. Moving on reflexes I stood up, holding my glass low, ready to pitch it at the face of the man if he attacked me. I saw Walter Puckrin striding toward me. His face was black as thunder but he was laughing as he came.

  "You crazy, dangerous bastard," he roared. "You know what you just did?"

  "I saved a bunch of asses," I said. Modesty was taking second place to truth now I had taken a good taste of my rye.

  "That's just the half of it." He held up his hands and trickled out a cloud of scorched confetti. "You just blew eight hundred and ninety-three dollars to rat shit."

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  18

  We saved Elliot. Dr. McQuaig had his bag in his car. Norah Puckrin had been a nurse in the naval hospital at Halifax during the war so the kid was lucky enough to get two knowledgeable people with all the training needed to care for wounds like his. We all took off down to the cottage on a fleet of snowmobiles and stormed in. The room looked like a slaughterhouse, but Elliot's arm was sealed with a tourniquet. He was moaning, but the bleeding had been stopped almost immediately.

  "He didn't put this on himself," the doctor said. He was filling a needle with morphine as he talked, his neat gray suit smeared with Elliot's blood. "The bastard who cut his arm off must have done this."

  I left the doctor to it while I relit the stove and got other men to fill the log box and bring blankets from the bedroom. Norah made sweet tea for Elliot and McQuaig pumped him full of antibiotics and gave him a tetanus shot and checked the tourniquet again. Elliot screamed for a while but the morphine took over and he drowsed off. I looked at the tourniquet. It was a good piece of bush-worker's first aid. A nylon sock had been tied loosely over the end of the stump and a piece of kindling pushed through it and twisted until the blood flow stopped altogether. Tom must have done it, using the skills he had learned in some pulp-cutting camp where injuries are a way of life.

  We left a couple of men there, with Norah, to keep the stove going and to take care of the kid when he came around. The rest of us backtracked my night's adventure, examining the bodies of Irv Whiteside and the man I'd shot and the dead girl at the motel. It was too much for the other men. Most of them dropped out of the party after looking at Irv. Others when we went to the Lakeside Tavern and they saw the boy who'd tried to kill me. He was older than Elliot and tougher in appearance. But he was cold dead, and one of the men threw up at the sight. It was too much, after holding everything in at the sight of Irv Whiteside.

  Just the doctor and I went to the motel. By then it was daylight. The snow had stopped and as we came out of the cabin the first car came south.

  "If the snowplow is working again, it's time to get Burfoot and that boy Elliot to the hospital. I've taken no more than rudimentary care," McQuaig said. "They're in no shape to travel but the boy canna stay where he is."

  We went into the office and used Fred Wales's phone to call the OPP. They sent the helicopter. It came to the motel and lifted me to the cabin site. One of the men said he would take me back to the station so I stayed behind, watching the helicopter take off, swirling the snow around us in a cold, bitter cloud, a black and white replay of all those times in Nam.

  When I got back to the station, I thanked the driver. He yawned and nodded and went away up the road to the Legion Hall to pick up his wife and take her back to their cottage. I watched him go, thinking how I envied him. I still had paperwork to do and no doubt there would be reporters to talk to. Then, perhaps by noon if I was lucky, I could go back to my place and join Val. I planned to have her dropped down there by the first vehicle that came by.

  I walked to the front door of the station, stepping high over the drifted snow, and opened the door. Val was inside, in front of the counter, smoking a cigarette. I hadn't known she smoked. Her coat was lying across the top of the counter and she was wearing her outdoor boots. Carmichael, his wife, and Nancy were all sitting in the front office. The wife was smoking and I guessed that was where Val had picked up the habit again. They all turned and looked at me wearily, too tired to ask anything. I nodded to the Carmichaels and said to Val, "Are you okay?"

  She nodded three or four times, as if she were trying to convince herself. "Yes," she said at last.

  "There's nothing for you to do here. I'll get you dropped at my place and come down later to join you once the nonsense is all finished. Charges, reports, you know."

  "I know," she said, but there was no life in her voice. She might have been talking to a stranger. She turned away to stub her cigarette, searching for an ashtray.

  "The floor's fine," I told her gently.

  She dropped the butt lifelessly and ground it out under her right foot. The Carmichaels were watching us. I knew the cells were still full of prisoners so I took Val's arm. "Put your c
oat on and step outside a moment, please."

  She put her coat over her shoulders, not bothering to slip her arms into the sleeves, and came with me back into the bright sunshine that was flashing blue lights out of the new snow. She blinked at the light but did not turn her head from the sun or put up her hand to shield her eyes.

  "You look beat, honey." I was tired down to my bones but I wanted to give her all my spare energy, to turn her back into the glowing woman who had come up to me at the dance in the Legion such a long time ago. Behind us there was the grinding roar of a heavy vehicle. I turned and glanced up the road toward the Legion. A big gravel truck with a plowblade in front was coming toward us slowly, arcing a high wing of snow off to one side of the road. I watched until it drew level with the station and the driver waved to me ingratiatingly. I waved back, recognizing Cassidy, rested after a good night's sleep, earning extra money by clearing the township's roads. He looked eager to please and I watched him until he had passed, showering us with a fine mist of dry crystals of snow. Then I turned back to Val. A veil of crystals had settled on her hair and they were melting, glinting ruby and emerald in the morning sun. She was beautiful.

  "Reid," she began, then stopped. I said nothing. I've seen this kind of shock a lot of times. It's fragile. One word can shatter it into tears. "I don't know what to say," she said at last and raised and flopped her arms, helplessly.

  "Look, you've had a hell of a night. You've been threatened, cut, seen a whole lot of bad stuff. Don't say anything."

  She gathered her strength, drawing in a long breath and holding it until she gasped. "It's more than that," she said at last. "It's like it was with Bob, all over again."

  She tried to say more but failed. She looked down at the snow and kicked one foot absently, puffing up a small cloud. I didn't touch her. I knew what was going on inside her head. The scab over her husband's death had been almost healed. She had begun to laugh again. She had had the courage to come north to meet a replacement—me. I wasn't fair-haired and funny like Bob, but I was a solid man who was ready to take on a new family and teach the boys to fish and swim and cross-country ski and do all the things their father had started when they were tiny. And I loved her. We both knew it, but we'd never used that word—you don't, until all the old ghosts are put away. And now she was starting to understand again what a policeman does, what he is, and she wasn't sure she could handle it.

  After a long while I said, "Don't think about it, I'll get you back to the Legion to pick up your car and you can head for home. Stop somewhere soon and sleep, it'll help."

  With the first hint of firmness she said, "I don't think I can sleep, not without being at home with the boys, knowing they're safe."

  I reached out and touched her hand lightly. "Drive carefully." She pursed her lips and nodded once or twice, then said, "You're a good man, Reid Bennett."

  "Yeah. Look, maybe next month I'll be in Toronto again. I'll come by and we can take the kids to a movie or the museum or skating—something."

  Now she looked up at me, and the corners of her eyes were sparkling with the same brightness as the crystals in her hair. "They'd like that," she said.

  I put one arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently, then led her back into the station and helped her off with her coat. She sat down on the recycled church pew I have against the wall in front of the counter and I walked away through the little half-door to the main office.

  I sat down at my desk and picked up the telephone. My life as a man was in ruins, but I was still a copper. I had work to do. I phoned the magistrate and asked him to come to the station for a bail hearing on the prisoners. I asked him to drive by way of the Legion and have somebody escort the two women down with him. That way I could finish with all of them at once.

  Then it was time to talk to Carmichael. I asked his wife and Nancy to wait out in the back of the station. The wife wasn't happy, but Carmichael looked at her out of plaintive hound-dog eyes and she went. I sat looking at him for a minute before speaking. He was pale and sick but he spoke first.

  "What happens with Nancy?"

  "Nothing. As far as I'm concerned she was a victim, not a member of the conspiracy." I had already planned what I was going to do. I would charge the two C.L.A.W. members with public mischief. The two who had held the hostages were in bigger trouble. So was Tom, but there was no need to include all the women in the same mess, it could complicate things for me and I wasn't out for blood. I'd already had as much as I could stomach.

  He looked at me and cleared his throat harshly. "What about the attack on Nancy?"

  "The man who did that is dead. If you say nothing, the whole business can be kept quiet. Nobody will know but Nancy, your wife, and you."

  He thought about that for a moment, staring down at the toe of his boot. At last he cleared his treacherous throat again and nodded. "Yes. That would be best."

  That was it. No thanks. No recognition of the fact that I was cutting corners for him. But I've been a copper too long to worry about that. I stood up. "Now the plow's been by, why don't you take your family and go? Nancy should at least be checked out by a doctor."

  He didn't straighten up, kept staring down at the floor as he said softly, "I can't work out what happened."

  "You were in the middle of it," I told him. "I guess Peggy Burfoot's group had planned to hold you hostage and get some kind of concession from you—maybe money, maybe something to do with the U.S. rocket work your company's doing. They had it set up with Tom and his crowd. He waited at the cottage down the lake until I turned up, then he went on to the Legion to join his mother."

  Now he looked up. "What cottage?" I glanced across at Val but she had given up worrying. She had curled on the pew and closed her eyes. She may even have been sleeping. Briefly I told him what had happened. He listened and then shook his head silently. I nodded at him and went out back.

  His wife and daughter were drinking coffee. They had given each of the prisoners a cup. I told the Carmichael women they could go back out front and then I let the prisoners out of their cell. "The magistrate's on his way. When he gets here you'll have to answer some questions and then you'll be free to go. I'm charging you with mischief for your part in last night's kidnapping."

  The thin one said nothing. Freddie laughed, a nervous laugh but still musical. It was the first real laugh I'd heard in twelve hours. "Feeling generous, Chief?"

  "Not really. Just tired." I shooed them through to the front of the station and sat down at the little table to get my thoughts in order for my report. In a minute or so I picked up the clipboard and began to scribble. I heard the Carmichaels leaving to walk back to the Lakeside Tavern, and a few moments later I heard the magistrate arrive. I went through to the front office to greet him. He had the two women from the Legion, along with Sam and a couple of hung-over Legionnaires. I stooped to fuss Sam, who was delighted to see me and wagging his tail almost off his body. The Legionnaires left and I set up the formal bail hearings. On my say-so, the magistrate released the two younger women on their own recognizance but remanded Peggie Burfoot and Rachael for trial. I put them into the cells and called the OPP to send out a policewoman escort to take them to the regional detention center.

  The magistrate left, happy to be escorted by the three women, Val, and the two younger C.L.A.W. members. I had to find some shoes for Freddie, an old pair of skidoo boots that must have belonged to some former chief. Val lingered after the others had gone out into the snow. She tried a bright little smile and it almost worked. "Don't you give up on me, Reid. I need time, that's all."

  I smiled back, even though I could see it wasn't true. She could never come back here. Every night would have been filled with terror. Tom Burfoot had done what he had set out to do. He had demolished a corner of my life, the most important corner.

  "I'll be here when you're ready," I told her. She craned up on tiptoe and kissed me on the lips, a quick, dry, sisterly kiss. A good-bye kiss. Then she was gone.

 
I went over to the typewriter and wound in an occurrence form. It was the only thing to do. I was only halfway down the first sheet thirty minutes later when the door opened again and Freddie walked in. She had dressed, presumably in spare clothes from her car, blue jeans and a sweater under her parka. She was awkward, swinging her legs slowly and holding her face very tight. She looked as tough as a girl that pretty can look.

  "What's up, forget your purse?"

  She lifted the flap on the counter and walked through to my side. "No," she said defiantly. "I just figured I'd caused you enough trouble and I came to say I'm sorry."

  "You're forgiven. Go home."

  She came over to the typewriter and looked over my shoulder at the half page I'd finished. She snorted. "A good job I did come back. I'm no stenographer, but I have to be ten times better than that. Let me see the machine a minute."

  I stood up and she slipped into the seat, pulling out the sheet of paper I had so painfully typed. Then she took her coat off and began to type in crisp bunches of sound, like the clatter of an M16 on full automatic. Within a couple of minutes she stopped. "Okay, now dictate the rest, I want to see how it comes out."

  I sat down across the desk from her. "You mean you'll type the whole thing?"

  "Like I told you," she said roughly, "I owe you."

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  19

  Freddie stayed a month before she got homesick for the bright lights of Toronto. By that time the trial had started and the publicity she got for having appeared nude on the ice was enough to get her a couple of decent TV appearances. Then there were the talk shows, and soon she had outgrown both the feminist movement and me.

  I stayed where I was, of course. I liked Murphy's Harbour. The town was good to me. They held a roast for me at the Legion Hall and ended up locking me in my own cells on a charge of laughing too hard. It was all very small town and corny and it covered up the embarrassment people feel at knowing you have saved lives, their lives, while they were too paralyzed with fear to know what was going on. Carmichael died within that month. His heart gave out on the night before the trial began. But he had done a couple of gracious things. He had paid for the damages to Carl Simmonds's house. He made a two-grand donation to the Legion. And he hired a sonofabitch of a tough lawyer for his son Tom and for the two women.