Winter of Secrets

by Vicki Delany

  The girl’s lanky hair and the shoulders of her second-hand coat were covered in snow. She was making a puddle on the mat at the front door.

  “You might as well go home,” Wendy said. “If, and I mean if, he comes in, I’ll tell him to call you.”

  “But…I don’t…I mean, he promised. He said he’d call before he came to pick me up. He didn’t, so I came over anyway. I figured his cell phone ran out of juice.” Her voice trailed off.

  “My brother promises a lot of things. To a lot of people. Sorry to disappoint you, kid, but he doesn’t believe promises are worth fuck all.” What she said was true, and Wendy wasn’t too bothered by the tears that welled up in the girl’s eyes, or the way her chin quivered.

  “Nonsense.” Mrs. Carmine helped the visitor divest herself of her coat. “I’m sure the young men will be back soon. In the meantime, I’ve prepared a lovely meal. You’re welcome to join us, dear.”

  Whatever. Wendy went back to the common room. Where, she had to admit, lovely was the appropriate word. A fire roared in the fireplace, spreading warmth and light. It was only gas, but was a good imitation of a real wood fire. The Balsam Fir in the corner was green and tall and fat, brimming with delicate ornaments and colored lights. The side tables held wooden decorations, small and lovingly carved, of a manger scene, an Alpine village in winter, and Santa’s workshop. Nine big red stockings, names painted on them in bright glitter, crowded the mantle above the fireplace.

  The interloper gasped at the sight. She stepped toward the mantle and reached out her hand, stopping just short of touching the stocking with her name. “It’s beautiful.” Her voice cracked.

  Wendy rolled her eyes.

  “I made one for you, Lorraine,” Mrs. Carmine said with a big smile. She was short and fat, her hair gray and badly cut, her eyes small and dark like a rat’s. She wore a red velour tracksuit covered with a white apron decorated with gingerbread people. Except for the eyes, she looked exactly as one might imagine Mrs. Claus.

  Mrs. C, as she insisted her guests call her, had gone all out to create the perfect Christmas setting.

  It would be hard not to enjoy it.

  Wendy was not enjoying it. They’d accepted Mrs. C’s suggestion—okay, her quiet bullying—to have a traditional Christmas Eve in the common room. But Jason had left hours ago, and hadn’t come back, and no one had seen Ewan since yesterday.

  “We’re going to get old waiting for them,” Sophie said. “It’s long after midnight. Hi, Laurie.”

  “Lorraine.”

  They’d flown in from Ontario and Quebec. A group of friends getting together for a ski vacation in British Columbia. A cozy B&B in Trafalgar. Days on the slopes, nights in the bars. Christmas cheer and New Year’s revelry.

  It had all gone wrong, almost immediately. Although that shouldn’t have been any sort of a surprise, Wendy thought. She shouldn’t have come. These were her brother Jason’s friends, and she didn’t like any of them. Now Jason had taken off, leaving her to celebrate Christmas with his university buddies. And the awkward local girl he’d collected like a dog collects fleas—a wide-eyed child who was anything but innocent.

  God fucking bless us, every one.

  Wendy threw herself onto the couch. “Jason’ll be here soon. I don’t want to open our presents without him. It was his idea to have our party tonight, so we could hit the slopes first thing tomorrow.”

  “Get real, Wendy,” Jeremy said. “Jason found something more interesting than us, and he’s snuggled up in someone’s bed getting his private Christmas present.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Lorraine said. Light from the fire reflected off her washed-out blue eyes. “He invited me to come. For his away-from-family-Christmas, he said. He wouldn’t forget that.”

  Wendy pulled out her phone, one more time, and dialed Jason’s cell. Again, it went to voice mail. Maybe he had run out of juice, like Lorraine said. But that didn’t explain why he wasn’t here. He had to know she was waiting for him.

  “You can sulk all you want.” Alan said. He switched his smile to “on” like the actor he was and turned it full force onto Mrs. C. “I’m in the mood for Christmas. And speaking of something better, I’ll bet there’s something here for me.”

  The landlady laughed. “You have to wait, just one minute. Kathy, help me in the kitchen. You stay right there, Sophie,” she said to the girl who’d only leaned over to nuzzle the back of Alan’s neck. “I don’t need any help.”

  Mrs. Carmine and Kathy, her daughter, returned moments later, carrying trays precariously balanced with glasses of pale yellow eggnog, platters of sliced shortbread, mince tarts, cheese and crackers.

  “I have something to add to that.” Alan ran up the stairs and was back a moment later, clutching a bottle of Champagne. Being Alan it was the real stuff—Moët et Chandon.

  “Nice,” Jeremy took the bottle from him. Sophie, Alan’s girlfriend, ran toward the tree. “You have to open mine first. You must.”

  Alan swept Sophie up as she passed. “Let me get you some Champagne first.”

  Everyone jumped as the cork popped out of the bottle. With a big grin, Jeremy held it high. Wendy was still looking at Alan and she saw the cloud flash across his handsome face. He’d wanted to do the ceremonial opening, to continue being the center of attention, but Jeremy had upstaged him. Alan never liked to be upstaged.

  Rob and Kathy held the glasses while Jeremy poured the drinks into an assortment of champagne flutes, beer mugs, and wine glasses. Kathy beamed at Rob who seemed impervious to her charms, modest as they might be. Alan threw himself into an armchair, smile fixed in place. Lorraine accepted her drink with wide eyes and brought the glass slowly to her lips.

  Pearls before swine.

  When everyone was served, Mrs. C clapped her hands in delight. “Presents, presents. We must have presents.”

  Alan opened his gift from Sophie. Good, reliable ski gloves, just shy of being top notch.

  Like Sophie herself, solid, respectable, but most definitely not the best.

  Wendy sipped at her champagne and watched the rest of them opening their gifts, enjoying the refreshments, laughing and flirting.

  Lorraine sat alone on the edge of the sofa, clinging to her glass. If she were a nice person, Wendy would feel sorry for the girl. Thinking she was in love with a good looking guy from a good family and a great university with a highly-promising future, who’d do nothing but screw her and wave bye-bye out the car window as he left town.

  But she wasn’t a nice person, and so Wendy didn’t bother herself to care about pathetic little Lorraine.

  “There must be a present for our Lorraine,” Mrs. C said, having trouble getting her lips around the words. Wendy suspected she’d been into the Champagne already. Alan had a secret store in his room, and he always knew how to butter up the hired help.

  “I’ll have my Christmas at home in the morning,” Lorraine said, “with Mom and Dad, of course. There’ll be plenty of presents.” Her eyes slid to one side, and Wendy knew she was lying.

  “Nevertheless there must be something for you under our tree.”

  Kathy, Mrs. C’s daughter, another precocious teenager you might as well crush under your shoe as you would a cockroach, rolled her eyes. “As if,” she muttered.

  Jeremy laughed.

  “Keep digging, Kathy,” Mrs. C said. No sugar was left in her voice.

  And sure enough Kathy came up with a small box. She handed it to Lorraine.

  The girl hesitated before taking it, looking as if she’d bolt. Then she accepted the box and rubbed her fingers, nails bitten to the quick, across it. “It’s so beautiful.” She pulled at the ribbon, all the colors of the rainbow, and then at the paper.

  “Who’s it from?” Sophie asked.

  “Jason, of course.” Lorraine’s eyes shone. “See, it says right here on the label. To Lorraine, Merry Christmas, from Jason.”

  “What’s in it?” Sophie again, sounding as if she were actually excited.
/>   Lorraine opened the blue box. She gasped, and they all, Wendy included, leaned forward.

  Gold earrings. Small, perfectly round hoops.

  “How lovely.” Wendy reached out her hand. Lorraine hesitated, but Wendy kept her hand in place, and Lorraine reluctantly put the box into it.

  Gold. Pure gold.

  ***

  The hour hand of the clock in the lunch room approached three.

  Evans leaned back in his chair and stretched. Like Smith, he’d taken off his coat and Kevlar vest. “I’m going to Emily’s soon as I’m off. She made something she calls a late supper and told me she’s looking forward to celebrating our first Christmas together.”

  How nice of you to let me know you have food and sex in your immediate future.

  Smith herself would stagger home and go to bed where she’d eventually wake to welcome Christmas day alone. All alone. As every Christmas since…

  Enough. Adam Tocek had asked her on a hiking date in the summer, and she’d made a feeble excuse not to go. Undeterred, he was still sending her loud and clear signals. She’d chosen to ignore them, and that was her choice.

  It was still too soon.

  The hands of the clock touched three. Evans grabbed his coat.

  “Say Merry Christmas to Emily for me.” Smith got to her feet.

  He was in such a rush to get out the door and off to his girlfriend’s place he didn’t hear her.

  “Have a nice screw,” Smith muttered.

  “What’s that, Molly?” Ingrid, the night dispatcher, asked.

  “I was wishing Constable Evans the complements of the season.”

  “My aunt Fanny.”

  “Night, Ingrid.”

  “Night, Molly.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “As there is no lottery draw on Christmas Day, that will probably be the case.”

  The radio spat to life. Smith listened as Ingrid answered. 911. House fire. Christmas tree in flames.

  “Forty-two, forty-two,” Ingrid said. Solway answered and Ingrid gave her the details.

  “This has been one miserable Christmas Eve,” Smith said. “But at least it’s over.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Hold on, I’m going home.”

  “Halton called back.” The dead men in the car pulled out of the river were both carrying wallets containing Ontario licenses. The driver, Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, was from Oakville, and Ingrid had called the regional police to request they contact the address on his license. The yellow SUV had been a local rental.

  “They went to Wyatt-Yarmouth’s address,” Ingrid said. “Merry Christmas. Your brother/son/husband/father/friend/life-long enemy’s bought the farm. Don’t let us spoil your turkey dinner. Night. Couldn’t possibly be our Jason, the parents said, as he’s in Trafalgar, B.C., skiing. He’s staying at the Glacier Chalet B&B with his sister and a group of friends.”

  “Tough.”

  “You got that right, Molly. Tough enough for the sister to hear the news straight off. Not to sit up all Christmas Eve wondering where her brother is.”

  “Come on, Ingrid. Tough stuff happens all the time. Why are you laying this on me?”

  The dispatcher pulled a tissue out of the box beside the screen monitoring the cells. Tonight’s only guests of the city were Jake and Felicia LeBlanc. The town drunks. They’d been at a party and had gotten into a screaming and hitting match on their way home. In a breach of seasonal spirit they were not sharing a family cell.

  Ingrid wiped at her eyes. “I hate Christmas, okay. My sister, my big sister who I adored, died on Christmas day. Cancer. I was twelve and she was sixteen. My parents wouldn’t take me to the hospital to see her one last time. Didn’t want to spoil my Christmas.”

  “Gee, Ingrid. I’m sorry.”

  “You tell anyone that, Smith, and you’ll be answering every domestic we get for the next year.” Ingrid blew her nose. She was in her late fifties, with short hair the color of a rusty battleship, and hard eyes. Smith didn’t know anything about Ingrid’s background. Other than over the radio, they’d never exchanged more than five words at a time.

  “Why don’t the parents phone the sister? This isn’t news that should come from a stranger.”

  Ingrid threw up her hands. “I don’t know. They asked us to send someone around to inform the group in person.”

  “Ingrid…”

  “Dawn’s gone to the fire. Might be there a long time if they have trouble controlling it. Caldwell’s at an OD. Found a nice package of white power while he was there.”

  “Send the Mounties.”

  “Molly.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll pop round. Not as if I have anything to do Christmas morning anyway.”

  ***

  Try as she might to remain aloof, Wendy found herself forgetting her troubles and falling into the spirit of things. Presents were opened, snacks eaten, champagne drunk, more champagne drunk. The presents the friends gave each other were frivolous stuff: chocolates, bath salts, silly puzzles, costume jewelry.

  Alan gave Sophie a barely-there peach nightgown. Sophie turned red and covered her face with the thin fabric while Mrs. Carmine broke into giggles. Their landlady had definitely had too much Champagne.

  Mrs. C’s gift to Kathy was a set of flannel pajamas, and Kathy gave her mother an electric kettle.

  Lorraine clutched the tiny blue box that was her present and watched the festivities with a gentle smile on her face.

  Wendy refused to open her gift from Jason without him present.

  As they hadn’t seen Ewan since yesterday, and everyone assumed he’d found more hospitable accommodations, they opened the gifts from him.

  Finally there were only a handful of wrapped presents under the tree. Gifts to Jason and Ewan, and Wendy’s from her brother.

  “Something must be wrong,” Lorraine said, staring at the small pile of gifts. “Why isn’t he here?”

  “Because he doesn’t wanna be,” Wendy said. She took the last piece of shortbread. Homemade, packed with so much butter it melted in her mouth.

  “Per’aps ‘e and Ewan caught up,” Sophie said in her strong Quebec accent, rubbing her fingers through the fabric of her gift as if she were already imagining the feel of it against her body. And the feel of it being taken off. “And ‘e ‘ad to go wherever Evan’s been.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Sophie,” Mrs. C said. “That’s a perfectly sensible explanation. Good heavens look at the time. Kathy, help me do up the dishes. What time would you like breakfast in the morning?”

  “Breakfast,” Rob shouted, throwing up his arms in mock surrender. “Perish the thought. I can’t think of breakfast.”

  “Well you have to if we’re going to be on the slopes early,” Alan said.

  The seven of them—Jason, his sister, and five of his friends—had come to B.C. for two weeks’ skiing. They were all university students. Jason, Ewan, and Alan had grown up together in Oakville, allowing, sometimes, Wendy, the kid sister, to tag along. Alan had gone to McGill, the University in Montreal, where he’d met Sophie, the Québécois.

  Rob had been Jason’s roommate first year and they’d stayed friends. Wendy didn’t quite know where Jeremy fit in.

  For as long as Wendy could remember Jason and Ewan had been best friends. Ewan-Jason, Jason-Ewan. So close they might as well have hyphenated their names. She’d grown up tagging along after Jason and his friends, and she’d always had a bit of a crush on Ewan. Who never paid the slightest bit of attention to her. He’d disappeared only a few days into their two-week vacation, but no one even considered worrying about him. Typical Ewan, they all thought. As he’d been temporarily between girlfriends, he’d started looking for something to lay before they’d even gotten off the plane at tiny Castlegar airport.

  This vacation was Jason’s idea, formulated after last year’s incredibly dull New Years Eve at a house party. He’d found the B&B on the Internet and had been early enough to book the entire place. The group had
gathered at Toronto airport. Flown to Calgary and then to Castlegar. Jason had arranged the rental of a seven-seater SUV with a ski compartment on the roof. Bags, friends, skis, presents were loaded aboard, and they’d headed for Trafalgar and their Christmas vacation.

  They were gathering their gifts, leaving the cleaning up and dishes to Mrs. C. and Kathy—they were paying guests, after all, no matter how homey Mrs. C. made the place—when the doorbell rang.

  Lorraine ran to the door like a greyhound out of the starting gate. Wendy followed, prepared to give her brother a piece of her mind. She’d only come on this stupid trip because he’d asked her. She had plenty of other things she could have done with her vacation.

  “Alain,” Sophie said, “I am going to bed. You can come with me or stay to ‘ave a drink with your ami, Jason. Not both.”

  Alan’s feet hit the stairs, hard.

  “As for me,” Jeremy said, “I’ll have another drink. Tell Jas and Ewan to get in here. I hope to hell they brought more booze.”

  Lorraine threw open the door. Wendy and Mrs. C. crowded behind.

  It wasn’t Jason.

  The woman was young, probably not much older than Wendy herself. Very pretty with an oval face, sharp, high cheekbones, pert nose, and large blue eyes. Cheeks and plump lips were reddened with cold. She was tall and, much as one could tell with the way she was bundled up, in good shape. Snowflakes fell on the shoulders of her blue coat and blue-trimmed hat.

  For a brief moment Wendy dared hope this was a strip-o-gram, bringing a raunchy holiday greeting from friends back in Ontario. But the police uniform was too perfect. And the woman was not smiling.

  The cop shifted her feet and took off her hat, revealing short hair the color of ripening corn.

  “Lorraine?” she said, blinking in surprise. Behind her, reflected in the street lights, snow fell steadily.

  “Are you following me, Molly? You can’t come in here. I know my rights. I haven’t done anything. Mrs. Carmine.” Lorraine darted to safety behind the landlady’s chubby form. “Tell her to go away. Tell her to stop bothering me.”

  “I’m sorry,” the officer said. “Lorraine, I didn’t know you were here. Honest.” She sounded hesitant, unsure of herself. It was none of Wendy’s business, but she never minded seeing pretty young women slapped into place. Interesting, that this representative of the law and Jason’s holiday amusement were on a first name basis.