Ted Wood - Murder on Ice aka The Killing Cold

Valerie was weeping helplessly and I held her for a moment, patting her on the back. "It's okay, Val, don't cry. You did well, we beat them." She still sobbed and my mind left the room and the present and raced in pursuit of the other two women. Where had they gone? How had they gotten there? What were they doing? They were the only missing pieces in the whole puzzle. With them in place, I could take Valerie back home and soothe her, slowly, calmly. She stopped sobbing, a sudden, conscious strength that made her straighten up and draw in her chin. "That's right," I told her. "It's all over. Don't worry any more."

I patted her a few times more until I could feel her straighten up, picking up the slack in her body. Then I let go of her shoulders. "Sit down a minute and then we'll go. I just have to talk to this kid."

She sat down and I bent to look Elliot in the face. He was sitting with his legs out straight in front of him, staring into the middle distance. He looked like a runner who has just finished a marathon without placing in the money. "Where did the two women go?"

He didn't answer, didn't appear to notice me. I snapped my fingers in front of him and he shook himself like an animal and looked at me. "The two women, Rachael and Margaret, where did they go?"

He sighed heavily, as if the air were thick and it was an effort to take it up. I told him, "Look, I'm not interested in your Mickey Mouse little slap at me. The only charges against you are for being involved in this plot to kidnap the girl. Tell me what you can and I'll do what I can for you at the trial." He looked at me through wide eyes and I went on with the part of the story he wanted to hear. "If you help me, you won't go to jail, you won't have to go through the kind of stuff Tom talks about."

That turned him on like a light. "They said they had business to finish." He paused for a moment. "I asked them where and they wouldn't say."

"They must have said something, given you some kind of hint."

Tom was beginning to stir. He tried to move but collapsed again, holding his stomach. I didn't know if he was injured. Even in the moment I was kicking him, I had been a policeman, not a Marine. Had I wanted, I could have killed him, but I had drawn the kick marginally, winding him rather than crushing his internal organs completely. I guessed he would be able to move within an hour. I was glad he was handcuffed to Elliot. He wouldn't go anywhere dragging the kid.

Elliot scrubbed his hair with the flat of his hand. "They didn't say much of anything."

"All right, try it another way. How did they get clothes to leave? I took all their parkas with me."

"When Tom came, he lent Margaret his parka and she went to another cottage and broke in and got clothes for her and Rachael. And she came back and said there was a skidoo there. Tom went and hot-wired it for her and brought it back."

"That means they had clothes and a machine. What did they say to one another when they went?"

Elliot looked at me, into my eyes, with an innocent, pleased grin. "I remember. Rachael was laughing. She said to Margaret, 'Come on, old lady, put on your dancing shoes and we'll go.'"

I stood up, grinning with him. "Well, I'm damned. They've gone back to the dance."

I didn't crouch forward on my ride back to the station. I sat like a tired tourist, with Val behind me hanging on around my waist. She was still in shock, and to get her talking I asked her about the station. What had happened that Sam hadn't worked his customary protective trick? She explained that Tom had knocked at the back door. Sam barked at him and he had called out through the door that he had the girl with him, she had to be gotten inside out of the snow, she was cold. Too cold to speak, he said, and had pretended to try to persuade her. Val had been hesitant about opening the door but he had reminded her that Sam would protect her, this was an act of mercy, she had to open up. And when she did, he came in gently and calmly with a live grenade in his hand. He had warned her that if Sam attacked him they would all die. The two prisoners had screamed and she had been afraid and finally she had done what he asked and put Sam in the cell.

The girl from the Legion had offered to go with Tom, anxious to get back into the action, but Tom had told her, "Stay here. You can't do as much good as this one can," and had taken Val with him. She had struggled, but he hit her a couple of times and she gave up.

I listened, nodding back over my shoulder but wondering what had happened to the grenade. I had searched the clothes of the two men before we left them in their prison cottage, but they could have hidden a grenade anywhere in the place and I wouldn't have uncovered it without a metal detector. Perhaps Margaret and her last disciple had taken it with them to the Legion. This thing wasn't over yet. It wouldn't be until I had those two women in my cozy little bucket. I was tired enough to grin at the pun, a whole cell in my two cells.

I decided to go first to the station. I could leave Val there and go on alone to the Legion. If that was where the women had gone, it was the only danger spot in town. She would be safe at the station even without Sam. I planned to put him in the skidoo trailer and pack him with me.

I didn't mention any of this to Val. Instead, I nodded a lot and reached back once or twice to hold her arm. And I pointed out that the snowstorm was slowing down, the worst was over now, the wind had dropped, and what snow was still coming down had no viciousness to it, it was like a scene out of Dickens.

Sam barked when we got back to the station but stopped at once when I whistled reassurance. I stood for a moment, enjoying the silence of the night for the first time. With the wind calm, the air seemed almost warm and there was no sound but the pinging of the engine of the snow machine as it cooled. I knew the skies would clear by morning and we would have a perfect picture-postcard day, clean as the birth of the world, while I tied up all the paperwork and gathered up the bodies tonight had left scattered. I almost forgot about the two women and my mission at the Legion Hall.

We went in and Sam bounded up to me and I fussed him and Valerie let the Carmichael girl out of her cell. And I filled the coffee pot with water. Val shucked her coat, not speaking, and set about making the coffee while I sat for a moment, rubbing Sam's ears and working out what to do first. I decided to check the Legion. I phoned but there was no answer, the busy signal buzzed and buzzed in my ear. Probably the line was down, or snow had blown into one of the external connections and shorted the circuit. I swore mildly and put it down.

Almost immediately it rang. I looked around at Nancy Carmichael. "Has it rung much while I've been out?

"I didn't hear it. Not once."

I picked up the phone. "Police Department, Chief Bennett."

The voice was high and old and frightened. "Come at once, there's a dead man on the stairs."

I almost laughed. "If you're calling from the Lakeside Tavern, I know about it. Who's speaking, and where are you?"

" Carmichael, at the Tavern. How do you mean, you know about it?"

"I put the sonofabitch there. He's the guy who kidnapped your daughter. She's here now. She's safe." I didn't say safe and sound. She wasn't sound, not in her own mind, anyway. It would take months, perhaps years of therapy before she reconciled herself to what had happened and her own part in causing it. As a policeman, I'm lucky. I just pick up the pieces. Other people have to put them together again.

"Can I speak to her?"

"I'll ask her." I turned to Nancy, who was leaning against the corner of a desk. She looked vague, detached. "It's your father, Nancy. Can you talk to him?"

She looked out of sky-blue eyes for an eternity. Then she reached out her hand for the telephone.