Ted Wood: Murder on Ice aka The Killing Cold

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 coat 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."