And We Shall Have Snow Read online

  Panda moved towards the kitchen. “You’ve got eggs in the fridge, Sasha?” she asked. Soon they could hear her clattering pans around.

  “Even if you do persuade him to go, you’d be all on your own, out there in the middle of nowhere,” Margo continued.

  “So what. You live by yourself, Margo. So does Sasha.”

  “We’re in the village. There are other people around. And Erik might come back,” Margo responded. She really was concerned for Roberta’s safety.

  “Erik’s maybe been stupid,” Roberta said, “but he’s not a murderer.”

  “You didn’t think he would be unfaithful,” Panda called from the kitchen. “But he was. With Stella!”

  Roberta took a deep breath. “I still want him out. I want my house back. And my goats, and my chickens. It’s where I ought to be. I’ll be okay. And anyway, there’s a shotgun, if I need to protect myself.”

  “What? You’ve got a gun?” Margo was incredulous. Panda came through and put a plate of scrambled eggs in front of Roberta.

  “Sure, there’s a gun. Everybody out here has one. To scare off coyotes,” said Roberta.

  “Do you know how to use it, Roberta?” asked Annie.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Sasha protested. “Nobody is going to be using a gun. If you’re going back, I’m coming with you, for the first few nights at least. Me and Lenny.” The dog was still dozing on the sofa. Panda sank back into the armchair and rolled her eyes in disbelief. Roberta was devouring the eggs.

  “Phone Erik first, and tell him he has to leave,” said Margo.

  “I need to tell him to his face.”

  “You are not going alone,” Sasha insisted.

  “I don’t need you there!”

  “You need someone. If only to be a witness,” Margo said. They all stopped and thought about that.

  “Maybe we should all go. We could spell each other off. In pairs. It might be safer that way,” said Annie.

  “No.” Roberta pushed the empty plate away. “Those eggs were good, thanks, Panda.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I’ve made up my mind. Margo’s right. I’ll phone him first. No, I’ll phone Mike, maybe he’ll be able to talk some sense into him.”

  “Maybe he could go and stay at Mike’s house?”

  “No way. Alice won’t have him. She’s pissed off with him too.” The phone rang again. “Maybe that’s Liz.” Liz was Roberta’s daughter by her first marriage, the one she had left, fifteen years earlier, to live with Erik. She went back to the bedroom to take the call.

  “I hope she goes to Liz’s for now,” said Margo. “Just until she figures things out.’

  “We need to convince her to do that,” said Panda.

  Over at the Axelsson house, an RCMP car had pulled into the driveway. Erik’s silver Ford truck was nowhere to be seen. Roxanne and Matt checked the outbuildings. The chickens had been fed. The goats and the sheep were munching placidly. There was no sign of Erik. That was too bad. Now that it seemed more likely that he actually had been Stella Magnusson’s lover, they wanted to talk to him again. Matt tried the front door. It was unlocked.

  “What do you think, Corporal?” Roxanne walked past him into the house. “Let’s have a quick look.” She didn’t have a warrant to search, but this was too good an opportunity. “Don’t touch anything,” she said, just to be on the safe side.

  The house phone rang. Roxanne ignored it. They walked from room to room. A mug, almost full of cold tea, milk scum on the surface, sat on the kitchen table. Two loaves of bread rested on a rack on the counter. In the living room a book lay on a side table, turned over at the place where it had last been read. The ash in the wood stove was cold. A big bed in the bedroom was unmade. Roberta’s discarded clothes lay on one chair, Erik’s on the other. Nothing was disturbed. Everything looked as it might have been when Roberta had stormed out the night before.

  “Let’s go back to the car and phone the detachment,” said Roxanne. “Where does his friend Mike Little live? Who else does he hang out with?” They closed the door behind them and were soon heading back to Fiskar Bay.

  Back at Sasha’s, progress had been made.

  “All right, all right. I’ll go to Winnipeg, just for a few days. Stay with Liz.”

  “Want one of us to drive you in?” Sasha offered.

  “No, I can do it. And anyway, I’ll need my car.”

  In less than an hour, Roberta had washed her face, borrowed some makeup to camouflage the red bags under her eyes, brushed her hair and was heading out the door. “Liz never did like Erik,” she said. “I think she’s kind of glad I’ve left him.”

  “What about the goats? And the chickens?” asked Margo.

  “I’ll call Alice and get her to look after the goats. Erik will feed the rest. They’ll be okay.” Now that she had made the decision, Roberta couldn’t wait to be gone. It wasn’t long before her friends watched her drive away.

  “They’ve been married for fifteen years?” asked Margo, as they turned back into the house.

  “Something like that. They were both married to other people when they met. Their kids were on the same basketball team. The way Roberta tells it they took one look at each other and that was it. Happily ever after. They left their partners and their kids, everything, and moved out here. It took some time for Liz and her brother to come around, but now Roberta sees them and her grandkids quite often.”

  “What about Erik’s family?”

  “I don’t know. There was a daughter, around the same age as Liz. I don’t know if he ever sees her.”

  “But he started an affair with Roberta while he was still married to his first wife,” said Margo. “What a jerk.”

  Panda surveyed the room. “Where’s Phyllis? How come she’s not here?”

  “She couldn’t make it. She’s sick. Throwing up.” Sasha went to the kitchen to make more coffee. Panda cleared the dirty dishes from the table and found clean mugs.

  “Again?”

  “I know. And God knows what that idiot George is giving her to try and cure it.”

  “He says he’s qualified—as a naturopathic doctor,” said Margo, sitting back at the table.

  “Doctor my foot,” Sasha called from the kitchen. “He’s a quack. Him and his herbal remedies. Maybe it’s him that’s making her sick.”

  “You two should have come for George’s chili,” Margo laughed. “We got some kind of brown brew to drink with it. You’d have hated it.”

  “I tipped mine into that aloe plant of his when no one was looking,” Sasha said, coming back into the room. “Maybe we should stop by and take her some real food.”

  “Chicken soup,” said Margo.

  “Aren’t they vegan?” asked Annie.

  “She isn’t. I cooked her up a plate of sausage and egg over here last week and she gobbled it. Who wants more cookies?” Sasha put another plateful on the table.

  Lenny finally got off the sofa and joined Bob. Both dogs looked interested.

  Roxanne and Matt had not been back long at the RCMP detachment when the front door flew open and Erik Axelsson lurched in, looking the worse for wear. His eyes were red and bleary, his ponytail was undone and his hair hung lank to his shoulders. From where Roxanne stood, behind the counter, she could smell beer.

  “You! You meddling bitch!”

  “Hey, Erik, stop right there!” Sergeant Gilchrist strode out of his office. Roxanne stood her ground. Izzy stuck her head over the banister to see what was happening. Erik leaned against the counter and pulled some loose papers from his pocket.

  “January 19th, eh? Want to know where I was? Here you are!” He picked a scrap of paper from the pile and slammed it down on the countertop. “Fixed a car, all day long. Tricky job. Call this guy. He’ll tell you. I was at his place until almost six.” A second piece of paper
followed the first. “See this? Receipt. Brake shoes, bought them at the garage. Look here, January 19. Got that, bitch?”

  The sergeant moved forward again. Roxanne gestured to him to wait. A third piece of paper joined the other two.

  “Receipt for $475. Copy, signed by me. And you want to know what else? It was a Friday. I played a gig that night. People saw me. So I couldn’t have killed Stella fuckin’ Magnusson and now you can get right off my back. Got that?” He turned, swayed and almost fell.

  Matt and the sergeant both moved to grab him. “Hold on there, Erik,” said Gilchrist, as Matt reached for Erik’s arm. “That’s enough.”

  “Is it, you think? No, it’s not.” He whipped his arm away and turned back to glare at Roxanne.

  “Why don’t you check your facts first, you stupid interfering cow, before you go around wrecking people’s lives?”

  “Let’s get some coffee into you, Erik,” said the sergeant. Izzy’s voice rang out across the room

  “Should have thought about that before you screwed Stella Magnusson, Erik. Guys like you piss me right off.” She disappeared back upstairs.

  “Get him sobered up, Matt,” said the sergeant. “And if you don’t need him anymore, Corporal, we’ll send him home.”

  Roxanne was leafing through the pieces of paper Erik Axelsson had left scattered on the counter. He had indeed repaired a car on January 19.

  “I’ll just get Izzy to call and check these, Sergeant. If everything’s all right, we’ll let him go.”

  “Too fuckin’ right you will,” muttered Erik Axelsson. An hour later, he was sent home in a taxi.

  Izzy watched him leave from the window of their office upstairs. “They should have made him walk,” she said. “Or locked him up for the night. Drunk and disorderly.”

  His story had checked out. He had worked on a car in the morning of the day Stella Magnusson had died, picked up the brake shoes at noon, had finished the job just before six. Mike Little had been at Erik’s house to pick him up by seven. They’d been together right through until 2:00 am. It looked like Erik was in the clear.

  Roxanne put on her city coat. She would get to Winnipeg in time to eat with her boy. They’d have a whole evening together. Maybe watch a movie. She watched Izzy pull the sticky note with Erik Axelsson’s name on it from the board.

  “We need a new lead,” Roxanne said. “Can you get me a number for Leo Isbister? I wouldn’t mind talking to him while I’m in town.”

  11

  The head office of Isbister Homes lay in the south end of Winnipeg. Roxanne pulled into an industrial park where a two-storey, glass-fronted building dominated a row of windowless grey warehouses with loading docks at the front. The parking lot was full of cars. She found the only remaining space in the visitors’ parking area. J.L. Isbister, otherwise known as Leo, would have a half hour available at 4:30, his office assistant had conceded on the phone, only after the words “murder inquiry” had been mentioned. It was exactly 4:28 when Roxanne announced her arrival at the front desk. A well-groomed receptionist directed her to the waiting area. Brochures proliferated on countertops and tables, displaying glossy photographs of Isbister houses and their floor plans. They promoted the company’s latest suburban development. Isbister Homes seemed to be thriving.

  At 4:45 the same brisk young woman ushered Roxanne into a large office. The man who greeted her was sleek, well-fed and tanned. His hair was thick and brown, impeccably cut, his suit tailored to fit, the shirt perfectly collared and cuffed, the shoes burnished to a dark gloss. The only indication that Leo Isbister had once enjoyed life as an on-stage performer was a red silk tie with streaks of orange and purple and the flash of a gold cufflink as he shook Roxanne’s hand.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Corporal.” He appeared more satisfied than sorry. He did not invite her to sit at his walnut desk, but indicated a leather chair beside a low table. The pictures on the walls were all of buildings his company had built. A formal portrait of a smiling dark-haired woman and two young men who resembled him sat on his desk. It was all conventionally corporate and told Roxanne very little about Leo himself.

  “We are investigating the death of Stella Magnusson,” she said, getting straight to the point since time was limited.

  “Ah, yes.” Isbister sat facing her, folding his brows into an expression of concern. Roxanne noticed that his socks had specks of orange and purple to match his tie. “Sad business. I heard about it yesterday. My wife and I have been at our house in Costa Rica the past two weeks. We just got back.”

  So he would have been away at the time of the murder. Was that the point he was making? That he had an alibi? “We understand that you knew her,” she said.

  “Well, yes.” He relaxed back in his chair and spread himself, a man used to occupying a lot of space. “We were in a band. She sang and I played bass. It only lasted a couple of years and that was a long time ago. Almost thirty years. Why would you want to ask me about that?”

  “We’re trying to build a picture of Stella Magnusson’s life,” Roxanne replied, equally smoothly. She smiled. “We hoped you could help us.”

  “Well, of course, Corporal. Ask away.” He steepled his fingers in front of him and regarded her speculatively.

  “You have a house in the Interlake. Have you talked to Stella in the years since she moved back there?”

  “Sure.” He drawled out the word, taking his time. “But not recently. My company sponsors her music festival. Three thousand dollars a year, for old times’ sake, that’s all. She got in touch with me to set it up but my assistant handles all that now. I just sign the cheque.”

  “You don’t run into her when you’re out at the lake?”

  “Hey, Corporal, I’m a busy guy. I live a different life from Stella. We didn’t move in the same circles any more. Sure, she used to be a girlfriend, but that was back when we were kids. Back when we thought we had talent, we’d hit the big time, make a lot of money, be famous. Didn’t happen. So we went our separate ways. Did somebody really cut her up?” He didn’t miss a beat as he said it.

  “Afraid so,” Roxanne responded. “We found body parts at the dump.”

  “Shocking. Stella was a bit wild back when I knew her, but she didn’t deserve that. She was great looking, you know. Stunning.” He smiled at the memory.

  “How did you meet her?”

  “At the lake. Our cottage has been in the family for years, we used to spend our summers out there when I was a kid. Stella was in a group that played the bandstand at Cullen Village one year. She must have still been in school. I was in university and had my own group together by then, so when she showed up in the city a year or so after I knew who she was. She was okay as a singer but nothing great. Looked fantastic, though. All that blonde hair and black leather. People came just to look at her.”

  “You don’t have anything to do with music anymore?”

  “Came to my senses. Got a boy though, plays the sax in a jazz band.” He waved a hand in the general direction of the family photo. “He just needs a bit of time, then he’ll come round. Join me and his brother in the business.” He sounded like he had no doubt this would happen, a man used to getting his way. He leaned forward in his seat. “You going to interview all the guys Stella shacked up with, Corporal? It’s got to be quite a list.”

  “Anyone you would suggest?” she countered.

  “Don’t really know. Used to hear about her on the grapevine for a while after we split so I only know the old stuff. She had something going with a guy at the children’s festival, that’s where she worked after the band broke up, but he’s dead. She only married once that I know of. To Freddie Santana. You know about him?”

  “The filmmaker? In L.A.?”

  “Stella got into managing bands. She always had a good head for being an agent, that kind of thing. She did a lot of our bookings when we were together. Bet s
he married Freddie so she could work in the States. She probably wanted to get into Nashville. Or New York. Heard it didn’t last long though. Nothing ever did with Stella. I can’t believe she’s was still doing this StarFest thing. She should have been bored with it long ago.” He glanced at his watch. Rolex. “Got to wrap this up, Corporal. I’m due at a meeting downtown at half five.” He stood up, reached for a business card from a silver box on his desk and passed it to Roxanne.

  “You know, I can’t think why she moved back to the Interlake. Stella always sounded like she wanted to play the big time.” He shook his head. “Call me if you think I can help you, but frankly, I don’t know much. My direct line’s on my card. Good luck with your investigation.”

  She was dismissed. Roxanne didn’t mind. She was finished in time to get to her sister’s house for supper with Finn.

  Over at Cullen Village, Margo and Sasha were ringing the Smedleys’ doorbell. George opened the door.

  “Why hello!” he said. “This is a surprise!”

  “We just thought we’d stop by,” said Sasha.

  “To visit Phyllis and see if she’s feeling any better.” Margo stepped up beside her. They both smiled hopeful smiles.

  “You’d better come in then.” George opened the door wider. Just at that moment, Phyllis appeared at the end of the hallway.

  “Margo and Sasha!” she chirruped. “Do come in. I’m afraid we don’t have very long. We’re driving into Winnipeg to catch a movie and we’re going to have a bite to eat first. But we have time for a quick visit, don’t we, George?”

  George did not appear enthusiastic, Margo thought. Perhaps they should have called ahead. But Sasha had pointed out that if George answered the phone, he might put them off. Margo wondered if Sasha was being unnecessarily negative. George had never shown any signs of being inhospitable. Even now, he had fixed a look of welcome onto his face.

  “I’ll make a nice pot of rooibos,” he said, “Come along in.”