And We Shall Have Snow Page 11

“I brought you some homemade chicken soup, Phyllis.” Margo pulled a jar from a bag she was carrying. “And Sasha made oatmeal muffins. We thought you might still be sick.”

  “How lovely!” exclaimed Phyllis. “But I’m so much better. George is such a good cook. He takes very good care of me. I can’t eat the soup today. Maybe you should take it home.”

  Margo felt foolish. Phyllis had obviously recovered, their gifts were unwanted, their visit badly timed.

  “We should really go,” she said. “Let you get on your way. Keep the soup. You can always freeze it for another time.” Sasha gave her a nudge.

  “Just what was it that made you sick, Phyllis?” she asked. Phyllis perched on the edge of an armchair.

  “Well it’s just so strange. I got sick, nauseous, not really throwing up, but queasy. And then there’s the palpitations.”

  Margo and Sasha parked themselves, simultaneously, side by side, on a sofa. George could be heard fussing around in the kitchen.

  “Palpitations? You have heart arrhythmia?” Margo leaned forward. “Does this happen often?”

  “Only once or twice. Yes, twice, isn’t it, George?” George had appeared with a tray. “My silly heart thing. Doesn’t hurt or anything, and if I just keep quiet it soon goes away.”

  “Have you had that checked out?” Margo inquired.

  “Phyllis is just fine,” her husband responded, laying the tray on a coffee table. “Look at her. The picture of health.” He poured the red brew into small china cups. “This is so good for you. Full of anti-oxidants and it will give your immune system a boost.”

  Sasha rolled her eyes. “You know a lot about that stuff, don’t you, George?” she asked innocently.

  “’Course he does. George is a brilliant herbalist,” said Phyllis. “He knows exactly what to give me when I get sick. Look how quickly I recovered!”

  “I do have a degree in naturopathy,” George added, sounding knowledgeable. “And I have made a special study of herbs and their healing properties.”

  “Right,” said Sasha.

  “How do you qualify as a naturopath?” asked Margo. She was genuinely curious.

  “I have a degree from Toronto. It’s rigorous training. You have to have seven years of post-secondary education to qualify as a naturopathic doctor.”

  “You should really be calling him Dr. Smedley.” Phyllis beamed at her husband.

  “I don’t insist.” He smiled back at his wife. Sasha and Panda are right, Margo thought. He really is creepy.

  “Haven’t you seen George’s herb garden in the summer!” Phyllis enthused. “So amazing. And many of the plants have beautiful flowers, blue ones, white ones.”

  “What do you do with them, George?” asked Margo.

  “Well, that would be telling,” he said. This time his smile was close-lipped.

  “I think we should let you get going,” said Margo, putting down her cup.

  George did not argue with that. In no time at all they found themselves walking back down the Smedleys’ path.

  “Want to come back to my place?” asked Margo. “I’ve got faster Internet than you. Let’s check out George Smedley. I think you’re right. There’s something going on here that doesn’t quite add up.”

  Roxanne wished she was wearing her parka. A smart wool coat didn’t keep out the cold when you were watching four-year-olds practise hockey at an outdoor rink in a Winnipeg suburb on a freezing February night. She stood at the edge of the floodlit oval watching them stagger and slide over the ice, big-headed in their helmets, like overgrown ants. Finn was doing okay, staying upright, occasionally managing to get up some speed. He whacked a passing puck. It spun off his stick and bounced off the boards. He waved to her, delighted with himself. Sometimes he looked so like Jake she could cry. She waved right back.

  Her sister Susan had persuaded her to stay the night with them. Finn had nursery school tomorrow, first thing, and Roxanne would need to get back to Fiskar Bay. It made sense, but she would have loved to scoop him up and have him all to herself, at home, for this one night. Next time she’d try for two consecutive nights off. Would that be possible?

  Susan and her husband, Roy, were the reason Roxanne had transferred to Manitoba. Susan had offered to take care of Finn, any time. She had a boy the same age and two older kids, so Finn got to spend time with his cousins. His uncle was good with him, next best thing to a dad. Roxanne didn’t know how she’d manage to stay in this job without them. The two cousins were out there now, high-fiving each other. Roy had come along too. He stood at her side.

  “Is it that Magnusson murder you’re working on?”

  “Yeah. Double murder now. It’s a big case.” Roy was a doctor with a family practice. “Can I run something by you? Professional question?”

  “Sure,” he said. She watched Finn trip and fall. One of the teenagers who helped the coach swooped by and lifted him back onto his feet. He skated off again, perfectly fine.

  “The victim in this case was hit first and smothered after. The autopsy report says the impact to her skull was right on the back, where the occipital bone meets the parietal, so she wasn’t hit from above. It looks more like a sideways blow.”

  “Maybe she fell,” said Roy. “She could have hit her head against something hard. In which case it might have been an accident.”

  “But not when someone makes sure she’s dead by smothering her after. That makes it murder, for sure. But why would someone do that?”

  “The blow probably knocked her out.” Roy considered this while still keeping an eye on the rink.

  “There’s a skull fracture and extensive brain trauma.”

  “Then she could have gone into a coma. The person often makes a snoring sound with that kind of injury. Still breathing, you know, in and out. Could be that the killer just wanted to stop her making that noise. Maybe it happened in the heat of the moment.”

  Roxanne tried to remember if she had seen any cushions in the Magnusson house. Of course someone could have used a pillow. The report also said that Stella had eaten dinner. She had died shortly afterwards. Their assumption that the murder had occurred on Friday, January 19, had been right, and now they knew it had happened in the evening. Angus Smith had eaten dinner too, lasagne, so his death had happened at night, too. The knife had gone straight into his heart. There was nothing ambivalent about how he had died.

  A whistle blew. Break time, so the kids could go inside for a few minutes and warm up.

  “Come on,” Roy said. “Let’s get you inside. You look frozen.”

  There was a wooden clubhouse opposite with changing rooms and a cafeteria. She’d go have some hot chocolate with her boy.

  Izzy and Matt were in the Pizza Place at Fiskar Bay, just finishing eating an extra-large pizza, loaded, when Izzy’s phone rang.

  “Geez, really?” She hung up. “Erik Axelsson showed up at the Andreychuk place not long ago. Got into a fight with Brad. He’s badly hurt. An ambulance is on its way. We’d better go.”

  12

  “They confessed? Both of them?”

  “Brad and his dad each say they’re the one that did it. Hit Erik on the head with a wrench.”

  “Together?”

  “No. Separately.”

  “It can’t be true. So either one of them is lying or they both are?”

  “That’s about it.”

  “This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.”

  Roxanne’s phone had vibrated just as she and her sister were getting the boys ready for bed. Now she stood in the hallway, taking the call out of earshot.

  “You’re still at Andreychuks’?”

  “Me and Izzy. Sam Mendes got here first. He managed to get some photos of Erik where he fell before the medics moved him. It looks like he was hit above the ear. They’re radioing the hospital in Winnipeg. He might have a bra
in bleed.”

  “Is he conscious?”

  “He’s not completely out but he isn’t coherent either. Doesn’t help that he’s drunk. Really drunk. We won’t be able to talk to him. It’s bad. Just a minute.”

  Roxanne peeked into the kitchen while she waited. Finn and his cousin were goofing around at the kitchen table, waiting for a bedtime drink. He wasn’t missing her. Matt’s voice crackled on again.

  “They’re taking him into Winnipeg. Bradley’s in the back of a car, giving a statement. He’s injured too, something broken. The medics say to take him to the Fiskar Bay hospital. They should be able to handle it there. Erik’s truck is still here, in the middle of the yard. Both Andreychuks say he picked a fight with Brad. Was yelling that Brad had shopped him to the police. That Brad was trying to pin Stella’s murder on him.” Roxanne sat at the foot of the stairs.

  “Do you know where Brad was when Erik arrived?”

  “In the workshop, at the other side of the yard working on a tractor, he says. He came out with a wrench in his hand, but he says he dropped it when Erik went for him.”

  “Brad’s a lot younger than Erik. And stronger.”

  “For sure. But he wasn’t expecting it when Erik swung the first punch. He says he slipped. The ground’s pretty icy in the yard. He fell and landed badly. Did something to his arm. He says Erik jumped on top of him and had him by the throat, screaming that Brad and his father had always had it in for Stella, that Brad must have killed her, that Brad was trying to pin the murder on him. He was squeezing Brad’s throat and banging his head on the ground.”

  “Is he concussed?”

  “Maybe. John Andreychuk came out of the house. He ran over and tried to haul Erik off Bradley, and that’s where their stories go off in different directions. John says he thought Erik was going to kill Brad. He could see that Bradley was hurt. He couldn’t get Erik off, so he picked up the wrench from where it was lying on the ground and whacked him on the back of the head.”

  “And what does Bradley say?”

  “According to him, Erik was distracted by John pulling at him, so Brad was able to roll out from under him. He says Erik got up and started yelling at his dad, accusing him of being in on it all. That everybody knew he wanted to get rid of Stella and take over her land. Then he started shoving him. Brad says he saw Erik raise his hand and make a fist, like he was going to punch his dad, and that’s when he grabbed the wrench and hit Erik with it. He says Erik dropped like a stone and when he didn’t get up, Brad reckoned he’d better call an ambulance. The old man went back into the house. Brad waited outside.”

  “So where are they now?”

  “Sam is going to take Bradley to the hospital to get that arm and the head checked out. He’s got some bruising too. Izzy’s in the house with the parents. She taped out the yard and took more photographs.”

  “And the wrench?”

  “It was bagged right away. I’ll take the old man to the detachment and get his statement there.”

  Roxanne couldn’t believe it. Who was telling the truth? Was either? She was going to have to head back up that road and try to figure this out. So much for a night off.

  “So Brad and his dad haven’t talked to each other? They don’t know that they’ve each taken the blame?”

  “I don’t believe so,” Matt replied. “Will we try to keep Brad at the hospital as long as we can?”

  “Maybe. Take John in to the detachment and hold him for questioning until I get there. Let’s see what happens at the hospital. If you do end up with Brad in the office as well, be sure to keep them apart. Tell Izzy to stay with the mother. Find out which hospital in Winnipeg they’re taking Erik to and call Sergeant Donohue. Let him know all of this.”

  She hung up and turned to see her sister leaning against the far wall, her tilted head asking the question.

  “Let’s get them to bed and then I’ll hit the road.”

  An hour or so later, she turned on her flashing lights as she drove north out of the city. The road was deserted. She could make up for lost time on the long straight drive north. In the headlights, she could see the ditches filled with snow, rutted snowmobile tracks running along them. The road crews kept the highway clear of snow. Driving fast wasn’t a problem. Occasional lights glowed from farmyards and a faint orange glow up ahead indicated Cullen Village. You could see for miles on the flat prairie. The only turn in the road was an S bend that happened halfway and it was there that she saw flashing lights coming from the opposite direction and heard the siren. An ambulance raced past her, probably transporting Erik Axelsson to the hospital in Winnipeg. Since Jake, a siren on an open road always made her shiver.

  First stop was the Andreychuk farm. Roxanne parked on the road and pulled her collar up as she crossed a line of police tape. She went into the house. Izzy and Mrs. Andreychuk were in the kitchen, playing cribbage. Maggie sat at the table, mountainous and impassive as ever.

  “I saw nothing. I was in the house. Told you guys.” She looked at her cards, as if she was annoyed that the game was interrupted.

  “But you heard it all?”

  “I heard Axelsson yelling. Couldn’t hear what he was saying, though.” She moved her pegs. She was winning.

  “You didn’t look out the window?”

  “Couldn’t see. Truck was in the way. When’s my John coming home?”

  “We might have to keep him at the detachment overnight, Mrs. Andreychuk.”

  Maggie lifted her head. Two small eyes, embedded deep in the flesh of her face, peered out.

  “Is there someone we can call to come and be with you?” Roxanne asked.

  “My boy Jeremy’s in the city. He’s at the university.”

  “We’ll call him, shall we?”

  “There’s beasts will need to be fed. My John’s done nothing. My Bradley neither. That Erik Axelsson started all this.”

  “Constable McBain can stay with you.”

  Izzy barely reacted. She stared straight ahead.

  “I’ll phone Jeremy,” the large woman muttered.

  “You do that,” said Roxanne. “Here’s the phone.” She picked up the handset from the house phone and passed it over. Mrs. Andreychuk didn’t say thank you.

  Izzy reached for her parka and they walked out together into the yard. An orange yard light, high on a pole, illuminated the scene. Roxanne checked Axelsson’s truck, still parked where he had left it. The keys were in the ignition.

  “The driver’s door was wide open when we got here.”

  The shape of a body was outlined on the frozen ground, marking the spot where Erik Axelsson had fallen, between the truck and the workshop. The Andreychuks had blown the yard clear of snow earlier. A snowbank was piled up on the side closest to the road. A thin layer of packed snow remained on the surface of the ground, polished to a slippery sheen by the vehicles that had driven in and out since the last snowfall. She walked over to the workshop, entered by the side door and switched on the lights. Two snowmobiles and a shiny red tractor were pulled inside the closed doors. Tools and an oilcan lay on the floor beside the tractor.

  “Well, it looks like that part of Brad’s story holds up,” Roxanne said.

  A car and two trucks were parked close to the workshop doors. Extension cords ran from the plugs that protruded from their radiators to electrical sockets on the wall. Manitoban cars had block heaters to keep the engines from freezing on nights like this. It was very quiet.

  “If Erik doesn’t make it, this will be another murder. If it is, this place will have to be searched and checked by the Ident guys. You are going to have to stay, Izzy. Make sure nothing gets touched.”

  Izzy shrugged, resigned to spending the night in Maggie Andreychuk’s company. “Do we still need the brother, then?”

  “I want to talk to Jeremy Andreychuk.” Roxanne had reached her car. “This is as go
od a reason to get him out here as any.”

  “Okay. He can help me feed the cows in the morning.” Izzy turned towards the house, then looked back. “How did you get on with Jaws?”

  “Who?”

  “Isbister. That’s what my dad and the guys out here call him.”

  Roxanne laughed. Her breath froze in the cold air. “He didn’t say much. He has an alibi. He was in Costa Rica.”

  “Figures.” Izzy went back towards the house.

  Twelve minutes later, Roxanne pulled up outside the emergency entrance to Fiskar Bay Hospital. A nurse directed her down a long hallway, brightly lit even now, close to 11:00 pm. The walls were painted peach pink and a pale turquoise blue. The hospital had survived attempts to downgrade it to a regional health centre, but there were doubts it would remain as a working hospital much longer. Roxanne turned a corner and saw Matt sitting outside a room further down the next hallway. She took the seat beside him.

  “How come you’re here?” she said.

  “Sam and I are spelling each other off. I’m on until one.”

  “How is Bradley doing?”

  “He has a broken collarbone. A bruise to the left side of the chin, marks consistent with thumbprints on his throat. Maybe concussion from having his head banged on the frozen ground. No head fracture.”

  “So they’re keeping him overnight?” She got up and looked through the small window in the door. Bradley was sitting up in bed watching TV, his arm in a sling.

  “Yep. The doc’s been great. Says they can hold him here as long as we need. Do you want to talk to him?”

  “No, let’s wait until we find out how Axelsson’s doing. Go home and get some sleep after this. Tomorrow might be a busy day.” She turned and walked away, her phone to her ear, her boot heels clicking on the shiny, polished floor.

  She drove straight to the RCMP detachment. The front door banged behind her as she entered. Sergeant Gilchrist was at the counter.

  “Hey there. Thought you might show up soon.”

  “How come you’re manning the front desk, Sarge?”