And We Shall Have Snow Read online

  There hadn’t been as much trash to sort through as the police had first supposed. Only the garbage from the past two weeks was accessible. The rest had already been compacted and frozen into the hill. If they had needed to get at that it would have been a much bigger operation. They had had a couple of days to search before the snow hit. Stella Magnusson’s remains were now in the care of the province’s chief medical examiner’s office. They’d have to wait for results.

  “So you’ve got all of what’s left of her?” Sasha asked.

  “We think so.”

  There was a collective sigh around the table.

  “Was there anything unusual at her house?” asked Margo. “Or in her car?”

  “We don’t know where her car is. It’s not in her garage.” Matt thought it wouldn’t hurt to tell them that. The word would be out soon enough if the car didn’t show up. “So if you see it around, give us a call.”

  “Won’t be hard to miss that big yellow thing,” Sasha said, pushing her empty plate aside. Stella had driven a distinctive Toyota FJ Cruiser, an SUV with the StarFest logo emblazoned on the back window. It would be easy to spot.

  “Are you going to be part of the investigation?” asked Annie. “Will the Fiskar Bay RCMP take it on, or will it be a team from Winnipeg?”

  “A bit of both, it looks like,” Matt said. “It’ll depend on how long it takes and how difficult it is to find out what happened. There’s been a sergeant and a corporal out from Winnipeg so far, but it’ll help to have some local guys, people that know the lie of the land and the people out here. That kind of cuts me out, though. I’m too new to the area. There are other constables that have been here longer.” Matt had arrived in Fiskar Bay in the fall. He’d spent the first three years after leaving the Depot, the RCMP training academy in Regina, in Flin Flon, a northern Manitoba mining town, before he had transferred to Fiskar Bay.

  “It’s great!” Panda had reported to the book group around the time he had moved. He and Panda were the closest thing they had to family, she said. Margo watched them smile back and forth. They obviously got along. Lucky Panda, she thought.

  “Annie’s done a drawing of Stella’s head.” Sasha’s voice cut across her thoughts. “Can we have a look?”

  “Oh, it’s just a sketch,” Annie said. “Who would like their glass topped up?” She reached for the wine bottle.

  “Come on, Annie. Let’s see it. Most of us have never seen a real severed head before.” Sasha held out her glass for a refill.

  “You don’t have to, Annie.” Margo had noticed Annie’s reluctance and tried to be polite but really she was dying to see it too. Annie put down the bottle and smiled.

  “Oh, it’s all right. Of course you can have a look.” She walked towards the staircase that led upstairs, a tiny little figure, slippers slapping on the floor. Margo would have loved to follow her, to see where the famous Annie Chan worked. The whole upper floor of the house was apparently given over to Annie’s studio. Maybe when they got to know each other a bit better she could ask to have a look.

  Panda got busy clearing away plates and serving the pie that Margo had brought. Saskatoon. She still had a bag of berries in the freezer. Matt went to help his aunt. Margo noticed that they did differ in one way. While Panda was outgoing and talkative, her nephew was quieter and thought before he spoke. He stood beside Panda at the sink.

  “You guys okay, Panda? Can’t have been easy, seeing that head fall out of the bag,” Margo overheard him say.

  “Oh, I’m fine, you know me.” Panda shrugged. “Get some ice cream out of the freezer, will you?” She loaded wedges of pie onto plates. She didn’t say how Annie was doing.

  The drawing was in a folder, protected by a sheet of thin tissue. It was drawn in charcoal, stark black against the white paper. There was a suggestion of the shiny black garbage bag in which the head had been found, of the crushed newsprint that had spilled out of the bag with it. The mouth was coloured crimson. You could almost hear it scream. They passed it around, one to another. Margo looked first at it, then at Annie.

  “She looks alive, Annie. It’s as if you’ve caught her as it happened, in the act of being killed, as she’s just about to die. She looks terrified. It’s not like a dead head at all.”

  “That’s why Annie’s so good,” said Sasha. “She brings everything she draws to life.”

  It was true. Annie deserved her reputation as one of Manitoba’s best-known artists. You could almost believe that the dead woman was calling out to them, that she was willing someone to find her killer, to discover how and why she had died. Matt Stavros took the life-size drawing between his fingertips.

  “Can I take a photo, Annie?” he asked. “It’s a much better likeness than the ones we’ve got at the office. They’re all publicity shots from StarFest. This looks more real.” Again, Annie hesitated. Margo wasn’t surprised. Taking photographs of artists’ work was often frowned upon in these days of social media. But Panda intervened.

  “Hey, Annie, take a picture of it yourself and email it to Matt. It’s just for the police to use.”

  “Would be great if you could do that, Annie.” Matt handed the drawing back.

  Annie put it back inside its folder and laid it aside, on a counter. “I’ll get it to you by tomorrow.” She smiled at Matt as she sat down.

  “Now,” said Panda, “who wants ice cream on their pie? And Matt, listen up. We’ve been trying to figure out who might have killed Stella Magnusson.” And they told Matt about how the book group had got together and what people had said that afternoon.

  “Of course, it’s all conjecture,” said Margo, who wasn’t sure they should be talking to a member of the RCMP about their suspicions.

  “Gossip,” Sasha said bluntly. “But there’s no smoke without fire, right? Do the cops know that Stella was once shagging Roger Kato, the artist?”

  “They split up ages ago,” Panda chipped in. “But he’s moved south, so he couldn’t have killed her.”

  “Well,” Sasha confided, “There were always guys hanging around Stella. Not that she was really interested. She just strung them along. Flirted with them, then dropped them. She was married to a filmmaker in L.A. called Freddie Santana. He’s quite famous, but their marriage didn’t last long. And way back before that she was in a band, her and a bunch of guys. She toured all over the place with them. One of them was Leo Isbister.”

  “The developer? The one who wants to drain the wetlands north of Fiskar Bay and build there?”

  “The same.”

  Margo watched Matt make a mental note of that.

  “Do you have any other suspects?” he prodded.

  “Well.” Sasha couldn’t wait to tell more. “Do you and your buddies know about Andreychuk, the farmer next door to Stella’s place? He has a son, Brad, who’s no good.”

  She filled Matt in on what she knew about the Andreychuks. She didn’t tell him how much Roberta disliked Stella. She didn’t mention that she, herself, was on the StarFest board and her own worries about what would happen to the craft section. But by the time the evening was over, Matt had probably gleaned enough to feel he’d earned his dinner. He’d probably learned as much as he had told. He appeared happy as he got into his car and drove off home in the moonlight.

  “Is Panda’s real name really Delphia?” asked Margo as she and Sasha took the road east, towards Cullen Village.

  “Yeah. Don’t ever call her that, though, if you want to get invited back. People joke that she’s called Panda because she’s Annie’s pet bear, but Annie says it’s really because everything is black and white with Panda. She’s either for you or against you. Great to have as a friend but you wouldn’t want to have her as an enemy.”

  “She does look kind of like a bear though,” Margo laughed. Her breath had moistened the scarf that was wrapped around her face.

  “They’ve been
together forever, her and Annie. Well, since Annie was in art school. They met at a party. Stella told me the story. They couldn’t remember anything about how they met, they were so blotto, but they woke up in the same bed and they’ve been together ever since.”

  “How would Stella know that?”

  “You’d be surprised how much Stella knew about people. She had lots of parties and she sucked people in. People talk.”

  “Matt should know that. It’s a motive, isn’t it? What if someone killed her because she knew something she shouldn’t?”

  “Maybe. Who knows.”

  Ten minutes later they reached Cullen Village, back to their own houses and their dogs. The snow was blanketing the village and a wind was beginning to blow from the northwest.

  5

  Corporal Roxanne Calloway drove along the lakeside road towards Fiskar Bay. It was the scenic route, pretty even in winter, but it wound along the shoreline, a road that took its time. At this rate she wasn’t going to make it to the RCMP detachment by 10:00 am, as she had planned. The highway further to the west was fast and straight, but today it was blocked by an accident, a collision between a semi and a car with passengers. There were injuries and the semi was in the ditch. It would take a crane to haul it out. So probably most of the RCMP were busy with that. Roxanne had wanted to debrief with most of them present. Maybe that wasn’t going to happen.

  She hadn’t expected to be assigned to this case. Another corporal had been asked to investigate, but now he was sick, down with pneumonia, probably caught while working at Cullen Dump at minus forty with the flu. So he was off the case and it had defaulted to her. Roxanne couldn’t believe her luck. A murder investigation? She hadn’t expected this kind of responsibility so soon after transferring to the Manitoba Major Crimes Unit from Saskatchewan. So she’d parked Finn, her son, at her sister’s for a couple of days and headed up to the Interlake.

  She had spent some time with one of the Fiskar Bay constables, in Winnipeg for the weekend, training to be file coordinator on the case. Constable Izzy McBain had shown up in uniform, a trim figure with blonde hair braided and tucked up above her collar. She had left the day before, Sunday, to head back to Fiskar Bay with a carload of goodies, computer equipment, office supplies, and wearing newly bought street clothes. Her hair had swung behind her in a pony tail.

  “All I ever wear off-duty is jeans and an old sweater,” she had said. Roxanne thought it was funny how eager young constables were to don the uniform and how soon after they were happy to get out of it. Roxanne had asked Izzy to get an office prepared for them. She hoped the accident hadn’t put paid to that. Maybe Constable McBain was now out on the highway, redirecting traffic.

  Roxanne had heard about the lake but she hadn’t been out here before. She caught glimpses of it through gaps in the trees. It really was huge. She was used to the wide vistas of the prairie, the massive sky, the long horizon where you could see the curve of the earth. The flatlands started east of the Rockies and ended here, in Manitoba. One hour east of Winnipeg, she had been told, you hit the Canadian Shield, solid bedrock and lots of fir trees. She’d have to take Finn for a look someday. And maybe bring him up here for a day at the beach in the summer.

  She pulled up in town ten minutes past her deadline. She saw a typical RCMP detachment building, red brick, half of it single, half two-storey. Usually there would be a row of white police cars and trucks, all emblazoned with RCMP insignia, parked outside but today they were reduced to one. She pulled a briefcase from the back seat of her car and marched up to the door.

  A shirt-sleeved sergeant, burly and grey-haired, came to greet her. Had he been watching out for her? A constable looked out from a doorway behind the counter, obviously sizing her up. A woman in civilian clothes sat behind a computer screen, typing. Roxanne introduced herself to the sergeant. The woman gave her a thin smile. The constable appeared studiously indifferent, but the room buzzed with an undercurrent of interest. A young blonde woman appeared on a staircase at the back of the office.

  “You’ve met Izzy,” said Sergeant Bill Gilchrist. “She’s got a room set up for you upstairs.”

  Roxanne was relieved to see that Constable McBain hadn’t been sent out to the accident site to direct traffic. She looked at the sergeant. He must be close to sixty, approaching retirement. She hoped he wasn’t too much of an old-school cop.

  “How many of your constables are out there on the highway, Sergeant?” she asked. “I’d hoped we could get together. They could tell me what they’ve observed so far and I could provide you with an update from Winnipeg. Get us all up to speed.”

  “No problem,” said Bill Gilchrist. “Accident’s all cleaned up and they’re on their way in. Except for one that’s still at the hospital taking down statements. You can go upstairs and see what Izzy’s been up to. Glad the MCU’s paying for all that gear she’s got. Wouldn’t want her having to raid Kathy’s supply cupboard.” The woman at the computer—evidently Kathy—raised an eyebrow but carried on typing. “You can go up and have a look and I’ll get all the guys into the lunchroom as soon as they’re all back.”

  Roxanne was halfway up the stairs when she heard a low male voice. “There they go, up to the henhouse.” She glanced over the banister. The constable had turned back into his office. Bill Gilchrist shrugged, as if to say: what am I supposed to do? Guys will be guys. The woman at the computer kept her eyes on the screen, but the corners of her mouth turned down in a disapproving curve.

  “Hey, Kenny!” Izzy McBain called to the disappearing back of the constable. “How come you’re not sucking up to the corporal? Thought you wanted the other MCU job?”

  Constable Ken Roach ignored her. Bill Gilchrist laughed. “You behave yourself, Izzy,” he said. It was no secret that another of the Fiskar Bay constables was to be detailed to the murder investigation. It was one of the reasons Roxanne wanted to see them all together. She had to make a recommendation by the end of the day.

  Izzy had done a decent job of setting up the office. Two big tables were pushed together in the centre with chairs ranged around them. There was a computer station in one corner and a large whiteboard fastened to a wall. Supplies were laid out on shelves: paper, toner, Post-it notes, pens and markers. A telephone sat in one corner, a desk in another. “That’s for you, Corporal,” said Izzy. “We can change it if you like.”

  “It’s fine. Who’s the woman downstairs? The civilian at the computer?”

  “Kathy Isfeld. Been here forever. She really runs the show. Sergeant Bill wouldn’t have a clue what to do without her.”

  Izzy had provided a coat rack and a tray for boots. Under her coat, Roxanne was wearing a crisp white shirt, a black V-neck sweater and black pants. It wasn’t uniform but it was close. Her hair was reddish, cut short, a sleek cut that hugged her head, easy to manage. She glanced out the window. It looked onto the parking lot. Across the street was a Tim Hortons coffee shop, like those to be found in most prairie towns, once a beloved Canadian franchise, now owned by an international syndicate.

  “I didn’t set up a coffee machine,” said Izzy. “We usually just pick up from the Tim’s. Want me to run over and get some?”

  “Sure,” said Roxanne, reaching for some cash. “I take mine black.” She was glad to have a few minutes alone in the room to get a feel for the place that would be the hub of the investigation.

  By the time Izzy got back, another two constables had returned from the accident site. Roxanne walked into the lunchroom to find them and their sergeant seated at tables near the back of the room, facing forward, waiting for her to speak, coffee cups in hand. Ken Roach sat back in a chair, arms folded, waiting.

  “Let’s pull two of these tables together,” she said. “There’s only going to be five of us. There will be room for all of us around them.” The constables reluctantly got to their feet and started moving furniture around. An order was an order and in the RCMP
rank was respected, even when the corporal was a skinny redhead in city clothes. She looked more like a business manager than one of them.

  “We’ll be six,” said Sergeant Bill Gilchrist. “Matt Stavros just got in from the hospital.”

  Izzy was already setting up her laptop on a table. The second constable was introduced as Sam Mendes. He pulled a small notepad out of his pocket. A third watched her through hooded eyes. The door opened. Matt Stavros entered, coffee in hand. He was about six feet, solidly built, olive-skinned, dark-haired. He took a seat next to Izzy.

  “Right,” said Roxanne. “You should know that I have been appointed as primary investigator on this case. Sergeant Brian Donohue is team commander. I think most of you met him last week, when he was out at the search of the murder site. Brian is working from Winnipeg for now but I’m sure you’ll be seeing him out here before long.” They noticed that she used the sergeant’s first name. “The Ident crews are busy examining evidence and Stella Magnusson’s body is in the care of the medical examiner. I am going to be here for a few days conducting interviews.” She had booked herself into the Fiskar Bay Hotel online. It was off-season. They had plenty of rooms available. She’d scored a suite, cut-rate.

  “Constable McBain here has been appointed as our file coordinator. She is at the centre of this investigation. All reports go to her, and she feeds information back to us as needed, but Izzy also will get out in the field at times. We share responsibilities.”

  Izzy’s spine straightened. Roach and Mendes glanced sideways at each other. There was a day when an officer got on with the job himself. Bill Gilchrist remembered those days very well. Now it was all teamwork. Accountability. Transparency. He sipped his coffee and kept his mouth shut.

  “We will need one of you to join the investigative team as support staff,” Roxanne continued. “This case is attracting media attention and we need to get results as soon as we can.” One or two heads nodded. TV crews had shown up at the dump. Reporters had been hanging around, asking questions. Sergeant Donohue had taken care of them until news of the coming storm had sent them all back to the city. “So let’s talk about what we know. Any questions so far?”