And We Shall Have Snow Page 7

  Police cars converged on the spot where Margo stood, her dog at her side, marking the spot where Angus Smith lay. Izzy McBain got there first. “I know how to handle a car on ice,” she bragged to Matt Stavros, as she drove out onto the frozen lake. “Did it first when I was fifteen. Used to race with my brothers.” Sergeant Gilchrist followed close behind with Constable Roach at his side.

  Cullen Village had been alerted by the sound of sirens. The villagers watched from cottage windows along the shore as the RCMP clustered on the ice. Margo and her dog were loaded into a car and Izzy drove her back toward her house. Phones rang throughout the village. Photographs appeared on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Worst suspicions were confirmed when old Doctor Gaul’s car crawled out onto the lake.

  Doc Gaul was old and stooped. Two unusual deaths in less than two weeks had him confounded, but all he had to do was pronounce death. Stavros and Roach cleared away enough of the snow cover to expose the whole body. Angus was naked. There was an obvious wound to his chest.

  “It looks like he’s been stabbed,” said the doctor, “but you’ll need to get him out before you know.” They called the provincial medical examiner’s office. Someone from Winnipeg would be on their way soon, with a refrigerated van.

  “He has a lot of body hair. It’s snagged on the underside of the ice. That’s what’s stopping him from drifting away.” Angus had a beard, a mat on his chest, and pubic hair. He was entirely exposed. Sergeant Donohue stood beside Roxanne and looked down at the body. They had both been at the Smith house when the call came in. Two members of the Ident team were still there, examining Angus’s workshop, including the saws.

  “How many men can you spare?” Brian asked Gilchrist. “We need to secure this area as well as the house.” The constables were taping off the stretch of land along the shore. Roxanne escorted Doctor Gaul to his car and returned to the others.

  “Are those ice-fishing shacks?” Donohue asked. “He could have gone into the water from there.” Over to the south at the far side of the point, they could see small rectangular shapes far out on the ice.

  “They’ll be fishing today,” said Izzy.

  “We need to get that area cleared too.” Roxanne flipped through her phone contacts seeking Jack Sawatsky’s number. She remembered the ice auger in Angus Smith’s truck. Jack would know if Angus had an ice shack.

  “I know who you need to get him out of this.” Gilchrist was still looking down at the dead body under the ice. “Peter Flett. Champion ice carver. Lives just north of here. He’ll know how to do it. And he’s got the gear.”

  “Call him,” said Donohue.

  Roxanne got off the phone. “Jack Sawatsky says he’ll get a squad from the fishing association to clear everybody off the ice. And he’ll show us Angus’s shack. Izzy, you’re coming with me.”

  Margo made herself a mug of strong coffee and called Sasha.

  “Gee, are you okay? I’ll come over.”

  “No,” said Margo. “You get on with what you’re doing.”

  “With this going on? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I’m fine but I could probably use some company,” Margo admitted. “Stay where you are and I’ll walk over in a bit.”

  First she’d drink her coffee, then she’d take a hot, hot shower.

  Roxanne and Izzy found Jack Sawatsky waiting at the end of the Smith driveway. Police tape surrounded the place. Izzy walked to the house to get Angus’s keys.

  “How could this happen?” Jack said. “Who would do a thing like that to a good guy like Angus? Does his family know?”

  “Someone from headquarters is going to speak to his wife,” Roxanne said, glad that she didn’t have to do that particular job.

  “You follow me.” Jack got into a truck parked nearby and led them along the lakeshore to a ramp that accessed the lake. There were only six or seven trucks and a couple of snowmobiles out by the shacks. Jack pulled up alongside one of them and talked to a couple of fishermen, then they drove on. Far over, Roxanne recognized Brad Andreychuk, watching.

  Angus’s shack was out beyond Cullen Point. The snow around the door had been cleared away.

  Izzy unlocked the door. Roxanne had never been inside a fishing shack. There was a single window, which let in some light. She scanned the room. Outside, the shack had had a coat of green paint but inside it was unpainted. A rectangle about fifteen inches by four feet had been cut out of the wooden floor close to one wall to expose the ice underneath. Two large ice holes had been sunk into it. Angus must have enjoyed company while he fished. Four wooden folding chairs were stacked against a wall, cushions heaped beside them. There was a propane heater and a camping stove. A shelving unit held a kettle and a pot, jars of milk powder, sugar and instant coffee. There were mugs, a few plates, and a tray of cutlery including a long, sharp knife. Fishing rods were propped in a corner, a tackle box beside them.

  “Someone’s been here,” said Jack. “The chairs are always left out, not stacked like that. And he’d never chuck the cushions on the floor.”

  Izzy was crouching down by one of the ice holes. They were big, about fifteen inches wide, with plastic lids. Jack bent down beside her. “No!” she said and reached out a hand to stop him from lifting the lid. Roxanne pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and passed another pair to Izzy. Underneath the lid was a rim of plastic, framing the hole. Its edge extended down about three inches. It was frozen to the ice.

  “It’s been melted, recently.” Izzy examined it. “Looks like someone used hot water to get it off, but it’s frozen on again.”

  The hole must have been widened after the rim was removed. On either side the ice had been drilled away, probably using Angus’s ice auger, widening it by about four inches, each side. Izzy shone a flashlight into the hole. The ice went down more than four feet, maybe five.

  “Angus was such a skinny little guy,” Jack said. Roxanne studied the exposed edges of the ice hole.

  “They still had to widen it to squeeze him through.” Would traces of skin or hair remain, stuck to the edges? She went outside the shack to phone Sergeant Donohue again. She could see Sawatsky’s friends shepherding people off the ice. They were almost all gone.

  She left Izzy to keep watch at the shack and got a ride with Jack back to where Angus’s body had been found. Vehicles were parked beside the trees at the top of the ramp. A clutch of men stood talking, Archie Huminski among them. There was no sign of Brad Andreychuk any more. Jack slowed down, wound down the window and introduced her.

  “We’ll keep an eye on things until you’re done,” one of them said. “Make sure no one gets out there.” She thanked him. “We’re doing it for Angus,” he said and turned back to his friends as if she didn’t exist. Archie came over.

  “You’re going to get the bastard that did this, right, milady?”

  “I sure hope so.” He reached into the cab and squeezed her hand.

  “You come talk to me. Any time.”

  Jack drove along the road by the lake. The temperature was now minus five with no wind. People were outside, walking dogs on long leashes, stopping to talk and look out over the lake to see what was going on.

  Peter Flett, champion carver, was out on the ice. He had brought saws, an auger, a chain saw, ice knives, ropes and poles. He drilled down and started to carve out chunks of ice, which Matt Stavros and Ken Roach lifted and stacked. It was different work than what Peter usually did, carving eagles and polar bears out of giant slabs, but he obviously knew how ice behaved, how to cut it away from the body below without causing further damage.

  Margo and Sasha were among those who watched as the day wore on. Peter was at least four feet down by now, a rope tied around his waist. Every now and then, the silence was shattered by the buzz of a chain saw. A large white van had been driven out onto the lake. Two police cars were already there, and the carver’s old Ford R
anger.

  Margo had recovered from her initial shock. She wanted to see what was happening. She and Sasha had walked to a spot on the shore where they could get a clear view. Their dogs lay at their feet.

  “They must be getting close to him,” Margo said. “How much ice do you need to still be able to stand on it?”

  “Three or four inches would do it.”

  They watched the ice carver reach down and pass up a large piece. It shone blue and clear in the sunlight. The pile of ice was aquamarine, the surface that had been thinned around the hole slightly translucent.

  A big red Sierra truck pulled up on the road behind them. Panda Stavros walked over and patted the dogs. Annie ignored them. All her attention was on the scene on the lake.

  “Angus Smith, eh? You’re the one that found him, Margo? You okay?” News had travelled fast. Annie walked closer to the shore.

  Panda didn’t wait for answers. “Nice guy. He was there when we found Stella, you know? People are really pissed off about this. See that Annie? Hope she’s not planning to paint this one. She’s got that look about her.” Another car drove up. George and Phyllis Smedley. “Can’t be long until they get him out.”

  Two of the police walked to the back of the van, opened the doors and lowered a gurney. Ropes were passed to the carver. He fastened them down in the hole and climbed out, then picked up a long pole with a spike on the end. Onlookers could see him reaching down and hear the sound of him chipping at what was left of the ice.

  “What is happening?” asked Phyllis. “Two murders in two weeks, right here in Cullen Village?” A truck drove away, off the ice.

  “That’s Jack Sawatsky’s truck,” George said. “He and I were there when Angus went missing. I’ve been asked to help the police with their inquiries,” he added, puffing out his chest.

  “Angus was there with us at the dump.” Panda said, one-upping him. “He’s the one who found Stella’s head.”

  Annie had squatted down and taken a pair of binoculars from her pocket. The police were pulling on the ropes. Slowly, carefully, they lifted a sheet of ice up and out of the hole. Under it was Angus Smith, the front of his body still encased in two or three inches of what looked like blue glass. The ice carver chipped around it. What he left was the size of a coffin lid. They laid Angus Smith onto the gurney, lifted him into the back of the white van and closed the door.

  They all took a deep breath, almost in unison.

  “George made a pot of veggie chili. Why don’t you all come over for supper?” said Phyllis.

  “Sure.” Margo still didn’t want to be home alone. “I just need to go put Bob in the house and get the car. Are you coming?” Sasha nodded. Annie had turned back from the scene on the ice. She put the binoculars away.

  “We’ve got leftovers that need eating,” said Panda. “Another time, maybe?” She and Annie got into the big red truck and drove away.

  “Panda can’t stand the stuff that George cooks,” said Sasha as she and Margo walked back to their houses, the dogs trotting at their heels. George was a naturopath and a vegan. “She says he’s creepy.”

  Out on the lake, Roxanne talked with the medic from the chief medical examiner’s office before he drove off with Angus’s frozen body.

  “It’ll take a while to get a time of death on this one, Corporal,” he said, “but we’ve got other information for you. Stella Magnusson was hit on the head, hard enough to fracture her skull, but it didn’t kill her. Afterwards, she was smothered.”

  Stella had definitely been murdered.

  8

  The people of Cullen Village made sure their doors were locked when they went to bed that night. One by one, the house lights went out, apart from coloured bulbs that wound around conifers, making them look Christmassy and bright. Others fringed eavestroughs or twinkled along veranda railings, some blue, some white. Solar lamps capped with snow glowed greenly on driveway posts. The village appeared idyllic, picture perfect.

  Bright lamps shone out on the lake, at the place where Angus Smith had been consigned to a cold and watery grave. Figures dressed in white padded in and out of his shack. Two vans stood waiting. The RCMP had sent powerful beams down through the ice hole and spotted a plastic bag resting on the lakebed. A diver had been lowered into the frigid water to retrieve it. He had brought up not one, but two bags.

  Over at the Smith house the Ident team worked deep into the night, looking for traces of blood, signs of a scuffle, a knife. They examined Angus’s truck minutely, the cab, the wheels, the open bed and everything lying in it, especially the auger. At the workshop, the saws got special attention. They were clean, too clean, said a technician, but still they found what they were looking for, tiny fragments of bone embedded in the teeth of the band saw. They wrapped the saw in plastic and carried it carefully out to their van. In the lab, in Winnipeg, they would seek a DNA match to Stella Magnusson.

  By 3:00 am, they were gone. Yellow tape remained around the house and the ice shack. The hole in the surface of the lake had started to freeze over. The pile of ice beside it glowed in the light of a huge full moon, a blue moon in its perigee. Moonlight shone in the windows of the villagers, keeping them awake as they lay in their beds.

  Roxanne Calloway also found it hard to sleep. She tossed and turned, thinking about the case. She’d worked the drug unit in Saskatchewan. Murder was a new field for her, one she had wanted. The time she had taken off work to have Finn had slowed her promotion and now she needed to make up for the year she had lost. And she wanted to do well, to make her mark. But she was confronted with what was probably a double murder. Would her bosses want to replace her with someone with more experience? Would she lose this opportunity?

  At 6:00 am she gave up on sleep. The temperature outside, according to her phone, had dropped to minus twenty-two. There was hardly any wind. She rose from bed, put on winter running gear, glad she had thought to pack it. She needed to get outdoors, to clear her head. She donned thin wool clothing that would wick moisture away from her body, thermal leggings, wool socks, a cap. She added an outer, windproof layer and winter running shoes. Once she left the side door of the hotel, she pulled on a facemask that allowed her to breathe through her nose and mouth and keep her eyes clear. She didn’t get much time to run these days. There was work and there was Finn. But on a job away from home, one where she had time alone to fill, she could maybe get herself back into shape.

  The town was deserted. She could run down the centre of the streets, which were unimpeded by piles of snow. Twelve blocks in one direction, six the other, was more than a kilometre, less than a mile. She would run until 7:00 am, then go back to the hotel for a shower and breakfast. A police car crossed an intersection ahead of her. It slowed down. She waved and watched it drive off. She focused on her breathing, her pace, listened to the sound of her feet as they hit tarmac covered with a smooth layer of packed snow. There was a big moon between the houses and the trees, outshining the orange street lamps. She ran from one grey shadow to the next. She could almost sense Jake running beside her, keeping pace with her like he used to. Back before she had Finn they had run together whenever they could. She shook that memory. She didn’t believe in ghosts, did she?

  By 6:30, cars started to emerge from garages. She had to move onto the sidewalk, where the shovelled surface was less even. There were snowbanks to avoid, and roadside curbs. She jogged on the spot at a corner waiting for a car to pass. She was going to have to rise earlier to do this. Five-thirty would do it. Or she could run later, after midnight.

  Brian Donohue had called a meeting for 9:00 am. She had avoided him last night at the hotel. Brian had black Irish good looks. Dark wavy hair, blue eyes, even features. He was cute. The women’s washroom rumour mill at headquarters said he was recently divorced, available. There had been envious comments when the word got out that she’d be working this case with him. But Roxanne wasn’t going to get
herself involved with another RCMP member. Never again. It was too difficult, too painful. Next time, she’d marry a guy with a good, safe desk job. If there ever was a next time.

  When she arrived at work, Donohue was standing examining the whiteboard, Sergeant Gilchrist at his side. Annie Chan’s drawing of Stella Magnusson’s face stared out, joined now by other photos, including one of Angus Smith shrouded in ice. Roxanne joined them. There was a mug shot of Brad Andreychuk, a bruise swelling his cheekbone, a thick and bloody lip.

  “We thought we’d got him that time but the other guy wouldn’t press charges, even though he landed in hospital,” Gilchrist said. “Chickened out.”

  Izzy walked in carrying a tray of coffees in paper cups and a box of doughnuts. She placed them on the table.

  “You do this, Izzy?” asked Gilchrist, pointing a thumb at the board. The Andreychuks’ names were stuck up on sticky notes, as were the members of the StarFest board of directors. “You watch too much TV, girl.”

  “Brought you a coffee, Sarge. Be nice.” She grinned at him. He grinned back. “Sugar and cream’s in the bag.” He helped himself.

  “Double double, just how I like it.” Gilchrist turned his attention to Roxanne. “You know they’re calling you Spiderwoman downstairs? Scared the shit out of Sam Mendes this morning, running down Sixth in the dark with a balaclava over your face.”

  “You training?” Donohue was searching though the doughnut box.

  “Yep,” said Roxanne. “If I get in good enough shape I’ll try for a half marathon in June.” The Manitoba Marathon was run through the streets of Winnipeg each year, on Father’s Day. Brian took a chocolate doughnut, with icing, out of the bag. Izzy pulled her phone out of her pocket to read a text.

  “Matt’s on his way. Might be a bit late.”

  Gilchrist helped himself to a couple of doughnuts. “One’s for Kathy,” he said, waving them under Izzy’s nose, and clattered downstairs. They found seats around the table.