The Ice Storm Murders Page 15

  Behind him, Andrea called out. "Brad? Where?"

  "I'm here, Mom."

  He sat down beside her and took her hand.

  "Beth?"

  "She went back to her room."

  "Tell her..."

  The faint voice trailed off.

  "Tell her what?"

  But she was gone again. Why had she always favoured him over Beth? He knew it, and Beth knew it, and it poisoned their relationship. And Beth was right. They had to help her with the drinking if she survived this. He didn't think Anne had much hope. What had she meant, telling him to be hopeful? Not about Hamish. Likely about survival.

  "I do love her."

  Her voice, suddenly strong, startled him and he jerked his head up to look at her. But she had drifted away. Perhaps he would be able to tell Beth that, sometime? Perhaps, they could search together for somewhere she could go to help her recover? She hadn't had a drink for a while now. How long until the DT's?

  "I'll tell her."

  Andrea moaned, opened her pale, swollen eyelids, but the watery blue eyes focussed somewhere beyond him and closed again.

  How long? How much longer? His fists knotted until the fingers turned white.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Anne rang the dinner bell at 6:00 pm. Those who weren't sick trailed in, first Mike and Thomas, after them, Brad and finally Trevor, Eloise, Olivia and Hamish. David clattered down the stairs, bringing up the rear.

  "I'll take a plate up to Andrea after dinner," said Brad.

  His eyes, outlined in brown circles of exhaustion, focussed on Eloise when she spoke.

  "How is she?" asked Eloise.

  Her face reflected her genuine concern, Anne thought.

  "About the same. Still coughing and not able to talk much."

  "Poor soul."

  Mike and Thomas sat down and reached for the biscuits filling a basket. Crumbs tumbled over Mike's plaid shirt and he brushed them off with a lazy hand. "You baked these?" Mike said.

  "Yes."

  "Better than the cook's."

  A steaming casserole of chilli, the biscuits, and a bowl of vegetables filled the centre of the table.

  "To the cook," said David, raising his glass of red wine.

  "Thanks, but most of it was Cassie's work."

  When was David going to get to it, Anne wondered. He said he was going to tell them he changed his will. Now he was delaying, making toasts and feeding the baby. She glanced at him and raised her eyebrows. He grimaced and nodded. "Before you all leave, I want to tell you something. One of you tried to kill me today."

  Anne searched for a reaction, anything to indicate who might have a guilty conscience, but nothing.

  "I decided that one motive could be money, mine and the trust for the children so I changed my will."

  "No lawyers here," said Trevor.

  "I don't need a lawyer for a holographic will. You witnessed it, you and Mike."

  "That was a will? I—"

  "I left the bulk of my estate to the children in trust and named Anne and Thomas and my city accountant as trustees and guardians of the children. No one need think that any action taken this weekend will change that. If I am killed before we get out of here, Anne and Thomas will take the children and Eloise with them. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Don't matter a damn to me," said Mike, spooning another helping of chilli onto his plate and liberating another biscuit from the wicker basket beside him.

  "Why do you trust Eloise?" said Trevor. "A blind man could see she wants the kids and you and your money. Maybe she—"

  "Non, non," said Eloise.

  Her eyes filled with tears and she wrapped her arms around Hamish.

  "No further discussion," said David. "Brad, I think you wanted to take some food to Andrea. What about Carmel?"

  "Who made you king?" muttered Brad.

  "My house, my rules, and my life at stake."

  "She doesn't want any food," said Trevor.

  "That doesn't matter. I'll go up with you if some of you will clear up here," said Anne.

  "Bien sûr," said Eloise.

  Anne climbed the stairs behind Trevor, leaving behind the clatter of dishes and Hamish's happy babbling. How many more days could she keep the two women alive.

  At the top of the stairs, she took the tray from Trevor and knocked on Andrea's door. Brad reached them before she could go in. "I'll take it, Anne. You go on to Carmel."

  Thomas turned the dials on the radio while Mike worked at stringing a line for an antenna. "Where do you think you'll find an antenna?”

  "There's an old tv antenna attached on the east side of the house. I'm not sure if the wires run in here, but if they don't, I'll gerry-rig something."

  "Good idea. I'm getting a lot of static but no voice. Can you do morse code?"

  "Nope. Just SOS."

  Mike followed a wire from the television to a connection on the east wall of the living room. "This might be it.”

  "Do we need call letters?"

  "Maybe. I think there was a notebook in the bottom of the box."

  Thomas reached in and pulled out a small black notebook, its cover as battered as the radio case. Careful script filled each line. "Here it is. It's a list of people he reached, the dates and the times of day. Here are his call letters. VA3eew. The entries stop the year he died. He has a long list of Vermont call letters. One of them is for someone in Culver's Mills."

  "Let's give it a try on an emergency channel. Does he have one of those listed?"

  "52, 53, 55."

  "Let's try the first one, and call the Culver's radio."

  "Not much chance after all these years."

  "What's the date?

  "1952."

  Thomas twisted the dial to channel 52 and said, "This is VA3EEw calling W1SAM."

  He repeated the call and then tuned to channel 53 and tried again. "This is VA3EEW calling W1SAM. Over."

  "This is W1SAM. Come in VA3EEW. Over."

  "VA3EEW calling. Are you still in Culver's Mills? Over."

  "W1SAM here. Yes. Over."

  "Can you reach Culver's Police with a message and our call numbers? Name's Beauchamp. We're stranded in the ice storm. And there’s been a murder. Over."

  “A murder. What the hell? Can do. Stand by. Over and out."

  Mike grinned and high-fived Thomas.

  "Good job," Thomas said. "I have to talk to Anne. Will you keep trying in case the Culver's police call?"

  "Will do."

  Thomas took the stairs from the living room to the second floor but when he reached their room, Anne wasn't there. Likely in with Carmel, he thought and clattered back down to the radio.

  Anne sat at Carmel's bedside, encouraging a few sips of soup and then a bite of bread and butter.

  "Butter, ugh."

  "You're still cold, Carmel. Your body temperature is too low and you need fuel, just like the fire does."

  "I'm so tired."

  Carmel's eyes, sunken and dark-rimmed, peered at Anne out of an emaciated face, old before its time, with knife-edge cheekbones and dry, flaking lips. Her skin clung to the bones.

  "I know you are. Just a little more."

  Why did that man not sit down, she thought, as Trevor paced the carpet behind her. When she gathered up the dishes and carried the tray to the door, he was there to open it and followed her into the hall.

  "What do you think you are doing?"

  He loomed over her, his pale face bright red with fury.

  "Feeding your wife."

  "About the will."

  "What about it?"

  "You betrayed us. How did you and Thomas end up with Hamish?"

  "We haven't. We're his guardians and trustees until David can pick someone else. And I never promised to acquire Hamish for you."

  "You said she had to eat before we could adopt."

  "Any child. And I expect when she has reached a normal weight, she'll get pregnant anyway."

  "She'll get better when we have Ham
ish."

  "Not going to happen."

  He grabbed her arms but she pushed the tray against him, spilling soup and tea over his shirt and pants. Eloise opened the door to the playroom and popped her head out. "What's going on?"

  "An accident. Could you bring me something to clean this up with?"

  A moment later she handed Anne a roll of paper towels and Trevor stormed back into his room.

  "What—"

  "I'll tell you later," said Anne and returned to the kitchen with the remnants of the food and a pile of dirty paper.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The desk sergeant called to Lieutenant Pete Graham's office across the wide squad room. Pete, a stocky, powerfully-built man with a buzz cut on his fair hair, picked up. "Yeah, Tony?"

  "Guy on the phone says he took a call on his amateur radio from someone called Beauchamp. Beauchamp said he was stranded by the ice storm and that there was a murder.”

  “Where?"

  "He didn't say but the call letters are Canadian."

  "That's a long way for a ham radio signal."

  "Storm effect, maybe."

  "I'll call out to the house."

  A maid answered and told Pete that Thomas Beauchamp was vacationing in Canada but she didn't know where and none of the family was home.

  He walked across the room to where Brad, his resident technical genius, hunched over his computer. "Do you have a cell number for Thomas Beauchamp or Anne McPhail?"

  "Yeah, both."

  "Try to locate them and let me know."

  After a few minutes, Brad's six-foot plus frame filled Pete's doorway. "Both off, boss."

  "Can we use the radio to call on the amateur network?"

  "Sure. What call letters?"

  After half-an-hour, they gave up but asked the sergeant to monitor the band.

  "I'll call Adam and see if he knows where they were going."

  Adam was the former chief detective in Culver's Mills. Recently married, he and his wife were good friends of Anne McPhail and Thomas Beauchamp. He returned to school to do law and was recruited by the FBI.

  "He's gone to Quantico, boss. They left last week."

  "Already? I thought that wasn't until the new year."

  "They moved it up."

  "Erin go too?"

  "Yeah. Maybe Catherine LaPlante?" Brad said.

  Catherine Laplante, owner of a local bed and breakfast was also one of Anne’s good friends. When she answered, Pete identified himself and asked his question.

  Catherine said, "She hasn't found another body, has she?"

  "Not as far as I know."

  "She and Thomas were going to a lodge in Canada, near somewhere called Haliburton. One L. I think it's a private lodge."

  "Do you know whose?"

  "She said it was where they were involved in a murder investigation last winter. The owner died. What did she say his name was? Oh here it is. I have the number from that visit. I'd like to know if they're okay."

  "Thanks. I'll let you know."

  Pete swung his legs off his desk, hung up, and walked into the squad room. Brad raised his eyes from his monitor. “Any luck?"

  "Yeah. I know about where they are. Now I want you to find out about a murder there last winter. After Christmas. I have the phone number of the lodge where it happened."

  Again, Brad worked the keys on his computer. "Boss, the murder was reported at a place owned by a guy called Cooper Thwaite. He was the victim. I can get you the locale but the weather up there is ugly. No one's going in or out."

  "Keep trying the radio."

  "Nothing but static now."

  "Keep listening."

  In Bancroft, an OPP cruiser swung off the highway and down a small incline to the brick station. Family cars in the lot reminded him that the staff Christmas party was that day. He spotted his wife's car and smiled in anticipation of her tray of cookies and bars.

  Inside, the constable on the desk called to him. "Sarg, I got a call from Vermont about a possible murder."

  "Theirs or ours?"

  "Ours."

  "Why did they get it?"

  "Apparently the lodge where it happened is iced in. Somewhere near the park," he said referring to the vast Algonquin Park southwest of Bancroft.

  "Whose lodge?"

  "Private. You remember the murder last winter of a guy called Thwaite?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Same place."

  "What the hell? Can we reach them?"

  "No way in, not even by sled. Lines down all over the place and heavy snow on top of the ice. Someone hooked up an amateur radio and called on an emergency channel to a Vermont radio they had the letters for. We have theirs."

  "Have you tried—"

  "Not yet."

  "Go ahead."

  He poured himself a coffee and scarfed down a square of matrimonial cake—his favourite, dates and oatmeal.

  "No answer.”

  "Keep trying. What about a bird."

  "Nothing doing yet."

  "Let me know when they can get one in the air."

  Mike stood another log on the sawed-off remains of a stately tree. He raised the ax high and bought it down with a satisfying crack, splitting the log in two. He stacked both on the pile behind him and steadied another. The killer walked past and loaded up with firewood.

  "Glad you could make it," Mike said.

  "What do you want?"

  "To state my terms."

  "Terms for what?"

  "Don't play dumb. Terms to keep quiet about you and the knife. I know you killed her. It shouldn't be hard for a professional like yourself to hide an expenditure of say a thousand a week."

  "A thousand a week. Are you nuts?"

  "Sure, not that much for you, after you take the income tax deduction."

  "Deduct blackmail?"

  "Naw. Put me on the payroll as a helper or animal handler or something. Easy for you, easy for me."

  "My accountant—"

  "Works for you. I'll be along to see you when we get out of here. We reached the cops today. They'll be here as soon as the weather breaks."

  "What will you—"

  "Nothing, if we have a deal."

  Mike shucked off his glove and stuck out a massive hand. "And oh, yeah. Behave as though nothing happened, even when we're alone."

  The killer shook it and bolted away. Mike grinned, picked up his load of wood, and trudged back to the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Back in the kitchen, the killer sat at the scrubbed pine table and poured tea from a fat-bellied teapot. When Mike barged through the door with his load of wood, he held up a cup. “Tea?”

  "Yeah, with milk and sugar."

  Mike wolfed down a couple of cookies from a plate in the middle of the table. "Where is everyone?"

  "Thomas is in the living room. The sick ones are in bed and the rest are with them or in their rooms."

  "You keep tabs on everyone pretty good."

  "I like to know what's going on."

  "Sleepy."

  "What's that?"

  "Getting sleepy. Did you put—"

  “What do you think," he said as Mike slumped over the table.

  The killer struggled to pry Mike from his chair and drag him outside. He flopped him onto a sled and gasped for a few minutes with the work of moving the big man's dead weight. He pulled him away from the house and plodded across the field to the bush. Would someone see him? Who would? They were all busy with sick people or kids or that damn radio. He reached the forest and dragged the sled along for a few metres.

  A work of a several moments left Mike face down on the snow, blood gushing from a wound in his neck, staining the pristine snow scarlet. Served him right, trying to blackmail him. The killer checked his clothes. Nothing. He dragged the sled to the shed, piled it with wood, and went back to the house.

  He was stacking it in a neat row when Thomas opened the door. "Have you seen Mike?"

  "Not for an hour or so when he b
rought in some logs. How's it going?"

  "We reached the police in Culver's Mills and they called the OPP in Bancroft. They called us long enough for me to tell them about Vanessa before the signal cut out."

  "Are they coming?"

  "When the snow stops and they can get here. I told them about the downed wire. They'll bring a hydro crew with them."

  "That's good news. How long?"

  "No idea. How's the wood holding up?"

  "What you see. We may have to cut up one of the downed trees."

  Thomas went back in the house.

  What would happen when the cops came and Thomas told them he saw him metres from the body? Maybe they would think Mike took off because he was the murderer. Yeah, that was what they would think. He trotted back up the stairs. Soon they would be out of here and they would have Hamish. But would they have to take him or would the courts give him up?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Anne left her room carrying her battered leather medical bag. Someday, she would stop carting it around with her but she was happy she brought it with her this time. The only problem with the lodge design, she thought, as she contemplated the long dark hall, was the lack of windows in this space. Darkness swallowed the light from the single tall window at each end and the ornamental lanterns by the doors did little to alleviate the gloom.

  What a place. If she were David, it would be on the market as soon as they got out of here. Three murders and an attempt, all in two years with the same people in the house. What would the police do? Would they be allowed to go home?

  The next door along was Andrea's. She had her hand up to knock on the partially open door when Brad's voice came through.

  "Don't worry, Mom. Hamish will be ours when we get out of here."

  "How?"

  The faint sound alarmed Anne but she hesitated. What would Brad say?

  "Don't worry. I have a plan."

  Anne knocked.

  "Who is it? Mom's too ill to be disturbed."

  Anne swung open the door and walked in the room. A single lamp at the bedside cast a rosy light on the pale, gasping woman in the bed. Anne pulled open the drapes at the window and turned on the overhead fixture.