In Winter's Grip (7 page)

Gunnar sat across from me, and I watched him without him noticing. He kept his head lowered, his thin shoulders hunched inwards and his blonde hair hiding his eyes. His fork moved steadily from plate to mouth, the only sign that he was conscious. Finally, he stood and grabbed his full milk glass and the empty plate in one quick motion, leaving the table without having uttered a word. The rest of us had barely spoken either, except to comment on the food and the trek we'd made through the woods. It was as if my father's murder had sapped our energies, and we didn't have the strength to rise above our lethargy.

Jonas lifted his head. He pointed his knife at Gunnar's empty seat. “What's with him?” he asked Claire.

“He's been in a foul temper. I'll talk to him later.” Claire stood and gathered up her dishes and cutlery. She carried everything to the counter then moved across the kitchen to the stove, where she picked up the kettle. “A cup of tea, Maja?” she asked.

“That would be lovely.” I lowered my fork, realizing that there was nothing left on my plate.

Jonas pushed back in his chair. “Would you like to go for a walk after supper? We could make it as far as Hadrian's for a nightcap, if you feel up to it.”

It would be good to have a chance to talk with Jonas, because I knew the next day we'd be making funeral arrangements. Tobias had stopped by while we were skiing and told Jonas my father's body would be delivered to the funeral home in the morning. Not to mention as soon as I laid my head on the pillow, all the worries would keep me from sleep. Maybe, a shot of something strongly alcoholic would help relax me. “Yes, that would be good,” I said. “I'll wash up after my tea, and we can head out.”

Jonas lumbered to his feet. “Come get me in my shop. I'll be ready to go when you are.”

The wind was still blowing in gusts, periodically whipping up billows of snow that wet our faces, making us lean into their strength. The snow had stopped falling, however, so Jonas and I were able to make good time between the blasts of wind. The temperature had dropped since the afternoon, but the bank of cloud cover kept the cold from being unbearable. I'd dressed in the borrowed jacket, hat and scarf that Claire had said were mine for the duration of my visit. Jonas had two flashlights that we used for the first part of our trek because streetlights didn't extend this far out of town. Their two shafts of light crisscrossed through the darkness in front of us and illuminated shadowy hollows in the snow drifts as we trudged through the unpacked snow. The walk to Hadrian's was about two miles and would take us half an hour. We didn't speak much, preferring to let the night's silence and the soughing of the wind in the trees envelop us. I heard a wolf 's plaintive howl from somewhere deep in the woods and shivered inside my coat. I was thankful to have Jonas's solid presence striding alongside me.

When we finally entered Hadrian's, it took a moment to adjust from the darkness of the outside to the noisy brightness of the pub. The heat of the room struck me in a wave after the coldness of the winter wind. I took a moment to look around as I shrugged out of my coat.

During my high school years, Hadrian Senior had owned the bar, a squat, bald Swede who'd emigrated from Sweden at the age of five. His son, also named Hadrian, had inherited the bar when his father had retired ten years earlier, or so Jonas told me as we stepped away from the entrance. In some perverse trick of genetics, Hadrian the son was close to six and a half feet tall with a full head of cocoa brown hair that fell in lank strands to his shoulders and a bristly moustache trimmed in an uneven line above his lip so that he looked like he was perpetually sneering. He half-turned and glanced up at us from where he sat at a bar stool, both burly arms resting on the counter as he watched the wrestling channel on TV. His sharp blue eyes darted between Jonas and me, and I could see recognition glinting from their depths as they finally rested on me. He stood and stepped behind the counter as we crossed the plank floor. Bob Seger was singing “You'll Accompany Me” from speakers over the bar. Two men sat at the opposite end, hunkered down over pints of beer, and they shifted enough so that I knew they were watching us.

“Jonas.” Hadrian nodded at the same time as he placed a mug under the tap and pulled a long swill of draft beer. “Howdy, Maja. Sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thanks, Hadrian,” I said. “It looks like you're doing well.” I looked around the room. He'd kept the same oak panelling from his father's day, but the dark stained chairs and tables looker newer. A modern gas fireplace cast a cheery glow on the far wall; otherwise, the pub had not bowed to anything remotely trendy. This was a drinking man's bar.

Hadrian tilted his head in acknowledgment. He focused his eyes on Jonas. “So Tobias went easy on you?”

“I didn't have much to tell.”

“Nobody can believe that somebody killed your old man,” Hadrian said. “I'm sure going to miss him coming around. What can I get you, Maja?”

“A Scotch on the rocks.”

“Coming right up.” Hadrian reached for the bottle of Johnny Walker Red. “Jonas tells me you're a doctor living up in Canada.”

“Yes, I married a Canadian.”

“Haven't seen you back here in a long time.”

He'd stated the obvious, and I didn't reply. Jonas reached for his beer.

“Let's sit at a table,” he said.

“Staying with Jonas, are you?” Hadrian asked as he slid the glass of Scotch to me.

“Yes, for a few more days anyhow.”

As I picked up the glass and turned to follow Jonas, I took a better look at the two men sitting on the barstools. One met my eyes, and an electric shock travelled up my spine. For one moment, I thought I was looking into Billy Okwari's black eyes until I realized time could not have stood that still. This man was half my age. He nodded at me before lowering his eyes and draining the last of his beer.

Jonas had chosen a table as far away from the other patrons as possible, and I slid into the seat next to him, still shaken but also exhilarated by the encounter.

“You look flushed,” Jonas said.

“I'm getting to the hot flash age.” I hung my parka over the back of my chair and ran a hand through my hair. It sparked with static from wearing the wool hat. “It sounds like Dad never gave up the drink, if he was a regular here.”

“He moderated his drinking after Mom died.”

“God knows he didn't when she was alive. You've never told Claire about life with him when we were kids?”

“No point to that.”

“It would have helped her to understand. . .”

“Understand what? Why I'm an emotional cripple?” Jonas's voice rose. He glanced around to make sure nobody had been listening, and his shoulders relaxed when he saw nobody looking our way.

I couldn't explain the urgency I felt to disturb the family waters we'd avoided. I feared for what I'd seen in Jonas and in his interactions with Claire. “If Claire had known about the things he did, the things he made us do, she would certainly have given you strength. It would have helped your relationship.”

“She married me as I was. I didn't need to explain myself. I didn't want her pity. The choices she's made had nothing to do with how our father treated us.”

“Tobias said that our father was a charming, well-liked man. His mask never slipped in public then?”

“Only with his nearest and dearest. He fooled Claire too. She should have known. If she'd really loved me, she would have known.” Jonas's voice broke and he quickly lifted his beer mug to take a long drink.

I wanted Jonas to understand about our father. I pushed on. “I studied personality disorders as part of my studies in university. In fact, I read everything I could about them, trying to sort out why Dad was like he was. You know, so outwardly friendly but so deeply disturbed and controlling at home. The times he made us get down on our hands and knees to clean and reclean every square inch of that house, and still we couldn't please him. The punishments and the groundings over nothing. Belittling us and making us feel so small then turning around and acting like we were the most special children on earth. We were always off-balance. That wasn't a normal way to grow up, Jonas.”

“Knowing it and getting over it are two different things. I thought by not talking about it to anyone, I'd be able to live with it,” Jonas said. “Did you ever tell Sam?”

“A bit. Not all of it. I never told him how Dad would wake us up with the muzzle of his shotgun and line us all up in the bedroom against the wall with the gun trained on us, where we'd stand for hours until he fell asleep.”

Jonas hung his head. “I don't want to talk about this, Maja.”

“I know. Mom wouldn't talk about it either.”

“He was seeing a woman in town these last few months.”

“Oh? Is she married?”

Jonas nodded. “The only kind he got involved with.”

“Figures. It fed something in his ego. A narcissist doesn't care about anyone else—we may as well be hollow shells for all they care about us. They also have fragile egos that need constant reinforcement. Having married women fall for him would have given him a feeling of power.”

“You figure he was a narcissist?”

“Yes, a person who has no empathy for others and needs constant adulation. They go into rages when they don't get their own way. They're also incredibly charming and manipulative.”

“Dad's photo could be next to the definition.”

“They also can make their spouses feel like worthless shit. It explains a lot about our parents' relationship.” I sipped my drink, trying to keep my hand steady. “Do you know the name of the latest woman he was seeing?”

“I'd rather not say.”

“I think it's important that I know. I'm not going to go to the police.” I didn't add “unless I found out it led to the murderer”. I looked across at the bar. The young Native man who so resembled Billy was putting on his coat and throwing money onto the bar. He had shoulder-length hair as poker-straight as mine and high cheekbones in a thin face. When he stood, he was taller than I'd thought and beanpole skinny. He headed towards the back of the bar, where an oversized finger on the wall pointed toward the washrooms.

“Maybe we should head back,” Jonas said. He reached around and grabbed his coat. “Finish your drink, Maj.”

I studied him over the rim of the glass as I swallowed the last of the Scotch. It burned my throat going down, but not unpleasantly. Jonas seemed to fold in on himself, his shoulders inverted and his hands tucked under the coat on his lap. When I lowered my empty glass, he stood and looked down at me. The expression in his eyes was sad.

“Becky Holmes,” he said. “If you really want to know, our father was sleeping with my old girlfriend Becky Holmes— known to everyone in town as Mrs. Becky Wilders.”

SEVEN

Y
our father lived a good life,” said Ralph Kreighbaum in a voice as solemn as...well...as a funeral director's. At ten a.m. the next morning, I was sitting in his office facing him across a deep mahogany desk that glistened like a flat piece of ice. Every time I lifted my eyes to look at Ralph's emaciated face, I was thrown by the gigantic portrait of his wife and two sons that hung across the better part of the wall behind him. His wife, Sharon, was as plump as Ralph was thin, and unfortunately, both sons had inherited her genes. I allowed Ralph to drone on about coffins and services for nearly fifteen minutes before holding up a hand.

“I'm sorry,” he said, while frowning at my interruption. I knew he'd been building up to lay out the burial costs. His eyes narrowed but he kept his voice friendly. “Am I overwhelming you, Maja? I know this can all be very technical for someone in your state.”

I let his comment pass, but it gave rise to the picture of a pregnant woman with the vapors. I kept my voice low. “No, it's not that, Ralph.” Out of nowhere, I remembered sitting behind Ralph Kreighbaum in grade school and smelling Vicks Vapo Rub that his mother had rubbed into his chest every morning to ward off colds. Back then, Ralph had been a sickly kid who missed a lot of school. He didn't look much healthier now. His skin was the colour of beach sand, a disturbing contrast to his shoe polish black hair. Maybe Sharon had taken over the role of chest-rubber. The image was not pretty, and I pushed it away.

“Jonas and I don't want a big funeral. We're thinking no service at all, actually. My father was not a religious man, and he wouldn't have wanted any fuss.” I almost choked on those words. Dad would have wanted everyone in town to come out and honour him. He would have opted for the bloody parade package if there'd been one. But I wasn't about to let him go out like a hero.

“Maja, everyone knew your father. He was such a well-liked, outgoing man. They'll want a chance to say a proper goodbye.”

“We were thinking of just having the family attend his cremation.”

“Perhaps a small service in our very own chapel, and then the family can have a private cremation. That might be a nice compromise.”

Claire stirred in the seat next to me. Up until then, she'd been staring out the window, where the sun glared off the snow-laden bushes. Today, she wore a bulky cable knit sweater and straight black skirt to her knees. She crossed one black-stockinged leg over the other and cleared her throat. “Actually, Maja, your father stipulated in his will that he wanted a service when he died. He'd set aside some money.”

I turned and stared at her. Her eyes were too bright, and it looked like she'd been crying. She hadn't taken the usual time to fix her hair, and it was uncharacteristically messy. I'd heard Claire and Jonas fighting upstairs after I'd gone to bed and knew she was mulling over whatever had gone on between them. “How do you know...?”

“About the will? Your father made me executor a few years ago. Jonas wasn't in any shape to think about something so complicated, and there was no one else to take it on.”