The Winter Road Page 17

  “You were busy while you were avoiding me.”

  Emily got up and walked away from the desk. His non-answers had been frustrating from the beginning. Now that she knew how much he’d been covering up they were even more so. “I spoke to a Rutherford in Ottawa who knew Daniel. She gave me the impression she’d never heard of you.”

  “My relatives are protective. Because of the work I do.”

  That made sense. Everything she had noticed about him was beginning to make sense. The job he wouldn’t talk about, the mix of toughness and decency.

  She went to look at the corkboard. Most of the clippings were yellowed. “Daniel’s been following this from the start?”

  “He and Carruthers used to work together. At first Daniel didn’t believe Frank stole the shipment. He could have had engine trouble, he could have been lost on the way to Winnipeg. All that bush, all those lakes. Daniel devoted himself to trying to find the plane. In the earliest days, to rescue his friend. Then to recover the body.”

  Emily felt a twist of sympathy for Daniel. “But he changed his mind?”

  “Yeah. That wasn’t easy for him.”

  “And you think my father was involved somehow.”

  “As the police say, he’s a person of interest.”

  He’s. He is. It took millions in stolen gold to hear her father mentioned in the present tense. “And is he? Of interest to the police, I mean?” She was thinking of Corporal Reed’s questions on his last visit after the break-in.

  “I don’t know about now. The old files aren’t computerized. It might take a while to find them. In the weeks after Frank disappeared the team investigating tried to get a warrant to search your house and property and to check your parents’ bank records. The judge didn’t think they had enough evidence.”

  It was the first encouraging thing Emily had heard. “But you didn’t need evidence.”

  “I didn’t need a warrant.”

  “My father wasn’t a thief. I can promise you that.” All she had as proof was a feeling that the shadowy figure who had brought Christmas trees through the door couldn’t have been dishonest.

  Matthew indicated a photograph on the corkboard. “Did you notice this one last night? It was taken north of Flin Flon, in the winter of ’78. Your father was working for a transport company, delivering supplies.”

  The picture showed her father dressed in a parka, standing in front of a tractor. Not a farm tractor with tires, but one with tracks for traveling on snow and ice. The kind Matthew had described. He was bundled up, with a fur hat pulled down to his eyes and frost on a mustache and beard. He was smiling.

  “It’s him,” she acknowledged. “But I know he didn’t work up north. He would have been at home with my mother and me, looking after the farm.”

  “It’s not uncommon for farmers to look for other work in the winter.”

  “Maybe he was visiting there when the picture was taken. I don’t remember him being away for long.”

  “You don’t remember much about him. At least that’s what you told me.”

  A burst of anger jolted her. “I told you a lot of things. When you asked.”

  A telephone rang. Emily looked at the one on the desk, but Matthew pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

  “Hi. Yeah, she’s here. Not so good. I’ll put her on.”

  He handed her the phone. Without a greeting, a familiar voice said, “What are you getting yourself into, Emily?”

  “Daniel?”

  “Trying to be a sleuth, are you? Nancy Drew, I suppose.”

  “I’m a little old for that.”

  “I agree.”

  “You’ve had me worried.”

  “Here I am, still breathing. But I want you to stay well away from all this.”

  “Matthew said he’s your nephew. Is that true?”

  “You’re not listening. You’re not involved in this, Emily. I won’t get into a Q & A about it.”

  “Where are you? Are you coming home?”

  “I can’t talk anymore. I’m in the middle of things here. Just wanted to tell you to quit worrying. And…well, that I’m sorry about all this. Now, give me Matt again.”

  No hello, no goodbye. She held out the phone. Matthew listened, opening the cupboard door that concealed maps.

  “I can be ready in an hour. What is it, a six-hour drive? Then why not meet tonight? All right, breakfast, the Cranberry Inn.”

  He folded the phone and returned it to his pocket. “Sorry. I have to go. Daniel wants to meet.”

  He locked the furnace room behind them. “Your mother must be unsettled with the shelves sitting there half-built. Will you tell her I’ll take care of it when I come back?”

  When he came back. She hadn’t thought he would.

  SHE COULDN’T WAIT at home sipping tea while Matthew went off to prove her father’s involvement in a crime. Forgetting to be careful of the toads on Robbs’ Road, Emily turned in at Uncle Will and Aunt Edith’s house and found them at the lunch table. After a hurried hello to the rest of the family, she told her uncle she wanted to go north with Matthew to see Daniel. She didn’t explain why.

  He patted his mouth with a paper napkin. “Daniel’s up north?”

  “Could you look in on Mom while I’m gone?”

  “Of course I could. What’s Daniel doing up—”

  Susannah put an arm around Emily’s waist. “Have you and Matthew sorted things out? You’re sure you’ll be all right with him?”

  “It’s not really about him. It’s Daniel and…and other things.”

  “Tell you what. Alex and I will sleep over at your place until you get back, in case Aunt Julia’s still worried about the break-in. Then she can’t refuse to have tea with me!”

  “I was going to suggest that myself,” Alex said.

  Susannah whispered, “You’d better get going. Mom and Dad are brewing questions!”

  Emily gave her cousin a hug, and got on her way. At home she threw pyjamas, a couple of changes of clothes, mosquito repellent, sunscreen and a makeup bag full of assorted necessities into a small suitcase. Then she forced herself to slow down. She needed to take her time explaining this to her mother.

  “For how long?” Julia asked.

  “That’s a bit open-ended. I can let you know each day whether I’ll be coming home the next day.”

  “About how long?”

  “If I say about three days you realize that doesn’t mean I’ll be back in exactly three days?”

  Julia nodded, but she didn’t look pleased. “You’re going north to visit Daniel, you might be two or three or four days, and you’re sure Matthew won’t poke around looking for anything while you’re gone.”

  Emily had left him out of her explanation. “I was wrong about that. He really is helping his uncle. In fact, he’s going north, too. He says he’ll finish the shelves when he comes back.”

  Julia wanted to go over the details again. Emily repeated the plan, listened to her mother’s second review of the details, then startled her with a goodbye kiss and hurried back to Daniel’s place.

  The Accord was gone.

  She pulled a highway map out of the glove compartment. Using her thumb as a measure, she checked the mileage north of Three Creeks. Six hours, Matthew had said. Two roads went that far, Highway 6 between the lakes and Highway 10 to the west of Lake Winnipegosis. If he kept to the speed limit there were several towns that distance away.

  She drove to the post office and checked the Yellow Pages at the phone booth. Only one of the towns had a Cranberry Inn.

  GOING DOWN the wide main street in Swan River three hours later Emily stopped so suddenly the car behind her had to slam on its brakes. The driver honked once, long and angrily, then a second time more briefly. She ignored him. She had seen Matthew’s car.

  At least she thought it was his…a silver-gray Accord at the curb beside a Pizza Place. She drew into an empty spot a few cars down and hurried into the restaurant. Over a partition in the lobby she saw hi
m, alone at a table for two.

  Without a word, she sat in the chair across from his.

  “Emily.”

  Not exactly an exclamation of surprise, but she could see him take a second to adjust. Then he pushed the pizza pan closer to her.

  “The mushrooms are great.” He signaled a waitress for another cup of coffee. “All right. What’s going on?”

  “I want to know what you’re doing. I need to look out for my dad.”

  “You think you can somehow protect him from being blamed for a crime that happened a quarter of a century ago?”

  “I know it’s ridiculous—”

  “It isn’t ridiculous. It’s fruitless.”

  She couldn’t explain any better than she had already tried to do. This was the first time she had been in a position to stand by her father.

  “What if I said I didn’t want you to come?”

  “Matthew, I’m sorry—I don’t say this to hurt you—but right now I really don’t care what you want.”

  “Fair enough. You might as well ride with me, then. I want to know what you’re doing, too. You’ll listen to me from here on in? If I shout ‘run’ or ‘duck’ you’ll do it?”

  He had to be joking. She nodded.

  They finished the pizza together, then Matthew stood, leaving some money on the table. “Got your bug spray and your silly hat? This won’t be the countryside you’re used to, Emily. There’ll be a lot more mosquitoes than raspberries where we’re going.”

  If he was trying to dissuade her, it didn’t work. “I can use a break from the berries.”

  THEY GOT PERMISSION to leave her car at a mechanic’s garage, and drove together in silence, nearly alone on the two-lane highway. They passed a few slow-moving tractors. In the other lane logging trucks roared by, heading south.

  At first the scenery was familiar, mostly farmland—wheat, canola, oats and mowed fields full of big round hay bales. Soon low, blue-gray hills rose to the northwest. Emily checked Matthew’s map, already folded to show the area they were traveling. Porcupine Mountains. When they were closer, the blue-gray color changed to green. Spruce covered the hills, cut through here and there by thin bare strips. Logging roads, she supposed.

  Whenever she looked to the west she also saw Matthew’s profile. There were shadows under his eyes. He had lied to her and insinuated himself into her life, but when she looked at him she wanted to forgive him everything. So she didn’t look at him.

  After Mafeking, they moved into different terrain. Tamarack—a conifer that changed color each fall and lost its needles—grew lacy and lighter green against towering, sparsely branched jack pine. When they passed a sign that marked the 53rd Parallel, the woods to her right ended to show a body of water so wide she couldn’t see the far shore. According to the map it was only a bay that reached out from a much larger lake.

  She’d never seen such an isolated place. For miles there were no houses or gas stations, no other vehicles, no help. And she had jumped into a car with a man she no longer trusted.

  As soon as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t true. In spite of all Matthew’s lies, she did trust him. Not to be loyal to her. Not to tell her the truth. What did that leave? She looked at him, concentrating on the road, and couldn’t think of an answer.

  “You bought jeans.”

  “Bought them? I’ve always had them.”

  “You’ve never worn them. The whole time you were in Three Creeks.”

  “I guess I’m hoping the bugs will have trouble biting through them.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned bugs.”

  “You haven’t heard about the flies? Little blackflies with great big jaws. Moose hide is tough. When a soft-skinned human comes along they all want to get in on the feast.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Not according to Daniel.”

  The large body of water was behind them. After a bridge that crossed the Overflowing River, Matthew drew up outside a bungalow with a single gas pump out front and an illuminated Open sign in the window. A couple of picnic tables sat in long grass near the river.

  “We’ll take a break here.”

  It was a relief to get out of the car. Emily walked quickly to the river, slapping mosquitoes as she went. She could see a campground downstream. A man and a boy were fishing. Two other children walked along the rock bed, watching water rush over their feet.

  Matthew had followed her. “Do we need to clear the air?”

  “I don’t.” She’d never liked fighting and she didn’t know a pleasant way to talk about deception.

  “I fooled you. I gained your trust and used it.”

  “Since we both know that, what’s to be gained by discussing it?”

  “We don’t need to discuss it. You can yell at me if you like.”

  “Would that make you feel better?”

  After a minute he said, “Getting away from these mosquitoes would make me feel better.” He tilted his head toward the coffee shop. “I’m going in.”

  She considered staying with the bugs or going back to the car, but instead she followed him inside. Calm and logical, she reminded herself.

  They ordered tea, with apple pie for Matthew and a butter tart for her. The tart was good enough to ease her anger—wide and deep, with flaky pastry and a rich, creamy butterscotch filling that was liquid enough to drip and thick enough to hold lots of plump raisins and chopped walnut. It was better than her own, better than Aunt Edith’s and, although she would never say so out loud, better than her grandmother’s.

  “You can have another one,” Matthew said.

  She sat back from the table, embarrassed that her enjoyment had been so obvious.

  “Or we could take some with us,” he went on. “In case you’re hungry later.”

  She didn’t want to take treats in the car, as if they were a couple on holiday. “You know what I thought? That you were going to steal some of my mother’s books. That you’d hired Jason to help you.”

  He looked startled. “Hired him, then turned him in?”

  She poured the little bit of tea that was left in her metal pot, very strong now, and barely warm. “When you can’t read someone’s expression or tone and you can’t believe what they’re telling you and you can’t trust your impressions, I suppose you might come to an incorrect assumption or two.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “What were you looking for at my house, anyway? A treasure map? A Swiss bank number?”

  “For whatever there might be to find.”

  She put down her cup with a bang. “The walls. God, you— The shelves.” Her voice became loud enough that the waitress and the one other customer turned and stared.

  “You were looking for gold. In the wall of my house. Asking my mother when the shelves were put in and saying what a fine job my father did building away from the wall like that, how clever he was.” She clamped her mouth shut. If she didn’t, she really might yell.

  “I’m sorry, Emily. Unfortunately, that’s my job.”

  THEY REACHED the Cranberry Inn around seven o’clock that evening. It was in sight of a lake off the highway near Cranberry-Portage, an older motel with a row of cheerful cranberry-red doors opening to the parking lot. Emily bought soup in the adjoining coffee shop and disappeared into her room.

  Matthew tried to put her feelings and his aside. He unlocked his briefcase and took out some files—records of the transport company that had employed Graham Moore and transcripts of police interviews from the original investigation after Carruthers’ disappearance. He’d already studied the transcripts, but he wanted to be sure he was prepared for whatever his uncle had planned for the next day.

  There were interviews with a pilot, a trapper who had known Frank, the mine supervisor, the air traffic controller at the Flin Flon airport and a mechanic who had worked on the plane the day before the flight. They all said they knew Frank, not that well, but that he was a great guy. The bush plane’s maintenance was
up-to-date. Frank’s planned route shouldn’t have taken him anywhere near the storm. These things happened, they said. It was a shame.

  The transport company’s log was difficult to read. Daniel had faxed it to him yesterday after persuading a secretary to part with it. Weeks’ worth of narrow-ruled pages and faint photocopied handwriting listing crew names and delivery routes. The cat trains traveled nearly around the clock to take maximum advantage of the short months of good ice.

  He peered closer at the listings for the second week of March, 1979. Was that McNabb? Someone called McNabb had asked for the delivery that Moore had detoured to make? That was the name of the trapper the police had interviewed. Someone must have taken note of the connection before. Probably lost in a storage room somewhere.

  The requested cargo was a generator. McNabb wanted it dropped off at an address described by a series of numbers and letters that represented the section, township and range of the property. Matthew pulled out his municipal map and began to trace the coordinates. A knock at the door interrupted him.

  Emily stood in the hall, looking deflated. “I’ve been trying to make a list of things that prove my father’s innocence.”

  “Good. Lists can get ideas flowing.”

  “Or block them.” She held up a small lined notebook. At the top he read Reasons My Father Isn’t Guilty. Except for the optimistic heading the page was empty.

  “Come in.” He put away the files and map, then sat on the bed, leaving her the chair. “Did you get hold of your mother?”

  “Susannah said Mom’s been telling her and Alex all about paleontology. I guess that means she’s fine.”

  “Do you feel all right about leaving her, then?”

  “I just feel confused.”

  She didn’t seem as angry as she had earlier, but there was a pale brittleness to her that suggested that could change.

  “What do you think you need? Sleep or facts?”

  “Let’s try facts.” She corrected herself. “Your version of the facts.”

  There wasn’t any way to protect her from the truth. Even if she hadn’t insisted on coming with him she would have had to hear it eventually. “I don’t have any proof that your father isn’t guilty. I have some that he might be.”