Ted Wood - Murder on Ice

Murder on Ice

Ted Wood

An [ e - reads ] Book

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, scanning or any information storage retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from the Author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 1984 by Ted Wood
First e-reads publication 1999
www.e-reads.com
ISBN 0-7592-6434-1

Author Biography

Ted has been a flyer, a beat cop, a pinboy, soda-jerk, freight porter and advertising hot-shot. He has also written dozens of short stories, hundreds of magazine articles including two long-running humour columns, television plays and one musical comedy. He has had fourteen books, thirteen of them novels, publishing in Canada, the U.S., Britian, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Japan. He has been widowed and married Mary in 1975. He is the father of three, stepfather to another three and granddad to a total of nine, counting steps and one step-step. He now runs Whitbys Ezra Annes House bed and breakfast in partnership with his wife Mary.

Other works by Ted Wood also available in e-reads editions

When the Killing Starts
Corkscrew
Live Bait
Dead in the Water

For my mother,
who taught me the value of words

Table of Contents

Murder on Ice

A kid in a mackinaw jacket stumbled out of the fire door of the Lakeside Tavern and collapsed against the six-foot snowdrift under the emergency light. I watched from the police car as he rolled onto one elbow and pried himself erect, one hand cupped over his mouth. Blood oozed between his fingers, black in the yellow light.

I opened the car door and stepped out, calling Sam to heel. He jumped out and followed me along the shoveled walkway between the man-high walls of snow, through the thin new snow that was driving almost flat against my face on the bitter northeast wind. The kid was reeling but I judged he was more drunk than hurt.

I grabbed him by the elbow and he took down his hand and gaped at me, trying to focus his eyes. He was short a couple of front teeth but this is hockey country, he could have lost them years earlier. I told him, Come inside, youll freeze out here. I let go of his elbow and he followed, docile as Sam, around to the main door and through the lobby to the low-ceilinged cocktail lounge, following the sounds of the fight. It was still going on at the far end of the room, on the other side of a wall of locals who were whooping and cheering, standing on tiptoe or on chairs to get a look. Most of them were nickel miners and bush-workers, tougher than any city crowd. But I had Sam.

I told him Speak!

He fell into his snarling, barking crouch, stiff-legged and savage. Hes a big black and tan German Shepherd with one ear torn away in an old battle. It gives him a lopsided ugliness that makes people step aside. The crowd parted and we went through. Somebody shouted, Its the cops! and I felt the old wry amusement. Sure! The whole Murphys Harbour contingentReid Bennett and Sam.

The standard bar fight has two men in work shirts swinging big sucker punches at one another or sometimes working on one another with steel-toed safety boots. This was different. Neither man was swinging. One was a local, a truck driver for the nickel mine. He runs into the States and figures hes a hard case. But tonight he was scared. He was in a crouch holding a chair in front of him, light in his big hands. His opponent was the wild card in the game. He was tall and elegant, dressed in a velour shirt and expensive corduroy pants. He was circling silently on the balls of his feet, his hands up in the classic karate pose.

The trucker shot me an appealing glance but I didnt respond. Most Friday nights when I come here, hes standing over some drunk, usually smaller or older than he is. Tonight he had picked wrong and I wanted him to sweat a little.

Finally I told Sam Easy and he switched off like a radio, standing, watching the two men, ready to leap as soon as I asked.

The truckers wife was drunker than usual. She hadnt grasped what was happening. In the sudden silence her shout was shrill. Garrrn! Kick his goddamn teeth in!

The karate man lowered his hands. He had nothing to fear from the trucker, chair or no chair. Slowly, keeping safely behind his chair, the trucker lowered it and backed off. His wife had noticed me now and she shouted, Them sonsabitches picked on Harry.

I said nothing, studying the karate man. He was narrow and dried out, with a dancers build and the studio-tanned, young-old face you see on a lot of gay men. I judged him to be around my age, thirty-five. I had never seen him before. There were two others like him in the crowd, one his age, one younger. They were behind him, on the edge of the crowd.

The trucker began to bluster. He kicked my bror in the mouth. Waddya gonna do about that?

He knew the answer. Hed heard me give the instructions to his own victims. I ignored him. Instead I turned to the karate man.

I know these other people, they live here. Could I have your name, please?

He took out his billfold and flipped it open at the drivers license. I read his name, George Nighswander, and an address in Toronto. I could tell from the coded number on his chauffeurs license that he was thirty-six.

I didnt start this, he said, speaking softly.

The trucker, whose name I remembered to be Cassidy, shouted immediately but kept his distance. I let him shout, speaking to Nighswander. Im not concerned with causes. All I need is your name and address in case one of them wants to lay an assault charge. Aside from that, youre free to go.

He ducked his head and said, Thank you, officer.

Cassidy was still fuming but feeling safe now, with Sam and me there to protect him. He ducked his own head, mimicking Nighswander. Thank you, officer! he lisped, then spat and said, Goddamn fruit!

Nighswander closed his billfold and pushed it back into his hip pocket. I asked him, What brings you this far north, Mr. Nighswander? I kept my voice polite. After all, he had the right to be anywhere he wanted, even two hundred miles north of Toronto with its gay bars and steam baths.

Im here with friends for the Winter Carnival, he said primly. We were having a quiet drink and this man began making personal comments. I didnt like it and said so, and his associate tried to punch me.

And you retaliated?

He nodded. Good! I thought. It might discourage Cassidy from picking fights, even with strangers in soft clothes who look as out of place in Murphys Harbour in January as a bird of paradise in a chicken run.

I turned to the kid with the broken mouth. He was standing where I had left him, blood still dripping through his fingers.

Youve heard this mans name. If you want to lay a charge, go to the Justice of the Peace on Monday and swear out a warrant. He blinked a couple of times, painfully, and gave a slow nod. He would lay no charges. He was beaten and he knew it. So did Cassidy, but he was anxious to save face in front of the crowd. They would never again fear him, not now.

Theres other ways to settle this, he said suddenly.

Maybe Mr. Nighswander will oblige you, I told him. If youre bound and determined to fight, go outside and finish it now. Its not the speech a policeman is supposed to make, but Im alone in this town and I sometimes cut corners.