I WAS PACKING up my tools to go to a jobsite when Jessica phoned the next morning. Steve had been up since three in the morning, reorganizing my third shed, so I had to run to catch the phone before he did.
“Are you free this morning?” she said.
“I’m on my way to the Oland cottage,” I began. But something in her voice stopped me. “Do you want to come out?”
“No, I think it might be better if I meet you in town.”
I gripped the phone. “Do you have something?”
“Yes. But I want to tell you privately, so you can decide what to tell Steve.”
My heart lurched. I wanted to yell what? but forced myself to wait.
“Can you meet me at Tims?”
The Tim Hortons on the highway is the most popular place in town, with a lineup out the door in the mornings. “There are too many big ears there in the morning,” I said. “There’s a new café in Hawley Bay. Mostly the city cottage crowd.”
I pushed my old truck as fast as I could to get to it in half an hour. Jessica was already there, sitting in a back corner against the wall. She had a notebook on the table beside her coffee and Danish. My heart was pounding, but I took time to order a coffee and croissant. Now that the moment was here, I was afraid to know.
Jessica must have seen my face, because she smiled and squeezed my hand. She spoke without opening her notebook. “I found a file in the basement cabinet. The accident took place in February 1985, on the snowmobile trail about three miles north of town. There was a police investigation at the time, but—” She stopped and shook her head. “The coroner’s report and postmortem results are on file. The victim sustained a severe blow to the head that probably knocked him out, but he died of hypothermia. He was an otherwise healthy white male, height five feet eight inches, weight 154 pounds, age midtwenties. Fair hair and complexion, blue eyes. There was a tattoo of a heart pierced by a rose on his upper left arm but no other distinguishing marks.”
Her voice was flat, like a cop in court, but now she stopped and softened. “Tattoos weren’t as common back then. Sounds like he might have been in love.”
I barely heard her. My mind was already racing ahead. So far, it all checked out. Blue eyes and fair hair like Steve and me. I was taller and skinnier than the guy, but my mother had been tall. This man was built like Steve.
“What did the police investigation say?” I croaked.
She flushed and played with her notebook. “Not much. There were no forensics or witness statements. He was drunk. The officer concluded that he missed a curve, went down a ravine and hit his head on a tree on the way down. His body, and the snowmobile, were found buried in snow at the bottom of the slope, about thirty feet off the trail. With the snow that came that night, you wouldn’t have seen anything driving by unless you were looking.”
I pictured the man’s last moments. Would he have been too drunk to know he was dying? Would he have tried to shout for help? “Was he by himself?”
She nodded. “The police assumed so, since no one reported the accident. He wasn’t found till almost a week later, when someone phoned in a tip.”
“Who?”
She fiddled with her notebook again. “The report doesn’t say.”
“No one reported him missing?”
“Nope.”
“Where was he before? Was anyone drinking with him that night?”
“The report doesn’t say that either.”
I stared at her, but she just shrugged. I steeled myself. Now was the moment of truth. “Who was he?”
She lowered her eyes. “Look, Rick, I’ve already told you more than I should. This is a confidential police report, details withheld at the request of the family.”
“Who’s the family?”
“It’s not in the file.”
“That’s ridiculous! They must have released the body to someone.”
“I suppose.” She reached across the table to take my hands in hers. “That’s all I can say. If Sergeant Hurley ever found out I’d told you anything, it could be my job!”
I pulled my hands from hers. To be so close, and yet nowhere!
She looked hurt. “I’ve given you a place to start. If you can keep my name out of it, you can try asking Sergeant Hurley about the investigation. After more than thirty years, the confidentiality probably doesn’t matter all that much.”
“But if Hurley only knows what’s in that useless report…”
“He’d know more. He’d know it all. He was the investigating officer.”