Free Once Upon a Time by Barbara Fradkin Page A

same gentle level. “How soon?”
    â€œThirty minutes?”
    â€œWhat did the car look like?”
    â€œA small car. With a flat back.” She demonstrated with her hand the shape of a hatchback. “Black, maybe?”
    â€œDid you ever see it going to the house before?”
    She shook her head. “But I don’t watch everything.”
    â€œOh, I’m sure you’re much too busy. But did you see who was in the car?”
    She straightened her shoulders and brushed back an errant strand of steel wool. “My eyes are very good, but it was far away. The person had a hat and dark glasses, so it was hard to see more.”
    â€œDid it look like a man or a woman?”
    â€œHard to say. Woman, maybe?”
    Once the two policemen had thanked Mrs. Wiecowska for her help and were walking back across the muddy snow towards the car, Green kicked a chunk of ice across the yard with a curse of frustration.
    â€œWell, that’s just great, Sullivan. This time we are screwed by our own stupidity. We just completely obliterated that car’s tracks when we drove up the lane ourselves.”
    *    *    *
    At the red brick farm house further down the road they encountered a plump, elderly woman in a flowered apron who was only too delighted to talk. She ushered them cheerfully into her kitchen, which smelled of apples and cinnamon. Both men shed their coats as she poured them cups of tea. Without thinking, she added milk to the tea, causing Green to grimace inwardly. Milk in tea was anathema to his Yiddish soul.
    Sullivan set aside his notebook and gulped at his eagerly, but Green took a cautious sip. The woman, who had introduced herself as Eleanor MacLeod, watched Sullivan with lively eyes.
    â€œI’d make a guess you’re hungry, Sergeant. Would you like an apple turnover? Freshly baked this morning. You’ll have to excuse the clutter, gentlemen, but I have all these apples picked weeks ago, and if I don’t get them into jars or baking soon, they’ll spoil.” She placed a turnover in front of each of them, which both men pounced on. It was now past one o’clock, and they hadn’t eaten since leaving Ottawa at eight.
    â€œWhat an ordeal for poor Ruth,” she said as she busied herself at the stove. Fragrant steam rose from the pots bubbling at her elbow. “I wish I knew where I could call her, just to give her my sympathies. Not that she didn’t know it was coming. She’s been saying for two years now that she thought he wouldn’t hold on long, almost as if she hoped he’d go—” She checked herself. “Although of course she didn’t. But I’m glad in a way that it’s over for her. It was so hard for her to get out, even to come over here. She always seemed to have one eye on the clock, and she’d be rushing back to Eugene almost before she’d finished her tea. He was all she thought about — I know what that’s like, I nursed Arthur through his last five years, and you do find that your whole life closes in around their routine. Is his colour good today, is his mind lucid, is he in pain? She’ll have to find new interests now. For me, having this farm kept me going. The apples would ripen, the strawberries kept coming up. I don’t farm it the way I did when we were younger, mind you, but there’s still plenty for me to do. I think Ruth will sell, though, and move into the city with her daughter. She wasn’t raised on the land, and she really doesn’t like being so isolated. It was Eugene’s idea, and she did it to keep him happy. I kept telling her she had a right to be happy too in her old age, and she said she was, that it took less to make her happy, and Eugene had been through so much—I never knew what, she didn’t say. I don’t think he was happy, even with his little retirement cottage. The very rare times I saw him, he was half pickled.