We climb the red wooden stairs on the left side of the house, where the main entrance is located.
Closs opens the door and hands me an old-fashioned key, saying: “Nobody locks their front door here, especially during the day. It’s the custom for people to simply drop in without knocking. I’m telling you this so that you won’t be scared if somebody’s suddenly standing in your kitchen. That’s the way it is here. I’ll go get the report.”
I’m only half listening because I quickly scout out the four rooms. With each one, I grow happier. Someone has had the house renovated. Tastefully renovated. Modern furniture, neutral fabrics, nice color accents with vases and cushions. The kitchen is not new, but sparkling white. That’s always a good sign. The interior seems bright and airy, though the windows are small.
When I go back to the kitchen, the sarge is standing in front of the open refrigerator. It’s full. I see eggs and cheese, butter, milk, and vegetables, apples, orange juice; there are packages of meat and a boxed pizza in the freezer.
“That was my wife. She’s stashed coffee, bread, and things like that around here somewhere.”
I open the kitchen cupboards and discover all sorts of food: coffee, sugar, tea, flour, salt, pepper, spices. Selfless help from a perfect stranger. I must attach the importance to these gestures that they deserve. Or else human cruelty will get the upper hand in my world. I close my eyes for a few seconds.
“Everything okay?” Closs asks.
“Yes, everything’s okay,” I respond. At this moment it’s actually the truth, although I know that this moment won’t last for long. “Give your wife my thanks; that’s awfully kind.”
The sergeant quickly says good-bye once he’s explained the wood stove and the hot water tank to me.
“Somebody will drop off a police car and a snowmobile. And there’s a street map of Port Brendan on the table,” he shouts back over his shoulder.
A sudden silence. The house will be my safe haven in Port Brendan. I find there’s a guest room with bunk beds in the basement. I can’t imagine that my mother or siblings will turn up in this place. They’ll be deterred by the cold. And the mosquitoes in summer. I repress all that. First things first: I’ve got to make it through the winter. Closs held out the prospect of a car and a snowmobile. I’ve never been on a snowmobile.
Even before I can unpack my suitcases, the phone rings. The landline. Probably it isn’t for me; I don’t even know my house number.
I pick up the receiver and look at the display.
Ernie Butt.
When I press the answer button, it’s a woman on the line.
“I’m Grace. You met my husband in Montreal, Ernie Butt. My parents are renting you the house. How do you like it?”
Several thoughts shoot through my mind: She knows I’ve arrived. Somebody must have seen me. Grace Butt. She was Lorna Taylor’s friend.
“I like it very much. It’s so nicely furnished.”
“That was my doing. I love interior decorating.” Grace sounds pleased. “I found everything myself, the floors and the new faucets, and all the beds have new mattresses. I actually wanted to make it into an Airbnb, but my parents didn’t want that.”
I’m not in the mood to have a long conversation about interior decorating and change the subject.
“Your husband suggested I should talk to you about Lorna Taylor.”
“Did he? Well, then . . . We’re coming to Port Brendan for the funeral. But I don’t know when that is. By the way, Rick Stout will plow the snow for you. It’s included in the rent. Have you met him yet?”
“Who’s Rick Stout?”
“He’s the house down from you. You can see it from the kitchen. I know his wife, Meeka.”
So it was Rick Stout or his wife who saw me go into the house. The bush telegraph works fast. But it’s good to know that I don’t have to shovel snow myself.
“He has a duplicate key to your house. He’ll bring it over.”
“Fine. Your husband’s coming to the funeral as well?”
“Yes, of course. I don’t like to travel all by myself in winter. It doesn’t bother him.”
“Something I’d like to know, if you can tell me. Did Lorna wear any rings on her fingers?”
“Yes, one on her left ring finger. I’m sure of it. She showed it to me. And one on her little finger next to it.”
“What sort of ring was on the little finger?”
“Hmm . . . it was silver—Lorna wore silver jewelry. With a little triangle on the front that was raised a bit.”
“Did the triangle have any special meaning?”
“A special meaning?” Grace stretches out her words, and her voice becomes hesitant. “I . . . don’t know what you mean. I think Lorna wanted to cover a little tattoo with it.”
“What kind of tattoo?”
“Oh, something ugly. I really don’t think tattoos are pretty.”
“Can you remember what the tattoo was of?”
“Sort of a Viking symbol.”
My breath catches in surprise.
“What did it look like?”
“Don’t know exactly anymore. Something weird.”
“Three interlocking triangles?”
“Maybe.”
She doesn’t sound convinced.
“It wasn’t big. I can’t remember it very well now.”
“Why a Viking symbol?”
“She probably saw it in the Viking house and thought it was cool.”
“Did she work there?”
“No. That was of no interest to her. She always wanted to get out of Port Brendan.”
I hear a voice in the background.
“Excuse me,” Grace says, “but I must head to church. We’re having a Bible reading. We’ll see each other when I come to the funeral. And don’t forget to turn on the fan on the wood stove. It’s the black lever higher up.”
I can sense my disappointment growing. I’ve had to break off right in the middle of the conversation—it’s frustrating. Next time I’ll make it an official questioning. I found nothing about Grace Butt in the files. But there’s a Grace Short in there. That must have been before her marriage to Ernie Butt. She didn’t offer anything of substance, as I recall, other than that Lorna was really in love with her pilot and went around with him everywhere.
One more detail sticks in my mind. Lorna’s parents gave her a gold chain as a present. But she wore silver jewelry. I make a note of this: Where are Lorna’s gold chain and rings?
My two suitcases are still standing in the living room, unpacked. I don’t feel like tidying up. I see the box with the medical examiner’s report lying in the kitchen where Closs put it. I grab it.
All of a sudden I hear somebody open the front door.
Without knocking.
6
A man is taking off his snow boots in the vestibule.
“Hello,” he calls. “I’ll show you how the wood stove works. Grace probably thinks you might accidentally burn the house down.”
I hurry into the vestibule. The man grins and throws his wool cap into the corner. His face seems crumpled somehow; his eyes look watery below his thick eyebrows. His cheeks round and shiny. His mouth disappears under a thick moustache. I guess him to be in his early forties.
“You’re my neighbor?” Quick, what’s his name?
“You bet, that’s me.”
He tramps firmly in his wool socks in front of me into the furnace room where the stove is, and where the walls are lined with stacked wood. Now the stove is explained to me all over again. The man doesn’t think a formal introduction is necessary.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Rick Stout.” He points to a stack of wood. “Start at this corner, where the wood’s the driest.”
He opens the stove door and shoves some pieces of wood in. Then he crumples up some nearby newspaper and piles a few milk cartons on top. He lights it all with a gas lighter.
“There are more cartons for burning over t
here. When you’re out, I can get more at the Moose Market.”
“Thanks so much, but there’s no need. I can do it myself,” I say quickly. “I’ll be getting my police car soon.”
Although Rick looks friendly, I don’t want him to come into the vestibule in the future without being asked. My home is my castle.
The fire blazes up and he closes the stove door.
“Turn the lever firmly; that’s the only proper way,” he instructs me. “And then push this button—that’s the fan. Right now, only the oil furnace is running, but once the stove is heating, it’ll stop. Wood’s cheaper.”
Grace apparently gave him orders to drive the point home. It strikes me that Rick seldom makes eye contact. Even now he looks away as he asks: “Did they send you here to find Lorna’s killer?”
“If you tell me who it is, I’ll arrest him at once.”
“There are all kinds of rumors going around. I don’t want to say anything definite.”
I don’t feel comfortable standing here with him in the furnace room, but as long as he’s talking I don’t move.
“What sort of rumors?”
“That Lorna was pregnant and had the baby aborted. That rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Don’t tell anyone you heard it from me.”
There’s no indication of a pregnancy in the police report. Nobody’s told the police anything about a possible abortion—except Rick Stout today.
“Pregnant by whom?”
“That’s the big question,” he replies mysteriously.
“By the American pilot?”
“Ask around at the clinic. The doctor there’s supposed to deal with that sort of problem.”
“Do you mean a problem like abortion?”
“I’ve only heard rumors. I don’t know anything more.”
He still won’t look at me. He doesn’t have the courage to come out with it.
“Which doctor do you mean?”
“There are only two, a man and a woman. Dr. Perrell and Dr. Cameron.”
Dr. Carl Perrell. I shiver in spite of standing by the stove. I know that name. I have to check in with him regularly. Orders from my Vancouver bosses.
“You’ll get used to the temperature here,” Rick remarks, who misinterprets my shivering.
“Grace said you’d bring me a second key to the house.”
“Right.”
He takes it out of his pocket. It’s always good to have a backup key. I’m terrible about misplacing keys.
I hear my cell phone ding. Somebody’s texted me. So the house has reception. Another load off my shoulders. I turn to the stairway.
“I have to unpack my suitcases now,” I say, waiting until Rick has put on his boots again.
“Phone me, or pop over if you need any help,” he says by way of good-bye. I must get used to the cold as well as the people’s willingness to help. And the wicked rumors in a small village.
I read the text on my cell. From Wendy, the dispatcher: Warning from the sergeant. A coyote pack sighted near Crow Point. Stay home.
Where the hell is Crow Point? And what does this have to do with me? Probably the animals are in my neighborhood. As if I had time to stroll around and get attacked by coyotes.
In the bedroom I avoid looking at the big bed. Don’t think about Martin. Or about the many nights in our marital bed. The intimacy and the passion. Our Sunday morning conversations after making love. All gone.
I spread out the Port Brendan street map on the kitchen table. Well, now, I do in fact live on Crow Point. I trace my finger along the coast, going north. And stop. Savage Beach. Where the crate with Lorna’s skeleton was found. Three bays over from here.
I have a Google Earth picture of Port Brendan. It’s a jigsaw puzzle. A going-away present from my youngest brother. He had it made within two days by a friend whose company owns a puzzle cutting machine. My kid brother always has the best ideas for gifts. My heart suddenly turns to jelly. Jigsaw puzzles are one of my favorite pastimes. I can get completely lost in them. Forget everything. My doctor recommended doing puzzles to retrain my injured brain. I get the puzzle out of my suitcase and study the image on the box. Port Brendan in summer. I recognize Crow Point by the crooked finger sticking out into the North Atlantic. Savage Beach. Somebody traveled to it and unloaded a box, undetected. Only the perp knew that a skeleton was in it.
I put the puzzle box down on the living room table and look out the window. Three houses, one directly in front of me. That must be where Rick Stout lives. Below that house is an unending whiteness. Ice, as far as the eye can see. An ocean, trapped beneath a frozen blanket. I was born in Canada but have never seen sea ice. Never had any desire to. It comes across as hostile, inhospitable.
The view of Port Brendan from another window appears like a ray of hope in comparison. A picture of normality. There are houses in which I imagine TVs, toasters, pajamas, nail polish in the bathroom cabinet, dental bills, normal things. Just like in homes in Vancouver.
I make a coffee in the pod machine on the kitchen shelf. I should have brought an environmentally friendly French press with me. Can you buy one like that here?
I sit down at the table and continue reading the medical examiner’s report. The guy did good work. He’s probably not as overworked as the MEs in Vancouver. I’m annoyed that I didn’t have an opportunity to speak to him in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. In Port Brendan everything goes through Closs. Damn bureaucracy! Anyway, I can glean some insights from the documents. The carpal bone clearly shows signs of healing. The ME concludes from this that Lorna was still alive a few days after the perp cut off her little finger. The murderer most likely held her prisoner for several days before killing her. He ran a considerable risk in doing so. Doesn’t necessarily fit my theory that massive hatred lay behind the deed, hatred so great that the killer strangled her with his bare hands. He would have had to put up with his hate for several days without taking any further action. Maybe he tortured her in a different way. Torture that couldn’t be detected by looking at the skeleton. I exhale slowly to calm myself down. The house is getting warmer. Too warm even for my liking. I take off my sweater. On my white T-shirt are the words Don’t mess with me. My mother’s Greek. Another present, but from a sister.
A murderer’s mind doesn’t always work logically, as I’ve learned by now. Not as methodically as I’d like. And not predictably, like in the mystery series on the internet. I drink my coffee in little sips; it’s better than expected; that makes me happy. Now I’m even warmer, feel my forehead sweating. Heavens, I’m in the middle of all this ice and I’m sweating. Life’s full of surprises.
No ring found in Lorna’s crate. It might also be that the murderer tried to take her rings, and the one on her little finger was too tight, so he couldn’t. Enraged, he simply hacked the finger off.
I try to visualize the situation. To do that, he must have tied Lorna up. Her fear. Her screams. The pain. Not knowing what was coming. My stomach tightens up. Not knowing what was coming.
Did he give her anything to eat while holding her prisoner? Or did he let her starve? I’ve never been able to switch off my emotions completely. Not like other investigators. I’ve rarely used gallows humor to let off steam. Don’t want to. Horror is my driver, my motivating force.
It was already that way when I was twelve and went to look for Becca Heyer. Stop! You’re hurting me! My parents didn’t want me to know afterward what happened to Becca.
Impossible. The headlines were everywhere. Sexualized brutality. Brutish. And after all that torture, the murderer tied Becca to a tree in the torrid summer heat of the Okanagan Valley, where he’d dragged her off to. Desertlike. Rattlesnake territory. He gagged her with duct tape. When hikers found her, she had died of thirst.
How long had Lorna’s suffering lasted?
It’s especially important for me to get a handle on my emotions right now. Otherwise they will be counted against me. Can Calista Gates still perform? Can she still serve as an investigator?
/> You bet I can perform. You’ll see. I throw the pen in my hand onto the floor in anger. I pick it up immediately. That’s exactly the kind of reaction I must avoid.
Are the neighbors watching me through the windows? There aren’t any curtains to block their curious eyes.
Then I see them. Half a dozen coyotes. Lounging near the shore. They seem skinny to me. Their fur must be warm in this cold. In Vancouver I once saw a coyote in the city, but never a pack. Some movement to the right. A man with a rifle. I can’t see his face. The coyotes haven’t sensed him yet. The man suddenly turns and disappears from view. A police vehicle stops in front of the house. Someone gets out. Fred van Heisen. The other half of my team.
He knocks and opens the door.
“I’ve brought your SUV,” he says when he catches sight of me. He seems even more somber under his fur cap.
“Do come in. I’ll make you some coffee.”
I almost expect him to refuse; he doesn’t exactly exude sociability. Bad guess. He peels off his parka and takes off his cap. And boots. He comes into the kitchen in stocking feet. A custom I’ll have to get used to.
“You scared off the man with a gun. He was after the coyotes.”
I fumble through the coffee pods.
“Strong or weak?”
“Espresso, please.”
He takes a seat and passes a hand through his disheveled hair. There’s something Eastern European about him. Or what I think is Eastern European.
“Can you hunt coyotes here?” I ask.
“Yes, the provincial government has a twenty-five-dollar bounty on them. But shooting inside the village limits is not permitted.” He rubs his hands to warm them up. “The bounty won’t bring in much. Coyotes often stay near where people are; they know how quickly they can get to safety. They’re not easy to hunt.”
“How many people here have guns?”
“There’s probably a hunting rifle in just about every home. It’s not hard to get a gun license. Most people hunt moose. That means meat for the whole winter.”
“Have you got moose meat in your freezer?”
The corners of his mouth twitch inconspicuously.
CRIES FROM THE COLD: A bone-chilling mystery thriller. (Detective Calista Gates 1) Page 5