CRIES FROM THE COLD: A bone-chilling mystery thriller. (Detective Calista Gates 1)

by Bernadette Calonego

  “My neighbor gave me half a cow. Somebody will certainly give you some, too, as a present. Just wait. People are generous.”

  I put two steaming cups on the table and sit down. My leg’s hurting again. I must learn to live with pain.

  My colleague takes his coffee black. Just like me.

  “Are people also generous with information?”

  He frowns.

  “Do you mean about Lorna’s case? Did you read the files?”

  “My impression: either people don’t want to be forthcoming, or they really don’t know anything.”

  “Probably both.”

  “We have to systematically question all the boat and snowmobile owners some more. Where were they when Lorna disappeared; did anyone see anyone behaving suspiciously for any reason; who owns a sled? Who was staying in the woods? Who was in a hunting cabin for some length of time . . . ?”

  “We did that immediately after Lorna was found. You mustn’t forget we live on the edge of a wilderness. You can hide in the bush around here better than maybe anywhere else on earth.”

  “But a boat on the ocean can’t hide itself!”

  “Gates, have you seen the outline of this coast? One lonesome cove after another. And almost all of them have a fishing shack or an old cabin.”

  “The perp must have returned to his hiding place again and again. The medical examiner’s report says that Lorna was alive for several days after her finger was cut off.”

  “Believe me, we’ll do everything we can to finally get the perp. And we’ll track down other possible hideouts and search them.”

  “I’m trying to picture how it was feasible in practice. Where could the perp have sunk the crate? And how did he find it again?”

  “Probably not very far from shore. He tied one end of a rope to the crate and left the other end floating on the water. Why do I think that’s possible? Poachers do that when they steal lobster traps or nets or baskets of whelks and hide them in the water.”

  “Could it have been a thief with a criminal record?”

  “We’ve checked out everybody in the area with a record. No hits, unfortunately.”

  “What’s with the Viking house?”

  Van Heisen clasps his hands. I don’t see a ring.

  “It was put up four years ago. It’s a copy of a sod house. For tourists. There’s something like it at L’Anse aux Meadows, on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Very famous. Lots of people go there in the summer. They hoped the same thing would happen here, but the great boom didn’t come.”

  “Did they dig something up here, too?”

  “No, there are only ancient reports of Vikings being here—it’s all very nebulous. You’d have to ask an expert.”

  Other questions were more pressing at the moment.

  “Grace Butt phoned, Lorna’s friend, the one who renovated this house. She said Lorna had a tattoo under her ring on her little finger. A Viking symbol.”

  Van Heisen likes his coffee; I can see that. He gulps away at it. Gives him time to think.

  “Doesn’t have to mean anything. You saw symbols like that everywhere when the Viking house went up. New souvenirs in the shops. Mugs and table settings and pendants. I think it’s a bit overblown.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve never found any Viking things here. Nothing like the bronze brooch at L’Anse aux Meadows. No sign of a settlement.”

  “So you think the perp hacked off her finger for another reason?”

  “Maybe.”

  I wait for an explanation. But nothing comes.

  “What might it have been?”

  He keeps turning the mug around in his hands. He doesn’t want to walk out onto thin ice.

  I push him a bit. “I had to speculate in front of everybody today. Now it’s your turn.”

  That helps.

  “Getty’s ear crossed my mind. You know the story?”

  I nod. I saw the film on Netflix recently. The millionaire Jean Paul Getty’s grandson was kidnapped by the Mafia in Rome; I think it was in 1973. And when Grandpa didn’t want to pay up, they sent him one of his grandson’s ears.

  “You think the perp sent the finger to Lorna’s family? To get ransom money?”

  He raises his dark eyebrows. “Maybe it wasn’t about money.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Revenge, possibly.”

  “Her parents never mentioned anything of the sort.”

  “Maybe they’ve got their reasons to keep it quiet.”

  “Why this theory?”

  He puts down his mug.

  “Gates, you wanted me to speculate. You shouldn’t simply scrap any one theory.”

  “Something else. My neighbor just told me about a rumor that Lorna had an abortion here in the hospital.”

  Van Heisen shakes his head.

  “We followed that up and asked Dr. Perrell about it. The rumor wasn’t confirmed.” He looks up. “Can you take me back to the station? A bit of a trial run with the new car.”

  We climb into the SUV, a Ford Edge, five minutes later. I keep an eye out for coyotes but can’t see them anymore. And the man with the hunting rifle has made himself scarce. He might have got one coyote at best; the others would have taken off right away.

  The motor starts up at once in spite of the cold. A good omen. Hopefully we’ll become friends, this vehicle and me. And maybe the man next to me, my new partner, will become a friend as well. If he relinquishes his defense mechanisms. And I mine.

  We have to hunt as a pack to find the killer.

  There’s no other way.

  7

  He senses how cautiously his new colleague is driving on the snow, though the road is plowed and sanded. There’s hardly any snow in Vancouver, unlike Regina, where he comes from. Fred would like to know whether Calista Gates has ever been to his home province of Saskatchewan but saves the question for later. For the moment he’d rather be quiet and keep his eyes open. His worst fears haven’t been realized. Gates is not one of those loud, aggressive female police officers who desperately want to signal how tough they are. He’s aware that a woman can’t be a shrinking violet if she wants to survive in the RCMP. Better not show her feelings or, worse, fear. Gates last worked in the Major Crime Homicide Unit—that much he’d learned from Closs—and had made a name for herself there as an expert in profiling perpetrators. Why they transferred her to Port Brendan is a riddle. He’d heard of the brutal attack on her, of course. He can imagine how much it took to patch her up. But Labrador? For a highly qualified woman from Vancouver? He has only one explanation: The people in Vancouver haven’t found her attacker or attackers. Haven’t cleared up who severely injured someone from their ranks. It must have really stung the honor of the RCMP. They don’t want to be reminded of it on a daily basis. Better to shunt the colleague in question off somewhere so they didn’t have to deal with the matter anymore. Out of sight, out of mind.

  He asks himself what the sarge might think of it. Closs didn’t say anything about the reasons for Gates’s transfer; he instructed his team not to bring up the attack on her. There must be some kind of deal between him and his RCMP superiors, about which Fred can only speculate. As a matter of fact, Closs is supposed to be replaced after four years, but he’s here right now, and nobody’s talking about him moving to another position.

  “Right?” Gates asks, as they came to a fork in the road. Port Brendan may be small, but it’s not easy to figure out. All those inlets and convoluted side streets.

  “Right, and then left at the next intersection.”

  He thinks Port Brendan is underrated. What goes on here is not taken seriously enough elsewhere. Small, isolated communities are in danger. Nobody wants to talk when you come right down to it because they don’t want to step on each other’s toes. Nothing’s out in the open; they only stab one another in the back in secret.

  Good thing Lorna’s remains were discovered at last. When she disappeared without a trace three years
ago, there was hardly a soul in Port Brendan who didn’t think the American pilot was responsible. That attribution of guilt was an easy way out. The Americans wanted to leave Happy Valley-Goose Bay. That meant the town lost an important source of income. The US president acted like he was no friend of Canada, rather an opponent you can’t trust for a second. An American as the suspect was the ideal scapegoat for the locals.

  Lorna’s boyfriend had a solid alibi, however, and nothing indicated that he had something sinister up his sleeve or anything to do with Lorna’s disappearance. But he remained a suspect in the eyes of many, particularly when he was suddenly recalled to the US. Fred feels the anger rising within him. Anger and satisfaction. He feels validated because three years ago he thought Lorna’s family and acquaintances should be scrutinized more carefully. In most cases, the victim knows the killer. It’s something you learn early on in your training, dammit. Gates mentioned it in the office today. Why wasn’t that done more carefully in Lorna’s case? Every day he can observe mutual dependencies in the small community. One example leaves a sour taste in his mouth: Sergeant Closs’s wife is a nurse in the clinic, and Lorna’s father is the administrator. Her supervisor.

  “Were you ever up there?” Calista points to the outlines of the old radar station that can be seen from the street. A few ruins, their shapes vaguely emerging from the snow. She obviously has a sharp eye.

  “Yes, I go jogging there in the summer, on the abandoned access road.”

  “Hard to believe our government simply invited the Americans in. I mean . . . hard to imagine that from today’s perspective.”

  “You didn’t know about it?”

  “No, I don’t remember ever being concerned about the American military presence in Canada. Maybe because all the radar stations are in the North, and I was never there.”

  “You were never in Northern Canada?”

  “No, I was more attracted to the southern parts. To where it’s warm.”

  “Then Labrador must be a shock for you.”

  She slows down and turns onto the main street toward the village center. Only then does she answer, without looking at him. “I prefer the word chance.”

  He glances over at her. Not a trace of sarcasm on her face. From the side, she looks more decisive than from the front. More chiseled. Nonetheless a pretty profile. She probably thought up her answer back in Vancouver. He recalls that morning in the office. How Closs lured her into an uncomfortable situation.

  Constable Gates, I’d like an outside view of the Lorna Taylor case. What are your initial impressions?

  What a damn circus. Gates certainly didn’t want to show off as the know-it-all expert from Vancouver—and least of all on her first day. Closs set her up. She couldn’t very well refuse, couldn’t brush off the sergeant’s request. Sullivan and Delgado exploited it, naturally.

  Fred has wanted to knock Closs off his pedestal for a long time. Hopefully Gates will dig where the sergeant left the ground undisturbed.

  “What’s that?”

  She brakes so abruptly that the car begins to skid.

  “Don’t brake!” he shouts. She does what he says, to his great relief.

  They stop in the middle of the street. Gates glances in the rearview mirror. Unfazed.

  “Is that a sawmill?”

  She stares straight at him. Eyelids like half-moons.

  “There are cars out front. Why don’t we take a quick look inside?”

  Now he gets it.

  “Because of the crate? Nothing there. The locals saw their own lumber and cut down the trees themselves. They don’t buy anything in the mill. All their stuff’s for export.”

  She drives on and looks for a place to turn around.

  “Who built the Viking house?”

  “A local businessman. Gerald Hynes.”

  “And who financed it?”

  “As far as I know, the provincial government. To boost the tourist industry.”

  “They might have bought their wood here, don’t you think?”

  “Your job doesn’t start until tomorrow.”

  He can’t believe he’s unable to come up with something better.

  She makes the turn and stops in front of the sawmill.

  “Fair enough. You’re the lead, and I’m coming with you. These guys work on Sunday?”

  “They work here whenever work comes in.”

  He doesn’t stop her. Be interesting to see how the employees respond to the new RCMP woman.

  Inside the workshop there’s the smell of freshly cut wood. A saw screams. Gates heads with a firm step toward the source of the noise. He can see that she’s all police officer: erect, shoulders back, feet not too close together, chin up. She must have been on street patrol at the start of her career. He’d noticed her right leg was dragging a bit when they left the house. It’s not noticeable now.

  Two men watch her come closer. She raises her hand and the screeching saw stops.

  “Good morning, I’m Sergeant Gates, new with the RCMP here. Can I talk with you for a minute?”

  Sergeant. Not constable. Good that Closs doesn’t hear that. The men take off their gloves and look at her with curiosity.

  “Is either of you the owner of this sawmill?”

  One of them steps up.

  “That’s me.”

  “Do you have a minute?”

  He nods and doesn’t take his eyes off her.

  “Don’t we have enough cops at the station?” he jokes. “Are we in Chicago or what?”

  “There are about twelve thousand law enforcement officers in Chicago.” Gates’s retort is like a pistol shot.

  Wrong answer, my dear colleague. In Port Brendan, that’s an invitation to a tit for tat.

  The other man seizes the opportunity.

  “Won’t you have to build an addition on the station now? Maybe a sauna for the lady?”

  The two men grin.

  Gates hesitates for a second, but then ignores his remark.

  “Can you show me some of your products?”

  The owner is taken aback.

  “Our products? I’m not sure I understand why you’d want to see our products.”

  “Do you put a stamp on your wood before it goes out?”

  She has to ask twice because the man apparently doesn’t understand her Vancouver accent.

  Fred hangs back, although the owner repeatedly tries to make eye contact, as if expecting him to intervene. Hell if he’s going to get involved.

  “A stamp? Yes, we do.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Sure.”

  He takes a board from a stack against the wall and places it in front of her. A small, but clearly visible, black symbol at the lower end.

  Gates reads the writing.

  “Hanson and Sons. That’s burned on everything that leaves this place?”

  He can see that the mill owner hasn’t yet guessed what she’s driving at. He’s hesitant when giving information.

  “Yes. Unless a customer doesn’t want it.”

  “Did you sell the lumber for the Viking house?”

  He nods.

  “Was there a stamp on it?”

  Now it seems to dawn on the man.

  “Yes, but that was different.” He gets a long-handled stamper from a shelf on the wall. “This one here.”

  Fred recognizes the symbol, although he’s two steps behind Gates. Three interlocking triangles.

  The man’s smile is wiped off his face. “Does this have anything to do with Lorna Taylor?”

  “We’re following up on all possible leads,” Gates replies.

  The other worker looks at his boss. “I always said those heathen markings would bring bad luck.”

  “For God’s sake don’t bring up that old crap again. Your pastor’s nuts.”

  “They weren’t heathens; the Vikings believed in their gods,” Gates says. She reaches for the stamper. “May I take this with me?”

  “What’s that got to do with Lorna?�
�� the owner asks.

  “We can’t say anything about that because there’s an ongoing investigation. But thank you very much for your information. It’s very helpful.”

  Fred holds out his hands. She gives him the stamper and takes the men’s names in the notepad she took out of her jacket pocket. This woman doesn’t waste any time. He smiles to himself. Calista Gates will be the talk of the town. She put the heat on those guys and didn’t even need a sauna to do it. Sullivan would say that out loud and laugh. But he’s not Sullivan, and he no longer has to go on patrol with him. Now he’s got Gates.

  “Will we get our stamper back?” The owner has nervousness written all over his face.

  “Yes, once we no longer need it.”

  Gates says good-bye and walks to the exit.

  He brings the stamper along after her. In any other situation he’d have felt downgraded to a lackey. But his satisfaction with the fact that certain people aren’t treated with kid gloves anymore is greater. And he doesn’t even have to answer for it.

  Arriving at the station, he’s not surprised that the sergeant immediately confronts Gates. She’s completely dumbfounded that Closs already knows about the interlude at the sawmill. He’s not at all astonished; news flies around here at the speed of a rocket.

  “These questionings have to be coordinated, Gates,” Closs rants.

  “I feel I’m always on the job if I happen to hear something important, Sergeant. Then have someone else ask Gerald Hynes why a piece of wood with this stamp on it”—she waggles the stamper back and forth—“turned up in Lorna’s crate.”

  8

  Using her binoculars, she peers through the window at the white expanse of the bay. Now she can’t see it anymore. Whatever it is that’s lying on the ice. The wind is blowing billows of snow around.

  The voice on the radio says a snowstorm is brewing. A blizzard with sixty- to seventy-mile-an-hour winds. Ann’s whole body cramps up. This is already the third storm since the middle of February; the two previous ones knocked out the electricity for days. Surely it’s punishment for her coming to Labrador two months earlier than usual. She convinced herself that she had no other option because of the fundraising campaign for the hospital.