The thing looks dead as a doornail. And frozen stiff. He’s upset about it. Oh no, I wasted my time for this. But the RCMP woman isn’t deterred. Of course. She thinks she’s on the trail of some crime. Even if it’s only a dog. As if there weren’t anything more important. It was definitely killed by a coyote. Happens all the time. People shouldn’t let their dogs run around loose. But where’s the rest of the beast anyway? A heavy chain appears out from under it, a weight that fishermen use.
“Can you lift this thing with your gloves?” she shouts, bracing herself against the wind.
He holds the chain high, and she pulls out a piece of red material. It flutters in the wind, but he recognizes the writing in spite of that. Animals Are the Better People. Every soul in Port Brendan would recognize the hoodie. Lorna Taylor owned a sweatshirt like that before she disappeared three years ago.
Calista digs some more. A cap from the winter Olympics with a logo, Vancouver 2010. And an ax. Good heavens! It’s getting better and better. Or worse. A piece of wood. She turns it over, stares at it, then at him. Holds what she’s found right in his face. He recognizes the stamp at once. Same wood as for the Viking house. Holy shit!
She points to the sled. He helps her load the bag and its contents onto it. Then he lifts the seat of his snowmobile and takes out a long bungee cord to lash the load down.
Visibility is getting worse by the minute. Calista nevertheless insists on making a few more concentric circles. He finally convinces her that it’s pointless by now. He must bring her back to Port Brendan unharmed. Her and the sweatshirt and the cap. The chain. The ax. And the board with the stamp on it. How did all that get into a garbage bag that somebody weighted down with a chain and put out on the ice? He represses the image of the dog’s frozen head. With good reason.
He takes Gates to the police station. She wants him to come in with her. The hell he will, and he lets her know it.
“I’ve already lost too much time—and money.”
“You’re a witness,” she points out.
A witness to what? Better not get involved in a discussion. He deposits the blue bag in the driveway and roars away, towing the sled behind.
11
I haven’t even known my boss for a week, but I can read his furrowed brow. He moves the wrinkles like an accordion. He’s listening to me, half interested, half skeptical, studying the red sweatshirt.
“Was this really Lorna Taylor’s?”
He should know better than me. He’s the expert on the case. His memory’s never been destroyed by a clubbing, either. Back then, after the attack, I could remember almost nothing. My long-term memory worked tolerably well; short-term memory was gone. It came back slowly after several weeks. And that was just one of the problems with my damaged brain. I would read something and not understand a thing. I couldn’t recognize some words anymore. Couldn’t speak coherently. Words came out of my mouth I had no intention of saying. Where had they been hiding? Didn’t know how to use a laptop anymore. Couldn’t work my laptop keyboard. Had no idea what three times twelve was. And how much I had in the bank. What a guy on the phone wanted from me, and how to make sense of the people on TV. It was all confusing and chaotic.
But that’s a thing of the past. I want it to be past. I know the Lorna file backward and forward. And I let Closs know it.
“It says in the file that she owned a sweatshirt like this one, but it wasn’t found with her clothes. There are lots of these sweatshirts in Port Brendan; members of an animal rescue group ordered them over the internet.”
“Then let’s find out how many there are and where they are.”
The wind’s howling outside, and the building groans. I’ve thawed out thanks to the hot tea in my stomach; I’ve switched to it from the awful coffee. The room is still too warm for the arctic clothing, but I cannot get rid of the thermal underwear that makes me sweat.
“I wanted to question Hynes about the stamp on the board, but he refused to come in. Simply took off. We must bring him in as soon as possible.”
“That can wait until later,” Closs disagrees. “Fred, what do you think about what we’ve found?”
He turns toward van Heisen, who’s standing quietly in the corner. He came back from his doctor’s appointment half an hour ago. He looks noticeably pale, though he’s normally tanned. He’s from Regina, in Saskatchewan, where it’s very cold and icy in winter, almost as bad as in Port Brendan. Except the wind never stops here. That much I’ve been able to worm out of Fred. He’s often calm, like now. Doesn’t say a lot. Especially about personal things. Still, he shared with me that he’s not all that unhappy in Labrador because he likes the higher salary in the North and can save up for a house in Regina. He told me this in the car, where he couldn’t avoid talking to me.
He clicks his tongue.
“Might be a warning.”
“To whom?”
“No idea.”
Closs is disappointed by his answer.
I break in.
“A warning sounds plausible. I’m of the same opinion. And here we have a piece of wood with the same stamp we found on the crate with Lorna’s skeleton. A blood-red sweatshirt like the victim’s. The ax. A severed dog’s head.”
“If the murderer’s behind it,” Fred remarks, “then he really laid it on thick.”
Exactly, Fred, that’s what I think, too.
“Almost overkill. A hint like a ton of bricks. Have we got a case of cruelty to animals here? And what’s happened to the rest of the body?”
Closs again seems skeptical.
“The dog was dead for sure when its head was cut off. Maybe it got into a hen house somewhere, and somebody shot it. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“But that wouldn’t be legal,” I mutter. I can’t conceive of anyone raising chickens in this climate.
Closs is already thinking ahead.
“And the cap?”
“Maybe Lorna had one like it?”
It’s lying before me on the table, in an evidence bag. The ice on the webbing has melted. A red-and-beige cap with the words Vancouver 2010 on it. These hats were sold at the winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler. And now, ten years later, one of them turns up in a blue garbage bag on a frozen bay in Port Brendan.
“Somebody weighted the bag down with something,” Closs states. “With a chain like the ones fishermen use on their boats.”
He spreads out his fingers—a gesture I’ve seen him make before. “Let’s take the dog first. It must belong to somebody. Any ideas, Fred?”
“No. Never seen one like it.”
The head is in the small kitchen freezer. Closs doesn’t ask me, but I speak up anyway: “I think it’s a Labradoodle.”
“A what?” Once again those prominent furrows on his forehead.
“A cross between a Labrador retriever and a poodle—very fashionable these days.”
Closs is seated, while Fred and I are standing in front of his desk.
“What did Ann Smith see, exactly?” he asks for the second time.
“She thought it was an injured animal.”
At that moment I get a text message. It’s a reply from the local animal rescue group. I inquired about any missing dogs and left a description.
The lady from Texas complained a couple of days ago that a black-and-white long-haired dog was running loose on her property.
I read the message aloud.
Closs makes a decision.
“Fred, you follow up on the sweatshirt story. Find out who’s worn an Olympics cap and where the chain’s from. And blue garbage bags—nobody has them around here. The bags in the stores are green or black. Gates”—he looks at me smugly—“you ask around in Ghost Bay to find out who’s seen what.”
Sarge assigns me the women again: Shannon Wilkey and Ann Smith.
“And the dog?” I ask.
“We’ll send everything to the lab in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Then at least we’ll know how it died.”
I suppress a s
igh. How miserable it is here! No lab, no medical examiner, no tests. Everything must go to Happy Valley-Goose Bay. It could take days for us to get the results. But no use complaining.
I put on my ski jacket.
“Don’t take the Ski-Doo back, Gates,” Closs warns me. “All hell’s breaking loose out there. Fred can take you home. Take the pickup with the plow, Fred.”
That’s our boss for you: fatherly all of a sudden.
A little later Fred is driving down the main street, the snowplow mounted on the front of the truck. We can see about fifteen feet ahead and crawl along at a snail’s pace. A single car is following us.
“There are always the crazies,” Fred mutters.
“Do you mean the driver behind us or the guy who left the garbage bag on the ice?”
Fred fumbles around the controls for the heater before answering.
“It looks rather calculated to me.”
“So you don’t think it’s a coincidence?”
“Coincidence? When someone decapitates a dog?”
“The perp wants to challenge us,” I mutter. “A mutilated animal. That can only mean You’re next. But who does he mean?”
Fred doesn’t take his eyes off the road. The plow shoves the snow to the side, where white snowbanks are already piling up.
“And why out there on the ice? So far from any houses.”
That has me puzzled. Why not on a doorstep? And why when a blizzard’s coming?
I’m itching to interview Ann Smith. And the lady from Texas after her. But I can forget it for today. This damned weather. I must sit at home twiddling my thumbs. Or get the puzzle going.
I think about the peculiar blue bag.
“I can’t make heads or tails of the chain, either. A clump of ice could have weighted it down just as well.”
Fred says nothing.
I vent my frustration some more. “We didn’t even see any tracks on the ice. The wind was blowing everything away immediately.”
Fred turns onto the narrow road to my house. Snow has barricaded the entrance again. Fred clears it off with the snowplow so I can enter the house. Then he disappears into a nebulous soup.
The stove’s gone out. Luckily, I can also heat with oil. I undress and take a shower. Who knows how long I’ll have hot water. Or light. Power failures during a storm are said to be routine here. I really must buy myself a gas generator for emergencies.
It’s unusual for me to be all by myself. Many people took care of me during rehab. But Martin, my ex, up and left me six months after the assault. He couldn’t stand seeing me weak, injured, clumsy, drooling down my chin, sometimes as helpless as a small child because my brain wasn’t with it. More than anything else, it was my anger he couldn’t take. That anger. It came when it was least expected. From one second to the next. I didn’t have a good grip on my emotions anymore. If I tried to concentrate, my head would start hurting like crazy. I took out my frustration on Martin. I swore and raged and screamed.
My brain let me down. My neural pathways and neurons and receptors didn’t work together properly anymore. It drove me insane. No, it might have driven me insane if I hadn’t had help. I often didn’t want any. Because it made me feel like a child. Dependent, controlled, at everyone’s mercy. Like an illiterate.
Martin’s a veteran cop. Very busy with his work. Not the nursing type. He’d almost always known me to be strong, stubborn, successful. Maybe he thought I’d never recover. That I’d never be myself again. He wasn’t totally wrong. I look like I did before, but otherwise everything’s changed. The one person who really understands me is my doctor, but she’s on maternity leave for a year and thinks I can manage without her.
I boil a pot of water on the stove, add some spaghetti, take the tomato sauce from the cupboard. I miss my kitchen in Vancouver. My apartment’s empty. I didn’t even find time to sublet it. Another reason I want to get back as soon as possible.
A noise. I listen hard. Again. A crunching sound. Then something’s dragging. It seems to be coming from the basement. I go to the stairs and listen again. Nothing. I turn on the light switch and go downstairs. I feel a cold draft. The door is open. I’m convinced I locked it after me. I shout hello. I can’t see or hear anyone. I go get the key. This mustn’t happen again. Visitors—so what? They’ll have to knock. Suddenly I see a bag on the floor, emitting an unpleasant smell. I take a peek inside. Dog shit. Who the hell threw this into my house? Maybe not all my neighbors are as nice as Rick Stout. Or are some kids playing a trick? I did worse things as a kid.
My cell phone rings. Birdsong. I programmed it just before my departure. So that the summer arrives more quickly. First come sounds of rejoicing, then some loud, squawking birds. I don’t want to miss any calls.
“I’ve tried to reach you several times,” the voice at the other end says. I sit down. This conversation will be difficult.
“You can’t get reception everywhere out here; I warned you about that. I was out on the ice, on the frozen North Atlantic. In a blizzard.”
Maybe that will make an impression on the psychiatrist, who’s in his office by the warm Pacific.
But he ignores it.
“How’s it going with the medications?”
He actually means: How’s it going with my brain damage? But he’d never put it like that.
“Good.”
“Are you still having seizures, Mrs. Gates?”
“No.” Good God, I’ve only been here a few days.
My monosyllabic answers irritate him. He hesitates with his next question: “How are you sleeping?”
“Good, if the wind’s not howling around the house. I use earplugs.”
Once again the pregnant pause.
“I’m not your adversary, Mrs. Gates. You know that, don’t you? I’m trying to help you.”
Yes, and you report to the RCMP.
“What about your feelings?”
I don’t want to discuss them. But he does.
“Today, for example, were you aware of strong emotions?”
His turns of phrase. Typical shrink.
I try to shock him.
“I was angry today because we found a severed dog’s head, and I was furious at whoever did it.”
That doesn’t shock him, of course, and now he’s got me on the hook.
“How did you manage your anger?”
“I put the energy from it into my investigation.”
This is the sort of thing he wants to hear, so I give him what he wants.
“That is good, Mrs. Gates, that is progress. Everything will slowly settle down, which was my prediction for you.”
But I didn’t just feel angry. I was also thinking about clues and how we can nab the killer.
“You’re writing in your journal regularly, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
I write whatever you wish to read about me.
“When’s your appointment with Dr. Perrell?”
“I’ll attend to that tomorrow.”
“Good. I’ll call again.”
I look at my watch. One thirty p.m. Nine a.m. in Vancouver. The day is just beginning for him. I press the red button to end the call and stand there listening. The storm drives the air with powerful blasts against the walls of the house, like mighty waves breaking on the rocky coast.
Closs’s voice rings in my ears. All hell’s breaking loose out there.
Question is, which hell?
12
The police are here. Ann watches the slim person from her small kitchen window laboriously getting her leg across the Ski-Doo as she dismounts.
She should have known better. Whatever you do, don’t get involved in things when you can’t foresee the consequences. Actions can get out of hand and lead to personal tragedies. To brutal turning points that can’t be reversed. She regrets that she cleared the snowdrift from her doorstep. Shoveling doesn’t bother her; she likes to work her muscles. The cold air is invigorating. Compensation for her daily work at the computer
. But at that moment a snow barrier in front her door would have been fine by her. To keep visitors out.
On her way to the main entrance, she looks at the mirror in the vestibule. She’s put her makeup on carefully, as she does every morning. She never shows up for anyone with a bare face; that was hers alone. It’s fun to look glamorous in these wild parts. It also makes her popular with the local women who sell makeup as a sideline; they were recruited by a cosmetics company promising them “woman power” and self-liberation. They earn a cut from each sale. Ann supports these women by buying everything possible from them. She also helps people with their computer problems. Looking for a computer store in Port Brendan is a waste of time; the nearest one is in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. But who’s going to drive four hours through the wild tundra when your printer’s on the fritz?
Ann hears a knock at her front door. Locals never knock, they simply walk in. Everybody here does it. She sometimes locks the doors when she doesn’t want to be disturbed. A big sin in rural Labrador, a serious breach of local custom. But she’s from elsewhere, so she’s considered eccentric anyway. An eccentric who spends the summer and fall in Labrador every year, alone, without a partner.
She’s not surprised that the RCMP has sent a woman to her.
“Sergeant Calista Gates,” the officer introduces herself when Ann opens the door. “I’m here because of your telephone call.”
“Please come in.”
The Mountie takes off her boots and her down jacket. Ann escorts her to the living room. Calista Gates sits down on the brown leather chair that is nowhere near Ann’s taste, but in Port Brendan’s only furniture store you can’t be choosy.
“Would you like a cup of coffee? Tea?” she asks.
“No, thank you.”
Calista Gates takes a peek around the room, stopping at a wall hanging. It shows a dog team with a sled. Ann doesn’t miss a thing. The officer’s face glows in the warmth of the wood stove. Dark, almost black hair, tied at the back. Big, melancholy eyes, a regular face that hides nothing. Not even the shadows under her eyes. Or the scar at her hairline.
CRIES FROM THE COLD: A bone-chilling mystery thriller. (Detective Calista Gates 1) Page 8