“Room Eight. Straight ahead and then to the right,” she explains.
I knock on Room Number Eight, and when I don’t hear anything, I quietly go in. Hynes doesn’t even move his head when I approach the bed. He looks terrible. One eye is swollen shut, and two stitches run across his cheek and forehead. Many bruises are scattered around his face and neck.
“Good heavens.” It slips out of my mouth. “He beat you up like a madman.”
Only Hynes’s lips move. “What’s the police want with me now? Go after criminals, not me.”
“My partners have put Dennis Richards in a cell.”
“That’s where he belongs, the idiot.”
“What was the matter?”
“He tried to tear up the scorecard. But I stopped him in time.”
“And then he went after you?”
“Only after I told him I’d shut his mouth for him—he’d spread enough lies.”
“What lies?”
“He claimed that Ann Smith put the blue garbage bag on the ice herself. Somebody saw her, according to him. But the police are protecting her, he said, and you can only wonder about the reason why.”
“Who said they saw her?” I ask, and a faint suspicion is forming deep inside me.
“Nobody saw Ann do it, Constable. He’s just spreading rumors.”
Hynes tries to prop himself up and grimaces in pain. “I hope the rat rots in the slammer.”
I instinctively reach for his hand. I know what it is to lie wounded in a hospital bed and feel abandoned. The impotence, the helplessness. I’m seeing myself the way Martin saw me back then: limp limbs, straggly hair, dull-eyed, unable to construct a meaningful sentence, unable to eat without help. That wasn’t the woman he’d married, who cheerfully jumped into bed with him, who stubbornly persisted through tough times. I’d love to hug and console the woman I was in the hospital at that time and encourage her. Tell her that she’s not alone, that things will be fine.
“You’re the first person to come visit me,” I hear Hynes utter.
I spontaneously stroke his uninjured cheek.
“Kiss me,” he asks.
I do it after not giving it much thought. His lips are dry, but the inside of his mouth is warm and enticing. His tongue comes to meet mine, and his hand grasps my hair knot, which gets even more unruly. If Gerald were uninjured, I’d take off my winter jacket and lie on him, just to feel his body beneath me.
When we stop briefly to catch our breath, reality catches up with me. Oh my God, whatever got into me?
At that moment I hear somebody at the door. I whip around. Georgina Closs comes in. She’s just as surprised as I am.
“I wanted to check on the patient,” she starts off saying.
“I’ll wait outside,” I answer and walk to safety into the corridor.
“It won’t be long,” she calls to me. As if she were afraid I’d escape her.
And in fact, she comes back out before I can focus my thoughts and feelings.
Georgina seems very different in her bright blue nurse’s uniform. More serious than in civilian dress. One thick braid hangs down her back, replacing her two, smaller ones.
“I’ve just come on the night shift,” she explains, surveying me with her childlike eyes.
Did she see anything? No, that’s not possible; I was standing beside the bed when she came in. Close call, though.
“How are my girls?” she inquires.
I need a second to realize that she’s talking about the three athletes.
“I assume they’re okay. They moved into the guest room at noon and seemed satisfied with it. I met them at the firing range this afternoon—they were very excited.”
“They were all in the shooting competition, weren’t they?”
“Yes, and they were very good. But Dennis Richards beat them. They’re still happy because Ann Smith was better than him and could make more money for the clinic. Who’d have thought it?”
Georgina shows zero enthusiasm. “Yes, who would have thought it. So long as there was nothing fishy about it.”
“Do you mean to say . . .”
“Don’t you think that’s an astounding result? I’m surely not the only one who . . . but I shouldn’t say anything. The important thing is that our clinic receives the donation. God knows we need it.”
She goes to the door.
“You can go back in.”
I look at my watch and decline.
“I’ve got to go home and see if everything’s okay. My guests mustn’t feel neglected. Besides, I’ve got the night shift today—like you.”
“Because of the opening ceremonies in the arena?”
“We don’t want any more brawls,” is all I say. As an RCMP officer’s wife, she should actually be able to figure out why the police are more on the alert than usual after there’s been a murder.
“Would you mind fetching my hat and gloves from the room? They’re lying on the chair.”
“Don’t you want to say good-bye to Gerald?”
“I’ve already discussed everything with him I had to, so I don’t want to disturb him anymore. He certainly needs peace and quiet.”
She blinks but carries out my request. I thank her and head for the entrance. I don’t look back, but I know that her eyes are following me.
My car is ice-cold, though I’m burning up inside. I start the motor, turn up the music, and close my eyes. It’s working again! My sexual desire is back. I can finally feel it again. A little out of control, but powerfully beautiful. Something that seemed to be lost forever has returned. My damaged brain has restored some cells. Or receptors. Whatever. It retrieved something from its long sleep. I’m no longer like a robot without a sex drive. I don’t want to think about my going over the line with Gerald Hynes right now. I push it far, far away from me.
The car takes its time warming up. I start off along the road home. As I open the door, I smell cooking aromas. My sense of smell took weeks to come back after the accident. I’ll never again take it for granted. One of the young women is in the kitchen, standing at the stove and stirring a large pot. So much for the community kitchen of the Pentecostal church Georgina talked about. My guests obviously have something else in mind.
“I hope you’ll like it,” the cook says. She’s wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt with white lambs on it. The heating in the house is on full blast.
“Meeka gave us some moose meat, so we added vegetables and made a stew.”
The table is set for four. The athletes have made themselves at home. Fortunately, I locked my office and bedroom, out of caution. I’m standing around in my kitchen, indecisive.
“Wonderful,” I hear myself say. “Where are the other two?”
“They’re still at Meeka’s. They’ve probably lost track of time. They haven’t seen one another for a long time and have lots to catch up on.”
She loosens the clasp in her hair and rearranges her hairdo, although it all looked perfect. That gesture could have been mine.
“They know one another?”
“Yes, Meeka used to be the leader at our summer camp. She was still going with that idiot from Northwest River. She moved to Port Brendan because of Rick. Then we hardly ever saw her. Dulcie is sweet, isn’t she?”
I agree.
“Does Meeka like it in Port Brendan?”
“I think so. Her family lives in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Rick doesn’t want to live there. He needs the open sea.”
“Not surprising for a fisherman,” I remark. I need the ocean, too. The warm Pacific, not the cold North Atlantic.
She opens the freezer door and finds some ice cubes. Am I seeing things? Ice cubes in winter?
“For a fisherman he’s not on the water very often,” she says, pouring Coke into a glass.
I’ve got supplies of both because almost everybody drinks Coke here.
I fill the electric kettle.
“They’re not allowed to fish all the time; there are government quotas.”
/> “I’m just saying. Meeka takes these foster kids in so that she can keep her head above water. And she has her hands full with Dulcie. She can’t travel around and do her throat singing anymore. That’s fine by Rick; he doesn’t like it when Meeka’s away. But throat singing is absolutely vital for her; he should leave her more room to breathe. She’ll wither away otherwise.”
Rick’s probably doing the best he can. Jobs aren’t exactly lying around on the streets of Port Brendan. He helped build the Viking house. So he does earn money apart from fishing. Meanwhile, young women like these athletes have different expectations; many move away in search of a job or a husband. And a more comfortable life.
“Is something not quite right with Dulcie?” I say it in a matter-of-fact voice as I remove a tea bag from a canister.
“She sometimes has medical problems; I don’t exactly know what they are. Meeka often has to take her to the clinic. Dr. Perrell has found some medication that’s expensive. I think he used it as part of a study. Don’t say anything to Rick. Or he’ll freak out. They don’t have much money.”
And yet Meeka gave us some moose meat today. I’m impressed.
“Ah, there they are,” my cook exclaims. “I’m as hungry as a wolf.”
We’re all sitting around the table a few minutes later, and my house is full of chatter and laughter. Naturally all the talk is about Monday’s biathlon and race. I used to be a proficient shot, still am with a pistol and sometimes with a rifle, if my right arm is working. But the biathlon is a whole other dimension. You sprint like crazy over the snow on cross-country skis until you reach the shooting stand—and suddenly you’ve got to be calm and concentrate. All the while, your pulse is racing and your heart’s hammering and your breath comes in puffs, like from an old locomotive.
“How do you do it anyway, sprinting and keeping absolutely calm at the same time?” I ask.
The three women laugh, a bit proudly and a little self-consciously. Then they all talk at once and at one another.
“We each have a mantra, words we say to ourselves. My mantra is ‘Calm and quick.’”
“Mine is ‘Touch and go, and off we go.’”
“I’ve got a new one: ‘I’ll hit it every time.’”
Maybe I could adopt a mantra, too: I never give up.
“Does that help calm you down?” I inquire.
The cook says: “People think we can slow down our heartbeat, but it isn’t so. It doesn’t go that fast.”
“We control our breath. I shoot between breaths.”
“Our trainer taught us how to block out all thoughts while shooting. Then I’m, like, underwater.”
They take a break from eating—that’s how keen they are about their sport.
I’m captivated, too.
“So it’s thought control?” I ask.
“Yes, we try. There are enough things you can’t control. The wind, for example. Or the sun.”
“Today, for instance. Ann Smith waited for a moment when it was almost calm. And the sun wasn’t in her face.”
“She really got that right. We should have waited for the right moment, as she did. Then we’d have had a much higher score.”
I start spooning up my meal again. Must leave soon.
“I heard that Dennis Richards went ballistic. Did you witness any of that?”
“He didn’t catch a good moment they way Ann did. More wind. And the light probably blinded him.”
“Ann’s really got it. I mean she’s really mega good.”
I’m a bit jealous of Ann. She’s impressed these young athletes. But they’re already talking about something else.
“You never know when you’re shooting. The best shot can have a bad time of it. You can come third in one race and eighty-seventh in the next. It sometimes seems like a lottery to me.”
“Like ten years ago in Vancouver.”
“That was at Whistler.”
I prick up my ears. Here come the Olympics once again.
“What happened there?”
“Norway and Germany . . .”
“And Russia.”
“. . . they were the favorites. But an American won.”
“The US had never won a gold medal in biathlon before. The Americans went wild with joy when Yvonne Shelcken won.”
“Of course, we were very disappointed that Canada didn’t win anything.”
“But at least it wasn’t the Russians.”
“Yes, that’s right. You never know what’s up with them.”
I put down my spoon.
“I’m on duty tonight. Do you want me to take you to the opening ceremonies?”
“Ann’s picking us up and bringing us back. She doesn’t want us wandering around alone at night.”
They giggle like young people who think they’re never in danger. I’m irritated, against my will, instead of being thankful for Ann’s help.
“She’s more afraid for us than our parents,” the woman on my right jokes.
“My father says Kris Bakie was killed by a jealous person. If somebody’s successful, then there are always people who are jealous.”
That’s apparently the theory most people stick to.
But Bakie was in debt.
I stand up and take my plate.
“We’ll take care of that,” my guests protest. “We’ve discovered the dishwasher.”
They all laugh.
“We saw the puzzle, too. We could only put in a few pieces.”
“Wait, I’ll show you.”
The cook pushes her chair back and leads the way to the table in the living room. Maybe Ann Smith would have had trouble with a similar invasion of her private space. But in the south of Labrador, the kitchen and living room are treated as public spaces, Closs informed me.
“Here.”
The young woman points to a corner of the puzzle. I look at where her finger lies. Indeed, that part of Port Brendan wasn’t there before.
“You did a good job,” I say appreciatively.
“Pure chance,” she replies, flattered.
I’ve almost finished the built-up area of Port Brendan, with the aid of a magnifying glass. The surroundings, with the monotonous green of the forest and tundra, however, are driving me to despair. There was only one place to latch on to: the log cabins. Just as I am about to turn away, I see something out of the corner of my eye. A little yellow dot on a wooded road. I pick up the magnifying glass. A yellow car.
Only two people in Port Brendan own a yellow car: Georgina and Bernard Closs.
38
Her breath is burning like acid in her lungs. Every stride is an infernal struggle. She takes a quick look around—her pursuers are already there close on her heels. A burst of blood flows through her heart. Her lead has diminished. She pushes more powerfully, her skis flying over the snow.
No longer is her body made of muscle, just determination. The others are faster, stronger, more ruthless. But she will destroy them. Her rifle hangs over her back. Bullets are set. She’s waited fifteen long years for this moment. Fifteen years of quarreling, suffering, submitting. Her opponents have tried everything to annihilate her. They’ve threatened, cheated, and extorted.
Now her time has come. Her goal is very near. She halts her flight, takes her rifle, throws herself onto the snow. Her pulse is racing, her breath turns to gasps.
Then comes an icy calm. It never lets her down. Comes as sure as a faithful dog. A transparent invisible dome sinks over her head, over her hands, the rifle. Leaves everything outside: sounds, people, fear, the struggle, the howling.
She’s suddenly in a quiet church, a place of absolute devotion. Her eye seeks out a target. It’s very sharp, very clear. Her index finger moves with mechanical precision. The report is a release. And then another pop and another and another.
Every shot hits the mark, every shot is a victory. No one can do it like her. At that moment, she’s the Great Destroyer. With each bullet she shreds hopes and danger, ambition and unscrupulousness; s
he shoots her way out to move upward. To the place where she will stand all by herself. Alone and victorious.
39
His eyes comb through the crowd streaming into the arena. An expectant tension permeates the air. Fred can’t understand why the games weren’t canceled following Bakie’s violent death. It should have been a warning to everybody that a murder’s no mere bagatelle. It seems to him that, after the initial shock, people went back to their everyday lives much too quickly. Just as they did after Lorna Taylor’s death. He blames it on too much TV. No matter what house he goes into, the TV is constantly blaring in the background. The crime series have taken away the shock of murder. Even if one occurs in the immediate vicinity.
He’s jumpy. Keeps looking out for Calista Gates. He’s grown accustomed to the daily communication with her, which surprises him. She ought to be a thorn in his side. He actually could have counted on replacing Closs soon. But Closs, whose wife didn’t want to leave just yet, must have made some deal with the RCMP brass, and he doesn’t have any details. He can’t explain what happened any other way. Gates comes to Port Brendan, and Closs stays on. She’s killed Fred’s plans and doesn’t even know it. As a member of the team, Gates is pleasant enough. Better than Delgado or Sullivan. She listens to him and takes him seriously. The job feels different. More diverse. More incalculable. More significant. He’s heard about the attack on her in Vancouver, of course, and that she was in the hospital for quite a spell. Nevertheless, it isn’t clear to him why she was sent to Port Brendan. She’s considered to be an accomplished investigator in spite of being so young. It would have been more logical to send her to Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
So where is she? As a rule, she’s so reliable. He thinks about reaching for his cell phone but hesitates. He wants to avoid any appearance of needing her. He knows the area, been here a lot longer than she has. That’s an advantage she can’t take away from him. Although she’s about his age, she’s ahead of him in many ways. He joined the RCMP six years ago. Before that, he had a junior position in the economics ministry in Saskatchewan. An eight-to-five job. Not his cup of tea. The police work always fascinated him. He’s never regretted his career change—quite the opposite. But his frustration has been growing under Closs. They haven’t got to the bottom of Lorna Taylor’s disappearance. Now they finally have her remains but still no concrete suspect. And Kris Bakie’s murder is a case with enormous question marks. That’s one investigation they mustn’t screw up.
CRIES FROM THE COLD: A bone-chilling mystery thriller. (Detective Calista Gates 1) Page 25