Fire Lake

by J C Paulson

  “We’re there,” she whispered to Adam.

  “I can feel it,” he said, letting out a breath. “Let me go first, now, Grace. But stay close behind, in case the killer is still around.”

  Adam stopped and held up his arm again, in a signal to the other officers. He said something sotto voce to Al, who stepped ahead of Grace. The two police officers, one municipal, one federal, drew weapons — Al had provided one for Adam — and advanced down the last few metres of the trail.

  There, in a clearing, stood a cabin — small, but palatial compared to the burned-out shack on the island. An outhouse was behind it, along with a small shed. All three buildings needed considerable attention but looked sturdy enough.

  Grace wondered if Elias was inside — or his killer, armed, dangerous and possibly deranged: he could start shooting immediately from the shelter of the cabin. Al made a swinging motion with his hand, and in seconds the officers surrounded the main building. One, two, three . . .

  “Police!” Al bellowed, kicking in the door at the identical moment.

  It was only a one-room shack. Adam and Al determined immediately that no one was moving inside. Officers who had deployed to the outhouse and shed waited for Al’s call, which came a second later.

  “All clear,” Al called.

  “All clear in the outhouse.”

  “All clear in the shed.”

  Adam walked into the cabin and straight over to the mangled body lying on the floor.

  They had found Elias Crow.

  Chapter Eight

  A revolting mess of blood, splintered bone and grey matter disfigured the back of the dead man’s head. The killer had gone in to dig for and remove the ammunition. He had apparently been successful.

  Unless, of course, the bullet had gone straight through. Adam and Al carefully turned Elias over to see if there was an exit wound, but there was not. Ballistics wouldn’t be helping them much in this investigation.

  “What now?” Adam asked Al, since it was officially his case.

  “We get him out of here. Fast. The body is already worse for wear.”

  Adam thought for a moment. How fast could they get the pathologist out here? Could they fly him out of Saskatoon in a hell of a hurry? No. Not fast enough. Did Meadow Lake have a coroner? He asked Al.

  “No. No coroner; only some members of the northern major crime unit of the RCMP. Including me.”

  Al was right. They would have to do what they could, take pictures and get the body out of harm’s way — out of the killer’s reach, and of the beasts and insects of the forest.

  “Got a tarp?”

  “Yeah. Ellard brought one in his kit.”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Adam went out to speak to Grace, while Al called together his officers and began giving orders.

  “Grace, Elias is inside.”

  “I thought he must be. You’ve been in there for a while.”

  “We’re going to bring his body out and take him back. We can’t leave him here any longer. Are you ready for that?”

  “N – no. But I don’t see a choice. I’ll have to get ready.”

  “I’m going to help Al. I won’t be long. Are you okay?”

  Grace nodded, although limply.

  “I’d feel better if you weren’t out here, even with the other cops. God knows if this guy is still around. Could you head into the shed, maybe?”

  “I’d rather be in the cabin with you.”

  “It will be upsetting.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll ask Al if he’s okay with that. It’s not exactly protocol, but it would be safer. You can’t report on anything though, okay?”

  Grace bristled. “Not on anything? Adam, a man is dead by violent means. It’s reportable. And I’m a witness. Again.”

  Adam sighed. “I know.”

  In the end, Adam, Al and Grace agreed that she could report the death of Elias Crow, but not his name; that he was found near Ferguson Lake, Saskatchewan; that the RCMP was treating the death as a homicide. But any forensic evidence was off the record, for now.

  “What about the fire? Forty people saw the flames, as they were dying, anyway,” Grace argued. “That piece of news is already all over the rural municipality and the provincial park, I guarantee it.”

  “Fine,” Al groused.

  Adam permitted himself a small grin as he turned back to the cabin. Grace got her way, as usual.

  “I’m going to try calling the forensic pathologist,” he said to Al, as they prepared to re-enter the shack. “See if he has any advice.”

  “It’s Sunday at seven-thirty in the morning, Adam.”

  “I have his home number.”

  “Have at it. Grace, this is pretty gory.”

  “So was the dead bishop I found with his head bashed in this spring.”

  Al’s eyes widened. “You’re always in the wrong place, aren’t you?”

  “So it seems.”

  Even so, Grace hesitated before entering the cabin. She hadn’t known the bishop, but she did know Elias, making his death a different and more personal matter.

  Adam and Al had left Elias on his stomach after turning him over, briefly, to check for an exit wound. Adam now stalked over to him and placed his big body between Grace and the corpse.

  “Stay by the door, Grace,” he asked. “Okay, let’s see if I can get any cell service.”

  Adam dialled the home number of Jack McDougall, the aging Scot who headed the sole pathology department in the province; he performed all autopsies in cases of suspicious deaths. Adam hoped he would get reception for his cellphone, that Jack was home, and he wouldn’t ask Adam to go to hell.

  The phone worked. At least, Adam could hear ringing.

  “McDougall,” came a big voice with a soft brogue.

  “Jack. It’s Adam Davis.”

  “Go to hell, Sergeant. It’s seven-fucking-thirty in the blasted a.m. On a Sunday. My day off.”

  “Jack, I’m standing in a shack in the middle of nowhere in northern Saskatchewan looking at a body with a big hole in its skull.” Adam rattled the sentence off as quickly as he could. Jack wasn’t above hanging up.

  There was a pause, but Jack was still on the line.

  “I don’t know how long I’m going to have reception,” Adam added.

  “Okay. You still owe me scotch from the last time. What do you need?”

  Adam’s lip curved upward. Got him.

  “Tell me what to look for before we move him. We have to get him out of here. He’s already a little fucked up.”

  “You mean apart from being, what, bashed in the head?”

  “Shot, actually. And yeah, animals or birds and insects. He was also in a fire, but he was alive at the time.”

  “Right.”

  Jack talked Adam and Al through checking and preserving the wound to the extent possible, although there was little they could do with what they had on hand.

  “Are there any other wounds?”

  “We’re checking now.”

  They found no more gunshot wounds, but Elias was badly burned on his hands and face, as well as scratched and bruised, likely from flinging himself out the window of his fishing shack.

  “Okay. Bag him up tight and get him out of there. Oxygen is your enemy. How long before he gets to Saskatoon?”

  Adam looked at Al, who could hear Jack’s voice over the phone.

  “Depends how fast I can get a plane and an ambulance,” Al said. “First we have to get him out of here and to Meadow Lake, which has the nearest air strip and ambulance service.”

  Adam nodded. “Not sure how long this will take,” he told Jack. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Get a move on, gentlemen. The sooner, the better. Goodbye. Don’t forget to take a hundred pictures. Or my scotch.”

  Officers took photos, wrapped the body, gathered evidence and prepared to head back. Police tape would be no help to them here, so they had to do what they could under the time constr
aints and accept the consequences.

  Four officers heaved Elias Crow into their arms and arranged themselves to protect his mutilated head. They carried his heavy body, stiff in rigor mortis, down the narrow paths of the forest.

  Grace led the way out of the clearing, back along the trails and to the water’s edge. She knew she would have to file a story the moment she returned to the cabin and focused her attention on writing it in her head. It diverted her from the horror following behind.

  Al Simpson had called for an ambulance before they started to wrap and move the body, and Adam caught himself praying the emergency vehicle would be waiting when they returned to the cabin area, although he knew it was unlikely to arrive so quickly. He wanted Elias’s body on its way to Saskatoon, and in the hands of Jack McDougall, as fast as possible — not only for the sake of the investigation, but to release Grace from the pain his presence brought.

  Finally, they made it to the shoreline and carefully placed the body in one of the boats. During a silent and sombre trip back across the water, Adam held Grace tightly, trying to comfort her against his heart.

  “We’re going to have company when we get back,” Adam said to Al, as quietly as possible over Grace’s head and the motor’s noise. He nodded toward the shore.

  “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that.”

  “If you want, I can try to do crowd control while you deal with the victim.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Good luck,” said Grace. She knew her fellow cottagers.

  The ambulance had not yet arrived, but Tillie was there, standing on the dock awaiting them, with the others gathered behind on the beach. Grace touched Adam’s face and disentangled herself from his grip.

  “Let me see what I can do,” she said, jumping out of the boat as it slipped onto the beach. “Give me a minute.”

  She took the few steps across the sand and walked onto the dock, where she put her arms around Tillie.

  “You don’t want to see this, Tillie. Go back to the cottage.”

  As Grace spoke, more cottagers began to arrive at the beach. They’d been watching from their lakefront windows, waiting for the police to return. Curiosity won over fear, and a small crowd began to form as it had in the middle of the night.

  “Everyone,” Grace said steadily. “Go back. Give the police some room to deal with . . . with this. Please.”

  She surveyed the cottagers as they hesitated.

  “We need to know what’s going on, Grace,” said one of the men. He owned a new and fancy cottage — more of a house, really — four doors down from the Rampling place. George Best was not one of Grace’s favourite neighbours; he liked to think he was in charge, and it tended to get on her nerves.

  She sighed and turned to Adam, by now out of the boat and on the beach, keeping his body positioned between the cottagers and the corpse.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam said, his big baritone booming authority. “We can’t tell you much yet. There has been an incident.”

  “What’s it got to do with the fire last night?” George asked. “Obviously someone is dead.”

  “The fire was part of it,” Adam said, being as vague as possible. He opened his mouth to ask them again to back away, but the scream of a siren split the air. Adam waded into the crowd.

  “Okay, everyone, please leave the greenway. Quickly. Right now!” he shouted, as some of the cottagers stood as if frozen in place. “Please let the ambulance through.”

  Left with no choice but to move or be mowed down, the group split apart to give the ambulance access.

  The big vehicle stopped and two paramedics leaped out, spun to the back of it, pulled out a gurney and hurried to the boat. With help from the police officers, they rapidly and expertly covered the body with a sheet, lifted him onto the gurney and back into the ambulance. And drove away.

  It happened so fast, the cottagers seemed dumbfounded; but as soon as the ambulance left, a babble of voices rose again. Grace turned and ran down the path back to her cabin, leaving Adam and Al to argue with Tillie, George, and the rest of them.

  *****

  “Claire, it’s Grace. I’m sorry to bother you at home on a Sunday.”

  “Hi, Grace,” said Claire Davidson, the city editor at the StarPhoenix. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the lake?”

  “Yes, and I am, which is partly why I didn’t check to see who is on call this weekend. So, I called you. Claire, I have a story for tomorrow’s paper.”

  “From Meadow Lake? Or wherever you are?”

  “I’m near Meadow Lake, at Ferguson Lake. There was a fire here last night, Claire, and a man died. But he didn’t die in the fire. He was shot in the head.”

  There was a pause at Claire’s end.

  “And you know this because? Are you getting press releases on your phone?”

  “We found him, Claire. Adam and I found him.”

  “Not again. Christ, Grace. That’s two bodies you’ve found in what, seven months? Well, three, sort of.” She paused again. “Are you all right?” she asked in a different tone.

  “No, not really.” Grace gave a funny little bark, a laugh choked with tears. She cleared her throat. “I knew him, slightly. The victim. It’s a long story.”

  “I have time.”

  Grace gave her the short version. She wanted to get at writing the story.

  “Right,” said Claire. “Wow. I’ll let John know it’s coming. Do you know when the RCMP will send a release?”

  “No, they didn’t say. They were scrambling to get the body out of the forest and into Saskatoon as fast as possible for the autopsy, and I bet half the detachment was here.”

  “Okay. Got a story length for me?”

  “It won’t be very long — maybe six hundred words. Can the weekend reporter get some reax, if the release shows up in time? I can give you the details and the colour.”

  “No problem. Thanks, Grace. Take care of yourself up there, for God’s sake. Adam’s with you now?”

  “Yes,” Grace lied. “We’ll be fine. Thanks, Claire.”

  Grace hung up and buried her face in her hands. She took a few deep breaths, and when she looked up again, two bloodshot eyes were staring at her through the window.

  Chapter Nine

  No time nor breath to scream. Grace shot out of her chair, turned hard right, ran through the kitchen and bolted out the back door, down the driveway, out to the dirt road and turned left to the greenway.

  Then she screamed.

  “Adam!”

  In deep conversation with Al and two other officers, standing on the slope of the beach, his head snapped around when he heard Grace’s voice; he saw her sprinting toward him, hair streaming behind her. He loped up the slant and ran toward her, taking in her wide eyes and full-tilt flight.

  Adam caught her by the shoulders.

  “Grace, what the hell? Are you all right?”

  She wanted to throw herself into his arms and cry, but Grace would be damned before showing that kind of weakness or emotion before the other officers.

  “There’s . . . a . . . man . . . “

  “Slow down, Grace. Catch your breath.”

  “No! There’s a . . . man at . . . the cabin,” she got out. “He was staring at . . . me through the . . . the window and then tried to open the door.”

  “Did you recognize him?” Adam asked, motioning to the other officers.

  “I don’t know. It happened so fast.”

  Adam, with Grace in tow, strode with the other officers toward the cabin, guns drawn.

  “Did you see a weapon?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong with this guy? Can’t he see all the cops crawling around here? Dave, can you radio Al and get him over here?”

  “Sure thing, Sarge.”

  “Where the hell are we going to put you, Grace?”

  It seemed clear nowhere was safe right now. Adam stopped for a fleeting second, stared at the woman he loved, and shook his head.
<
br />   “Stay behind me.”

  A minute later, six officers surrounded the Rampling cabin, but found no one outside, nor in the shed.

  “Going in,” someone said.

  Two officers surged through the front door, and two came in the back. No one inside, either. The red-eyed man was gone; but he had obviously been there. Chairs had been toppled. Grace looked around wildly, worried now about her computer and cellphone.

  “I’m staying with Grace,” Adam told the officers. “No choice.” They nodded and left to search the subdivision.

  Grace dropped to her knees and fished under the table; her phone was there, tucked under the oak pedestal. She must have knocked it down in her hurry, spun it skidding along the carpet. As she rose, Adam reached for her; but she said one word and rushed to the bedroom.

  “Computer.”

  Grace always hid her computer when she travelled, and that included trips to the cabin. The Rampling family had experienced one break-in, over all the years they’d been coming to Ferguson Lake; the only victim had been the liquor cabinet. Even so, thought Grace, my life is in that laptop. No point in advertising its existence.

  Again on her knees, she dug it out from under the bed, and collapsed with relief.

  “I have to write a story. Thank God it’s here.”

  Adam gave her a crooked grin. “Is that all you can think about?”

  “No.” Grace crawled across the floor, clawed up Adam’s body and pressed herself into him. “No. Oh, Adam. This is not what I had in mind.”

  He wrapped her tightly in his arms. “Thank God you’re safe. To hell with the computer.”

  “To hell with peace and quiet and making love, too.” A bitter tone crept into her voice.

  “Hey, hey, Babe, it’s going to be okay. None of this is anyone’s fault; we’ll find some time.”

  “We didn’t get to California, either,” Grace mumbled. It still stung that they had been forced to cancel a four-day getaway in the summer due to another violent death. Adam had been in California, hoping Grace would meet him there; but he was forced to come home, as the police service’s foremost crime solver.

  “I know.”

  The scales of guilt were balancing, but it was little comfort to Grace.