MURDEROUS MORNING: A heart-stopping crime novel with a stunning end.

by Bernadette Calonego

  Tessa looked at Noreen expectantly, but nothing more followed. She asked: “So Fran didn’t tell you why she wanted to move away?”

  “She spoke about having to protect herself and her children. She didn’t say what she had to protect them from. She asked me to promise that I wouldn’t tell Hank anything about our conversation.”

  “Did you tell him about it?”

  “Yes, and I also didn’t promise her anything. Of course I had to discuss the situation with Hank. I’m his boss. He assured me that he wasn’t going to move away. That was just one of Fran’s bad days, he said. She would get over it. She was having a tough time with chronic pain and was taking strong painkillers for it, which made her moody and unpredictable.”

  “Chronic pain? None of us knew about that. She certainly would have asked our father for advice . . . or maybe not. In the last few weeks she had been avoiding him.”

  Noreen shrugged. “Hank was talking about fibromyalgia. That’s why Fran went to a doctor, but she apparently couldn’t help her.”

  “Who gave her the painkillers?”

  Noreen didn’t say anything.

  “Did you tell the police?”

  “Yes.” Noreen hesitated. “I told the police, but I also told them that afterward I didn’t know which parents she had been talking about.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Fran wanted to get away from her parents. Maybe she was talking about her biological parents.”

  “But they don’t even live in Whatou Lake. And they have never had the slightest interest in her. Why would Fran want to run away from them?”

  Noreen didn’t answer for quite a while. “Fran’s mother had many children, likely from different men. Fran probably doesn’t even know who her biological father is.”

  Tessa stared at Noreen, whose eyes were constantly searching the boats at the pier. “So you think that Fran’s biological father is not the man we believe is her biological father?”

  Noreen answered without looking at her: “I think that nobody knows that with certainty.”

  “Are there rumors about who her real father might be?”

  Noreen got up. “I’ll get you another cup of coffee. What would you like?”

  The truth, Tessa would have liked to exclaim. I’d like the truth. But she only answered: “A decaf Americano, please.”

  Her head began spinning. Nothing made any sense. Up until now it seemed that there was some proof that Fran wanted to put some distance between herself and Martha and Kenneth Griffins. With Martha, she had had some kind of conflict, and she acted dismissively toward Kenneth. Fran’s biological parents hadn’t played a role in her later life, except that they had left her with deep psychological wounds from her childhood. Fran thought that she had left that behind her. Perhaps she was too optimistic about this. And it was also possible that the Griffins and Fran’s psychologist had overestimated the extent to which she had healed.

  Tessa saw Noreen standing at the bar and asked herself, even more intrigued, why Tsaytis’s wife really wanted to talk to her. She had the feeling that she had not yet stated the real reason. And so it was.

  Noreen put the two cups of coffee on the table and slowly sat down, as if she were carrying something heavy, before she continued talking. “On the day of the open house, the park ranger was also present. He wanted to get something off his chest. He complained that Fran had called him up and asked him to kill all the bears he came across. Because she had finally had enough of bears; they prowled around her house, making life difficult for her and the children.”

  “Not the ranger who was just arrested?”

  “Oh yes, that one,” Noreen confirmed. She didn’t seem to be as relaxed as she had been when they had started talking.

  “That’s just crazy,” Tessa exclaimed. “Fran loves bears. She’s dedicated to the environment. That’s why she and Hank live in the wilderness. Because she loves nature and the animals. She . . .” Tessa was speechless.

  Noreen drank from her coffee and put her cup down. “On the same day, Hank told me that for three weeks they had been having trouble with a female bear roaming around the farm. Fran was worried about the safety of the children.”

  “That may be, but she wouldn’t have asked someone to kill even one bear. Never. Especially not a female bear who might have a cub somewhere or be pregnant.” Tessa shook her head, deeply upset. “Noreen, I believe the park ranger made it up. Problem bears are tranquilized and transported elsewhere. Nobody knows that better than Fran!”

  “You don’t understand what I’m saying, Tessa. I’m getting at something else. It’s clear to me that the ranger was spreading rumors. Apparently he wanted to get Fran mixed up in something, to make it look like she had something to do with the poachers.”

  “Why?” Tessa spat out this word as if it had ten exclamation marks behind it.

  Noreen played around with some crumbs on the table that had come from Tessa’s muffin. “I can imagine that the ranger was arrested because he was dealing drugs. For a long time there has been talk that—and please don’t mention this to anyone—he probably sold drugs to some of our teenagers.”

  Tessa didn’t interrupt her this time, just waited. Noreen kept talking: “We have a drug problem with our kids. We don’t know exactly where the drugs come from. They come in regularly and . . . it is a real problem for us.”

  “That has to be stopped. The quicker the better. But I still have to ask you: What does this all have to do with Fran?”

  Noreen took a deep breath. “Take this with a grain of salt, Tessa. I’m simply telling you what I’ve heard. Maybe it will help to answer some questions. Fran seems to have called the ranger to the farm many times. Officially, because of the bears around her house, but maybe that was just an excuse.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Do I have to spell it out?”

  Tessa blinked. “He was bringing her illegal painkillers?”

  “Hank thought that was a possibility. But what could he do without proof? It’s not a joke to make such a claim about a ranger. He works for the government.”

  “Who did Hank talk to about this?”

  Noreen didn’t say anything.

  “Have you told that to the police?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was Tsaytis looking for on the farm? Why was he there?”

  “At first Hank told us that somebody was supposed to take over his shift, because he had to stay with the kids a little longer. Fran was supposedly in Whatou Lake because she had so many nosebleeds. But when he didn’t show up at work the next day, either, and we couldn’t reach him or Fran, Tsaytis and . . .” Noreen stopped herself just in time and continued on with a sigh: “He wanted to go look for himself. He happened to be nearby because he was on the heels of some poachers. The whole thing seemed strange to us. I mean, are nosebleeds an emergency?”

  The new pieces of information rolled over Tessa like a rogue wave. She absolutely had to reach Ron Halprin in order to talk to him about it.

  “When did the police question you?”

  “Last night.” Noreen looked at her watch.

  Tessa was not yet finished with her questions. “Do you have any idea, any suspicion, where Fran could be?”

  “I think the ranger knows more. I also told the police that.”

  Tessa looked at her. Noreen wanted to keep the drug dealer away from the young Sitklat’l kids. “But you don’t really think that the poachers killed Hank and the kids and are responsible for Fran’s disappearance?”

  “Also seems crazy to me. But the police will certainly look into it.”

  Noreen got up. Tessa had no choice but to do the same thing.

  “Tsaytis and I are really devastated by what happened. We want to do anything to help find Fran.”

  We. Tsaytis and Noreen. There was still a common bond between the two of them. A bond that hadn’t existed between Tsaytis and Tessa for a long time.

  “I’ve got to
go now. We have another tour group going out to the grizzly-viewing platform.”

  “Is Tsaytis here?” Tessa asked, to her own surprise.

  “No, he’s looking for Fran.” She grabbed Tessa’s hand, and her beautiful face looked worried. “In case you need a room for the night, tell them that at the reception. You’re very welcome to stay here.” She hesitated for a moment, took a look at her guests. “The two of us, you and me, we never had it easy. We always had to fight.” After saying this, Noreen walked past the tourists and disappeared through the door.

  Tessa felt numb. She couldn’t make heads or tails of what Noreen was implying at the end of their talk. If it had been her intention to leave Tessa behind with a question mark, she had been successful. So many unanswered questions haunted her, and she wanted to solve as many as she could as long as she had the opportunity. She put on her windbreaker, went outside, and hurried over to the boat where she had seen Telford Reed disappear.

  She called out his name. No movement. She called again.

  “Mr. Reed sailed away on a yacht, about ten minutes ago,” somebody behind her shouted. Tessa turned around.

  Lynn Prett was in a small motorboat, fiddling around with her life jacket. She had a fisherman’s hat on her head.

  Tessa stood on the pier, unsure of what to do next. “When is Kratz Hilder flying back?”

  “In an hour he’s returning with three tourists. I’m sure that he could also take you back to Whatou Lake.”

  The bear researcher put some binoculars around her neck and bent over the boat’s motor. Tessa watched her from the pier. Suddenly she had an idea. In front of her was a chance that she didn’t want to miss. “Can you take me along?” she asked spontaneously. “I’d like to hear more about your work.”

  Lynn Prett looked up, surprised. “I don’t know whether . . .” Her eyes darted to the lodge.

  Tessa knew that now she had to take a risk. “I’m here at Noreen’s invitation.” She didn’t mention that she had only been invited to spend the night.

  “In that case, it’s not forbidden to take you along,” Lynn Prett said. There was a defiant undertone in her voice. “The blue-and-red life jacket should fit you.”

  Tessa pulled the life vest over her windbreaker and climbed from the pier into the boat. Lynn started up the motor and steered the vessel along the forested coast. Only a small strip of rocks separated the trees from the water. Soft green moss glowed on the dark surface where the ocean fringe met the boulders. She could hear the shrill calls of the bald eagles.

  Tessa pulled up the hood of her jacket. Suddenly a narrow fjord opened up in front of them, which looked like an estuary. The water meandered through the bright-green meadows that stood out against the darker background. At the end of the fjord there was a round hill that pushed into the sky and behind it were higher snow-capped mountain peaks that stood like palisades next to each other.

  Lynn carefully steered the boat up the fjord, past sandbars. When the waterway became shallower, she shut down the motor. She was constantly looking at the meadows and forests. “About this time, Polly comes here to feed on grass. Somebody killed her youngest cub. It was a seventeen-month-old male. He was very much in danger because Polly had recently chased him off. She wanted to breed again and have new cubs.”

  Tessa listened carefully. Somebody killed her cub. She remembered Harrison Miller’s hate-filled tirade in which he claimed that this somebody was a Sitklat’l. That was really an ugly accusation.

  “Polly’s the name of the mother?”

  “Yes, number 23-E in my files, but I call her Polly.” The researcher’s voice was filled with tenderness. A classic bob surrounded her round face. “These bears are part of my research project.” She opened her notebook and typed something in. Then she looked through her binoculars. “There she is . . . good old Polly. Usually around this time, she shows up here. But two male bears have been missing for quite a while now. At least they haven’t yet shot our Polly.”

  Tessa noticed a brown outline in the grass.

  “Three dead grizzlies, and the lodge still refuses to let us go public about it,” Lynn mumbled, without putting down her binoculars. She stood with her feet wide apart in the rocking boat. “As if we could keep that quiet much longer. They have to catch the guys who did this before they do more damage.”

  “Lynn, do you think that the murders of Hank and the children have something to do with the dead grizzlies? And with Fran’s disappearance?”

  Lynn lowered her binoculars and sat down on the bench without taking her eyes off the shore.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think so. We thought maybe Fran was having a midlife crisis and that she was questioning her whole life. That she was sort of out of control.”

  “Did Hank tell you that?”

  Lynn hesitated. “On the day of the open house, Fran . . . she accused me of wanting to get involved with Hank.”

  “Do you mean—she thought that Hank and you were having an affair?”

  “Yes . . . or no.” Lynn struggled for words. “I think she was looking for a reason to convince Hank to move away with her and the children. That was my impression. That she wanted to grind him down.”

  Tessa decided to risk her next question. “Is that the reason you went with Tsaytis Chelin to Hank’s farm? To clear up the matter with Fran?”

  Lynn turned her head away. Her eyes were following Polly, who was wandering through the meadow. The longer she didn’t say anything, the more convinced Tessa was that her question had hit the mark. She added: “Lynn, what did you see at the farm? I really have to know this.”

  The bear researcher fooled around with the binoculars. “I’m very sorry,” she finally said, “but I can’t help you with this matter.”

  Tessa’s voice got sharper. “Maybe your observations would be helpful in finding Fran. We are running out of time.”

  But Lynn Prett no longer seemed to be listening to Tessa. Instead she called out: “What the hell’s going on there?” She put on the zoom lens of her camera and began to film.

  Tessa noticed movement at the edge of the forest. She grabbed Lynn’s binoculars and stood up so that she could see what was moving out there. Not a grizzly. Before she could say anything, she heard Lynn Prett swearing. “For Christ’s sake!”

  Then her loud voice ripped through the silence over the delta. It was a war cry that shook Tessa up. The boat began to rock heavily, and they both had to sit down.

  The researcher said with a hoarse voice: “Gone, he fled the scene.”

  Tessa looked through the binoculars. The bear was still there. Lynn wasn’t talking about Polly, but about a human figure who had been waiting at the edge of the woods and whom Tessa had also seen with the binoculars.

  “Who was that?” she asked, and a suspicion rose in her.

  A furious look appeared on the researcher’s face. “Whoever it was, I have this person on film.” Lynn watched it on her display. “The picture is not very sharp, but I can see that he’s carrying a gun. Certainly someone who shouldn’t be here.” She started up the boat’s motor.

  Tessa asked again: “What did you see at the farm, Lynn?”

  The researcher waved her off, irritated. “I really can’t tell you anything about that.”

  Disappointed, Tessa pressed her lips together. Then she remembered something Lynn had said: I am more afraid of aggressive dogs than of grizzlies.

  Lynn was telling the truth. She couldn’t say anything about the farm murders because she hadn’t seen anything at all. Tsaytis had approached the house alone, because Lynn wanted to stay away. She had heard the dogs’ hysterical barking and probably asked Tsaytis to take care of locking the dogs up. When Tsaytis saw the first body, he kept Lynn away from the scene of the crime.

  At that moment the bear researcher angrily threw a rope to the back of the boat. “Now, you tell me why this guy showed up near Polly with a gun. And why he ran away when he heard me yelling. Hunting is illegal here! I don’t k
now why Noreen won’t go public about this.” Her eyes glared.

  Is it possible that Fran or Hank knew something about the way the poachers worked?

  Lynn climbed to the stern. “I’ve got to get back to warn the others.”

  “Will you inform Noreen?”

  “Yes, I’ll show her the film.”

  “And the police?”

  “If I say something to them, I can forget about my project here. Noreen would never forgive me. She has to make the decision about that.”

  She sat down again, took the memory card from the camera, and put it in the laptop. She worked with great concentration until she had downloaded everything.

  Then she tried to hand the memory card to Tessa.

  “Give that to the police. I’ll tell Noreen that you have seen everything and now she has to do something before it’s too late.”

  Tessa didn’t take the memory card. “I just can’t do that. It’s only a suspicion: he . . . didn’t shoot a bear in front of our eyes.”

  Lynn’s face got dark. “What about if it has something to do with Fran’s disappearance? It can’t just be a coincidence that these . . . things happened at the same time.”

  The researcher had pushed the right buttons. Tessa put the memory card in the breast pocket of her windbreaker. Lynn got the motor running again, and they glided out from the fjord. Polly was only a brown speck now, and then she disappeared altogether. Tessa had a bad feeling, as if they were sending the bear off to an uncertain fate.

  There was another thought that made her uneasy: Maybe the guy with the gun felt threatened. He had noticed the two women in the boat looking in his direction with binoculars and a camera. Could he figure out their identities? If four people had been gotten rid of and Fran had been abducted, what difference did two more deaths make?

  Tessa kept her thoughts to herself; Lynn was already worried enough.

  When they reached the pier ten minutes later, they didn’t see anybody. Lynn tied the boat up, and they gave each other a hand to climb out.

  “What are you going to do now?” the researcher asked.