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

by Bernadette Calonego

  Intermittently, she took a sip of water. Time and again she stumbled over roots and stumps. Far away she heard a helicopter. The police were following up on Tsaytis Chelin’s phone call.

  Shortly after two o’clock, she reached the logging road. Her sweaty T-shirt stuck to her back, but the closer she came to her destination, the better she felt. She still had an hour to go. When she heard a truck approaching, she hid in the bushes and let it go by. She’d encountered no other vehicles by the time she saw the driveway to Fran’s farm ahead. With a racing pulse she walked up to the house. Other than tire tracks she didn’t see any sign that the police was still here. The yellow-and-black plastic tape was gone.

  She went around the corner and threw off her mosquito net. There was no seal at the door. She breathed a sigh of relief. Her calculation had paid off, and she had the house all to herself before the Millers showed up the next day.

  The door was locked, but she knew where she would find a hidden key. She picked up a flat stone and found it in a plastic bag underneath it. The people around here didn’t put any effort into finding good hiding places. Like Cindy with her flowerpot. Tessa took off her hiking boots and entered the house in her socks. A feeling of cold dread crept up in her. And it wasn’t just the cold of the unheated rooms.

  She quickly bolted the door behind her.

  The afternoon light flowed through three windows into the kitchen. It was the sunniest room and had also been the warmest. It was here that she had sat and talked with Fran over coffee, frequently interrupted by the kids asking questions or wanting to show them something. She remembered how often she and Fran had discussed their shared childhood experiences, school and their teachers, girls and boys they didn’t like, tricks that the other foster children had played on them and how they took their revenge. Back then Fran had never mentioned the problems and fears that tortured her. The only thing she did complain openly about was her loneliness.

  Tessa noticed old bits of food and crumbs on the big wooden table that Hank had built with his own hands. When Fran wasn’t home, Hank hadn’t been in any hurry to put the dirty dishes away. Tessa assumed that the police had taken the used dishes and cutlery to check for evidence. She also noticed the many places with white powder on the doors and furniture where the police had clearly searched for fingerprints.

  There were colored lines and arrows on the linoleum floors, apparently the paths taken by the killer or the children. Everything else in the house appeared to be completely normal. As if at any moment the children and Fran and Hank would storm in and hug her.

  The sweat on her body felt cold. Tessa put on her vest and left her backpack and hat on a kitchen chair. With a dull ache in her stomach, she made her way into the living room, which was separated by a sliding door from the kitchen. She had to turn on the light because the room was dark. The colored lines on the floor continued on from here. She took out her cell phone and began to take photographs. This technical procedure gave her some more distance from what she knew was coming.

  The first thing that caught her attention in the living room was a lamp that had been knocked over. A children’s picture book lay on the sofa, a rumpled wool blanket next to it, a folded map on the side table, Kayley’s rocking horse next to the mini piano. Toys for the dogs on the colorful woven rug. The beginning of a knitting project near the window. A string of lights hung over the fireplace ledge.

  Tessa had slept on this sofa bed when she had visited. But something was missing. She thought about it, but she couldn’t remember what it was. The room smelled of incense, as it always had. She couldn’t see any incense sticks, but probably the smell was still in the fabric of the furniture. Fran had laughed when Tessa had teased her about it and said: “Otherwise it always smells like wet dogs in here.” The dogs! On the hike to the farm she had come up with a new theory. Maybe Hank had locked them in the storage room on that terrible day because, with their wild barking, they had made a racket when the grizzly showed up. Hank wanted to make sure that the dogs didn’t make the bear really mad. And all that noise might have covered up a lot of other noises.

  Holding her breath, she went down the hall to the bathroom. The door was partly open, and here she saw dried blood for the first time. Blood everywhere. On the floor, in the bathtub, on the edge of the tub, on the walls. Clyde’s blood. He must have tried to get away from the murderer, must have wanted to hide in the bathroom. But he wasn’t quick enough to lock the door, which had not been kicked in or shot at. It seemed as if he hadn’t been hit right away, but had run around in his prison to try and avoid the bullets whose holes Tessa discovered on the wall and window frame.

  She documented everything with her camera, this time as a movie.

  Maybe Clyde had tried to get outside through the kitchen door. But somebody had cut off his escape route. Maybe he ran around the sofa into the hallway and then to the bathroom. A six-year-old boy running for his life.

  By then, Hank was already dead. He couldn’t help Clyde anymore. And Breena, his sister, who was two years older, couldn’t help him, either. The attacker must have killed her before the others because he thought that his victims would all be in the children’s bedroom. But Kayley and Clyde must have been in the master bedroom, where Fran often let them play. Tessa knew that from her visits there. Breena liked to close the door of the children’s bedroom when she wanted peace and quiet.

  That was the best explanation Tessa could come up with. She was pretty sure that the children were all on the upstairs floor when the murderer came into the house. It was possible that Hank had sent them upstairs because a grizzly was near the house. Bears were strong enough to knock in house doors. On the upper floor the kids were safer. It was probably a routine event: bear around the house, children go upstairs, close the doors. Fran was in Whatou Lake because of her nosebleeds. The children ignored the shots they heard. Hank always tried to drive off the bears with shots. For some reason he had left the main door unlocked. Maybe the children thought it was their father when they heard steps on the creaking stairs, just like she now heard her own steps.

  The children’s bedroom was on the right side. Tessa opened the door. She wasn’t prepared for the sight of Breena’s blood-spotted bed. She closed her eyes for a moment to gather her thoughts and then went closer. The blankets were pushed off to the side. Breena had probably sat down on the bed, propped up by pillows, to read as she liked to do. Blood had soaked into the pillows. Bloodstains were sprinkled all across the wooden wall. Nevertheless it didn’t look like there had been a struggle. The murderer had walked in with his gun, pressed it against Breena’s temple, and pulled the trigger.

  The bunk beds didn’t show any signs of violence. There was a book on a stool in the corner: The Dragon Slayer. No bloodstains on it. That couldn’t have been the book Breena was reading when the killer came in. The police must have taken it with them.

  Tessa heard a knocking in the quiet house and listened intently, but it must have been the wind that was beginning to blow. Would Breena have had time to scream? Could she have warned Clyde and Kayley? Maybe not, but both of them must have been able to hear the shot in the children’s room.

  Hadn’t Tsaytis told her father that Kayley had hidden behind the laundry basket?

  As if being drawn in by a ghostly magnet, Tessa went to the door of Fran and Hank’s bedroom. She had to compose herself before going in. She breathed hard and turned the doorknob. The bed was unmade—not one of Hank’s priorities. Tessa let her eyes move around the room. The laundry basket stood in the corner. But she didn’t see any blood. Nothing. The parents’ bedroom was not where the gruesome deed could have taken place. It was the only room with wall-to-wall carpet, and it had no bloodstains.

  But the killer knew he would find Kayley somewhere up here. Tessa suddenly had a hunch where she should search. Just as the murderer had realized where he would hunt down the child. In the narrow corners of the unfinished attic. It was where the cats liked to sleep and where the dogs ha
d their baskets.

  The dog baskets. Tessa closed the bedroom door, bent down, and felt her way through a narrow passage into the attic. Here, too, she noticed chalked arrows on the floor. Her nerves were on edge as she turned the corner.

  And then she saw it. Dark, dry blood. In front of one of the big dog baskets. And on the cushion in the basket.

  Kayley had hidden herself in it. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Fran had once told her that she had been looking for her youngest child when Kayley was two or three years old. Fran only found her after calling her name frantically, again and again: Kayley had been asleep in one of the dog baskets. It was where Kayley had sought shelter from the murderer. Four years old and so smart.

  Tessa stared at the basket and her trachea constricted. She couldn’t breathe.

  She pushed through the narrow exit of the attic and stumbled down the stairs. Away. She had to get away. From the living room into the kitchen. Open the door. Like hunted prey, she unbolted the door and ran outside. She took in deep breaths, over and over.

  Her feet felt the grass through her socks. She sat down on a tree stump and looked at the house in the sun that, in better times, she used to find so inviting. An idyllic oasis in the wilderness. Now it was a house of horrors.

  The mosquitoes were buzzing around her. Reluctantly she returned to the kitchen, put on her hiking boots, and shouldered her backpack. On her way out, she hid her pistol in her jacket pocket. In front of the house, she crossed the clearing, surveyed the surroundings. A small white cross near the chicken coop caught her eye. The flat heap of soil around it looked fresh. Rosie’s grave, which the police had investigated. Somebody had painted cat paws and Rosie’s name on the white cross.

  Tessa walked to the other side of the house. With her eyes on the ground, she crisscrossed the meadow. She didn’t find anything suspicious until she reached the edge of the grassy clearing. A spot that was darker, the grass flattened. Patches of soil, traces of white chalk. That must have been where Hank fell to the ground with deadly bullets in his body that he couldn’t have seen coming. The murderer must have been very close. Hank probably talked with him, not suspecting anything evil.

  She looked up at the house. Maybe one of the children had appeared under the window when there were voices outside, and the murderer saw the child. And the child saw him. Once again she felt a cold shudder run down her spine. Nearby in the woods she heard a rustling and cracking. A bear? It could be any kind of wild animal. Maybe a deer.

  She walked back to the front of the house, where she remembered how Fran had once laughingly told her that she had hidden her camera outside in an old wooden nesting box for birds, because Clyde had tried to take the camera apart to study it. Tessa didn’t see any nesting boxes on the wall of the house. A couple of meters from the edge of the forest, she detected a group of three cedars. Quickly she found what she was looking for. The nesting box was low enough on the tree that she was able to open it. Inside lay a compact camera in a plastic bag. The camera she had given Fran as a gift on her last birthday. It had been a present with a message: Fran, don’t dismiss the digital age completely. For the sake of your children. That should also be possible on a farm in the bush.

  She put on her latex gloves and carried the camera out of the shadows into the light of the clearing. To her surprise, she could start up the device with no trouble. She looked at the stored pictures, one after another, while she waved off the bugs. It began with various photos of flowers in a room. After looking at dozens of photos, she knew where Fran had taken the pictures: in the lounge in Cindy’s boutique.

  It must have always been at night, judging by the light of the lamps. The heavy curtains were pulled shut in all the photos. Now Tessa also understood where Fran had spent the night when she was in Whatou Lake. She must have done it secretly because Cindy had no idea. Fran would never have asked Cindy for permission. She had somehow found out about the key in the flowerpot. Maybe she had seen Cindy by chance when she hid the key.

  Just then, a shadow fell across her.

  Big and black.

  42

  Shocked to the core, she spun around.

  Cliff Bight.

  What in god’s name was Lionel’s employee doing here?

  “Cliff! Have you gone crazy, sneaking up like that? I almost had a heart attack!”

  Cliff stopped and shifted his heavy body from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry, Tessa. I didn’t know that you—”

  “What are you doing here?” Her shock had changed into anger.

  The extra-long T-shirt that fluttered around Cliff’s massive body was soaked with sweat. He hit himself on the forehead where the no-see-ums were flying around.

  “Lionel . . . sent me over here to see . . . whether the police had finished . . .”

  “Is Lionel also here?”

  He shook his head.

  Shit. Kratz Hilder had talked. She got angrier. “Why didn’t I hear an engine?”

  “My pickup is down below. I didn’t want to unnecessarily . . . I mean, I didn’t know what was going on up here.” He looked at the ground and then off to the side. His face folded up like a flower at nightfall.

  Suddenly she saw something moving. Cliff had a poker in his right hand. She put her hand in her jacket pocket and took a hold of her pistol. “Cliff, put that poker on the ground and take ten steps back!”

  “How? What . . . ?”

  “Do exactly what I say,” she yelled sharply.

  He understood that she was serious. The poker fell on the grass and Cliff stepped some meters away.

  She picked it up at once and asked: “Where did you get that?”

  “It . . . was lying in the back of my pickup.”

  “And how did it get here?” She clutched the gun in her pocket.

  “No idea.” He shuddered nervously.

  “Cliff, don’t play any games with me. You’ll be sorry if you do.” She pointed with the poker in his direction.

  “I took it with me from the cabin.”

  “Which cabin?”

  “Lionel’s cabin. I found it with a load of scrap metal. We’re renovating Lionel’s cabin. He told me to take all that stuff to the garbage dump. I . . . thought it would really be a shame to throw all of it away.”

  Tessa tried to figure out what was true and what was a lie. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is. Why would you bring something like that to the farm?”

  His fat arms went up and down. “The bear . . . I saw it wandering across the street. So that’s why I brought that thing with me, in case . . .” He stopped and concentrated. “I hear something, isn’t that . . .”

  “Don’t try and change the subject, Cliff. Your hunting rifle, you left it in the pickup?”

  “No, at home.”

  She dropped the poker. Cliff blinked into the sun, confused, but she wasn’t finished yet.

  “When did you pick up the metal scraps from the cabin?”

  “A couple of days ago. On Tuesday.”

  “On Tuesday?” On the day of the murders. Her heart pounded like a drum.

  “Yes.”

  “And then you unloaded it in the woods, right? That’s against the law—you know that.”

  He shook his head. “I never do that. I always recycle everything according to the law. I went to the scrapyard that day.”

  Now Tessa, too, heard a sound. Footsteps. She turned around quickly.

  Cindy was walking toward them.

  Tessa looked at her, aghast. But Cindy only glanced at her quickly before she concentrated on Cliff.

  “For god’s sake, what are you doing here?”

  Before Cliff could answer, Tessa said: “Hello, Cindy. I wasn’t expecting you here, either.” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  It was impossible to interpret Cindy’s facial expression because she quickly put on her sunglasses. She was wearing flowery pants and a pink windbreaker. The breeze was messing up her hair. She confronted
Cliff again: “What are you doing here?”

  “We always take a break on Sunday,” Cliff answered, still standing several steps away.

  “Did you two come here together?” She aimed this question at Tessa.

  “Did you two come here together?” Tessa countered. She picked up the poker. “Cliff brought me a present.”

  Irritated, Cindy stared at the poker.

  Right then, Cliff announced: “I’m going back to the pickup, to park it somewhere else.” With astounding agility, he ran off.

  “You could have told us something,” Cindy complained. “We could have come here together. Where is your car?”

  “I flew over here with Kratz Hilder, and then I hiked in.” And now you have forced me to change my plans, Tessa would have liked to add.

  But she was too clever to let her anger and disappointment show. She needed Cindy’s help to explain the pictures in the camera, which she had put in the pocket of her vest.

  “Have you already been in the house?” Cindy asked.

  “In the kitchen,“ Tessa answered, a half-truth.

  “Why are you wearing rubber gloves?”

  “I don’t want to leave any fingerprints on Fran’s possessions.” She took out the camera.

  Cindy’s face looked confused. She took her sunglasses off. “Does that belong to Fran? Where did you find it?”

  Tessa ignored the question. “I looked through the pictures, and most of them show the lounge in your boutique. Fran must have spent some time there.”

  “Let me see them.” Cindy stretched her hand out toward the camera, but Tessa was quicker.

  “Not without gloves.” She put the camera in her backpack. “For instance, she took pictures of the flowers in your lounge.”

  Cindy turned her head, as if she thought someone was there. But neither Cliff nor the pickup could be seen or heard. “You’re mistaken, Tessa. Fran was never at my place, at least not that I know of.” She began to wave off the bugs, too. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom, but going in there . . .” she pointed to the house, “is something I’m not going to do. It’s just too . . .” Without completing her sentence she hurried to the edge of the forest.