Fire in the Stars

by Barbara Fradkin

  “Don’t!” Casey shouted.

  “But the dog has detected something!” she called back, still running.

  “Could be a bear or a moose. You don’t want to go barging up there.”

  His protests faded as she plunged up the narrow path. She shouted for Kaylee, as much to alert any bear as to bring the dog back. She was furious, whether at Kaylee’s disobedience or her own fear, she wasn’t sure. Kaylee was nowhere in sight by now. Spruce branches tore at her clothes, and the dew-slicked moss shifted underfoot, forcing her to keep her head down. She didn’t see the cabin until she was almost upon it.

  She smelled it first, a fetid swamp of rotting fish and barnyard that wafted on the still air and choked her lungs. She slithered to a stop as the path opened into a clearing cluttered with human presence — an outhouse, a clothesline on which hung a single pair of work pants and a tattered towel, a chopping block surrounded by wood chips, and stacks of spindly firewood. Dominating the middle of the clearing was a hand-operated water pump of the sort she’d seen in developing countries and a wooden rack catching the best of the sun. A drying rack for fish? she wondered.

  The cabin itself was little more than a shack that slumped to one side as if about to tumble over. Flakes of whitewash still clung to its bleached siding and its roof was a melange of broken slates and curling shingles. The single window was broken.

  Kaylee was standing at the cabin door, her legs stiff and her hackles raised. She gave a low whine as Amanda approached and clipped on her leash. Amanda felt the clutch of familiar, formless dread. Her heart hammered as she stared at the doorknob, paralyzed.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Doucette,” she muttered. “This is a hermit’s cabin in rural Newfoundland. Nothing to fear here.” Nonetheless, her voice quavered when she called out. “Anyone here?”

  Silence. An empty, dead silence. She tried the knob and pushed the door, which stuck and fought her as it creaked open a few inches. Kaylee shoved her nose through, whining.

  Amanda peered through the gap. Saw the faded linoleum floor, a large table covered with peeling oilcloth, a woodstove, and an old rocking chair. The rocking chair was tipped on its side and it took her a moment to make sense of the mess on the floor — a thousand shards of glittering glass.

  And in the middle of the glass, an axe with an old wooden handle and a filthy blade stained brownish red. Red glistened on the walls and on the shards of glass as well.

  She recoiled and slammed the door. She’d seen that colour before. When a voice spoke behind her, she leaped a foot. Chris emerged into the clearing, his brows knitting with alarm.

  “What is it?”

  “Something’s wrong,” she managed, gesturing to the door. “There’s blood in there.”

  He crossed the clearing in swift strides and shoved open the door. “Jesus!” he breathed, holding up his hand to keep her back. “Stay here!”

  He disappeared into the cabin and she could hear him thumping around inside. Barely five seconds later he returned, looking grim.

  “There’s no one here, but there’s clearly been a fight. Lots of blood inside, and furniture overturned.” He studied the door frame and knelt to peer at the ground outside the front door. “There’s blood on the door here, and some smears on the ground. Whoever it is, they came outside.”

  He stepped back into the clearing and headed across to the shed. A quick search of the ground revealed signs of trouble — scuff marks in the dirt, a broken latch on the shed, and trampled bushes.

  Once again, it was Kaylee who made the discovery. She’d been straining against her tight leash, trying to pull Amanda up a trail into the bush. Finally Amanda followed, and a mere hundred feet into the bush, there was an old man, sprawled on his stomach with his gnarled hands stretched out in front as if he had been trying to claw his way up the hill. The back of his skull was a mass of blood.

  “Jumpin’ Jaysus!” said Casey, coming up behind her. “That’s Old Stink.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Chris’s first thought was for Amanda. From the horror on her face, he could tell it was bad. She had grown very pale and was propped against a tree trunk, clutching her dog. He suspected she was reliving every terrifying moment of that blood-filled night where, according to newspaper accounts, death had come not by neat bullets or explosions that obliterated everything to ash and dust, but by axes and machetes slashing and smashing limbs and heads in a lust of blood and rage.

  Perhaps for a brief moment she was back there.

  But there was something else in that expression of horror. A deep dread, for this had been a murder, and he could see her thoughts had taken the same dark path as his.

  He went to her, took her hands, and gently turned her away. “Amanda, come. Move away from the scene, sit over there while I check this out.”

  She followed him, robot-like, and acknowledged her thanks with a small nod. He forced himself to step close to the body and leaned down to check the carotid pulse. The one visible eye was milky and flies were already crawling around his flaccid mouth, but checking for vitals was procedure. The skin was cold to the touch, rigor mortis already well established. Surreptitiously he nudged the foot, trying to recall the crime scene course he’d taken. Rigor began in the face and advanced down the body to the feet before dissipating in reverse order over forty-eight hours. Give or take.

  The dead man’s foot was rigid, which meant the man had probably been dead twelve to thirty-six hours.

  “Poor old bugger,” Casey said.

  Chris backed away, holding up his hands to force Casey back. His thoughts were racing to form a plan. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll have to secure the scene.” He turned to Casey. “You got any rope in the boat? I’ll need at least …” He squinted down the path. Stink’s cabin was about a hundred feet away and all points in between would have to be cordoned off. “Two or three hundred feet?”

  Casey shook his head. “Nudding that long. But who’s going to muck it up? There’s nobody around.”

  Chris shook his head. “Procedure, that’s all. If this ever goes to court, I have to be able to swear it wasn’t contaminated.” As the initial shock wore off, his training finally kicked in. He checked his cellphone. As he expected, they were in a dead zone. He walked over to Amanda, who was standing now, her eyes still bleak, but colour was returning to her cheeks.

  “Amanda, you and Casey go back to the village and call the police. Poker-Ass again, I guess. Tell him I need a major crime team out here and a doctor to pronounce death.” He swung on Casey. “You got a doctor in the village?”

  “We can get one from Roddickton.”

  Chris did a quick calculation. That was just over half an hour’s drive from the village, closer than many rural calls for service. “Get him out here as fast as you can. Have you got Internet in the village at least?”

  “Yeah, no cellphone but we gots Internet.”

  “Good. I’ll take some photos on my phone and Amanda, you email them to Poker-Ass so he has an idea what he’s dealing with.”

  He could see her opening her mouth to protest, so he shook his head sharply. “It might take some time for the team to get here, so meanwhile, Casey, I want you to bring me a couple of tarps, some plastic bins, and … oh, I don’t know, markers of some kind. Tent pegs or little flags. And tow a second boat over with you so I’ll have some transportation.”

  Casey nodded. He was looking slightly green and seemed grateful for the chance to escape back down to his boat. Amanda, on the other hand, was standing in the path expectantly.

  “What?” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

  “The photos. And if I’m going to email them to Sergeant Poker-Ass, I’ll need your phone.”

  His eyes met hers. Such an idiot, he thought, and forced a sheepish laugh. “I knew that.”

  A ghost of a smile curved her lips. “And I’d like Poker
-Ass’s real name and number. Calling him Poker-Ass, however tempting, probably won’t get me very far.”

  “Sergeant Amis.” He fished in his pocket for the man’s card and entered the phone number in his phone. Then he circled the body and took a couple of dozen photos with the phone. Still photographing, he headed back down the path, searching the ground and underbrush for evidence. He knew the evidence had probably been trampled by the dog and the three of them, but he took photos of stains and gouges anyway. The forensics team could decide for themselves if they were of any use. Amanda watched him curiously but without comment.

  At the cabin door, he signalled to her to stay outside while he inspected the interior once again. It looked as if the attack had taken place in the main room, where the attacker had dropped the axe. Had the killer simply left Stink to crawl for help with his last dying efforts? Or had Stink been trying to escape from him when he headed up the path into the bush? If he’d been crawling for help, he’d gone in the wrong direction.

  Amanda poked her head through the open doorway, averting her eyes from the axe. “Can you tell where the killer went?”

  “It’s probably safe to assume he took Stink’s boat. You should tell the police that too.”

  “I’d rather stay with you.”

  She looked determined, but the faint quaver in her voice betrayed her. He shook his head.

  “I can help, Chris. Kaylee might be able to help too. Remember, if it weren’t for her, we’d never have known there was anything wrong, and we’d never have found Stink.”

  “You can’t stay. This is a crime scene.”

  “But we’ve already tromped all over it.”

  He straightened to confront her. “You know why.”

  Her gaze wavered and she looked away. “There were two boats, so two different people. Only one is the killer.”

  “Unless that debris we saw yesterday was the second boat. If he swamped that one …”

  “He didn’t do this. I know him.”

  “When it comes to crimes, we can’t assume a thing.”

  “I can. Phil would never, ever, swing an axe at another man’s head.”

  He walked over to her. He wanted to touch her, to reassure her, but he merely looked down at her. “I’m as worried as you are. But Stink’s boat is gone, and Phil was last seen coming this way.”

  Amanda tamped down her anger and forced herself to be charming. She knew her emotion had more to do with Stink’s death and her own fears than with the prissy little Mountie on the other end of the phone. There is no bureaucracy more officious and obstructive than those in developing countries, and she had learned not to be deterred by the initial no. Or the second, or even the third. She could tell from the major crimes investigator’s initial condescending comments that she was going to have to put all those skills to use again.

  At first Sergeant Amis had instructed her to report the death through official channels, which meant the Roddickton detachment responsible for that location, so that they could initiate the proper procedure. If the death is deemed suspicious —

  “Most of his head is missing!” she wanted to shout. “They’ll be calling you soon enough!” But she held her tongue. She had reached Amis at the St. Anthony RCMP detachment, where he was presumably still working on the body recovered from the ocean. He sounded harried and tired, no doubt not thrilled with the prospect of rushing off to an even more remote death before the paperwork was even filed on the first.

  “He was to be my next call, Sergeant,” she replied breezily. “But Corporal Tymko took some photos which your investigators will need, and I thought it expeditious to forward them directly to you.”

  “Miss Doucette, without the proper chain of custody, any evidence —”

  “Well, that’s why I thought I should go straight to you, so the photos don’t go bouncing around in cyberspace for hours — maybe even days — before they get to you.”

  “But they’re of no use to us. Our investigators will take proper pictures.”

  “Of course. But the body is in a remote location accessible only by boat. Corporal Tymko is doing his best to follow procedure, but he’s worried the evidence will disappear. There are wild animals, not to mention possible rain. At least these photos can show you how the body looked when we found it.”

  There was a pause. A sigh. Amanda looked out the window of Casey’s house. The main wharf was buzzing with activity as the whole town pitched in to collect Chris’s supplies. Tarps, food, and clothing, fishing and hunting gear, as if Chris would be out there for a month.

  “Please forward the photos to me,” Amis said finally, still sounding as if the whole exercise was an imposition that derailed his whole investigative strategy. “Advise Corporal Tymko not to disturb the scene and to expect a team’s arrival by early tomorrow.”

  She was being dismissed with a flick of the hand. She was still smarting from Chris’s refusal to let her stay, and the sergeant’s pompous condescension, not only toward her, but also toward Chris, was almost the last straw. She forced herself to sound neutral, even through clenched teeth.

  “I believe Corporal Tymko knows not to disturb the scene,” she said. “What about the medical examiner?”

  “Roddickton will take care of that.”

  In fact, the doctor in Roddickton had already been called and should be arriving within the hour, but Amanda chose not to mention that. Childish, probably, but the small exercise in power felt good.

  The investigator seemed remarkably uninterested in any other information she had to offer, such as the bloody axe, so she hung up, stuck her tongue out at the phone, and dialled the next number on her list. She was not worried about this one; she knew cheerful, chatty Corporal Willington would be a breath of fresh air. Now she wished she’d phoned him in the first place.

  He told her that Dr. Iannucci had already informed him and he was picking her up in ten minutes.

  “I’m sorry,” Amanda said. “I should have phoned you right away instead of phoning the major crimes guy. I thought it would speed things up, but …”

  “Who did you speak to?”

  “Sergeant Amis.”

  He laughed. “Oh, Amis. Yes. He’s new from Ontario.”

  As if that explained everything.

  “Donna — Doc Iannucci — says it’s Old Stink?” he continued. “Bashed on the head?”

  “Yes. Do you know anything about him?”

  “Nobody knows much about Old Stink. Well, maybe the old-timers down there do, but he’s been in the bush for fifty, sixty years. Went off his head, they say, but fifty years in the bush will do that. Used to live there with his mother, and when she died, he stayed on. Didn’t know any other life, I guess.”

  “Was he paranoid? Would he attack someone who came on his land?”

  Willington seemed to be thinking. “Maybe, but he’s more likely to hide in the woods, from what folks say. Dr. Iannucci says she only met him once — the locals went to check on him after a hurricane ripped though a few years back — and found he had a busted leg. She said he wouldn’t look her in the eye. Hardly remembered how to carry on a conversation.”

  Amanda digested the information. On the boat ride back to town, Casey had said Old Stink sometimes came into the village to collect his pension cheques and sell fish and game in exchange for supplies. Casey hadn’t known of any disputes or altercations — in fact couldn’t think of a single person who’d bother to kill him — but perhaps Willington knew more. The man loved to talk, but even he would eventually realize he’d said too much about an ongoing police investigation. She had to find a way to keep him talking.

  “I’m worried,” she said. “Chris Tymko is out there all alone. Do you have any idea who might have done this, and is Chris in danger?”

  “Shouldn’t think so,” Willington said cheerfully. “Likely one of those arguments that got out of h
and. Stink’s been getting a bit ornery in his old age, sometimes stands on his wharf yelling at boats that get too close. The local folks know to stay out of his way, so I’d say the killer’s not local. If Stink’s been dead a couple of days, the killer’s probably long gone by now.”

  Amanda could hear rustling in the background as if he was moving around. “I’m on my way,” he said. “I’ll get statements from all the townsfolk, ask about strangers in the area, and try to get as much done before the guy from Ontario shows up. With a bit of luck, by the end of the day we’ll have an answer all tied up with a bow for him.”

  Amanda signed off with a heavy heart. She had not told Willington about Phil, but since the whole town knew about him and about where he was headed when last seen, she suspected by the end of the day, Phil would be the RCMP’s prime suspect.

  Chris sat on the end of the wharf and peered down the harbour, his ears tuned to the faintest sound of a boat engine. By now Amanda should have contacted the police and the doctor should be on his way. Chris had to admit he felt a little spooked. Stuck on a remote point of land surrounded by the ruthless sea, with a dead man rotting on the path behind him and an irrational fear of what lurked in the dark, empty woods.

  He wouldn’t admit it to a soul, especially not to his fellow officers. Just as he never admitted to the nights when he bolted awake awash in panic and sweat, with the sound of gunshots still ringing in his ears and the sight of a loved one spurting blood all over the walls. Sometimes it was his mother, or his sister, or even a daughter he’d never had. Just as he never admitted that, even two years after the horrific shootout that changed his life, the sight of blood still made him queasy.

  He was a cop. No matter what he’d been through, he had a job to do.

  After Casey and Amanda left, with Kaylee standing like a sentinel in the bow of the boat, he’d done a more systematic search, starting at the shore where the killer had presumably made his escape. He’d explored the wharf for bloody footprints. He’d crept cautiously over the sand and bent over to examine every mark and scuff in the damp sand. He’d found nothing useful. The sand was etched with bird tracks and Kaylee’s paw prints, but the tide had washed out even Stink’s old prints.