Fire in the Stars

by Barbara Fradkin

  The coastline sliced deep and straight through the ocean toward the southwest. White spray crashed against the towering cliffs, and gannets and gulls swooped eagerly overhead in search of fish. A couple of hours later, the cliffs receded into a wide bay as if the ocean itself had taken a huge bite out of the land. Soon he spotted a jumbled village and harbour nestled in the protected nook of the bay. The village of Englee.

  Grateful for the break, he piloted his small boat between the wharves in the narrow harbour and pulled up beside a man doing repairs to his boat. He introduced himself as Corporal Tymko, but before he could ask about Amanda, the man’s eyes brightened.

  “Oh, you’re here about the murder. Fella who chopped Old Stink’s head off and stole his boat.”

  Chris put on his solemn cop face. “I’m making inquiries, yes. Have you seen anyone fitting the description? A tall man in his mid-thirties with a young boy?”

  “Not yet, no. But we’re all keeping our eyes peeled.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Oh, all up and down the coast, you know. Word gets around. A friend of mine says he spotted a boat ashore down toward Windy Point, a ways north of Cape Rouge.”

  Chris cursed inwardly. Had he been going in the wrong direction? “Stink’s boat?”

  The man shrugged. “Abandoned, anyway. Of course, nothing to say it’s not been there for months. Nothing there but barrens.”

  “Did you report it?”

  “Yeah. To you.”

  Chris pulled out his cellphone and turned it on. “You’ve got a signal!”

  The man laughed and pointed to the tower at the top of the hill that loomed over the village. “Yes, b’y. We gots civilization down here in Englee.”

  Chris reached Willington back in the RCMP station in Roddickton and reported what the villager had said. He waited patiently while Willington consulted his map. Then a brief, awkward silence fell.

  “What are you doing in Englee, Tymko?”

  “Looking for Amanda. This piece of information just fell into my lap.”

  “Amanda’s missing?”

  Chris could hear the dismay his voice. “Well, not really missing. Just on her own cockamamie hunt.”

  “For Chrissakes, Tymko! He’s a suspect. And now we’ve got a civilian bumbling around in the middle of the investigation, screwing up the search area and putting herself at risk.”

  “She doesn’t think she’s at risk.” He paused. “Neither do I.”

  “Which is exactly why you’re not on this case! If things get ugly, she could be right in the middle of the crossfire.”

  Chris was silent a moment, clamping down his temper. “I’m not anywhere near the case. I’m at least thirty kilometres away, on my way to your town. There’s a chance Amanda went looking for Phil up your way.”

  There was a pause. “Let me know if you need a hand.”

  Chris relaxed. “You’ve got enough on your plate, but if you see her — she’s got her dog with her, so she’ll be easy to spot — tell her I’m on my way.”

  “Why does she think he’s here in Roddickton?”

  “I have no idea. She must have found out something.”

  “Which she didn’t tell us.” Willington swore under his breath. “Amis and his team have already been here and are on their way out to Conche along with the incident command trailer. They’ll go ballistic when they find out. We’ve got roadblocks up now, and I’ll tell my guys to keep a sharp eye out in town here for Amanda as well as Phil Cousins. They can’t get far on foot, and there’s not many places here to hide. Who knows, maybe by tonight you and I can have this whole case wrapped up before the incident commander even gets her gear unpacked. Then I’ll treat you to the lumberjack’s platter at our world-class Lumberjacks’ Landing. Best restaurant on the eastern shore.”

  Chris laughed as he hung up. Likely the only restaurant on the east shore.

  Amanda had no idea how far she’d walked, nor even in what direction. The gunmetal sky obscured all hint of the sun, and the rhythmic hiss of the surf had faded into the distance. Her stomach ached from hunger and her legs shook with fatigue. She’d spent most of the day doubling back and forth in search of Tyler, fighting her way around tuckamore and bog. She had clambered over boulders, waded through alder thickets, and climbed to the top of steep hills. She had called his name until she was hoarse.

  Through the thumping of her heart and the panting of her breath, her ears strained to hear even the faintest sound of human presence. A cry for help. The growl of a motorboat coming up the coast. She had expected a search party from Conche or, at the very least, Chris Tymko to come looking her. A wave of affection welled up at the thought of him. She had only known him for a week, but sensed he was one of the truly good guys. When Phil had disappeared, he had understood her fear and her need, and had jumped in to help without a moment’s hesitation. When she’d failed to return to Conche last night, surely he would have collected a posse and gone out looking.

  Eventually he would come. Someone would come. Someone would find her boat, and the small boat Phil had been using, and they would begin to search from there. She wasn’t worried for her own safety. She had survived on far less. Fresh water from the small streams tumbling down the hillsides, together with the red berries that blanketed the bogs and the forest floor, were enough for now.

  Tyler was all she cared about. Kaylee had not found his body or grave near Phil’s, so Amanda assumed he’d fled through the woods on an erratic path, grief-stricken and alone. God knows how long and how far he would run. He was a smart boy, often left to his own devices in the Cambodian village where she’d known him, but he was only eleven. He had just watched his father die. The father who made him laugh, taught him magic tricks, and organized village baseball games.

  What would he do? Where would he run?

  Kaylee had been unable to make sense of the trail. Not a trained tracking dog, she had bounded off in several directions, doubled back, and then milled at Amanda’s feet, looking up at her as if for direction.

  So they had trudged together. Amanda had kept a close eye on Kaylee’s ears and nose. The dog would detect a scent or sound far earlier than Amanda and turn her ears and nose in that direction. But now, hours later, both she and the dog were flagging. Hunger and fatigue were taking their toll. Amanda had fashioned a sturdy walking stick, but, despite its support, she found herself slipping and stumbling on the uneven terrain.

  Then her boot crashed through a patch of moss and she plunged knee-deep into swampy water. Thrown off balance, she fell hard against a rock. A sharp pain shot through her hip. Flailing and cursing, she dragged herself back onto solid ground, where she lay a moment to catch her breath. Kaylee, her paws black and her red coat matted with mud, whined and nuzzled close.

  Amanda flexed her limbs and whispered a silent thank-you. Nothing was broken. She probed her sore hip through the slime and felt a soggy hole in her jeans. A small price to pay, she thought, until her fingers brushed something jagged and sharp. She pulled out her compass from her hip pocket. Stared at its smashed face and twisted needle.

  Her breath quickened and a quiver of panic thrummed through her. It didn’t matter that the sun and stars would chart a guiding course and the ocean would always be to the east. She was back in Nigeria, scurrying through smoke-choked darkness, not knowing whether she was running south toward safety or north into the machine guns of killers.

  She looked up at the sky through the lace of trees. Everywhere she looked, nothing but trees. Scraggly, twisted, almost ghostlike. High ridges pressed in on both sides, plunging the valley into near darkness, and not even the distant hiss of ocean surf was audible.

  She was lost. Exhausted. Hungry. And now finally, afraid.

  She struggled to sit and leaned against a tree to collect herself. She heard her therapist’s voice in her head. Don’t fight the fear, don’t run fr
om it. You’re afraid. Ride with it, ride through it. Deep breaths. Let it float with you.

  Bit by bit, her pulse slowed and her terror receded. She took a long breath and refocused on the present. In her head, she conjured up her topographical map. She knew that she was between Conche and Grandois, and that Phil’s boat was somewhere south of Windy Point, which was about midway. However, a large bay lay between Windy Point and Grandois, with the odd little French colonial village of Croque at the end of it.

  She had not seen a trace of Croque on her wanderings, so she must still be south of the bay. But how far south? Had she backtracked so far that she was now far south of Windy Point? To her untrained eye, every little inlet and point on the shoreline looked like every other. Even if she could find the ocean again, she wouldn’t know which direction to head.

  Crushing fatigue weighed her down. She just wanted to sleep. Surely it was foolish, even dangerous, to continue the search without a rest. She risked plunging down a ravine or getting sucked into a bog. She should find a dry patch of land, build a shelter of spruce boughs, eat a little more of her energy bar, and rest until morning.

  She was just closing her eyes when a low rumble bubbled in Kaylee’s throat. Amanda’s eyes flew open. In the distance, she heard crashing in the underbrush. Twigs snapped like gunshots. She pulled Kaylee to her and raised her walking stick, wishing she had something more formidable.

  “Tyler!” she called.

  A grunt. More thrashing. Thundering. Thankfully receding. Soon there was nothing but the creak of the trees in the wind. Kaylee and Amanda pressed together, trembling. Adrenaline coursed through her. No, she thought as she hauled herself to her feet, I have to keep going. I have to find the goddamn ocean and figure out where my boat is. So I can go get the personnel and supplies to launch a proper search.

  A frightened little boy is out there, and every moment counts.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The trip up the bay to Roddickton took Chris a little over an hour at the leisurely pace the boat seemed to prefer. The grey clouds hung low, but there was no hint of the fog Casey had darkly predicted. The crafty bugger must have been pulling my leg, Chris decided, as payback for me borrowing his boat.

  Canada Bay sliced a deep gash through spectacular rounded mountains on either side. To the southwest a hulking mountain range formed silhouettes of barren, inhospitable rock, like giants asleep in the sky. They would be impossible to traverse except where creeks tumbled through. On the north side, however, trees and grasslands blanketed the hills, offering some camouflage. He piloted the boat slowly so that he could peer into the crevices and shadowy shelter of the forest.

  Nothing.

  Closer to town, scattered houses and wharves began to crop up along the shore. As the settlement increased, he found what looked like the main wharf and pulled up. Unlike most communities on the Northern Peninsula, Roddickton did not make its living from fishing, and the absence of fishing boats, nets, and crab pots on the pier was striking. Chris knew it was founded as a lumber town and he assumed the sawmills and lumber wharves were farther up the channel.

  The afternoon sun broke through as he climbed onto the wharf. He was hot, hungry, and sore. Every bone was rattled by the pounding of the boat and the throbbing of the engine. Peeling off his jacket, he put in a call to Willington.

  “No sign of anyone, sad to say,” Willington said, sounding more disappointed than sad. “But I do have a bit of intel. You’re just in time for an afternoon beer. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Beer’s an inspired idea, Chris thought, stretching his cramped legs. “Can you check with the guys in Conche first, to see if Amanda’s shown up back there? And then can we do a pass around town here?”

  “Sure thing. That will take us five minutes.”

  While he waited, Chris studied his map and took stock of the town. Willington was right; there weren’t many places to hide. The population of roughly a thousand people was concentrated on half a dozen little streets and strung out along the main highway that continued on to Englee. A strange woman landing in town with her dog would have been noticed within seconds.

  He crossed the street and knocked on the first house on the block. The elderly woman who answered said she’d seen no one — not a woman and her dog, nor a man and his son. The answer was the same at the next three houses.

  “No strange boats moored up either,” said a big, beefy man who was mowing his lawn.

  Chris cursed in frustration. Had he wasted a whole day? It looked as if Amanda had not come up to Roddickton, and unless Phil had snuck in and out in the middle of the night, neither had he. For all Chris knew, Amanda was now safely back in Conche, wondering where the hell he was.

  That hope was quickly dashed when Willington picked him up. There was still no word on Amanda. After a brief, unproductive search through the streets, Willington took him to his bachelor bungalow on the outskirts of town. He settled Chris on the deck out back, propped his feet on the deck rail, and popped two QVs before sitting back with a sigh.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he began. “I wouldn’t be so quick to assume this fella Cousins didn’t come through here. He’s on the run so he’s hardly going to pilot his boat into the middle of town in broad daylight. He knows a thousand pairs of eyes would pick him up in a second. Likely he ditched the boat past the town under cover of darkness and walked up to the highway. Moose-hunting season starts tomorrow and this is the heart of moose country, so there’s lots of strangers coming and going. Guys are heading out to their hunting lodges and others coming in from Corner Brook or Deer Lake. Some even from the mainland. It’d be easy to hitch a ride or even stow away in the back for a bit.”

  “Moose-hunting season.” Chris pondered the implications. “That means lots more trucks on the road, lots more eyes in the bush.”

  Willington downed the last of his beer. “ATVs too, driving all over the backcountry. We’ve got more moose around here than pretty near anywhere else in Canada.”

  “That means the danger of stray bullets and civilians getting in the way.”

  Willington laughed. “And an even greater danger of meeting an enraged bull. It’s rutting season and they don’t take kindly to outsiders getting too close. Seven, eight hundred pounds of charging moose is not a pretty sight.”

  “Did Amis set up roadblocks?”

  “Not him, but the incident commander did, yeah. Both ends of the highway through town here, and at the turnoffs to Conche and Croque. All the major points of entry to the island, as well. But if Cousins hitched a ride out of here two days ago, it’s a case of the horse and the barn door. But —” Willington sat forward with a flourish. His eyes danced. “— I do have a few pieces of news. Want another beer?”

  “Willie! Spill it!”

  Willington roared with delight as he fished two more beers from the cooler at his feet. Holding one out to Chris, he laid his finger alongside his nose. “This is on the QT. Back door report. Amis and the incident commander aren’t telling me shit, but I have my sources. First off, a fisherman spotted Stink’s boat a couple of days ago, going like a bat out of hell. He was too far away to see who was in it, but it’s a good bet it was Phil.”

  “Where?”

  “Along the coast north of Stink’s place. Unfortunately the guy wasn’t paying much attention, because it was before the murder was discovered, but he thinks it was going north. They’re sending a party out at first light tomorrow to check on that boat you reported up near Windy Point.”

  Chris tried to think through the increasing fog of alcohol. “But if it was him, why would he go ashore in the middle of nowhere? Why not keep going all the way to St. Anthony?”

  Willington shrugged. “Well, the one thing the fisherman did notice was that the boat was going pretty fast. Faster than Stink’s boat likes, he said. Anyway, at least it’s a lead. Right now they’ll take any lead they can get. They
have no idea what direction Cousins has gone or where he might be heading. It’s hard to even know where to initiate the search. And it’s a hell of a lot of territory to search, all rugged, mountainous terrain. You could hide in a cove and not be seen by a boat passing fifty feet offshore. Hell, you could hide in the tuckamore and not be seen from twenty feet!” He leaned forward, his expression sobering. “If he doesn’t want to be found, we may never find him.”

  Chris’s thoughts drifted to Amanda. She too was groping in the dark, without the communications and manpower of the RCMP, and nothing but her own stubborn grit to drive her on. How long would it take before she gave up and came back?

  “Which brings me to my second piece of intel,” Willington was saying, his round face creasing in a grin. “What are the chances? You tie an anchor around a guy and you dump him overboard 250 kilometres from shore. What are the chances of that body ever being found?”

  “Pure luck,” Chris agreed.

  “Shit luck for the guy who threw him overboard. That body the shrimpers towed ashore? Preliminary post-mortem results show he likely died of hypothermia, but he was also near starvation. Six feet tall, but weighed little more than a hundred pounds when he died.”

  Chris cast his mind back to that night on the wharf in St. Anthony. Had it really been only four days ago? The poor man had been dressed in a thin jacket and even thinner shoes, providing poor protection against the chilly winds of the North Atlantic. And now it appeared that not only had he been inadequately clothed on the ship, but also inadequately fed. A stranger far from home, frozen and starving.