The Long Dark January: A Nadine Kelso Mystery

by A. S. Andrews

  “I’d like to talk with Bobby,” Nadine said.

  “I’ve tried twice, once with Ingrid present, and once with a social worker. I didn’t get much from either try. He barely remembers that day.”

  As an outsider to the community, and without police authority, Nadine doubted she could get much more from Bobby than Chief Eng could. But then maybe there was a way to turn things to her advantage. There was no harm in talking, was there?

  But she’d need an ‘in.’ Something that could get a child who’d been through hell to feel safe and engaged. A toy, maybe.

  Or an animal.

  “I could use some fresh air,” Nadine said. “Maybe I’ll see if Kelly needs someone to take her dog for a walk.”

  Chapter 16

  At the registration desk of the hospital, Nadine told Nero to sit while she held her ID for the sign-in clerk to peruse. The clerk looked from her to the dog and smiled.

  “He’s a real cutie, isn’t he?”

  “Well behaved, too,” Nadine said.

  “Would you like someone to help you to your floor?”

  “Thanks for the offer,” Nadine said, “but I can manage on my own.”

  The large black sunglasses she’d bought at the gas station had given the right impression. She’d never lie about being visually impaired, but the clerk had made his own assumptions. The star of her little deception had been Nero.

  Nadine removed the glasses and smoothed her hair in the mirrored door of the elevator.

  “We’ll make a detective out of you yet,” she told the dog.

  Bobby’s room was close to the elevator. He was sitting in a chair by the window, the blinds drawn, a beige tray of nibbled beige food in front of him.

  At the sight of the dog, he didn’t quite smile, but his mouth opened and the corners tilted up in pleasant surprise.

  “Hi,” Nadine said from the doorway. “My name is Nadine Kelso, and this is my friend Nero. We’re working with Chief Eng. Could we talk to you a minute?”

  A tall nurse, who was tucking in the corners of an empty bed, said, “You shouldn’t be here. He’s resting.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Bobby said. “I want them to.”

  The nurse shrugged and went back to her work.

  Nadine took a seat across from the boy. The dog settled between them, idly scratching his ear. The boy took over scratching duties and Nero inclined his head to make for easier access.

  “What kind of dog is he?” Bobby said. His face was pale, voice soft and slightly raspy.

  Nadine leaned forward conspiratorially and smiled. “I don’t know much about dog breeds. Practically anything at all. Can you tell me?”

  “Golden Irish,” he said with no hesitation, coughing and clearing his throat. “That’s one part Irish Setter and one part Golden Receiver, I mean Retriever. Is he the hotel lady’s dog?”

  “Very good eye,” Nadine said. “Do you know the hotel lady very well?”

  “Not very well,” Bobby said.

  “You don’t have to answer this, but do you remember much about New Year’s Day?”

  “My mom and dad were fighting.”

  “Like yelling?”

  “More like not saying anything. All quiet.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Nadine said. “My parents fought sometimes too. Did they fight before bedtime?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s okay. Did you come back from your grandma’s in the afternoon or evening? Was it light or dark outside?”

  “Dark, I guess.” He dedicated himself to petting Nero all the way from the top of the skull to his tail. The dog yawned, content. “I’ll probably live with my grandmother,” Bobby said in a very small voice.

  “I think she cares very much for you.”

  “I like her, too. My mom always promised I’d get a brother but I guess I won’t.”

  Nadine wanted to say that having a brother was not always a pleasant experience, but instead said, “Do you know anybody whose name starts with the letter T?”

  “No,” Bobby said. “But I don’t know a whole lot of people.”

  As she left the hospital, she thought to herself, someone had done this. Deliberately taken this child’s parents from him. Maybe Jen was right, and evil people were simply evil, and there was no motivation behind it.

  But if there was, then so help her, she’d find it.

  Chapter 17

  At the drug store Nadine bought socks, underwear, and a plain black long-sleeved shirt. She’d only packed an overnight bag, but leaving was no longer an option. Not until the killer was found.

  She changed in the police station, noticing a hole in the toe of one of her old socks. Her dark brown Rockports were spotty from road salt. She found a few plastic packets of vinegar in the break room, dumped them into a cup with some water, and sat reading over the case file and cleaning her shoes.

  The case presented several problems. First, it hadn’t been handled as a homicide until far too late. The house should have been preserved as a crime scene, documented as such with photos and video. Gary Gordon should have been brought to the station and compelled to give his official account of what happened. A proper canvass of the neighborhood, casts made of footprints around the property, elimination prints taken from every fire, police, and medical officer on the scene—a lot hadn’t been done, for the simple reason that the deaths of the Gordons didn’t seem like murder. Evidence-wise, all they had was a sabotaged CO detector, along with a theory that someone flooded the house with fumes to make it seem accidental. It was all very slim.

  Nadine read through the autopsy reports a second time. She stared at the photos, the weights and measurements of various organs, until a desire for fresh air and something chocolate overwhelmed her. She was on her way out when she ran into Peter Quayle.

  “How’s it going, Ms. Kelso,” the officer said. He had a gas station sandwich and a bottle of Sprite in his hands. “You and the chief find any new leads?”

  “Afraid not, though that would have been nice.”

  “Compared to how Seattle PD does things, this must feel pretty laid back, huh?” He swigged from the bottle of soda. “Fact is, with most investigations we work alongside a larger department. Usually Longview. But for some reason the chief wants to run this one herself.”

  “She did spot the faulty CO detector.”

  “True,” Quayle said. “You’ll never hear me say a disparaging word about Jennifer Eng as a cop. But then, it’s the obvious place to look, isn’t it, when someone dies like that.”

  “I don’t know that I’d think to look there,” Nadine said. “Can I ask you a question, Peter?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Are you trying to accomplish something by undermining your boss, or are you just an all-around horse’s ass?”

  Quayle’s smile plunged, struggled to return. “Beg your pardon?”

  “Do you think Andrew and Susan Gordon and the people that care about them are best served by you being a sarcastic jerk? Or is it that you think you should be in charge of the investigation?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Quayle tried to grin disarmingly and didn’t quite succeed. “She’s brought you in, at least, to offer some advice.”

  “If it were you running the investigation,” Nadine said, “who would we be looking for?”

  She watched Quayle’s face carefully, noting the pleasure he took in the supposition. The idea was so tantalizing, he was almost blushing.

  She gave the officer her own well-practiced disarming smile. “Understand, Peter, I’m not partial to local politics. My only concern is with catching the person responsible.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Quayle said. “I respect the heck out of Jen. We just differ on our approach.”

  He tapped his breast through his uniform shirt.

  “The fact is,” Quayle said, “I know who killed the Gordons.”

  Chapter 18

  She shouldn’t be smoking this much. Especially not
inside a department vehicle. Jennifer Eng lit her third of the afternoon and maneuvered her prowler down the side road that led to Ramona and Bill Coker’s place.

  It wasn’t just the tobacco. She wasn’t sleeping well. Her diet was sporadic. Worst of all, thoughts of the Gordon family would spin through her mind unbidden. She’d close her eyes and a fine gray mist would begin to seep into her mind. It all added up to a miserable five days and counting.

  It was stress, she decided. That was all. Stress plus the loneliness of having Wei and Lou so far away. If ever she needed a hug from her son, a back rub and a kiss from her husband, it was now.

  Having the civilian consultant from Seattle looming over her shoulder only added to the stress. Jen Eng was genuinely grateful for Nadine Kelso’s help. She wouldn’t have asked Teddy Fowler for a consultant if she didn’t want an experienced perspective on the case. And it was only natural that an outsider like Kelso would focus more on the killer than on the victims. Maybe that ghoulish outlook was even necessary, in order to deal with homicides on a regular basis. But it was antithetical to Jen’s own philosophy.

  That was why, for all her ambitions, Jen Eng had stayed in Castle Rock, put in her time with the previous chief, then applied for the job on his retirement. People were all too real to her. Not statistics. Not avatars to be pushed through the motions of a theory. They were real.

  And so was evil.

  She was fourteen when her father had been shot, dealing with a disturbed woman in an apartment off Pioneer Square. She remembered the hospital, the hours of not knowing whether or not Sgt. Gavin Eng would survive. The relief she’d felt when he’d been released from the hospital.

  Of course the world had shades of gray, and most crime had a motive or cause. But there was something about violence that caused it to become hardwired into some people, fused, no matter what they claimed. The woman who’d shot her father had it. Whoever killed the Gordon family had more of it than Jen had ever seen.

  She finished her cigarette before crossing the front yard of the Coker house. It hadn’t been shoveled in the last few days, so she guessed at where the path was. Before she finished knocking, a tall, dark-haired woman opened the door.

  “Afternoon, Jen,” Ramona said. “Bill’s out back rigging.”

  ‘Rigging’ was her word for her husband’s electrical and mechanical contraptions, which veered between the practical and the absurd. Ramona Coker kept an orderly house, despite working a day job with hours opposite her husband’s. Bill’s influence was felt most in the Coast Salish artwork on the walls, a few heritage items in the cabinet next to the fine china, and their enclosed back porch, which he’d taken over as his workshop.

  Jen found him kneeling beside a generator, affixing a collar-like sheet of folded metal around the exhaust ports. At the tapered end of the sheet was a fan.

  “If it works,” Bill said, “it’ll blow the fumes away from the house. An extra insurance.”

  “I can probably imagine where you got your inspiration from,” Jen said.

  Bill abandoned the contraption and stood, shaking her hand. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “This is kind of a delicate thing I’ve got to say. Want some coffee first?”

  “I’m 80 percent caffeine already,” Jen said. “What’s one more cup?”

  They took up either side of a hanging porch swing, Bill sweeping the tools and newspaper off the seat cushion. She sipped her coffee and fought the urge to light another cigarette. The heated porch was pleasant and Jen undid her jacket.

  She let Bill work up to his speech on his own time. After a few silent rocks of the swing, he said, “So I’ve got this friend.”

  “The hypothetical kind?” She elbowed Bill in the shoulder, smiling. He didn’t reciprocate. Whatever this was, it was weighing on him.

  “When I saw him last night he was acting real weird,” Bill said. “I’m worried for him. I think he might’ve done something he wasn’t ‘sposed to.”

  “Something criminal, you mean.”

  “Yeah, think so. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think he came to me for help, and—frankly, Jen, I’m not sure if I should be talking to you about him.”

  “It won’t go further than us,” Jen promised.

  “My buddy says he did something wrong that led to someone else getting hurt. I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about, and I’m worried he might—“ Bill didn’t finish.

  “Does this tie back to the Gordon case?” Jen asked. An idea regarding the identity of Bill’s mystery friend was forming.

  Bill nodded. “It’s Gary. I should’ve known you’d be able to guess. Hell, maybe I wanted you to.”

  Jen sat forward, setting down her mug. “You’ve got to let me talk to him, Bill.”

  “I suggested that to him last night. For a second it seemed like he was going to tell me what he’d done, and come with me to the station. But then he bolted. Ran off.”

  “Any idea where he is now?”

  Bill’s feet rocked the swing, sending creaks through the chains as they picked up speed.

  After a moment, he said, “I showed him this place once, a few years ago. An old hunting cabin. Me and my brothers used to hide out when we were up to no good. There’s no easy way to get there by car.”

  Jen stood and zipped her coat up. “Then we should get started toute suite.”

  From the Coker house they took a winding path through blackberry bush and Douglas fir. The sky was a burnt orange, veined with silver. The path connected to a horse trail leading further into the woods. One mile, two. Jen wore a pair of Ramona’s old boots, stomping through the snow.

  After an hour of walking, the trail inclined. Bill led her off the trail towards a clearing of trampled ferns and downed trees. Jen held onto whatever she could as they navigated over the uneven ground.

  Bill explained that as a teenager he’d used the place as a camp ground, somewhere he and his friends could smoke dope, drink beer, and gaze at old issues of Playboy and Club International they’d swiped from their fathers and older brothers. It had once been a hunting lodge, built and improved upon by his uncle. He and Gary had used it for hunting a few times. Once, on the way back, Gary’s boot had come off, soaking him. They’d built a fire, warmed him, and fashioned a replacement out of canvas and butcher’s twine. After a slug of booze and a tin of Spam, they’d continued to Bill’s home.

  Jen saw nothing ahead of them besides endless vegetation, low-hanging branches dappled with snow. Deer and raccoon tracks, which Bill pointed out as they hiked. And then there it was, a half mile off, a weathered green shack with a sloped and snow-burdened roof. The door was open and smoke trailed out of the chimney.

  “Gary,” Bill called. “Hey, buddy, are you in?”

  Jen hung back, letting Bill approach at a speed Gary Gordon found comfortable.

  “Can we talk a bit, Gary? I brought Jen along as a friend.”

  A twig broke from somewhere behind the structure. They stopped. An artificial silence filled the air.

  Jen heard a burden of sticks falling, the tramping sound of running feet. She pushed past Bill, heading around the shack, and saw a figure crash through scrub brush and ivy, landing on a path leading away from them.

  Gary’s feet left deep impressions in the snow. His gray wool shirt caught at the brambles, knocking a shower of snow onto his shoulders. Jen trampled after him, freeing her radio as she ran.

  “All units, this is Chief Eng,” she said, relaying her location as best she could. She could hear Bill’s feet behind her. The radio went back into her pocket. Ahead, Gary turned, loping towards the river.

  Jennifer Eng unsnapped her holster, hoping she wouldn’t have to draw her gun, much less fire it.

  Chapter 19

  Peter Quayle admitted to Nadine that he’d found something in Andrew Gordon’s office—something which had unnerved him. A scrap of paper in the garbage can, in what looked like Andrew’s handwriting.

  “And you didn’t show this to Chief Eng?” Nadin
e asked.

  “Oh, I’m going to. I processed it correctly and everything.” He held out the note, smoothed and flattened inside an evidence bag. In black felt pen, the words TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH.

  “If you look it up,” Quayle said, “you’ll find it’s a phrase that comes up twice in scripture, depending on your translation. In both cases it’s meant to convince folks of God’s dominion over the planet. You can’t escape His law, no matter where you go. At least, I think that’s the gist.”

  Nadine nodded, wondering where this was going. They were sitting at Quayle’s desk in the police office. She was hungry. Quayle was taking his time in making sense.

  “It’s a reminder to certain guilty people that their crimes don’t go unseen, and they won’t go unpunished, no matter how long it takes. Have you ever worked a case that didn’t solve?”

  “We’re working on one right now,” Nadine said.

  “No,” Quayle said, suddenly vehement. “Not like this at all.”

  The casual, just-folks demeanor had vanished. What remained was something fanatical, not to be joked about.

  “I’m talking about a case where you know what someone did, Ms. Kelso. Know it in your marrow. But by bad luck or accident, the person that did this horrible thing is still walking around.”

  “Where there’s not enough evidence to convict,” Nadine said.

  “That’s it. But you know who was responsible. You carry that knowledge around.”

  Nadine nodded, not wanting to get into her own small but heart-rending list of professional failures. There were always cases that fell apart, either through mistake, misfortune, or a lack of evidence. Crime scenes could be rained out. Procedures forgotten in the white hot forge of trauma. Working Internal Complaints, she’d found witnesses to corruption and abuse of force who had suddenly revised their testimony, or forgot what they’d seen. To Nadine’s way of thinking, those cases inspired you to work all the harder on the ones you could solve. But Quayle had a point: you never really forgot about the cases that never got made, and the ones who got away.