Cries from the Cold
Bernadette Calonego
Translated by
Gerald Chapple
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
About the Translator
Also by Bernadette Calonego
Text Copyright 2020 by Bernadette Calonego, Calonego Media Inc.
Translation Copyright 2021 by Gerald Chapple
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing by the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. For information regarding permission, contact the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
Previously published as Eisiger Kerker, by Calonego Media Inc. in Canada in 2020. Translated from German by Gerald Chapple.
Published by Calonego Media Inc., Gibsons, B.C., Canada, bernadettecalonego.com
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-9992302-8-9
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-9992302-9-6
Cover design by Vila Design: viladesign.net (Photo Depositphotos, rybarmarekk)
Interior design by Inca Vogt, inca-vogt-autorin.com
Editing by Lindsey Alexander of Reading List Editorial: readinglisteditorial.com
For Cheryl and Wayne
Prologue
Scott has been watching the pack for some time. The coyotes come across the ice toward the beach, about a kilometer away. Six of them. The lead bitch in front, a sly beast. He shot the male, her life mate, a short while ago. You don’t usually see the pack during the day; coyotes hunt in the dark. Don’t want to be seen. Like him.
But today something has compelled the coyotes to come out in broad daylight. He hasn’t a clue what it was.
The pack heads for Savage Beach. That’s where he’s going, too. He considers the beach his territory. You could find driftwood here even in winter. He’s hitched a carrier sled to his snowmobile. Today he’s going to fill it.
The pack has gotten to the beach. Not much snow there, he’s pleased to find when he comes closer. Even the ice on the North Atlantic is pretty snow-free.
The coyotes will make for the nearby woods—they’re full of rabbits and mice. He cuts back his motor, waits. Those fuckin’ critters, what are they up to now? Crowding onto the beach, running back and forth, excited. Like they smell blood.
If those damn beasts don’t get out of here soon, he’ll have to fire a shot into the air. He could also shoot the bitch, but she’s too far away. Besides, he doesn’t want to take on the whole pack.
He just wants to get at the fucking wood. It doesn’t cost anything. He’s short of cash. His business isn’t going too well now. Government’s fault. Went and legalized marijuana. That wrecked his revenue. It’s harder with coke and crack. The cops are keeping a close eye on him. He doesn’t want to get nabbed a second time. Eight months in the slammer was more than enough. Next time the prosecutor will hit him with years.
What the hell . . . ? Did someone dump a carcass on the beach?
He takes his binoculars out from under his coat. Holds them up to his eyes. Jesus! What’s that? Looks like a crate. About as long as a coffin. And the coyotes smell something. They’re really going at it. Claws scratching.
He stuffs his binoculars under his coat and gets out his rifle. Bang! Bang! The pack scatters. Just so long as they keep away, the damn animals. He straps on his rifle and drives cautiously toward the beach. Not a coyote in sight. Clever, those critters. They’ve learned what shots mean. Coyote kill, state sponsored. The government pays twenty-five dollars for one dead animal. To protect a few caribou from predators. How idiotic is that! Maybe there’ll be a bounty on pests like him sometime.
He drives hard onto the beach, up to the crate. The thing’s built with solid boards. In good condition; a lot of firewood for the taking. But first he wants to know what’s inside.
He’s stowed an ax under his snowmobile seat. He scans the forest edge once again. Feels watched. Okay, no animal dares to come out. The ax whips downward. The corner of the crate splinters from his heavy blow. The hole is big enough for a look inside. He leans over and peeks through the opening. His gaze hits a skull. He staggers backward. He’s a hard-nosed tough, but right now he’s horrified. He’s seen a swatch of hair.
He looks into the crate again. Wrinkles his brow. Something dawns on him. What he sees is shocking and crazy. His heart is hammering.
Now he sees it. The symbol.
A sign stamped in the wood. Almost faded away.
Three intertwined triangles.
He stares at the symbol. He knows it. Knows it well.
Holy shit!
He circles the crate the way the coyotes did before. It can’t be true. He trembles as he puts away his ax underneath the seat. Looks at the crate again. Thinks a little more clearly.
Things don’t look so bad. Nobody can pin anything on him. He was in the clink at the time. Maybe this is his chance.
Something catches his eye. He shoves two fingers through the gap between the boards. Carefully pulls on something. Until he has it in his hand. He quickly pushes down on the splintered wood. Closes off the gap.
As he climbs onto his snowmobile, he sees a coyote by the edge of the woods. He pulls down his visor and heads off.
1
“When are you meeting them?” my doctor asks. “When are you going to be dissected?”
I like that about her. She talks like me. I can be completely upfront with her. She’s not going to get upset easily. Even the sight of me when I was brought in didn’t unsettle her. Blood everywhere and broken bones. She didn’t see until later what my head had suffered. That was one year and six months ago, and I still don’t know who wanted
to beat me to a pulp. A professional dogwalker saved my life. Or the four pit bulls he was walking. They saw to it that the masked assailant took off.
I used to think, too, that I was nearly invincible. Until I was knocked down with a crowbar during my evening jog.
“Don’t let anybody talk you into anything. You’re cleared for combat, Gates.”
I asked her to call me that, not Mrs. Gates or Detective Sergeant Gates. Or Calista. I call her Dr. Ironman, although she has a different name.
“You will certainly have to send them a report,” I say. About the pain in my leg. The medicine for these attacks that my injured brain orchestrates. About my right hand, which sometimes prevents me from lifting heavy things. Handguns are no problem, but machine guns are chancy. I never know whether my hand can take it or not.
The doctor certainly won’t put that in her report, but my bosses at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police can read between the lines.
“Obviously that shouldn’t surprise you. I see no reason to leave you on the sidelines any longer. But you have to believe in yourself as well, Gates.”
The doctor is about forty, five years older than me. She’s ingested wisdom by the truckload, not by the spoonful. It definitely couldn’t have been easy for her in the hospital’s hierarchy.
She moves me to the large wall mirror where I practiced making faces for months. A macabre ballet of facial muscles.
“Look at yourself closely, Gates. Phoenix out of the ashes. Like being reborn. Only stronger and harder.”
She’s got her own jargon. Built me up with it. Not like the RCMP psychiatrist who was constantly poking around in my past. Time and again he wanted to talk about that summer night when I was twelve. When I heard screams outside my window: Stop! You’re hurting me!
He wanted to know everything. All about it, and what happened afterward. He rooted around, drilled down—so I threw the words in his face again: "Stop! You're hurting me!"
That’s when he smiled. Smugly. I can see him today, right before me. As if he’d discovered Troy, the mythical ancient Greek city. Nothing’s mythical about me, Mr. Psychiatrist; it’s other people who are screwed up. Like that person who went after me with a crowbar.
“Tell me what you see, Gates.” Her voice comes from behind me. I’m myself again, at least on the outside. Most of my healed injuries are concealed by clothes. The scars. Nothing visible on my face except for a small white streak on my hairline, above my forehead. That’s from the operation. I mustn’t hide anything under bangs or unruly curls. My hair is combed tightly back and tied in a knot—my RCMP look. You can tell immediately that I’ve got Greek ancestry; my parents took care of that. Eyelids like parachutes and eyes that sparkle like marbles. An aura of tragedy. I’d be great in the Prisoners’ Chorus in the opera.
I’m suppressing something. There’s one more scar. On my lower lip. I did it to myself when I bit my lip from the pain. The attacker destroyed the prettiest part of my body. My well-formed mouth. Now I wear lipstick when I have to. I never needed it before.
But not this afternoon. I’m showing my scar. Makes me look tougher. Or banged up?
The doctor keeps at it.
“Do you see how far you’ve come?”
I want my job back. I want my job back.
“I see anger,” I reply.
“No, you’re not seeing that; you’re feeling it. And that’s good. Anger’s going to help you with your appointment today. Chin up!”
I can’t get any food down at noon; adrenaline’s keeping me on my feet. I don’t put on any lipstick. I’m not ready to get kicked out of the RCMP without a fight. Not like a colleague of mine who was shot in the back and is now twiddling his thumbs in a trust company office.
Three men are seated across from me. My former boss from the Major Crime Homicide Unit; the deputy head of Human Resources, and—this puzzles me—the deputy commissioner himself. Why is the top man in the Vancouver RCMP at this meeting?
“We have looked through the medical report and would like to give you a chance,” my old boss begins.
Give you a chance. Earlier, they would have scrambled to get me.
He doesn’t mention the psychiatrist who hovers like a ghost over the proceedings. Although he isn’t even in the room.
“We think it would be best if you test your muscles in a less stressful environment than Vancouver.”
His language! Test your muscles. He means my brain injury. Doesn’t want to say it. Vancouver’s my hometown. I’m familiar with everything here. That’s not stressful, I’d like to say. Mustn’t, though. They’re giving you a chance, Calista, did you hear? Better than disability insurance.
He continues. All I hear is “Labrador.” God, that’s the end of the world. Ice-cold in winter and swarming with ravenous mosquitoes in summer. I saw it on TV. And there’s a city with the complicated name Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
They’re all looking at me. Did I miss something? Did I black out for a moment? I feel hot. That must not happen here, not in front of these people.
“You can decline right now, Detective Sergeant, then we don’t need to go any further.”
Is that a warning? Of course it’s a warning. The RCMP can send you where they want to. You can give reasons why someplace might not be a good idea. Maybe once, but not twice. And there’s no way I can do that now, in my situation. That’s as clear as a sunny day. I hope the sun shines in Labrador now and then.
“A posting to Happy Valley-Goose Bay? For how long, sir?”
There’s an airport, I remember. Two airports. One civilian and an international military one. That’s where pilots from different countries do their low-flying bomber training over the endless tundra. The Inuit protested against it. That’s what the TV program was about.
“Three years, Detective Sergeant, in the vicinity of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The town’s called Port Brendan.”
I freeze. Three years. Where the heck is Port Brendan?
“The Port Brendan post covers southeastern Labrador. Four men are stationed there. We want to reinforce them.”
I hold off answering. I don’t want to agree before I know the whole truth. My boss is kind enough to offer me the truth piecemeal. He doesn’t want to hit me with it all at once—got to give him that.
“Port Brendan is three hundred kilometers from Happy Valley-Goose Bay. There’s a road to Port Brendan; they’ve started to pave it. The next, rather small airport is in Blanc-Sablon, to the west, and from there it’s about three to four hours by car to Port Brendan, depending on weather conditions.”
I suddenly have a hunch. A newspaper report on the Toronto Star website.
When was it? Going on two weeks ago?
The skeleton of a young woman who’d been a friend of an American fighter pilot. It had unexpectedly turned up in Port Brendan, where she was from. When she disappeared two or three years ago, it was in the headlines. The government in Washington protested when the RCMP interrogated the pilot in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.
“Is this about the girlfriend of the American pilot?” I ask.
Now the deputy commissioner comes in.
“We can only discuss details with you if you accept the reposting.”
They don’t even give me time to think it over. Because they know I’ve got no alternative. Labrador or nothing. Three years. I can get through that. Heavens, I’ve survived the hell of the last eighteen months. And I get a controversial murder case. And it must be that murder—or else the DC would reveal more.
“Sir, I accept your offer.”
Nobody says anything for a moment. Are they all surprised that I agreed? Or relieved?
The deputy commissioner brushes his hand over the file before him. I see the name Lorna Taylor on a white label.
“I can tell you this much for now, Sergeant. You will keep the rank of detective sergeant, but don’t be offended if your colleagues in Labrador address you as Constable.”
That’s the first surprise he drops on me. The seco
nd comes just before I sign the agreement.
“It would be good if you could fly out in three days.”
Three days. I’m speechless. Sign anyway. The Lorna Taylor case is waiting for me.
“Learn a few phrases in Inuktitut,” my ex-boss advises before I leave the room.
Of course: I’m being sent to Inuit country.
2
It’s snowing like mad; planes can’t take off. I’m stuck in Montreal, have to spend another night in the hotel because the plane can’t land in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. A storm. But what do you expect at the beginning of March?
They gave me three days to pack. Just time enough to say goodbye to all my siblings. I’ve got six. All of them felt sorry for me—that was the worst part of it. I’ve really had it up to here with pity. They also sympathize because I—unlike them—haven’t got any children. My parents tried to make me change my mind. They never understood why I signed up for the RCMP. Mom told everybody what a good dancer I was. Years of expensive ballet lessons for nothing. I was even better in math, but Mom never talks about that. All because of Becca Heyer, she complains whenever she gets the opportunity to. She thinks that’s the reason I chose my profession. Right she is. That’s where it all began.
CRIES FROM THE COLD: A bone-chilling mystery thriller. (Detective Calista Gates 1) Page 1
