CRIES FROM THE COLD: A bone-chilling mystery thriller. (Detective Calista Gates 1)

by Bernadette Calonego

  He discovers Melissa Richards and her mother in one of the rows. Not even a grieving fiancée will skip this event, even though Bakie’s dead and her brother is in a police cell. Coming here means everything, apparently. People are standing around the podium, gesticulating, looking worried. The sound system doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe all that technical equipment is affected by the ice-cold temperature. Dr. Perrell pops up. He will address the audience after the mayor’s speech, probably to promote the clinic. Will he mention Bakie?

  Fred goes over to the other side of the arena to have a better view. His annoying vision problems have disappeared since the doctor prescribed some pills for low blood pressure. Nobody’s supposed to know about it. Least of all Delgado and Sullivan. They’re patrolling the town. So where’s Calista? She must be as tense as he is. She thinks Bakie was the wrong target in the murder attack. A mix-up in the dark Viking house. He doesn’t rule that out. It would also explain why they’re not making any progress in the investigation.

  “Can the police finally tell me who killed Kris?” a female voice shouts.

  Fred turns around in surprise. Melissa Richards is there right beside him. She spoke so loudly over the noise in the arena that several heads nearby turn toward them.

  “I can’t talk about it; please ask Sergeant Closs.” It’s the most convenient answer that occurs to him.

  “What are the police doing anyway? What are they doing here? Do you seriously think you’ll find the murderer in this arena?”

  Fred knows about the emotional state of people afflicted by a tragedy. Even so, he’s never been confronted with it in a sports arena. It could very well be that the killer is in the arena, he would like to have replied. Instead, he cops out with a conversational ploy that he learned in training.

  “I understand that you’d like some answers. We’re working round the clock on the case.”

  “It’s a case to you, Constable, to me it’s the lost love of my life.” Melissa’s voice has grown even louder, like the hustle and bustle in the arena.

  He would take her by the arm to calm her down, but a policeman is supposed to avoid that sort of physical contact if at all possible. It could be misinterpreted. He learned that as well. He says instead: “So come to the station tomorrow. We can talk better there than here.”

  “You just want to get rid of me. Tomorrow you’ll say something else to put me off.”

  She turns away, furious. Looking behind her, he spies Calista at the entrance. She comes in following a bevy of mummers. He guesses at once what she’s up to. She’s checking the identity of the costumed characters. To see that a potential killer’s not hiding behind a mask. That definitely will irritate the mummers. He wonders how she explained it to the children and their parents. Two volunteer organizers take the mummers behind the stage. The program says they’ll dance a jig later and shake the Ugly Stick, a broomstick hung with bells, rattling tin cans, and an old boot at the bottom.

  His phone rings.

  “Where are you?” Calista asks.

  He can’t understand her very well in the din but describes where he is. She’s beside him in less than a minute.

  He comes out with his question then and there. “You were checking out the mummers?”

  “Yes.”

  “What reason did you give?”

  “You’re asking me?” She looks at him, astonished.

  “I mean, how did you explain it to people? That you’re looking for a killer?”

  “Oh, that’s it. No, of course not. I happened to have some gold chocolate dollars left over from Christmas in my pack. I said the adults get one and the children two. You only get one if I can have a quick look at your face. They thought it was fun.” She grimaces. “I can only get away with this because I’m a stranger from Vancouver.”

  He has to admit the technique got her what she was after.

  “I compared the lists,” he says, looking around. He doesn’t want anybody listening.

  She comes a step closer.

  “Shoot.”

  “I got eight people who work in the hospital and volunteer in the Salvation Army shop at the same time. They also took part in the Facebook auction for the animal rescue group.”

  He secretly doubts that the result will be of any great help to them. Sweatshirts can be gifts, stolen, or palmed off on somebody. Besides, the eight overlapping names are all women. He thinks none of them is capable of cutting off a dog’s head.

  Calista doesn’t spend much time on the matter.

  “Dennis Richards claims that Ann Smith herself was seen on that day with the blue bag on the ice. She’s said to have put it there herself. Fred, we should go and ask her.”

  “Who saw Ann?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  He has no trouble understanding her last sentence because the noise level suddenly drops. Port Brendan’s mayor is at the microphone, clearing his throat.

  “Where’s the Sarge?” Calista whispers. She smells of fresh soap. Her hair is tucked under a red wool hat with a pompom. The color suits her. But he can’t overlook the tension in her face.

  He shrugs. He’d like to know, too.

  “We don’t need the Olympics; we’ve got the Winter Games,” the mayor shouts, and the audience applauds. Then he says something about “coming together in hard times” and “we’ll bounce back.” Fred is only half-listening; his eyes are constantly moving back and forth over the rows of seats.

  “Is Ann Smith here?” Calista asks.

  He shakes his head. “I just see Shannon Wilkey, in the second row.”

  “Ann brought my guests here. Somebody has to take them back to my place afterward.” She whispers in his ear, undoubtedly because she doesn’t want to interfere with the speech from the stage. They normally don’t come this close.

  The mayor closes with an appeal to the legendary Labradorian fighting spirit. The Innu come on stage with drums and invoke the spirits to watch over the games benevolently. After that, four Inuit explain in their native tongue the significance of the games for their tradition. A young nurse—Fred saw her at the clinic—does the translating.

  He looks sideways at Calista. Her eyes flit from one corner of the arena to the other and then briefly back to the stage. She’s constantly expecting the worst, Fred reasons. When somebody’s been beaten up like that, they can never rest. Bakie’s murder must only have fueled her obsession.

  Loud shouts and whistles from the audience fire up the indigenous performers on stage. They demonstrate feats of strength that have been handed down from generation to generation. Two Inuit women sit down opposite each other on the stage floor with a soft leather lacing around their left ear that they pull on with all their might in opposite directions. Even Calista watches and shakes her head. She’s surely seeing this very painful test of strength for the first time. But he, on the other hand, has already witnessed a similar event. He wanted to impress his girlfriend with it, when she was here on her first visit. But she wasn’t the least bit interested and never came back to Labrador. She can hardly wait for the day he’ll be pulled out of the province. Her family lives in Saskatoon; there’s where she grew up, and there’s where she wants to raise her children. He hasn’t had any sign from the RCMP that they’ll transfer him to Saskatoon. He has to earn his spurs first on more isolated rural postings.

  His girlfriend was enthusiastic at first, when he became a Mountie. A secure job, a good salary—that pleased her. She wants to have children soon and quit her job in city administration. It was love at first sight when he met her at some friends’ barbecue. A bubbly blonde, pretty as a picture, who was always in a good mood. She could have had any guy, but she chose him. He wanted to marry her. But then she refused to move to Port Brendan. That made everything harder. He’s aware that he didn’t sign up with the RCMP for the job security. He wanted variety, interesting work, not a boring office job; he wanted adrenaline in his blood. He’s conflicted. When he’s on vacation in Saskatoon, he wants to be
with her forever. But doubts always crop up afterward, in Port Brendan. Does his fiancée really know what it means to be married to a cop? And is a woman who’s that inflexible really the right one for him?

  Loud music tears him out of his thoughts. Mummers stream onto the stage, then keep spinning around and stomping their feet to the rhythmic sounds. They shake their Ugly Sticks and strike the podium with them. The bells and metal cans rattle and clatter.

  Calista watches the action on stage with a furrowed brow. Something seems to be on her mind.

  “What is it?” he inquires, more loudly than he meant to.

  “I can’t see Dulcie. Dulcie Stout. My neighbors’ daughter.”

  She no longer whispers. It’s just too noisy in the arena for that.

  He doesn’t understand her concern. They can’t really worry about neighbors’ children as well.

  Calista grabs his sleeve.

  “Look, Dulcie’s father is getting up.”

  He does indeed see Rick Stout walking backstage. He knows Rick from the drills with the volunteer fire department. Suddenly a voice like a siren rings out through the arena, and the music breaks off. It’s Meeka Stout, standing among the mummers on stage.

  “Dulcie’s disappeared! Has anybody seen Dulcie? We can’t find her!”

  Calista instantly runs down the middle aisle to the front. Before Fred can think clearly, she’s talking on stage with Meeka.

  He hears her voice over the microphone.

  “Please, all of you, stay seated. That will help us find Dulcie. Keep calm until we’ve found Dulcie.”

  It doesn’t help, of course. Some people jump out of their seats, giving in to the impulse to look for the child and not sit there doing nothing. Survival in Port Brendan depends on people helping one another. People there have absorbed that with their mother’s milk. Calista isn’t aware of that yet. She can’t hold back the wave.

  Fred runs through the surging turmoil toward the stage. He sees Dr. Perrell out of the corner of his eye talking forcefully at Shannon Wilkey, shaking his head furiously and with anger on his face. Apart from a few elderly people, the whole audience seems to be on their feet. Many are rushing out into the dark.

  He makes it to Calista as she’s trying to calm Meeka down.

  “What do we know?” he yells to counter the cacophony in the arena.

  “Meeka saw her backstage about fifteen minutes ago, before she went to get ready for her performance.”

  “Where’s my baby?” Meeka screams. “Please find my baby!”

  Dulcie was still backstage fifteen minutes ago. Why the panic, he asks himself. Maybe she went to the restroom. He can’t say why, but he’s worried more about the chaos than the girl.

  Suddenly three young women are beside him, speaking wildly, all at the same time.

  “We searched the restrooms—she’s not there.”

  “Can we do something? Where should we look?”

  “I’ve got a flashlight.”

  Fred turns the trio over to his partner. He wants to talk to the mummers and heads for a teenager who has removed the face covering of his costume and is standing around rather helplessly.

  “I’m Constable Fred. Can you tell me when you last saw Dulcie?”

  The teen, a youngster with a pimply, sweat-covered face, stammers at first: “I don’t know . . .” Then he recalls something. “She was looking for the chocolate.”

  Fred hesitates for a second before remembering the gold dollars Calista used to bribe the mummers. “Where was she looking?”

  “She was running back and forth saying, ‘Where’s my chocolate?’”

  “Back and forth where?”

  The teenager points to behind the stage.

  “Tracy told Dulcie that her dad had put it in his pocket so it wouldn’t get lost.”

  “Who’s Tracy?”

  “Tracy Wanmore.”

  One of the helpers.

  “Can you show me who she is?”

  The teen looks around.

  “I don’t know . . .” Then he shouts, “There she is.”

  Fred follows him to a schoolgirl who’s dissolved into tears.

  “I was keeping a real close eye on her, I was always watching.”

  An older woman puts an arm around her. Her mother.

  “You can’t blame my girl for it,” she shouts at him.

  “I just want to talk with her,” Fred responds.

  “Why do you want to talk with her? She’s done nothing wrong,” the mother yells.

  Fred looks at the girl, ignoring the mother.

  “You can help me find Dulcie. I’ve heard that Dulcie’s chocolate went missing.”

  “The gold dollar. She was looking for her gold dollar,” the teenager repeats; he must have followed Fred.

  “What gold dollar?” the mother asks, puzzled.

  Bangs go off outside. Fred can hardly believe it. Somebody’s setting off fireworks. A car horn beeps like mad. Dogs are barking. Have people gone insane?

  The daughter gets a hold of herself and explains more clearly: “Rick took her gold dollar away because he didn’t want . . . she would have smeared chocolate all over everything. But . . .”

  “The kids lied to her.” The teen has got himself going. “They told Dulcie they’d hidden her chocolate.”

  “What kids?”

  Tracy snivels. “The two boys who live with Meeka and Rick. The foster children.”

  “They’re real snotty-nosed brats,” her mother grumbles.

  Fred pricks up his ears. “What did the kids say to Dulcie—exactly?”

  “That they hid the gold dollar.”

  “Did they say where?”

  “I don’t know,” the teenager says again, and the girl shakes her head.

  Only now does Fred realize that people are crowded around and are listening. He hears voices somewhere calling, “Dulcie! Dulcie!”

  In all that chaos, he thinks hard.

  Then all of a sudden, he suspects where he’ll find the little girl.

  40

  The banging has stopped abruptly. The fireworks shouldn’t have started this early at all. I try to convince the three athletes not to go looking for Dulcie in the dark with a flashlight.

  Closs looms up beside us.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he asks, with a peeved look. “This is the very thing we were trying to avoid.”

  “Rick Stout’s daughter has gone missing. She won’t know where she is if she’s all alone,” I reply as I try to get away from the three women. They don’t need to hear this.

  But Closs doesn’t budge an inch.

  “It wasn’t a good idea to inspect the mummers, Gates. It creates fear, and then we have a situation like this.”

  Who told him that I wanted to identify the mummers? And where was he when I was doing it? I’m annoyed that he’s criticizing me within earshot of my guests.

  To avoid a discussion, I simply inform him: “Dulcie’s been missing for about twenty minutes. Fred’s just now questioning people who were close by.”

  And I’d be doing it, too, if the sarge weren’t holding me up.

  “Now we’ve got all these people wandering around in the dark.” He doesn’t stop complaining. “Next thing we know, we’ll have an accident or something worse.”

  Worse? Worse can only be a murder. That’s why I checked the mummers, I want to say. But I bite my tongue.

  “I ordered the people to stay seated, but they didn’t listen,” I respond.

  Closs just gets even more irritable.

  “Are you surprised by that?” he roars.

  So where was he for the last two hours anyway? I’m even more irritated.

  “We’d like to help in the search,” one of the women interjects; they haven’t left my side.

  “Come with me,” he says, ever the good, energetic police officer.

  I seize my chance to hurry backstage, on a hunch. Fred’s there already. He’s lying on the floor, his upper body partly unde
r the stage.

  Meeka’s crouched beside him.

  “Dulcie, come on out. Mommy’s here.”

  I lie down beside Fred and work my way under the podium.

  “She doesn’t want to come out?” I ask.

  I can make out an arm and a leg in the flashlight beam.

  “She’s shy,” Fred grunts.

  “Dulcie, angel, come to Mommy,” Meeka calls again.

  Just the three of us seem to realize that Dulcie’s been found. That’s good, or else the girl would stay under the stage forever. Without thinking, I reach into my jacket pocket and take out a few gold dollars.

  “I’ve got some chocolate for you, Dulcie,” I whisper. “Golden chocolate, a whole lot. Just for you.”

  Fred aims the light beam on the gold dollars in my hand. Sometimes he does exactly the right thing without being asked. And I do, too. We’re not a bad team.

  “A whole bunch of chocolate. I’ve saved it for you.”

  It works. Dulcie slowly creeps out of her hiding place.

  “Look, they’re waiting for you.” I wave the gold dollars.

  The girl crawls toward us, her little face beaming with joy.

  “Mine,” she says. “All mine.”

  “Yes, they’re only for you. Many, many, many of them.”

  The minute she’s with us, she grabs a gold dollar with her little hand. I pull her the rest of the way out from beneath the stands. Meeka tries to hug her, but Dulcie wants her chocolate and defends herself. I help her gather up the dollars. Fred pulls out a handkerchief to make up a bundle.

  I’m just about to praise him for this gesture when he says: “Money is the root of all evil.”

  “And chocolate is the root of all joy,” I fire back.