Winter storms, for example. The locals call it Sheila’s Brush. She’s experienced it for the first time because she’s normally not here in winter. Only her lover knows where she spends the bitter cold season. Winter months, with nothing to do but talk to him on the phone.
Carl Perrell could never have given her what her lover gives her. Perrell was used to having everyone kneel at his feet. He couldn’t understand why his charisma had no effect on her. Maybe it would have been different under other circumstances, in another life. Perrell possessed qualities she respected. His commitment to the folks here. His dedication to the clinic. It wouldn’t garner him any academic laurels. Perrell was a driven man, a missionary.
Like Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, his role model. Perrell once told her that Grenfell wanted to rush to a patient by dogsled over the ice but got marooned on an ice pan that floated out onto the open sea. It took a long time to find him. He had to kill three of his dogs in order to survive. Wrapped himself in their pelts so he wouldn’t freeze to death.
A thing like that impressed Carl. That’s the way he saw himself. He took risks. Didn’t stick to the rules. Maybe he went too far sometimes.
She hears a motor. Probably the snowplow. Impressive, how quick snow removal is here.
She gets up off the yoga mat and peers out the window. Shannon’s SUV. Her pulse quickens. The effect of her yoga has fizzled out. Shannon’s already opening the door. If only she’d locked it, as she usually does. But she gets practically no visitors. Certainly not Shannon Wilkey.
“Ann?”
She can’t hide, can’t pretend she’s not home. Shannon is sure to have seen her moving before she came up the path to the house.
The sound of boots being taken off. A zipper pulled down. Firm steps on the stairs. Too late.
Shannon stands in front of her, her blond hair tied back, a bright blue band over her forehead. Her fleece jacket is blue as well, with white stars.
“Forgive my impromptu visit,” she says, “but I absolutely must know how you’re doing after Dr. Perrell’s death.” Her voice doesn’t sound at all apologetic.
“I’m as shocked as everybody,” Ann responds dryly. “You, too?”
Shannon sits down, without being asked, on one of the two living-room chairs, and Ann has no choice but to sit down opposite her. She feels unprotected in her skintight yoga outfit.
But Shannon keeps her eyes trained on her face.
“You know, of course, that he was shot. One of the young biathletes found him.”
This was news to her. “Have the police made the cause of death public?”
“No, but everybody in the village is talking about it. What will you say to the police?”
“Me? What have I got to do with it?”
“What will you tell the police when you’re asked why you pointed your gun at him at the shooting competition?”
Ann jumps to her feet. “What business is that of yours? Have you come here to grill me?”
Shannon remains seated calmly, her hands held loosely together.
“I’m here to help you, Ann. I’m on your side. You’ve got nothing to fear from me.”
“Oh, no?” Ann folds her arms. “Then why do you attack me with this question?”
“Because I’m worried about you. Because you might be dragged into the murder investigation, and you really don’t want that. I’m here because I want to protect you. I know that you’re Yvonne Shelcken. Do you need an alibi? I’ll give you one right now if necessary.”
Ann’s heart stops for a second. That name. Shannon knows her name. She slowly sinks down onto the chair again. She mentally slips a glass sphere over her head. Like back then, during a race. Inside that glass sphere there’s quiet. Concentration. And an iron will to score a bull’s-eye.
She looks straight at Shannon.
“Who are you?”
“I’m not what I seem to be. I fight for democracy. Against the enemies of freedom. Fight against moral disintegration and the destruction of good people. I do it with my own devices and in a way that works best. I’ve always admired you, and when you were attacked, I helped you from behind the scenes. I’ll do it now, too.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Ask your brother. When you ask him, give him my code word, Herpever 82.”
Ann can’t grasp what she’s hearing. She knows that code word. She and her brother, who lives in Montana, made it up. She knows that she was quickly accepted into Canada thanks to connections with people she does not know. That she got a new identity with the help of influential supporters. That the operations on her face were financed by benefactors. But Shannon’s an American. Her husband’s a well-known conservative donor. Watch out for Shannon, her lover warned her. Say nothing if she’s around.
“Are you spying on me?”
“To a certain extent. But I like this place. And we were concerned about Carl Perrell.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me. Your brother. People in our circle.”
“Why Dr. Perrell?”
“He was too interested in you. And he found out who you are.”
Another revelation that spooks her.
“How?”
“We don’t know that yet. Somebody must have leaked it to him. Maybe your lover.”
Ann freezes.
“Impossible.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We have to consider all options. He knows your identity.”
“I trust him one hundred percent.”
Shannon does not smile. She also doesn’t contradict her.
“Perrell worked briefly as an emergency doctor in a Vancouver hospital. During the Olympics. But we know that he never met you. He came here without any knowledge of your true identity. He actually wanted a position at the hospital in St. Anthony, because of Dr. Grenfell. But then he had the chance to run the Port Brendan hospital. That got him excited.” She sighs. “All this wouldn’t have happened if he’d moved to St. Anthony.”
Ann recorded every detail like an animal looking out for a hunter.
“How come you know all this?”
“We’ve got friends in Canada. We want to be sure that nobody puts you in harm’s way. Now or ever.”
“Did you kill Dr. Perrell? Because he was a threat to me?”
Shannon throws up her hands.
“No, for heaven’s sake! We don’t kill anybody. We’re here to protect people. I warned him to leave you in peace. I warned him in a way that showed him we were serious. He didn’t like it. In the arena, just before he died, he chewed me out for that reason. But I didn’t give in. He was obsessed with you. That was not good.”
“And you’re trying to tell me that you’ve come here year after year to keep me under surveillance?”
“And to protect you, is how I’d rather put it. But I like it here. A lot, in fact.”
“This is crazy.”
“I’d say it’s efficient. We fight for people who stand up for their convictions. You opposed the New Gun Federation and paid the price. You had to leave your home country because you feared for your life. Those are the people we fight for.”
“Your husband, does he know about this?”
“No, of course not.”
“How can you be married to him?”
“He uses me, I use him. It’s a wash, right?”
“Why would you take risks like that? What’s your motivation?”
“My motivation . . .”
Shannon’s face suddenly grows very still; a trace of bitterness plays around her mouth. Her gaze wanders.
Ann’s amazed at her abrupt transformation.
The answer comes slowly and haltingly.
“My best friend . . . was killed by a gun nut. And why? Because . . . because she confronted him when he showed up at her house with a machine gun at a party for kids. He . . . was the father of one of the kids who was invited. She told him guns were not welcome in her house at a kids’ party. He didn’t want to leave at first
. Finally . . . finally she threatened to call the police and brought him outside. He shot her at her front door. Just like that. Bruised ego.” Shannon stops, breathing audibly. “The executive of the NGF claimed the shooter just wanted to protect his child. Protect him from what? It’s absurd. Incredible. The NGF hired a well-known lawyer for him, and he got off with house arrest.”
For a few moments there was only the sound of the heating fan. Ann had heard of that incident when she was still living in Montana. There were a lot of people in her home state who thought the judge’s decision was a good one. One more reason why she opposed being co-opted by a gun organization.
“Why did you come to me?” she asks.
Shannon draws her arms around her body as if she were shivering.
“We’ll help you disappear again if need be. Who knows where this murder investigation’s going.”
It was a huge mistake, that prank with the rifle, Ann thinks. She ought to have known better: you don’t fool around with guns. She was on such a high because she had managed to win even without any practicing. Aim, shoot, win. Maybe she wanted unconsciously to break the chains that her new identity bound her in. Or she wanted to scare Perrell a little. He should have been happy that she was able to bring in a sizable sum for the clinic. But he could only see in her eyes his personal defeat. The woman who would never be his.
“You didn’t come to Labrador on my account, Shannon, or you wouldn’t have built a house. You know I won’t stay in Port Brendan forever.”
Shannon smiles again. “I’ve fallen in love with this part of the country. I found it thanks to you. This is where I overcame my painter’s block. My artistic crisis that had paralyzed me for several years came to an end. It’s wonderful.” She looks at her, eye to eye. “I must have my own four walls. Air to breathe. Light. A beautiful art studio. Or else I cannot paint.”
This is how rich people talk. Ann snorted mentally.
“I can’t leave now,” she says. “Not without him.”
“But you leave every winter.” Shannon’s voice floats softly through the room.
She sighs to herself. Shannon probably also knows where she passes the cold months. Very near the Montana border, so her family can visit her regularly.
“I don’t have anything to do with the murders.”
“Ann, he won’t be able to save you when things get going. Calista Gates has smelled blood. She’ll take it to the bitter end. She’s already caught Lorna Taylor’s murderer. She’ll also discover that you put the garbage bag out on the ice. I saw you do it and didn’t tell the Mounties anything. But Constable Gates is a highly intelligent hound dog.”
Calista with the lovable face. The black eyes. The melancholy look. Everything just a facade. Maybe she’s been play-acting. The way Ann does, too.
“He doesn’t have to save me. They’ve got nothing on me.”
“But you don’t want to be involved or called as a witness.”
No, she doesn’t want that. Maybe Shannon’s right. He won’t be able to prevent it.
Her visitor pulls down the sleeves of her bright blue fleece jacket. “I can take off for the US anytime. But you can’t. There are plenty of gun-crazy people there who’d love to put a bullet through your head.”
“Somebody did that to Carl Perrell. If it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t you, who was it?”
“I’m convinced that Calista Gates will soon find out.”
49
While I put on my ski pants, Rick Stout never stops talking. I can’t really get rid of him because he’s taking me to the ice fishing event on Sataka Lake.
“Would never even dream of buying a yellow car. Terrible color. People know right away that a woman’s inside.”
“Why wouldn’t men want a yellow car?” I respond. “It’s practical, after all, if you’re lost in the tundra. It jumps right out at you.”
I tie on my kidney belt. Rick probably thinks that’s typical of a woman, too. But he’s still going on about Georgina’s Jeep.
“She doesn’t drive that thing into the tundra. She doesn’t do anything but go to the hospital.”
That’s my cue.
“How did Meeka take the news of Dr. Perrell’s murder?”
I’ve already learned from Rick that Meeka won’t be coming with us to Sataka Lake because she’s not feeling well. Rick’s brother will take the three children on a sled hitched up to his Ski-Doo that he uses for getting firewood from the forest.
Rick’s face goes dark.
“She’s worried about Dulcie. Dr. Perrell treated her. Have you found out who did it yet?”
I look for my gloves. A pair of thin ones for the first layer and thick ones over them.
“He treated lots of people. I wonder who could have hated him so much. Any ideas?”
He rocks his head back and forth. “Could imagine that not everybody liked him. He sometimes gave it to people straight that they shouldn’t drink so much or eat potato chips and watch TV.”
“But nobody kills you for that!”
“Maybe he screwed a fisherman’s wife.”
“Was he a lady-killer?”
“Did he make a pass at you?”
“No.”
“He had so many to choose from. Women ran after him in droves.”
Women like Georgina Closs. But Carl Perrell might have stayed true to one of them. Ann Smith, who gave him the cold shoulder. And pointed a rifle barrel at him at the shooting competition.
I pick up my helmet.
“I’m ready. Are we going?”
Another snowmobile is standing next to mine outside. I assumed we were going to take mine, but Rick finally got the spare part for his machine and repaired it. Which is a great relief to me. It’s no fun on the rear seat, having to put up with the hard bumps and abrupt turns. Like that trip with Gerald Hynes.
I’ve hardly got the machine going and Rick’s already out ahead. He slows down out of deference to me. We cross the main street, go up a slight incline where bushes yield to a snowmobile trail. Soon we’ve got a couple of hills behind us and jet over the tundra; the vegetation is almost entirely buried under snow. At times an improvised signpost appears. I still lose my orientation quickly and stay right on Rick’s heels. The path keeps branching off time and again, and it puzzles me how Rick knows which way to go. I don’t see any reference points in the uniform, white wilderness that you can depend on. The glare of the sun is almost blinding; my eyes are burning. I tenaciously follow the blue shadow in front of me that’s moving forward. Sometimes Rick glances over his shoulder to see where I am.
After a half hour that seems like an eternity, we go up to a plateau, force the machines through risky curves among low trees, and speed down again onto a white plain. I can make out colored dots on it. The frozen lake! I made it. Rick comes to a stop near a group of people, and I do the same. I get off my Ski-Doo awkwardly; my legs are stiff and frozen through, despite my thermal underwear. When I take off my helmet, I see a dozen pairs of eyes staring at me.
Rick looks like he’s enjoying the attention, unlike me.
“No fear, people,” he jests. “She won’t take the first prize away from you.”
“Hey, she’s already caught a big fish,” one of the bystanders counters. “Unless he jumps off the hook.”
He probably means Ernie Butt.
“I hope you’ll help us catch Dr. Perrell’s killer,” I appeal to them. “If you know something, do let us know.”
“Do you think you’ll find the murderer here?” a woman in a purple ski jacket shouts, and her tone of voice is not friendly.
Of course, what did I expect? People don’t think for a second that I’m here to protect them but that I’m here to spy on them. They’re not stupid. I curse Closs for dispatching me this gathering.
Rick saves the day.
“I’ve dragged Constable Gates here so that I don’t have to keep giving her salted cod; she should learn to catch her own fish.”
Everybody laughs, and I
could hug him.
“Well then, we’ll just have to see how you do things,” a young man teases me, wearing a dazzling orange hunter’s cap.
“I’ll charge admission,” I fire back. I’ve learned that you only get the locals’ sympathy by using humor.
Rick grabs the ice auger and drives it through the ice. A hole opens up in no time in the frozen surface of the lake.
“This is your pathway to Shangri-La,” he says with a grin, and I’m surprised again at his choice of words. I underestimate my neighbor; that’s now clear. He hands me a rod that looks like a discarded broomstick with a fishing line attached. A small weight hangs from the line about two meters above the hook.
“And now comes the most important thing, the bait,” Rick announces. He takes a plastic can from the storage area under his snowmobile seat.
I make a face. “Worms?”
Loud laughter all around the circle. Ironic remarks start immediately.
“Dew worms in winter—that would be something new, eh, Rick?”
“I don’t think they’ve ever seen ice in Vancouver!”
“I hear they heat the soil so they can keep the worms warm.”
“The poor beasties!”
I laugh along with them—what else can I do? Rick takes a slab of bacon out of the can and cuts off a corner.
His pocketknife has a white casing.
“I thought white pocketknives are unlucky,” I say.
“The lady sure won’t catch any fish now, Rick!” the man standing next to me shouts. He’s wearing a brown fur cap with ear flaps.
Rick shakes his head, grinning.
“Nonsense, that’s all superstition. Do you know what a pocketknife costs in the store? Thirty dollars. Would really be a shame to throw away something like this.” He attaches the bacon to the hook.
“Thirty dollars! And Pleaman tried to buy our votes with that. Didn’t help him any.” The woman in the purple jacket hasn’t gotten any friendlier.
Pleaman Hick. The independent candidate who got next to zero votes in the last provincial election. The unsuccessful politician who gave away white pocketknives to advertise his campaign. I’ll have to take a closer look at the knife later. I saw briefly that there were some words on it but couldn’t read them. So the knife we found beside Carl Perrell’s body can’t be Rick’s. He’s still got his knife. I must ask him afterward whether he knows who else in Port Brendan might still have one like it.
CRIES FROM THE COLD: A bone-chilling mystery thriller. (Detective Calista Gates 1) Page 33
