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

by Bernadette Calonego

  “We also want these emails to stop. So I’ll forward them to my account, okay?”

  “If that helps.” She rubs her face. “But you’ve really got to find the murderer. That’s more urgent.” She looks to one side. “Constable Gates has gone to the ice fishing contest. Do you really think that’ll do any good?”

  A few minutes later, he’s hurtling down the salt-covered street in his police car. Time is of the essence. He parks in front of the station and rushes past Wendy into Closs’s office. The detective sergeant, telephone receiver in hand, looks up in surprise. Fred makes a gesture and Closs hangs up.

  He delivers a hasty report on his conversation with Meeka Stout.

  Closs listens attentively.

  “Have you got Meeka’s cell phone?” he asks.

  Fred says no.

  “We need that phone. We have to know if Rick sent Perrell emails using Meeka’s name. Or if he sent them to Bakie.”

  “We can’t tell whether it was him or Meeka.”

  “No, but she’ll defend herself if she didn’t do it, and those are the contradictions we need.”

  “So you think . . .”

  Closs gets up from his swivel chair.

  “I’m not counting it out. We need an impression of Rick’s boots. Then we’ll see what happens next.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “On the Ski-Doo trail. The game warden called a short time ago. A polar bear’s running around near Sataka Lake. The organizers actually had to cancel the ice fishing contest. We want to trap Rick without causing a stir.”

  Fred’s pulse beats faster.

  “Heard anything from Gates? Is she still out with Rick?”

  “We can’t reach her. She didn’t take the satellite phone.”

  As if one of the team would have done it in her situation. Not for ice fishing. But she’ll certainly have her firearm on her.

  “Meeka’s cell phone, is that official, Sarge? I should confiscate it?”

  “Use your imagination, Fred. Tell her anything.”

  This time Meeka will get suspicious. She’ll surely see through him. He has to get the phone before Stout gets home.

  Fred’s already at the door when Closs says one more thing.

  “I’ve issued a press statement. It mentions that a white pocketknife with Pleaman Hick’s name on it was found beside Perrell’s body. Maybe we’ll get an anonymous tip.”

  Fred puts a hand on the doorknob. Calista Gates will be happy about that.

  51

  Water bubbles up through the broken ice and soaks my ski pants. I’d never have thought cold could burn this much. How long before my pants are completely saturated? Water’s running into my snow boots, too. I try again to lift my head and upper body. The ice cracks as I shift my weight.

  I drop the idea immediately. My pulse is hammering. That my legs will be destroyed by frostbite is bad enough. But my head—I repress the thought at once. It’s terrifying. I don’t feel any pain up there; the helmet cushioned my fall. The snowmobile’s whole weight lies on my legs.

  Rick Stout. He abandoned me here. If he’d helped me, I would never have believed that he was capable of murder in spite of everything. Of two murders. He showed his hand by fleeing. My death is part of the deal. He thinks I’ll slowly freeze to death in the icy water. From where he was standing, he could only see my head. He must have assumed that the Ski-Doo completely buried the rest of my body.

  Nobody will look for me here. Rick chose a remote route. The network of snowmobile trails around Port Brendan is enormous. By the time my team misses me, it may already be dark. And I will be dead in an icy grave.

  Rick left me behind to cover his tracks. I firmly believe it. He read my eyes and saw that he’d attracted my attention. The SureFire flashlight. The knife with the white casing. My glancing at his boots. Maybe he’ll come back to make sure I’m not alive anymore. And if he finds me alive, he’s got the SureFire Lawman with him. Or the pistol he stole from Carl Perrell.

  How could I not have had the merest hint of this? Rick’s constant cracks about Perrell, that he was a womanizer, that he hit on women. Meeka, who went to the hospital so frequently. Who really wanted to be a nurse. Preferably in the operating room.

  My legs hurt. The weight of the snowmobile. The icy water.

  Then the polar bear crosses my mind. Oh my god! It can smell its prey kilometers away for sure. Which is more terrifying: Being torn to pieces or freezing to death? I’ve survived a near-fatal attack. Fought my way back to life. And now I must die in this gruesome way.

  I think about my parents. First, the assault that almost cost me my life. My mother’s back bent with worry. My father fell into a depression. He already had heart problems. They tried to hide them from me, but I picked up on them anyway. The fact that they’re about to lose their daughter now on top of it will destroy their lives.

  Despair overcomes me.

  I pray, plead for my life.

  I don’t know how much time has gone by. I shiver with the cold. The pain in my legs is stilled. I know precisely what that means. They’re freezing. And I can hardly feel my back anymore. Only my hands in the double gloves don’t desert me; I stretch my fingers constantly. I also move my face under the helmet, grimace to keep it flexible. My head’s still functioning, too. The skull and the soft brain beneath it. It made it through without injury. Of all things.

  That thought consoles me briefly. My teeth are chattering until it hurts. I didn’t know how awful chattering teeth can be.

  Suddenly I hear a motor. A snowmobile.

  Rick’s coming back. Help!

  The motor dies. But there’s another motor.

  Two snowmobiles. That can’t be Rick.

  I scream as loud as I can. Open my helmet’s visor. Scream again.

  Loud shouting: “Calista! Calista!”

  My name. Is it a mirage? Visions before I freeze to death?

  Footsteps in the snow.

  Voices.

  “Holy shit!” A stranger’s voice. A man.

  “We’ll get you out, Calista. We’ll get you out fast.” I know that voice.

  A face comes into view.

  Gerald Hynes.

  I weep tears of exhaustion but don’t care. I am saved.

  Shouts between the men. I can’t see the other one. They slowly push the machine upright.

  “Hold on tight,” Gerald yells. “Now onto the other side.”

  I hear the ice crack. The machine was tipped over toward the other side of the creek. Now two men are beside me, raising me up gently, pulling me out of the water.

  Gerald’s face exhibits total concern. “Are you in pain?”

  “No, no,” I stammer. “Not anymore.”

  That’s right—my legs have lost all feeling.

  They pull me up the slope carefully, like a doll. Once there, Gerald lifts me up under my arms.

  “We’ll lay you on the sled, okay? We have to take off your wet pants. We’ll wrap you up in a heated blanket.”

  Of course, Gerald’s the chief of the volunteer fire department. He knows what to do.

  “This is my foreman, Randy.”

  They take off my boots and socks, my ski pants and thermal underwear. My panties have stayed dry by some miracle.

  Gerald wraps me in aluminum foil and a fur blanket. The warmth slowly restores feeling to my legs. It’s painful.

  I howl.

  “Drink this. It’ll help with the pain.”

  Gerald hands me a pill and a hip flask. I smell rum. I grab both of them eagerly.

  He talks to me incessantly while taking care of me, probably to keep me awake.

  “I read on the internet this afternoon that the police found a white pocketknife with Pleaman Hick’s name on it beside Perrell’s body. So I tried to contact you but couldn’t reach you. I wanted to tell you that you should ask Rick Stout about it. He definitely knows who in Port Brendan owns a white pocketknife. Not many do, definitely not. They’re all superstiti
ous. Rick was a Pleaman supporter back then. He distributed the knives to people. In any case—are you comfortable? In any case, I couldn’t get you on my cell phone. So I called the station. Wendy said you were at the ice fishing contest and not back yet.”

  Wendy. Finally her knowing my whereabouts has done some good. How ironic.

  Gerald chatters on. “Then I hear that a polar bear’s on the move, and everybody’s going home from the contest. So I wait an hour, but I still can’t reach you. I talk to Wendy again. I ask her if Constable Gates knows the way. And she says you’re still not back. I thought, Something’s not right. I felt it in my bones. So I took off with Randy and sent two other people off on another route. And we drive and drive on, and we’re just about to turn around when we see this thing blinking in the bushes.”

  He holds up an object right in front of my nose. The SureFire Lawman. I stare at the flashlight as if seeing a ghost. Stout must have thrown it away when he fled, but not far enough from the path. And the impact must have accidentally turned on the signaling light function. If it hadn’t, Gerald and Randy would never have seen it. It never would have been found. Neither would I. I can’t grasp it. Now Gerald’s fingerprints are on it. But luckily his foreman is a witness.

  “Please stow it away,” I beg him. “Please don’t lose that flashlight. It’s important. Very, very important.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll put the thing beside you under the blanket. Why didn’t you go back with the rest of them? To be alone like that, on the barrens, that can be dangerous.”

  “I was on my way back with Rick Stout,” I gasp. “He left me lying in the creek.”

  The two men stare at me. And exchange glances.

  “Did he push you into the creek?” Gerald asks.

  He thinks Rick’s capable of doing that. He can actually conceive of it.

  “He said I should drive over it. But the snow bridge collapsed.”

  “What an idiot!” Gerald’s foreman exclaims. “You only go over a creek if there’s a wooden bridge.”

  “That will have consequences,” Gerald mutters. He leans over me. “For the trip back, I’ll put the foil and the blanket over your face; we don’t want your nose to freeze off. And now we’ll stretch the plastic tarp over everything.”

  I must warn him.

  “Gerald, Rick is dangerous. He’s got a pistol.”

  At the word pistol, he raises his eyebrows.

  “I hear you,” he replies. “I’ll call the station.”

  I hear him talking over the satellite phone.

  “Yes, she’s with us. We’re bringing her back . . . Rick Stout was with her. He pushed her into a creek, the ice broke, and the Ski-Doo fell on top of her. Then he simply drove off. She would have died . . . He’s got a gun . . . You’ve already got him? . . . Good, good, good, he’s got some explaining to do . . . Sure, we’re on it . . . No, no visible injuries. Just bruises on her leg. Definitely hypothermia, but we’ve packed her up warmly. Randy’s with me. Two more guys are still out and about . . . We’ve got everything under control for sure. So long.”

  He phones somebody else, probably the second search party, and talks briefly with Randy. Then he comes back to me.

  “Your colleagues have already got Rick at the station. He’s apparently got other skeletons in the closet.”

  I just nod. Gerald gingerly pulls the covers over my face. Then the motors start howling, and the sled glides over the snow.

  Gerald’s last words spin around in my head. Rick’s already at the station.

  They must have gotten something on him. Something really conclusive.

  52

  I’m in Fred’s far-too-big ski pants that he brought to me in the hospital. He got Dr. Cameron’s permission to take me home. He drives very watchfully, especially around the curves. The hot tea they gave me in the hospital in a never-ending flow rapidly warmed me up. The doctor advised me to have even more.

  “You got off with a scare,” she stated after examining me.

  No broken bones, no muscle pulls, no frostbite, just a leopard pattern decorating the skin on my legs. Black marks from the Ski-Doo lying on top of me. I’m particularly proud of my good old brain, which didn’t suffer any new injuries. Dr. Cameron wasn’t enthusiastic about my rescuers pouring rum down my throat instead of hot, sweet tea. I won’t have a word said against Gerald and Randy; they saved my life. Exhausted as I was, when I got to the hospital, I could see how calmly and sovereignly Dr. Cameron mastered the situation. Perrell’s death must have shocked her and everybody else there, but this slight, delicate person seems to have risen to the challenge produced by Perrell’s loss.

  Fred has the SureFire Lawman that signaled in the bushes and, like the Christmas star, led my saviors to the right place. I’m relieved: we’ve secured yet another murder weapon. I bombard Fred, who’s beside me, with questions. Gerald and Randy are now witnesses against Stout in the coroner’s inquiry. Delgado has gone with them back to the place on the barrens where they saw the flashlight blinking. He’s hoping to find the pistol there, too. Perrell’s own pistol Rick shot him with.

  Fred sums up the details for me. After that, he tells me about Meeka’s cell phone, which he’s confiscated.

  “Rick contacted Perrell through Meeka’s email address and tried to lure him to the Viking house. Perrell wrote her that he couldn’t come. But Rick didn’t see Perrell’s reply. Meanwhile, Meeka read it and deleted it before he took another look through her phone. It was a second tragic coincidence that Bakie went to the Viking house at the same time, where Rick killed him because he mixed him up with Perrell.”

  I’m stunned.

  “It’s awful that Rick hated Perrell so much that he didn’t give up his plan even after the mix-up with Bakie; he had nothing against the guy.”

  “Rick held Perrell responsible for the fact that he couldn’t have children with Meeka. And Meeka spent a lot of time at the hospital. Sometimes Dulcie was probably only a pretext for her visits. Rick didn’t get it that it wasn’t all about Perrell as a man but about Meeka’s desire to be a nurse and to help Dulcie.”

  “A desire that his pigheadedness probably destroyed,” I add. “One of the biathletes told me Rick had so restricted Meeka’s freedom of movement that she wasn’t able to travel and perform her throat singing. She had to constantly look after Dulcie and their foster children, which was obviously just fine by him.”

  Fred turns up the car heater as he goes on with his report: “Rick didn’t want to tell us at what point he conceived of his plan to kill Perrell. We also don’t know how and where he stole the pistol. Closs and Sullivan are still interrogating him. But we’ve got his boots, and as far as we can tell, the soles match the impressions at the Viking house and the hot-dog stand. The tracks from his Ski-Doo as well. Forensics in Happy Valley-Goose Bay still has to confirm that. But we’ve learned in the meantime from Rick’s brother that, contradicting what Rick said, Rick was not cutting fire wood in the forest with him the whole of Wednesday afternoon. He got there later. He had time to go to the Viking house and back. And besides, he had time and opportunity during the search for Dulcie and during the fireworks to shoot Perrell. He followed Perrell behind the hot-dog stand, where the doctor couldn’t avoid him.”

  Rick Stout. It’s still unfathomable. I started to mistrust him when he brought out the white pocketknife. He was so obviously unaware that we’d found one exactly like it by the corpse. He must have a number of them left over from Pleaman Hick’s campaign.

  “Rick was always so helpful to me.”

  “Until he left you in the ice-cold creek.”

  “Maybe it was kind of like a hit-and-run. Panic.”

  “Don’t make excuses for him; Rick’s a two-time murderer. He kept on going even after realizing he’d killed Bakie instead of Perrell. His mistake must have shaken him up completely, and he still didn’t give up.”

  “I gave it some thought in the hospital. I believe Rick has always had a great fear of being seen
as a failure—by others, but by himself as well. He hasn’t got much money; he’s sort of a casual laborer, and his wife is young and attractive. He’s afraid of not living up to her expectations. He can’t have children by her. And then he bungles the murder. He’s got to make up for it, whatever it may cost. Because in his eyes Carl Perrell’s got to go. Forever.”

  When we turn into the driveway at Crow Point and roll up to my house, I can’t see a light on at Meeka’s. Nor is there a car in front of the house.

  Fred helps me out of the car. Once in the house, I change my pants and give Fred back his. He’s already filling the teakettle.

  An unfamiliar feeling for me, to be looked after by men. I think of Gerald, who went searching for me though he’s not in great shape himself. Fred’s rooting around for teabags and sugar in the kitchen cupboard. Even Rick was there for me. I’d counted on him. He’s done all he can for Meeka, in his opinion. And grown more and more possessive. The blind fear of losing her made him into a murderer.

  A thorny question bugs me.

  “Do you think Meeka had any idea about this?”

  Fred sits down with me at the table.

  “I talked to her that afternoon, and she told me Rick was jealous of Perrell. That he thought Perrell sent her erotic emails. She wouldn’t have told me if she’d suspected something. She would not have served him up on a silver platter that easily.”

  Something has changed in the way Fred looks. He seems like he’s on alert when his eyes are on me. He looks concerned. And relieved. He looks at me the way a person sees someone who’s missed by a whisker never being in this kitchen again.

  When he’s gone, I lock all the doors. For security. I sleep very soundly, in phases, but wake up repeatedly. In a dream I see myself lying in the ice, a heavy machine on top of me.

  I hear nothing from Closs. Until morning.

  He texts me at nine: Up for a visit?

  I’ll be ready in half an hour, I write back. I take a long, hot shower and dress warmly.