CRIES FROM THE COLD: A bone-chilling mystery thriller. (Detective Calista Gates 1)
Page 38
Scott doesn’t disagree. She constantly talks about Ernie. Ernie, Ernie, Ernie. Now she doesn’t have to feel so ashamed that her son was in the clink. Several months. All for a bit of cocaine. Peanuts compared to the murder Ernie committed. Ernie will get the punishment he deserves. Why is it always the little fish that wind up in the clink? Little fish like him. All because of a little bit of coke.
He knew it must have been Ernie when he saw the Viking stamp on the crate. On the crate with Lorna’s skeleton. Ernie had taken the rest of the construction lumber from the playground. And he nattered on about Lorna whenever he came to him to pick up his dose of marijuana. How she made him angry. What a stupid cow she was. Immoral and depraved. Bad company for Grace.
Ernie probably wanted to sleep with Lorna, and she didn’t want to, he thought at the time. He himself would like to have had a go with her. An insolent, pretty thing. Perfectly to his taste. But Lorna was out of his league. Even though he isn’t stupid. She didn’t want to stay in Labrador. He would like to have sold her a bit of stuff. But unlike Ernie, she didn’t even smoke. No cigarettes or anything harder.
He’d spotted the gold necklace in her coffin at the last moment. As he was about to go for help on his snowmobile. A flash in the pale winter light. The locket was in a crack between the boards. Stuck in the crate, just like Lorna.
He didn’t let the opportunity go by. It was almost an automatic reaction. The nerve endings in his gut told him: this can be useful.
And so it was.
The idea came to him when the cop called on him in the shed. He heard his mother talking with her that day. About Ernie and Ernie’s biological mother. Then it hit him like a lightning bolt: The cops are finally interested in Ernie. Well, look at that. This bimbo from Vancouver is smarter than he thought. Almost as clever as he is. He knew that she’d show up at his place sooner or later. That the dog shit he tossed through her door would lead to him.
Shit he’d rather have smeared all over Ernie’s face. But his time had come when Ernie, bursting with pride, showed off his new jalopy after Lorna’s funeral. That’s Ernie for you. Swellheaded. Has to flaunt it all. Even Lorna’s bones. The idiot puts the crate out on the beach. So that he can prove he’s smarter than the police. That he won’t get caught like other people. As opposed to Scott, his alleged cousin.
But I’m not a bonehead, Ernie. You’re the bonehead.
The moron didn’t even lock the glove compartment of his brand-new car. Ernie just needed to be distracted, which really wasn’t so hard, and presto! Lorna’s gold necklace landed in the compartment behind the manual.
Scott shoves a soaked biscuit into his mouth. His mother babbles and babbles. He only half-listens. She doesn’t know what a genius she’s brought into the world. Too bad, he’d like to have told her. But it’s unfortunate that she can’t keep her mouth shut. Which sometimes has its upside.
Lorna and her flirting. Ernie and adoption. The Mountie took the bait right away. She knew she had a clue she had to follow.
She puzzled out the hiding place in the glove compartment quickly.
He always knew: Crooks think just like cops.
Afterword
Labrador, a huge, sparsely inhabited region, is part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Arctic cold influences the climate, especially in winter: the ocean is frozen for several months; in summer, the tundra, dotted with swamps and lakes—and where mosquitoes attack any living creature—is largely impassable. Mighty mountains were shaped by glaciers. Wildlife, such as bears, moose, coyotes, and wolves, roam the dense woodlands. Polar bears wander along the coasts; muskox and caribou graze in the wild, barren vastness. I’ve traveled several times through the south of Labrador where this novel takes place. I drove the Trans-Labrador Highway from L’Anse-au-Clair through Port Hope Simpson to Happy Valley-Goose Bay before most of this four-hundred-kilometer road through the wilderness had been paved. My companion and I were lucky: a flat tire had to be replaced (it could have easily been two or more) and the wheel bearings were defective—but that wasn’t until the end of our trip, so that we were able to take refuge in the repair shop in Port Hope Simpson. Many others weren’t so lucky, as witnessed by the wrecks along the highway. A minibus that had passed us halfway down the road had to be towed—a tedious business in such a remote area.
Don’t be scared off, dear reader! Labrador is a region you must absolutely visit. Most of the highway from the Blanc Sablon ferry landing to Happy Valley-Goose Bay is now paved. The wild landscape is overwhelmingly beautiful, and hikes through the uninhabited, primeval nature there are unforgettable. So are the inhabitants: Labradorians are kind, helpful, willing to make sacrifices, resilient, and full of warmth and humor. On my trips, they took me in, served as my hosts who shared their everyday lives with me. For this they deserve my first vote of gratitude.
Dr. Wilfred Grenfell (1865–1940) and the brave explorer Mina Benson Hubbard (1870–1956), who are mentioned in this book, are taken from real life. The town of Port Brendan, on the other hand, as well as the people and events there, are entirely fictitious. It is true, however, that American troops were stationed in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and some still are to this day. There are abandoned radar stations from the Cold War in “Port Brandon.” Deserted stations like these can be found in Labrador, in Cartwright and Hopedale, for instance. They were part of the old DEW Line (Distant Early Warning Line), a line of defense in the Canadian North stretching far beyond to Alaska, Greenland, and Iceland that would have allowed Americans to spot and intercept any Russian bombers attempting to fly toward America over the North Pole.
My beta readers dealt with these kinds of details as they critically, meticulously, and attentively read through the German manuscript of Cries from the Cold. Their findings, insights, tips, and questions were incredibly valuable and enriched me and the book enormously. Much, much gratitude to you all: Susanne Keller, Helen Radu, Irene Zortea, Hans Kurth, Klaus Uhr, Beny Affolter, Gisela and Koni Dalvit, Ruth Omlin, Karl Uhr, and Regina Thürich. You’ve all given this book that extra something.
Constable Nicolas Roy of the RCMP served for several years in the northern part of Newfoundland and Labrador and told me about the challenges the police encounter in remote areas. But I did take some liberties, and I am therefore completely responsible for any errors.
It was a joy to hand in my fifth German manuscript to my editor, Gisa Marehn, and, as always, the results exceeded my expectations. She is an incomparable wealth of experience, precision, linguistic knowledge, and investigative skill. I cannot thank her enough.
My translator, Gerald Chapple, who has already translated four of my previous books (The Zurich Conspiracy, Under Dark Waters, Stormy Cove, The Stranger on the Ice), mastered his task with aplomb, enthusiasm and incredible workmanship. I am really lucky to have him on board.
I also owe a huge thank-you to copyeditor Lindsey Alexander, who, for the third time, took care of one of my crime novels. After The Stranger on the Ice and Murderous Morning, she improved and polished this book in a way that is admirable and always to the point.
I was able to count again on the support and keen eye of my wonderful proofreaders in Canada and the United States and Europe: Paula Dunn, Michele Hodder, Constanza Law, Cheryl Shoji, Maureen Matteson and Caroline Huerlimann. You rock!
I’m also thankful for the help of my fellow authors Heike Fröhling, Marion Krafzik and Alec Peche, and to Inca Vogt who did the interior design of this book but is also an accomplished crime novelist.
I have learned many interesting things about the consequences of brain injuries from the gripping book Prognosis: A Memoir of My Brain, by the Australian author Sarah Vallance. I was astonished to find how little researchers still know about these injuries and their treatment.
Finally, I would like to thank the man in my life, whose love, patience, and humor carry me over every obstacle when I dive into the wild, cold, boundless Canadian North.
St. Anthony, February
2021
Bernadette Calonego
P.S. I’m so thrilled I can share another book with you, my dear readers. I would love to hear from you, either on Facebook, Instagram, or through email (you will find the address on my website www.bernadettecalonego.com. If you also like to leave feedback for your fellow readers (and for me, of course), a review on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/listing?B0924S1964), Goodreads, or another platform would be such a treat! It doesn’t have to be long. Even one or two sentences will help readers find my book and will encourage me to keep on writing. I’m very much looking forward to seeing and savoring your thoughts and opinions.
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About the Author
Bernadette Calonego was born in Switzerland and grew up on the shores of Lake Lucerne. She was just eleven years old when she published her first story, in a Swiss newspaper. She went on to earn a teaching degree from the University of Fribourg, which she put to good use in England and Switzerland before switching gears to become a journalist. After several years working with the Reuters news agency and a series of German-language newspapers, she moved to Canada and began writing fiction. Cries from the Cold is her ninth book and her sixth novel in English. As a foreign correspondent, she has published stories in Vogue, GEO, and SZ-Magazin. She splits her time between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Newfoundland.
For more information, visit: www.bernadettecalonego.com
About the Translator
Gerald Chapple is an award-winning translator of German literature. He received his doctorate from Harvard and went on to teach German and comparative literature at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He has been translating contemporary German-language authors for over forty-five years, especially the poetry of Günter Kunert.
His prose translations include Michael Mitterauer’s probing history of Europe from 600 to 1600, Why Europe? Medieval Origins of Its Special Path; Anita Albus’s wonderfully idiosyncratic book, On Rare Birds, and four of Bernadette Calonego’s novels for Amazon Crossing.
The Stranger on the Ice being the most recent, as well as four other novels for the same publisher. Since choosing early retirement, he’s lived in Dundas, Ontario, with his wife, Nina, an architectural historian. When not translating, he can usually be found studying birds, butterflies, and dragonflies; reading; listening to classical music, or enjoying his children and grandchildren in New York.
Also by Bernadette Calonego
The Zurich Conspiracy
Under Dark Waters
Stormy Cove
The Stranger on the Ice
Murderous Morning