“I thought you showed me everything in the shower. You mean there’s more?”
“Very funny. You remember I sent my DNA sample away months ago and never heard from them.”
“Yeah, well, you were kind of busy doing security work in Afghanistan, that could have been the problem.”
“I sent them an email yesterday and enquired. They apologized profusely and said they’d misplaced the file. They found it today and sent the results.”
Bernadette pushed the light on the iPad to make it brighter. “So, I’m about to find out you’re the real thing, like you’re related to the Greek God Apollo and a direct descendant of Zeus?”
Chris shook his head. “Just look at the chart.”
“Holy shit…. this means…”
“Yeah, I know what it means. Read it out loud.”
“You’re four percent Greek—what the hell?”
“Keep reading it gets better.”
“Fifteen percent Italian and the rest are…?”
“Israel.” Chris said with a raised eyebrow.
“Wow.” Bernadette said. “Damned if I ever saw that coming. Have you told your mother?”
Chris sipped his wine and gazed into Bernadette’s eyes. She’d never seen him so serious. “I’ve got a feeling that a whole bunch of my family history has been kept from me.”
“Did your mother ever talk about Jewish relatives?”
“No, according to her father, my grandfather was from Corfu, his name was Markellos,” Chris said, shifting in his chair. He took the iPad from her and hit his email site. “Take a look at the email conversation I’ve been having with a person who is a ninety-eight percent match for my second cousin.”
“His name is Malik,” Bernadette said, scrolling over the email.
Chris winked. “It sure is. If you look at his text, he claims the Malik’s hid out from the Nazis occupation of Greece by changing their names. He says they were Greek Jews, also called the Romaniates. He knows my mother and knows of me. My mother tried to keep her identity hidden so she could marry a Greek man in the Greek Orthodox church.”
“But then why are you not more Greek in your DNA? I mean if you father was full Greek, wouldn’t that kind of do…what’s the word, like a blend?” Bernadette said. “Sorry if I’m using the wrong words, sounds like you’re a cocktail.”
“Don’t be sorry, we’re all part of a genetic cocktail. Mine just seems to be mislabeled. As for my father, I got another hit from a second cousin in Rhodes, his last name is Eliakim and he claims my father is his great uncle.”
“So, both sides of your family were hiding their Jewish identity?”
“Yeah. I wonder if my mother knew my father was Jewish. Wouldn’t that be a twist of fate?”
“Did you have any suspicions growing up?”
“Yeah, here’s the funny thing, I was circumcised at birth. Most Greek kids in Toronto aren’t. I know it’s weird, but it was something the other Greek kids pointed out to me in the showers after gym glass.”
“Okay, that is totally funny, I didn’t know you guys spent all that time checking out each other’s packages.”
Chris took a sip of his wine. “And you girls never looked at each other’s boobs in the shower?”
Bernadette rose up her glass. “Point well made. So, what made you think you were different other than that you were snipped?”
“My mother was too adamant about being Greek, almost too much. We had to speak Greek in the house, the first to church and I was only to have Greek friends and marry a Greek girl.”
“Maybe that’s why you were such a rebellious sort?”
“I would say that had a big part in it. And here’s another thing. I remember meeting a kid, his name was Marty Cohen, a hell of nice guy, my mother freaked out afterwards, said I couldn’t hang around with him.”
Bernadette put her hand on Chris’s arm. “You think she was afraid for you? I heard stories of how the Nazis purged most of Greece of the Jews. Maybe she thought by hiding your identity, she was keeping you safe from it ever happening again.”
“I’m not sure…”
Bernadette’s cell phone rang. She looked at it. “Damn, I best answer this—it’s the crown prosecutor.”
She picked up the phone said her hellos and listened intently. She said into the phone, “Do I have a choice?” Then she put the phone down.
“What’s that all about?” Chris asked.
“They’re letting Cahal Callahan out of the remand center tomorrow morning. There’s an arraignment in front of the judge at eight, and I have to be there as a relative of record.”
“How did you get that designation?”
“I’m a relative until proven innocent,” Bernadette said. She drained her glass of wine. “I’ll clean up the dishes. I need to move around to let my head clear from all the new information I’ve just downloaded.”
6
Bernadette was awake at five. Chris lay there snoring softly with his big hand over her body, but she couldn’t make herself go back to sleep. She moved his hand, got out of bed, and went into the kitchen to make coffee.
Sprocket was at her heels in a second, his cold nose on the back of her legs. He wanted to run this morning and so did she. As the coffee maker dripped the precious black liquid into the carafe, she checked the weather app on her phone. The temperature was minus twenty Celsius. Damn cold for a run, but she knew how to dress for it.
Her other passion in exercise was the gym and Goju-ruy Karate, a martial art she’d received her black belt in, but the dojo, or practice hall was often hard to get to, the running was easier.
As the coffee did its last gurgle, she went into the spare room for her running clothes. She kept them there so she wouldn’t bother Chris getting dressed for running, which was her early morning obsession. She pulled on a pair of long merino wool underwear, put on a sports bra, then a long sleeve merino wool top. She then put on a light vest with a windbreaker, a pair of wind pants, wool socks and a woolen hat. There was also a wool neck warmer that she’d pull over her face if the wind got ugly, which it sometimes did.
She came out of the second bedroom and Sprocket got excited seeing her in running gear. She shushed him and took several sips of her coffee and put the rest in and insulated coffee thermos for Chris when he woke up.
She opened the front door and was met by a rush of icy cold air. She took a deep breath. The first ten minutes were the hardest. Once the body warmed up, she only had to keep her extremities warm. Her gloves and running shoes had insulation made for crazy runners like her who braved conditions like this. Her running shoes had special cleats for the snow and she wore a headlamp with over two hundred lumens that lit the snow up and made it look like diamonds.
The road had been plowed recently and no new snow had fallen. She made good progress along the road to the pathway that led to the river. Sprocket ran beside her; this was his element. In this time, they shared a common bond of breathing, existing, and just being in the moment.
Bernadette let her mind roll over the events of yesterday. She thought about the victim, the priest. All the residents of the seminary didn’t fit any profile of a possible killer. They were so feeble they would have had to ask Father Fredericks to jump onto the rafter to hang himself. The residents of the farmhouses in the area had seen no unusual cars, but then again, none of them had been up at three in the morning.
The pathway had been cleared down to the pavement with some sand thrown onto it. The cleats of her running shoes made a clicking sound as they made contact. She got into an easy rhythm; her breath was streaming from her, covering her woolen cap in frost. Her eyes were tearing up from the cold. The tears started to turn to droplets of ice in her lashes. She pulled her hand out of a glove, warmed the lashes, and kept going. She was hitting the runners high where the endorphins kick in and flood the nervous system with an almost euphoric feeling.
The thoughts of the victim came back to her again as her mind hit a point of clarit
y. The events of the past few days seemed like a hit squad was after Fathers Dominic and Frederick. This had something to do with them both being from Ireland, she was sure of it, and that damned Cahal who claimed to be her uncle was somehow part of it.
Glancing at her watch, she noted she’d been out for a half hour; it was time to head back. She stopped, turned, and began her journey home.
A car came towards her on the road as she came off the pathway. She made room for the car, but it kept angling towards her. Its headlights were blinding her.
She cursed it “Hey dumb ass, can’t you see my headlamp?”
At the last minute she jumped into the snowbank with Sprocket beside her and watched the car pass. It was a red Honda Civic. She wondered what kind of shape the driver was in. She did a mental note of the vehicle tags to see where this guy lived in the neighborhood.
Bernadette ran the last few blocks in a sprint. By the time she reached the front door she felt mildly exhausted and great. She walked in as Chris was pouring himself coffee; she gave him a kiss on the cheek and headed to the shower. The rule of outdoor winter runners—no sweaty hugs.
She toweled her hair off after her shower and joined Chris at the breakfast table. He’d made oatmeal with brown sugar and some whole-wheat toast with cut up oranges and kiwi fruit.
“How’re you doing this morning?” Bernadette asked.
“With what?”
“Ah, you know, with your whole DNA thing you talked about last night,” Bernadette said.
“I don’t feel any different. It’s just that I’ve been fed a lie for most of my life,” Chris said as he spread some strawberry jam on his toast. He looked up at Bernadette. “You know, if my mother had never pushed the Greek thing so hard, I wouldn’t have cared. I’d have said, hey cool my heritage is Jewish. But this seems to be a coverup. I’ll be getting to the bottom of it, trust me.”
Bernadette sipped her coffee. “Don’t burn any bridges with your family, you know, like I have.”
Chris smiled. “No sweetheart, I don’t think anyone could burn or blow up the bridges you have.”
Bernadette lowered her head and grinned. They had a running joke about how she’d alienated her brothers when she’d left her grandmother’s home and eventually became a RCMP officer then a detective. She had been, by her own admission, a bit of a ‘self-righteous pain in the ass,’ in administering the law that annoyed her brothers.
Bernadette looked at her watch. “My god it’s seven, I got to go.”
“You don’t start until eight, what’s the rush?”
“I want to see if I can get a report of all Irish Nationals that have entered Canada in the past week. I got a feeling that whoever attempted the hit on Father Dominic and took out Father Fredericks wasn’t from here.”
“That old intuition of yours kicking in again is it?” Chris asked as he took the dishes to the dishwasher.
Bernadette had a piece of toast in her mouth as she headed for the door. She stopped, turned around, and took the toast out of her mouth and kissed Chris goodbye.
Chris wiped his mouth with his hand. “Thanks for the seconds on toast.”
Bernadette waved her toast over her shoulder as she entered the garage. She pulled the Jeep out of the garage and headed for the detachment.
She was only fifteen minutes away; she sipped on a go cup of coffee as she headed to work. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the taillights of a red car heading down a side street.
7
Bernadette arrived at the detachment by seven thirty. The morning shift would be starting soon with the uniforms getting a briefing of the night’s activities and the things to be aware of.
The concern today would be the Queen Elizabeth II Highway. The four-lane ribbon of asphalt roared day and night with traffic from Calgary to Edmonton on the west side of the city of Red Deer. The snow from the previous night made the highway into a skating rink for the big rigs and cars that shot up and down it as if it was their personal racetrack.
The pileups on the highway were legendary. If the police placed enough cruisers in strategic spots the traffic slowed, but when an officer got called to an accident, the traffic revved to raceway frenzy. Drivers forgot the ice and snow beneath their tires was a hazard to be respected.
Bernadette found some more coffee and went to the serious crimes division room and found Evanston. She was busy at her desk with her computer and scribbling things on a piece of paper.
“Hey Evans, how’d the game go last night?”
Evanston lifted her head from the screen. “Total crap. The Rebels had them until the third period, up three goals to one, then the little buggers get a bunch of penalties—we lost five to three.”
“So sad,” Bernadette said with a consoling pat on Evanston’s shoulder.
“I never thought you were a hockey type,” Evanston said. “How’d you come by those tickets?”
“Oh, just by chance. Somebody gave them to me…” Bernadette said, and then moved away to another desk. She didn’t want Evanston to know she’d bought the tickets online and printed them off in hopes of using them for a bribe to get a look at Cahal’s file.
Evanston watched her as she walked away, the light dawning on her, and she muttered, “Crafty little biscuit,” and went back to her computer with a smile.
Chief Durham walked into the room. He had the same harried look as the day before but with a fresh shirt on. “Okay, listen up. Evanston and Callahan, you’re working the Catholic Seminary case non-stop. Drop everything else, you got that?”
“What’s up, Chief, why the push?” Bernadette asked.
Durham shook his head. “I got a call from Ottawa, from our supreme command. They got a call from a member of parliament who’d got a call from someone high up in the Catholic Church. Do I have to draw pictures?”
“No, sir, you don’t,” Evanston said flashing warning looks at Bernadette.
“Okay then, get on this. Go find some leads and get me something so I can get our other serious crimes solved. Sawchuck, you’re on the drug dealers and so is everyone else in the room.”
Durham walked out of the room, trying to smooth those few remaining hairs of his onto his scalp.
“Damn it, Bernadette, you always got to ask questions and get us in shit. You know when the chief gets his ass in a wringer he doesn’t need to explain.”
“Look, sorry, it’s just in my nature to ask questions. I promise I’ll keep a lid on it from now on,” Bernadette said.
Evanston frowned and pulled out her notes. “So, what have we got?”
“We got nothing as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t see any possible perps in anyone we interviewed last night at the seminary, and the uniforms found nothing from the two farmhouses. Someone came in during last night’s snowstorm and drugged our vic and strung him up. That’s my take,” Bernadette said.
“When can we get an autopsy report?”
“Dr. Andrew said he’d have it this morning. Maybe if we find the drug he used or how he delivered it we got a chance to run it down. But there’s something else. I think we reach out to Canada Border Inspection, have them run every Irish National who landed in either Edmonton or Calgary in the past week.”
“What’s the angle?”
“That Father Jo- something or the other said both the priests had recently arrived from Ireland. I had this crazy notion that someone followed them over to take them out.”
“The best crazy notion we got, ’cause I got nothing outside of someone hates priests, and since I’m a non-practicing Anglican, I have no opinion,” Evanston said.
Bernadette looked at her watch. “Crap, I’ve got to be in court in ten minutes. Can you start the border inspection search and I’ll get with you when I come back? Oh, and will you run these vehicle tags? Someone almost ran me over this morning.”
“Sure, glad to start the heavy lifting,” Evanston said in a sarcastic tone.
Bernadette grabbed her jacket, gloves, and scarf and headed
for the door. The courthouse was only a few blocks away, it wasn’t that cold out; the sun was shining but there was a major obstacle. Reporters.
They were in a huddle just outside the doors of the detachment. If she went out the back, she’d be late. She had to charge through them.
The local television station was there, two radio stations, and a newspaper reporter. There were three of the new social media types with camera phones ready to post anything to anywhere at a moment’s notice.
Bernadette could feel her skin crawl as she opened the doors and walked outside.
“Any comment on the recent murder at the seminary, detective?” a newspaper reporter asked.
Bernadette stopped for a brief moment. There hadn’t been a mention of a murder; this was a trap. If she said no comment then the reporter would say the detective of the RCMP Detachment in Red Deer, Alberta has no comment on the murder of a local priest. This guy was good.
“I’m sorry, but I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation, and as for your comment of a murder, nothing has been determined. I suggest you direct all your questions to our local RCMP detachment spokesperson.”
“He said the same thing you did,” a girl with purple streaked hair said from behind her cellphone.
“I have nothing to add, as I mentioned, as this is an ongoing investigation,” Bernadette said as she began to walk away.
A young man thrust a cell phone in her face. “What’s your relationship to Cahal Callahan, the accused. Isn’t it true he’s your uncle?”
Bernadette stopped and looked at him. He was maybe mid-twenties with a mod haircut and expensive glasses. He wore a down jacket that looked like it was made for an arctic expedition and leather boots. He was instantly unlikeable to Bernadette.
“Yes, a man has claimed he is related to me, but as yet I have not verified that,” Bernadette said.
“I’m Jacob Burkov of the Daily Bleed Blog. Perhaps you want to tell my readers how this affects you, Detective.”
Deadly Ancestors: A Bernadette Callahan Mystery (Bernadette Callahan Detective Series Book 5) Page 4
