MURDEROUS MORNING: A heart-stopping crime novel with a stunning end.

by Bernadette Calonego

  Tessa felt Tsaytis’s eyes focusing on her and heard him talking. “I’ve been waiting for you, Tessa. So that we could speak in peace and quiet.”

  “Were you at our house last night? “

  He didn’t deny it.

  She made a dismissive gesture, as if she had to wipe away a spider’s web.

  “You learned how to remove me from your life. Did you think I didn’t notice that? You didn’t want to have anything more to do with a white person. That had already started at the university.” She couldn’t look him in the eye as she went on. “You thought you’d lose your identity if we stayed friends. You got radicalized, and I even understood that. I understand anger and resistance really well.” She adopted a sarcastic undertone to her voice. “What I don’t understand is why that blinded you to everything else.”

  “Tessa.” He put his hand on her shoulder. His touch went through her like an electric shock. “You’re making it too easy on yourself with your interpretation of events . . .”

  She waited for an explanation. But Tsaytis remained silent as if he had changed his mind. As if he didn’t want to start a new battle on an old front.

  He went to where he had put down his gun. When he picked it up, she didn’t protest. The threat didn’t come from this rifle. But she couldn’t have said where the danger was coming from.

  “I’ve got to go back,” she said and reached for the bullets in her pocket. “Dana is waiting for me.”

  Now he was paying attention. “Dana Eckert?”

  “Yes.” She pointed to the rifle. “You’ll need that. Poachers are on the prowl.”

  “Where? Have you seen anybody?”

  “I will tell you if you tell me what you saw at the farm . . . .”

  His face turned back into a mask. “That’s not up for discussion.”

  She threw the bullets on the ground and walked over to the ATV. Over her shoulder, she shouted: “So we’re not going to help each other?”

  She saw a boat that had been pulled halfway up onto the shore. He must have come from the south, across the lake.

  Tsaytis stood motionless, his gaze averted, his powerful figure upright, anchored to the ground. He kept his emotions under control. She was the one who, during their last meeting five and a half years ago, had gotten out of control. Tsaytis had never lost his cool.

  “How can you let that happen?” she had repeated over and over. “How can you just let that happen?”

  “Our culture is not your culture,” he had answered, unmoved. “Our laws are not your laws, and our sorrows are not your sorrows.”

  “Baloney! All people suffer the same way.”

  At that, Tsaytis uttered a sentence she never forgot: “Don’t start preaching to me, Tessa. Those days are over.”

  Those days are over.

  She shouldered her backpack when she heard Tsaytis’s voice behind her.

  “Hank had taken two days off when it happened. When the murders happened. Normally he worked for three weeks straight at the lodge and then had five days off. But he asked for time off those two days. I don’t know what the reason was.”

  She gave him a sharp look. Tsaytis always knew what was going on at Watershed Lodge. The lodge belonged to the Sitklat’l, and Tsaytis’s wife, Noreen, was the manager.

  “He had to look after the kids,” she explained, “because Fran had to go to the doctor in Whatou Lake.”

  No reaction.

  She cleared her throat. “Just before kilometer forty-nine, there’s a cut on the left side of the road. It’s visible if you pay attention. When we were heading out here today, a dark pickup suddenly showed up and turned onto the road. It almost hit us. And then drove off like a bat out of hell in the other direction. We stopped and searched around. Found blood and grizzly hair. Or moose. More likely it was a grizzly.”

  “Did you recognize the driver?”

  “No. It all happened too quickly. We were too shocked.”

  He seemed to be thinking over this information. Two vertical frowns appeared on his forehead.

  “Now it's your turn. What did you see? Who is your witness?”

  Once again he looked withdrawn. “Ask the sergeant from Vancouver,” he said. In a few leaps he reached his boat and untied it. She heard the motor as she got on her ATV. A wave of emotion rolled over her as she drove over roots and stones. Anger, pain, frustration, exhaustion, disappointment. She dashed mercilessly over all the rough spots on the trail. What a mess. A missed chance at reconciliation. A missed chance to learn more about the murderer, who might still be active in the area.

  When Tessa reached the gravel road, Dana’s pickup was gone.

  16

  Tessa couldn’t believe her eyes.

  In some places she found deep tire marks. She could not say which vehicle they might have come from. Maybe Dana had simply been tired of waiting. Tessa had promised to be back in half an hour. But it took her almost twice as long. Her friend had certainly not driven back to Whatou Lake. Fran’s house wasn’t very far away now.

  Tessa decided to continue on the ATV. She passed the fork in the road where the logging trucks could turn to take their logs to the south. After ten minutes she reached the driveway to the Millers’ place and then she saw the pickup truck and Dana talking to a policeman. She recognized the constable she had met the previous day.

  She jumped off the ATV and let her frustrations fly. “Why did you drive away without me? I had no idea where you might be.”

  Dana remained calm. “A logging truck came through, and I had to make way for it. I had no choice.” She looked at the policeman, who was watching the scene and then looked at her. “I’ve already told the constable why we’re out here.”

  Tessa didn’t want to change the topic. She hadn’t encountered any logging truck herself. She was still mad. “I don’t understand . . .”

  Dana cut her off. “The constable told me that we can’t just simply go on the property.”

  The officer nodded. “This is a crime scene, which we have not yet opened. Only the police can go in there now.”

  “But they told us we should go in and pick up the cats,” Dana answered.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Sergeant Halprin,” Tessa spit out without thinking.

  “Wait here,” the police officer said promptly. “I’ll ask the sergeant.”

  That was a mistake, Tessa thought, as she looked accusingly at Dana. The policeman turned his back on them, and then told another policeman to go and get Sergeant Halprin.

  Dana raised her eyebrow.

  Two minutes later Ron Halprin showed up. She didn’t think he seemed angry, but more surprised, which put her at ease. His calm voice didn’t show any impatience when he said: “Miss Griffins. You’re here? I thought you would be with your family in Whatou Lake.”

  She kept herself from saying out loud: “I thought you would be in Whatou Lake, too.”

  Instead she answered: “Lionel Miller brought back the two dogs. He said—at least as I understood it—you wanted me to come pick up the cats. They were getting in the way of the investigation.”

  “Oh yes, the cats.” He kept looking at her. Tessa got him off track by introducing Dana. “Miss Eckert used to be a social worker in Whatou Lake,” she explained.

  Halprin let her repeat Dana’s name. She was sure he was putting it on a mental list of people he should remember.

  “How many cats are there?” he asked.

  “Three. We have three cat cages with us.”

  Halprin scratched his chin. He looked down at her dirty hiking boots. His thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

  “I think we have two cats locked up in the storage room, but the third seems to have escaped from us.” He addressed one of the constables: “I’ll take Miss Griffins with me. Please wait here with Miss Eckert.”

  “I’ll look around the house for the third cat,” Dana suggested.

  Halprin shook his head. “The whole area around here is a cordoned-off cri
me scene only the police can enter. We don’t want to have any clues become contaminated.” His voice sounded forbearing.

  Tessa saw a tinge of disappointment on Dana’s face. “Keep your eyes wide open when you’re inside,” she whispered to Tessa, as she took two cat cages down from the pickup. Tessa muttered her agreement, but she didn’t expect to be allowed into the house.

  Halprin led her up the dirt road to the side of the farmhouse. Hank had added a room to the house, which was used as storage.

  “The cats are in there,” the sergeant explained.

  “Can I go in?”

  ”Yes, but you’ll have to put on these plastic overshoes. Did Hank sometimes lock the dogs in here?”

  “Not normally. Only if somebody was visiting and the dogs went crazy. Not that they were aggressive, but they were big and could get very excited about visitors, and sometimes they were just too much for them. They might be locked in for an hour or two. That never bothered me; they calmed down quickly.” Suddenly something occurred to her. “When the dogs were locked in there, it must have been because of someone who didn’t like dogs. Or who was afraid of them. Otherwise Hank wouldn’t have—”

  He interrupted her with another question. “What time of day did Fran teach the children in the house?”

  “Always in the morning.”

  Halprin noted down this information and then started looking for something in his jacket pocket. Tessa couldn’t stop thinking about his question. Why were the children in the house when their father was outside? On Hank’s rare days off at home, the children always spent every minute with him. It hadn’t been raining. Did Hank send them into the house because he suspected that something dangerous was going to happen?

  Halprin gave her some latex gloves and put some on himself. There was something else she wanted to know.

  “Sergeant . . .”

  “Ron. Can I call you Tessa?”

  “Yes, of course. Ron, can you tell me who was with Tsaytis Chelin when he discovered the bodies?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Who told you that Tsaytis Chelin wasn’t alone?”

  “He did. I was just about to tell you that I was briefly in Fran’s cabin. You certainly must already know about the cabin on Beaver Lake. I took the ATV and ran into Tsaytis there. It was completely unexpected. He had crossed the lake by boat. I . . . the inside of the cabin was a complete mess. A bear had forced his way in. We found claw marks.”

  He pressed his lips together. “It would have been better if you had informed me before you went over there, Tessa. We have specialists who see to it that clues don’t get contaminated.”

  “Ron, you’re right. I didn’t touch anything and neither did Tsaytis. It was a spontaneous decision on my part because I happened to be in the area. A sudden hope that Fran might be there and because every minute counts.”

  She knew Halprin wouldn’t be happy about what she had done. As a lawyer she could under no conditions talk her way out of this by claiming she had no idea.

  “We know very well that every minute counts. That also means that the earlier we get a piece of information, the better.”

  She nodded. “I assumed that the Miller family or somebody else already told you about the cabin. But maybe it would interest you to know that there is a hiding place underneath the wooden floor in the corner by window on the west side. Under a loose wooden plank. Fran showed it to me once when I was visiting. She told me that she wanted to put a gun in there. She would feel safer if she were alone at the lake. Whether she did that or not, I don’t know. When I was in the cabin earlier today, I saw that the plank was nailed shut. I thought that was strange.”

  “What kind of weapon was Fran talking about?”

  “No idea. Certainly there were also rifles here on the farm. Hank actually has a hunting license. I remember that.”

  The sergeant looked over at the edge of the forest and then back at her. A quiet meowing could be heard from behind the door to the storeroom.

  “Our people already made a brief visit to the cabin to check if Fran was there. Everything at that point was still intact. The bear must have showed up later. I’ll send somebody else up there. Thanks for the tip.” He curled his fingers under the latex like claws before he asked: “So you didn’t want to be at the press conference today?”

  “I thought it was on Saturday.”

  “Yes, there will be a second one then. The one today will be very short.”

  “Can you tell me who was here at the farm with Tsaytis?”

  “No,” Ron answered drily. They were still in front of the door, which for some reason he hadn’t yet opened. He stood so close to her that she could clearly see the lines in his forehead.

  His stoic behavior somehow provoked her and made her say: “That’s the reason you’re here and not at the press conference in Whatou Lake. Because you’d rather not say anything at all.”

  “As a lawyer, that can’t be new to you,” he said in a friendly way. “But we always try to keep some key information confidential.” He wants to stay a few steps ahead of the perpetrator, she thought.

  “And Fran? Do you know anything more? What about the jacket in Whitesand Bay?”

  If he had begun to feel interrogated, he didn’t show any sign of it.

  “The jacket is Fran’s, and the blood is also hers.”

  “How did that jacket get out there?”

  “Oh, I can’t tell you that.” Halprin put his hand on the doorknob. “Tessa, we’re doing the best we can, but this is a murder investigation and we don’t want to make any mistakes. There are people out there who are looking for Fran. We’re getting the word out over many radio stations and TV channels and in many places.“

  She remembered Boyd’s text: He is very good . . . Now you have him on your side. Make sure you keep him there.

  She looked up and could read compassion in his eyes. It moved her. Despite the demands of his profession, he was still a decent person.

  “Thanks,” she replied as softly as she could. “Please tell me if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  He nodded. “The cats.”

  “So there are only two in here?”

  “Yes, we only found two.”

  They slipped into the room and quickly closed the door behind them.

  Tessa flipped the light switch. The first cat was easy to catch. She came meowing up to them. The second made a fuss and kept hiding underneath the shelves. The overstuffed storage space looked to Tessa like a junk room. Cross-country skis, a tricycle, old toys, all sizes of shoes, and furniture that Fran was planning to paint.

  “Please turn the cat cage so the opening is on top,” she said to Halprin after she finally had the second cat in her arms.” She pushed the animal behind first into the cage and quickly closed the door.

  At that moment Halprin asked: “Did Fran have a diary?”

  She immediately assumed he hadn’t found any.

  She brushed away the cat hairs from her jacket. “It was more like a sketchbook. Fran was a visual kind of person. She drew.”

  “Where did she keep this sketchbook?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere in the house, I assume. She also drew on loose sheets of paper she sometimes showed me. They’re probably lying around somewhere.”

  They went outside with the cat cages. Both of the animals protested loudly about their imprisonment.

  “We’ll keep looking for the third cat,” Halprin promised.

  “Thanks. When will I be able to go into the house?”

  “In a couple of days. After we have completed the investigation. We take that very seriously.”

  Tessa noticed even in her overtaxed emotional state how important it was to Halprin that she continue to trust the police. Trust him.

  Because she was a lawyer? Because she could cause him problems? Whatever happened now, she still wanted him on her side. “When you’re done, will you please tell me right away? I don’t want people to go into the house illegally.”

&
nbsp; He gave her a close look. She couldn’t remember having seen another man with such bright eyes. Maybe it was just the sunlight. “I’ll see what I can do,” he mumbled as he took off his latex gloves.

  “I’ve got to tell you one more thing,” she said. “Somebody told me that when Fran was in Whatou Lake at the end of April, she saw Fran coming out of the funeral home. I . . . I don’t know how reliable this information is. It comes from Savannah. She was one of my Mom’s foster children and now lives in Whatou Lake.”

  “She saw Fran coming out of the funeral home?”

  Tessa nodded. The whole thing now seemed absurd to her. “I have no idea what Fran could have been doing there. Savannah is a bit of a . . . gossip and has a tendency to stretch the truth sometimes. Maybe there’s nothing to it. That’s why at first I didn’t want to say anything.”

  He opened his mouth as if something was on the tip of his tongue. But then he closed it again and picked up the cat cage.

  “This thing is pretty heavy.”

  Did he have pets? Children? How had he felt when he looked at the bodies of Breena, Clyde, and Kayley?

  They had almost reached the pickup. Dana leaned on the fender and looked over at her in anticipation.

  Suddenly something occurred to Tessa. “The sketches of the children used to be in the chest of drawers in the living room. Maybe Fran’s drawings are also there.”

  He nodded but was noticeably distracted. In his thoughts, he once again seemed to be elsewhere. Trying to keep ahead of the murderer. Maybe they had already searched the chest of drawers. He put down the cat cage and wished them a safe journey home. Her eyes followed him as he walked to the house, where a person wearing a white protective suit was waiting.

  “What was that about the children’s sketches?” Dana asked when they were already sitting in the pickup.