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

by Bernadette Calonego

  Immediately her blood was up. Why didn’t Harrison contact her directly? Was he too good for that? In any case a normal person could have figured out that she had to wait for the police to give out new information first. And to do that, she had to wait for the press conference. The best thing would be to ignore Cindy’s text.

  Savannah was preparing a meal in the kitchen. She had returned sooner than Tessa expected. She was wearing a long tight T-shirt under her orange faux-leather jacket and tight leggings. Tessa hoped she wouldn’t show up like that at the press conference.

  “They’re still sleeping,” Savannah whispered and pointed to the upper floor.

  Tessa also whispered: “Does that seem strange to you?”

  “No. Dad probably helped out with a sleeping pill. Where were you?”

  “In my cabin.”

  “It must have been really cold in there.”

  “Yes, I’m going to put on something warmer.” She quietly went up the stairs. One of the cats slipped through the door into the room with her. Her suitcase lay on the floor, only half unpacked. As she sat down on the bed, she heard a fizzing sound. The cat was squatting in the suitcase and the sound came from her.

  “Oh no!” She leaped over to the suitcase; the shocked cat fled under the bed. It smelled like piss, and with her fingertips she held up two wet blouses. Good grief! She let the blouses fall back into the suitcase. This was because of her sloppiness. She should have hung up all her clothes. Exasperated, she put on a wool jacket and went downstairs into the kitchen where Savannah was leaning over the stove.

  “Lily peed on my blouses in the suitcase,” she complained.

  “Oh, no.” Savannah stopped stirring. “The poor cat must be totally stressed out. Can you wash them?”

  “No, I have to take them to the cleaners.”

  “Guess what, there are no cleaners here within a thousand miles.”

  “You’re not telling me anything new. Maybe I’ll wear a white T-shirt under the suit jacket and a scarf over it.”

  “Cindy sells blouses. Not in my price range, but she has nice things. Today is Saturday. She’s probably in the store. Usually it’s closed on Monday and Tuesday.”

  Tessa considered the option and then called Cindy on her cell phone.

  Lionel’s wife answered immediately.

  “I need two new blouses right away,” Tessa said. “I can come to your store; then we can also talk about the other thing.”

  She noticed some hesitation. Then Cindy answered in her slow way, which sounded like melted cheese: “My store is officially closed today because of the press conference. So we can meet there without being disturbed.” She didn’t hold it against Tessa that she had never been in the store before.

  “Do you have dark blouses in my size?”

  “Yes, I have a selection to choose from.” Cindy seemed to be almost insulted that Tessa was questioning what she had available.

  “Good. I can be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Come in the back door. That way I don’t have to shut off the alarm.”

  Blouses. Colors. Sizes. And five people are dead. Tessa found it absurd. But she had to function no matter what.

  Savannah looked disgusted. She couldn’t stand Cindy. “Will you be back to eat?”

  She dried her hands on the dishtowel.

  “I think so. I’ll borrow the Pathfinder for an hour.” Tessa was already standing in the doorway when Savannah asked: “What should I tell Mom and Dad?”

  “That I’m going to meet Cindy because Harrison Miller wants to know what I’m going to say to the press this afternoon.”

  “He’s crazy.”

  “This time I have to say you’re right. Ciao.”

  On the way toward Whatou Lake, she remembered the dogs. She hadn’t had the opportunity to ask her father if they were now with Harrison Miller. And she hadn’t heard from Lionel.

  Cindy’s boutique, which Lionel had renovated, was in the old post office at the edge of Whatou Lake. There was nobody around when Tessa arrived; only Cindy’s Mazda Miata stood alone on the parking lot. Cindy’s store was the only outlet in Whatou Lake that sold high-priced lady’s clothing. Women like Savannah ordered almost everything over the Internet. For instance the orange fake-leather jacket.

  The boutique’s back door looked almost shabby compared to the front door. She had to push hard to get in. A staircase led to a hallway that had three rooms along it whose doors were closed.

  “Hello?” Tessa called.

  She heard hurrying steps, and Cindy showed up. She was wearing a black dress and silver jewelry. You could see by her face that she was under a lot of stress.

  “Come with me; I’ve already picked out a selection I hope you’ll like.”

  Tessa followed her into the well-lit store. At first it took her breath away. The room’s modern design would have been at home in Vancouver. There was chrome everywhere, and lots of light-colored wood along with black-and-silver-accented display cases.

  “Wow!” Tessa exclaimed spontaneously.

  Cindy’s face lit up. “You like it?” She kept smiling for a while.

  “Very tasteful. Congratulations.” Tessa really meant it.

  “It’s my design. Not everybody can appreciate it.”

  Her remark surprised Tessa; she had never received a compliment from Cindy before. She walked around the room, looking at all the clothes. A good selection, not everything to Tessa’s taste, but the few well-to-do customers in Whatou Lake were guaranteed to find some piece of clothing they liked. Customers like Lola Dole or Glenda Miller, Harrison’s wife, and the wives of the mining executives.

  Cindy wore elegant clothes, but she was perhaps trying too hard to look wealthy. Her still-athletic figure would have made a better impression in a relaxed, sporty outfit. Tessa remembered Cliff Bight’s words. Hadn’t he suggested that Lionel’s firm wasn’t doing so well anymore? Lionel was certainly putting a lot of money into his wife’s store. In order to humor Cindy, Tessa supposed.

  Women’s lingerie hung in one corner. Next to it was a small cosmetics department, and there were wigs, handbags, and jewelry. She looked at the bracelets carefully and recognized the cat collars.

  “Did Fran shop here?” she asked Cindy, who had followed her and was carrying three blouses on her arm.

  “No. Do you want to try these on?”

  Tessa ignored the question. “But she had cat collars like this.”

  “Your mother probably bought them for the kids.” Cindy moved her hand over the soft material of the blouses. Strong, almost masculine hands. The serious rowing she did in her sporting days had left its mark.

  “How’s Lionel doing?”

  Cindy’s pretty face broke down. “Not well. He would like to do so much, but he can’t really move around.” Her lips trembled slightly. “He should not have picked up the gun. He’s really no good with weapons.”

  “How’s his wound?”

  “It’s not infected, and that’s good. But it will take a while until it’s healed, the doctor said. He needs peace and quiet. He’s really in bad shape.” Cindy sighed. “Hank, the children . . . and now Fran.” She fell silent and looked at the blouses as if she didn’t know anymore why they were there. “What are we going to do, Tessa? I don’t know how I can help Lionel.”

  Move away with him? Away from this place of murder?

  “I sent him a text message, but he didn’t get back to me.”

  “He’s not available to talk, Tessa. He has withdrawn completely into himself.”

  “Just let him know that you’re there for him,” Tessa advised.

  “Harrison needs my help now since Lionel can’t do anything.”

  Tessa thought it was strange that Cindy brought her father-in-law back into the picture, although they had been talking about Lionel. But she didn’t want to seem negative, as it was very important that the families worked together to find the murderer.

  Cindy continued: “Harrison is a good person and
has often helped me out. Not like my father, who turned his back on me.”

  Tessa looked at her, amazed. Hank had told her that Cindy’s father had supported her rowing career, both with actions and financially. “Your father was also your coach, wasn’t he?”

  “It was more about his ego than my career,” Cindy answered. “When I couldn’t take part in the Olympics because of my injury, he stopped being interested in me. He dropped me like a hot potato. My five sisters openly displayed their schadenfreude. They were always jealous of me and my success—because Dad paid more attention to me than to them.”

  Tessa had never spoken with Cindy about personal things. Or seen her sensitive side. This was the longest speech she had ever heard from her. It took an unbelievable tragedy, Tessa thought, for Cindy to be so open with me. And for me to listen to her.

  Now she understood better why Cindy didn’t want to turn her back on Lionel and Whatou Lake. Here she was accepted even without an Olympic medal. Lionel and Cindy shared a terrible disappointment . . . both felt they had been betrayed. Cindy by her father and Lionel by the person who had told the rowing association that he had been using drugs. But was that love?

  “The changing room is over there,” Cindy said, once again the seasoned saleslady. “Do you know what you’re going to say today to the media?”

  “I want to remain as vague as possible, no matter what the press conference is about. We don’t even know if Fran was murdered or . . .”

  Cindy guessed what Tessa didn’t say aloud. “Or if it was suicide? I thought of that, too. Because . . . the police said that they didn’t see any external wounds.” She hung the blouses on the hook in the changing room.

  Tessa took notice. “Have you talked to Sergeant Halprin?”

  “No, not me. But Harrison did.”

  Why had the sergeant spread this information around? What was the point?

  Cindy lingered in front of the dressing room. “When you realize that the murderer could be right among us . . . it scares me.”

  “I assume that he’s among us. Watch out for yourself . . . and Lionel. Especially now, since his injury is slowing him down so much.” Tessa thought about Savannah, who was with her parents. Savannah knew how to defend herself: she was a good bodyguard. She was the only foster child who took care of Martha and Kenneth Griffins. A sudden rush of thankfulness came over Tessa.

  Cindy fingered the shiny chain that hung around her neck. “Now I lock all the windows and doors. And so do others. Lola said . . . .”

  “Yes?” Tessa was listening intensely.

  Cindy closed the dressing room curtain. “I’m going to get two more blouses.”

  Tessa quickly tried them all on. She liked four of the five blouses. She decided on a dark-gray high-necked style with a bow and a somewhat sporty light-blue satin blouse with a shirt collar.

  Before she left the changing room, she checked her cell phone. Nothing important there, not from Savannah, Tsaytis Chelin, Telford Reed, or Boyd Shenkar. This vacuum stressed her out more than if she had gotten a dozen crucial messages.

  She carried the blouses to the counter. “Lola Dole must think about Jenny all the time when she sees me,” she mentioned as she put down her credit card.

  Cindy concentrated on the financial transaction before she answered. “It doesn’t have to do so much with you. It has to do with . . . you know.”

  Tessa didn’t need any more explanation. It had to do with Tsaytis Chelin. Or against Tsaytis Chelin. Against the Sitklat’l First Nation. Certain people could not bear the idea that the Sitklat’l had lived in the area around Whatou Lake first, before the arrival of the white settlers. They resented that the indigenous people had been granted treaty rights in this territory. And that, over time, they had succeeded economically.

  Tessa considered telling Cindy about her run-in with Lola Dole in Tim Hortons. Of the hatred that she had encountered. She decided not to say anything. She needed Cindy as an ally. As a link of the heavy chain she wanted to see around the murderer.

  “You made the right choice with these two blouses, Tessa,” Cindy said. Once again she managed a tiny smile.

  Cindy knew all the salesladies’ tricks: confirm the costumer’s excellent taste in order to put her in a good mood. But in Tessa’s eyes, given the situation they were in, it was almost grotesque. Maybe Cindy, in face of the terrible events, also clung to daily rituals, just as Tessa did.

  She took the shopping bag. “Thanks for personally coming here, Cindy, even though the store is closed today. There must be more urgent things on your plate than selling me clothes.”

  “That’s perfectly okay; it gave me something else to think about. I can’t get away in any case.”

  Away to where? Tessa asked herself. She remembered Cindy and Lionel’s weekend cabin in the woods, the one Cliff Bight had told her about. “The renovation of your chalet will probably have to wait now,” she said, just to have something to say. As if that was important in the moment.

  Cindy rubbed her hands nervously. “Yes, that’s not going to happen for a while. I want to support Harrison. And Glenda. She says she would rather be dead.”

  “I can understand that,” Tessa answered mechanically.

  Cindy cleaned up and slipped into her jacket. “I put something nice for you in the shopping bag,” she said on the way to the back door.

  Tessa was almost sad she had always ignored the boutique. She hardly knew Cindy. And, as it turned out, she also hadn’t known Fran well, although she thought she had.

  “Harrison’s coming to the press conference, isn’t he?” Tessa asked.

  “Absolutely. I will also be there. I don’t know about Lionel.”

  They simultaneously looked at their watches. Still five hours to go.

  Tessa got into the Pathfinder. In the rearview mirror, she saw Cindy lock the back door and put something into the flowerpot next to the entrance. It must be the key. Old habits never die, Tessa thought. Cindy locked the windows and doors in her house but apparently felt safe enough to leave the key to the boutique in a flowerpot.

  Tessa drove from the parking lot to the main street. She wanted to ask the police about her pistol. Maybe there was a tiny chance they would give her back the gun. She saw Cindy driving away in the opposite direction. Was she going to deliver a personal report to Harrison Miller?

  She reached into her jacket pocket . . . and froze. She must have left her cell phone in the dressing room. Damn it. And without it, she couldn’t even call Cindy. Coming quickly to a decision, she turned the car around and drove back to the boutique. She parked at the back door, put her hand into the flowerpot, and picked up the key.

  Although she didn’t see anyone, she looked carefully around, and then she opened the door. Slowly she felt her way down the dark hallway to the brighter sales room, then went past the lingerie to the changing room. Her cell phone lay there. She grabbed it and went back to the exit. But then curiosity got the better of her, and she opened one of the three doors that led off the hallway. A bathroom with a washer and a dryer. Behind the second door, she discovered a room with a wide couch, a modern floor lamp in the corner, a sideboard with a coffee machine, and a microwave. There was a TV mounted to the wall like in a hotel room. Heavy curtains hung in front of the windows.

  Everything was very tasteful. Cindy probably spent her lunch and coffee breaks here until the next customer came in. She closed the door again and took a quick look into the third room, a narrow storage room with cleaning equipment. Tessa had no idea who cleaned Cindy’s boutique. She was pretty sure Cindy wasn’t the kind of woman to vacuum the place herself. Back outside, she turned the key in the lock and found herself in front of the flowerpot.

  At that moment, a car pulled into the parking lot.

  33

  Tessa stood there like a wet poodle. Her discomfort got even worse when she recognized the person getting out of the car.

  Glenda Miller.

  Hank’s mother was only a shadow of her fo
rmer self. There were deep wrinkles everywhere on her face, and the tone of her skin looked waxen. Even in her fifties, she had been a very good-looking woman. Now the grief about her son and his children’s death had destroyed her looks with one blow. And broken her heart.

  “What are you doing here?” Hank’s mother asked.

  Tessa openly admitted to her what had happened. Glenda listened with her hands buried in the pockets of her down jacket, her arms tensed against her body. Then she took the key from Tessa’s hand.

  “Come, let’s sit down in my car, I’m cold.”

  Tessa didn’t see any way of declining. She took a seat next to Glenda, who stared straight ahead.

  “My life has been destroyed.” Her voice was not shaking, it was full of bitterness. “I don’t have any grandchildren anymore. That’s the end of that. Lionel can’t have children.”

  Tessa didn’t know how she should reply to this revelation. She could feel Glenda’s pain and powerlessness right to her core.

  Glenda went on: “They were the most important thing in my life, Hank and the children. Now there’s nothing left.”

  What about Lionel and Harrison? Tessa remained silent. She was afraid that a single word could send Glenda into a rage.

  “If the perpetrator isn’t found soon, I’m going to start shooting people, one after the other.”

  “Glenda! What are you saying! You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh yes, I really mean that.” She was still staring straight ahead. “Somebody knows who it was. Somebody in Whatou Lake. And isn’t saying anything. Because it might be the son, or the husband, or a cousin. And it’s always been like that here. They don’t care about other people. The main thing for them is to protect their own.”

  To calm Glenda down, Tessa began talking like a lawyer. “Murderers are often family members, but in Whatou Lake there are also poachers, bear killers, and people who want to protect their mining interests.”

  She had hardly uttered these words when she remembered rumors about Harrison Miller collaborating with mine owners. Dirty business.