Drop Dead Cold

by Karin Kaufman

  “Shut up,” Sierra said.

  I wanted to cheer her on—or at least give her a fist pump. Comeau was disgusting.

  “Just stop it, all of you” Joel said. “Stay in your seats, face front, and be quiet.”

  “Are we in school now?” Comeau said.

  But he did as Joel told him, and Joel himself returned to his seat, though he sat sideways in it, watching us all. It wasn’t long before we heard first one siren and then another. An ambulance pulled up to the bus first, then a Smithwell Police patrol car. Joel pushed the button to open the bus door.

  The paramedics quickly came to the same conclusion I had about Nadine’s fate. Two minutes after arriving, they got off the bus, leaving matters in the hands of Detective Martin Rancourt and two uniformed police officers. Rancourt got on first, his eyes scanning the bus, capturing the scene as a whole before settling on Nadine’s body and walking to her.

  He snapped on a pair of blue latex gloves. “Mrs. Brewer, I’m surprised you’re here,” he said without a touch of irony. How many criminal investigations had I nosed my way into since last October? Three? More?

  “There’s powder on two fingertips of her right hand, Detective. I’m not sure latex will protect you, and you might want to wear a mask when you get close.”

  Rancourt stopped cold. “Do you know where it’s from?”

  “I think it was in her backpack. She put her camera in it and then started asking who messed with it. Though I don’t think she knew . . . I don’t know. Maybe it’s coffee creamer or sugar.”

  “I don’t think so.” Rancourt ordered all the riders off the bus and then told Officer David Bouchard to ask one of the paramedics back on. “And tell him to wear a mask as well as gloves,” Rancourt said.

  CHAPTER 4

  Officer Bouchard approached me, fingers wiggling. “Talk to me over here, Kate.”

  He walked off toward his patrol car and I followed him. Bouchard was another familiar face on the Smithwell force, and we knew each other well enough that he felt at ease calling me by my first name. Though I could tell he wasn’t thrilled to see me. He was a good officer, basically, but young, a little lazy, and condescending toward amateurs like me.

  “What happened here?” he asked, turning back around when we reached his car.

  I recounted to how Nadine had found a strange note on her seat when we’d returned to the bus from our first stop, and I made sure to identify Richard Comeau as another cause of contention on the trip. “There’s something wrong with that man,” I said. “He wasn’t interested in birdwatching. You should check out his background. I think he’s up to something.”

  Bouchard smiled and scratched his freckled nose with a gloved hand. “Of course. Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t you ma’am me in that patronizing way, Officer. I was on the bus, not you, and by now you should know I might have seen something pertinent to the case.”

  “What case is that?”

  “The case of Nadine Sullivan. Sullivan is the victim’s last name.”

  “We’ve been told.”

  “She didn’t die of natural causes.”

  “Let’s let the medical examiner determine that, all right?”

  I tucked my chin into my coat collar. The wind had picked up enough to turn five degrees into minus five, and my face was getting numb from the cold.

  “Want to get in the squad car?” he asked me.

  “Can you drive us all back to the community center?” I said. “We’re all parked there.”

  “As soon as Detective Rancourt gives the okay. What can you tell me about Mrs. Sullivan?”

  “She said she had a nervous condition and wasn’t supposed to get stressed, but she didn’t specify what the condition was—or if it was real or imaginary.”

  “Right.”

  “She said she’d been birding before, and I believed her. Unlike Comeau, she showed an interest in the birds.”

  “Okay.”

  “At first I thought she was overreacting to that note. By the way, she took it back from Joel Perry, the bus driver. He looked at it, then gave it back to her. Joel was wearing gloves, like everyone but Comeau, so I doubt there are any fingerprints on it but Nadine’s.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Comeau’s the only one who doesn’t have gloves. And Nadine took hers off when she got back on the bus.”

  “I’ll let Rancourt know.”

  “I wonder if there are traces of that powder on someone’s gloves.”

  “You’re getting way ahead of yourself. Slow down.” Bouchard puffed out his cheeks, stomped his feet to keep them warm, and let his eyes wander over to the bus.

  “But we’re all here now,” I said, “with nowhere to dump the evidence. It’s best to look here and now, before we move on.”

  His eyes shot back to me. “You realize we know that, right?”

  “Sorry. I just can’t get over how scared Nadine was. The poor woman believed something was going to happen.”

  Bouchard nodded. “That threat would scare a lot of people.”

  “Not really. I would’ve laughed at it. But I think she knew someone on the bus. She was afraid of one of the passengers.”

  “Interesting.” He lifted his chin. “Rancourt’s coming off the bus.”

  I twisted back. Rancourt hobbled down the bus steps and positively waddled up to his other officer on the scene. He was stiff from crouching and bending over, I thought. In his mid-fifties, he was not a healthy-looking man. He had a full head of hair, mostly gray, but his skin was too pale and he carried too much weight for his average height. Putting the best spin on it, the detective was more stout than fat, but he always looked a little bloated, like you could poke a pin in him and he’d leak water or air. Poor man. I could only guess at what he ate most of the time, but I doubted it was much more than police-station vending-machine fare.

  Rancourt cupped his hands around his mouth. “Everyone gather around, please.”

  I walked toward him, the icy snow snapping beneath my feet. I wished I’d brought hand warmers with me. I’d thawed a little on the bus, but now, after standing outside again, I was chilled to the bone.

  “Obviously, folks, the tour is over,” Rancourt announced. “We’re hanging onto your backpacks, Thermoses, and the like for now, but you can pick them up tomorrow afternoon at the station on Falmouth.”

  “Why?” Sierra whined.

  “For testing,” Rancourt said, leaving it at that. He wasn’t one to explain himself. “We also need your gloves. Officer Bouchard will collect them now.” He handed Bouchard a handful of plastic evidence bags.

  I slipped off my gloves, dropping them into the first bag, then watched as the others—save for the gloveless Comeau—did the same. Rancourt wasn’t saying why he was collecting the gloves, but I surmised he planned to check them for the same white powder Nadine had on her fingertips.

  After Bouchard handed the sealed and labeled bags to Rancourt, the detective asked Bouchard and the second officer to check all our coat and pants pockets. I understood why, but the intrusion didn’t sit well with Sierra, who began to accuse Rancourt of various constitutional violations.

  “You can refuse my request, Mrs. . . . ?”

  “Dearborn,” she said.

  “You can refuse, Mrs. Dearborn, and that would be duly noted and dealt with subsequently. But I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” She dug into her coat pockets and yanked out the satiny lining. “See?” Next she unzipped her coat and did the same with her jeans pockets. “Got a good look? Can I wrap up now? I’m freezing.”

  “Thank you,” Rancourt said matter-of-factly. He was a hard man to ruffle.

  Bouchard walked up to me, and I complied with Rancourt’s pockets order. When the moss I’d collected fell out of my right coat pocket, I bent to pick it up and then showed it to Bouchard. “It’s just moss.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I harvested it—but only a little.
I left more than enough behind for regrowth.” Stop babbling. He doesn’t care about the moss.

  “Not that I think you killed anyone,” Bouchard whispered as he glanced at my out-turned pockets.

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I said, stuffing the moss back in my coat pocket and showing him my jeans pockets.

  As the others turned their pockets inside out, the paramedics took Nadine off the bus. I averted my eyes from her body, though they’d covered her with a plastic sheet of some kind. Just half an hour earlier the woman had been full of life. Kind of miserable and nervous, but living and breathing.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Rancourt took statements from the other birdwatchers. As he finished with each one, they hopped into one of the squad cars and warmed themselves, and at last we drove off for the community center’s parking lot.

  I was with the Dearborns in Bouchard’s car, thankful that Tom and Joel had piled into the other squad car with Comeau.

  “I can’t believe we had to stand in the cold all that time,” Sierra sniffed.

  Bouchard glanced at his rearview mirror. “Sorry, but we had to get everyone off the bus. It’s a possible crime scene.”

  “What crime?” Gavin asked. “The woman had a stroke, if you ask me.”

  “Could be,” Bouchard said.

  Yeah, right. Nothing about Nadine’s body, or the fact that she’d died so quickly after her last words, said stroke to me, but I stayed mum on the trip back to the community center.

  “Remember to pick up your belongings starting tomorrow afternoon,” Bouchard said as he pulled into the parking lot. Sierra hardly waited for the squad car to stop before she opened the door, but Gavin lingered behind and told me once more, in the same vague words he’d used on the bus, that we should talk.

  “What did you mean by saying Ray Landry’s writings live on?” I asked him.

  “Come over for drinks tonight,” he answered. “About seven?” He gazed at me expectantly, his blue eyes shimmering in his full-moon face. “We’ll talk then? Gotta go.” He slammed the door shut and trotted after Sierra.

  Bouchard threw an arm over the back of his seat. “Rancourt wants to talk to you later today. He’ll stop by your house. You going to be home?”

  “Yeah, I’m too cold to go out again.” The other squad car pulled in behind Bouchard, and I watched as Tom, Joel, and Comeau got out and made their way to their cars. Comeau threw me a backward glance and gave me what I now thought of as his signature wave: one stately, snide flip of his hand. “Have you ever met Richard Comeau?” I asked.

  “Never met him, never heard of him.”

  “There’s something weird about the man.”

  “So you said.”

  “Tell Rancourt he can come over any time today.”

  Nadine’s white face and blue lips were before me, dogging my every step to my Jeep. I had assured her she’d be all right, that she was minutes from her car and a safe drive home. Shaking my head, I willed her image from my mind, pressed my key into the Jeep’s lock, and climbed to the seat.

  Though I was anxious to see Minette, I drove slowly and cautiously back to my house, not wanting to spin out and end up in some ditch. Anyway, for all I knew, Comeau was following me just out of my view, waiting for me to get stuck so he could ambush me. “What car does he drive?” I said aloud. I wished I’d stayed behind at the community center to find out.

  My Jeep churned up my steep, snowy drive with relative ease, thanks to the snow tires I’d bought in January. I parked in my garage and darted into my house through the side door. “Minette? I need to talk to you right away!”

  “Kate, Kate.”

  I looked to my hutch and saw Minette’s two little fists on the rim of a Wedgwood teacup.

  “We’re you taking a nap?”

  Her head popped above the cup. She smiled sweetly and nodded, her light brown hair bobbing along with her head. “I was tired.”

  “You’re never tired.”

  “It’s been winter for a long time. It’s dark and cold.”

  “That it is. It makes me tired too.”

  She stood inside the cup—all four inches of her—and her pink and ivory wings spread wide behind her. Like butterfly wings, they were in two segments, with a more angular top and a rounder bottom. And though they were as soft as rose petals, I’d learned they were strong—and could propel her through the air at jet speed. She’d saved my life with those wings once. Last October, not long after I’d met her, she’d scared the daylights out of an attacker who to this day believed Minette was a giant, pink, avenging bee.

  I hung my coat on a kitchen chair, retrieved the moss from the pocket, and showed it to Minette. “It’s from the Millford Preserve, and it’s still green and fresh.”

  “Kate!” she squealed, bringing her hands to her face. “It’s stupendous! It’s like spring flowers in your hand!”

  Her childlike delight in my small gift made me laugh, and for a moment, the gloom of the day vanished.

  She climbed out of her cup, flapped her wings forward and drifted downward, landing on my open hand. I still marveled at how light she was—not much heavier than the hummingbird that had once perched on my thumb near a feeder. She snatched up the moss and pressed it to her face, breathing deeply of its scent.

  “So you think Millford Preserve moss is a delicacy?”

  “It’s delicious.” She dropped the moss and tilted her head to one side, listening. “Kate, there’s a car on your driveway.”

  “Detective Rancourt was going to stop by. I haven’t told you what happened on the tour.”

  “No, not Rancourt. This car has never been here before.”

  CHAPTER 5

  I looked out the peephole then told Minette to settle herself somewhere inside my fireplace chimney—her customary escape hatch—and stay there until I said otherwise. I knew it was cold up there, but I was worried she’d be trapped inside my house with no real hiding place. Then I made a three-second phone call to my next-door neighbor, Emily MacKenzie, before I opened my front door.

  Richard Comeau was wearing the same lizard-like grin he’d sported on the tour bus. Scornful yet obsequious. Obviously, I wondered if I was crazy to open my door to him or, worse, let him into my house, but as usual my curiosity got the best of me.

  “Comeau, why are you here?” I stood rock firm at the threshold, not yet inviting him inside. His white car was on the drive, its grill and hood emblem proclaiming it a BMW.

  “Mrs. Brewer, may we talk?”

  “We did talk.”

  “I mean in private.”

  “We’re private right now.” No way was I going to make his untimely intrusion easy for him.

  “May I come inside for a minute?”

  “Why?”

  “I know of something that may interest you.”

  “You’ll have to give me more than that.”

  He chuckled softly. “If I meant you harm, I would already have done you harm, right here at your door. But you see I haven’t.”

  “What a comforting thing to say.” I stepped away from the door. “You should know my neighbor will be here in a couple minutes, and Detective Rancourt will be here soon after that. We won’t be alone for long.”

  “Merci, Madame.” He bowed ever so slightly and walked into my foyer, eagerly surveying the living room ahead. “Small but charmant,” he said, his voice betraying a bit of disappointment. Had he expected to see fairies buzzing about the furniture? A birdcage full of imprisoned pixies?

  I shut the door. “How did you know I live here?”

  “Gavin Dearborn.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “On the bus. If you recall, he asked if you were at 2000 Birch Street.”

  “Oh . . . right.” Was I being paranoid? Comeau was weird and rude, but was he dangerous? Nevertheless, I remained in the foyer, my hand ready to grasp the front door if I needed to evade his clutches. “What can I help you with?”

  “May we sit?”<
br />
  “First tell me why you’re here.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Brewer, let’s not—”

  “Do you have any idea how creepy it is—you showing up at my door unannounced? And right after we both witnessed a woman dying in front of our eyes?”

  The last hint of a smile disappeared. “This is very serious. Otherwise, let me assure you, I wouldn’t be here. Please let me state my case.”

  I strode for my kitchen, Comeau close on my heels. “Sit down,” I commanded, pointing at my table. And then, making sure Comeau saw my every move, I pulled a large knife from a drawer and laid it on the counter next to the sink. “Stay seated, and tell me what you want.”

  “Goodness me, Mrs. Brewer, you are the cautious one.”

  “You bet. For all I know, you killed Nadine Sullivan.” He couldn’t take his eyes from the knife. Good, I thought. Let him know I’m not playing around. Let him think I’m nuts. “I’m tired and I’m busy. Tell me why you’re here.”

  His eyes shifted from the knife to my hand near the knife and, finally, to me. “I understand you’ve discovered something unusual.”

  “How do you know anything about me?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Then I’m not at liberty to answer your ambiguous question.”

  “Mrs. Brewer, I’m not here for fun and games. This is serious.”

  “You keep telling me that, but you can’t bring yourself to say in plain English why you drove to my house. Why were you on the tour?”

  “To speak with you.”

  “I gathered as much.”

  The doorbell sounded, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. If Comeau was truly dangerous, introducing him to Emily, who knew about Minette, wasn’t among my brightest ideas. She had never breathed a word about Minette to anyone, even her husband, Laurence, and she was an expert at feigning ignorance of otherworldly creatures, but now I didn’t want Comeau to even know my neighbor existed. I hesitated.