Points West
by
Melanie Jackson
Version 1.1 – February, 2012
Published by Brian Jackson at KDP
Copyright © 2012 by Melanie Jackson
Discover other titles by Melanie Jackson at www.melaniejackson.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Chapter 1
It hurt. It hurt so much, the cramping in the belly, the pain in his neck and arm. It was all he could do to stay on top of the snowmobile and keep the damn machine on the trail. But he had to tell someone. The information had taken too much effort to gather.
His life was running out—last breaths, lost blood, lost time. Whatever the hell those injections were, it wasn’t the youth serum she said she was working on.
He didn’t think that she had been the one to tear his apartment apart though. That was someone else, someone violent, someone in a rage. But who? There were so many candidates.
The man gave a breathless laugh. Well, it was bound to have happened eventually. He served too many masters who all believed that they were the Lord and that he should have no other god before them. And being vengeful….
It would be nice to know who had done this though. It couldn’t just be an accident. Maybe Chuck Goodhead would figure it out. Dudley Do-Right was clever and if his precious Butterscotch Jones was in danger he would be motivated.
And for their reward, he would leave them with his files—all the details on everyone who had ever paid him a dirty dime. He had thrown those in as a bonus after he duped all of her research. Let it be someone else’s trouble now. He was done.
Chapter 2
It was late March, technically spring, but most days the cold would crack you like an ice cube in hot coffee if you were out in it too long. Max and I were going to risk it though because the cabin reeked of sweet and sour lemon oil. Spring-cleaning fever had overcome me as soon as I finished doing taxes for those who bothered to pay them. Mostly Big John and the Braids, neither of whom could add a column of numbers to save their lives. One and one would sometimes make two, but just as often three or zero. We were a town beyond the laws of man and apparently also beyond the laws of mathematics. And that just goes to show you that owning a ledger makes one an accountant like my standing in the forest makes me a tree.
Anyhow, with their paperwork finally in order and their inadequate ledgers finally doing something useful out in the compost heap, I had turned my eyes to home and the accumulated fireplace dust and grime that I had ignored all winter.
The smudge and soot wasn’t confined to the hearth, though they were worst there, and Max’s rug was gritty with inattention. The windows nearest the fire were also smoked a soft shade of amber that made me think less of the holiday candles I’d been burning and more of a smoker’s stained fingers. Disgusted with my slovenliness, I had broken out the vinegar and lemon oil and began slopping buckets of it around with reckless abandon until Max had started whining and rubbing his nose.
“Sorry, Max. You’re right. Enough is enough.”
I pulled off my rubber gloves and rubbed some cold cream on my face. It’s some kind of an udder balm for cows with chafed teats. It made me feel like I was covered in lard and then wrapped in plastic wrap but it prevented chapping and windburn, which was important because my nose was only just recovered from ten rounds with a cold virus and was still rather red and sore.
Max began to dance excitedly as I opened the jar because I only put on cream when we are going outdoors for a long walk.
“Calm down. I’m hurrying.”
I had just pulled on my parka when Max began growling. I thought maybe it was because of the sound of an approaching snowmobile, though usually he is fine with engines of any sort and happy when people visit.
A moment later the engine stopped and about thirty seconds after that there was a thump on the door, like someone had tossed a heavy sack against it.
Wondering if it could be the Wings with a new box of books, but concerned by Max’s continued growling, I pulled open the door slowly. Well, slowly at first. The weight of the body leaning against it pushed the door wide open.
The man was a stranger. He was also almost dead. In fact, he breathed his last only seconds later without saying a word. He died with me looking into his bloodshot eyes, eyes whose whites were completely blood red.
“Oh damn,” I said to Max, who had stopped growling and was staring with what might have been surprise.
I dropped to my knees and started looking for a pulse, which was dumb because I was wearing gloves, but the wide eyes, gray skin, and stilled breath told me I was too late.
“Butterscotch!” The voice belonged to Wendell Thunder. He began jogging towards me. He wasn’t wearing snowshoes which meant he’d been in town, probably at the pub. Old Thunder had passed away in January and Wendell had been spending more time in town. “What’s happened?”
“Fetch the Bones quick!” I called, waving him away from the cabin. “But I think he’s dead so bring a tarp too.”
“Who is it?” he called over his shoulder, already pushing his way across the street. It had snowed the night before and since no vehicles—besides the snowmobile—had been about, the street was still knee deep in snow.
“I don’t know. It’s a stranger.”
Wendell redoubled his pace. The news of a stranger in town was more alarming than a mere corpse on my doorstep. It’s that way in the Gulch.
Max had left the body and was sniffing at the snowmobile. He wasn’t showing hackle, just curiosity, so I left him to it while I went through the gesture of trying heart massage.
While my hands worked at chest compressions, my mind was making note of several things. The man had sandy hair, was about six feet tall and probably in his thirties, though with his extreme pallor it was hard to say. His navy coat was new; in fact, it still had a sales tag on it. I recognized the store. They had a branch in Winnipeg. The rest of his clothes, excepting his snow boots, were worn, though not worn out. He had no luggage, at least none he’d strapped to the snowmobile, a rental vehicle that I thought I recognized.
The Bones came quickly. It was too early in the morning for him to have started in on the serious drinking so he was fairly spry, though his dog-sized dewlaps were red with exertion and cold. There are people older than Doc in the Gulch but only in the cemetery.
Linda Skywater, his assistant and practical nurse, was with him. She looks a bit like Cher, only a decade older and thirty pounds heavier. They had brought a stretcher and Doc’s bag filled with medical instruments that were the height of medical advancement in 1952. Wendell brought up the rear of the anxious parade. He had a tarp and some rope. A black tarp isn’t the classiest of shrouds, but tarps are practical in that they clean up.
“Well, who’s dead this time?” the Bones demanded querulously. “Why can’t these outsiders have the courtesy to die somewhere else?”
“How do you think I feel?” I snapped. “I just mopped my floor!”
Wendell blinked at this outburst and Linda began laughing. I was instantly ashamed.
“Hmph!” Doc leaned down and felt for a pulse. This was for form’s sake. He was also wearing gloves and stood almost at once.
“Well, let’s get him loaded up. I don’t expect you want to take him inside your house, it being newly cleaned, and I’
m damned if I’m going to rile up my rheumatism by examining him out here in the snow! We’ll put him in the woodshed.”
Some of the shock and pressure fell away. I have never been sure that I actually know how to give chest compressions. It was just as well that this man had arrived beyond all hope.
“If you can take care of this I’m going to give Chuck a call. I have a bad feeling about this,” I said and then whistled for Max.
“Aye, that’s best. No point in sleeping with the law if he can’t make himself useful,” Doc muttered.
I disagreed with the Bones because there were definitely other reasons to have relations with the Mountie, but it was hardly the time to enumerate them.
“There’s some brandy on the kitchen table. Why don’t you all have a drink first. It’ll help keep out the cold and we’ve all had a shock.”
Doc began to look more cheerful. Linda shook her head at me but Wendell only grinned.
“Come on, Max. We’re going to see the Flowers.”
Chuck wouldn’t be home at this time of day, but I could leave a carefully worded message on his machine. Big John would also know where the Wings was. If luck favored us, he would already be in Winnipeg, but if not he would have to make a special run. Instinct was telling me that this outsider wasn’t just some hiker or hunter that had gone astray. Whoever the hell he was, he had bypassed other cabins on the way to town and had come right to my door.
Chapter 3
Chuck saw the light flashing on the answering machine the minute he walked in the door. Since no one except Butterscotch called him at this number, and she rarely called unless there was trouble, Chuck took a moment to brace himself before pressing the “Play” button.
“Hi, Chuck. How are you? No frostbite I hope. Sometimes it seems like winter will never end.” Butterscotch was doing her best to sound normal since they were unsure about whether Chuck’s calls were still being monitored, but he could hear tension in her voice. This wasn’t one of the rare social calls. “It’s been colder than usual here and I’m afraid we’ve had another bear attack. I don’t know if it’s the same bear as last time. It could be, because they have a habit of sticking to a territory once they find food, the damn things. By the way, the Wings is in town. He’s picking up supplies for the pub and said he hoped he’d see you. Anyhow, I miss you and hope you can visit soon. Big John says ‘hi’ and Max sends his love too. Bye.”
Chuck exhaled and pushed the “Erase” button.
A bear attack. Someone—an outsider—had been murdered then, or at least died under suspicious circumstances. Thank goodness it was Friday. He could be gone for a couple of days without taking time off. Taking time off without a convincing case of leprosy or broken bones wasn’t advisable. It excited too much interest in certain quarters and led to extra paperwork.
It didn’t used to be that way, but times had changed after 9/11. Somewhere inside every law enforcement organization there is a paranoid who believes that someone—or everyone—is out to betray him or the agency. They usually end up in charge of internal security. Somehow Chuck had ended up on the paranoid’s list and was monitored constantly. And when he failed to fall in completely with Big Brother’s new plan he had been labeled an obstructionist. Which he had eventually become, in fact and not just in name, by defending the people of McIntyre’s Gulch.
He didn’t regret his choice, but now he spent much of his time wondering if his phone was tapped and whether he was still being followed by government watchers or under electronic surveillance. Paranoia had become a regular way of life. Some nights it was all he could do not to check under his bed. The thought circus opened the big top around one in the morning when his neighbor with the motorcycle pulled into the parking lot. Usually Chuck could avoid the worst paranoid sideshows on the fairway of his imagination and fall asleep again, but not always. Not since his first visit to the Gulch. It had changed his view of the world and made him question what was right and what his employers would be willing to do.
Some other person might have blamed Butterscotch for getting him involved in the affairs of McIntyre’s Gulch, but Chuck knew better. He had been disenchanted with his job for a while, and it wasn’t the residents of the Gulch who had asked him to get involved in their troubles, to choose what was just over what was legal.
Still it had caused a lot of trouble, and trouble, like interest, tended to compound. And who could he share these thoughts and woes with except Butterscotch? Certainly not his father. His dad would think he had turned into a conspiracy theorist, one of those lunatics who blamed everything on the CIA or alien invaders.
Of course, a lot could be blamed on the CIA. Chuck was less sure about aliens.
“Damn it.”
Chuck picked up the phone and dialed the number for the private airfield where the Wings hangared his plane when in Winnipeg. It said a lot that he had the number memorized. He’d been spending a fair amount of time in the Gulch for one reason or another.
It was good that he was a patient man. The same bear as last time. He hoped not; everyone involved with that affair was supposedly dead or arrested. Maybe she meant the time before that and that Chuck’s people were back snooping around. The Wings would probably know what was going on, but he wouldn’t be able to tell Chuck anything over the phone either. It would have to wait until he got to the airport.
At least he wouldn’t have to pack a bag for the trip. He had left some winter clothes at Butterscotch’s cabin at Christmas. Nor did he need to bring a gun. One thing the Gulch had plenty of was firearms. The two thoughts weren’t much of a silver lining, but one had to take comfort where one found it.
Chapter 4
Danny, the Wings, was waiting for the Mountie, nursing a cup of cooling coffee. It wouldn’t do to drink too much. Taking a whizz in midair was tricky business, especially at night, and there were no midway rest stops for freight pilots. Once he was up and over the mountains there was no setting down.
He didn’t like to fly into McIntyre’s Gulch after dark when he had cargo since he couldn’t land on the road, but the weather was clear and the lake was frozen solid, so with the beacon on they could make a safe landing. Big John would just have to bring the pub’s supplies down by sled in the morning. And it made sense to get back to the Gulch as soon as possible.
This man dying on Butterscotch’s doorstep was a bad business. The Wings had done some snooping about how the man got there. The body had no identification and the man had used a fake name—unless John Smith really was his name, and how could it be?—when he rented his snowmobile in Seven Forks.
It was also odd that he had used Stoddard to fly him into Seven Forks. Okay, it made sense in one way because the Wings had already had a client that wanted to fly out earlier in the day, a brass-balled bitch she had been too. Weird accent. Called herself Jane Doe—which was none of his business. But if you wanted privacy for something then you had to make other plans, which this other guy had done.
Wings had talked to Stoddard briefly and he had seemed uneasy about his passenger. He warned the Wings that this John Smith seemed like a man who wouldn’t want people knowing his business and everyone should keep their nose out of it. But still, Stoddard charged twice as much as the Wings did and wasn’t nearly as good a pilot. If he had waited a day—a half a day, Smith could have saved some money and flown with him. How much was privacy worth?
Apparently a lot.
Or maybe it wasn’t about privacy but about flying at a certain time. Like right away.
Headlights turned onto the airfield. The Wings recognized the Mountie’s jeep and was relieved. It was time to give this problem to someone else.
“Hey, Danny,” the Mountie said, locking his car door and pocketing the keys. He had only a small briefcase and a brown paper bag.
“Good to see you, Mountie.”
“I hear there’s been another bear attack in the Gulch.”
“Aye. This one’s name was John Smith.”
“Sounds l
ike an alias.”
“Aye, that it does. A lot of those floating around today.” And if anyone would know an alias it was Danny McIntyre Jones.
The Mountie nodded and then looked to see if anyone was standing close enough to overhear them.
“I brought sandwiches for us, if you want to eat before we get started.”
“No thanks, Mountie. Let’s be going. It’s only getting darker.”
“Okay. You can fill me in while I eat. Didn’t have time today for lunch. Or dinner.”
The Mountie stowed his bag and briefcase in the plane and then helped Danny remove the chocks from under the wheels. He was clearly getting used to the routine of takeoff. Danny hadn’t been sure in the beginning that he was going to like the Mountie, but Chuck Goodhead had turned out to be a good man. And it had been a lucky day for the Gulch that he came to town.
Butterscotch could do a lot worse than this man.
Chapter 5
My wardrobe is mostly functional, but since meeting Chuck I have added some clothes with sleeves that aren’t unraveled and jeans that aren’t pre-stretched to someone else’s shape. I even have a high tensile strength bra. I was wearing all of these things but I doubted Chuck had noticed them on account of the body.
The corpse lay on a sheet of plastic tarp on a makeshift table on plywood and sawhorses out in the Bones’ woodshed, which wasn’t a woodshed but really a distillery. The deceased looked the same as he had hours ago except he was grayer and the new coat had been removed.
“I know him,” Chuck said, looking shaken. We all looked pretty pale in the lamplight, but Chuck was almost as gray as the corpse. He had had a long cold snowmobile ride in from the lake and had to be feeling chilled. We needed to get this over with and then get home to a fire. “He’s a police officer in Winnipeg.”
Points West (A Butterscotch Jones Mystery Book 5) Page 1
