by Greig Beck
“One more thing; it’s also mosquito season, and they’re worst at night.” He grinned, and Matt could see he was obviously enjoying their discomfort.
Matt nudged Rachel. “Is it too late to call the plane back?”
*
The Fort Severn city center was made up of low buildings, none over two stories. It was warm now, but Matt tried to imagine the town in the depths of winter, snowbound, and buried beneath blankets of white. Being housebound for days on end would have driven him insane.
“Ah, Officer Ojibwe…”
“Oscar.”
“Oscar, thanks… and it’s Matt. So, you busy round these parts?”
“Sometimes.” Oscar never took his eyes for the road.
Matt waited, but guessed small talk wasn’t going to be this guy’s forte. Rachel continued to look out her side window. But Matt was determined to open the guy up.
“You must know everyone in the town, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“Okay.” Matt felt his frustration kick in, but guessed these guys weren’t employed to be social guides. “Many strangers come up? I mean other than us.”
“Yep. This time of year, we get a whole bunch.” He nodded as he drove. “Different time of year, means different people. Around this time we get more fishermen, hunters, trekkers, and a few nature huggers. I try and meet every one of them. Mostly good people.”
They pulled into the local council chambers, a long barn-like brick building, with a red-tiled pitched roof. Oscar stopped the car, and shouldered his door open. “Come on in.”
They pushed through double glass doors and were greeted by a broad-faced woman at the desk. She chatted with Oscar for a moment, and then smiled at Rachel and Matt, giving them a friendly but close examination as they passed by.
Inside there was more activity than Matt had expected. He spotted half a dozen uniformed men and women bustling about or hunched over desks.
“This way.” Oscar took them to an open room, his office, they assumed. There were filing cabinets, a map wall, computer equipment, and cold-weather jackets on pegs.
“Home away from home,” Oscar muttered as he headed for a pot of coffee still steaming on the hotplate. He set about assembling three odd-sized mugs into a line. “Hope you’re not going to ask for one of those fancy-type coffees.” He snorted, and then turned. “Up here it’s coffee, black or… black.”
“Black is fine,” Rachel said evenly.
Matt raised his eyebrows. “Sugar?”
Oscar froze, and then turned. “What’d you call me?”
“I meant… I said…” Matt fumbled.
Oscar slapped his hand on the desk, guffawing. “Little joke. Sure, we got sugar.” He turned back to filling the cups as Matt and Rachel exchanged glances.
Rachel nudged Matt and nodded to the knife on Oscar’s hip. She raised her eyebrows. “Knew you should have brought the scabbard.”
“That might have even fit.” He turned to Oscar. “That’s some knife.”
Oscar’s hand went to the hilt, and he pulled it free, holding the huge and gleaming Bowie blade up for Matt to see.
“Hunting knife. Round these parts we all carry knives. Damn bears and all.” He winked at Matt.
“Nice one.” Matt could not have felt anymore like a city slicker if he tried.
Rachel took her mug of steaming coffee and walked to the map wall. Matt joined her.
“Big territory.”
“Yup.” Oscar sat and leafed through some papers.
Matt saw there were little red pins in the map out at some remote locations. “Oscar, what’re these, small villages or something?”
Oscar looked up. “Nope, just some hunting cabins and supply huts. Pretty rough territory, more so in winter. So we have a few supply places tucked away on mountain slopes and way out. You get lost, hopefully you can make your way to one of those. They’re all marked on maps and restocked annually.”
Rachel turned to look for a moment, before joining Oscar at his desk. She sat down, rested her forearms on his desktop, and smiled. “We don’t want to take up much of your time, Officer Ojibwe.”
“Like I said, Oscar.” He smiled flatly.
“Officer Ojibwe.” Rachel repeated. “Have there been any strangers in and around these parts lately?” She opened a folder and slid forward a picture of the men in dark suits that had slain the family.
He sighed, reached for it and lifted it to his face. He shook his head. “No one wears suits like that up here. This isn’t Noo Yark.”
Rachel never flinched. “Okay, well, are there any remote communities, houses, families, or religious orders that come and go without interacting with the rest of the community?”
Ojibwe examined something in his coffee cup for a second or two, before sipping. “Not really.”
“Not really?” Rachel’s jaw jutted momentarily, and Matt could tell she was moving into interrogation mode. She tapped a finger on the image. “Look again, think again, Officer.”
He sipped noisily. “This is a waste of time.”
Rachel’s gaze turned volcanic, but Ojibwe’s remained bored. She pulled some more pictures from her folder and sorted through them. She slid one toward him.
“Do you know what that is?”
Ojibwe craned forward, frowned, and then shook his head slowly.
“That is the charred corpse of a five-year-old child. His name was Jamie. There are also four adults and even a dog. They were all shot, and then incinerated by these guys…” she pounded a fist down on the photo of the two men in suits. “… who came out of the Canadian forests, here.”
Ojibwe started to shake his head and Rachel pushed back her chair, stood up and lunged forward. “Now look and think again, you fucking little backwater asswipe, before I get my boss, to yell the eardrums off your boss.”
Matt froze, cup in hand, just watching the veins bulge in Rachel’s neck as she leaned over Ojibwe. Her eyes were so intense he was expecting rays to be emitted from each of her eyeballs, and the Native American officer to be turned to dust.
Ojibwe returned the gaze for a moment or two before his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Okay, okay, settle down, Agent.”
He lifted the picture of the men in suits again. “Like I said, no one up here that looks like this.” He bit his lip. “But, there are a few families, and individuals out in the sticks that don’t come into the village.” He snorted softly. “There’s even this old priest, who’s been up here for as long as anyone can remember, he’s…”
“A priest?” Matt sprang forward. “Where?”
Oscar looked over his shoulder at the map, and then got to his feet. He traced a blue line that was the vein of a river running out into an area that was nothing but green. He tapped it.
“About… here.” He turned.
Matt was still half in his chair. “Tell me about him.”
Oscar went and sat back down, allowing Matt to relax back into his seat. Rachel remained standing.
“Not much to tell.” Oscar’s shoulders hiked a fraction. “I’ve been the local constable in these parts for 11 years, but never actually met him. Father Xavier Arvod Bernard is a recluse. He’s got to be over 90 by now, I think. Arrived before the Second World War to run a small church for the locals.”
“And now?” Rachel’s eyes were unblinking.
“And now, no one goes up there anymore as far as I know.” Oscar toyed with his cup. “And Father Xavier doesn’t come down to us neither. Retired I guess, and the old guy has just fallen off the radar.”
“How do you know he’s even still alive?” Rachel’s brow furrowed. “He might have been dead for years.”
“He’s alive.” Oscar nodded. “Pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure is not good enough in a multiple murder investigation.” Rachel shot back.
Oscar sighed long and slow, and then lifted his phone, hitting a few numbers and turning away to mumble for a second or two. After a moment he swung back and replaced
it, and then got to his feet. “Just give me a minute.” Oscar left them in his office.
Matt turned to the FBI agent. “What do you think?”
“It’s got my attention.” Rachel shoved a hand in her pocket. “This case certainly has some religious aspects to it. A remote priest in an area that we know the killers came from and probably went back to? They’ve got to be holed up somewhere remote.”
Matt blew air through compressed lips. “He’s probably been dead for decades, and no one has even bothered checking.” He looked over his shoulder to the door Oscar just went through. “My money is on some monumental ass covering about to take place any minute now.”
The door opened and Oscar returned with a middle-aged woman. “This is Susan Ohnatua, she delivers the mail, as well as runs our computer systems, filing, and cooks a damn fine steak.” He grinned at her, and she returned the same. Oscar then faced Rachel. “Susan, please tell them what you just told me.”
Oscar sat down and steepled his fingers. Susan looked at Matt first, then Rachel.
“I deliver the mail to Father Xavier once a week.”
“I’m Rachel, may I call you Susan?” The woman nodded enthusiastically. “Thank you, Susan. So I understand you’ve actually seen the Father then?” Rachel coaxed the nervous-looking woman.
Susan thought for a moment, and then finally shook her head. “I think, no, actually never. I deliver his mail to a postbox at the edge of town. The next time I put mail in, the previous delivery has been taken.”
“Anyone could have taken it.” Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Given Father Xavier is 90 or more, perhaps someone is helping him out. Is that fair to say?”
Susan bobbed her head. “Oh yeah, sure.”
“I think we need to head out there for a visit.” Matt said. He turned. “Oscar, can you show us the way?”
The Chief Constable looked pained.
Rachel stared from under lowered brows. “Would you like to look at the pictures of the murdered family again?”
Oscar’s lips turned down momentarily, but he must have seen Rachel stiffen, and he seemed to deflate a little. “Maybe a few of us could take a run out there.” He shrugged. “It’s only a few hours, and this time of year, the track is passable.”
Rachel looked at her watch. It was still only midday. “No time like the present.”
*
Rachel and Matt sat up the front with the chief constable, and sharing the back seat of the SUV were officers Manny Tulimak and Gloria Annaya, two police Oscar had rounded up for their expedition. Both were young, friendly, and had a hundred questions about New York for Matt and Rachel as they drove out into the far-north Canadian forest.
Oscar pulled the SUV to the side of the dirt track as it had ended at an impenetrable-looking wall of tangled green.
“From here, on foot.”
Matt went to push open the door.
“Wait.” Oscar grabbed his arm, and Matt froze. He then opened the map box between the seats and tossed Matt a small, red spray pump. “Strongest we’ve got.”
Matt looked at the small container: DEET – diethyltoluamide – one of the strongest insect killers on the market.
“Oh yeah, the blackfly.” Matt screwed his eyes shut and pointed it at his face.
“No, no.” Oscar scoffed. “Jesus, you want to go blind? Spray it on your hands and apply it like a lotion.”
Rachel looked away from the windscreen. “Hurry up. I’ll want some of that when you’re done.”
Matt sprayed some onto his hand and then smeared it on his forehead, cheeks, and neck. It tingled. “This strength is safe, right?”
“Sure, as long as you neither of you want kids.” Oscar stared.
Matt chuckled weakly, and then handed the bottle to Rachel. She followed suit lathering up, and Matt nudged her.
“Stop holding your breath, wimp.”
“You mean like you did.” She gave Matt a wink and a smile and then handed it over her shoulder to Manny and Gloria when she was finished.
They then pushed open the doors and jumped down. Matt inhaled the scents of the wilderness. It was warm, and, down among the green, it was moist and heavy. The blackfly swarmed, but instead of alighting on their skin the pests stayed a few feet back from their heads like tiny satellites orbiting a planet. There was also the deeper zumm of insects, not the tiny whine of the irritating parasites, but more the heavy drone of cicadas and crickets.
Manny walked out a few yards, looking at the forest ground. “Nothing new been through here in a while.”
“Is this the only way in and out?” Rachel asked.
“No.” Gloria said as she zipped up her tan anorak. “But it’s the only track. You’d get lost pretty quick if you didn’t know the way.”
“C’mon.” Oscar headed toward a small opening in the brush.
Rachel and Matt burrowed in behind him, followed by the two young police. The green tunnel only ran for about a hundred feet and then opened out into a pine forest with the odd spruce thrown in. Oscar took them around some of the more densely packed areas, but even where they travelled it seemed it was more pushing through branches than following a trail.
Matt felt trickles of perspiration on his chest and back and would have loved to unzip his jacket, but knew he’d be a human pin cushion within moments, so he sighed and put his head down, ducking under another branch.
Sweat dripped from his nose, and on cue the tiny cloud of blackflies drew in a few inches closer as if knowing that his chemical shield would soon be washed away.
“Fuck it.” He hoped Oscar brought the repellent, or he’d be as lumpy as a toad by the time he got back.
“This way.” Oscar turned at another densely forested area that had an old post hammered into the ground. Maybe one day, long ago, it had held a sign, but now the directions were embedded in the locals’ minds and nowhere else.
The officer pushed aside some spindly bushes that hid an opening between tree trunks. Beyond there was a smaller track, darker, that looked to have split logs as planking embedded into the earth. It looked to Matt like a giant ladder that was being slowly consumed by the forest floor.
From somewhere out in the gloom there was the sound of something heavy moving through the denser brush. Matt caught up beside Rachel. “Hey, are you packing?”
“Packing? What are you from Chicago in the forties?” She snorted softly. “Yes, of course.” She nodded toward the tree line. “I hear it; probably a bear or moose.”
“Yeah, well, one that’s keeping level with us.” Matt let his eyes travel again over the odd shapes in the dark forested areas. It was so dense in some places it could have hid a Sherman tank. He could have sworn the sound stopped when they did. He turned to Manny who was staring out to where the sound had come from.
“Hey, did that sound like a bear or moose to you?”
He just shrugged but continued to scan the darker depths of the forest.
They walked on in silence for another hour, sipping water as they went, before Oscar slowed and half-turned to look over his shoulder at them.
“Just up ahead.” he whispered.
Matt could tell a hunter’s stalk when he saw it and immediately tried to do the same, treading carefully and hunching his shoulders. Matt also saw Rachel had lifted one side of her jacket, exposing the butt of a gun on her hip.
Oscar held up a hand, and then stopped. Matt and Rachel came to each of his shoulders and peered through a curtain of green. There was a church, vastly older than Matt had been expecting. Vines scaled its walls and tree roots lumped up upon its foundations as the forest tried to reclaim it. The stones of the ancient church were blackened with age and overgrown with skins of moss and lichen. The style of architecture looked Romanesque with a single pointed spire and heavy ornate carvings on the stonework.
Behind some of the vines, Matt could see that the windows looked to be lead paneled and might have had colored panes in them. It was impossible to tell with nothing behind them but bl
ackness.
“Father Xavier lives in there?” Matt asked.
“Guess so.” Oscar shrugged. “That’s the only building out here.”
“You said you’ve never seen him; has anyone seen him that you know of?” Rachel kept her eyes on the church.
Oscar seemed to think a moment before turning to Manny and Gloria. Both shook their heads.
“Maybe old Henry who owns the store, but I’d need to check.”
“I’m betting he hasn’t either,” Rachel responded.
Oscar looked back to the old building. “The priest never bothers anyone so no one bothers him.”
“Live and let live, huh.” Matt pulled in a cheek.
Oscar turned. “Up here, if people want to keep to themselves, we respect that.”
“Until those people start beheading citizens, shooting entire families, and burning their bodies.” Rachel slid her gun free of its holster. “Draw your weapons, officers, and take the left side of the building. Matt, you stay put for now.”
Oscar’s expression tightened and his jaw clenched. Matt could tell he wanted to bite back, but to his credit, instead he drew a large service revolver. “Gloria, Manny, with me.” He began to edge out along the tree line, doing as Rachel suggested.
Matt crouched, watching and waiting, and keeping a lookout for any potential ambushes. Though he wasn’t exactly sure what he could do other than yell a warning.
He watched as the group circled the small building, disappeared around its back, and then met again at the front. The door was a solid timber structure, domed with metal hinges and wrought-iron handles. Rachel put her hand to it and then leaned closer to place an ear against it before pulling back and gently pushing.
Surprisingly, the stout-looking door opened without a sound. Someone had to have been tending to it. If it was as old as it looked, the hinges should have screamed like banshees.
Matt squinted; the dark interior gave nothing away and Rachel looked to Oscar momentarily before darting in fast. Oscar followed, his gun up. Manny and Gloria covered the outside, backs to the wall near the door and watching the forest.
Matt swallowed dryly, waiting as minutes ticked by. He looked over his shoulder at the dark forest behind him, which now seemed to be holding its breath and waiting as well. He scanned the wall of tree trunks and bushes. His neck prickled.
