Snow Light

by Danielle Zinn

  She was a good foot shorter than he was and of a slender, yet, sporty build. Her face had not changed much since he had seen her last, and he quietly had to admit that it was still of flawless skin — albeit a bit pale — even cheekbones, and a mouth that had not had much reason to smile for many years.

  Her cat-green eyes locked with his after she staggeringly looked him up and down twice. He knew her thoughts exactly; they were the same thoughts of everybody who had not seen him for a while.

  “Good morning, DS Collins, and welcome to Turtleville.”

  “Barely a good morning when you get chased out of bed at three a.m. and sent into the middle of bloody nowhere. Surprised the GPS even found this damn place,” she replied boldly.

  His idle wish that she might have grown out of her attitude problem and changed mentally, the way he had changed physically, burst in an instant. Thomas sighed and started to turn when he felt her hand on his back.

  “Sir,” she said slowly, “you… I mean…” She shook her head. “What have we got here?”

  They both turned to the pyramid, and Thomas explained what he had learnt so far. It was also a summary for his mental checklist.

  A bakery apprentice had found the body at two forty-five a.m. on his way to work and raised the alarm. Nobody was seen at the crime scene, and the snowfall had eliminated all traces. The retired Chief Constable Robert Myers named the victim as Ethan Wright, resident of the village. Sexton had called Thomas to lead the investigation as he was living there, at which she raised an eyebrow, clearly disgusted.

  “Let’s have a look at the victim.” When Thomas gestured towards the frozen body, a creaking sound rang through the early morning, and the pyramid sprang to life. Lights went on, on all three of the storeys, and the pyramid slowly set into a rotating motion as if being pushed by the hand of a ghost.

  “Would you prefer me running around or shall I wait and have a look every time he passes by?” Collins asked curtly.

  Thomas turned around, yelling, “Who did this? Are you guys nuts? We are losing the last traces of evidence, if there were any in the first place! Stop this damn thing moving!”

  Myers jogged over to a power supply box hidden behind shrubbery where the cables from the pyramid were attached, and he pushed the red emergency button. The lights went off immediately, and their victim finished his last ride on the merry-go-round at the opposite side from where they stood.

  “Sorry, sir!” he shouted back. “It’s set to go on at five every morning.”

  “Very professional, this place,” Collins snorted.

  Thomas briefly considered handing the assignment back to Sexton and remaining village constable until it was time to retire. Unfortunately, at the age of thirty-nine, and with his expensive taste, that was not really an option.

  They trudged carefully through the snow, and he showed Collins where a broken epee had pierced Ethan Wright’s heart. Her eyes quickly scanned the body, the murder weapon, the pyramid, and the surroundings. Not a word was said. After another minute she looked at Thomas. “Now what?”

  “How does all of this look to you?” he asked.

  “Looks like someone stuck an epee into a man’s heart and put him on a pyramid allowing him one last ride. To be honest, he doesn’t look like someone who has had many rides recently… if he ever had a wife.”

  All Thomas wanted to do was grab Collins, bundle her into the surely still-warm red Mini, give her a brief lecture about the dignity of the dead, and send her back to Turnden. But instead, he pressed his lips together so hard that he felt his teeth cutting through them.

  Collins must have sensed the tension, and quickly relented. “All right, I think someone must have brought him here by car or on a sledge, because he was obviously not murdered here, and that person, or maybe two people, heaved him onto the pyramid, and that would have needed some effort. So, we’re looking for a rather strong person. He was put on public display for everybody to see. The murderer did not intend to hide the crime, which means he’s not sorry for what he’s done, and it was certainly not an accident. And it looks like the victim wasn’t prepared for going outside; he’s not wearing any winter clothes.”

  “Good,” Thomas nodded, his blood pressure ebbing. “I’d like you to oversee the forensic team to ensure that they do their work thoroughly. Once they have packed up, ask the people in the surrounding houses whether they saw or heard anything or anybody between ten p.m. and two a.m.; that is the estimated time of death. After that, I want you to go to St Anna Police Station; I’ll get you an office. Do a thorough background search on Ethan Wright, and I’ll see what Robert Myers knows about the victim and search his house with him. Then I’ll catch up with the pathologist in St Anna and meet you at the police station.”

  She was not looking at him; she hardly ever looked at anybody.

  “Any questions?” he asked rhetorically.

  “Do I have to stay overnight?”

  “If we catch the murderer today, then no. If you don’t mind a two-hour drive from Turnden and back through storm and snow every day until we have caught the murderer, then no again,” Thomas snapped.

  4

  THE County Inn, the only accommodation possibility in Turtleville, was also the only place where one could go for an undisturbed talk and a cup of lukewarm coffee that early in the morning. It was not exactly a luxury hotel, and as visitors rarely found their way to Turtleville the main clientele were funeral, baptism, and wedding guests from the nearby church. And occasionally police officers.

  Thomas and Myers sat down on flowery chair cushions on a sticky bench in a corner of the empty breakfast room. Two different coffee mugs and a pitiful breakfast consisting of burnt toast, butter, and jam was placed in front of them. Shrugging, the owner explained that eggs had not been delivered for a week; frozen bums were assumed to be one possible reason why.

  “What do you know about Ethan Wright?” Thomas asked Myers, cutting burnt chunks out of his toast.

  “Not much. He moved to the village about two years ago. Alone. Lived in the cabin with the small pond out front in the forest. Been there?”

  “Out in the direction of Screen Mountain?”

  “Yes, but at the junction you turn left. There’s a dirt road that leads to a cluster of trees,” Myers mumbled.

  “No, I haven’t been there. When I go running I always turn right at the junction to stay on the tarmac. He lived there alone?”

  “Never heard him mention a wife or children. He stuck to himself. Barely spoke to anybody. Only came to the village to buy food he could not hunt or gather in the woods.”

  “What did he do for a living?” Thomas washed down the burnt toast with black coffee. The grim taste stuck to his tongue.

  “Can’t tell you. Only spoke to him a couple of times. He said he had spent some time in Africa. But he surely hasn’t worked here. As chief constable, I was responsible for the safety and wellbeing of the villagers. Keep everything in order. Wright never bothered anybody or caused trouble, so I let him go his ways. If he wanted to be left alone, then so be it.”

  “Can you think of anybody who would have wanted to hurt him?”

  “As I said, he never bothered anybody. At least nothing had been reported to me.” With that, Myers finished his coffee and made for the bar to pay.

  Thomas touched the small scar on his temple, thinking. It was the only visible reminder of the incident at the playground.

  Myers turned to him. “So, what’s your next step?”

  “I’ll have a look at Wright’s cabin… see if I can find out more about him. Why did he come here? Who was he in contact with?” He followed Myers to the bar.

  “Then you’d better get your skis out. Can’t drive there,” Myers replied.

  The terrain and weather did not make the investigation much easier, Thomas thought miserably.

  “I can call the snow-clearing and gritting service and ask them to clear the road for us,” Myers offered.

  “Please do.
I have to make some phone calls. Meet you, say, in half an hour at the market square?”

  “All right.” And with that, Myers left the inn.

  5

  A LOUD rumbling, like distant thunder, announced the arrival of the snow-clearing service in the form of a huge orange snow plough, spitting salt and small pebbles in all directions like an angry dragon. Myers and Thomas squashed in on the front seat next to a rather grumpy-looking driver.

  “Do you generally clear the road to the cabin?” Thomas yelled over the noise.

  “Only every second day. I clear the road to the junction twice daily. There, I turn right to Screen Mountain. That’s a dirt road to the cabin.”

  “Could you please keep the dirt road cleared until I tell you otherwise? We need easy access to the cabin.”

  The driver nodded reluctantly. They rumbled up a little hill, leaving the last houses of Turtleville behind. To their left, a snow-covered field emerged where a lone cross-country skier slowly but steadily puffed his way uphill.

  Thomas suddenly remembered that he had promised Sky they’d go cross-country skiing through the forest that week. He was wondering where the case would take him and whether time would allow him to keep his promise or not.

  To their right, square-shaped gardens with little summer houses and swings came into view. Everything was covered by a seamless blanket of snow. A lonely Jolly Roger was moving slightly in the breeze on top of a children’s playhouse. Thomas felt a sharp pang go through his entire body when he saw the black flag. His heart suddenly beat fast, and he was squirming in his seat, forcing himself to breathe slowly and steadily; the way he had learnt in his therapy class after the incident. It was the same flag that had hung at the buccaneer ship on that fateful night a year earlier.

  They left the gardens behind, and the road was lined with leafless poplars and birch trees. Up until the junction there was a lot less snow on the road than Thomas had thought there would be; only some drifts had formed where the wind was not held back by trees. The snow on the dirt road, however, was knee high, and the plough slowly began to munch its way towards the cabin.

  “How did Wright get to the cabin?” Thomas yelled towards Myers.

  “He didn’t have a car. Used a sleigh in winter or otherwise a hand barrow when he had to transport something. Or he trotted on snowshoes to the village.”

  They came to a stop in front of a warped little wooden cabin not much bigger than the garden houses they had just passed. It was nestled in a cluster of tall spruce and pine trees. Some of the cabin’s brown paint had come off in big flakes, but the white paint around the window frames seemed relatively recent. Firewood was piled high on both sides, and a chopping block stood close by. Behind the house several clothes lines were strung between pillars.

  Thomas stepped closer. Two dead bunnies were dangling from a line. They had already been skinned and disembowelled. He pushed some snow aside with his boot and found dark red blobs marking the spot where the bunnies had lost their lives.

  The pond to his right was half the size of a football field, and most of it was frozen. A little boat lay turned over next to an unsound jetty.

  “He used the boat for fishing.” Myers stepped next to him.

  “Have you been here a lot?” Thomas asked.

  “Nope. Just a couple of times to check on him. See if he was all right and not causing any trouble.”

  “You’re intent to keep peace in the village, aren’t you?” Thomas smiled, but Myers only shrugged. “Who isn’t?”

  “Have you been inside the cabin?”

  “No. Always met him outside.”

  They made their way to the cabin’s entry. A shovel was leaning next to the door, and it certainly had been used. Piles of snow were arranged randomly wherever Thomas looked.

  “He was definitely killed last night. The dead bunnies seem fresh enough to be from yesterday, and the snow was cleared too,” Thomas said more for his own summary than for Myers. Unfortunately, there were no footprints to be found anywhere.

  It was past nine o’clock, and a milky winter sky hung over them casting a pale light through the evergreen trees. Where enough light found its way to the ground, the snow sparkled, making the otherwise barren field appear alive and vibrant.

  Some feet away, the plough driver sat in his cab, a cigarette dangling from his lips, reading the newspaper. He appeared to be in no rush, nor was he pressuring them into finishing their job, although the plough was longingly awaited in the surrounding villages.

  Thomas pushed the front door handle down hard, and the door swung open with a creak, announcing its visitors. It was warmer inside than he expected, and the last smell of a long-gone fire wafted through the air.

  To his right was a tiny but clean bathroom with a toilet and sink, but no shower or bathtub; presumably, the lake would replace the latter two in the summer.

  Further inside, there were only two more rooms where old and faded wallpaper had begun peeling off. The first room was the kitchen, which contained a small oven holding some pots and pans, a sink with dirty dishes, a cupboard, an empty table with two mismatched chairs, a fridge, and a freezer. Thomas opened the latter, and found chunks of frozen meat inside all neatly labelled with the type and date of the hunt. The space left between the deer and the boar had certainly been reserved for the bunnies strung to the clothes line outside.

  There were no signs of a struggle or any other obvious traces of intrusion. And there was no blood.

  In the other room, Myers was so absorbed in browsing through the tiny bookshelf that he did not hear Thomas enter, and jumped back when the DI cleared his throat.

  “You must have found something interesting,” Thomas said when he saw the look of bewilderment on Myers’s face.

  “What? No… it’s just that I go hunting myself, and he has some great books here.” Myers gestured towards the bookshelf. “I was wondering whether I could borrow one or two.” He blushed slightly and waved a book in Thomas’s face.

  “I recommend taking a look in his freezer. You will get teary-eyed.” He nodded in the direction of the kitchen, and Myers quickly shuffled past him.

  The living room consisted of a bed with a quilted cover, a potted plant, a wardrobe where worn clothes hung in stale air, the bookshelf, and an old but comfortable-looking armchair with an open book on an upturned beer case next to it. There was no TV, radio, phone, or any other electronic equipment.

  What had forced Wright to live such a simple life? Or had he chosen to live like that?

  Thomas rang Collins and told her about his observations at the cabin. The dirty dishes in the sink, the open book next to the armchair, the still neatly made bed — it all looked as if Wright’s murderer may have turned up during his evening routine.

  There was no obvious sign of forced entry, so Wright might have opened the door but then never returned inside to get his winter jacket and boots, which still stood next to the oven; possibly to dry from a day’s activities outdoors.

  Collins listened quietly and asked whether Myers was still with him and why he had taken someone he barely knew to a possible crime scene.

  Thomas demanded to know whether this was the only comment she had to make, and when she remained quiet, he snapped that he would not discuss his information gathering with her neither now nor at any other time. He then ordered her to send the forensic team over to the cabin.

  There were no visible traces of blood on the floor or furnishings, but Thomas had a strong feeling that Wright may have been killed somewhere nearby.

  Thomas’s eyes fell on a small photograph lying on the floor. It must have fallen out of a book when Myers had searched for new hunting techniques.

  The picture showed a middle-aged man holding the hand of a young child. Thomas could not tell whether the child was a boy or a girl as the pair had been photographed from behind, and the black and white resolution did not contribute to its clarity either. But he did recognise what was in the background next to a huge pile
of snow. Gazing up at the village pyramid, the man pointed towards the forest animals at the topmost level.

  Thomas put the picture inside his parka and, together with Myers, made their way back to the market square in the snow plough, where forensics had nearly finished packing up.

  Thomas had a quick chat with the team leader and learnt two things. First, no ground-breaking discoveries had been made either at the pyramid itself or in the surrounding area, so the report would be rather short and faintly fascinating. Second, Collins had not yet informed forensics about their next task of searching the cabin for fingerprints or any other traces as to who might have killed Ethan Wright. Thomas made a resentful mental note.

  He explained the directions to the cabin and agreed to check in on the team again in St Anna that afternoon, when he would also see the pathologist.

  Then he turned to Myers. “You said this morning some villagers fenced in their youth?”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  “Can you give me their names, please?”

  Myers took out a notepad and scribbled down half a dozen names.

  A fleeting smile flashed over Thomas’s face.

  6

  FROM the market square, Thomas walked the short distance home only to find his neighbour, Richard, halfway through clearing snow from Thomas’s driveway.

  “Morning, Nat!” the man shouted as soon as he approached.

  Richard was in his late sixties, and had signed his car dealership in St Anna over to his only son two years earlier. Whenever Thomas needed help with building or repairing something he asked Richard. His wife, Allison, had worked as a tax accountant, and now they were spending their pension on their garden and on travelling the world a couple of times a year.