Читать книгу Amanda Doucette Mystery 3-Book Bundle - Barbara Fradkin - Страница 12

Within seconds, Corporal Biggs was on the phone to the RCMP Major Crimes Unit in Corner Brook for advice on how to proceed. Judging from his tense, red face, Chris suspected Biggs had never faced a murder investigation in which the trail of blood did not lead straight to the perpetrator in the next room.

It was remotely possible that the deceased had not been murdered but had died instead from some misadventure or illness on the boat, and his companions had attempted a primitive burial at sea. If so, of course, they should have reported the death the moment they landed ashore. That was Biggs’s first question to Corner Brook. No such deaths had been reported, Corner Brook replied, and advised him to sit tight until they could mobilize the Major Crimes Unit.

While Biggs was on the phone, Chris rummaged carefully through the man’s pockets, finding nothing other than a sodden paper with some illegible printing scrawled on it. He knew the search went against protocol, but he doubted much forensic evidence would be left on the body after its watery travels. He stuffed the paper back and busied himself taking close-up shots of the body, particularly elements that might help with identification — the garish jacket, the dirty shoes, and, most importantly, the man’s face.

He suspected they were in for a long night. Amanda had already texted him multiple times to ask whether the body was Phil. He was finally able to reassure her.

“Whew!” she replied. “Then who is it?”

“Don’t know yet,” he said.

He was just finishing up the photos when Biggs reappeared. The man seemed calmer now that he had sent the problem higher up. “They’re sending the helicopter over from Moncton to evacuate the DOA to St. John’s, and forensics and major crimes teams will drive up from Corner Brook in the morning to head up the investigation. Meanwhile, they instructed us to bring the body onto the pier so the medical examiner can do a preliminary examination, and to take witness statements from the crew and harbour staff so folks can go home. We’re to keep the scene secured.”

Chris stepped forward. “I can take statements, sir.”

“Let’s get the poor bugger off the boat first.”

It was almost midnight by the time the officers managed to hoist the body, wrapped in the tarp, off the boat deck and onto the pier, where they laid it out under the bright RCMP spotlights. Chris took more photos while the medical examiner, who had been keeping warm in his car, re-emerged for a closer look. He lifted the clothing, moved the body carefully from side to side, and probed it for broken bones and lacerations. Then he took a temperature reading and used a powerful flashlight to look into the man’s eyes, ears, and mouth. Finally he pressed hard on the victim’s chest. Only a faint gurgle and a trickle of foam escaped his lips.

As he worked, he dictated into his iPhone and Chris bent close to catch every word. “Victim is an adult white male estimated age twenty-five to forty years, approximately six feet, thin build. There are no obvious broken bones or signs of trauma, only superficial lacerations on his exposed flesh that appear consistent with marine feeding. He appears malnourished and has had several teeth pulled. Health and dental care seem to have been poor.”

“That goes along with the shoes and clothes,” Chris said to Biggs, who was observing beside him. “This is not a rich guy.”

“Not a tourist, either,” said the skipper. “Look at his hands. Calloused, nails broken off. This feller did hard, dirty labour.” He held out his own hands. “Just like my hands. You never get the dirt and slime out of them.”

“A fisherman, then?” Chris asked.

“Not in them clothes.”

The doctor cast them an annoyed glance before resuming his dictation in a louder voice. “Body temp is five degrees, probably about the same as the ambient water temperature where he was. Where was that?”

“We was 250 kilometres northeast. I gave Biggs here the coordinates.”

“There’s no visible mud or ocean silt in his mouth or ears, and rigor is minimal. At those temps, that’s not unexpected, but those two facts taken together, I’d say he wasn’t in the water too long.”

“Can you tell how he died?” Biggs said.

The doctor sat back on his heels. “No water in his lungs. Now, cardiac arrest or laryngeal spasm could have killed him when he entered the cold water …”

“But he could have been dead before he hit the water?”

“That’s one possibility of several.” He straightened with a creak and a groan. “Well, I’ve done what I can. The autopsy in St. John’s should tell us more, but meanwhile you can treat the death as suspicious.”

Chris looked over at the ring of townspeople still pressed against the tape. A few had departed but most waited for news, worried about family and loved ones up and down the coast.

“How about I show the photos to the boat crew and the locals, sir. See if anyone recognizes him or has any relevant information. Then they can go home.”

“Good idea.” Biggs gestured to the constable on guard. “Send the photos to Leger too and we’ll split up the interviews. It’s going to be a long night.”

People crowded around as Chris approached. Relief showed on their faces as one by one they shook their heads. They didn’t know who the dead man was, but a few echoed Norm Parsons’s belief that he was not a fisherman, indeed not likely even a native Newfoundlander.

“He don’t look like one of us,” said one elderly woman swathed in scarves and shawls. Chris knew that of all Canada, Newfoundland had the most homogeneous population. It was 95 percent white and Christian, comprised mostly of immigrants from southwestern England and southeastern Ireland. Many Newfoundlanders had the sturdy, compact frames, round faces, and blunt features of that gene pool, and Chris suspected the homogeneity, indeed, the shared bloodlines, was even greater in the remote fishing villages, some of which had been founded by a single family or two.

Like these Newfoundlanders, he had grown up in a fairly homogeneous community in rural Saskatchewan, settled by immigrants who had fled Europe at the same time and been granted land in the newly developing Prairies. In his case, however, they had been from the Ukraine. His mother could spot a kinsman at a single glance.

He studied the photo carefully, trying to see what the woman saw. The subtle differences that would set him apart from the locals. The dead man’s features were sharper, his nose finer, and his skin, although grey and mottled from the sea water, looked darker. Not at all the British and Irish stock on which Newfoundland had been built. Italian, perhaps? Or Middle Eastern?

Either way, he was a long way from home.

Amanda woke the next morning revelling in the soft mattress and the warm duvet. Outside, the surf ebbed and flowed against the rocks and sunlight slanted in through the motel window. Her languid stretch woke Kaylee, who crawled up to snuggle, her exuberant tail thumping the bed.

Amanda felt a warm thrill. She had slept without interruptions or dreams, without an all too familiar backdrop of formless dread. She sat up, wishing the feeling would never end, and headed into the shower. Only when she was sitting in the breakfast room with her first cup of coffee did she pull out her cellphone. To her surprise, she had a signal. One bar, but she would take it.

Chris had texted three more times during the night, first to tell her the man was likely not a local, second to say the death looked suspicious, and third to say a major crimes team would be arriving in the morning. “Sh-h!” he’d added. “Don’t repeat that!” The last text had been at 3:00 a.m.

She smiled. How she wished he were here, with his teasing banter and crinkly grin, helping her figure out their next steps together. Poor Chris. It appeared as if he hadn’t slept all night. In the hope he might finally be resting, she decided not to reply until later. She had nothing urgent to report yet anyway. Phil had had a drunken argument with a stranger, Tyler had explored a fishing stage, and they may or may not have gone off with the stranger at the end of the night.

The motel owner approached to refill her coffee and take her order of eggs and toast. “Where’s your friend?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. “His bed wasn’t touched last night.”

Amanda laughed. “No, he was called away. He’s a cop.”

The twinkle vanished. “Oh, that dead body down S’n Ant’ny?”

How news travels, Amanda thought. Of course, even here in this land where cell signals could evaporate in a strong wind, there were probably tweets and videos all over the Internet. “What are people saying about it?” she asked.

“From away. Off a boat, most likely. One of them big foreign freezer trawlers that’s always sneaking into our waters. Some of them gots thirty, forty workers on ’em, paid next to nudding. Poor bugger probably fell overboard. Or jumped, hoping to swim ashore.”

Mindful of Chris’s admonition, Amanda said nothing about the major crimes unit. “Factory freezer trawler. That sounds ominous.”

“It is. They’s killing the local fishing industry all along the coast. Not just here, but in coastal communities all around the world. Big international corporations that can take in a haul of five hundred tons of fish at one go, freeze it on the boat, and ship it all over the place. Strips the fish right out of the water. First the cod, and now they’re doing it to the shrimp. Most of it goes to Asia.”

Amanda thought about the argument Phil had had with the stranger in the pub, who’d said he just wanted to go home. “What countries are these foreign ships from?”

“Oh, all over d’ world, my dear. The United States, Norway, Korea, you name it. Mind you, the government’s tried to put a few limits in place since all the cod disappeared. They tossed a bone to the Newfoundlanders here that were losing their livelihoods by extending Canadian waters to two hundred miles offshore and banning foreign-owned ships inside that — Jaysus b’y, dat was a helluva fight — but there’s a lot of ocean for Fisheries and Oceans to patrol to keep the foreign boats out, and even the Canadian trawlers ship their catch to Asia. Still cuts the local fisherman out of the lion’s share.” He rolled his eyes and turned away. “Oh, don’t get me started on Ottawa! Let me get them eggs on for you instead, darlin’.”

Once he’d disappeared into the kitchen, Amanda browsed through news and Twitter updates. The official news reports made no mention of possible murder, and apparently the lighting had been poor enough that none of the spectators and cellphone addicts had seen anything suspicious. Speculation was along the same lines as the motel owner — a foreigner off a trawler. From the tone of most of the comments, little sympathy was being wasted on him.

Her phone buzzed, startling her. She glanced at the call display and her breath caught with hope.

“Hi, Sheri!”

“Any news?” Sheri sounded tense and focused.

Amanda wished she could be more reassuring. “Chris and I have picked up his trail on the northern peninsula,” she said, avoiding mention of Phil’s black moods and heavy drinking. “The good news is, he’s still following a plan.”

“He sent me a letter.”

“When?”

“It arrived yesterday.”

Who sends a letter? Amanda thought. Not an email, but a letter! “What did he say?”

“It was a thank-you letter. I know that sounds crazy, but that’s what it was. Short and to the point. Thank you for giving me twelve great years and the joy of Tyler, thank you for taking a wreck of a man back and being so patient.”

Amanda’s breath caught. This was not a thank-you letter. While she was searching for the right words, Sheri supplied them. Her voice filled with tears. “He’s saying goodbye, Amanda. He says he hopes I find a better life. Sweet Jesus! What about Tyler?”

Amanda pictured Phil with his son as she remembered them. Phil clowning, Tyler laughing — an intense, intellectual boy made playful by his father’s infectious nature. Phil, what the hell are you up to?

“Sheri, it’s time to report —”

“Jason’s on it. He was so worried when he saw the letter that he’s gone looking himself.”

“What do you mean, gone looking?”

“I mean, he’s booked off work, packed his truck, and gone looking. I wanted to go with him, but he said I had to stay here, in case Phil or Tyler got in touch.”

“Sheri, you need to make an official report!”

“Jason did. The alerts are out. But one angry husband taking off on a bender? Jason says that’ll be nothing but a little footnote on the police blotter.”

Amanda scrambled for an answer. She thought of how quickly news had spread about the dead body. How Twitter and other social media had changed communication, even here.

“Get his picture out on Facebook, Sheri.”

“I don’t know how —”

“Then learn!”

A shocked silence fell. Anger, frustration, and fear roiled in the gulf between them. Amanda resisted the urge to apologize for her outburst. Sheri was a capable, resourceful woman, but she needed to be shocked into action. Finally Sheri drew a deep breath. “I will,” she said. “And please! For the love of God, keep me in the loop, Amanda. I don’t care what you think of me, that’s my son out there.”

Amanda felt a twinge of shame as she hung up. Sheri was right; she had been blaming her. But who was she, Amanda, to pass judgment? To hold herself above reproach? Who knew for sure how nobly they would react when desperation stared them down?

She was poring over the map with renewed urgency when the motel owner returned with her eggs still sizzling on the plate. His smile faded at the sight of her.

“Bad news?”

Amanda managed a wan smile of thanks as she took the plate from him. “I’m not sure. My friend is doing some worrying and puzzling things. He met another man at the pub where they went for dinner. Did he bring anyone back with him afterward?”

He gave her a quizzical look. “I was dead to the world, barely heard the truck. But the next morning, there was only him and the boy at breakfast.”

“Did you overhear any of their plans?”

“Well, your friend wasn’t much for talking. Mostly sat there staring at his food and looking at the map. The boy did the talking for two.”

“What about?”

“Fishing nets, boats, birds. About a boat trip he wanted to take out to an island.”

“Do you know where?”

“No, but the father didn’t seem interested. Was looking at some places more remote.”

“Where? Up at the northern tip?”

“Well now, that’s a busy place what with the Viking stuff and St. Anthony being a big regional centre. But there’s plenty to interest a young boy. Icebergs coming down from the Arctic, polar bears coming ashore on the floes, lots of moose, black bears, and birds. Beautiful country.”

A family entered the restaurant and the owner gave her a quick wink before veering over to tend to them. Amanda’s eggs grew cold as she bent over the map of the Great Northern Peninsula, looking for inspiration. Chris was up in St. Anthony, where the shrimp boat carrying the body was docked. The vast North Atlantic opened up to the north and east of the town. The dead man could have been aboard a fishing trawler, or any other boat for that matter, and met his fate anywhere in the open sea before drifting into the shrimp boat’s path.

As the motel owner said, the northern tip was dotted with settlements and tourist sites, but farther down the eastern side, the villages became separated by vast swaths of empty coastline, with a smattering of remote islands designated as ecological reserves. A third of the way down the peninsula, the road petered out all together.

As wild and untouched as it was possible to find.