“I…I’m not sure.” Droplets of sweat pearled on the doctor’s forehead. “The weekend before he disappeared, Abbott came to see me at the morgue. I was down here, cleaning the fridge. He had an ear infection and was in pain. The drugstore is closed on Saturday night, so I gave him samples from the pharmaceutical rep. Seven pills in total.”
Unsure where the man headed with that thread, Avery tapped the page of his notebook with his pen. “To dispense samples to patients isn’t illegal.”
“I know, but I never got around to updating Abbott’s medical file while he was alive. The diagnosis and the prescription were never recorded anywhere. I told Brent to take one pill right away, two on Sunday, then one daily for the next four days. By Tuesday night, he should have swallowed five.” Fred walked to the counter, retrieved something from a drawer, then returned to the table where he deposited two items: a see-through, unmarked bottle with two pills inside and a small yellow mitt with a black star stitched inside its palm. The child’s mitt looked new. “I found the bottle and the mitt in the pockets of his winter jacket when I undressed him. These are the pills I gave him. He would have felt better by Tuesday. I suppose it’s possible he skipped the last two. Many patients don’t finish their treatment. That’s a problem I encounter too often.”
A man who stops taking his pills doesn’t usually keep them in his pocket for a full week.
“You think Abbott may have died the night he disappeared?”
“I have to admit it crossed my mind, but the sex romp a week later pretty much sank that theory.” The medical examiner had harbored doubts. As fleeting as those doubts might have been, they rang loud alarms in Avery’s ears. “Under the circumstances, I thought it best not to mention the pills or the mitt. No point muddying the investigation or adding to his widow’s distress by telling her he was carrying their daughter’s mitt in his pocket while he banged hookers.”
As admirable as Fred’s intentions might have been, those details belonged in the report, and deep down, they
both
knew it.
“What did the tox screen reveal? Any signs of the antibiotic in his blood?”
“I sent the samples to a lab in St. John’s. The tests they ran didn’t screen for that specific antibiotic, but his blood alcohol content was 0.23, nearly three times the legal limit for driving. At that level, he would have experienced blackouts.”
The corporal would have been in no shape to operate a snowmobile, or any other vehicle.
No wonder he crashed into the bloody bridge.
“What kind of injuries did he sustain?”
“Lots of bruising, mostly to the head and the upper body. Broken nose, jaw, ribs, and neck. The injuries could be the result of a vicious beating, a violent crash, or both. The broken neck killed him.”
***
Sleep eluded her.
Her palm pressed against the cold glass of the living room window, Hannah stared outside. On the porch, an electric lantern ran by a generator illuminated the clearing in which stood the log cabin she’d inherited from Gramp Pike.
Attending the funeral had been a mistake, but not going hadn’t been an option.
She didn’t hear—couldn’t hear—the disdainful comments, but the scowling glares she’d received from the men and women gathered inside the sacred church had conveyed the message. In their midst, she was and would always be an outsider, an unwelcomed stranger.
If only I had enough money to make a fresh start somewhere else.
She’d been saving, but raising Rory had proven to be more expensive than she’d originally anticipated. At this rate, it’d be another year or two before she could afford to move.
Wind gusts rattled the panes, sending vibrations through her hand. The temperature was supposed to plummet overnight, reaching minus thirty degrees Celsius with the wind chill. Not a record low, but below average for the end of February.
She walked to the door and switched off the lantern. Darkness reclaimed the clearing. In the silence of the night, the flames dancing in the brick fireplace cast fiery shadows on the windows. She added another log to the hearth, one of many she would throw in throughout the night to keep the fire burning. With the cabin warm and cozy, she entered Rory’s room.
Her son slept with his door open and gray koala bear in his arms. She pulled the blankets tight around his small body.
“Sweet dreams, Munchkin.” Near his feet, a bump stirred and ruffled the blankets. “Good night, Snowflake.”
It still boggled Hannah’s mind to recall that when she’d returned to the cabin after discovering Brent’s body, Snowflake had been waiting for her on the porch. As if the terrier had never ventured away.
Prints in the snow led me to the bridge
. Prints she had believed to belong to Snowflake. Now, she wasn’t so certain.
The dog rolled off the side of the bed and zoomed out of the room. Hannah followed and found her scratching at the front door.
“You do know it’s freezing outside, don’t you?” She released the latch and pulled the door ajar. “Go.”
Bitter cold swept in, permeating her flannel pajamas. She cringed from the chilling assault. To her dismay, Snowflake retreated by the fireplace.
“No game.” Her teeth rattled and her skin prickled. “It’s too late to play.”
Snow swirled onto the doormat, and a red envelope wafted into the cabin, landing near her woolen slippers.
A lump caught in her throat, and shivers not brought on by the severe weather coursed through her body. She donned her winter coat and boots, grabbed the loaded hunting rifle stowed on the ledge above the door, and ventured outside.
Chapter Five
“Stone?” Cooper discarded his winter jacket on his chair as Avery threw another log in the stove. “You’re in early?”
Coming to work at dawn had allowed Avery time to hack into the computer on his desk without anyone peeking over his shoulders. He’d been thrilled to realize the hardware had belonged to Abbott. Unfortunately, all the personal files had been deleted.
“I have lots of cases to file and close.” It wasn’t a lie or an exaggeration. “How is Abbott’s widow coping?”
On his way to the detachment, Avery had made a detour by the Tim Hortons and ordered a large coffee and a muffin. While he waited for his breakfast, he’d overheard two patrons gossip about Abbott’s widow and Cooper. In spite of the corporal’s dishonorable death, duty still demanded that fellow officers lent a helping hand to his widow. Under those circumstances, Avery didn’t give too much credence to the insinuations.
“Terri is one classy lady.” The younger constable’s eyes reflected the admiration in his voice.
Maybe there’s some truth behind the gossips after all.
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“I’m telling you, Stone, the guy was a son of a bitch, but Terri still gave a heart-wrenching eulogy at the reception. Abe didn’t deserve her.” Cooper stepped into the corridor. “I don’t smell coffee. Did you forget to brew a fresh pot?”
“Making coffee isn’t part of my job—”
The door opened, and a woman in a purple and gray winter coat, the same woman he’d seen yesterday at church, entered, robbing Avery of his last word. She approached the reception counter.
“Hello, Hannah.” Cooper had backtracked to the entrance of the corridor. “I’m busy, but our new constable will take care of you.”
The fire burning inside the belly of the stove didn’t guard the room from the icy front sweeping between his colleague and the woman. Bracing himself for a verbal altercation, Avery proceeded toward the counter and came face to face with angry ocean blue eyes.
Same blue eyes as the quiet child.
“I’m Constable Stone, ma’am. How can I help you?”
“I’m being threatened, Constable, and I’m growing tired of it.” A strange accent he couldn’t identify lingered in her voice. “You may want to relate that last part to your sergeant.”
She reached inside her pocket and presented him with a red envelope. As he snapped on a pair of latex gloves, a white pom-pom brushed the woman’s arm. Avery peeked over the top of the counter. The youngster looked at him like he or she had done in church.
Mother and child.
No doubt in his mind.
He turned his full attention to the short message tucked inside the envelope.
I’m coming for you, Parker. Pack your Ugly Brat and get out while you can.
The blue-eyed kid looked neither ugly nor bratty. Nevertheless, the unveiled threat was too specific to be a random act.
“Where and when did you find the letter, Ms. Parker?” Cooper had called her Hannah, so Avery assumed Parker to be her last name. When she didn’t immediately correct him, he committed the name to memory…where it superposed with the name provided by the coroner.
She’s the one who found Brent Abbott’s body.
“I live in a log cabin in the woods, about twenty klicks from here. Around two a.m. my dog heard someone at the door. When I answered, the wind carried the envelope inside. It would have been placed on the front porch. There were footprints in the snow. I followed them to the shed where they stopped at the edge of Ski-Doo tracks.”
“Someone threatens you and you chase after him in the middle of the night?” The woman was insane, impulsive, or fearless. Or worse, a combination of the three.
“What else was I supposed to do? Call you?” Her nostrils flared. “You didn’t bother showing up for the other letters. I’m done wasting my time waiting for assistance.”
He hadn’t been here on those previous occasions, and he didn’t appreciate being tossed in the same basket as Cooper and Reed. “Did you follow the snowmobile tracks?”
“In the dark? While my son was sleeping?” The dubious look she gave him bordered contempt. “I’m not that stupid.”
“I didn’t mean to imply you were, Ms. Parker,” he apologized, relieved that she hadn’t been that foolish. “And I didn’t mean last night. I was thinking this morning, in broad daylight.”
“A storm raged last night, Constable.” Long black eyelashes fluttered as swiftly as moth wings, casting a shadow over her eyes. “By morning the wind had erased the prints and the tracks.”
How convenient.
He eased the note into the envelope. “I’ll look into it, and I’ll keep you posted.”
“Yeah…sure.” The cautious acknowledgment before she exited with her son showed little faith in his ability to apprehend the culprit.
Once the door closed, Avery turned around with the corner of the envelope pinched between his thumb and finger. “Do we have any evidence bags anywhere?”
Boxes of paper, tissues, and latex gloves were stored on this side of the counter, but Avery hadn’t seen any plastic bags.
“In the kitchen.” Looking as smug as a lawyer who’d just won his case, Cooper headed down the corridor along Avery’s side. “You can ditch the gloves. We didn’t find any prints on the other three letters or envelopes. You won’t find any on this one. The notes are always dropped in the middle of the night, during a snowstorm, and there’s never any footprints or tracks left in the snow by morning. If you want my opinion, she writes the notes herself.”
Not impressed by the theory, Avery darted a covert look in Cooper’s direction as he searched the cupboards for evidence bags. “And on what exactly are you basing that opinion?”
“The woman is deaf, Stone.” Cooper tossed him a box of sealable bags he’d retrieved from a top shelf. “Not the brightest star in the sky, if you get my drift.”
To learn she was deaf had no bearing on the case, but it unleashed Avery’s curiosity. Hannah Parker had acted no differently than any other women would have in the same situation. The only person lacking intelligence was the one still in the room with him.
Cooper had either missed the sensitivity training or slept right through it. His prejudice had no place in the organization, but Avery was in no position right now to do anything about the young constable’s attitude.
“How does she communicate?” During their short discussion, he’d mistaken the natural infliction of her voice for an accent.
“She reads lips.” A sneer of disdain mixed with the whooshing of the water as Cooper rinsed the coffee pot. “And she understands what she wants to understand. The boy is as deficient as his mother.”
How did the guy earn his promotion to constable?
As irked as he was by his colleague’s comments, Avery couldn’t afford an argument, not at the risk of revealing his true personality. “Where are the other notes?”
“Filing cabinet in Reed’s office. He shelved her complaints. Why?” Cooper placed a new paper filter in the coffee maker. “Did she get into your pants? Maybe you should get drunk and pay her a visit? A taming lesson wouldn’t hurt her.”
Grabbing the pathetic officer by his wrinkle-free shirt and banging his head on the cupboard might erase the smirk on his face, but it wouldn’t impart any wisdom into his brainless skull—and it would lead to Avery’s discharge.
“Shove a coffee filter in your mouth, Cooper, and stay out of my hair.” He needed a drink, but first, he needed to drop the bag to the lab. Fueled by his colleague’s scornful attitude, Avery marched to his desk. The light was on in Reed’s office, and his superior was hanging his coat on a hook attached to the wall by the window.
Avery barged inside the private office without being invited.
The sergeant arched a disproving brow. “Ever heard of knocking, Stone?”
Yes, but rattling Reed’s chain serves its purpose.
“Hannah Parker dropped in this morning with another letter. Apparently, it wasn’t the first threat she’d received.”
A low growl rattled Reed’s throat. “The woman is a recluse. She lives in an old cabin on Crown land. No one has any reason to threaten her.” As he spoke, the sergeant pulled on the second drawer of the file cabinet, which was pushed between a portable heater and his desk. “It should be…here it is.” He removed a folder and handed it to him. “Parker’s file. The letters are pranks made by bored teenagers. When those kids aren’t drinking or sniffing, they’re misbehaving. If you want to waste your time investigating, it’s all yours. Now get out.”
Chapter Six