As he followed her into the kitchen, he spotted Cooper on the living room floor. The constable’s tie was gone, the top button of his light blue shirt undone, and his sleeves were rolled up. He was assembling a miniature train under the gleeful gaze of Lyn, a little blonde as gorgeous as her mother.
The kid deserved a good daddy to replace the sleazy man who’d fathered her, but seeing the twenty-eight-year-old constable rising to the task didn’t sit well with Greg.
“Lee is good with her. He’s been filling the void left by Brent’s departure. Coffee?”
Terri’s uncanny ability to read his mind during innocuous social interactions unnerved him.
“Yes, please.” The sugar and milk were on the counter, within his reach. He added a dash of milk, more for color than taste, then took his mug with him to the table. “What can I do for you, Terri?”
“It’s about my in-laws.” Taking a seat opposite the table, she took a sip of her own mixture. “I waited twelve days to bury Brent so his parents could attend the funeral. Now they want to take his body back with them to North Bay.”
The lack of intonation in her voice masked her feelings regarding her in-laws’ request. Terri’s mother was deceased, but her old man still lived here. He was CEO of Thor Gold Mines, and his only daughter had grown up here in Mooseland. Under different circumstances, Terri might have wished for her husband to rest in peace nearby, so she and Lyn could go visit him. But Abbot’s disappearance had exposed his darker side.
“How do you feel about it?”
The man had been no decent or loving husband.
Greg wouldn’t think any less of Terri if she shipped his sorry carcass to Ontario.
“After what he did…” Her voice quivered, and her knuckles whitened as she visibly tightened her grip on the coffee mug. “I just want him out of my life.”
“Understandable.”
The sorry excuse for an officer hadn’t deserved a wife like Terri.
She leaned forward. “Would you take care of the arrangements for me? Please? I’m busy with my computer courses. I don’t have time to deal with his parents’ request.”
“Of course.” Reaching out, he touched her forearm. She could count on him.
Always.
“I’ll contact his parents and arrange the details with them. You don’t need to worry about a thing.”
Chapter Three
On most days it didn’t bother Hannah that her son didn’t eat any faster than fresh paint dried on a cool, rainy day. Today it did. “We need to get into town. Would you hurry and eat your breakfast?”
Rory looked at her with big blue eyes, so much like her own, but when his mind wandered, his gaze lost its focus, and she could see his father in him. Not a memory she wanted to dwell on.
“If you finish your oatmeal, I promise to buy you some Timbits.” Doughnut holes were her son’s favorite treat, and while blackmailing wasn’t a technique on which she often relied, his slow pace didn’t give her much of a choice. They couldn’t be late for church. Not today.
He shoved a big spoonful in his mouth then dropped the utensil into the bowl, splashing oatmeal onto his pajama top.
A sigh expanded inside Hannah’s chest. “What is it?” After half an hour, there was no way his breakfast was too hot.
Snowflake zoomed out of the kitchen at the same time Rory knocked with his fist into thin air. Three times. One of the many secret codes that bridged their worlds together.
“I will go answer the door. You keep eating, okay?” Without waiting for an acknowledgment, she crossed into the living room.
The dog scratched at the door, her short tail wagging like a windmill. With her foot, Hannah nudged the animal aside. A front of frigid air swept inside the cabin when she answered.
“Hello, Hannah.”
“Cooper?” At the best of times, the constable’s visits were an inconvenience she tolerated. Today, she had no patience to spare for the young, cocky officer. With his curly strawberry blond hair, turquoise eyes, disarming smile, and strapping physique, he could have been a poster boy for model agencies. Unfortunately for him, she was immune to his charms.
As if Snowflake sensed her annoyance, she leapt at the unwelcomed officer and sank her teeth into his leather boots. Cooper shook his leg, frowning, and Snowflake retreated behind the couch.
“The pooch doesn’t like me, does he?” The greeting might as well have been written on the front of his uniform. He repeated it every time he stopped by.
“No,
she
doesn’t.” Hannah had stopped counting how often she’d corrected him. By now, the sex of her dog should have sunk in. “What do you want?”
By skipping the pleasantries, she hoped to shorten his stay.
“I’m attending a colleague’s funeral in a few hours. Why don’t you send the boy to his room and show some compassion?” As he took a step inside, he unzipped his jacket. One hand lingered on his big, shiny belt buckle, and she fantasized about chopping off the appendage. “Checking on you every week isn’t part of my job description. I deserve some kind of compensation on a day like this.”
His gall sickened her, but as much as she wanted to report him for sexual harassment, she couldn’t. Cooper would claim she had misread his lips, blame the misunderstanding on the lack of a hearing aid.
The words of a supposedly respected RCMP officer against the words of a deaf woman once arrested for prostitution.
She would lose. The incident would tear her already tarnished reputation to shreds. Such was the price for silence.
“I have a better idea, Cooper. Stop checking on me and get out. I’d hate to mistake you for a bear and shoot you.”
He stared her down, but she held his gaze. After what felt like an eternity, he gripped the doorknob. “You’re alone in the woods, Parker. Don’t push your luck.”
And with this cryptic advice, he left.
***
The church, with its two-dozen rows of pews, was packed. Morally obligated to attend the funeral, Avery stood in a corner at the back, near a set of wooden doors leading outside.
Abbott’s widow and daughter, a smaller version of her mother, sat on the front pew between grandpa, the richest man in town, and Abbott’s parents. On the steps of the altar, Sergeant Reed chatted with the minister near the closed casket.
Murmurs mixed with the incense floating in the air. Avery caught many unsavory tidbits about Abbott. No love lost had existed between the corporal and the town people. It appeared they had shown up in support of his widow, not to pay their last respect to the dishonored RCMP officer.
The door next to Avery creaked, and a woman stepped in. Long brown hair, as dark as his morning coffee, cascaded down a purple and gray winter coat. She held the hand of a young child bundled into a blue snowsuit. A teal tuque with a white pom-pom on top hung low over the child’s forehead. The stocking cap hid the youngster’s eyebrows but not the ocean blue eyes that gazed at Avery with undisguised curiosity. The sex of the fair-skinned child was impossible to determine by looking at the round face.
Upon the newcomers’ entrance, heads snapped toward the back of the church and more whispers rose from the crowd. The dark-haired woman seemed oblivious to the less-than-flattering adjectives directed at her. Standing with her back to the door, she scooped the child in her arms, like he or she weighed no more than a six-pack of beer.
Once the service commenced, the congregation rose to watch Abbott’s widow and daughter approach the casket. Taller than average, Avery towered over the crowd. A heart-wrenching scream resounded in the confine of the church. Abbott’s daughter bolted from her mother’s grip and ran into her grandpa’s arms.
A draft of cold air diverted Avery’s attention from the drama taking place near the altar to the wooden doors at the back.
The mysterious woman and the quiet child were gone.
Chapter Four
The stack of reports waiting on his desk had given Avery the perfect excuse to skip the evening reception hosted by Abbott’s widow and her father.
Before he returned to the detachment, he made a detour by the morgue.
Located in the basement of Dr. Frederick Pike’s Medical Clinic, the morgue resembled a biology lab in an underfunded high school. That Abbott’s body hadn’t been sent to a proper facility boggled Avery’s mind, but then, not many people cared about a disgraced officer or the treatment he received after his death.
Someone is in a hurry to sweep him under the rug and forget he ever wore a uniform.
A freckled man in a white lab coat marred with maroon stains mopped the floor. With each sweep, his ginger ponytail swayed across his back.
Avery unzipped his winter jacket. “Hey, there.”
The young fellow leaned on his mop. “Hello, Officer. What can I do for you?”
“Sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking for Doctor Pike.” From what Avery had heard, the town doctor also acted as medical examiner. “I checked upstairs and he’s not on duty at the clinic. He wouldn’t be around, would he?”
“I’m Doc Pike, but everyone around here calls me Fred.” Amusement wrinkled the corners of Frederick Pike’s piercing ebony eyes. “When I’m not on duty upstairs, I’m working down here.”
This man, who didn’t look old enough to drink, didn’t appear offended by the query. If the cold basement was responsible for his youthful appearance, Avery would start lowering the temperature of the mobile home he occupied behind the detachment.
“I’m Constable Avery Stone. I was told you conducted the autopsy on Corporal Abbott. What can you tell me?”
“I sent my final report six days ago. Didn’t Sergeant Reed receive it?”
“I’m sure he did, but off the record, would you mind giving me a verbal recount, without missing any details?” No matter how accurate any report was, medical or technical jargons didn’t always convey the story as clearly as plain English, so Avery always made a point of talking to the experts in person.
To Avery’s bafflement, the medical examiner’s gaze wandered aimlessly around the morgue, as if his mind had shut down.
A round clock hung on the wall above a glass cabinet displaying bones, skulls, and strange specimens in transparent jars. The second hand on the clock ticked away, accentuating the heavy silence that had befallen in the room.
“Talk to me, Doc.”
Aroused from his torpor, Fred chucked the mop in the corner, between a bucket and a wheeled cart. “What makes you think I missed anything in the report I sent?”
“You do.” Avery hadn’t meant to suggest the official report had been altered. Asking for details had been a figure of speech, but Fred’s reply, coupled with a lousy poker face, implied a cover up. “Give me the rightful version. You’ll sleep better tonight.”
As a practicing physician, the medical examiner had sworn an oath. Avery counted on the man’s conscience to untie his tongue.
Fred threw his lab coat into a linen basket, then wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Most people around here care more about drugs, booze, and money, Stone, than they care about the truth.”
Not one to take offense by the use of his last name, Avery pulled a stool from under the autopsy table and sat. “I’m not most people, Doc. I seem to care, even when I shouldn’t. That’s a character flaw I’ve yet to correct.”
A fleeting smile crossed Fred’s ageless face. “You don’t suppose that makes us kindred spirits, do you?” He grabbed a bottle and two sterile sample containers from a low cupboard. “Whiskey?”
“No, thanks. I’m not supposed to drink on the job.” His vice was beer mixed with tomato juice, not strong liquor burning down his throat.
“I suppose I shouldn’t drink either.” Doc poured himself a shot and downed the whiskey before sitting on the wheeled cart. “The report is accurate. I just omitted a few irrelevant details that don’t change the findings or the cause of death.”
Avery pulled a notebook and a pen from his pocket. “I’m not here to get you in trouble, Fred. This is off the record, so let’s pretend I know nothing about Abbott or the circumstances that led to his disappearance and subsequent death.”
The readiness with which the medical examiner nodded pleased Avery.
“Give me a timeline of the events and feel free to add any personal comments that cross your mind. Ready?”
Fred took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Terri, Corporal Abbott’s wife, reported him missing Wednesday morning, November 20
th
, after he failed to come home the previous night. Is that too much personal information?”
“Not at all, Doc.” Avery scribbled the information in a way that only made sense to him. His own secret code. “You’re doing good.”
“Rumors had it that he and Terri were having problems at home and that he had sex with a stripper on Tuesday night before leaving town.”
That echoed the official report Avery had read about Abbott. “To your knowledge, were Abbott and his wife having marital difficulties?”
“Terri made no secret of the fact that she wanted another child, but Brent was apparently reluctant to add to the family.”
Avery hadn’t been aware of family issues. The relevance remained to be assessed. “Keep going, Doc.”
“From what I heard, Abbott was last sighted with a prostitute in Gander on November 26
th
.”
The medical examiner’s source of information was correct. Abbott’s credit card was used on November 26
th
to pay for a motel room in Gander and a hooker by the name of Hazelnut remembered serving a client who introduced himself as Brent Abbott. “Go on.”
“Two weeks ago, on February 7
th
, Hannah Parker found Abbott’s body. She lives with her son in a cabin some twenty kilometers into the woods. She was searching for her dog when she stumbled onto the accident site. Abbott was frozen solid and perfectly preserved, making it impossible to determine when he died.”
Abbott doesn’t want another child with his beautiful wife, so he has a tryst with a local stripper, then a week later he’s spotted three hundred kilometers east with a hooker, only to show up dead in the woods not too far from here?
Somehow, that just didn’t sound right.
“So you’re telling me Brent Abbott died somewhere between November 26
th
and February—” When the medical examiner began clasping and unclasping his hands, Avery paused. Fred wore his feelings on his sleeve. He was easier to read than an open book. “Am I missing something?”