could reach her, she took off up the path and disappeared into the woods with her nose to the ground. Amanda yelled and scrambled over lichen-covered rocks to keep up.
“Don’t!” Casey shouted.
“But the dog has detected something!” she called back, still running.
“Could be a bear or a moose. You don’t want to go barging up there.”
His protests faded as she plunged up the narrow path. She shouted for Kaylee, as much to alert any bear as to bring the dog back. She was furious, whether at Kaylee’s disobedience or her own fear, she wasn’t sure. Kaylee was nowhere in sight by now. Spruce branches tore at her clothes, and the dew-slicked moss shifted underfoot, forcing her to keep her head down. She didn’t see the cabin until she was almost upon it.
She smelled it first, a fetid swamp of rotting fish and barnyard that wafted on the still air and choked her lungs. She slithered to a stop as the path opened into a clearing cluttered with human presence — an outhouse, a clothesline on which hung a single pair of work pants and a tattered towel, a chopping block surrounded by wood chips, and stacks of spindly firewood. Dominating the middle of the clearing was a hand-operated water pump of the sort she’d seen in developing countries and a wooden rack catching the best of the sun. A drying rack for fish? she wondered.
The cabin itself was little more than a shack that slumped to one side as if about to tumble over. Flakes of whitewash still clung to its bleached siding and its roof was a melange of broken slates and curling shingles. The single window was broken.
Kaylee was standing at the cabin door, her legs stiff and her hackles raised. She gave a low whine as Amanda approached and clipped on her leash. Amanda felt the clutch of familiar, formless dread. Her heart hammered as she stared at the doorknob, paralyzed.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Doucette,” she muttered. “This is a hermit’s cabin in rural Newfoundland. Nothing to fear here.” Nonetheless, her voice quavered when she called out. “Anyone here?”
Silence. An empty, dead silence. She tried the knob and pushed the door, which stuck and fought her as it creaked open a few inches. Kaylee shoved her nose through, whining.
Amanda peered through the gap. Saw the faded linoleum floor, a large table covered with peeling oilcloth, a woodstove, and an old rocking chair. The rocking chair was tipped on its side and it took her a moment to make sense of the mess on the floor — a thousand shards of glittering glass.
And in the middle of the glass, an axe with an old wooden handle and a filthy blade stained brownish red. Red glistened on the walls and on the shards of glass as well.
She recoiled and slammed the door. She’d seen that colour before. When a voice spoke behind her, she leaped a foot. Chris emerged into the clearing, his brows knitting with alarm.
“What is it?”
“Something’s wrong,” she managed, gesturing to the door. “There’s blood in there.”
He crossed the clearing in swift strides and shoved open the door. “Jesus!” he breathed, holding up his hand to keep her back. “Stay here!”
He disappeared into the cabin and she could hear him thumping around inside. Barely five seconds later he returned, looking grim.
“There’s no one here, but there’s clearly been a fight. Lots of blood inside, and furniture overturned.” He studied the door frame and knelt to peer at the ground outside the front door. “There’s blood on the door here, and some smears on the ground. Whoever it is, they came outside.”
He stepped back into the clearing and headed across to the shed. A quick search of the ground revealed signs of trouble — scuff marks in the dirt, a broken latch on the shed, and trampled bushes.
Once again, it was Kaylee who made the discovery. She’d been straining against her tight leash, trying to pull Amanda up a trail into the bush. Finally Amanda followed, and a mere hundred feet into the bush, there was an old man, sprawled on his stomach with his gnarled hands stretched out in front as if he had been trying to claw his way up the hill. The back of his skull was a mass of blood.
“Jumpin’ Jaysus!” said Casey, coming up behind her. “That’s Old Stink.”
Chapter Twelve
Chris’s first thought was for Amanda. From the horror on her face, he could tell it was bad. She had grown very pale and was propped against a tree trunk, clutching her dog. He suspected she was reliving every terrifying moment of that blood-filled night where, according to newspaper accounts, death had come not by neat bullets or explosions that obliterated everything to ash and dust, but by axes and machetes slashing and smashing limbs and heads in a lust of blood and rage.
Perhaps for a brief moment she was back there.
But there was something else in that expression of horror. A deep dread, for this had been a murder, and he could see her thoughts had taken the same dark path as his.
He went to her, took her hands, and gently turned her away. “Amanda, come. Move away from the scene, sit over there while I check this out.”
She followed him, robot-like, and acknowledged her thanks with a small nod. He forced himself to step close to the body and leaned down to check the carotid pulse. The one visible eye was milky and flies were already crawling around his flaccid mouth, but checking for vitals was procedure. The skin was cold to the touch, rigor mortis already well established. Surreptitiously he nudged the foot, trying to recall the crime scene course he’d taken. Rigor began in the face and advanced down the body to the feet before dissipating in reverse order over forty-eight hours. Give or take.
The dead man’s foot was rigid, which meant the man had probably been dead twelve to thirty-six hours.
“Poor old bugger,” Casey said.
Chris backed away, holding up his hands to force Casey back. His thoughts were racing to form a plan. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll have to secure the scene.” He turned to Casey. “You got any rope in the boat? I’ll need at least …” He squinted down the path. Stink’s cabin was about a hundred feet away and all points in between would have to be cordoned off. “Two or three hundred feet?”
Casey shook his head. “Nudding that long. But who’s going to muck it up? There’s nobody around.”
Chris shook his head. “Procedure, that’s all. If this ever goes to court, I have to be able to swear it wasn’t contaminated.” As the initial shock wore off, his training finally kicked in. He checked his cellphone. As he expected, they were in a dead zone. He walked over to Amanda, who was standing now, her eyes still bleak, but colour was returning to her cheeks.
“Amanda, you and Casey go back to the village and call the police. Poker-Ass again, I guess. Tell him I need a major crime team out here and a doctor to pronounce death.” He swung on Casey. “You got a doctor in the village?”
“We can get one from Roddickton.”
Chris did a quick calculation. That was just over half an hour’s drive from the village, closer than many rural calls for service. “Get him out here as fast as you can. Have you got Internet in the village at least?”
“Yeah, no cellphone but we gots Internet.”
“Good.
