Uncertain Truths: An Ember City Mystery Read online

  Uncertain Truths

  by

  Krista Cairn

  Dedicated to my family and friends,

  and

  Everyone willing to take a risk on an unfamiliar author.

  Please check out my other books at http://www.solidsavvy.com

  All rights reserved. Except where permitted by law, this book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of the author.

  © 2015 Krista Cairn

  https://twitter.com/KristaCairn

  http://www.solidsavvy.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One - A Death in the Family

  Chapter Two - Line Lake

  Chapter Three - After

  Chapter Four - Welcome, Suspects

  Chapter Five - Working Things Out

  Chapter Six - Headspace

  Chapter Seven - News

  Chapter Eight - Plans

  Chapter Nine - Break and Enter

  Chapter Ten - Relationally Speaking

  Chapter Eleven - Down By The River

  Chapter Twelve – Moving and Unmoving

  Chapter Thirteen – Forward

  Chapter Fourteen – Changes

  Chapter Fifteen – Fire Starters

  Chapter Sixteen – Commissions

  Chapter Seventeen – Churches

  Chapter Eighteen – New Is New

  Chapter Nineteen – Skill Up

  Chapter Twenty – Back Again

  Chapter Twenty One – But It Was Already Personal

  Chapter Twenty Two – Learning Curve

  Chapter Twenty Three – A Necessary Diversion

  Chapter Twenty Four - Confrontations

  Chapter Twenty Five – Connections

  Chapter Twenty Seven – What Goes Unseen

  Chapter Twenty Eight - Breakaway

  Chapter Twenty Nine - Help

  Chapter Thirty – Approaching Normal

  1 - A Death in the Family

  Nothing felt normal today. The air smelled odd. Sounds were dull, instead of sharp. Even the color of the morning sun was off. Kaelynn ignored it all, preferring routine over subjective impressions. When the phone rang, she thought about answering it, as if the strange morning wanted her to rethink her habits. Choices. Chaos versus order.

  She ignored it, although the oddness of it seeped into her subconscious anyway. Kae sighed, tapping her fingers on the kitchen table in a rhythm she’d made up. She was 22 now. A couple weeks ago, actually. She wanted to feel something different. Then again, maybe not. She spent enough time wrapped in her own head as it was. And she was too happy here.

  Even the funny little two-story ranch house pleased her. It was old. None of the off-white walls were quite straight, but they met as they should. Smells and sounds now and then defied definition. And it creaked like it had its own voice.

  Conversely, you give her older sister, Diane, a matchstick and a nickel and she’d burn the place down. She chuckled to herself as she pictured Diane off to the side, holding a 6 foot novelty match and cackling as she was dragged away by white jackets as the house burned down. As her mental camera zoomed out, it was Gerald holding the match. She scowled. That was weird.

  Someone coughed. Kaelynn, lost in her own thoughts, had missed a cue. Again.

  “What?”

  “It's your turn, Kae.” Diane pointed at the re-purposed pickle jar on the kitchen table between them. The Weekly Challenge. She stared at the jar a moment. What near-death experience awaited them this week?

  “You both added a new one?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Aiden, her best friend, sat smirking. He must have come up with a doozy. And it was her week to choose. Hopefully nothing that involved outdoor rock climbing this time.

  “When is Gerald back?” Kae stalled.

  “Tomorrow.” Diane smiled bashfully.

  Kae smiled. How could someone married 5 years still blush like a newlywed? She looked at Aiden and he shrugged.

  When the phone rang, Kae leaned back in her chair. She sat closest, but wouldn’t answer it. Never did. Diane scowled at her as she picked up the receiver.

  Barely a heartbeat into the call, Diane's face lost all color. “Excuse me… say that again.”

  Kae and Aiden both watched as Diane eased the receiver back into its cradle and stood a moment. Her hands shook as she tucked some hair behind her ear.

  “Sis, what?” Kae asked. Maybe she should have answered when it rang an hour and a half ago. The message light still flashed.

  “Gerald is… um… they say he's dead.” She didn’t move.

  Kae sat, dumbstruck.

  “They want me to go to the police station and talk to someone. I forget the name,” she said. “I… I need to go to the Olds hospital. I need to see him.”

  Kae suspected she should say something else, but what?

  “But what happened?”

  Diane's arms started trembling, then her shoulders, as she stood staring blankly across the room.

  Uh oh, Kae sighed. Wrong words again. She tried another question.

  “Want me to drive?”

  Diane stood silent, quivering in place.

  “Your purse is at the front door.”

  Kae steered Diane toward the exit before grabbing her own purse and jacket.

  “I'll drive,” Aiden said. Kae nodded at him, grateful.

  “No radio. I’d hate to hear about this on the news,” Kae whispered.

  The drive was eerily silent. She didn't have the words for this situation and Aiden didn't talk a lot. She looked over at him, grateful he'd volunteered.

  It was a half-hour drive on a barely paved highway. At least it wasn’t dark, too. Half way there, a police officer signaled for them to go slow as they passed 3 police cars, and an ambulance parked on the side of the road. The ditch and tree line prevented anything but foot traffic.

  A little further down the road, they passed a police officer with a dog. Interesting, but it couldn't be related to Gerald's accident. His would have been hours ago. Kae made a mental note to come back. This was near the Line Lake campground. They had friends there.

  Kae glanced at Diane up in the front passenger seat. She looked calm, but her face was hard to see. The shaking had stopped.

  At the hospital, a uniformed RCMP officer stood near the Admissions desk, looking pale and tired. He turned and caught Kae’s eye. She recognized him and smiled. Greg Ricet. He nodded. In this small town, it was hard not to recognize people, but this felt surreal. ‘Small World’ weird. She’d think of him strictly as Constable Ricet today, since he was in uniform.

  Kae walked over. “This is my sister, Diane. She said her husband was in a car accident. Where can we find him?”

  “Diane Landover?” he asked, looking at Diane.

  “Yes,” Diane's voice sounded hollow. “Where is he?”

  “There’s no doubt it's him. It might be better if you go to the detachment instead.”

  Diane stared at him and squared up, imposing at 5 feet 8 inches tall. “I need to see him.”

  Constable Ricet hesitated, his expression showing he doubted the wisdom of her choice.

  “I need to see him,” she said, softer.

  “Well, follow me.” He walked down a rack-lined hallway toward an elevator near the end.

  “We’re together.” Aiden kept close to Kae.

  “I know, Aiden.” Ricet nodded.

  “So, what happened?” Kae filled the silence.

  “We got a call about a car that went off the road. They were dead at the scene.” He paused as they got into a small, gray metal elevator.

  They? He wasn’t alone in the car? br />
  The morgue was in the basement. Practical, considering the living preferred windows. And this would be cheaper to keep cool.

  Diane slowed as they neared a wide door leading to a spartan medical room. Kae stopped just short of bumping into her. The room etched itself in her memory - the bright lights, the medical smell, and two covered bodies on tall metal tables.

  Kae shivered.

  Constable Ricet lifted the sheet to reveal the first face. It was Gerald, laying out flat and ghastly white. He was in bad shape, with a gash running diagonally down the right side of his face, and his nose completely flattened into his head. It didn’t look like something you’d get in a car accident.

  As she looked at his still, cold form, she could imagine her sister's world shifting, falling.

  A long moment later, Diane nodded. “Okay.”

  “I have to ask,” Kae said. “Why did he go off the road?”

  “We're still looking into that. From the lack of tire marks on the road and directness of the crash, we are certain he was unconscious at the time of the accident.” He turned to Diane. “Can you think of a reason he would be asleep at the wheel?”

  Diane shook her head.

  “He's hypoglycemic, but he carries snack bars. In case he misses a meal,” Aiden said.

  “I see.” Constable Ricet made a quick note then walked over to the other body, also covered but peculiarly shaped. “Mrs. Landover, I understand this is hard, but if you can identify the passenger, that would help us sort this out.”

  Diane didn’t respond.

  “There are not many he’d be traveling with,” Kae said. “He travels alone, unless another guy from the office needs a lift. No hitchhikers, no passengers.”

  “Either way, we appreciate you looking.”

  Diane, motionless, stared at a spot on the far wall. A few tears slipped down her face.

  “Hey, Sis.” Kae took her arm and guided her away from Gerald. What do you say to someone who's just lost their ‘everyone’?

  She ordered herself to Observe and Question, and looked down as they pulled the sheet back to reveal a thin woman, with long, dark hair. Keata scanned past the strange sagging face, noting she lay with knees tucked up to her stomach, arms wrapped around her legs. Clothed in a faded blue t-shirt and designer jeans. Kae noticed a solid mass in the bend of one knee and at the hip.

  “Is she… frozen?” Aiden asked.

  Mostly ice-free, but still a few slivers here and there, Kae noted.

  “The medical examiner said she drowned as she froze. We're not sure where or when that happened, or why she was in the back of his car,” Ricet said, seeming neutral, but there was doubt in the young officer's expression. “Is there anything you can tell us that might shed light on this?”

  “No,” Diane stated then went back to her husband. “He's so pale.” She reached out as though to touch him but drew back. “He looks sad.”

  “You're sure you don't recognize her?” Constable Ricet followed Diane, staying on topic.

  “Yes, I'm sure,” Diane snapped. She reached up and dried her eyes on a sleeve. “If she had something to do with my husband, you can trust I'd remember her.”

  “I don’t.” Kae kept her face blank, like the ones who trained her to control her emotions.

  “I don’t know her either.” Aiden stood next to Kae.

  Somehow, it was less crushing to stand and stare at the stranger. Kae remembered from when she assisted at a funeral home for a summer. She’d had practice blocking out the thoughts of death and dying. Don’t ask for history; focus on the now, on the cleanup.

  “He phoned me at work yesterday,” Diane’s sniffed. “And I couldn't take the call. I forgot to call him back.”

  Constable Ricet retrieved a duffle bag from next to the wall and put it on a counter nearby.

  “This bag was in the trunk. It's filled with women's clothing. Do you recognize any of it?”

  Diane turned. Jaw clenched, she walked over. She lifted one item after another and stuffed them back in. “I gave these to charity.”

  “You took them in to the charity yourself?”

  “No. Gerald said he would do that on the way out of town. I guess he forgot.”

  Diane abruptly turned and went back to the frozen woman. “These look like they’re mine as well.” Shocked. That was the look on Diane’s face. Another emotion played there, too. Perhaps jealousy. System overload was something she did, not her sister.

  She had to get out of the room and voice some of the questions racing around in her head, things you don’t say out loud in front of the widow. She was thinking in circles. She grabbed Aiden by the arm and dragged him out of the room, to the end of the hall.

  “Why was she in the car? And why is she wearing Diane's clothes? That's too weird to be coincidence,” Kae blurted. “You don’t just find a frozen person somewhere and put them in your back seat.”

  “He must have known her from somewhere. And kept it secret. He wouldn’t be having an affair, would he?”

  “Not if he’s giving her second hand clothes. He has loads of money. Perhaps there’s someone in a woman’s shelter who knows her. They could have given her those clothes and he could have offered to drop her off somewhere, but that doesn’t explain the ice.” Kae speculated wildly, but there was no way Gerald was cheating. “No wallet. No keys. And it’s not like he’d wait at the shelter while she changed, find her frozen, and pack her along.”

  Aiden frowned. “Your mind is a twisted path.”

  She rolled her eyes. “So what would be a logical progression here?”

  “We’re missing too many details, too many facts.”

  “Talking out the questions helps me sort. Like, was this the first time he’s encountered this woman? It’s not unlikely that he was helping her and she wound up in more trouble than he expected. He helped her once, then she called him again, but it was too late when he got back?”

  “Then why keep it from Diane? She could have helped, too,” Aiden said. “I mean, you and your sister are both experienced with handguns, martial arts, a little street fighting. Gerald had none of that training.”

  “Precisely what I need to find out,” she nodded.

  “Better?” he asked.

  She nodded again.

  As they walked back in, Ted was talking to Diane again.

  “The coroner will focus on cause of death. I’ll be working on why. I’ll call if I find out anything I’m allowed to pass along,” Constable Ricet said, pulling out a notepad. “In the meantime, do you have a cellphone number you can be reached at?”

  Diane told him her cellphone number.

  “Is there a detective for this case?” Kae asked.

  “It’s Ted Lasenger, but he likes to use me for the legwork. Small detachment. He’s the one Diane needs to go talk to.”

  Diane fingered the small gold cross necklace she wore. It was the one Gerald gave her on their last anniversary. She wouldn’t be talking anytime soon.

  “Right, I’ve met him,” Kae nodded, but her mind was elsewhere. The police might have a good grip on the situation, but their focus was to find out if there was a criminal element or not.

  Her mission, as she saw it, was to find out the stuff that would only matter to Diane. The non-criminal, loss-resolving stuff, and the type of information it'd be good to have before it hit the newspapers. And it would be front page when it did hit. Gerald came from a wealthy family.

  She understood interference laws - she wouldn't do anything to compromise the investigation. Just ask a few discreet questions here and there. To help her sister.

  “Was anyone else in the car?” Aiden asked. “Someone who survived?”

  “No one else was discovered at the scene.”

  “It could have been a bizarre roadside catastrophe.” Yes, it sounded ludicrous, but she was entertaining all options until they were ruled out. “Or what if someone else put this woman in the back, after the crash?” It didn’t explain the clothes, but th
at could be coincidence, too.

  “We're looking into every possibility. Can you take her to the police station now?” Constable Ricet passed Diane a business card. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Before they left, a soft-spoken nurse asked which funeral home Diane would prefer, and said the company would call to discuss arrangements. Simple enough.

  As they walked out, Kae was at ease. Not disconnected, but analytical instead of emotional. This was the emotion she’d been aiming for when she woke up today. Not morose. What was this?

  Sighing, she climbed back into the car. She hoped the drive back wasn't awkward. She didn’t dare talk, that was true. What would she even say? Particularly with Diane in unknown territory.

  Should they go to the station now? She glanced over and saw Diane slouching deep into her seat, holding the little cross. Kae had to say something, right? Wasn't that expected?

  “Should we go there now? What about time off from work? Do you want me to call for you? Or do something else?”

  “No, let’s go. I'll call work later.” She sat slumped further in her seat.

  This grief stuff was tricky, she'd heard. Diane had stories from the clinic where she was a vet's assistant, about pet owners when their pet couldn't be saved or other traumas beset them. Everything from stoic acceptance to a complete meltdown.

  Kae never wanted to fall in love, not even with a pet, but how did you resist? Falling implied crashing, hitting the ground at some point, but some believed the fall was worth the risk.

  “Then again, being on the job may be therapeutic. Helping people and their pets is something you enjoy,” Kae offered.

  “No,” she said. “I couldn’t face the pity.”

  Or the chance she'd be the one having a meltdown at work.

  “I don't want to talk,” Diane said as she closed her eyes and leaned back. “Just take me home. If the police still need to talk after Constable Ricet reports in, they can call.”

  That felt like a horrible idea. Why irritate the police when there were so many questions around Gerald’s death? First, who was that woman? Seriously. And frozen? Really?