Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(81)

Beauchamp closed Captain Tepper’s office door before launching into the tale of a Canadian fur trapper named Joe Labelle who, in 1930, happened upon an Inuit village in Nunavut, Canada, where the entire lot of residents had vanished at virtually the same time. Meals had been left uneaten, fires were untended, and big jugs of water, filled at a tributary off the nearby Lake Anjikuni, had been abandoned on the ground and left to freeze.

“For a long time,” Beauchamp told her, “it was Canada’s version of your lost Roanoke Colony.”

“Difference is, that mystery’s really never been solved,” Caitlin reminded, “while I’m guessing yours was.”

“Not to the knowledge of many, Ranger. I knew I had to get my ass on a plane as soon as I read the situation report on what happened at that Austin restaurant. Eighteen dead, was it?”

“Twenty-two, including the staff.”

“That Inuit village numbered twice that.”

“But they disappeared.”

“Turned out, they didn’t disappear at all. Turned out, Labelle found what was left of them, after somebody had burned all the bodies.” He paused, then continued, “Near as I’ve been able to tell, the residents of the village were all struck down within minutes of each other.”

“Sounds like quite a leap, Mountie.”

“Not when you consider the trapper’s story, along with the on-scene reports from my predecessors. Just about the entire village was eating, or about to eat, supper at the time. And the fact that the food still on their plates told the first Mounties on the scene that whatever happened, happened fast. Just like in your restaurant.”

“And what did those Mounties say about what killed your villagers?”

“Nothing, because they didn’t have a clue, especially given that whatever evidence there might’ve been had gone up in smoke.”

“What about whoever did the burning? Did this trapper Labelle mention anything about them?”

“He didn’t. But the Mounties who responded to Labelle’s report recovered two still-whole bodies not far from where the rest of the bodies had been burned. One had his throat cut, and the other his wrists. They died sitting back to back. I believe it may have been determined they were brothers.”

“One cut the throat of the other, then slit his own wrists,” Caitlin concluded. “Makes sense. What doesn’t is why they did it, and why they burned the bodies in the first place.”

“The tribe was relatively primitive, having lived the same way for centuries. They were also superstitious, beholden to the spirit world for guidance. The brothers might have returned to the village and saw the mass deaths as the work of evil spirits who intended on taking over the bodies of the dead.”

“Their only solution being to burn them.” Caitlin nodded.

“Exactly. Knowing the whole time they’d have to die too, to stop the spirits in their tracks.”

“And this is what that trapper stumbled his way into.”

Beauchamp moved to the window and opened the blinds all the way, as Captain Tepper was normally loath to do. He wrinkled his nose at the stale scent of cigarettes that hung in the air like a stubborn cloud, and opened the window all the way, in the hope of vanquishing it.

“Labelle’s trapping trails had likely brought him to the village before. He probably knew some of the residents.”

“But not what killed them.”

“No. The trapper lit out through the cold and snow for civilization and ended up at a ranger station with a telegraph, ranting that whatever killed all the villagers was following him.”

“What,” Caitlin repeated, “as opposed to who.”

“The cold had turned him delirious. He passed out after the wire was sent, and he thought the whole thing had been a bad dream, when he finally woke up.”

“What else did the Mounties find when they got to the village, Pierre? You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something.”

Something changed in the Mountie’s expression. His cheeks paled, and the flatness of his face suddenly seemed to lengthen it. “There was, Ranger, and this is the part only you are going to believe.”





78

HOUSTON, TEXAS

The echo of the broken glass and hiss of the bullet were still cutting through Cort Wesley’s skull when he yanked Cray Rawls off the chair and dragged him to the floor, where Guillermo Paz was already lying, safe from the angle at which the shooter was firing.

“There’s a taller building, three hundred yards to the west,” Paz noted. “That’s where the shot was fired from.”

“Three hundred yards,” Cort Wesley calculated, running the distance through his mind. “Shooter’s no rank amateur.”

But that same mind had already moved in another direction altogether, the puzzle pieces starting to link together. Somebody was covering their tracks, somebody who didn’t want anyone else to learn what Sam Bob Jackson and Cray Rawls knew: the truth about what was on that Indian reservation.

Not oil.

Something else.

Clear enough.

“I’ll move on the building,” Paz was saying, “as soon as we’re outside.”

“Got to get there, first.” With that, Cort Wesley pushed closer to Rawls, across the rug, positioning himself right next to the man’s ear to make sure Rawls heard what he said. “We’re going for the door, into the hall. Don’t raise even a hair on your neck. You hear me? Nod if you do.”