Dead of Winter (39 page)

“This is not the way.” Tom spoke as a calmly as he could. “Sir, this is a police matter. Let me handle this.”

151

At the soldiers’ barracks, Tom took a seat across the table from Anika. Her wrists were bound. She stared down at the table, her fingernail tracing a groove in its knife-etched surface. Lt. Hysmith and his four gunmen stood around the room, all looking eager to be the one to shoot the medicine woman if she tried to run. Against the far wall, Master Pendleton sat in a chair with his arms crossed.

Tom stared at Anika a long while, trying to piece together clues from every moment he had spent with her.
Have I been played a fool? Was it Anika who put a curse upon Pendleton’s forts?
If so, then she was not only responsible for the deaths of a few dozen people… Tom’s jaw tightened as he thought back to the day at Manitou Outpost. He had sent Chris outside with Anika to gather up the horses. A windigo had attacked from the forest and killed Tom’s son and a soldier. Miraculously, the native woman was only knocked unconscious. Why had the beast spared her?

Up to this moment, Tom had defended her, hoping to find a way to prove her innocence. But she had plenty of motive to seek vengeance on Pendleton, and if all the killings had begun with an Indian curse, then all the evidence of witchcraft in her cabin made Anika Moonblood’s case look grim.

Tom said, “I need you to tell me the truth…did you summon the windigo to attack these forts?”

She kept her gaze on the table and shook her head. “It wasn’t me.”

“Bollocks!” said Pendleton. “Admit you bloody cursed us!”

Anika looked over her shoulder at him. “I didn’t do this!”

Pendleton stepped toward her. “The bitch is lying!”

Tom said, “Sir, you’re not helping matters. Let me ask the questions.” To Anika Tom said, “Then explain what you were cooking on the stove.”

“It’s crow soup.”

“You eat this?”

“No, it’s for smudging the home. Evil manitous don’t like it and keep away.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Tom, you have to believe me. My spells are only for protection.” She spoke with conviction. Tom studied her face for any hint of a nervous twitch. Her cheeks and jaw remained taut, her eyes meeting his with equal ferocity. She seemed to be telling the truth. Her voice softened. “I believe someone else summoned the windigo. I’ve suspected it since the first killing.”

“Who, then?”

“It could be anyone.” She leaned back in her chair and glared at the chief factor. “Master Pendleton has plenty of enemies.”

152

A soldier locked the cell door. From behind the bars, Anika stared at Tom, her eyes full of hurt and anger.

“How long will she stay locked up?” Tom asked Pendleton.

“Until I decide what to do with her.”

“I say we hang her,” said Lt. Hysmith. “That would boost the fort’s morale.”

“No,” Tom said. “I’m not convinced she’s guilty.” He looked at Pendleton. “Sir, who else would want you dead?”

Before the chief factor answered, gunshots rang out from across the fort. Tom hurried outside with the others. More shots fired from Noble House. Tom, Pendleton, Hysmith, and two soldiers ran toward the four-story log house. Tom entered the front door first and charged up the stairs to the third floor. The butler and maids peered down from the landing.

“Get back upstairs,” Pendleton barked.

Tom continued into the east wing. Up ahead, a man stepped into the hall, holding a candle and shotgun. Tom stopped and aimed his gun.

“Don’t shoot,” said Walter Thain. He was dressed in a long nightshirt and slippers.

“Who’s been firing off their gun?” Pendleton asked.

“It’s coming from Percy’s quarters,” said Thain.

Tom led Pendleton, Hysmith, and Thain down to the door at the end of the hall and twisted the knob. Locked. More shots were fired within. The kids inside were squealing.

“Stand back.” Tom kicked open the door, then hid behind the wall outside, waiting for a barrage of lead. No one fired. “Percy, are you in there?”

“Go away, you sinners!” Percy yelled from somewhere in the dark flat.

Tom stood, gave the officers a quick glance, and then entered with his pistol aimed. Moonlight shone through the windows, offering enough visibility to see outlines of furniture. He smelled blood. He stepped into the first bedroom. The nanny was lying facedown in a crimson pool. The back of her head had a gaping hole.

“Oh Christ…the
children!
” Pendleton came out of the next room, pressing a hand over his mouth.

Tom peered in at the red-splattered walls. Percy’s three children were lying in their beds with blood-soaked covers pulled over their heads.

Tom cocked his pistol. “Percy! Come out!”

“He’s finally cracked,” Hysmith said from a few paces back.

Tom eased into the study. Percy was sitting on the couch near the window. The moonglow lit up half of a red tribal mask that covered his face. His hands covered his ears. One hand tapped the pistol against his mask.

“Percy, put down the gun.”

He looked up at Tom, Pendleton, Hysmith, and Thain. “It wants us.” He sniffled and pointed out the window. “The beast out there. Can’t you hear it?” He shook his head wildly, as if bees were swarming inside his skull. “The whispers won’t stop.”

Tom held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”

“Get back!” Percy hissed with a voice that sounded like wind rustling dry autumn leaves. He raised the pistol and released a deep, guttural laugh. “The Dark Shepherd is coming for you all. One little lamb at a time.” Then he placed the gun barrel under his chin. The shot boomed, ringing Tom’s ears. The back of Percy’s scalp blew outward. Red matter stained the wall. The clerk slumped back on the couch, his demon mask staring blankly at the window.

Part Fifteen

Brotherhood

153

“Take him to the Dead House,” Tom ordered two soldiers.

“Aye, sir.” They carried out Percy Kennicot’s body wrapped in a bloody sheet.

Tom remained alone in the study, where the stench of death made the air almost unbreathable. Percy had released all body fluids as his brains exploded across the back wall. Blood dripped off several native masks. They looked back at Tom like a tribe of bodiless ghouls and demons.
False Faces,
Tom thought. He picked up the red visage Percy had been wearing. White dots traced circles around the eyes and mouth. Tufts of what looked to be ox hair hung off the sides. Tom recognized it as an Iroquois Indian mask carved from balsa wood.

A few years ago, in Lachine, Quebec, a group of Iroquois had entered a farmer’s barn, wearing red demon masks and chanting. The disturbance had caused a scare among the white farmers. When Tom questioned the Indians, they explained they were members of the False Face Society. They claimed they were exorcising demons called
Ga-go-sa
that haunted the barn. These bodiless faces supposedly floated in midair and terrorized the Iroquois. Tom knew it was just another Indian superstition, but the Iroquois made monstrous masks with twisted faces and performed ceremonies to ward off the
Ga-go-sa
.

Tom frowned, his head full of questions. Why was Percy wearing an Iroquois mask? And what pushed him to murder his own children and then kill himself? On Percy’s desk was the child’s drawing of the stick figure with antlers.

It wants us,
Percy had said.
The beast out there.

Tom’s hand began to palsy. He gripped his wrist to steady it.
After his nerves finally settled, he went into the next room where Pendleton, Hysmith, and Thain waited with forlorn expressions on their faces. Pendleton looked up from his seat. “Find anything, Inspector?”

“Percy left no suicide note. He appears to have emptied a bottle of Scotch. Was he a heavy drinker?”

Pendleton nodded. “Ever since he lost Sakari.”

Tom leaned against the threshold, gripping the red mask. “Gentlemen, before Percy…took his life, he said some things that I find rather peculiar. I have to ask if any of you know what he meant by ‘The Dark Shepherd is coming for you all.’”

The officers glanced at one another, shaking their heads, remaining tight-lipped.

Pendleton said, “Inspector, it’s late, and we’re all in shock at the sudden loss of our friend. We’re going to turn in for the night. I suggest you do the same.”

154

Tom went back to the barracks and told the guard on duty to go out for a break. In the corner cell, Anika rose from her seat. “Tom!”

He gripped her hands through the bars. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “You have to believe I’m innocent. I would never—”

“I believe you.” He squeezed her hands. “Anika, I’m so sorry for what we put you through. Pendleton was convinced you conjured a windigo to curse his forts. There’s more that’s been happening.” He told her about Percy’s suicide. “The officers are acting strange. They know something they’re not telling me.”

“They know they’re cursed,” she said. “It was only a matter of time before someone sought revenge.”

“What do you mean?”

“The villagers all despise the officers. At Noble House, they have been making the servant women play sexual games down in the cellar.”

“You’ve witnessed this?” Tom asked.

Anika nodded, her face a mask of anger. “Lt. Hysmith is the most dreadful, and all the women fear him. Last autumn, a servant girl ended up dead. I admit I wanted the officers to suffer, but I had nothing to do with the curse.”

“Who then, one of the servants?”

Anika shrugged. “Anyone in this village could have paid a shaman to conjure the windigo.”

155

Tom returned to his cabin and sat on his bed. Staring at the wall, he thought of all the strange events that had happened today. The cannibal attacks. The deaths of fifteen more colonists, the final ones being a triple murder and suicide. Percy’s rampage had disturbed Tom the most. The voice behind the mask did not sound like Percy’s, but one that had haunted Tom’s nightmares for the past two years.

He reached under his bed and pulled out a trunk. Taking a deep breath, he opened it. Inside were mementos from a past he had wanted to forget. He picked up a black and white portrait of Gustave Meraux in a regal suit and top hat. Before going crazy, Gustave had been a high society libertine and an heir of the wealthy Meraux family. And then at the age of forty he started abducting and cannibalizing women.

What drives a man to go insane? Tom wondered. What makes him suddenly develop a craving for human meat?

Stored in the trunk were several newspapers. He read the headlines: INSPECTOR HATCHER CAPTURES CANNERY CANNIBAL; THIRTEEN WOMEN MURDERED; INSPECTOR’S WIFE CANNIBAL’S FINAL VICTIM.

The last headline brought a heaviness to Tom’s eyelids, but he tightened his face and willed back the tears. He tried to remember Beth Hatcher when she was alive: her smile, her infectious laugh, the way she hummed when she cooked, one hand resting on the swell of her belly when she was eight months pregnant. But those memories were quickly torn away by nightmarish thoughts and distant screams. Tom quickly grabbed a fourth newspaper with the headline GUSTAVE MERAUX CONVICTED.

During the trial, the cannibal had been chained inside an iron cell in the courtroom, his arms wrapped in a straightjacket. As Tom gave his testimony, Gustave stared with feral eyes, his lips constantly moving. Upon the judge’s summoning the death sentence, the killer rattled his cage and screamed, “As the Devil is my witness, alive or dead I will come back for you, Tom. I will eat your son’s heart in front of you
.”

Tom had charged the cage. The bailiffs dragged Tom away as Gustave cackled.
“I am the Dark Shepherd! The collector of lost lambs!”

Now, that raspy voice echoed in Tom’s head as he tossed the newspapers and photo back into the trunk and shoved it under the bed. His right hand palsied. He began to hyperventilate. He went to the rinse bowl and splashed cold water into his face. He stared into the mirror. Behind his shoulder appeared a pale, grinning face. Tom jerked around. But like so many times before, the Cannery Cannibal wasn’t there.

156

Tom stepped into the chapel. The nave was dark except for one corner where Father Xavier was kneeling at the altar. Candlelight and shadows rippled across the statue of the Virgin Mary. The blood tears had been cleaned from her face, but her cheeks now had a pink hue, as if the Madonna were blushing.

As Tom approached, the bald priest turned. “Evening, Inspector, what brings you to God’s temple at this hour?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I was wondering if you have time for a confession.”

“Of course.” The priest rose and led Tom to the confessional booths.

Tom sat inside a small closet and took a deep breath.

Father Xavier slid open the screen. “What is your confession?”

Tom crossed his chest. “Forgive me, Father, it’s been a couple of years since my last confession.”

“God loves you and forgives you.”

Tom said, “Being from Montréal, you must have heard of the Cannery Cannibal.”

“
Oui, oui
, he was quite notorious. Our cathedral was filled with people who lived in fear of him.”

“I was the detective who finally captured him.”

“What is your confession?”

Tom’s stomach knotted as he recalled his days in Montréal. “I spent over a year tracking the Cannery Cannibal. I sinned a great deal during that time. I neglected my family. I drank heavily. I became completely consumed with the case. I spent most nights staking out the harbor docks. I visited brothels…”

“Did you sin with these women?”

“No, I loved my wife. I just went to the rooms with the women and questioned them. They were all on edge after several prostitutes had been found butchered.” Tom envisioned skeletons with the heads left intact, the faces powdered with makeup. “I was so consumed with getting inside the mind of a cannibal, that I…I went so far as to break into a morgue. There was a fresh cadaver on the table. I stole small samples of flesh. At home I cooked the meat and tasted it. I knew I was sinning, but I had to understand what drove a man to cannibalize another person…”