Inspector Green Mysteries 9-Book Bundle (317 page)

“Me too.”

“Can you explain it to Mom?”

“Ah.”

Snuggled against him with her head buried in his chest, she giggled. “Sorry to dump the worst on you.”

“Yeah. But after facing wolves, grizzlies, and class IV rapids, how hard can your mother be?”

“You don’t want me to answer that.” She paused, tilted her head up. “I punched a wolf on the nose with my bare fist, you know. When it stuck its nose through the branches I’d rigged up for a tent.”

He tightened his grip. “My girl,” he managed.

She allowed him to cradle her a moment longer, then she picked up the room service menu. “We’ve been through a lot, haven’t we?”

“We have.”

“Done things we never imagined we’d do.”

He nodded.

“And survived.”

He nodded again. “And survived.”

“I’d like the 8-ounce tenderloin, rare, with Yukon Gold buttermilk potatoes.”

“But you’re vegetarian.”

She met his gaze. Arched her brow.

He reached for the phone. “Two tenderloins it is.”

“And Dad, what would you say if I decided to become a cop?”

Epilogue

Nahanni, August 24

 C
hris Tymko wiped the GPS and peered at its foggy screen one more time. He could see Jethro waiting impatiently for him down by the stream ahead. They were both tired, hungry, and wet. It had been a difficult trek from their fly-in at the little lake nearby. A violent summer thunderstorm had raced through the mountains the previous evening, drenching their campsite, washing out creek beds, and turning the ground slick with water. Despite their rain gear they were both soaked from the fine mist that hung over the mountains and dripped from the branches overhead.

“I know exactly where I’m going,” Jethro snapped.

“Maybe, but give a Prairie boy a break. All these mountains and trees make me claustrophobic. I feel like I can’t see a thing. But according to this, the cabin should be just over the next bluff.”

“Uh-huh. Then you might want to use your eyes instead.”

Chris squinted through the trees, where the vague contours of a cabin could now be seen. He flushed and put his GPS away. Together they approached the cabin nestled on a narrow strip of shore between the creek and the steep mountainside.

Chris had seen numerous old bush camps during his time in the north, most like this one, built in the heyday of trapping and prospecting and now overtaken by wolverines, porcupines, or the forest itself. This one was in surprisingly good shape, maybe because Guy and Gaetan had built it to last and serve as the original base camp for their mining explorations.

Perhaps someday it would again, Chris thought grimly. Two days earlier he had stood with Sergeant Nihls and the entire Parks Canada staff in Bugden’s office, listening to the prime minister announce the final boundaries of the new park. The mining interests had won. The river itself would be protected but huge swaths of the surrounding mountains, including here, would be open for business.

“Do you think Victor Whitehead knew?” Chris had asked.

Nihls had started to equivocate, but Bugden cut him dead. “Absolutely. Why do you think they hired him?”

So we’ve come full circle, Chris thought. Back to the days when greed and paranoia ruled the day.

Jethro was walking around the perimeter, studying the ground and the cabin walls carefully. “Looks the same as when Mike and I were here,” he said. “Here are the bullet holes.”

Chris approached the door for a closer look. It wasn’t that he disbelieved or distrusted the forensic expertise of Inspector Green, but he was hoping for some small detail the man might have overlooked in his haste. This expedition to the cabin was on his own initiative, and his reputation hinged on finding some answers. Sergeant Nihls was not interested in solving the seventy-year-old mystery of Guy Lasalle’s disappearance. He argued that since the original RCMP investigation had failed to turn up an answer, he doubted there was one.

For Chris, it wasn’t only a matter of justice, although dispelling the cloud of suspicion that had hung over Gaetan Lasalle for decades had been a form of justice. It was a matter of putting to rest the spirit of Guy Lasalle himself. It was clear now that Gaetan had not murdered him, but was himself dead at least two months before Guy disappeared. But Guy had obviously believed someone was out to get him. It was difficult to tell from the letters whether this was merely a delusion of a bush-crazed mind, but the fact was, he
had
disappeared under odd circumstances.

If his brother hadn’t killed him, who had? Another trapper? The Indians of the Mackenzie Mountains, who had resented his intrusion into their land? Although most of the witnesses and possible suspects were likely all dead by now, the question still deserved an answer.

He took out his magnifying glass to study the bullet holes. As Green had reported, they were about chest high and clearly fired into the cabin. He examined the exterior wood of the cabin. It was faded and mottled from years of mould and moisture, but the interior surfaces of the holes were clean. He felt a twinge of disappointment. Green was right; the shots had been fired recently, rather than seventy years ago, and they backed up Hannah’s version of Pete’s assault on them.

He stood in the doorway surveying the small meadow. According to the RCMP report, Guy Lasalle had left his cabin as if for a normal morning outing. His tin coffee pot was still on the stove, his bedding lay rumpled on the bunk, and his food supplies and furs were still up in the cache in the nearby woods. His mukluks, parka, and fur hat, however, were missing. Had he wandered off in a snow storm? Been attacked by hungry bears just waking from hibernation? If so, no one in the intervening seventy years had ever found a trace of him.

At that moment, Jethro appeared around the edge of the cabin from the rear. “I don’t know what I was hoping,” Chris said. “That we would read something in the scene that none of the other investigators did.”

Jethro gave him a strange look. “Maybe we can. I’ve found something you should see.”

He led Chris to the back of the cabin and pointed to the earth that was pressed up against the bottom logs. Moss and rot had largely eaten the logs away.

“No bush man worth his salt would bury the logs like that. There was a landslide down this mountain after the cabin was built.”

Chris looked up the hillside. Now he could see the difference in the trees that ran down the middle. They were younger and smaller, the boulders less overgrown.

“There’s more.” Jethro started up the hillside, passing from the woods to the steep, rocky slope. He stood on the gravel midway up and pointed toward a sheer cliff face above. “I’m not a geologist but I’d say the mountain face sheared off and came crashing down this slope.”

“What caused it?”

“Happens all the time up here. Earthquakes, erosion, moisture seeps into the mountainside and cracks the rock. Could be a winter avalanche that brought the hillside down with it, could be spring run-off softened the slope. Or it could be — didn’t Guy’s last letter say he was going farther up the slope to take some samples? If he was digging through the snow and trying to melt the frozen ground …”

“You mean he could have brought the whole thing down on himself?”

Jethro was gazing up at the sheared cliff. “The mountain took its revenge.”

A lesson for the politicos, Chris thought. He poked the unyielding, stone-covered ground. “In that case, no wonder no one ever found his body. Never will.”

A faint smile played across Jethro’s lips. “Not unless the mountain itself decides to give him up.”

Copyright © Barbara Fradkin, 2013

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Fradkin, Barbara

Honour Among Men [electronic resource] / by Barbara Fradkin.

RENDEZVOUS CRIME an imprint of Napoleon and Company Toronto, Ontario Canada

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date Honour among men: an Inspector Green mystery / Barbara Fradkin.

(RendezVous crime) ISBN 978-1-45970-779-5

I. Title. II. Series. PS8561.R233H65 2006 C813'.6 C2006-903892-9

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date—

Do or die

An Inspector Green Mystery
ebook digital ISBN: 978-1-894917-94-0

I. Title.

PS8561.R226D6 2000C813’.6C00-931968-9
PR9199.3.F65D6 2000

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date—
Once upon a time / Barbara Fradkin

“An Inspector Green Mystery”
ISBN 0-929141-84-9

I. Title.

PS8561.R233O52 2002 C813’.6 C2002-902965-1
PR9199.3.F64O52 2002

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date—

Mist Walker / Barbara Fradkin.

(An Inspector Green mystery)

ISBN 13: 978-1-894917-03-2

I. Title. II. Series: Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date-. Inspector Green Mystery.

PS8561.R233M48 2003 C813’.6 C2003-902838-0

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date Fifth son / Barbara Fradkin.

(An Inspector Green mystery) ISBN 1-894917-13-8

I. Title. II. Series: Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date- . Inspector Green mystery.

PS8561.R233F53 2004 C813'.6 C2004-903178-3

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, 1947-
This thing of darkness / Barbara Fradkin.

(An Inspector Green mystery)
ISBN 978-1-894917-85-8

I. Title. II. Series: Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date- . Inspector
Green mystery.

PS8561.R233T45 2009C813'.6 C2009-904767-5

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, date-
Beautiful lie the dead / Barbara Fradkin.

(An Inspector Green mystery)
ISBN 978-1-926607-08-5

I. Title. II. Series: Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, 1947- . An Inspector
Green mystery

PS8561.R233B42 2010 C813’.6 C2010-904966-7

Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, 1947-

The whisper of legends [electronic resource] / by Barbara Fradkin.

(An Inspector Green mystery)

Electronic monograph issued in multiple formats.
Also issued in print format.

ISBN 978-1-4597-0569-2

I. Title. II. Series: Fradkin, Barbara Fraser, 1947- Inspector Green mystery

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