A Death Most Cold Read online

  Myron raised an eyebrow. “I should think there are eligible bachelors where you work?”

  “I’m a little wary about mixing romance with business after Gary, my last cop beau.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I’m…curious.”

  “It was while I was still with the Brooks Detachment. Gary was what might be described as a hunk. I kinda fell for him.”

  “And?”

  “Well, one night we got serious at his place. Midway through our…activities his dog started barking. He had it in the basement for the night, apparently. After a while, the noise really began to irritate him. I guess he couldn’t concentrate. He got up from the bed, grabbed a pillow, and disappeared downstairs. Moments later I heard a muffled pop, and the barking stopped.”

  “What happened — or should I ask?”

  “I am pretty positive he shot the dog!”

  “Phew… That’s a bit extreme.”

  “You know,” Freta said in a chilled voice, “we were talking about psychos the other day. Well, it’s not a great leap from shooting an annoying dog to shooting people who are inherently more troublesome. That was it for me with Gary. Fortunately, my transfer came through — you know what’s appealing about you?” she asked rhetorically.

  “What’s that?” Myron said, still trying to process what Freta had told him.

  “You’re safe.”

  “I’m safe? Not sure how to take that!”

  “Take it for what it’s worth. You wouldn’t shoot your dog?”

  “No. Kick him, maybe…”

  “And you deal with people on their own terms. If I got involved with you, you wouldn’t complicate my life, would you?”

  “I seemed to have complicated Nadia’s.”

  “She complicated it herself. You’re probably too safe for her.”

  “What’d you mean too safe?”

  “You wouldn’t do anything wild or crazy, would you?” There was what Myron perceived as a mischievous glint in Freta’s eyes.

  “It depends on — back up a minute. Do you want to get involved with me?” Myron asked. The light bulb suddenly went on and he was feeling warm.

  “You’re here tonight, aren’t you? And since you suggested that we get together again, I figure you’re interested too.”

  Well, that’s direct enough, thought Myron. He had hoped to get to know Freta better, and now, it appeared, she was not averse to the idea at all. Their evening was on the verge of taking a most revealing turn.

  The only question was would Myron’s monastic resolve survive? He thought not; his increasingly tenuous fidelity to Nadia was dissolving rapidly as he came to that bridge.

  “You know,” he mused, “I can’t resist a woman in uniform.”

  “How about one with no uniform at all — of any kind.”

  As it turned out, he connected with Freta at least as well in bed as he did outside of it. Their primal urges continued well into the night. Myron felt an unbridled release of erotic power, while Freta demonstrated good athletic form.

  The only potentially awkward moment came while Myron was chucking off his clothes. Alas, he lacked Freta’s poise, and he inflicted slight bodily harm when the Stanfield’s resisted (because of a certain bulging appendage) and the elastic band, briefly escaping his trembling grasp, snapped with considerable force onto his struggling, upwardly mobile erection.

  He gritted his teeth and grinned. Freta didn’t seem to notice.

  “You’ve lost some weight,” she observed as he hastily kicked his pants aside and crawled into bed.

  “I had a paunch once,” he retorted defensively.

  “Oh, but I like trim men.”

  Well, that’s good, he thought, not particularly eager to embark on a crash eating course in order to recreate some semblance of his former, more bulbous self.

  “And Mario there,” she stared pointedly at his rigid member, “appears ready and very willing.”

  “Yes, he is,” Myron declared emphatically, “but will you respect him in the morning?”

  Chapter Ten

  Saturday

  Myron woke up with a headache accompanied by a pronounced dried-out feeling. Small price to pay for the excruciatingly good time he had with Freta the Magnificent. He took a quick peek under the covers, just to reassure himself that everything was still there and hopefully in working order, and glanced at his watch, the only accessory left attached from their energetic activities. Seven thirty. Although a late-night person, Myron was also a relatively early riser, and once awake, he stayed awake.

  Stretching out on his back, his hands behind his head, he stole a sideways glance at Freta. She appeared asleep, curled up in a comfortable ball. After a few moments of staring at the ceiling, his thoughts blissfully unfocussed, he gave Freta a gentle nudge.

  She stirred. “Huh…”

  “Rise and shine,” he said brightly.

  She shifted slightly, raised her head, peered at her digital alarm clock, and informed him that it was Saturday and her day off. Myron took that to mean that she had no intention of bounding out of bed to start the new day just yet.

  “I’ll take a shower and make us some coffee,” he volunteered.

  She rolled over toward him. “Good idea. There’s extra towels in the closet beside the bathroom,” and she pulled the blanket up to her chin.

  Myron was giving his best rendition of “Those Were the Days” when the shower curtains opened and Freta stepped in. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Only if you can sing,” he lied.

  Later at breakfast, Freta had a suggestion. “I’ve been meaning to go out to Dworking’s place all week and have a closer look around. You want to come along?”

  “You haven’t been out there?” he asked.

  “I haven’t, but Rob has. He only gave it a cursory once-over, though. He went out when Dworking’s neighbour phoned the day after her death. Seems she kept a couple of dogs that needed to be cared for. The caller agreed to take them and sort of look after the place until the next of kin was notified and the estate settled.”

  “Wonder what’s going to happen to it? I understand it’s an old farmhouse up on a hill.”

  “Yeah, near the Hutterite colony. I think I know where it is. Rob gave me the keys. You’ve never been out there?”

  “Are you kidding?” Myron snorted. “I don’t think anyone from the college had been out there. She wasn’t the kind to invite people for socials. Very private person.”

  “Well, her sister’s coming out from Toronto to claim the body and make the necessary arrangements — as soon as we release the body, that is. And I imagine the property will be put up for sale. So…you want to accompany me and scout out her abode semi-officially, so to speak?”

  “Sure. I’m game to see the Dragon Lady’s inner sanctum,” Myron said, crunching on his last piece of his toast.

  The extreme weather had let up. It was a clear morning, with the temperature rising to a balmy minus twenty. They made their way to Freta’s yellow Camaro, parked in her designated slot in the rear lot of the building, but it wouldn’t start. Two slow groans from the engine, and the battery went dead. “Damn,” she muttered, “I need a boost.”

  “Why don’t we take my car?” Myron offered. “It’s the only one of its kind in Great Plains. I’ll boost yours later.”

  “Okay… Why not.”

  Myron had gotten rather attached to his automobile, a stoic, squared-off Audi Fox with a scandalous reputation for unreliability. He had bought it in Edmonton a number of years before, slightly used, and had put over 200,000 kilometres on it. This particular chariot had proved the automotive critics wrong, providing, for the most part, stellar service. And this was no mean feat considering that Nadia took a regular turn at the wheel. It wasn’t that she was a bad driver; quite on the contrary, she would have made Stirling Moss proud. Over the highways and byways, she motored with blissful disdain for such obstacles as speed
limits and surface irregularities. The little Audi (bless its mechanical soul) seemed to take it all in stride.

  With their relationship teetering on the brink, one of the greatest fears Myron had was that she might get possessive about the car. Indeed, she had hinted at it a time or two. After all, she needed wheels as much as he did to get around in her work. But a man has to draw the line somewhere. In due course, she was assuaged with a new, bright-red Rabbit. Myron didn’t mind contributing financially; he even suggested spending extra on an extended warranty given Nadia’s pedal-to-the-metal exuberance. They were still a couple at the time, and Myron had no conception that it would end up otherwise.

  Time does take its toll, and German build quality notwithstanding, the Fox had begun to look its age. The beautiful metallic green had faded, with one fender in particular exhibiting an alarming growth of rust. Fortunately, Myron found a private entrepreneur who offered to repair the damage and repaint the car without grossly exceeding its market value. Now, his “Panzer–wagon” was as shiny as ever, minus the metallic flake. Myron was un-phased, however, because now he had the most distinctive lime-coloured set of wheels in Great Plains.

  They travelled northeast on the main road out of town by the industrial park and chain of motels toward the airport. Once they got a few kilometres out of the city, the pristine whiteness of farm fields took over. The terrain also changed, no longer uniformly flat but elevating into a series of gently rolling hills with pockets of conifer stands. Looking back from the first of these post-ice-age knolls, one could see the city spreading out like a growing amoeba on a microscopic slide. At night, coming from the other direction, the city was particularly impressive: a thousand sparking dots of light in an ocean of darkness.

  “Wonder why she bought way out here?” Freta pondered as they sped along with hardly a car in sight.

  “Reclusiveness — as I said, she liked her privacy. Does have its drawbacks, though. Earlier this winter she couldn’t get to the college for three days — snowed in. Not that anyone missed her, I’m sure,” mused Myron, giving Freta a sideways glance and still thinking of her earthly charms.

  They had gone about twenty kilometres before Freta spotted the turnoff. “There, to your right. Has to be. Rob said to look for a sign directing us to the Bowden Lake Hutterite Colony.”

  “Righto. I see it.” Myron made the turn onto a narrow, snow-crusted road. “Not much of a sign, though,” he added, looking at a weather-worn wooden plaque with an arrow pointing east dangling from a telephone pole.

  “Hutterites aren’t much for advertising,” Freta surmised. “Now, it’s about four kilometres in, an old stone house set back from the road on the left-hand side.”

  Myron nodded.

  The tires crunched on a layer of snow as the Audi slowly powered its way up a long lane way to a rectangular two-storey structure. Dominating the front yard was an ancient, snarled tree, its bare branches reaching out like a forlorn statue to some druidic deity. Otherwise, no other growth pierced through the snow. Against the house, a couple of unruly junipers sprouted, and what looked like lilac bushes.

  “Doesn’t strike me as a place I’d like to live in. It’s so remote and forlorn-looking,” said Freta, making her way to the front door.

  “I think that was the idea,” replied Myron. “Apparently, she bought it as soon as she arrived.”

  “Well…let’s have a look, see what ghosts we can stir.”

  Shivering slightly, Freta inserted a sturdy, square head key, and a deadbolt lock clicked open inside. A turn of the knob and the door swung open. They entered into a parlour of sorts, with an antique bureau on one side and a china cabinet set against the wall directly ahead. It contained a good number of Royal Doulton figurines and assorted glassware. To the left of the cabinet was a dark stairwell leading to the second floor. Myron flipped on the light switch.

  “Okay,” he said, “what are we looking for?”

  Freta shrugged. “I don’t know… Maybe nothing.”

  An archway to the right of the bureau led to a fair-sized living room replete with the usual appurtenances: a couple of standing lamps, pine coffee table, two Victorian cameo back loveseats, and a rose-coloured chesterfield and chair. Obviously, Dworking had a preference for early Canadiana. The only evidence of modernity was a Sanyo stereo and VCR attached to an aging Sylvania TV. The walls were beige, with heavily lacquered wood trim and a number of Trisha Romance prints hanging — all of nineteenth-century stone homes, the kind one would find in Ontario. There was also a small bookcase filled with volumes of Reader’s Digest.

  Myron stood in the middle of the creaking hardwood floor, absorbing the surroundings. “A bit like a mausoleum,” he remarked to no one in particular.

  Freta had walked through a doorway to the kitchen. He followed. It wasn’t overly large and hadn’t been renovated since Dworking moved in. The plain pine cupboards were old-fashioned, designed for a dwelling with a high ceiling; the appliances were at least a decade old. A microwave oven appeared the only recent update. The most attractive item was an oak table on Jacobean legs with four matching chairs. It would have been more appropriate to have it in the dining room rather than the kitchen, thought Myron.

  There was another stairway up from the side door to the right, while to the left a second archway led to the study and a tiny bathroom.

  The study contained a fine oak desk, on top of which sat a Macintosh SE. It was connected to a printer perched on a two-door metal filing cabinet next to the desk. In one corner was a small Franklin stove with chopped wood piled in a large copper tray beside, while the wall adjoining the kitchen was adorned with roughly made bookshelves. Myron surveyed the titles. Dworking evidently had eclectic tastes in her reading materials: the collected works of Shakespeare, a smattering of sociology, psychology, and education administration texts, and two shelves of what might be classified as popular literary genre, from Le Carré to Margaret Laurence.

  “You can always judge a person by the books she reads,” he postulated, turning to Freta.

  “What do you make of someone who reads romances then?” she asked, peering into a cupboard beside the bathroom door. The cavity was filled with romance paperbacks stacked one on top of the other — the kind with suggestive titles and illustrations of handsome, half-naked men embracing beautiful, full-bosomed ladies against an exotic setting.

  Myron pursed his lips and said, “She had a romantic side. Long-lost love? Unrequited love? Yearning for what might have been had her life taken a different turn?”

  “Maybe she just enjoyed reading them,” Freta said, unconvinced. “Let’s go upstairs,” she suggested. “Begin there and work our way down.”

  Myron shrugged. “Why not?”

  The second floor proved less interesting. It consisted of four nondescript bedrooms and another bathroom at the end of the hall. The president slept in the largest chamber, front right. In it were the usual personal effects on a bureau with a large oval mirror. Freta quickly went through the drawers, while Myron opened the closet door. Dworking, he noted, didn’t skimp on her wardrobe; it was filled with expensive business suits, a couple of formal evening dresses, and matching accessories. She also had quite a shoe and boot collection, although nothing like Imelda Marcos, he supposed.

  Turning to Freta, he said, “Find anything interesting? Crotchless panties, laced negligees, handcuffs, whips?”

  Freta closed the bottom drawer. “Honestly, I’m beginning to think you’re incorrigible.”

  “Just wondering if she had a secret life — you know — like Walter Mitty.”

  “No perversions; everything is neat and tidy.”

  “Sterile and cold,” Myron muttered, glancing at the dog-eared historical romance on the nightstand beside the huge brass bed.

  Another fifteen or so minutes of further rummaging produced nothing of significance, and Freta and Myron made their way back to the study, the most promising source, they decided, of any information that might be had.

>   “Which do you want to tackle?” Freta asked. “Computer or the filing cabinet?”

  “I’m familiar with the Mac system. It’s idiot-proof — almost. Why don’t I check it? See what’s there.”

  “Nothing in this world is idiot-proof,” she reminded him, “but go ahead.”

  While Myron fired up the Macintosh, Freta turned her attention to the contents of the grey metal drawers. “At least she didn’t keep it locked,” she observed, giving the chrome handle a yank.

  Myron was impressed that Dworking was keeping up with the new technology. This has to be the latest model, he thought. The college was just getting out of the electronic typewriter era in its secretarial science programme; rumours were that computers were to be installed in faculty offices as soon as the tech department got all the necessary equipment and wiring. Myron was a bit ambivalent; he saw their value in terms of efficiency, but he had a little Luddite in him. Besides, with the computer in the office, he would be expected to do his own typing…

  The small screen lit up, and he scanned the menu. It didn’t seem that Dworking stored any files on the hard drive. He looked around for a disk file box; maybe she transferred her files to disks. He finally spotted one on the bookshelf, propping up a row of paperbacks. Most were unused, but two were labelled. The first he slid in contained numerous spreadsheets of the college’s annual budgets over a period of three years and the second, entitled “Official Correspondence,” was just that: Dworking’s letters to Advanced Education and other college presidents throughout the province. Nothing noteworthy jumped out. Disappointed, he turned to Freta. “I’ve struck out. What about you?”

  Freta closed the bottom drawer and got off her knees. “Dead end. Top drawer contains all sorts of reports on the college; the bottom has files with reams of figures and spreadsheets.”

  “Probably hard copies of what I found on the disk,” Myron said.

  “I don’t really know what I expected to find,” Freta said, sounding a little frustrated, “but it was worth a shot. What about her desk?”

  “We’ll soon see,” responded Myron, opening the top drawer. Stapler, scissors, box of paper clips, some pens, and memo pads. “I wonder if these were college-issued,” he muttered, unimpressed.