Dead of Winter Page 2

The rest of the search party, all colonists who spent their lives enduring such brutal winters, seemed to handle the cold just fine. He now envied their heavy fur parkas and otter skin boots. Just keep your body moving, Tom.

  The inspector led the search party forward, doing his best to keep Anika in his sights as the swift tracker crept like a wraith in the fog. She stopped and waved them over.

  Tom quickened his pace to catch up. She showed him a faint blood trail. There were more tracks, too. Deep impressions in the snow. They followed the tracks until they reached the frozen stream of Beaver Creek. They halted.

  “Great Scott!” Tom said.

  Suspended in the ice was the butchered body of Sakari Kennicot. But only the upper torso, it seemed. She had been disemboweled. Several ribs were exposed. And one arm had been completely severed at the shoulder.

  Percy Kennicot ran ahead of the pack, brushing past Tom. The dead woman’s husband fell to his knees and wailed like an animal.

  Seeing the remains of Sakari Kennicot, Tom’s mind flashed to images from his last case in Montréal: butchered bodies of women being dragged up from the harbor. Nothing but skeletons strung together by grey sinews. It was the grisly work of the most formidable killer Inspector Hatcher had ever tracked.

  The Cannery Cannibal.

  Just two years ago, Inspector Hatcher had worked in Montréal alongside British and French Canadian detectives to solve the case of the century. For over a year, the Cannery Cannibal had terrorized the harbor city, abducting dockside prostitutes who sold their bodies near the cannery district. The twisted things the killer had done to those girls. The way he butchered them, carving the flesh from their bones. The hair and skin on their heads had been left, as if the Cannery Cannibal couldn’t bring himself to cut up their faces. He left that meat to the fishes when he dumped the women’s skeletons into the water. Inspector Hatcher had found traces of white powder caked in the eye sockets.

  While trying to think like a killer, Tom had spent numerous nights imagining the cannibal carving up these women like a butcher flaying meat off an animal, leaving behind a skeleton with the woman’s head intact. It was only later, after he found the killer’s dockside lair, and final victim, that Tom discovered the beast made up the women’s faces like the powdery visages of Renaissance queens.

  Now Tom gripped a tree, trying to erase the memory. The wind shook clumps of snow off the nearby branches. He sensed he was being watched. Catching his breath, he scanned the forest to see if the Cannery Cannibal had somehow followed him to the backwoods of Ontario. But that was impossible, because the notorious murderer was rotting away in prison, awaiting his eventual hanging, if not already dangling from the gallows.

  3

  Montréal, Quebec

  The Laroque Asylum loomed like a fortress for the damned. Its stone walls were powder gray with chinks and cracks from years of brutal winters and internal suffering. Built in 1790, the asylum had been designed to separate the insane from the civilized. A private kingdom for the mentally ill.

  Father Xavier Goddard stepped out of his stagecoach onto the cobblestone driveway. Snow flurries swirled around his black robes. He endured the biting wind as he covered his bald head with a black fur cap. Wearing the Russian mink furrowed the brows of his fellow priests, who wore the typical cleric’s hat. But the fur cap was an heirloom from his Uncle Remy, who’d sailed the high seas with the French Navy and brought the expensive cap back from Siberia. Despite its contrary image to the priestly vow of poverty, the mink hat was a daily reminder of his cherished uncle, while keeping Father Xavier’s bald head warm during Quebec’s harsh winters.

  The Jesuit turned to his apprentice, Brother Francois, who climbed out of the coach, gazing up at the towering asylum. The young man was wearing a black cassock buttoned to the throat and a black soup-plate hat, while Father Xavier wore the black cassock and white collar of an ordained priest. Each Jesuit carried a small case, much like a house doctor’s medical kit.

  Father Xavier gave his apprentice a fatherly look. “Francois, did you pack everything I asked?”

  The layman patted his duffle bag, and his eyes brightened. “Oui, I’m ready to see how you work.”

  The young ones are always eager at first, Father Xavier thought. He scrutinized the man’s delicate features and innocent eyes. Maybe Francois will be different than his predecessors.

  “Let’s get started.” Father Xavier ascended the steps.

  Francois followed. “How long will the ritual take?”

  “Hours or days. Depends on the willingness of our subject to cooperate.”

  The asylum’s enormous front door opened with a heavy grate. A short, stocky man hobbled out using a cane. “Top of the mornin’, Father, thanks for comin’ so quickly,” he said in a thick Irish accent. With his smudged cheeks and crooked teeth, the warden of Laroque looked like some Cretan who had spent years on a pirate’s ship. He had stringy red hair and scraggly mutton chops. A grubby hand jutted out. “Me name’s Warden Paddock.”

  Avoiding the hand, Father Xavier stared at the doorway. He got a cold feeling from more than just the gale that swept along the St. Lawrence River. A coven of ravens landed on the rooftop, squawking. “He knows we’re here.”

  The warden’s eyebrows knitted together. “I beg your pardon?”

  Father Xavier said, “Never mind. Take us to Gustave Meraux.”

  “Aye, aye, right this way.” Warden Paddock and Francois entered the white stone fortress. As Father Xavier was about to cross the threshold, something shrieked from behind him. He turned around. Down the hill, a steamboat cut through the cracking ice that covered the St. Lawrence River. Across the river stood Mount Royal, the three-crested hill from which Montréal got its name. The sky above the harbor city had turned pink with streaks of orange.

  Feeling adrenaline coursing through his veins, Father Xavier smiled. “A beautiful day to face the Devil.”

  The two Jesuits followed Warden Paddock through the main corridor. They passed a set of red-coated soldiers standing guard with rifles. The warden unlatched an iron door then led Father Xavier and his apprentice down a set of winding stairs.

  “We currently have one hundred and seventy inhabitants,” Paddock said. “There have been so many crazies coming in lately, that we’ve had to build additional cells down in the undercroft.”

  “Warden, I am only interested in the one you sent me for,” said Father Xavier.

  “Aye, Gustave Meraux arrived two weeks ago, and ever since, has wreaked nothing but havoc among the inmates.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, the undercroft tunneled beneath the old fortress.

  Torches illuminated an arched ceiling and metal bars. In between the cells, water dribbled down moss-covered walls. Father Xavier’s shoes splashed through puddles. He winced at the foul smells of urine and defecation. Francois covered his mouth with a handkerchief.

  “We’re still working on the sanitation,” the warden said with embarrassment. “We are understaffed at the moment. Several workers quit since Gustave arrived.”

  Moaning issued from many of the cells they passed. Most were shrouded by the sepulchral darkness. Inside one half-lit chamber, a fat man with a massive head emerged from a corner. “Feed time! Feed time!” He pressed his cheek against the bars, his bulbous tongue licking the air.

  Father Xavier reeled at the prisoner’s brown teeth and atrocious breath.

  “Not yet, Mortimer. Six-thirty is feed time. Six-thirty!” Paddock banged his cane against the bars and the fat man retreated. The warden shook his head. “My apology, Father, but they have to learn routine or the whole place becomes a madhouse.” He laughed at his own joke.

  From somewhere down the tunnel echoed a cackling scream.

  “That’s Gustave,” the warden said. “The craziest of them all.”

  The high-pitched laughter made Father Xavier shudder. As a boy, he had once seen a group of gypsies at a carnival. One of the performers, a fire breather wearing clown ma
keup, spewed out long tongues of fire then cackled at the crowd. The ominous laughter had made young Xavier sprout gooseflesh. The priest’s fist tightened around his duffle bag. He quickened his steps. “Tell me what you know about Gustave Meraux.”

  The warden, hobbling on the cane, did his best to keep up. “I’m sure you two have heard of the Cannery Cannibal.”

  Father Xavier nodded. The past two years had been a time of darkness for Montréal. The Cannery Cannibal had haunted the harbor, killing thirteen women, most of them prostitutes.

  Warden Paddock said, “Gustave earned the name Cannery Cannibal, because he took the women back to the cannery where he worked, cut them up, cooked their meat and innards, and stored them in little tins. He’s a bloody sicko, that one.”

  As they reached a barred door separating this chamber from the next, Father Xavier took a deep breath. “Your report stated that Gustave has given you reason to believe he is possessed by the Devil.”

  Paddock’s keys jingled as he searched through a large key ring. “Upon his capture, Gustave has been the source of many bizarre occurrences. The prisoners on either side of his cell were found dead. One gouged his own eyes out. The other rammed himself into a wall until he bludgeoned himself to death. And our rat population has doubled. They seem to be drawn to Gustave’s cell like he’s the bloody Pied Piper.”

  Francois said, “So the cannibal has become a man with ungodly abilities?”

  “A man?” Warden Paddock gave a nervous laugh as he tried different keys in the door. “I don’t think any of us comprehend what he’s become.”

  Father Xavier said, “But you are sure he embodies a demon?”

  “I come from the moors of Ireland, Father. I know the Devil when I sees him.” He slipped in a key that fit. “Ah, here we go.” The barred door creaked open to an even narrower passage. From the darkness echoed the cackle of damnation.

  4

  In the Ontario woods, Tom Hatcher examined the woman’s body half-submerged in the ice. Sakari Kennicot’s butchering was different than the cannibal murders he’d seen in Montréal. Those women had been carved with a knife. Judging by the slashes and torn muscles, Sakari appeared to have been mauled by an animal. She lay face down, her black hair fanned out over white ice. There was enough current flowing beneath to bob her up and down, but the top layer of ice kept the dead woman’s half-eaten carcass from floating downstream.

  “Did wolves do this?” asked a blunt-faced soldier named Sergeant Cox.

  Tom crouched at one of the deep impressions, trying to remember all the tracking skills he’d read in a book on his journey to Fort Pendleton. “The tracks are too big. The killer walked on two feet. I’m guessing one of the trappers wearing large fur boots.” That meant any number of suspects, from the neighboring Indians to lone trappers who passed through to deliver pelts to the fort.

  Anika shook her head and pointed upward. “No man stands that high.”

  Tom turned, craning his neck, gazing up at the tall pines, not seeing anything at first. He stepped back a few feet. Snow fell from the darkening sky and dusted his lashes. Eight feet up were broken branches and white slashes in the bark.

  “Bloody hell,” said Sgt. Cox. “That must be from Silvertip.” Fear spread across the faces of every man in the search party. They began chattering, swinging their rifles toward the trees.

  Tom watched the expressions of his soldiers. “What is Silvertip?”

  Sgt. Cox said, “The biggest grizzly ever to walk these woods.”

  “A grizzly?” Tom looked to Anika.

  Not answering, the tracker walked to the edge of the tree line, staring out at the surrounding pines. Tom followed her through whirling snow. Anika showed him broken branches. There were other trees marked by the same scratches. All around them, the snowstorm made the evergreen branches dance.

  Anika’s eyes flitted like a rabbit wary of a predator. “We are in its hunting territory. We should go.”

  Tom wished he had a high-caliber rifle as he scanned the mist-enshrouded forest. “I thought bears were in hibernation.”

  “It’s not a bear. Something worse.” Anika dipped a hand into her pouch and sprinkled some kind of rank-smelling herbs along the banks of the stream.

  Tom didn’t ask what she meant by “something worse.” Like many of the Ojibwa Tom had met, Anika Moonblood was prone to superstition. She was an excellent tracker, but as far as providing solid facts for his case, she was of little help.

  Inspector Hatcher walked back to the panicked group. “Everybody, just calm down. Sergeant, set your soldiers up along the perimeter and watch for the bear.” He nudged one of the soldiers, a young private named Wickliff. “Come with me.”

  They hustled back to the dogsleds. Wickliff’s face looked pale from more than just the freezing wind. “Jesus, I never saw nobody dead before. I’m sure you seen plenty, Inspector. I heard you found the killer who murdered all those women. That true, sir?”

  Tom’s fists tightened on the rope he was holding. He glared at the soldier.

  Wickliff took a step back. “Uh… that’s just what the sergeant was informing us, sir. I meant no disrespect.”

  “Just do as I say. We’ve got to work fast.” Tom loaded up the soldier with a grappling hook, sleeping bag, and some rope, then headed back to the stream. Tom called over two men who were just standing around. “Give us a hand here.” He handed each of them ice picks. “You two, chip the ice. We need to pull out the body and strap it down before nightfall.” To Wickliff, he said, “Hand me that grappling hook.” As Tom gave orders to the three men, speaking in the cold, matter-of-fact tone of a detective, he noticed Percy Kennicot staring at him with bloodshot eyes. The British clerk rose to his feet. He pumped his fists.

  Inspector Hatcher put a hand on Kennicot’s arm. “Sorry, Percy, I know how this feels…”

  Kennicot slung off Tom’s hand. “Don’t touch me.” Wiping a fur-sleeve across his red nose, Kennicot marched toward the dogsleds.

  Tom turned back to the woman’s mutilated body and began the grisly task that was his duty. A half-hour later, he and his helpers wrapped up the remains of the dead Cree woman with blankets and strapped her down to the dogsled.

  The huskies began barking and yelping. Anika came running out of the whirling fog. Her eyes looked frightened. She jumped on the sled and grabbed the reins of her dogs. “Something’s coming through the woods. We must go now.”

  5

  Montréal, Quebec

  At Laroque Asylum, Father Xavier stepped through the gate and entered the narrow passage, wary of the cells to his left and keeping close to the moss-covered walls to his right. The arched ceiling hung low above their heads. There were fewer torches, separated by longer stretches of darkness. Father Xavier observed several oak doors with barred windows.

  “Solitary confinement,” Paddock said. “We call it ‘The Crypt.’ Most inmates will do anything not to stay down here. A few days in The Crypt and they’re ready to behave. But not Gustave Meraux. He seems to thrive in this pit.”

  “Why didn’t they hang him?” Francois asked.

  “The fur trading forts claimed they were having problems with cannibalism out in the wilderness during winter. A sort of lunacy that was not only affecting isolated fur traders, but also the surrounding Indian reservations. So the courts decided to donate Gustave to medicine. Alive, no less. See if we could find a cure to this epidemic. Problem is, the doctors are afraid to go near him.”

  They reached the final cell. It was sealed by a thick plank door with a small, barred window. Huffing sounds reverberated off the stone walls—heavy breathing and whispering voices. The prisoner was speaking in tongues.

  “This is as far as I go.” Warden Paddock backed away. “God be with you both.” Turning, the Irishman hurried back down the corridor, his feet splashing through puddles of urine.

  Father Xavier cringed at the foul water that soaked the bottom lining of his cassock. He hated working in such dreadful places. B
ut he went wherever God’s work was needed, which was generally in the shadowy world of the savage and unclean. He stopped ten paces from the door. A draft blew against his face, as if a window were open. But there were no windows in the tunnels beneath the asylum. He turned to his apprentice. “Let’s begin.”

  Francois drew a line across the floor with a piece of chalk, whispering, “Ad Maiorem De Gloriam.” He drew another at the threshold of the door. Wind rustled the young man’s hair. He yelped and backed away.

  “He just whispered my name.”

  “Keep your thoughts pure, Francois. Remember my instructions.” Father Xavier pulled out a glass container of holy water and splashed the walls.

  “Sorry, sir.” The apprentice’s lips quivered as he returned to his chanting.

  The prisoner, still lurking somewhere in the dark cell, roared like a caged tiger.

  Torch flames danced.

  Father Xavier walked over to a table and opened his case. He retrieved a black book with a red cross painted on the cover. He put a violet sash around his neck. Then, unraveling a cloth bundle, he rolled out a set of silver crosses. The center cross had a daggered tip. He hoped it wouldn’t come to using that one. He raised one of the blunt-edged crosses, kissed it then gesticulated. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I claim this chamber as a sanctuary of God.” He nailed a crucifix to the oak door. “I cast out the demon that possesses this body.”

  Gustave spoke in Aramaic, “I will send a legion of rats to strip flesh from your bones.” Long, white fingers wrapped around the bars of the door’s window. “You will suffer an eternity of pain.”

  “Who are you, Gustave?”

  A cadaver-white face with solid black eyes peered from the cell. He had a thick, black and silver beard and tousled hair that hung to his shoulders. Multiple voices spoke, “I am the Dark Shepherd. The collector of lost lambs.”

  “What is thy name, demon?”

  “I am Legion. Like the wind, I am everywhere.” His voice grew deeper as he chanted, “Ego agnosco ostium damno tui animus, ellebarim, ellebarim, ellebarim.”