Amanda Doucette Mystery 3-Book Bundle. Barbara Fradkin

a trail. Even if it was only to another nearby grave.

      She rolled Phil over onto his back again, piled the rocks and brush on top, and stood over him, smearing tears across her cheeks with her bloodied hands. She whispered a quiet, apologetic goodbye. Then she rose to face the dog and gestured to the woods. Kaylee was not a trained tracker but she had a good nose. Surely she could follow a recent scent if there is one.

      “Go find Tyler, Kaylee. Find him.”

      The next morning Chris Tymko was up at first light, pacing the wharf. No Amanda. He felt like a coiled spring, his gut twisted with frustration, anger, and worry. Corporal Willington had left to return to his detachment the previous evening, but not before apologetically informing Chris he was off Stink’s murder case.

      “Sorry,” he muttered, “Sergeant Amis’s orders. Conflict of interest for you, or some damn thing.”

      When Chris opened his mouth to protest, Willington shook his head. “I’m pretty much off it too, just doing admin. Amis will be here by noon, and the district commander is sending in an incident commander to coordinate the whole thing. Local detachments on the roads, Integrated Border Enforcement Team on the water, helicopter in the air. The Emergency Response Team and K-9 are on alert. Meanwhile we’re putting roadblocks on the highways, checkpoints at the ports … the works. ‘Armed and dangerous,’ they’re calling him.”

      Chris nodded in grim acceptance. In Amis’s place, given the facts, he would have done the same thing. A gut feeling about Phil’s innocence, based on a few months’ acquaintance with the man, was not enough to counter the evidence. How well did he really know the man? How well do any of us know one another?

      Amanda was a different problem altogether. She couldn’t conceive of Phil as a killer, and it was not in her nature to sit back while he struggled. She had gone off after him in a dubiously equipped boat, with limited expertise and gear for an ocean search.

      Chris had slept on the daybed in Casey’s kitchen and the man’s wife had made him sweet tea and fried eggs before the first hint of dawn. Now a pale grey light bathed the mountain peaks in brooding green, and the harbour glistened like glass. Barely a whisper of wind came in off the ocean and the village hummed with early morning purpose, belying the brutal murder and the police manhunt about to begin.

      He stared out toward the mouth of the bay, willing Amanda to appear. “By noon this place will be hopping,” he grumbled to Casey. “Incident command trailer, RCMP and forensics vehicles all over the place, police Zodiacs coming in and out. I’m damned if I’m going to do nothing.”

      “No sign of your girlfriend yet, then?”

      Chris was about to correct him, but checked himself. The details of their relationship didn’t seem important. “Is there a boat I can borrow?”

      Casey rolled his eyes. “I should be going into the boat-rental business. Pays better than fish. But I think with all the searchers heading out on the water after this Phil fella, they’ll spot her soon enough.”

      “But it’s going to take time to get that manpower and equipment mobilized. Meanwhile I can be out on the water in fifteen minutes.”

      Casey shook his head. “Might be there’s fog coming in.”

      Chris looked at the flat grey sky. “Search conditions look ideal to me.”

      “Looks can trick you, my b’y. You don’t want to be out on the ocean when the fog rolls in so thick you can’t see the bow of your boat.”

      “Then Amanda shouldn’t be out there, either. Let me do a quick search up the coast, just up around Stink’s cape.”

      Casey frowned. “Thaddeus says she went the other way. She was thinking your friend might be making a run for Roddickton. It’s at the top of Canada Bay, and the highway leads across the pen from there.”

      “How far is it to Roddickton?”

      “By boat? Fifty-odd kilometres?”

      Chris did a quick calculation. Even the slowest and most capricious motorboat could do the trip in a little more than half a day, but there might not have been time for the return trip before dark. If Amanda had landed in Roddickton, she might still be on the trail of Phil within the town. He felt his hopes rise.

      “I’ll try that route. With any luck I’ll meet her coming back. But if she’s broken down, I’ll see her.”

      “Nobody will come looking for the two of you if you gets caught in a fog.”

      “That’s why I’d better get going before it comes in.”

      In the end, with an exaggerated sigh, Casey lent him the same spare boat he had used the day before, a small, open skiff once used for old-fashioned cod trapping. Chris checked Amanda’s supplies before packing his own gear for the trip. She had packed light, obviously not expecting to be far from civilization. Not prepared for an overnight in the wilderness, either.

      He loaded up his boat with food, foul-weather gear, shelter, and first aid supplies, and then stored his hunting rifle under the seat.

      Casey eyed the old .308 askance. “Budget cuts? That what they’re equipping you fellas with these days?”

      Chris rolled his eyes. “Don’t get me started. Maybe this century we’ll get the C8 Carbines everyone else has. This is my own personal rifle. Old but reliable.”

      The sea was still calm when he shoved off. Hands on his hips, Casey watched him from the wharf as he fumbled the engine alive and headed out to sea. Once he’d cleared the mouth of the bay, broad swells rocked the little skiff. He headed south, hugging the steep coastal cliffs that swept down to the sea. He chugged slowly, searching the water and the shoreline constantly with his binoculars. Few boats were about. The commercial fishing boats were farther out to sea, and the autumn recreational fishery had not yet begun. Tourists rarely ventured this far from the attractions and amenities around St. Anthony.

      The coastline sliced deep and straight through the ocean toward the southwest. White spray crashed against the towering cliffs, and gannets and gulls swooped eagerly overhead in search of fish. A couple of hours later, the cliffs receded into a wide bay as if the ocean itself had taken a huge bite out of the land. Soon he spotted a jumbled village and harbour nestled in the protected nook of the bay. The village of Englee.

      Grateful for the break, he piloted his small boat between the wharves in the narrow harbour and pulled up beside a man doing repairs to his boat. He introduced himself as Corporal Tymko, but before he could ask about Amanda, the man’s eyes brightened.

      “Oh, you’re here about the murder. Fella who chopped Old Stink’s head off and stole his boat.”

      Chris put on his solemn cop face. “I’m making inquiries, yes. Have you seen anyone fitting the description? A tall man in his mid-thirties with a young boy?”

      “Not yet, no. But we’re all keeping our eyes peeled.”

      “Who’s we?”

      “Oh, all up and down the coast, you know. Word gets around. A friend of mine says he spotted a boat ashore down toward Windy Point, a ways north of Cape Rouge.”

      Chris cursed inwardly. Had he been going in the wrong direction? “Stink’s boat?”

      The man shrugged. “Abandoned, anyway. Of course, nothing to say it’s not been there for months. Nothing there but barrens.”

      “Did you report it?”

      “Yeah. To you.”

      Chris pulled out his cellphone and turned it on. “You’ve got a signal!”

      The man laughed and pointed to the tower at the top of the hill that loomed over the village. “Yes, b’y. We gots civilization down here in Englee.”

      Chris reached Willington back in the RCMP station in Roddickton and reported what the villager had said. He waited patiently while Willington consulted his map.