Amanda Doucette Mystery 3-Book Bundle. Barbara Fradkin

his brows knitting with alarm.

      “What is it?”

      “Something’s wrong,” she managed, gesturing to the door. “There’s blood in there.”

      He crossed the clearing in swift strides and shoved open the door. “Jesus!” he breathed, holding up his hand to keep her back. “Stay here!”

      He disappeared into the cabin and she could hear him thumping around inside. Barely five seconds later he returned, looking grim.

      “There’s no one here, but there’s clearly been a fight. Lots of blood inside, and furniture overturned.” He studied the door frame and knelt to peer at the ground outside the front door. “There’s blood on the door here, and some smears on the ground. Whoever it is, they came outside.”

      He stepped back into the clearing and headed across to the shed. A quick search of the ground revealed signs of trouble — scuff marks in the dirt, a broken latch on the shed, and trampled bushes.

      Once again, it was Kaylee who made the discovery. She’d been straining against her tight leash, trying to pull Amanda up a trail into the bush. Finally Amanda followed, and a mere hundred feet into the bush, there was an old man, sprawled on his stomach with his gnarled hands stretched out in front as if he had been trying to claw his way up the hill. The back of his skull was a mass of blood.

      “Jumpin’ Jaysus!” said Casey, coming up behind her. “That’s Old Stink.”

      Chapter Twelve

      Chris’s first thought was for Amanda. From the horror on her face, he could tell it was bad. She had grown very pale and was propped against a tree trunk, clutching her dog. He suspected she was reliving every terrifying moment of that blood-filled night where, according to newspaper accounts, death had come not by neat bullets or explosions that obliterated everything to ash and dust, but by axes and machetes slashing and smashing limbs and heads in a lust of blood and rage.

      Perhaps for a brief moment she was back there.

      But there was something else in that expression of horror. A deep dread, for this had been a murder, and he could see her thoughts had taken the same dark path as his.

      He went to her, took her hands, and gently turned her away. “Amanda, come. Move away from the scene, sit over there while I check this out.”

      She followed him, robot-like, and acknowledged her thanks with a small nod. He forced himself to step close to the body and leaned down to check the carotid pulse. The one visible eye was milky and flies were already crawling around his flaccid mouth, but checking for vitals was procedure. The skin was cold to the touch, rigor mortis already well established. Surreptitiously he nudged the foot, trying to recall the crime scene course he’d taken. Rigor began in the face and advanced down the body to the feet before dissipating in reverse order over forty-eight hours. Give or take.

      The dead man’s foot was rigid, which meant the man had probably been dead twelve to thirty-six hours.

      “Poor old bugger,” Casey said.

      Chris backed away, holding up his hands to force Casey back. His thoughts were racing to form a plan. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll have to secure the scene.” He turned to Casey. “You got any rope in the boat? I’ll need at least …” He squinted down the path. Stink’s cabin was about a hundred feet away and all points in between would have to be cordoned off. “Two or three hundred feet?”

      Casey shook his head. “Nudding that long. But who’s going to muck it up? There’s nobody around.”

      Chris shook his head. “Procedure, that’s all. If this ever goes to court, I have to be able to swear it wasn’t contaminated.” As the initial shock wore off, his training finally kicked in. He checked his cellphone. As he expected, they were in a dead zone. He walked over to Amanda, who was standing now, her eyes still bleak, but colour was returning to her cheeks.

      “Amanda, you and Casey go back to the village and call the police. Poker-Ass again, I guess. Tell him I need a major crime team out here and a doctor to pronounce death.” He swung on Casey. “You got a doctor in the village?”

      “We can get one from Roddickton.”

      Chris did a quick calculation. That was just over half an hour’s drive from the village, closer than many rural calls for service. “Get him out here as fast as you can. Have you got Internet in the village at least?”

      “Yeah, no cellphone but we gots Internet.”

      “Good. I’ll take some photos on my phone and Amanda, you email them to Poker-Ass so he has an idea what he’s dealing with.”

      He could see her opening her mouth to protest, so he shook his head sharply. “It might take some time for the team to get here, so meanwhile, Casey, I want you to bring me a couple of tarps, some plastic bins, and … oh, I don’t know, markers of some kind. Tent pegs or little flags. And tow a second boat over with you so I’ll have some transportation.”

      Casey nodded. He was looking slightly green and seemed grateful for the chance to escape back down to his boat. Amanda, on the other hand, was standing in the path expectantly.

      “What?” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

      “The photos. And if I’m going to email them to Sergeant Poker-Ass, I’ll need your phone.”

      His eyes met hers. Such an idiot, he thought, and forced a sheepish laugh. “I knew that.”

      A ghost of a smile curved her lips. “And I’d like Poker-Ass’s real name and number. Calling him Poker-Ass, however tempting, probably won’t get me very far.”

      “Sergeant Amis.” He fished in his pocket for the man’s card and entered the phone number in his phone. Then he circled the body and took a couple of dozen photos with the phone. Still photographing, he headed back down the path, searching the ground and underbrush for evidence. He knew the evidence had probably been trampled by the dog and the three of them, but he took photos of stains and gouges anyway. The forensics team could decide for themselves if they were of any use. Amanda watched him curiously but without comment.

      At the cabin door, he signalled to her to stay outside while he inspected the interior once again. It looked as if the attack had taken place in the main room, where the attacker had dropped the axe. Had the killer simply left Stink to crawl for help with his last dying efforts? Or had Stink been trying to escape from him when he headed up the path into the bush? If he’d been crawling for help, he’d gone in the wrong direction.

      Amanda poked her head through the open doorway, averting her eyes from the axe. “Can you tell where the killer went?”

      “It’s probably safe to assume he took Stink’s boat. You should tell the police that too.”

      “I’d rather stay with you.”

      She looked determined, but the faint quaver in her voice betrayed her. He shook his head.

      “I can help, Chris. Kaylee might be able to help too. Remember, if it weren’t for her, we’d never have known there was anything wrong, and we’d never have found Stink.”

      “You can’t stay. This is a crime scene.”

      “But we’ve already tromped all over it.”

      He straightened to confront her. “You know why.”

      Her gaze wavered and she looked away. “There were two boats, so two different people. Only one is the killer.”

      “Unless that debris we saw yesterday was the second boat. If he swamped that one …”

      “He didn’t do this. I know him.”

      “When it comes to crimes, we can’t assume a thing.”

      “I can. Phil would never, ever, swing an axe at another man’s head.”

      He walked