Amanda Doucette Mystery 3-Book Bundle. Barbara Fradkin
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Amanda pictured Phil with his son as she remembered them. Phil clowning, Tyler laughing — an intense, intellectual boy made playful by his father’s infectious nature. Phil, what the hell are you up to?
“Sheri, it’s time to report —”
“Jason’s on it. He was so worried when he saw the letter that he’s gone looking himself.”
“What do you mean, gone looking?”
“I mean, he’s booked off work, packed his truck, and gone looking. I wanted to go with him, but he said I had to stay here, in case Phil or Tyler got in touch.”
“Sheri, you need to make an official report!”
“Jason did. The alerts are out. But one angry husband taking off on a bender? Jason says that’ll be nothing but a little footnote on the police blotter.”
Amanda scrambled for an answer. She thought of how quickly news had spread about the dead body. How Twitter and other social media had changed communication, even here.
“Get his picture out on Facebook, Sheri.”
“I don’t know how —”
“Then learn!”
A shocked silence fell. Anger, frustration, and fear roiled in the gulf between them. Amanda resisted the urge to apologize for her outburst. Sheri was a capable, resourceful woman, but she needed to be shocked into action. Finally Sheri drew a deep breath. “I will,” she said. “And please! For the love of God, keep me in the loop, Amanda. I don’t care what you think of me, that’s my son out there.”
Amanda felt a twinge of shame as she hung up. Sheri was right; she had been blaming her. But who was she, Amanda, to pass judgment? To hold herself above reproach? Who knew for sure how nobly they would react when desperation stared them down?
She was poring over the map with renewed urgency when the motel owner returned with her eggs still sizzling on the plate. His smile faded at the sight of her.
“Bad news?”
Amanda managed a wan smile of thanks as she took the plate from him. “I’m not sure. My friend is doing some worrying and puzzling things. He met another man at the pub where they went for dinner. Did he bring anyone back with him afterward?”
He gave her a quizzical look. “I was dead to the world, barely heard the truck. But the next morning, there was only him and the boy at breakfast.”
“Did you overhear any of their plans?”
“Well, your friend wasn’t much for talking. Mostly sat there staring at his food and looking at the map. The boy did the talking for two.”
“What about?”
“Fishing nets, boats, birds. About a boat trip he wanted to take out to an island.”
“Do you know where?”
“No, but the father didn’t seem interested. Was looking at some places more remote.”
“Where? Up at the northern tip?”
“Well now, that’s a busy place what with the Viking stuff and St. Anthony being a big regional centre. But there’s plenty to interest a young boy. Icebergs coming down from the Arctic, polar bears coming ashore on the floes, lots of moose, black bears, and birds. Beautiful country.”
A family entered the restaurant and the owner gave her a quick wink before veering over to tend to them. Amanda’s eggs grew cold as she bent over the map of the Great Northern Peninsula, looking for inspiration. Chris was up in St. Anthony, where the shrimp boat carrying the body was docked. The vast North Atlantic opened up to the north and east of the town. The dead man could have been aboard a fishing trawler, or any other boat for that matter, and met his fate anywhere in the open sea before drifting into the shrimp boat’s path.
As the motel owner said, the northern tip was dotted with settlements and tourist sites, but farther down the eastern side, the villages became separated by vast swaths of empty coastline, with a smattering of remote islands designated as ecological reserves. A third of the way down the peninsula, the road petered out all together.
As wild and untouched as it was possible to find.
Chapter Nine
“I’m on my way up there,” Amanda texted Chris once she was packed and astride her motorcycle, ready to hit the road. “I may have a lead on Phil.”
That was a considerable exaggeration, for it was more a theory than a lead, a theory held together mostly by spit and hope. But since it took her toward a reunion with Chris, it didn’t really matter. She’d flesh out the theory as she rode.
On paper, the trip to St. Anthony looked like a simple ninety-minute ride, but she had forgotten the many little fishing villages she had to check out along the way. As she took the occasional stop to shake out her muscles and give Kaylee a break, she asked the local villagers whether they had seen Phil and Tyler pass through.
Only one person remembered seeing them. Amanda was detouring through a little village with the typically quirky Newfoundland name of Nameless Cove, when she spotted a fisherman painting the trim of his old lobster boat bright red. He seemed grateful for the chance to lay down his brush.
“Yes, I remember them. The boy was after having a trip on my boat. I can do that, I said, if you don’t mind sinking to the bottom. She’s a few holes in her yet.”
“Did they have another man with them?”
“Not that I saw, but the truck windows were dark. I offered to take them in my brother’s boat, but the father now, he were more interested in mine. How far out to sea could I take her and how many crew did she carry? She could go all the way to Labrador, I told him, and up north too, but her fishing days are over. I’m getting her ready to sell. She’s too small to compete with the bigger shrimp boats, and since gas prices have gone up and the government cut back our shrimp quotas, I can’t make enough to pay a loan on a sixty-five-footer.” He picked up his brush again. “So some millionaire from New York will probably buy her and sail her around the Caribbean Islands. Not a bad life for the old girl, that.”
“And what will you do?”
He shrugged. “Try to get hired on somewheres. Maybe a bigger boat, maybe even a trawler. Like your friend said, the bigger fish always eats the little ones. Way of the world, he said. He was some disgusted.”
She’d wished the fisherman luck and continued on up the coast, mulling over the man’s words. Phil’s mood did not appear to have improved since that night in the bar, but at least he seemed to be continuing his quest to give his son an ocean adventure.
It was past one o’clock by the time she cruised down the hill into St. Anthony. All the fame and hype aside, it was still a modest town of boxy wooden buildings sprinkled higgledy-piggledy Newfoundland-style along the shores of the narrow harbour. A large, modern-looking pier and fish facility dominated the eastern waterfront and even from a distance one massive ship dwarfed the others at the wharf. She found the RCMP station on the main road without difficulty and walked in to find the room crowded with men, all peering intently at a computer screen. Chris’s tall, lanky form towered above the rest. His brow was furrowed in intense concentration that broke at the sight of her. An easy smile lit up his face. He introduced her to the ring of curious men — a coast guard officer, the harbourmaster, and three RCMP officers, including a major crimes investigator from Corner Brook.
“Any idea who the dead man is?” she asked.
“No, but he looks —” Chris managed before the investigator cut him off.
“The investigation is ongoing.”
Canned cop-speak, she thought, trying to steal a peek at the computer screen. It appeared to be an ocean chart, and an official-looking logbook lay open on the desk. The investigator moved to block her view.
“Corporal