Dead of Winter (2 page)

The cellar door crashed open.

Father Jacques raised his arms and smiled as he turned to face the ravenous horde.

2

Ontario Wilderness

The oncoming blizzard roared like a phantom bear. A boreal wind whipped through the forest, shaking the pine branches. Searchers in fur parkas steered three dogsleds through the white squall. Huskies barked at the cracking whips. The search party fanned out between the trees, sleds racing one another.

Riding in the lead sled, Inspector Tom Hatcher clamped his black lawman’s hat against his head. Frosty wind raked his face. Snow blinded his vision. He leaned inward as pine branches brushed the right side of his body. The British detective felt out of place in his two-piece suit, necktie, and gray overcoat. While the hunters carried rifles, Tom gripped his trusty pistol.

If Father could see me now,
Tom thought,
out in the Canadian wilderness dogsledding with a brigade of fur traders. And if that isn’t crazy enough, I’m following the guidance of a native woman.

Jostling and jerking in his rickety seat, Tom watched the Ojibwa tracker’s long, billowing black hair as she deftly drove the sled through the trees. Anika Moonblood was like no woman Tom had ever met. She only stood about chest-high to him, but she was feisty, and the way she moved through the wilderness was downright preternatural. Her light brown face, with high cheekbones and sparkling green eyes, reminded Tom of a wildcat. Like a puma or lynx. He might have found Anika pretty if it weren’t for the hardness of her face. He had yet to see her smile.

Anika pulled the reins on the dogs. The huskies yelped as the sled skidded to a stop in the deep snow. She hopped off and crouched at the crest of a hill, her deerskin clothes almost blending with the trees.

Tom scanned the woods and saw what the tracker had found. Footprints. The inspector snapped on his snowshoes and climbed upward, raising his knees, awkwardly plowing through the drift. He stepped up beside the tracker. “Any sign of Sakari?”

Anika pulled strands of black hair off a branch. “She was taken upstream.”

Tom scanned the frozen landscape. A legion of snow devils spiraled across the pure white dunes, spinning upward and catching the fierce crosswinds. Endless snow froze against his cheeks. Vision diminished to twenty feet. A familiar parasite of foreboding gnawed at his stomach as the afternoon sun was swallowed by gray clouds.

“The blizzard will soon be upon us,” Anika said.

The inspector spoke over the wind, “Let’s push a little further.”

“We go the rest of the way on foot.” The tracker trudged forward, her slender frame fading into the white mist.

The other sleds caught up. Tom glanced back at the pale faces of the searchers, a mixture of British soldiers in red greatcoats and Scotch laborers bundled in hooded fur coats. The lower halves of their faces were covered with scarves, and their eyes were shielded by goggles made of caribou bone with two tiny round holes. The native goggles made the white men look like Indian fur trappers. Even though Tom couldn’t see their eyes, he sensed their fear. They had been searching for the missing woman for over an hour now, and the blizzard only seemed to be getting closer. It wouldn’t be long before the snow completely covered the trail.

Tom briefly looked at Percy Kennicot, offering the clerk a gleam of hope. Ice crystallized on the man’s mustache. He and his Cree Indian wife, Sakari, had ventured out into the woods on horseback, headed toward Manitou Outpost. The horses had gotten spooked. They separated briefly. Kennicot heard his wife scream, followed by an animal growl. Percy had searched the evergreen forest but found only Sakari’s fallen horse, its throat slashed. The killer had carried off Percy’s wife into the woods.

Tom had told his men to be wary of a rogue trapper in the area or possibly a band of cutthroat Indians. None of the searchers seemed to like that he was in charge. To the soldiers and fur traders, Tom was the newcomer. The man from the city. But they were all scared ever since colonists from Fort Pendleton had started to go missing in the woods. A few weeks ago, a French Canadian hunter had been found disemboweled. Whether the colonists liked Inspector Hatcher or not, he had been hired to track down their killer.

As Tom snowshoed through the woods, he wondered if leaving behind his city comforts had been the right decision. Montréal had been cold, but the interior of Ontario was constantly below zero. The blizzard’s endless breath seeped into his bones. White wisps puffed out of his chapped mouth. His cheeks and nose were numb, and he feared frost bite might eat away his face.

How long can we survive out in this godforsaken weather?

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 makeup, 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.”