“I have a list of people I want to question, Grange,” he slid the slip of paper torn from his notebook across the table. “In the order I have placed them. Has Miss Morozova returned yet?”
“Not yet, but the officer is bringing her. They are waiting for the plow to clear the road. They may need chains.”
“I see,” he replied, “let me know as soon as she has arrived.”
Snow continued to pile up outside. Kunst didn’t notice the world beyond the walls of the conference room being settled deeper into a quiet softness while the suspects filed in, one after another, telling their stories about both victims. By the time Kunst and Grange had finished, the room felt heavy and suffocating.
People settled into their rooms with only a few officers remaining to keep watch. Occasionally, the sound of a snow plow echoed through the lodge.
Grange let out a deep sigh and leaned his chair, “Eight hours…almost,” he yawned, checking the time on his phone, “and not many honest answers.”
Kunst looked outside from his chair, watching the snow fall. He felt the icy chill of the air seeping through the window. His phone vibrated. Checking the phone, he pursed his lips. “It’s gonna be a long night. I am sure they are going to want to get back to their training for the upcoming competition, so we need to get this figured out.” He tapped the back of his phone that he had placed on the table next to him. “I am going to go outside for some air.”
Kunst left through the door and almost collided with Detective Jones who tried to enter. Jones grunted as Kunst apologized gruffly. Jones watched him leave through the door leading outside.
“How do you do it? He’s such a prick.”
“He can be, but he’s okay. I think I’ve gotten used to it. He IS usually right,” Grange replied. He looked through his emails on his phone.
“Well, the few times I have had to work with him, I knew I couldn’t do it,” Jones sat down next to him. “Does he have any ideas?”
“Well,” Grange shut his notebook with his bony fingers, “he hasn’t said actually. We are getting timelines and there are plenty of motives. She didn’t get along with most people.”
“I heard the same thing,” Jones replied. “I overheard the coach tell one of her teammates that she had been giving him grief over something. I couldn’t make everything out. I saw him arguing with another woman. I think she’s on the team too.”
Grange didn’t pay attention. “She’s been dealing with substance abuse according to another, but we haven’t had the test results back yet. I am sure Kunst will figure it out.” Grange nodded and got up, stretched and straightened his trousers from the long hours sitting.
“What do you think, Grange, or are you not allowed to have an opinion,” Jones said as he swung back and forth in the conference chair. He felt the tension in Detective Jones’ voice. It triggered a sentimental reaction to defend his partner and boss. They had a lot of differences but he found Kunst a mentor and someone to look up to.
As Kunst left through the door, the coldness of the air startled his breath away for a moment. With his hands behind his back, he began to pace the covered porch, his gaze downward. The balcony was short but substantial and looked out into a short distance toward the outline of the pool visitors would enjoy during the summer months. Now it has been completely covered in fresh snow. He breathed in deeply, letting the cold air fill his lungs. His white and grey hair getting gently tousled from the chilly breeze blowing through the space. As the afternoon wore on, he felt the room getting stuffy, a combination of the lodge’s heater and the warm bodies that paraded one by one. It had become so overwhelming and exhausting. His mind drifted to being home in front of his faux fireplace heater and drinking a cup of hot tea. It wasn’t that he couldn’t have it there at the lodge, there was a roaring fire, and plenty of tea. But, he liked the familiarity of his cups and home. He straightened himself upright, rigid with authority. He chastised himself inwardly. Right now, he needed to focus on the case and separate the truth and the lies each person told. He could see it etched deeply on their faces. They couldn’t hide anything from him.
The coach, aloof, but persuasive, got cagey about the fact someone overheard them arguing. He said it was over her not having her head in the game. There was a twitch that said otherwise.
Anya finally turned up at the lodge, annoyed and angry. Kunst demanded her alibi. “How dare you think I’d have anything to do with my best friend’s…” she sniffled, “death.” It didn’t ring true in Kunst’s ears. After she left the room, Grange took a call.
Everyone claimed the same, they were either asleep or in their room going over the schedule or talking to family overseas. Nobody heard anything. Nobody saw anything. Kunst grew more irritable.
Lastly, Lera Morozina, a rival, sounded bitter over her being chosen to lead the team. Grange looked hopeful.
“It was unfair,” she cried in Russian. “But, I was in my room, fast asleep all night and all alone.” She stuck her nose in the air, looking down at Kunst, daring him to judge her.
“We went through the security cameras, you were seen leaving the lodge at nine o’clock and returning after midnight.”
She stiffened and rolled her eyes, “None of your business.” Kunst didn’t press her. Grange cast him a look, but Kunst kept his focus downward, his face expressionless as he scanned the notes in front of him. Grange’s frown grew.
When she left, she directed her irritation with a snort in Grange’s direction.
“I think you got under her skin, sir,” Grand said. “I was hoping she’d just confess.”
“Ja,” he replied, “that one thinks she is above the law. She may have done it herself or had someone help her and would deny it with a vengeance until exposed. She’d crumble, her ego getting the better of her.”
“Do you think she is the one who killed them?”
He pressed his fingers together, letting them rest on his lips for a moment. “That is yet to be seen. Did you get the lab report back for the ex?”
Grange jolted upright, “yes, it was definitely poison, and there were remnants in a bottle we found near the body. It had fallen and rolled under the sofa. Cyanide hidden in the sports drink.”
“I smelled some notes of bitter almonds and his flushed face, I figured,” he replied. “Anything else?”
“His alcohol levels were elevated too – enough to make him belligerent.”
Kunst nodded in his direction. “What does that tell you?”
“Someone wanted him silenced?”
“Ja, precisely. But why silenced? What did he know?”
Grange nodded. He sat against the back of the chair and laid his pencil under his nose, his top lip curling holding it still.
“Here,” Kunst tore out a notebook page, it skirted across the wood table. Grange stopped it with his hand, the pencil fell to the ground and rolled under the table. “Start with a deeper look at these suspects. Give the number on the bottom a call to help. Tell her it’s from me.”
“Can do,” he replied, disappearing beneath the table, hitting his head as he got up. Kunst smirked as he turned around.
As Kunst paced the patio. Snow fell beyond the overhang, coating the guardrails in a single white mound. His mind wandered to his great-grandmother. He pictured her in Germany, running through the flames of her hometown on fire, trying to flee. He thought of her in the cold terrain of Siberia, far from her family, frightened and alone, then falling severely ill. Her body must have been so frail – too frail from malnourishment and cold to fight and survive to see her loved ones again. His frown deepened. He tried to not let it affect him, but he couldn’t say it didn’t, not completely. It was decades ago, but felt imprinted on his soul. Dark clouds gathered above him. The emotional toll of the day had taken him by surprise. He found himself angry at everyone. He could see it on his partner’s face. Everyone deserves justice, he reminded himself over and over again.
His pocket vibrated. As he opened the screen, a text from an unknown sender lit up the screen. ‘I have information. Meet me behind the pool house’ it read. He moved toward the door. Nearby limbs rustled. A call of an owl made him turn. A shadow shot past his periphery followed by a slight breeze moving past his face. Whatever it was, it disappeared into the dark trees.
He quickly pulled the door open and returned to the warmth of the conference room, disturbing Grange and Jones laughing.
“I think someone just shot at me,” he blurted out. Both Grange and Jones stared in stunned silence. “We are making someone nervous. We need to do a search behind the building.”
Grange jumped up, followed by Jones, and left with Kunst to investigate that small shadow that brushed past him. His stomach dropped with a sinking feeling of what it was.
“What are we looking for, Kunst?” Grange turned on his flashlight after putting on his thick jacket.
“An arrow,” Kunst replied.
“Oh my god, Kunst,” Grange pulled the hood over his head and they left through the rear door of the lodge.
“And look at this,” Kunst showed him the text, “I got this right before.”
Jones also peeked at the text, his eyes growing wide. “Unbelievable.”
“I am sure there won’t be anyone waiting. It is in the same direction the arrow flew past. We can kill two birds with one stone, ja.”
They trudged through the thick snow, their boots crunching beneath them. They had to make their own paths. Their flashlight lit up the trees. In silence, snow continued to flutter down in thick clumps around them. Lights from the lodge lights behind them blazed, casting a warm glow within the icy air.
“My feet are becoming blocks of ice, even with these thick boots,” Jones complained, his jaw twitching. Kunst ignored him.
“Let’s separate, ja,” Kunst said, pointing his flashlight in different directions. “We are looking for an arrow. It’s gonna be like a needle in a haystack.”
To be continued…
Copyright © Rachel D. Knepp.
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods—without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews or critical articles.
