The Body in the Back Garden by Mark Waddell

Author:Mark Waddell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Chapter Sixteen

After Jack left, I felt very much at loose ends. The fog outside had lifted entirely and it was turning into another beautiful day, but I didn’t feel like going anywhere. I was still a little shaken by my encounter with Chris McCormick and half convinced I would run into him again. So I pottered around the cottage for a while, watering the plants that filled every room, before finding some empty cardboard boxes in the tiny storage space off the kitchen. Then I made a slow but thorough circuit, taking everything that looked like it belonged in my aunt’s shop and packing it away so I could bring them all back to Forget-Me-Not. Barnabus would need them for his inventory, I reasoned.

I paused on the threshold to my aunt’s bedroom, still reluctant to enter. Then, struck by a thought, I pulled out my phone and dialed the number Jack had called from earlier that morning. It rang several times before he picked up with a terse, “Munro.”

“Hi again,” I said. “It’s Luke.”

I don’t think I imagined the faint sigh on the other end of the line. “What’s up?”

“While you’re examining Joel’s truck, could you … could you check to see if there’s any evidence that it struck someone? Like my aunt?”

There was a long pause before Jack said quietly, “That’s the sort of thing the forensics people would check for anyhow, but yes, I’ll make sure they examine it thoroughly for evidence of a hit-and-run.”

I felt a sense of relief as I murmured, “That’s great. Thanks.”

Jack hesitated again before saying, “By the way, when I got back to the office, there was a message waiting for me. It seems that several people in town received blackmail notes late last night or early this morning. Notes demanding an awful lot of money in exchange for keeping secrets.”

My ears perked up at that. “What? Really? That’s a weird coincidence.”

“It is, yeah.” His tone turned wry as he added, “I thought I’d tell you myself so that maybe this time you won’t go running off half-cocked.”

I rolled my eyes. “You think that’s going to stop me?”

“Behave, Luke,” he told me warningly, before hanging up.

I stared down at my phone for a moment, then had another idea. After scrolling through my contacts, I dialed a number with a Toronto area code and listened as it rang several times. It was a Sunday, so there was a chance no one would answer, but if I knew Tony …

Sure enough, the line clicked and a deep voice said, “Anthony Eriksson, Toronto Star.”

“Hey, Tony,” I said, trying to inject a brittle cheerfulness into my voice. “It’s Luke Tremblay. Still working Sundays, huh?”

There was a brief pause before Tony said, a little cautiously, “Hey, Luke. Wow.” He paused. “Uh, yeah, you know, I like it here when it’s quiet. Long time, huh?” He and I had been colleagues at the Star for years, until a change in editors precipitated my embarking on a new career path. Let’s just say my departure hadn’t been exactly … amicable.

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