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Ted Wood: Murder on Ice aka The Killing Cold

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Ted Wood Murder on Ice aka The Killing Cold
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    Murder on Ice aka The Killing Cold
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Murder on Ice aka The Killing Cold: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Book DescriptionReid Bennett, the newest addition to Murphy’s Harbor, Ontario, has embarked on his second case. During the Ice Festival, there is a sudden blackout and the Queen of the Ice Festival disappears; in fact she’s been kidnapped! Members of a feminist anti-pageant group are suspected, but Reid suspects something fishy. He must expose the organizer of the kidnapping – and try not to get himself killed.

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"She came here in a calf-length raccoon," she said.

"Check if it's still in the cloakroom, please."

She looked surprised at being asked to run errands and her husband said, "You can identify it, dear. These people couldn't."

It was quieter without her. I asked Carmichael, "Have you ever seen this woman before? Is she a friend of your daughter's?"

"If she is, she's a stranger to me." He was calmer now. The nitro had taken hold and the hoarseness was leaving his voice as the pain receded. I studied him as I spoke. He had the lean, city look of big business, but there was a toughness under it. He had been a soldier once, I'd learned that in local gossip. After the war he had come back and studied geology on a veteran's grant and had made a big strike in the late forties. From there he had gone into business in Toronto. His clothes told me that much, but his face looked rugged and there was a white crease in the hairline above his ear, the kind of gouge a bullet makes. He had come closer than this to death a long time ago.

"I think your daughter has set up this disappearance as a joke," I explained again. "Is she a high-spirited girl, would she do that kind of thing?" Meaning, is she a spoiled kid who enjoys making monkeys out of everybody.

He shrugged. "She's never done anything like that before."

I straightened up. "All right. Don't worry. I'm going to try to find out where she is. It will be difficult, so please be patient. In the meantime, I don't think she's in any danger." I was talking as much for the prisoner's benefit as for his, but she kept her face tilted down and if I'd hit the bull's eye she would never have let me know.

His wife came back into the room empty-handed.

"Her coat's gone. That's a three-thousand-dollar raccoon. Somebody must have stolen it."

"She was probably wearing it when she left," I said.

This made her turn and flare at me. "What the hell are you talking about? What kind of a cop are you, anyway? You're nothing but a goddamn meter maid, working in this place."

Walter Puckrin chimed in now. "This man's the best policeman you've ever met. He took on three guys last summer, smart guys with guns, and killed the lot of them."

The prisoner looked up in terror. Nobody had given her my pedigree when they suggested Murphy's Harbour as the site of their caper. But it didn't fizz on Mrs. Carmichael.

"Well, get off your arse and kill somebody else, before our daughter freezes to death."

"You're not helping, Mrs. Carmichael. I'm sure your daughter is safe. I think this is some kind of prank. Just relax."

Her husband had taken her hand and was patting it. When she spoke again the respect was showing through her tone, like a fingertip through a torn glove.

"You really think that?"

I nodded. "Val, will you stay here with the prisoner? Walter, you get on with business. I've got an idea."

I went out into the hall. Sam was still waiting by the stage. I nodded, and he joined me as I went to the Legionnaire at the door, still sitting with his cash box and his beer, a fresh one.

"How many people bought tickets at the door?"

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "None, I guess. All my sales is liquor and beer. Everybody had a ticket they bought ahead of time."

"Thanks. I need your box of stubs." I took the box and headed for the microphone. I knew what I had to do. It would be a painstaking job, but you don't get the chance to do any hundred-yard dashes at the start of an investigation. You have to find the facts. It's like picking fly dirt out of pepper.

I called on the women who had been in charge of selling tickets. They confirmed what I knew. The tickets were in three parts. The initial stub had a name and address written on it by the seller. It was put in the box for a draw for a pair of snowshoes. In addition, the guy at the door tore the remaining part of the ticket in half. They went in the box as well, so that people actually attending the dance had a double chance to win. It was typical small-town fussing, but it gave me a lead.

Moving quickly, I read out the numbers on the stubs in the box I'd picked up. As I did, the owner of the ticket went to one side of the hall. When I came to the ticket of a missing person I would know they had left with the girl.

I was halfway through the box before it happened. Ticket number 204. I called Val on the microphone and she checked the purse of the girl I'd arrested. She had no ticket of her own. "She ate it when you started calling numbers," Val told me, and the crowd laughed.

Behind me the wives of the Chamber of Commerce people were riffling through the names and addresses. They came up with number 204 and brought it to me.

It was made out to a Ms. Pankhurst and the address was a place in Toronto. I thought back to my days as a Toronto policeman and realized that it was the address of one of the police stations. I had been outsmarted by the buyer.

"Did you sell this ticket yourself?"

The woman shook her head. "No, that's not my writing, Chief. Let me think. I did give out a couple to other people to sell. Lee Chong at the restaurant got a book. So did Fred Wales at the Muskellunge Motel."

We both stared at the writing, which was square and neat. The name of the street in Toronto had been misspelled.

"That's Fred Wales," I guessed, and she agreed. "Must be. I can't hardly read Lee's writing, so this can't be his."

We were talking away from the microphone, me crouching at the side of the stage looking down at her. She was fiftyish and serious. "Don't tell a soul about this. It's important," I told her.

She nodded. "If you say, Chief." She would help me, for now. Tomorrow this would be her war story and she would bore the Ladies' Aid with it from here on.

I collected Val Summers from Puckrin's office, leaving Sam on guard over the girl. Walter was happy to lend me his Blazer again. The door to his office was open, and the dancers were staring in as they passed, envying him his share of the limelight. He had built a deep, dark drink and was ready to sit there all evening if he had to, counting cash and trying to get Jane Doe to say something.

The girl was getting restless. She had expected more interest than this. For her few moments she had been a star and she had liked it. Now she was a nobody and it rankled. I was glad to see it. She would be talkative next time I questioned her, anxious to prove how important she had been in the plan. For now I left her in Sam's care.

The snow hit us like a club when we left the hall. Already four inches had come down, and it had drifted a yard deep in the lee of the pines along the side of the road to the highway, thumping under my tires, obscuring even the marks I had made a few minutes earlier. Driving was difficult. The roadbed was anybody's guess. Twice in the mile to the highway I slipped off the pavement onto the shoulder, but the four-wheel drive dug in and hung on, holding us safe.

"The motel's just north of the corner. There's a chance they've been dumb enough to head right back there. If they have, we've got them. If they haven't-well, at least we'll get a description, maybe even a license number from Fred Wales. They must have bought the tickets there, maybe tonight."

"If all they want is publicity for this C.L.A.W. outfit, maybe they'll head there and sit tight," Val said. Her voice was the only warmth in the night and her perfume was a promise of springtime.

I had put our date out of my mind. For now I was a policeman earning the small amount of pay I got by solving the biggest problem to hit Murphy's Harbour in six months. Later, when the hassle was over, I looked forward to my weekend with Val. I reached out and squeezed her knee. She covered my hand with hers and we drove out to the highway in comfortable silence.

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