Last of the Independents (28 page)

I
t
struck her as sad how far the scope of her life had been reduced. She regretted never learning to drive. Before retirement she'd counted on the bus, and her husband, on his days off, had always been willing to drive her. One of his better qualities. Now two floors in one house contained her, aside from the occasional foray with her grandson or the ladies from Come Share. She found herself confined with the animal and noted its decline with much more scrutiny than her grandson did. Blindness from affection is still blindness.

In the morning she came downstairs and turned on the kettle and stared at the dead TV screen, knowing if she turned that on too, that was what she would do for the day. The house was too quiet so she turned on the radio and listened to one of the disk jockeys jabber about parliament while she had her porridge. She did the dishes humming to the songs on the oldies station.

At noon she let the dog out of the basement. It drank water and nuzzled her leg. It smelled rank. She let it into the yard and cleaned her silver while watching the dog from the window. The dog did nothing.

She vacuumed the carpets but the smell of sick dog was worked into the fibers now. The dog lay in the yard.
Damn you,
she thought.
Leaving that thing for me to look after, unwilling to face what will happen regardless, and unwilling to make it as painless as it could be. Still a child in some respects. Too many.

Look at it,
she thought.
Even it knows it's time.

He'd left his gun with her. He'd taught her how to use the big shotgun, but cautioned her that firing it would probably break her shoulder. No. Guns weren't her business. Her husband's, her grandson's. Not hers.

He'd left his pain medication behind as well. She opened a can of Fancy Feast — the dog preferred cat food for some silly reason, and he'd indulged it — and ground three of the pills up and worked them into the food. She took the bowl out to it with one hand, her knife in the other. Placed the bowl on the grass. Watched it bow its head, sniff the bowl and begin to eat. When it had eaten its fill she slit its throat the way she'd done with pigs more than half a century ago on her father's farm, a strong deep cut, the kind that would elicit a nod of approval from her father. All the gold stars and report cards never pleased that man as much as watching one of his daughters make a clean kill. When it was over she dug the grave, the shovel too long and heavy. Falling on her knees, she used the dog's food dish and a rusty trowel. Her arms hurt and she had to break for food and to return circulation to her knees and elbows. By nightfall she still wasn't done but she kept digging. By midnight, an hour that rarely saw her awake, she had lowered the body and the clumps of blood-stained grass that served as evidence into the ground. She packed the earth over the body and rolled a few stones onto the grave. She stood up and wiped her hands on her knees, then went back inside to sleep and eat and wait for his call.

Pumpkin Eater

A Dan Sharp Mystery

by Jeffrey Round

F
ollowing an anonymous tip, missing persons investigator Dan Sharp makes a grisly find in a burned-out slaughterhouse in Toronto's west end. Someone is targeting known sex offenders whose names and identities were released on the Internet. When an iconic rock star contacts Dan to keep from becoming the next victim, things take a curious turn. Dan's search for a killer takes him underground in Toronto's broken social scene — a secret world of misfits and guerrilla activists living off the grid — where he hopes to find the key to the murders.

Birds of a Feather

A Jack Taggart Mystery

by Don Easton

L
ily Rae is on holiday in El Paso, Texas, when she's kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel. El Paso borders on one of the most dangerous places in the world — Ciudad Juarez, Mexico — a city caught in the grip of a war between cartels.

Her disappearance is investigated by undercover Mountie Jack Taggart, who discovers a Canadian link to the cartel and penetrates the organization. Taggart is sent to El Paso, where he is partnered with special U.S. Customs agent John Adams. Neither Taggart nor Adams know they have been paired together for a secret purpose.

Taggart has strict orders to stay out of Juarez, but his gut instinct directs him otherwise. The investigation seems to be going smoothly — until the cartel discovers his true identity.

Practically torn from the headlines,
Birds of a Feather
will keep you on the edge of your seat and leave you questioning right and wrong.

Twilight Is Not Good for Maidens

A Holly Martin Mystery

by Lou Allin

C
orporal Holly Martin's small RCMP detachment on Vancouver Island is rocked by a midnight attack on a woman camping alone at picturesque French Beach. Then Holly's constable, Chipper Knox Singh, is accused of sexually assaulting a girl during a routine traffic stop and is removed from active duty. At another beach a girl is killed. An assailant is operating unseen in these dark, forested locations.

The case breaks open when a third young woman is raped in daylight and gives a precise description of the assailant. Public outrage and harsh criticism of local law enforcement augment tensions in the frightened community, but as a mere corporal, Holly is kept on the periphery. She must assemble her own clues.

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Copyright © Sam Wiebe, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Editor: Laura Harris

Design: Jennifer Scott

Cover image: © zennie/iStock

Cover design by Carmen Giraudy

Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Wiebe, Sam, author

Last of the independents / Sam Wiebe.

(Vancouver noir)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4597-0948-5 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4597-0949-2 (pdf).--ISBN 978-1-4597-0950-8 (epub)

I. Title.

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Ontario Arts Council
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, and the
Government of Ontario
through the
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and the
Ontario Media Development Corporation
.

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