Meg Harris Mysteries 7-Book Bundle - R.J. Harlick A Meg Harris Mystery

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I drove my truck out of the parking lot and nipped down the road to the dump. Although the dump was unlit, the snow’s luminescence provided a soft twilight in the moonless night. Many shadows defined the mounds of snow-covered garbage, but none were large enough to be John-Joe.

      Worried he’d already gone looking for me, I whistled. A shadow defining a particularly large mound of garbage grew taller, and out he walked. “Hurry,” I whispered. “The police are looking for you.” He crammed his long body as best he could into the footwell of the passenger side. I covered him with an old blanket used to protect the seat from a muddy Sergei and sped off. However, partway down the dump road, I remembered the plastic bag. At that point, a set of headlights rounded the bend in front of me. Too late. I’d have to dump his prison clothes elsewhere. Worried it was the police, I drove cautiously forward, trying to quell my nervousness. As the lights drew closer, I sighed with relief at the sight of Eric’s Jeep. He slowed down, but afraid he’d see the blanket-covered mound, I kept my foot on the gas. With a nonchalance I didn’t feel, I smiled and waved to his opening window as I drove past, but not fast enough to miss the second head in the car, a smaller one next to Eric’s. Damn him. He couldn’t even go to the dump alone.

      I rammed the gas pedal to the floor. In my rearview mirror, I saw the Jeep stop for a few seconds, then continue forward. I let out my breath. John-Joe struggled to get up.

      “Christ, this is uncomfortable.”

      “Sorry, you’re going to have to stay there until we’re off the reserve.” I turned onto the main road and promptly drove into the glare of oncoming headlights.

      “Down further,” I ordered. The car whisked past. Clutching the wheel as if my life depended on it, I drove my truck on the only road leading out of the reserve, directly in and out of the busiest section. I didn’t dare drive one kilometre over the exact speed limit. The last thing I needed was to be pulled over for speeding. Then I saw them. Two police cars, their lights flashing, parked at the entrance to the reserve. One an SQ cruiser, the other the Migiskan police. Damn. I slowed down. A van was stopped behind the provincial police cruiser. The driver draped the side of the van with his arms reaching up and over its roof. Several cartons of beer and alcohol lay on the ground. A Migiskan police officer was searching the van, while another guarded the driver. Sergeant LaFramboise stepped out of his cruiser as I approached. He signalled me to stop.

      “Don’t even breathe,” I whispered to John-Joe. Trying to act as calmly as I could, I rolled down my window a couple of inches. Any further and LaFramboise might see the blanket. Not only would John-Joe end up slammed against my truck, but I would too, for helping an escaped prisoner. One of the Migiskan police walked away from the van. It was Luke.

      “Sergeant, no need to check Miss Harris’s truck,” he shouted, “I’ve already done it.” Barely hiding his annoyance, Rotten Raspberry waved me on. I stayed silent until the flashing lights disappeared into the night, then I let out a war whoop.

      “We did it. We’re home free. But I can’t say the same for your local bootlegger. The cops were stripping him of his booze as we passed.” John-Joe sat on the passenger seat, rubbing his legs.

      “Christ, I can’t feel them.”

      “Don’t get too comfortable,” I warned. But we encountered no other cars before the turn-off to Three Deer Point. Feeling the relief I’d once felt after surviving a close encounter with a bear, I headed home.

      twenty-three

      I fed the ravenous John-Joe, then stowed him safely in the vast sloped-roof attic still crammed with what remained of my great-aunt’s belongings. With him dragging and me directing, we positioned several of her ancient steamer trunks in an attempt to conceal the door to what was probably once a maid’s room in the time when Great-Grandpa Joe used this cottage as his summer retreat. Afraid to remove any of the mattresses from the downstairs beds in case the police did come looking, I concocted a bed from several very old feather comforters that had been stuffed into one of the trunks.

      Unfortunately, the narrow, slanted-ceiling room was unheated. The frigid air, however, didn’t seem to bother John-Joe. Pulling his wool tuque down over his ears, he wrapped himself in several old Hudson’s Bay blankets and promptly fell asleep.

      This left me with my next challenge, the disposal of his prison clothes. They appeared to be made from a type of rugged synthetic fabric that would either be difficult to burn or would leave an identifiable residue. That left me with no choice but to toss them anywhere but on my property. The snow might hide the incriminating clothes over the winter, but come spring thaw, they’d be fully revealed. So with a bulging plastic bag in hand, I hopped into my truck.

      As I headed along the main road away from the Migiskan Reserve and Three Deer Point, searching for an isolated spot, I had a sudden thought. I’d use the clothing to point the police well away from this area. I’d drive the thirty-five kilometres to Somerset and make it appear as if he were hiding out somewhere in the town. And I knew just the spot.

      I encountered no cars as I drove along Thérèse’s street, nor did I see any people. Everyone was barricaded inside against the extreme cold. Even Thérèse. Lights glowed from her apartment. Leaving the clothes behind her place would be too obvious, so I parked my truck close to the neighbouring church, and with a quick glance to make sure no one was watching, wandered around to the back with the plastic bag concealed under my down jacket. If someone did see me, they’d assume I was a very pregnant lady. Luck was with me. A large dumpster stood next to a back door, where the outside light just happened to be turned off.

      After another quick glance around, I shook the orange clothes out of the plastic bag into the dumpster and quietly closed the lid. Likely the clothes would never be found, but if they were, then surely the police would put two and two together and look in Thérèse’s direction. Keep the heat on her, I thought. Maybe under intense interrogation she might reveal something incriminating about Pierre.

      The drive home was uneventful, except for one minor incident. About ten kilometres out of Somerset, a police cruiser barrelled past me, going towards town. I prayed it wasn’t Sergeant LaFramboise, but if it were, he hadn’t recognized my rusted-out red truck.

      John-Joe was still sound asleep when I arrived home. Everything was quiet. No sign that the police or anyone else had been by. After letting Sergei out for his evening walk, I locked the house up tightly, left the outside lights on and headed for bed. All this cloak and dagger activity had left me exhausted too.

      * * *

      Next morning the news on the radio told me what I already knew; an escaped prisoner of the Migiskan First Nations Reserve was still at large. The newscaster also said the fugitive was considered dangerous and should not be approached, which made me chuckle, considering John-Joe’s present comatose state.

      I didn’t hear the announcer voice my subterfuge, that the escaped prisoner was believed to be hiding out in Somerset. Though to be honest, I was being overly optimistic. His prison clothes wouldn’t be found until the next garbage pickup, which would probably be later this week. Then again, they might never be found.

      An anonymous tip, however, would certainly point LaFramboise in the appropriate direction, but I didn’t dare call from my own number or any other phone around here in case the call was traced. That meant another trip to a pay phone to Somerset was required. I decided to do this in the afternoon, once I was completely sure that no suspicions were being focused on Three Deer Point.

      While John-Joe continued sleeping in the attic, I called Tommy at his office. He answered it almost immediately, but not before I heard the faint click of the call being forwarded to another number. In the background, I could hear people’s voices and a phone ringing.

      “Where are you?”

      “At the courthouse in Gatineau, waiting for my case to come up.” He then proceeded to ratchet the necessity for my ploy up several notches, by explaining that the police, having had little success in finding their fugitive within the inhabited part of the reserve, were planning to expand their search to the outlying bush. As an extra precaution,

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