Long Climb to the Top Read online

  Long Climb to the Top

  Parks Pat Mysteries #2

  P.D. Workman

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Copyright © 2021 by P.D. Workman

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 9781774680674 (IS Hardcover)

  ISBN: 9781774680667 (IS Paperback)

  ISBN: 9781774680681 (IS Large Print)

  ISBN: 9781774680636 (KDP Paperback)

  ISBN: 9781774680643 (Kindle)

  ISBN: 9781774680650 (ePub)

  Sign up for my mailing list at pdworkman.com and get Gluten-Free Murder for free!

  * * *

  To those who are

  leaving legacies

  Contents

  Style Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park

  Bonus material

  Mailing List

  Preview of Dark Water Under the Bridge

  Chapter 1

  Also by P.D. Workman

  About the Author

  Style Note

  Since my largest readership is in the USA, I have chosen to use US spellings throughout this series. That includes the Americanization of centre to center, even where it is an actual place name, just for consistency’s sake. I apologize to my Canadian readers for this.

  I have chosen, however, to use Canadian grammar, particularly for Canadian voices. If you see what you think is a grammar error, it may just be Canadian, eh?

  Chapter One

  Margie Patenaude didn’t need to be a detective to know who had left the dirty dishes in the sink.

  “Christina!”

  “Gotta go, Mom,” Christina said, rushing into the room. She swept her long black hair out of the way as she shouldered her backpack so that it would not get caught under the strap. “The bus will be here any second. I’ll see you after school.” She headed toward the front door. “Oh, and you remember what I told you, right, about the Métis Club meeting after school today? So I’ll be late. Don’t expect me right after school.”

  “You left dishes in the sink—”

  “I have to go. If I stop and do them now, I’ll miss the bus, and then you’ll need to drive me to school.” Christina had the door open and was halfway out. “Sorry. I’ll load the dishwasher tonight. Okay? Bye!”

  Margie watched her fifteen-year-old race across the street to the bus stop. And she was right, of course; the bus was making its way down the street, and if she had taken an extra ten seconds to have a conversation or rinse off the dishes, she would have missed it. But that was no excuse for Christina to leave them in the sink in the first place, when she knew she was supposed to rinse them and put them directly into the dishwasher.

  She sighed and did it herself. She had to drive into work, and the other homicide detectives and Sergeant MacDonald wouldn’t know whether she had left five minutes later because of her daughter or if she had just hit the lights wrong or run into a traffic snarl on Blackfoot Trail. She checked the table and counter for any other orphaned dishes and didn’t find any. In another minute, she had the dishwasher running, Stella was settled for the day, and Margie was walking at a quick clip out to her car. It was a cool, crisp morning.

  “Oh, Detective Pat!” called Mrs. Rose, a sweet little old lady who was the first and only owner of the 1960s bungalow next to Margie’s.

  Margie stopped, anxious to get on her way but not willing to be rude or pretend that she hadn’t heard Mrs. Rose’s call. She took a couple of steps toward her neighbor, but stopped the prescribed two meters away. “Yes, Mrs. Rose? What can I do for you?”

  “I just wanted to make sure that you had heard that the 55+ Society is open again.”

  Margie’s expression must have betrayed her consternation at this announcement. Mrs. Rose smiled her sweet, pink-lipstick smile. “The 55+ Society. It’s over there on Twenty-Sixth Avenue, where your grandfather lives.”

  “Oh, yes…?”

  “And it’s been closed since the whole pandemic thing. But they’ve opened up again. And they have lots of programs for the seniors in the area. You should take a look at the activities and clubs that they run, see if there is anything that your grandfather would like to go to.”

  “Oh! Okay, I will,” Margie agreed. She would see if there were anything that might interest Moushoom. “Thank you for letting me know.”

  “They probably have flyers in the lobby of the building he lives in. But if they don’t, the 55+ Society is just about a block away. You can stop in there any time they are open and get their program guide. And they can give you a tour. They’re very helpful over there.”

  “That’s great. I’m glad you let me know.” Margie gave Mrs. Rose a firm nod, then turned back toward her car. “Have a wonderful day.”

  “I will, dear. You too.”

  The workday passed quickly. The homicide team was working on a number of open cases, but none of them was burning hot. It was a matter of chasing down leads one at a time. Doing background checks on persons of interest, interviewing them, looking for connections or alibis. The day-to-day work of a homicide department.

  She found it easier to move from one case to another than to stay focused on one all day, so she gathered shorter tasks from the primary investigator on each of the cases, read the file to bring herself up to speed, and worked on her assignment. Then she would jump to the next case.

  No one on the team seemed to mind her ADHD approach. They were happy to have some of the less-desirable tasks taken off of their hands. Margie was eyeing the clock, trying to decide whether she would have time to review one more case before leaving for the day when Sergeant MacDonald—Mac—walked up to her desk. He was a tall man, towering over her when she was sitting down. His hair was almost entirely silver and he had lines of ‘experience’ around his mouth. He readjusted his thin-rimmed glasses.

  “Yes, sir?” Margie immediately tried to think of what she might have done to attract his attention. Good or bad, she didn’t want to be under the sergeant’s scrutiny too often. Too much praise from him and the rest of the team would resent her, and too much criticism… well, any criticism was likely to keep Margie up half the night with anxiety over her mistake and how to avoid making it again in the future. No one liked being criticized, and Margie felt that she was particularly thin-skinned about it. She criticized herself for not accepting criticism well. How was that for a fault?

  “I’ve got a case for you. I know you like to be home when your daughter gets home from school, but this one is going to need your immediate attention.”

  The duty room was still as everyone else listened in. Margie had just solved the Fish Creek Park murder case. The next case should have gone to someone else. Although everyone else already had active files and Margie did not, so maybe that was why he had picked her.

  “Uh, yes sir. She’s
going to be later today and, of course, when it’s urgent, I can take the time I need to get started on it. She’s old enough to be on her own for a few hours if I’m needed elsewhere.”

  She didn’t ask him what he had for her but, of course, that was the question on the minds of everyone in the room.

  Mac nodded his appreciation. He ran his fingers through his short gray hair and leaned on her desk. “Here’s the thing. It’s the same MO as the Fish Creek Park murder.”

  Margie’s eyes went wide. She stared at him in surprise. “The same MO?”

  Robinson had been killed with a single stab wound. Margie had caught the killer. So they knew that it wasn’t the same killer. Just because another person was killed by a stab wound, that didn’t make it the same killer or the same case.

  “The same MO,” MacDonald agreed. “It’s another provincial park. Male victim. Single stab wound with a single-edged blade. Bled out. No apparent provocation, no one heard yelling or was aware that anything was wrong. Body discovered by a family walking the trail with a toddler in a stroller.”

  Not a dog-walker this time. But Margie was sure there were probably a number of dog-walkers close by. That one difference didn’t make the case different from the Fish Creek murder.

  She hoped that the toddler hadn’t seen anything and wasn’t old enough to remember it later. Hopefully, she had been sleeping peacefully in the stroller at the time. It was a good time for an afternoon nap.

  “Okay. I’ll look up this park and go see,” Margie agreed. “Is it near Fish Creek Park?”

  “No. Halfway to Cochrane. It’s actually outside of Calgary city limits, but we are heading it up because of the connection to the Fish Creek case. Since it looks like the same killer.”

  “It’s not, though,” Margie pointed out.

  “There’s always the possibility that we got the wrong person for the Fish Creek murder.”

  “But he admitted to it. We didn’t get the wrong person.”

  “I don’t think so either. But innocent people do confess. It’s also possible that he was released on bail or under his foster father’s supervision and is no longer in custody.”

  “But if this other park isn’t close to his home… how would he get there? He couldn’t walk there like he did to Fish Creek. Is there a bus that goes all the way out there?”

  “No, I don’t think there’s any bus service out there. Tours maybe. I’m sure it’s not related. But because of the similarity in the cases and the sites of the homicide, it’s your case.”

  “Okay. Give me the details.” Margie looked at her watch. If she remembered correctly, Cochrane was west, toward the mountains. Margie’s home was in the east, on the opposite side of the city. She was going to be more than an hour or two late getting home for Christina. Just the travel time would add an extra hour, forget any investigative work and waiting for someone from the medical examiner’s office.

  “Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park,” Sergeant MacDonald told her. He spelled it out for her. “Do you want directions?”

  “Will it be on my GPS? If it’s outside of the city, it might not be…”

  “Should be. It opened in 2011, so it’s been there long enough”.

  Chapter Two

  Margie hit the road, driving west down Crowchild Trail. Rush hour appeared to have already hit and both Memorial Drive and Crowchild Trail were heavy with traffic. Progress was slow, which meant she would be all that much later getting home to Christina. She couldn’t rush things at the murder scene. It would take time to process the scene. That was just the way it was. She used her Bluetooth to send a message to Christina, giving her an update and asking her to let Margie know when she was home.

  There were several C-Train stations down the middle of Crowchild, and the trains ran past her every few minutes. They were packed with people. Despite the pandemic and all of the new protocols to follow, a lot of people were back to working downtown, and they all needed to get home to the outlying areas. She glanced as another train went by. Most people were masked, in compliance with the by-law recently put into place mandating masks in public places and the transit system in particular. Infection numbers were down, and she hoped that they stayed low despite the reopening of the schools.

  Over to her right, there was a big white temple spire with a gold figure on top. The speed of the traffic was picking up, so she couldn’t gawk at it for long, but it was pretty. A surprise to see something like that at the edge of the city. In another minute, she had reached city limits and Crowchild Trail had turned into Highway 1A.

  There were rolling hills, but not a lot of trees like she had expected to see. She remembered how thickly Fish Creek Park had been treed and had expected the same type of scenery. There were fields and farmyards and small stands of trees here and there.

  After a while, the GPS warned her to get into the left lane, and Margie obeyed, though she couldn’t see any sign of the park. It seemed strange to have a park all the way out there. They wouldn’t get foot traffic like Fish Creek Park did. A road sign announced that Glenbow Park was three kilometers away, but the GPS urged her to turn immediately. She watched for a break in the oncoming traffic and turned left onto a gravel road. Once on the gravel road, there were a few houses off to the left and thick trees to the right. The gravel road was on an incline, down into a valley. Margie slowed down and took the gravel and the curves in the road carefully.

  Zipping down them like it was an emergency wouldn’t do her any good. She couldn’t save the man who was already dead, and if she ended up with her car in the ditch, it was just going to take that much longer to get done. Not to mention the reputation she would get. Detectives often ended up with nicknames within the department, and she did not want to be “Ditch” Patenaude.

  It was farther than she would have expected. There was a public parking area, but Margie saw a gray-shirted officer standing up by a locked gate, watching the incoming traffic. She drove up to him. He bent down to talk through her window. He wasn’t wearing a mask, and Margie pulled back, a little irritated that he would get so close to her.

  “Are you the detective?” he asked. “Uh, Detective Pat?”

  “Patenaude,” Margie agreed. “That’s me.”

  “Come on through, and drive down to the parking area beside the house.” He pointed in the direction of a big ranch house. “I’ll walk down to you after I lock up here.”

  Margie waited while he swung the big gate open, then drove down to the lot he had pointed to. The house had perhaps been someone’s home before the creation of the park. It had the feel of a family home rather than a conference or education center built by the government.

  Margie put on her mask and got out and stretched, looking around. After the golden brown grass on the fields and hills up above, she had expected a stark setting. But down in the valley, there was lush green growth—lots of trees, long grass, and wildflowers. Bees buzzed around her and orange butterflies fluttered here and there. Despite being the site of a murder, everything seemed peaceful and pleasant.

  The Conservation Officer who had let her in the gate walked down to her. “Is this your first time in the park?”

  “Yes. I’m just new to Calgary. So I’ve seen Fish Creek Park, but that’s about it. I guess you heard about that.”

  “Yeah. It was in the news and as soon as we came across the body here… well, it was just too similar to ignore. We called the RCMP; it’s their jurisdiction, but they looped your department in right away. You’re the one with the deep knowledge on the Fish Creek case, so you get control.”

  “Is the RCMP already here?”

  “They sent a couple of guys out. Our Conservation Officers controlled the scene. Just waiting on you.”

  “How about the forensic team and the medical examiner? Have they been notified?”

  “Notified, but not here yet. It takes a while to get out here, as I’m sure you found.” He looked at his watch. “An hour since we called you. And it’s rush hour.”

/>   Margie nodded. “Okay, thanks. So, where is your body? I gather it’s not in the house?” She tilted her head toward it.

  “No. We all manage to get along pretty well in the Park Office.” He gave her a roguish grin. “No murders there yet.”

  Margie smiled.

  “I’m CO Richardson.” He put out his hand to shake.

  Margie shook her head. “Sorry, no unnecessary contact,” she apologized. He should have known that. The police force, by the nature of their contact with the public at large, were already at higher risk of infection. She didn’t want to be out of work due to a virus or quarantine, or to inadvertently pass something on to Moushoom, who was vulnerable due to his age.

  Richardson rolled his eyes and lowered his hand. “If you’ll come with me, I will take you to the scene.”

  Margie nodded. She got out of the car. “How far is it? I can walk a ways…”

  At Fish Creek Park, the murder site had been too far from the parking lot for her to comfortably walk there to investigate. She hoped that the distance would be shorter at Glenbow.

  “We have almost forty kilometers of trails. The body is only a couple of clicks away, but if you want to get home to your family tonight…” He looked at his watch. Margie was sure he wanted to get back to his regular duties as well, or to sign off at the end of his day. A murder scene might be an exciting novelty, but preserving the scene and dealing with curious visitors would be a pain. And it got dark early this late in the year. Everyone would want to have the scene cleared before it was too dark to see.