Fiction

: Published: 24 May 2016

lake-cottage - by Kelly Babcock

The cottage is still, peaceful and quiet. This won't last, the hour hand is still to the right of the six and the slant of the dappled sunlight coming in through the east windows creates one of those scenes that once again makes you wish you could paint or that you had figured out how to use that damned ...

: Published: 13 July 2015

Newspaper-reg Read Scene 1 and Scene 2 and Scene 3 and Scene 4

-by Jake Doherty

Within minutes of the OPP arrival on a gloriously bright December day, the coroner pronounced that Captain Jonas Adams and his friend has been dead for five or six weeks and that death for one was probably caused by a blow to the head with a blunt weapon and gun shot to the ...

: Published: 12 July 2015

windowwinter-feature Read Scene 1 and Scene 2 and Scene 3

-by Jake Doherty
No one slept easily that night, scrunched together with no blankets and only packsacks under their heads. Three of the four cell phones brought by the birders were now dead.
As dawn began to ...

: Published: 10 July 2015

Read Scene 1 and Scene 2.

-by Jake Doherty

Constable Exner had other priorities. A lanky man from northern Alberta who had come east when his banker father was transferred to Owen Sound, Exner had lived in the Bruce long enough to respect squall weather in winter. Offshore winds were already picking up. Roads would close, schools would shut down in the morning when nothing could move in the blinding blur of wind-whipped snow.
Even on a crime scene.
"If you'll pardon an old woman, Constable, sir," said Nellie, hands on her ample hips, looking out the window, "them bodies aren't moving out of here tonight, no hurry for the coroner now, so let's divide my gang into two groups and--"
"Nellie this is police business, and I wish you ...

: Published: 08 July 2015

Snowhandsfeature Read Scene 1

-by Jake Doherty

Complications set in quickly. After several tries on a cell phone, one birder reached his wife at Lion's Head, midway up the Peninsula who, in turn, reached the Ontario Provincial Police detachment in Wiarton. The OPP quickly contacted officers checking snowmobile trails in the Cabot Head area and diverted them to the old cabin hidden in the evergreens and shore rocks circling Windfield Basin.
At first sight, nothing was obvious except that the victims looked as though they had been dead for some time. That removed any suspicion that Nellie or her birder friends could possibly be suspects or even, persons of interest. Early winter storms had wiped out any tracks left by the killer – or killers for that matter. Nor did the deceased still have their wallets with them.
Except that Capt. Adams, however, still had his military dog tags around his neck under a heavy turtleneck that the killer had ignored. Only one bag of clothing for two victims, just a satchel really with a small shaving kit, and only little leftover food, barely enough to sustain them for no more than two or three days.