Silent Night: A Christmas Mystery
An Amber McNeil Mystery
by Sandra Nikolai
Chapter 1
My responsibility this gray Monday morning in November was to choose the next cold case that investigators at Montreal Police Service headquarters would reopen. Selecting one case from more than eight hundred cold cases, contained in dusty bankers boxes in the storage room, was a challenge.
Yet, I was undaunted. As a consultant to investigators in the cold case unit, I was an empath and attuned to capturing eerie sounds and unnerving images emanating from the evidence in these boxes. Not that it got any easier with time. An icy sweat swept over me whenever I visited here, but determination forced me to overcome my fears.
At twenty-five years old, I’d struggled to hide my psychic gift from skeptics for what seemed like forever. But there was a positive side to owning it now. I put it to serious use every time I examined evidence and interviewed potential suspects.
Although my job might appear exciting to outsiders, it had its drawbacks. Unexpected and horrifying impressions surfaced without warning from the evidence, and I had to fight to control my emotional reactions. I often sought refuge in the conference room behind closed doors and away from the rest of the staff so as not to frighten them. In rare instances, what I perceived from the evidence wasn’t clear. Experience proved that the passage of time clarified my perceptions. My gift remained a work in progress.
The employees in the cold case unit had eventually come around to accepting the validity of my insights and my spontaneous reactions. They’d promised Lieutenant Albert Payton, our boss, to keep my secret within the boundaries of our team. The lieutenant had cited safety concerns—mine and those regarding the unit—should word get out that the police had hired a psychic consultant. Not to mention the public response it would arouse.
I continued my search down the next aisle. I slid my fingers along rows of boxes stacked on shelves, waiting for a sign that would help me make a choice. It could be an image, a perception, or anything else that a deceased victim might use to get my attention.
An icy blast of wind hit me with a wallop. I stopped, shivering as my fingers rested on a box marked “Susan Kendall, 1983.” It was the one! I lifted the box and carried it out of the storage room and down the hallway toward the office.
I passed the conference room and turned the corner into the open office area. Corey Reed and Nadia Paquin, information officers and the youngest members of our team, were busy at their desks.
Tall and slim, Corey greeted me with a hasty “Hey, Amber” before looking back at his computer screen. Nadia gave me her usual deadpan acknowledgment, then glanced away as she continued a phone conversation.
Next up was the lieutenant’s glass-walled office. It was empty. He was attending a weekly meeting with city representatives to discuss the recent increase in homicides. On his return, he’d no doubt put pressure on our recently formed unit to solve more cold cases. He often reminded us that the funds to maintain operations—and our jobs—might be cut short if we didn’t reach our quota.
Above all, I’d hate to disappoint my uncle, Ted Tremblay, who happened to be chief inspector of the Montreal Police Service. Privy to my secret gift, he’d recommended me for the consultant job to the lieutenant.
I set the box on my desk. The empty chair and tidy desktop to my left indicated that Detective Sergeant Matt Gallo hadn’t arrived yet. No surprise. He’d mentioned he had the kids on the weekend and had to drop them off at his ex’s this morning.
Detective Sergeant Ryan Baxter, my partner and criminal profiler at the unit, sat at the desk across from mine. He craned his neck around his computer and gave me a quizzical look. “You chose one already?”
“Yes.” I smiled. “There’s always one that stands out in a special way.”
“You’re right about that.” He smiled back, then puckered his lips and blew me a kiss.
Whenever Ryan flirted with me at work and risked revealing our secret relationship, my pulse quickened. I threw a hurried glace around.
Safe. No one had noticed his behavior. Our jobs were secure.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I whispered to him, aware that he wouldn’t have been so daring if someone had been observing us.
“Do what, Amber?”
His mischievous grin, warm brown eyes, and thick hair made my heart flutter. Our relationship had swiftly progressed from dating to staying the night at my place or his once in a while. Aware that he could get transferred or fired if word got out about our forbidden connection, I was comforted that we trusted each other to keep it under wraps.
I changed the subject. “Ryan, I’d like to go through the evidence in this new case before we discuss it. Okay?”
He gave me an affirmative nod. “Take all the time you need. You’ll be in the conference room?” He was well aware that my review of the evidence often resulted in unpredictable reactions.
“Yes.” I tucked my phone in my jacket and headed for the secluded room.
Alone behind closed doors, I opened the evidence box. A musty smell sprang from long-abandoned paperwork, filling my nose with a familiar old-book scent. I dug out the folder containing reports filed by police investigators in 1983 and scanned them. Whether it was due to a lack of officers or shrinking department funds at the time, statements covering interviews with witnesses and possible suspects were incomplete or missing. It meant Ryan and I would have to start the investigation into Susan Kendall’s murder from scratch.
I removed a newspaper clipping, yellowed with age. The article was published on the first page of the Willowburg Press the day after Susan’s death and included a photo of the smiling young woman with blonde hair. After the opening paragraph introduced the eighteen-year-old female victim as a former resident, the next section offered more details:
“Police investigators confirm that Susan Kendall’s body was discovered frozen the next day after a severe snowstorm. A vagrant had wandered into the alley next to a flower shop and made the grisly discovery. According to an unnamed source, the victim was friendly and bursting with ambition. She quit her job as a waitress at The Easy Diner the day before and was about to start a new life. She never made it.
Willowburg residents were aghast. ‘Nothing ever happened like this before,’ an elderly woman stammered. ‘Who would have done such a thing to this poor young woman, let alone on Christmas Eve?’
The loss of blood from stab wounds allegedly led to the victim’s demise, though medical authorities have not yet confirmed the official cause of death. Police have not ruled out foul play and are asking anyone in the area to contact them if they’ve seen any suspicious activity.”
I reached for the autopsy report. It indicated that Susan’s body had multiple cuts allegedly made with an eight-inch-blade knife commonly available. Medical authorities couldn’t confirm the exact time of death because the cold weather and heavy snowfall had hindered their efforts to do so. They estimated that Susan had died between five in the afternoon and midnight. There were no signs of a struggle, and no evidence was found under her fingernails because she wore woolen mitts. No weapon was found either.
A police investigator’s report stated that the perpetrator might have forced the victim into the alley where they would have been hidden from public view. The heavy snowstorm and nightfall would have helped to hide the attack.
I scanned another report detailing Susan Kendall’s family history. Her mother had died from a fall down the stairs when Susan was a young teen. Her father was an alcoholic and rumored to have beaten his wife and child, though records show that no charges had been laid against him.
Susan had left home months before she died. Her younger sister, fifteen-year-old Lisa Kendall, had remained with their father. She was Susan’s only sibling. When their father could no longer pay for food and other expenses, he handed Lisa over to foster care.
I shuddered. Growing up without parents? I could easily relate to that.
I was five years old when my parents were murdered, and I was adopted by my Uncle Ted and Aunt Elaine. They provided me with a comfortable home, an education, and fun outings. Because of my sensitivity to loud noises and busy environments, they understood my need for alone time. As a result, books often topped my gift requests on special occasions and were delivered in abundance.
I felt a twinge of guilt. Loving family members had taken care of me when other children hadn’t been as lucky. The painful reality? Life wasn’t necessarily fair.
I retrieved three transparent evidence bags from deep inside the bankers box and sat down. One contained an empty matchbook, another a cigarette stub, and the last one, three burnt matches. DNA testing hadn’t existed back then, so no reports from forensics were available.
I pulled on a pair of vinyl gloves and removed the matchbook. The Easy Diner was the name on the cover. Scribbled in ink on the inside were names and phone numbers. One of the names was Lisa. Probably Susan’s sister. The other names listed were Debra, Kenneth, diner, and home. As I held the matchbook, I perceived a cacophony of voices too numerous to distinguish, like a group of people talking loudly at a party. I returned the matchbook to the evidence bag.
Next up was the cigarette stub. I’d barely held it when I captured an image of a man rushing toward me with a knife. His features weren’t clear because his face was contorted in anger. My pulse accelerated. Was he Susan’s murderer?
I hastily dropped the cigarette stub into the bag. After taking a deep breath to calm down, I reached for the burnt matches in the third bag. I perceived the same image of an extremely angry man with a knife. He was charging right at me!
“No!” I jerked backwards and fell out of my chair. I regained my balance and clasped the amethyst crystal in my pocket to lessen my angst. It was a gift from my Aunt Elaine who shared the same psychic lineage as me.
There was a hard knock at the door.
I righted the chair and composed myself. “Yes?”
Ryan peeked inside, his forehead lined with worry. “Are you okay, Amber? Your scream scared the heck out of us.”
“Yes, I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“I already said I was okay.” I softened my tone. “I just need to be alone for a little while longer, Ryan.”
“You got it.” He smiled and shut the door.
I sat down and mentally replayed the elements in Susan’s case:
A young woman’s death.
A cruel father.
A snowstorm.
Christmas Eve.
Burnt matches.
A frozen body found in an alley the next day.
I’d read enough stories in my youth to recognize that the details in Susan’s case reminded me of one of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales published centuries ago. In The Little Match Girl, a poor young girl tries to sell matches in the street on a snowy and freezing New Year’s Eve. She’s afraid to go home because her father beat her if she failed to sell any. Ignored by pedestrians, she huddles in an alley and lights matches to keep herself warm. In the flame, she sees a vision of her late grandmother, the only person who treated her kindly. When the matches burn out, her grandmother carries her soul to heaven. The girl’s frozen body is discovered the next morning.
Ryan and I had investigated cold cases where an abductor used fairy tales as his mantra to “save” the children and later killed them. I questioned whether Susan’s murderer fell into a similar category. Then again, maybe my imagination was working overtime.
I was putting the items back in the evidence box when I detected another transparent bag at the bottom. I’d almost missed it. It contained a blurred black-and-white Polaroid photo. No date or other reference was inscribed on the front or back of it. A sudden feeling of dread engulfed me. The image of a young woman screaming in horror flashed before me, then vanished in the next moment.
I peered closer at the photo and trembled. It was an ultrasound image of a baby!
Was Susan pregnant when she died? If so, this revelation would put a whole new slant on our investigation.