The Wrong Words: Adam Norcross Mysteries, #1

Chapter One 

Thirteen and a half pounds of cat hit the hardwood floor and roused Adam Norcross. 

Perkins was awake.

Despite his black mood, Adam tracked the sound of claws hitting hardwood as the feline moved through the house. As clicking drew closer, Adam’s annoyance grew.

He opened his eyes and glanced at his wristwatch. The time piece said one minute to four o’clock in the afternoon. No matter, if the animal thought he could intimidate Adam, well good luck with that, chum. 

These sorties with Perkins were his only wretched entertainment. Was this how low grief had made him sink? Head games with an old cat?

The door to the study creaked wider as the feline nosed his way in. The enormous black and white feline landed by Adam’s feet on the brown leather ottoman. In the dim light, large green eyes glowered at him with what Adam suspected was utter disdain. 

During the first week he’d been back in his childhood home, Adam and Perkins had avoided each other. It had been easy since Adam was only in the house long enough to shower, change clothes, and catch a few hours of sleep.

Mrs. Murphy, who lived close by, popped in daily to feed the cat, and to do the usual. The middle-aged housekeeper, as she labeled herself, was usually a woman of sunny disposition. As such things went, her check-ins had turned melancholy in nature. All due to the updates Adam supplied about his mother, Evelyn Norcross, and none of the updates were good. 

Adam would return home from the hospital in the evening to find Mrs. Murphy had left a casserole of some type complete with instructions for reheating the food. He hardly noticed. Food wasn’t a priority and neither was the cat who loathed him.

In time, it became necessary to explain his mother’s decision, her wish to discontinue all treatments.

The neighbour’s dark brown eyes watched him steadily as he gave her the news. She nodded sadly, resigned. I wish Evelyn would keep fighting. The older woman heaved a huge sigh and wiped away her tears. But she won’t get any better, I get that. I’m only being selfish. We’ve been friends such a long time.

While Adam understood these same arguments, accepting them didn’t prevent the suffocating blackness from engulfing him. He pushed on despite it.

Evelyn Norcross had passed on over a week ago. He’d dealt with the funeral, his mother’s friends, and the other required tasks. Now he was alone. 

The darkness sucked away his energy. He had no interest in doing anything outside of dealing with his most basic needs. Today was his ninth day at home. Adam was trying to find a way to get through darkness, though it was easier to let the grief takeover take over or sleep to fill his afternoons.

He managed a grunt to acknowledge Perkins’ presence. The cat answered back with a sound somewhere between a meow and a squawk, his usual request for attention. The cat’s demands didn’t bother Adam. In actuality, he welcomed the conflict as a distraction. Let the power struggle begin anew.

They stared at one another for a brief moment. Adam was first to look away. He irritably pushed the knitted blanket aside and ran his hands over his face in an attempt to rub away the mental sticky residue daytime naps caused.

Another squawk emitted from the fur ball, along with the pressure of one paw on

Adam’s left shin. Perkins employed surgical skill, a single claw slid through the material of his jeans and rested sharply on Adam’s skin.

Don’t be a bully, Perkins. Adam sat up in the leather easy chair, dislodging the paw. He refused to give into being bossed around by a cat. I’ve dealt with tougher adversaries than you, you know.

Perkins’ flat expression said he was unimpressed.

I know the time, Adam said as the cover slid onto the carpet.

The mobile phone on the table beside the brown leather easy chair rang. He knew before he looked, it would be a work call. 

Adam scooped up the device and frowned at the display. Not his usual handler, Maisy, but his boss, Walter Shapiro.

Norcross, he said, the phone to his ear as he extracted his right leg from Perkins’ clutches. Adam dropped his sock feet to the forest-green Persian carpet. 

This is Shapiro, where are you?

Perkins continued to glare at him so Adam twisted to the right. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable under the cat’s stare, which was ridiculous.

At...home, sir. Maple Bay, British Columbia. Adam’s eyes traveled over the furnishings of his mother’s study as he spoke. Or used to be home.

He’d said home, but was it, really? Truthfully, not for many years. The book-lined walls of the room and the massive cherry wood desk should have made the room feel claustrophobic, but didn’t. The room merely made him feel comfortable. He could still feel his mother’s presence here. Especially when he looked at the impressive rows of books she had authored. 

Doctor Paul Flete. The name should mean something to you. Walter Shapiro was never one for small talk.

Norcross lifted his chin and blinked. Paul Flete, born in Saint John, New Brunswick, obtained a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from UNB Fredericton. Advanced Maths studies were obtained at Harvard University. His PH. D in mathematics is from University of British Columbia, Vancouver campus. Adam rattled off the facts which surfaced easily. 

Being required to engage his brain had the side benefit of lifting his mood marginally. Doctor Flete was involved with the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans at University of Washington. After that, he labeled himself a climate scientist and worked on the UN panel for climate change from 2012 to 2018. 

Privately, Adam wondered how maths figured into one becoming a climate change expert, but then it might be all about the statistics. Flete currently teaches at Salish University in Victoria and is a co-chair of the Green Earth Foundation along with his wife, Marylou Flete. He is one of the chief advisers to the PMO and the federal government’s climate change strategy. There were other, personal facts, about the doctor in Adam’s memory, likely none of it was important to Shapiro at the moment.

And a close personal friend to the Prime Minister, his boss supplied as if this was the most pertinent fact.

That too, he’s on the list. Norcross agreed neutrally. Anyone who had the direct number of the PM was on ‘the list’.

Do you have any impressions of Doctor Flete?

Not personally, no, I’ve never met the man. I’ve only ever read the data on him. It was part of Adam’s job to be nonpartisan and this stance had never bothered him. He wasn’t required to have an opinion on the PM’s friends. Or, anyone else he investigated for the PMO, even those who influenced federal policy. 

Yes, all of that was in your report on Flete. Shapiro grunted and then took a breath. 

Norcross rubbed his forehead with his fingertips and held back a sigh. He didn’t ask his boss why he’d called. Shapiro was about to get to the point. Norcross knew the reason. Death.

Doctor Flete’s car was reported to be in the ‘ditch’, for lack of a better word, this afternoon. Shapiro’s voice was cool and detached. The vehicle appears to have been there a while, possibly overnight. The RCMP is investigating and currently on scene. Sergeant Bethany Leith is lead on this. The sergeant plans to extract said vehicle approximately an hour from now.

Adam didn’t need his precognition ability to know what Shapiro’s next words would be.

The location is somewhere off of the Malahat highway and I want you there.

As always in these situations, after the trigger words were said, Norcross would know what was to happen next. He merely waited for his boss to continue.

I suspect if the professor is in the vehicle, and he’s been in it all night, Doctor Flete could very well be dead.

No doubt he’d have called for help otherwise, Norcross said. 

Yes, Shapiro agreed. Doctor Flete lived in Oak Bay with his wife until a month ago when they separated.

Oak Bay is in the opposite direction of the Malahat. He was traveling to a new residence?

Exactly, Flete also didn’t show up for work this morning and no one raised the alarm. Not his co-workers, estranged wife, nor the dean of his faculty.

I see. It was rather strange no one was concerned the eminent professor was missing.

The PM wants someone to take a look-see. If the professor is dead, I want you to find out how Flete met his end. Whether by suicide, misadventure, or more something nefarious. Report back to me personally with whatever you find out. We can’t have this coming back on the PM, taking him unawares. 

Adam frowned. Understood. The PM’s media staff would want to get ahead of the press to avert disaster. With a ready counter to whatever was discovered about the scientist who advised the country’s leader on climate change policy. How this was of importance to the PMO escaped him.

Shapiro was silent for a moment. When he spoke again his tone was pensive. Are you up to it, Norcross? There was caution in Shapiro’s tone,

Yes sir, I expect so. He rose to his feet as he replied and the dark mood further receded as his brain fully engaged. How difficult could it be?

Not too soon, I hope?

No sir, Norcross said, realizing it was true and more than a little surprised at the revelation.

Shapiro gave him the location. Sorry to hear about your mother, Norcross.

Thank you, sir.

Call me when you know something.

I will do. But the line was already disengaged. Adam slid his phone into a back pocket. 

He knew the protocol. First thing upon finding the doctor’s car, the authorities would have run the plates to identify the owner. Somewhere in the system, Paul Flete’s name triggered the process to alert Norcross’ office, and thus Shapiro. This was all because the doctor was included in a group of people who could access the country’s second highest office on a whim. While it was true the PM’s office was technically second when it came to authority, under the Governor General, that didn’t mean the GG held more power. No, the power to make laws and drive policy was held by Parliament and directed by the PMO. That was, as long as Prime Minister Binnette could hold onto power, a tenuous thing in a minority government.

Adam picked up the tan blanket and draped it over the chair. He concentrated momentarily on the issue of the university professor. He waited for something to come to him. Call it intuition, a gut feeling, but no insight was forthcoming. Annoyingly, his precognition never kicked in when he wanted it to.

He’d have to wait and see what was discovered. This could be as simple as a highway mishap or a health issue. It could have been a heart attack at the wheel, but probably not. Shapiro had mentioned suicide. Why would the man want to commit suicide? This was the question which niggled at him now. Merely because Shapiro ordered him in to work with the RCMP, didn’t mean anything nefarious had happened to Flete.

Speaking of nefarious, Adam slid his gaze back to the waiting cat. Come on, I’ll feed you before I go.

Perkins hopped down from the ottoman and swiftly preceded Adam to the kitchen.

There was little catlike grace to the animal’s movements. Usually, Perkins sauntered around the house more stiff-legged. However, add the prospect of food and the cat could move, if inelegantly.

Besides the study, the kitchen was Adam’s favourite part of the house. The room always felt warm and welcoming. He held many happy memories sharing meals with his mother and grandparents growing up, as well as learning to cook. His mother believed everyone needed life skills, cooking was but one.

The white shaker cabinets, with black fittings, echoed the external kitchen door which led to the garden out back. The dark walnut floors continued from the front of the house into this room and gave the space an open-air feel.

Later, after university in England, he’d brought is wife Margaretta home for holidays to spend with his mother, by then his only other family. Not that there had been many, such was the nature of his job and Margaretta’s teaching career.

The image of his lovely Margaretta and mother sitting across from one another, bathed in warm morning sunlight popped into his head. The two women he loved most in the world laughing over some shared joke at the wide-planked kitchen table while they sipped their morning coffee. Discussing something he’d said or done to gently tease him.

Adam swallowed the rising emotion and cleared his throat. He glanced to the east side of the room, weak light leaked in through the trees, the sun would set soon on the other side of the house. Inexplicably, he felt cold.

Maybe he was wrong. Was it too soon to take on Shapiro’s task? Adam took a slow breath and let it out just as slowly.

You’re turning into such a head case, he muttered. The realization annoyed him further. No, and it was too late now, he’d accepted the assignment. Be happy you have something to do, a distraction. Adam walked sock footed across the kitchen. He had to acknowledge it was better to be busy than let this black mood swamp him. Focus, he murmured as he opened the refrigerator and extracted a can of cat food.

Holding his breath, he peeled off the plastic lid and grabbed a spoon from the drying rack. A wet pinkish-grey gob dropped into the cat’s dish, next to the full water container.

God, this stuff is disgusting. He snapped the white plastic lid back on, placed the can back in the fridge, and methodically rinsed the spoon and washed his hands. The spoon then went into the dishwasher to be disinfected.

Adam watched Perkins for a moment, the cat made short work of the horrible stuff.

Complete with moist smacking noises. His lip curled in disgust.

In the course of his job, Adam handled many things the average person would baulk at. He wasn’t usually squeamish. But there was something particularly nasty about tinned cat food. Probably, because there was nothing even remotely resembling food in the mush. Leaving the cat to his meal, Adam turned away and walked down the hallway.

His eye caught on the hardcover book his mother had given him in the hospital. It still lay on the small entryway table where he’d left it, beside the copper bowl used to hold keys and other flotsam. This book wasn’t an Evelyn Norcross novel, but authored by someone his mother admired. 

He hadn’t opened the hardcover book to even read the inscription. He couldn’t muster the energy to care when he’d dropped it there several days ago. It had been one of his mother’s last lucid moments when she’d told him about a book she wanted him to read. Later, after she was gone.

Adam took it up now and turned the book over in his hands. The title read Twelve Rules for Life. His mother read widely, but it was odd she’d pick this particular book for her son. Somewhat late in the game to choose reading material for him, he thought. Did she think his life needed more order?

It was his assumption the advice in this ‘self-help’ book was to do with handling grief. Something he acknowledged he was poor at. Adam felt little desire to even open the book, so he put the volume back down on the table. He resolved to take a quick look at the hardback later. Even if only to assuage the niggling of the unfulfilled promise he’d made to his mother to read it.

Adam knew he was stalling, hesitating leaving the house. This was not like him at all. Evelyn Norcross would be the first person to point out this out of character, nonproductive behaviour. No doubt the very reason for the book she’d given him. His mother had seen the mess he’d been after Margaretta had passed away. It’s been over a month, Adam. You need to go back to work, this isn’t healthy. You’d wallow for the rest of your life if I don’t give you a stiff boot in the arse.

His mother was nothing if not straight forward. Evelyn could be annoyingly right a lot of the time too.

Everyone has dead, Adam. Me, you, Ella, she’d said, referring to Mrs. Murphy. All of us. We don’t forget them, but we need to go on afterward, that’s what life is all about. Easier said than done, Mom.

But he did have a job to do and must apply himself.

Adam needed shoes and a coat. The mountain highway would be cold even this early in winter, so he put on his thick black woolen coat. As he buttoned the front, he remembered his mother commented she liked this coat on him. The colour makes your prematurely grey hair look less old guy and more young man. The left side of his mouth twitched at the thought as he plucked the car keys out of the bowl on the hall table. 

As he closed and locked the front door, he realized his gloves weren’t in the coat’s pockets. He’d do without, it couldn’t be that cold. It was only the first week in December.

Adam walked over to his mother’s car parked beside the detached garage. The vehicle didn’t have winter tires installed. Evelyn took the bus if she needed to go into the city. Adam just hoped the cops wouldn’t notice the car's inadequate treads.

Chapter Two

The high-altitude wind bit Norcross in the face. He turned up the collar of his coat to try to ward off the worst of it. The cold made him wish he’d looked for his gloves and scarf. His hands inside the coat pockets only did so much.

Upon arriving at the site after a thirty-minute drive, Norcross parked the Mercedes behind other official vehicles. He walked up to the first cop wearing a high visibility yellow jacket. This highway and the districts of Duncan and North Cowichan all fell under the federal law enforcement agency jurisdiction of the RCMP. Showed his identification to the serious young man and explained his presence. Then he waited patiently for the traffic control officer to radio his supervisor. Finally, Norcross was waved ahead and allowed to proceed forward to speak to Sergeant Leith.

The growing dark was punched by artificial lights and made the going a touch easier. The intense glare came from the floodlights set up by the authorities, and SUV headlights. A couple of lights illuminated the roadside, but most were directed downward, over the edge of the highway.

What Shapiro had termed ditch was revealed to be the side of a mountain. The same mountain which lent its name to this particular section of the four-lane TransCanada highway. The Malahat.

Norcross wasn’t close enough to see the incident site itself, but he could feel the sergeant’s glare from several yards away. He turned toward her. It was better to walk over and introduce himself first before having a look. 

Sergeant Leith? Adam Norcross, he said as he held out his right hand, stiff with cold. I’ve been asked by my boss to offer my services to you and the RCMP. It was a polite way of saying a federal suit from Ottawa was being foisted on her, but from Sergeant Leith’s expression she appeared to know this.

Is that so? The female cop was tall and had a lean athletic build. Leith’s long dark hair was subdued into a tight French braid and rolled into a bun at the back of her head. She had serious dark brown eyes which seemed to penetrate everything under her regard. It was clear to anyone she was in charge of this site, and he’d better toe the line.

Wordlessly, he offered her his ID.

Leith continued to give Norcross a hard look and then dropped her gaze to study his credentials. The sergeant looked directly back at him. She didn’t like the situation. At all. 

I might be able to assistance you. I’m only doing as I’ve been ordered. This was a pivotal moment, he felt it. The cop could refuse his help. She wasn’t obligated to accept his presence. Now faced with the prospect of not being allowed to participate in the investigation, he felt he had to, it was like a compulsion.

By way of answer, Leith unclipped her radio mic. Keeping her eyes on Norcross, she called in a request for verification to her Inspector. Stay out of the way until I hear from Taggard, she ordered him, and clipped her mic back onto her tactical vest under the neon yellow jacket. 

Of course, he said and stepped back, feeling more than a little relieved she hadn’t merely told him to go pound sand. He did have the authority to pressure his way in, but that was never a good technique to begin any investigation. He’d let Shapiro handle that bit if it came to it.

Leith handed him back the black leather folder which held his ID and then abruptly walked away. She headed over to speak to the tow truck driver who’d just driven up in a red and chrome monster of a truck. 

Norcross eyed the site. He noted the bare maples and green Sitka spruce, along with the towering cedars, all moving with the wind against the darkening sky. Roughly two feet of snow was piled up on the roadside from a snowfall at least a day ago. The snow piled up closest to the bare pavement was dirty brown from the constant traffic. 

He hesitated to think of Doctor Flete’s plummet off the mountain road an accident. The word accident, by definition, implied no one was at fault, and that fact was as yet, unknown. 

Norcross moved to the edge of the highway. He hunched his shoulders against the cold as he examined the road. First, he studied the pavement then he moved onto the spot where the car had been launched over the side. The depth of the ruts in the soft shoulder, and the angle the vehicle had taken as it left the road, suggested to Norcross the car had been traveling at a reduced speed. Curious. 

He pivoted to stand on the shoulder of the road and looked down at the trapped vehicle. The sight of the small car ensnared between the mountainside and an arbutus tree was the trigger. Norcross felt the certainty wash over him. This was not an accident. 

Over his forty-two years, Norcross learned to never doubt his ability to intuitively know things. The ability had saved his life more than once, even if the talent was a fickle beast. It would also be a while before enough evidence could be compiled to support his conviction. Besides, he didn’t know if this incident was the result of Flete’s hand or someone else’s. 

It was no small wonder the doctor’s car hadn’t been noticed by anyone during the morning rush hour, it being over ten feet below the road’s edge. What also occurred to Adam that if the tree’s limbs hadn’t caught the car, Flete would have been missing for quite some time. He doubted that even during full daylight anyone could see down the mountainside when driving by. Suicide or something more sinister?

Norcross