Page 3 of In Cold Blood (High Peaks Murder, Mystery and Crime Thrillers #1)

Adirondack County, Upstate New York

Noah hadn’t slept on the five-hour flight up to Plattsburgh International Airport. Instead, he’d stared absently out the window, taking in the familiar sight of the heavily forested region.

From high above, six million acres of boreal forest stretched out like an ocean of green. The Adirondack Park was the largest protected area in the entire USA, bigger than Yosemite, Everglades, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone National Park combined.

The lush landscape held more secrets than people knew.

It looked different. Overgrown. Wild. Memories rushed back to him of camping with Luke and fishing in some of the many rivers that snaked through the emerald terrain.

As the plane banked hard and headed toward the shore of Lake Champlain, the views of majestic mountains and countless lakes were breathtaking.

Even more so since he hadn’t visited in eight years.

There were good reasons for that. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to be there, but he had created a life for himself further south in the Peekskill region. There he didn’t have to contend with the weight of his family name, its history, or expectations.

“Are you done with that, sir?”

“Sorry?”

“Your empty cup.”

“Right,” he said, handing it off.

Empty best described his emotions that morning.

The news of his brother’s death still hadn’t set in.

It was almost as if he didn’t want to believe it was true.

Statistically, the odds of an officer being killed in the line of duty were high, but in northern upstate New York?

In a small ski town like High Peaks? It didn’t make sense.

There hadn’t been an officer killed in that county since the early ’80s.

He could have flown into Saranac, to the small Adirondack Regional Airport, it would have shaved off an hour of driving time, but he wanted time to reflect and soak in the scenery. The funeral wasn’t until later that afternoon.

He rented a black Ram 1500 pickup, something sturdy, something that would allow for the off-roads if need be. From there he drove southwest toward High Peaks which was sandwiched between Saranac and Elizabethtown in the heart of Adirondack County.

The town of High Peaks had a population of just over two thousand, even less back in the early nineteenth century when it began attracting people from all over for winter sports. Since then, it had grown in size.

As he snaked through the southwest on NY-86, the arguments with his father after the Marines came back to him. Back then his father was a force to be reckoned with, a man given to outbursts and yet he could be composed the next minute.

Sheriff of Adirondack County, Hugh Sutherland always had this idea in his head of how the family would be and for the most part, he got to see it, that was until Noah was born.

A free-thinker, he didn’t want to embrace the exact family tradition, a tradition that had been ingrained for four generations.

Like those who joined the military because their father and grandfather had served — Hugh had high hopes that his offspring would follow in his footsteps.

And they had in one aspect or another. But the need to control how that played out was what had led to an estranged relationship.

Noah didn’t want to live in his shadow or be in competition with his identical twin and so he’d set his sights on the military, followed by a career with a sheriff’s office outside the county.

Noah clenched the wheel tight and turned up the air conditioning as he weaved through the Adirondack Mountains, thinking about that final night.

Hugh’s words. His decision. The incident that his father still blamed him for, although he hadn’t said it directly.

“I still can’t see why you can’t be a deputy within this county?”

“Because I want to go elsewhere. Eventually, I will join the State Bureau of Investigation.”

“Adirondack County not good enough for you?”

“It’s not like that, Dad.”

“No? Because my father, and his before him were good with it. All of the family have been involved. Now you go changing it, you know how that looks? ”

“Oh, here we go again,” Noah said. “The family lineage. Have you ever thought for a minute about what I want?”

“But it’s not just what you want, is it? Your decisions affect your younger sister and your brother. Now with all your talk of heading out, your sister is talking about wanting to be an attorney.”

“And how is that a problem? It’s still law.”

Hugh frowned.

“You know, Dad, you didn’t seem to have any problem when Ray joined the local PD.”

“That’s because he’s still in the county.”

“Why does it matter where we serve?”

“Guys, would you stop arguing,” his mother said, coming into the room.

Carol Sutherland was a strong woman who had been the voice of reason in many of the heated debates between them.

She was a peacemaker at heart, so it seemed fitting that she would become mayor and eventually go on to become a historian for the area.

From early on when Noah had shown an interest in enlisting, she’d had his back.

But that night ended very differently from the mud-slinging matches before.

Getting between them that evening, she looked as if she was about to succeed once again when without any warning, her legs buckled and she crashed to the floor.

“Carol?” his father said, crouching beside her.

Hugh scooped her up in his arms. Before he could even ask, Noah was on the phone calling for an ambulance.

Within ten minutes she was at the hospital in the critical care ward being treated for a ruptured brain aneurysm, and within twenty-four hours she was gone.

Everything changed that day.

Whatever love or peace his mother brought to the family evaporated and only grief, blame, and animosity remained.

Although the doctors said the condition was rare, with only eight to ten people per 100,000 experiencing one, that did little to alleviate or help his father.

It was like a light switch had turned off.

From light to darkness. Sadness was all that remained.

Communication between Noah and his father amounted to a nod of the head, a grunt at the end of the day or him simply walking off.

While he never said it outright, Noah knew his father blamed him.

The number of times Hugh interrupted a conversation or raked him over the coals made it painfully clear.

Then came the order. Get out and don’t come back!

Maybe it was said out of pain. Perhaps he regretted it after the words left his lips… but that had only fueled Noah’s decision to leave the county behind.

And he did for years.

The day he left, his family had gathered as they always did for a meal.

It was meant to be a get-together before he left.

His father didn’t attend. Instead, he chose to work.

It was a clear message to him about what was important.

And the sad part of it all was that Noah had taken on the same mentality, throwing himself into work and burying himself in the business of law enforcement to avoid thinking.

Noah glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

There was still time. He tapped a new address into the GPS, the location of where his brother fell. He wanted to see it by himself, away from the others, away from the eyes of those who might judge his reaction or lack of one.

He’d yet to shed a tear since getting the news. He wasn’t sure if it was over ten years of police work that had numbed him to the grim reality of death or if it was time apart, distance from the family.

An hour later, Noah turned onto New York State Route 73.

He didn’t have to go far to find the exact spot.

A large blue ribbon attached to a tree trunk at the side of the road was the indication.

Beneath it, a large cross driven into the earth.

Surrounding that were bouquets of colorful flowers, and balloons tied to weights blown around in the light breeze.

There were gifts and a slew of cards set before an enlarged photo of his brother.

A vehicle was parked at the edge of the road, a silver Land Rover. Nearby a middle-aged woman was setting down flowers.

Instead of stopping and probably scaring her by the way he looked, Noah pulled down the baseball cap on his head and drove past, opting to turn around farther down the road, hoping she wouldn’t be there when he returned.

Minutes later, relief flooded his chest. She was gone.

The road was empty. He veered off. The first thing that struck him was the remoteness of the spot.

It was strange, out of the way. High Peaks was a good forty minutes northwest while the Adirondack Sheriff’s Office was thirty minutes north.

Of course, it wasn’t unusual for a deputy patrolling the county to be in the area, but that all depended on where he was at the end of his shift.

He figured dispatch would have a record of his usual route home.

Noah stepped out of his truck and breathed in the smell of the Adirondack Park.

A dampness hung in the air and the road had a slight sheen to it from where it had rained earlier.

At the beginning of summer, it was humid and muggy.

Noah pulled at his shirt collar as he made his way over.

That day he dressed in a black suit and tie, presentable, ready for the funeral.

Until he saw his brother’s body, read the report, and spoke with the first officers on scene, he really wouldn’t have a good idea of how it all played out.

Very little had been shared. Understandably the Sheriff’s Office was tight-lipped so the only information available so far came from local media.

Snippets of aerial footage. Sound bites from the chief, BCI, and public opinion.

He’d watched several videos on the flight over.

It made him sick to his stomach. The brazen nature of it had sent shock waves throughout the quiet community.