Page 28 of The Burnt (The Declan Hunt Mysteries #3)

Milo looked at the clock on the wall at the Tonquin Bistro. It was twelve-thirty in the morning. All the tables had been cleared and reset for tomorrow’s opening shift. Walter, the chef, poked his nose into the dining room and said, “I’ve got something for you.”

He held out a takeout box. “I thought your cat Minx would like it. Either she gets it or it goes in the garbage bin.”

Milo opened the container which held a generous portion of salmon. “Thanks, Walter. She’ll go crazy for it.”

One of the great benefits of working in a restaurant was the availability of free food.

That wasn’t to say it was food that was always given freely by the kitchen.

Sometimes it had already been on someone else’s plate.

Milo figured there was no harm in taking it back to the kitchen and putting it in a doggie bag for himself.

He hated to see perfectly good food go to waste.

Milo decided to save the salmon for himself for lunch tomorrow.

It would go well with the large glass of leftover chardonnay that he’d managed to sneak into the Thermos he always carried in his backpack.

He trudged down the main street of Jasper, which had begun to disappear under drifts of snow. A person in a heavy parka approached him. “There’s been a cougar sighting up ahead. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“Thanks,” Milo replied.

Generally cougars avoided the town, but during the quieter winter months, it was possible for a hungry cat to wander around the deserted nighttime streets.

Milo thought of the smell emanating from the box full of cooked salmon he was carrying and quickened his pace.

He didn’t have far to go. He cut up Aspen Avenue and turned right on Geikie Street without encountering man or beast.

When he reached the house, he removed his pack and left it inside Mrs Keough’s covered porch. Then he shovelled the steps and walkway. Chores like this kept the rent on his small attic apartment low. Once he was done, he stowed the shovel away, took off his boots and entered the house.

Mrs Keough would have been in bed long before he returned from work.

She always left a light on in the living room, as well as the light up the stairs.

She was also considerate enough to leave the mesh fire guard around a bed of embers in the fireplace, which Milo coaxed back into flame.

He sat in the chair beside the hearth. Milo liked the warmth of a fire, sitting by himself in peace, no one asking him questions.

He stared into the flames. They were mesmerising.

He pondered how he’d wound up in Jasper…

how he had become the man he was today. His head began to droop.

When he woke up, the mantle clock read a quarter to seven.

Milo quietly ran upstairs to his apartment. It was really just an attic room with an enclosed washroom in one corner. He did have a small kitchen area with a bar fridge, hot plate, coffee maker and a microwave. The only sink was in the bathroom.

Minx was sitting in the middle of the floor, and Milo could tell she was annoyed. She stared at him, then stood, turned around and sat down with her back to him.

Milo considered the cat and made a decision about what he had in his pack. “I didn’t mean to be so late. But I’ve got a treat for you.”

He refilled her water bowl, then opened his pack and pulled out the takeaway box. Minx got up and started purring, rubbing against him. It appeared the gift of salmon would undo the greatest of Milo’s sins.

As she gobbled up her early morning meal, Milo sat down on the floor beside her. He lit a candle and turned off the light. He opened the Thermos and poured the wine out into one of his two tumblers. As Minx finished her fish, he reached over and gave her a scratch. She purred loudly.

“Today’s a special day, Minx,” he said raising his glass and pointing to the candle. “This is for Freddy. It’s been ten years since he”—Milo swallowed before he finished his sentence—“died.”

He looked down at the tattoo on his right calf—the initials F+M, inside a heart.

Memories flooded back. The tattoos had been Milo’s idea to celebrate their one-year anniversary.

Milo and Freddy had met at the Calgary Stampede when they were put together in the cage of the Zipper ride.

Their shared terror had sealed their bond of friendship.

Before parting, they had exchanged numbers.

After that, Milo had paid for Freddy to come out to Banff by bus from time to time.

They would meet in a gap by the fence that surrounded The Paddock.

Sometimes they would go to a movie at the Lux Cinema, sometimes they’d just take a stroll along the Bow River and sometimes they’d go for a coffee.

They had to be careful who saw them. One time Milo’s father had spotted them at a coffee shop.

Milo had told his father that he’d just been meeting a friend from school, but he was pretty sure his father had suspected it was something else.

They were more careful after that. These encounters were important.

It was a time when they could both forget their home lives and live in the here and now.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud meow.

Minx looked at the candle and leaned her head toward the flame.

She had a fine rack of whiskers on the left side, but she’d lost the ones on the right to a previous run-in with a candle, an incident that she’d apparently forgotten.

“Stay back, you dope. You don’t want to get burnt. ”

Milo stroked the side of her face and she purred loudly. As he pulled Minx up onto his lap he heard a gentle knock. He smiled and opened the apartment door.

“Good morning, Mrs Keough.”

His landlady stood in front of him. The ponytailed, grey-haired woman was in remarkably good shape for someone in her late seventies. He had once seen her win a standoff with a black bear that had discovered the juniper berries growing in her backyard.

“I’m sorry to knock this early, but I’ve had a run-in with the most obstinate jam jar.”

She was clutching her favourite Fortnum and Mason marmalade in her gnarled, arthritic hands, the only thing that revealed her true age.

“Let me help you with that,” he said. Milo made a show of struggling to open the jar that had defeated her. “That was on pretty tight.”

She took it back, then reached up and patted his cheek. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Milo.”

“Anything for you, Mrs Keough,” he said, then closed the door.

Milo went back to his spot on the floor and finished his wine, then blew out his candle and went to bed.

* * * *

Milo woke with a start, thrashing and gasping for air.

He heard a loud hiss. His pillow was on the floor, but a moment ago, he’d been sure that someone had been holding it over his face.

Milo felt something on his lips. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.

Orange hair. It hadn’t been the pillow suffocating him…

“Minx, you are such an asshole. Can’t you just bat me with your paw like a normal cat when you wanna be fed?”

He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. It was one in the afternoon. He didn’t start work until four-thirty.

Milo padded his way to the sink in the bathroom and rinsed out his mouth. Minx rubbed up against his legs then started to weave in and out between them, purring loudly.

“Just wait a second. You’re not gonna starve.”

He pulled the remainder of the previous night’s salmon out of the fridge and scooped it onto a plate, setting it gently on the floor. Minx pounced, chewing steadily through the fish.

Milo boiled a kettle of water and mixed himself an instant coffee.

He poured the extra water into a bowl of instant oatmeal, then crawled back into bed.

He thought back to his nightmare. He hadn’t had it for months.

It used to be every night. The flames. The body on the fire, then a man piling more wood on top of the flames.

He could still smell it. Meat cooking. Then the dream morphed.

Milo was standing on the outside looking in and a man was trying to smother him with a pillow, trying to silence him for good.

Milo could still picture the look on the man’s face. It was emotionless.

There was a knock at the door.

“Milo?”

“Yes, Mrs Keough?”

“I’m so sorry. I can’t seem to get my car to start. Can you take a look?”

“Just give me a sec.”

Milo threw on some clothes and reached for the small car battery jump-starter he had given her last year for Christmas.

It had cost more than he had intended to spend, but for all she had given him, she was worth it.

Unfortunately now her arthritis prevented her from attaching the clamps to the battery.

Milo smiled as he opened his door a crack. “I’ll get it started for you. Oh, and don’t worry about having to fill the car up with gas. I did that the other day when I borrowed it. I’ll be down in a sec.”

Milo closed the door, put on some socks then picked the pillow up off the floor. As he went to put it back on the bed, a heavy metal object fell out of the pillow and hit the ground.

Milo reached down and picked up the handgun, which he quickly stashed back in its hiding place. He needed to find a better place to hide the gun, but that would have to wait. Right now he had to help his unsuspecting landlady with a boost for the car he’d need to borrow again later this week.