Echoes of the Engine

Book 10: Parks Pat Mysteries (Police Procedural)

by P.D. Workman

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Looking for a gripping police procedural series set in the stunning parks of Calgary?

Derailment of Justice

Detective Margie “Parks Pat” Patenaude did not expect to be the first one on the scene at a gruesome accidental death when a walk with Stella took a sudden turn for the worse. The below-grade pedestrian crossing was supposed to prevent such things, but the homeless man encamped up the slope apparently had his own ideas.

But what she had expected to write up as a tragic accidental death takes a sudden, unexpected turn. To begin with, the victim is not what he appeared to be. But that’s just the beginning

Follow Detective Park Pat’s tracks in this fast-paced mystery.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The writing is excellent, the plot is nice and twisty and the the characters and situations are believable. I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to seeing where she takes these new characters.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is another well-written, briskly-paced mystery featuring great characters, lots of interesting glimpses into Canada’s Indigenous culture, and a satisfying resolution all wrapped up in delightful quick-read police procedural by an author who could make a description of drying paint sound fascinating.

With its fast-paced plot and unexpected twists, Echoes of the Engine will appeal to fans of suspenseful thrillers and gripping mysteries and will leave readers guessing until the very end.

Don't miss out on this thrilling page-turner! Get your copy of Echoes of the Engine today and join Pat as she unravels the truth behind a seemingly innocent train accident.

Get on-track with a new mystery today!

 

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Release date: July 19, 2024

Publisher: pd workman

Sample

Chapter 1

It was a gorgeous day, clear, sitting at ten degrees above zero, so Margie and her daughter Christina only needed light jackets, particularly when running to keep up with Stella, who was greatly enjoying her first visit to Pearce Estate Park. The leaves of the poplar trees were a brilliant yellow, carpeting the grass and the pathways, crisp and crunchy under their feet. Margie loved the fall and, so far, the season had been mild. Calgary autumns could be beautiful and breathtaking or turn snowy and deadly. They were impossible to predict.

The slightly vinegary smell of the poplars mixed with the smoke of portable BBQs set up in the picnic areas. Everyone and his dog were out to enjoy the beautiful day.

“You’re so crazy,” Margie told Stella as the dog dashed ahead, pulling on the leash to smell another tree, as enthusiastic as if it had been the first she had seen in months rather than the two hundredth today.

Christina laughed and jogged to keep up with them, her long black hair flowing loose behind her. “She’s so happy to be here.”

They stopped and waited while Stella smelled the scent post and then dashed on to the next one. Bikes whizzed by them on the pathway, the cyclists serious, heads down and eyes straight ahead, focused on their workouts. Margie watched a family with two young children at the edge of the Bow River, pointing and throwing rocks. Their words were too distant to make out.

The ground started to shake beneath their feet. Stella stopped what she was doing and looked around, her tail tucked, worried about the new development.

“It’s okay,” Margie told her. “It’s just a train.”

“It’s close,” Christina observed, looking around.

“It is. It’s going to cross the river up there.” Margie pointed to the railway bridge stretching over the Bow River. She bent down to scratch anxious Stella’s ears. “There’s no need to worry, girl. It’s perfectly safe.”

The rumbling grew louder, and they heard the train whistle. It was a familiar sound. The rumbling transformed into the rhythmic clack of the wheels as they moved over the ties. Then, the train came into view on the bridge. Red engines at the front and varicolored boxcars stretched out in a long line.

The horn sounded again, longer and more insistent this time. Margie watched it, unconcerned. She knew the train was required to blow its horn at every crossing. The crossing at Pearce Estate Park was safe, a below-grade pedestrian crossing that dipped under the train bridge so there was no chance of an unexpected encounter between train and pedestrian. A person could stand right under the tracks as the train rumbled overhead. Though it probably wasn’t a good idea with the bicycle traffic going through there. The cyclists didn’t always slow down even though they could not see around the curve or down into the dip under the tracks.

Something was wrong. The wheels started to screech, dragging over the track as the brakes were applied. The train had too much weight and inertia to stop quickly. It might take a couple of kilometers to come to a complete stop if it were going fast enough.

Christina looked over her shoulder at Margie. “Why is it stopping?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is there a switch? Is it changing directions?”

“No. There’s no switch here. I don’t know why it would be stopping.”

They walked closer, watching anxiously. Other park enthusiasts were stopping to look at the train as well. Clearly, Margie and Christina were not the only ones who thought it odd. It wasn’t normal for the train to stop there. Margie held Stella’s leash tightly as they walked up to the point where they could see the below-grade crossing. The wheels were still screeching as the train slowed and eventually ground to a halt. Then, it was suddenly too quiet. Margie gazed up at the still train, waiting. A train had two options. Forward or backward. There was no reason to stop unless it was loading or unloading and it wasn’t doing that in the middle of the park.

Margie looked up the embankment to her left. There was a worn path leading up to the tracks. Not a paved pathway, but a “goat trail” people had used to climb up to look at the tracks in the past.

“Here,” she held the leash out to Christina. “You stay here.”

Christina frowned, shaking her head and not taking the end of the leash. “Why? What are you doing?”

“I’m just going to go up and make sure everything is okay. But I don’t want Stella up there. Please take her.”

Christina took the loop of the leash reluctantly. “Mom, you should just stay down here. You’re not supposed to go up there.”

“I know. I won’t be long.”

Margie climbed up the slope, ignoring the glares of the other walkers looking on. The train was too quiet. It did not start moving again, but sat on the tracks like a cooling teakettle, creaking and ticking its complaints.

Even before Margie climbed up to the level of the train, she spotted a homeless encampment in the trees to her left: a small tent, a tarp, and a bike with a trailer. Someone who had been on the skids for a while, used to fending for himself.

Margie ignored the various Warning and No Trespassing signs posted beside the tracks and continued to press forward until she could see the dark shape that was partially on and partially off the tracks. She didn’t get too close, conscious of the need to preserve the scene.

While her first action should have been to check for signs of life, such an act seemed totally unnecessary under the circumstances.

Chapter 2

Margie stood there for a moment before acting. She wasn’t frozen, exactly. She knew what to do next; it just seemed ridiculous, like she was in the middle of a play or a scenario described in a textbook. She should not have been there. This should not be happening during her relaxing walk in Pearce Estate Park.

Eventually, she dialed 9-1-1. When she reached the emergency dispatcher, she identified herself as a homicide officer and did her best to describe the situation and location. In a dispassionate voice, the dispatcher ran through her script, not commenting on how unusual it was for Margie to be the one to call it in.

“A unit has been dispatched,” she advised Margie. “Please stay where you are and don’t touch anything. Stay well back from the train.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you want me to stay on the line with you?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Margie assured her. “I’ll wait for them to arrive. Can you transfer me over to the homicide unit?”

“One moment, please.”

In a few seconds, there was a click and the sound of a ringing line. Margie waited for it to be picked up.

“Homicide unit, Detective Cruz.”

“Cruz, it’s Patenaude.”

There was a pause while Cruz probably looked at his phone screen again. “Were you transferred by the emergency operator?”

“Yes. There’s been an incident in Pearce Estate Park. I called it in, but I thought I would get a jump on the process before the patrol gets here to take a look and agree that it is a homicide case. Are you free? And can you call the medical examiner’s office?”

“Murder?”

“Accident, I think. But we’ll need everyone in on it to do their part.”

“Sure. Fill me in.”

Margie gave him a few sparse details, then hung up so he could do his part. She wasn’t sure whether to stay at the scene or go back down the goat path to fill Christina in on what was happening. She didn’t want to leave her teenage daughter down there wondering what was happening, but also needed to keep her eyes on the scene until someone else was there to help.

She tapped on Christina’s name on her phone screen. Christina answered almost immediately.

“Mom? What’s going on? People are kind of starting to freak out. I said everyone is just supposed to stay down here, but no one wants to listen to a kid.”

“Tell them that the police are on their way and they will be in trouble if they come up here.”

“The police are on their way,” Christina repeated, warning those with her. “Why? What happened? Did it… break down? Was it sabotaged or something?”

“No. It stopped because it hit something. Just keep everyone there if you can. I’ll explain later.”

“The train hit something,” Christina again announced to her audience. “The police will take care of it.”

Margie could hear people complaining, demanding to know why it was a police matter. Getting restless.

“I’m sorry, Christina. I have to babysit the scene, or I would come down and help you. The police shouldn’t be too long.”

But of course, they couldn’t get there instantly. Margie didn’t have her radio, so she couldn’t hear whether they had scrambled more than one unit. Whether it was a car patrolling nearby or a couple of bike cops from downtown. It was fifteen minutes before a uniformed constable climbed the goat path and joined Margie.

“You’re a detective?” he asked as he approached her, black mask in place, eyes moving around restlessly to take in the scene, head on a swivel.

“Detective Margie Patenaude,” she introduced herself. “Detective Pat, if you like.”

“Constable Morris.” His eyes went to her face as he considered her, perhaps noting the facial features she had inherited from her Cree ancestors. “Parks Pat?”

Margie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Parks Pat,” she confirmed with a wry smile. “And here I am again… in another park.”

“Maybe you should stop hanging around parks,” he suggested seriously.

Margie chuckled. “I don’t think that would actually stop homicides from occurring in the parks.”

He looked as if he might doubt this, but didn’t say so aloud. “So… what have we got here?”

Margie made a motion toward the figure on the ground. “It looks as though… pedestrian met train. I don’t know anything more than that yet.”

“Did you see it happen?”

“No. It heard the train whistle, just the usual crossing signal, and then several more warning whistles. Then it hit the brakes.”

“Did you hear the impact?”

“No. The train itself is too noisy. I didn’t hear any scream, or impact, or anything like that. When the train stopped, I came up to investigate. I just… had a feeling.”

At that point, a man came walking down the tracks. Tall, slim, with a rough-hewn hatchet face. Wearing the train company’s logo on his sleeve.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded. “You can’t be here,” he told Margie. He didn’t tell the uniformed constable the same. Apparently, he recognized his jurisdiction did not extend that far.

“Calgary Homicide,” Margie introduced herself. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“You’re a homicide cop? How did you get here so fast?”

“I was in the park. Came up to check things out when I saw the train stop.”

The train employee looked around and grimaced, seeing the dark form caught under the train. But he didn’t duck into the bushes to lose his lunch. He looked experienced and stood with that particularly tall and stiff stance that suggested he had served in the armed forces, where he might have seen his share of bloody deaths.

“This is a mess,” he said grimly.

“I know,” Margie agreed. “Are you… the train engineer?”

“No, he’s still up there. Supposed to stay put. We can’t leave the engine unattended; he will need to be ready to move the train when… when it can be moved. I’m CP Rail security.”

Margie wondered whether it was usual for every train to have a security officer aboard or whether they had just lucked out in this case. She knew little about how trains or the railway police operated.

“You’ll need to stay well away from the train until the forensic guys have had a look,” she told him.

“I need to be a part of this investigation.”

“And you will be. But I’m not messing around with the evidence, either. I’m waiting for the science guys to do their thing so I don’t contaminate anything.”

He grunted and scowled.

“Can you watch the scene for a moment?” Margie asked Morris. “I just need to talk to my daughter.”

He nodded his agreement. “Sure.” He stood with his feet apart in a wide base, his thumbs in his belt, looking solid and immovable. Margie was satisfied that he could handle anything that came up while she went back to talk to Christina.

She descended the goat path to the paved pathway, where Christina and a large number of bystanders were now waiting, watching, and speculating. A murmur went up with Margie’s arrival. Constable Morris’s unit was pulled over on the pathway, blocking most of it, lights still flashing, but there was a sliver of pathway to allow pedestrians and cyclists to get by it. Another cop stood at the bottom of the path to prevent anyone from going up. Morris’s partner. He frowned at Margie as she descended.

“Where did you come from?”

“I called it in.” Margie felt awkward, with no badge or identification to show him. She wanted to do something with her hands. “Detective Patenaude, Homicide. But I was here with my daughter and want to make sure that she is okay.”

He studied her briefly, then nodded and let her pass without another word. Margie slipped past him and gave Christina a hug, quick and tight, assessing her.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. It isn’t like I saw anything.”

“No. But it can still affect you. Your adrenaline is pumping. You know something happened.”

“Yeah. So what was it? What’s going on?” Christina looked around at the other people waiting for her, who were also eager to find out the details. They were nodding and murmuring their questions and encouragement.

Margie pressed her lips together. She couldn’t speak for the department. She knew she needed to be careful what she said. She couldn’t give anything away, yet she couldn’t pretend nothing was happening.

“Well, there isn’t much I can say yet. We need to conduct our investigation before I can say anything that might make it to the media. There has been an unfortunate accident. Until we know more, that’s all I can say.”

“The train hit someone?” Christina asked baldly.

“Well… that may be. But we won’t know for sure what happened for some time yet.”

Christina rolled her eyes. She knew how cops talked. It didn’t take much to figure out that was exactly what had happened. Still, the police couldn’t say anything until they had informed the next of kin and had word from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the crime scene investigators who would be there shortly to gather evidence. With the involvement of the train, Margie supposed there would also be some kind of accident reconstruction team. The public would need assurances that it wouldn’t happen again. Margie wasn’t sure what the railway company would do to show that they had increased security and made it seem safer.

“I can’t believe that happened,” Christina said. “And when we were right here! It’s crazy.”

“I know. This wasn’t what I had planned for the day. I wasn’t expecting to have to deal with an incident at the park. I was just supposed to be walking Stella and getting some fresh air.”

Margie scratched Stella’s ears. Stella wagged her tail hard, delighted with the attention. Margie was sure she was bored standing around.

“Why don’t you take her further down the pathway for a walk? Take your time, then maybe when you get back here, I’ll be able to tell you something… like how long I’ll be stuck here.”

“I’ll just wait here.” Christina looked down at Stella and reconsidered. Stella was a sweetheart, but she could be a real stinker when she got bored. “Oh, all right. But I might have to stop in Inglewood and buy pizza.”

That sounded like a good idea. Margie reached for her wallet. “I’ll give you some cash—”

“I don’t want cash. Just e-transfer me.”

Margie shook her head. “All right. Maybe get me a couple of slices, too. I don’t know how long it will be before I can think about going home. I might need something to hold me over if I end up being here all day.”

“All day?” Christina repeated in dismay.

“I’m sure I won’t be here all day,” Margie assured her, though she wasn’t at all sure of that. “I’ll update you when I know something. Just keep yourself and this furry beast occupied for a while.”

Christina nodded her agreement. “Send me thirty,” she advised. Margie didn’t argue.