Not Your Child

RCMP Constable Kenneth MacCormick parked his SUV at the edge of the road, stopping short of the accident.

The snowstorm had definitely ended. The Alberta sky was a brilliant blue, and the sun reflecting off the snow-covered fields was blinding, though it brought no warmth. The temperature was minus 21 Celsius.

Snow was piled high on either side of the road. He walked ahead to the scene marked off with flares, his boots crunching on the snow. Jerry Kowalczyk from the Ponoka detachment was waiting for him. “Mac, you’re not gonna like this.”

Mac nodded to Jerry. “You were first on the scene?”

“Yeah, first police. George Sanders called it in—he saw it when he came by with the snowplow this morning.”

They stood side by side, gazing into the deep ditch and the pickup truck half-buried in snow at the bottom. The truck lay tipped on its passenger side, nose against the far bank.

“Are those your footprints?” asked Mac.

“Yeah, mine and George’s. He went down to see if anyone needed help, saw there were two people but they were dead. I went down too to make sure.”

Mac considered the scene. “So what happened here?”

“It’s a mess. Looks like they were hit head-on; the whole left-hand side of the cab is smashed in. The driver’s airbag inflated, but that wasn’t enough to protect him. The woman was in the passenger seat and didn’t have her seat belt on. She went through the front windshield.”

Mac whistled. “Whatever hit them had to be travelling at quite a clip.”

Jerry cleared his throat and spat. “Yeah, for sure. But that’s not all. There are a lot of other footprints down there, partly full of snow. Somebody else was there before us, a while after the accident but before the snow stopped. They did quite a bit of walking around the vehicle. I have no idea what they were doing.”

Mac frowned. “Anything else?”

“Well, there’s a baby’s car seat in the back seat. But it’s empty.”