Her friends giggled and hooted, but Christa ignored them. “Yeah, I’ll protect you from those idiots.” Shelter had laughed and nodded. He noticed her glance down to where his ripped shirt exposed half of his chest. “Okay, sounds like a deal.” She was still standing there with a friend when he came back from the car.
They danced together all night and afterward walked to the beach, where they kissed under a dome of stars. They were together through the summer: the Winnipeg Folk Festival, a canoe trip and lots of nights in his apartment in Winnipeg. When it was time to go back to university, she moved in with him.
Gimli’s main drag led to a long cement jetty in the shape of a J that created a harbour for pleasure boats and the commercial fishing fleet. To the left was the long municipal beach where he’d taken Christa all those years before. He made a turn on the last street before the lake and drove to the northern edge of town. Pulling into the dirt driveway of his in-laws’ white bungalow, he tooted his horn. It was just after 6:00 p.m., and the sun was still high — the long days were one of the best things about the early summer.
When she was a little girl, Kelsey used to run to the car when he arrived. Those days were over. She waited inside the screen door and had to be shooed forward by her grandmother.
“Hello, Kel.” Shelter put his arms around her and gave her a kiss that landed on her forehead near her hairline. She squirmed away, not answering.
Joan Arnason watched from the front porch. “Wash up, Mike. Dinner’s almost ready.”
Shelter noted that Kelsey’s jeans were cut off high, and her strappy tank top revealed a jogging bra. He thought it was inappropriate but let it go. You had to pick your battles. “What’s for dinner?”
“Steaks are on the barbeque,” Joan replied over her shoulder.
“I knew it,” Shelter said with a smile.
“And those tiny potatoes,” Joan said. “Oh, and peas — they’re so sweet, I had to save you some from Kelsey. She eats them like candy in front of the TV.”
Shelter made his way through the kitchen, slid back the screen door, and stepped out onto the large deck. Growing up, he’d spent his summers at Lake of the Woods, two and a half hours east of Winnipeg. He would always prefer its granite cliffs, wind-swept pine trees, islands and channels. But he’d come to appreciate Lake Winnipeg’s own beauty, its expanse, stretching to the horizon, fine white sand beaches and its wildness when whipped up by a storm. Now, with the early evening sun glinting off the water, the lake was calm.
Sigudur Arnason was standing at the rail, looking over the water with his back to him. He turned and nodded. “Mike,” he said. He made no move to shake hands and instead went to the barbeque. He held a bottle of Molson Canadian.
“How’s it going?”
“It’s going. You want a beer?”
Without waiting for an answer, Arnason hobbled to the screen door and was soon back with a bottle for Shelter and a fresh one for himself. At seventy-two, Arnason was compact and strong, although he’d lost much of his once impressive muscle mass with age. He had a bad hip from years of fishing on the lake but refused to consider a replacement.
From his name to his blue eyes and right down to his work as a commercial fisherman, Sig Arnason was every millimetre a descendant of the first Icelandic pioneers who settled this side of Lake Winnipeg in 1875. They called the territory New Iceland, but during the first harsh winter they had to rely on the generosity of Indigenous people for food, advice and even clothing to help them survive the snow, ice and frigid temperatures. At the time, the province of Manitoba didn’t extend as far north as the colony, and the Icelandic settlers adopted their own constitution, laws and system of representational government until it was folded into the newly enlarged province of Manitoba in the 1880s. Manitoba became home to the largest Icelandic population outside of Iceland, but it wasn’t until Shelter first started dating Christa that he realized he’d grown up surrounded by families whose names ended with “son,” the descendants of those settlers.
“How’s the fishing?” Shelter asked.
“Not so bad. Monday’s the last day of the season,” Sig said, absent-mindedly picking at a callous on a hand made rough and scarred by a lifetime of spreading nets, pulling fish into the boat and wielding a filleting knife in the wooden shack that stood near the waterline.
“I hope Kelsey’s not too much trouble,” Shelter said, glancing over at this daughter seated in a lawn chair, her eyes on her iPhone.
“She’s a good worker, like her mother.” Sig didn’t look at Shelter but instead opened the top of the gas barbeque. Arnason waved away a cloud of smoke rising from the grill and set about flipping three T-bone steaks. Shelter and the old man had stood side by side in a hospice room for the terminally ill and watched Christa slip away, but it hadn’t drawn them any closer. Shelter never understood why his father-in-law had taken a dislike to him, and the old man wasn’t the type to share his feelings. Still, the distance between them was made up for by their common love for Kelsey and by Shelter’s warm relationship with Joan Arnason. Besides helping each other through those terrible days in the hospital and after, he and Joan had also been allies in trying to get Sig off the lake once and for all. He was still strong, but his memory was starting to play tricks on him.
Kelsey was working her phone, sending a text to one of her friends. “Hey, can you put that thing away and join the conversation?” Shelter said. The girl wrinkled her nose, drew her lips into a scowl, and continued tapping the phone. Shelter tilted his head back and looked to the sky.
Joan Arnason appeared on the deck with a drink. “The peas are done. You almost ready, Sig?” She sat down at her place at the glass patio table that had already been set for dinner. “I know this is your line of work, Mike. But if I were a detective, I would suspect our Kelsey has a boyfriend.”
“I do not, Grandma!” Kelsey shot back.
Shelter raised an eyebrow and looked at his daughter. “Who’s this?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend, okay?”
Joan Arnason smiled and turned to Shelter. “I read in the paper about those two Indian girls. What’s going on in that city?”
“Life,” Shelter said. He sighed and shook his head. “It’s nice to make it up here for a few hours.” The sun was softening, and a warm breeze was blowing off the lake.
“Okay. Let’s eat,” Sig Arnason said from the barbeque.
After Joan had cleared the dinner dishes, Kelsey retreated to the living room. Shelter took the opportunity to talk to his in-laws about keeping Kelsey in Gimli for the school year. “I’m not comfortable with it.”
Sig wrapped a hand around his beer bottle and gave a shrug. “She’s the one who asked.”
“I miss her, and I think it’s best if she comes back to Winnipeg.” Shelter said nothing about his doubts about the quality of education she’d get at the high school in town compared to what Winnipeg had to offer. He’d been an indifferent student himself, much less diligent than Kelsey. If he were honest, he couldn’t be sure his thinking didn’t reflect prejudices about rural life or the reality of limited resources in a small town. Either way, he knew it would be offensive to his in-laws.
Just at that moment, Kelsey appeared at the screen door. She’d been eavesdropping on the conversation from the kitchen.
“What’s your problem?” she demanded. “I’m staying.”
“Kelsey, don’t speak to your father like that,” Joan said.
“I’m not going back to the city,” she shouted.
“That’s enough,” Shelter said, his voice rising.
“You’re never even at home,” she said through the screen. “What does it matter if I’m there or not?”
“That’s not fair to me or your grandparents. You’re coming home at the end of the summer, and that’s it.”
Silence, and then tears began rolling down Kelsey’s cheeks. She ran to her bedroom, slamming the door.
It took Shelter a moment to recover from the shock
. He got to his feet and marched down the short hall that led to the bedrooms. Somewhere deep in his brain, he knew he should back off until they’d both cooled down, but he was being pushed forward by something stronger.
He knocked on her door. “We need to talk.”
“No, go away. I hate you.”
“Open this door right now.”
“No!”
“Mike.” It was Joan. She’d put a hand on his shoulder and was speaking in a calm, soothing tone. “Come sit down. You can talk later.”
The next morning, Shelter came awake with a jerk. He looked to his right and saw the digital clock glowing 6:00 a.m. on the bedside table. His cellphone was buzzing in the pocket of his pants on a chair. He fished it out. It was Inspector Neil MacIsaac.
“Where are you?” MacIsaac asked without preamble.
“What’s up?”
“There was a shooting on Higgins last night.”
“Yeah, okay.” Shelter pictured in his mind the city’s skid row just off Main Street.
“One of our guys shot a Native man just after two in the morning,” MacIsaac said. “In the back.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yup. The guy is in critical condition. We’ve got that march today, so the powers that be are, ah, let’s say, upset. They want all hands on deck. So, you need to get downtown ASAP.”
Shelter ended the call and rolled out of bed. He pulled on his shorts and tiptoed to the bathroom, where he quietly brushed his teeth and shaved. When he came down the hall, Sig Arnason was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in front of him. “There’s trouble in the city. I’ve got to get back to town.”
“Okay.”
“Listen, about the fall. Give me a chance to think about it.”
“You’re the boss.”
“Say goodbye to Kelsey for me and tell her I’ll call tonight.”
SEVEN
The highway was deserted, and Shelter drove fast, going over the exchange with Kelsey and wondering what to do about it. When he hit Winnipeg, he stopped for breakfast at Tim Hortons. As he gobbled it down, his cellphone rang.
He was surprised to see the name on the display was Gordy Taylor, the chief of police.
“I want to talk to you about the murders of these Native girls.”
Shelter was momentarily at a loss for words. “No problem,” he said. “What did you want to know?”
“Meet me outside the church a little after eleven.”
After showering and changing, Shelter arrived downtown just before eight and only had time to open his computer to look at an emailed update from MacIsaac before it was time for the team meeting.
“As you know,” he started, “we had a shooting last night involving a constable and an Indigenous man. Name of Jason John Courchene. He’s out of surgery and in critical condition.”
“What’s the cop’s name?” asked Ian Sim. He was short and overweight, with a mullet hairdo. Shelter suspected his hair was cut by his wife, and behind his back Traverse referred to the style as a Tennessee Waterfall. Sim’s attitudes were just as outdated as his haircut, and he had a knack for avoiding work. He was a constant source of irritation to Shelter and the rest of the team, but they were stuck with him.
“They’re not releasing—” Shelter said before he was cut off by Himmat Sharma.
“Dustin Crowley. He’s got two years in,” Sharma said. “Sorry Mike, the news is out.”
Shelter knew Crowley faced an inquiry and months of harsh publicity and stress, even if the shooting was ruled justified. The toll had ended careers. He also knew the shooting would inflame the march that afternoon.
“The march route will be closed to traffic from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. That means the east end of Selkirk and Main Street to City Hall will be closed. With this shooting and the Rempel homicide, we’re expecting a large turnout. I want our eyes on the crowd,” Shelter said, looking at each detective individually. “Moses Kent is organizing the march. Let’s see who he shows up with.”
Shelter opened a beige legal folder. “Now, on the investigations. With the publicity about the Rempel homicide, we’ve been getting lots of calls from the public — not just about that case, but about Monica Spence.”
Checking out tips, even if they turned out to be rumours, baseless suspicions or deluded fantasies, was better than having nothing to go on at all. Before she was killed, Spence had been doing out-calls — visiting men at their homes or in hotel rooms — and some street-walking in the West End. It was all to service a raging cocaine habit. She was sleeping in multiple locations, crashing at crack houses or on the couches of people she met on the street. Her wild lifestyle had made it hard to pin down her movements or associations. What made it worse was she was underage and on the run from a group home, so she was even less likely to stay in touch with relatives and friends.
And then there was the frequently anonymous nature of prostitution. In a typical homicide, the victim and perpetrator know each other, and the crime takes place in a home or some other location where they have a shared history. A prostitute would often never have met her killer before. Two people came together for an encounter on one night that ended in murder. In the Spence case, the autopsy had produced little evidence. They’d also come up empty on video of her the night she was killed, and her cellphone had never been found.
“We’ve got more information on Crystal Rempel from the medical examiner,” Shelter said. “No evidence of sex before her death. There was some alcohol in her system, but well below the limit and no drugs.” He paused. “Her apartment was in a shambles. It looks like someone was very hot to find something there.” The officers exchanged looks. “Ident thinks entry was through a back door on a fire escape, but we’ve got no witnesses.”
He picked up another piece of paper and glanced at Ian Sim. “Records of Rempel’s cellphone conversations indicate she’d stopped using the phone two days before her death. The question is why and what phone was she using that night at the bar. She could have borrowed one or got herself a prepaid.”
He turned to Sim. “You want to fill us in on the calls she made before she stopped using the phone?”
“They were mostly to and from who you’d expect,” Sim said. “Her sister, her mom in Steinbach and some friends I tracked down. Nothing of interest there. But there were three calls to a number on the Lone Pine reserve belonging to someone named Joseph Bear. I tried that number a bunch of times, but they’re not calling back. No surprise there,” he added with a smirk.
Traverse turned on him with a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The smile dropped off Sim’s face. “Nothing. I’ll keep trying.”
An awkward silence descended on the room. The implication of Sim’s comment was clear to everyone in the room. A few decades earlier, he would have been more explicit in putting the failure to return the calls down to “Indian time.”
Shelter watched Sim, letting him soak in his embarrassment, before lowering his eyes to the file on the table in front of him. He moved his finger down a sheet of paper.
“Crystal’s people were from Lone Pine, right?” Shelter said, looking at Traverse. He paused. “The break-up with Moses Kent, her disappearance for those days, the sudden end to using her cellphone. Why?”
He turned to Jennifer Kane. “What did we get from her car?”
“Not much so far,” Kane said, flipping the pages in a notebook and gnawing the inside of her lip in concentration. Kane was tall, with shoulder-length hair with blond highlights. Even on a casual day like this one, she dressed with style. Her sky-blue blouse was fitted, and her jeans rode low on her hips, held with a wide black belt with a large square buckle.
Shelter had come up in the department with Kane, and he was closer to her than anyone else at work, except Traverse. She was married with two young kids, and they often shared both laughs and their problems over lunch or a drink to the point where Christa had once asked him if he was going out with his girlfriend again. Tha
t’s when Shelter had told her Jennifer Kane was married to a woman named Sherry.
Kane looked up from her notebook. “There was some fresh mud on her driver-side floor mat. It’s still in the lab, but the techs think it may not be from this area.”
“So maybe a trip up to the rez?”
Kane shrugged. “We’ll see.” She reached into a file box on the floor beside her. “They also found this when they popped the trunk.” She held up a photocopy of the cover of a CD. It had a photo of an Indigenous rapper wearing a snapback Winnipeg Jets cap and heavy gold chains around his neck.
“That’s Rory Sinclair,” Traverse said. Shelter’s head jerked in surprise. He’d been so focused on breaking up the brawl at the bar, he hadn’t even stopped to consider Sinclair might have known Crystal Rempel. It was a mistake.
Back at his desk, Shelter pulled up Sinclair’s file and court record on the computer. He was twenty-seven years old, older than he’d looked at the bar. Before the cocaine trafficking bust he’d beaten two years earlier, there’d been many other scrapes with the law: a break-and-enter, a charge for possession of marijuana and an aggravated assault on a seventeen-year-old girl for which he’d received two years’ probation. For the bar fight the night before, he’d been charged with assaulting a police officer and released on bail. Shelter made a note to take a closer look at the assault on the teenager. There was also a notation from the street gang unit in his file. Sinclair had been seen associating with members of the Manitoba Tribe gang.
Shelter drove to River Heights and waited on the boulevard in front of the brick church his great-grandfather had helped build. Shelter had spent many hours there as a kid, between Sunday school, youth group meetings in the basement and accompanying his parents to services. By the time he was twelve, his mother had given up on fighting to get him out of bed, and he’d been back only for the occasional Christmas and Easter service.
Omand's Creek: A gripping crime thriller packed with mystery and suspense Page 5