Silver Totem of Shame

by R. J. Harlick

  “Do they have any idea who he is or where he went?”

  “I don’t know. They aren’t telling me anything.”

  “I was at the carving shed the other day when you accused Ernest Paul. Why do you think he did it?”

  “My son’s dead because he was in that damn shed. If that bastard hadn’t lured Allistair with his promises of becoming a world-renowned carver, my son would be alive today.”

  “So you don’t really think he did it?”

  “I have no idea. But I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Can you think of anyone else who might’ve wanted your son dead?”

  “He didn’t have any enemies. How could he? Everyone liked him. No, it has to be something to do with Ernest Paul.” She spat out the name. “I bet someone wanted to kill him and killed Allistair by mistake. He’s not the upstanding genuine Haida carver he pretends to be.”

  “Are you saying he’s not Haida?”

  “His mother was, although I believe his father was white. But all this bumpf about his carvings being the voice of the Haida is nonsense. He grew up in Vancouver. A friend of mine went to high school with him and didn’t know he was Indian until she read it in the paper. He had nothing to do with Haida culture until he was an adult.”

  “No reason why he couldn’t have learned about it then. Look at Eric.”

  I felt her eyes focus on me, although I kept looking out at the fog. I was sorry I’d brought up Eric’s name. I wasn’t ready to get into a discussion about him.

  “Yes, you’re right. He could’ve. But people say the only reason he took up carving was to make money. And believe me, he makes a lot of money. He has a big house in West Van to prove it. He charges anywhere from $1,000 to $2,500 a foot for a totem pole and gets people like Allistair to do the actual carving for next to nothing.”

  “Isn’t that fraud?”

  “He probably follows the same techniques the old master painters used, creating the design and adding his finishing touches. This way he can churn out a lot of poles.”

  “So he’s rich. Is that a reason for someone to want to kill him? Unless he’s made enemies along the way?”

  “I gather Ernest isn’t exactly liked by his fellow carvers. According to a friend of mine, a collector of Northwest Coast Indian art, some carvers view him as too mercenary and others complain that he takes away all the business from them.”

  “But isn’t that just the normal course of doing business?”

  “I suppose. But if Ernest wasn’t the target, that means Allistair was, and I can’t accept that. There isn’t any motive.”

  “There is a missing totem pole.”

  “Do you really believe someone would kill my son for a piece of wood?”

  With no obvious answer, I remained silent as did she. Together we continued to stare out the window. From the kitchen came the sound of the refrigerator clicking on, and from upstairs, Eric’s gentle snoring.

  “Remember Allistair’s jade medallion I told you about,” she said. “The officer I spoke to yesterday called this morning to say they’ve searched the shed thoroughly and didn’t find it. They assume the killer took it. They want me to come in to give them a description. I have a photo of Allistair wearing it. I guess that would work.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I just need someone to come with me to the funeral home.”

  “Do the police think the pendant might have had something to do with Allistair’s death?”

  “How could it? It’s just an ordinary piece of jade, and not a particularly valuable piece at that. Hardly a motive for murder.”

  I turned at the sound of footsteps on the stairs and saw Eric, rubbing his eyes. “Ladies, what in the world are you doing up at this hour of the morning?”

  We squirmed like a couple of teenagers caught doing something wrong.

  Twenty

  The Village

  It had been one hell of a wet night and damn cold too. His old bones were feeling it this morning. The pain didn’t help either. Long gone were the days when he’d take off for a week’s fishing and sleep on whatever beach happened to be on hand when night arrived.

  Thank god, Scav had a spare tent. Yesterday with the rain coming down hard, still was for that matter, there was no way he was going to build a lean-to out of cedar boughs like he used to or the ancestors did when they were off on one of their voyages. Their spirits were probably jeering at him huddled under the flimsy tent fabric that glowed like an orange pumpkin. Given the holes in it, Scav had likely found it on a beach, thrown away by kayakers. He was managing to keep Scav’s sleeping bag dry by placing it off to one side away from the worst of the drips.

  He sure as hell could do with a nice soft mattress. He could barely move. But he was going to have to soon, if he wanted to start on that log today. Without electricity he’d have to rely on natural light. While the days were getting longer, it still wouldn’t give him enough daylight hours. And with the log lying under the thickest part of the cedar canopy it would get dark sooner. He’d try Scav’s headlamp tonight to see if that provided enough light.

  Yesterday, he’d gone exploring. It’d been some years since he’d walked where the ancestors had lived and died. They’d done a good job of picking this site. With such a narrow entrance to the lagoon, it could easily be defended against rival clan attacks by sea, while the steep, almost cliff-like mountain slopes prevented attacks from land. Little wonder the ancestors had occupied this site for thousands of years.

  Years ago he’d followed a faint trail that took him up through a narrow pass and into a high meadow overflowing with salal and salmon berry bushes. The trail would’ve been the clan’s escape route when an enemy attack got a little too hot. But his people had been mighty warriors; the greatest in Haida Gwaii, if his nanaay’s stories were anything to go by. There was no way they would’ve been run over by another clan. More likely it would’ve been them running over the other clan’s village.

  He wondered if this was the trail the traitor betrayed on that disastrous night almost a century and a half ago, when the bastard helped the cowards sneak into the village like thieves and not like the warriors they were supposed to be. Haida warriors didn’t hide and skulk. They advanced on their enemies howling and banging their canoes. He imagined the trail would’ve normally been guarded. But on that fateful night it wasn’t. Nanaay said that the first the clan knew anything was wrong was when they heard the keening. He figured that if the path had been properly guarded he’d be carving a different story today.

  Since a tiny fry he’d called his grandmother by the Haida word nanaay. It had never seemed right using the English word. She’d been a major force in his life. Too bad she was no longer around. But then again, she would’ve done all she could to keep him from carving the story. She believed the clan’s shame should be kept hidden. But most everyone knew something terrible had happened, they just didn’t know what.

  He wished he’d been around when Llnagaay was at its height. According to Nanaay, over twenty-five longhouses had filled the meadow bordering the beach. Lines of sky-high frontal and memorial poles, some two and three deep, had announced the village’s wealth to anyone who dared approach. But the place would’ve stunk with the rotting remains in the mortuary poles and the mounds of decaying fish entrails and shells. Today nothing was left but a meadow overgrown with towering cedar and Sitka spruce. A few pole-length mounds of moss and moss-lined longhouse pits were the only reminder that a once mighty Haida village had been the masters of this shore.

  He wondered if the small pox germs that had killed off the ancestors and forced them to abandon the village were still around. But he figured it happened so long ago, their potency would’ve worn off by now. Besides, he wasn’t worried. He’d been vaccinated as a kid. Plus he’d inherited over a hundred years of immunity to the Iron Men’s diseases, something the ancestors didn’t have when the Iron Men first came to these shores.

/>   A curious name, Llnagaay. Unlike other ancient villages with names like Hik’yah Llnagaay, meaning “Windy Bay Village,” or SGang Gwaay Llnagaay, meaning “Red Cod Village,” it was simply called Llnagaay, meaning “The Village.” People once called it by the clan name, but no one called it that now, not since the shame.

  Twenty-One

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive, Sis?” Eric asked. He was sitting in the passenger seat of the BMW next to his sister.

  Cloë had just missed running a stop sign. If Eric hadn’t called out a warning, she would’ve creamed a bike crossing the intersection. He’d already offered to drive us to the funeral home, but she had insisted that she could handle it.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Arranging your son’s burial is probably one of the most difficult things you’ve ever done. I know you have the strength to handle it. But please, no one will think any the less of you if you let others share the load.”

  “I’m okay. I can do it.” She stopped at a red light with a sudden jerk, throwing all of us forward.

  After yesterday’s drunken episode, she’d seemed more in control, until now. She hadn’t complained of a hangover. She was even handling the prospect of meeting the undertakers better than yesterday.

  “If I drive, it’ll give you a chance to prepare yourself,” Eric persisted.

  Her hands gripped the steering wheel until they were almost white. A car suddenly backed out of a driveway. She swerved to avoid it, barely missing the bumper, and then jerked the car to a stop in the middle of the road. Thank god there was no following traffic. She released her shaking hands from the steering wheel.

  “You’re right. It’s too much.” She jumped out of the car and ran around to the passenger side. Eric gave her a brotherly hug before getting into the driver’s seat. I expected tears. But she seemed to be trying her best to remain steady. We continued driving in a silence broken only by her occasional direction to Eric on our route.

  I was lost in my own thoughts, when she suddenly spoke up, “Eric, you have to help me find Allistair’s Haida relatives.”

  “I’ve already said I would.”

  “When are you going to do it? I can’t bury Allistair until I know.”

  “I was going to send pictures of the bracelet to a Haida friend of mine. It could take her a couple of weeks to track down the girl’s relations, if there are any. And that’s only if the bracelet can be used to help identify them.”

  “I can’t wait that long. I want to bury him now.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how it can happen any sooner.”

  “Eric, don’t forget Louise invited us to Haida Gwaii for this coming Saturday’s pole raising,” I interjected. “We could take the bracelet with us. There’s bound to be a ton of people at this event. Surely someone will recognize it.”

  “It’s a thought, but don’t forget that interview Monday morning. I can’t miss it.”

  “I know, but remember I found a flight that will get us back to Ottawa by late Sunday night.”

  “What if the flight’s late?”

  “I doubt it would be ten hours late.”

  “What if it gets cancelled?”

  “You’re making excuses. Remember how overjoyed your grandparents were to finally have you back in their lives. This could give another family a chance to finally learn what happened to a long lost daughter.”

  “Oh Eric, could you go, please,” added his sister. “It would mean so much to me.”

  “How do you know we can still get seats on this flight?”

  “Give me your cell and I’ll find out.”

  “You’re right. Let’s do it.”

  By the time we arrived at the funeral home, we were booked on a Friday flight to Haida Gwaii and on flights back to Ottawa on Sunday.

  Handing him back his phone, I kissed him on the cheek, while his sister smiled and said, “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  But her smile vanished with the approach of a man in a dark suit, suitably sombre as only undertakers can be.

  Twenty-Two

  I watched the jagged northern coast of Vancouver Island slide under the plane as we headed over the deep blue of open water. To the east the snow-drenched coastal mountains of the B.C. mainland stretched up toward the Alaskan Panhandle. We’d left Vancouver a little over an hour ago on the flight to Sandspit, the main airport on Haida Gwaii. We almost missed it.

  My heart was still racing from our frantic dash to the boarding gate only to find that it had closed. Eric, thank goodness, managed to convince the airline staff to allow us through. It hadn’t hurt that there were three other passengers who’d also arrived late. Given that the plane was at the opposite end of the scale of a Boeing 747, six missing passengers would’ve put a sizable dent in their passenger load. I say six, because we were three. I supposed four if you counted the urn, except we didn’t mention it at the check-in counter.

  Twenty minutes before Eric and I were to leave for the airport, his sister called to tell us that she was coming with us to Haida Gwaii. She was at the crematorium, where she was picking up her son’s ashes, and would be at our place in thirty minutes to take us to the airport. She hung up before Eric had a chance to convince her otherwise.

  Needless to say she was late. By the time Cloë found a parking spot at the airport and we walked the distance to the departure level, we knew we were in trouble. When the attendant at the check-in counter said there was no time to check baggage, we ran. Fortunately the plane had a valet service so we were able to get our luggage onto the aircraft.

  Now here we were. I was pretending everything was okay by looking out the window at the passing scene far below, while Eric fumed beside me. Cloë, with her son safely stowed in the luggage bin, sat three rows behind us. In the rush to catch the plane, we hadn’t had a chance to learn the reason for her joining us. Last night we’d left her townhouse with the understanding that she would fly to Haida Gwaii at a later date to sprinkle some of her son’s ashes on his homeland. With no whiff of alcohol on her breath, I couldn’t blame this sudden change on a fit of drunkenness.

  I watched a couple of boats, more like black specks against the deep blue, churning through the water, one after the other, with barges trailing some distance behind them. The barges seemed so disconnected from the towboats that I wondered how they prevented boats from running into the towing cables.

  The plane began its descent. In the window across the aisle, jagged pinnacles rising above wisps of cloud came into view, while out my window lines of whitecaps drew closer. A spit of sand suddenly spread beneath us and we landed. We taxied past a group of men waiting to board one of two large transport helicopters parked on the tarmac, which I later learned would ferry them to one of the many fishing camps on the west side of the islands.

  The airport was of a size one would expect of an airport servicing an island community of only a few thousand people. The main hall was packed. Many people were waiting to board the return flight to Vancouver. A dozen or so fisherman, recognized by the latest in fishing paraphernalia, were lined up at another gate. The rest of the hall was filled with family and friends craning their necks in search of arriving loved ones or acquaintances.

  Amongst the throng I recognized Ernest Paul with a welcoming smile planted on his broad face. While Cloë studiously ignored him, I watched him greet a silver-haired gentleman of the distinguished variety and his platinum blond companion, at least half his age with boobs that extended well beyond the normal and a 1960s beehive hairdo. I’d noticed them on the plane, sitting a few seats in front of us. They appeared to be the kind of passengers who were more at ease in the wide luxury of executive class than the narrow confines of economy, the only class available on this flight. Given Ernest’s somewhat obsequious manner with this man, I took him to be a client. Perhaps he was journeying to Haida Gwaii to see where the carver got his inspiration.

  While pointing out Ernest to Eric, I noticed him glance in our direction
. He started to raise his hand as if to greet Cloë before abruptly turning away. I suspected the memory of her accusation changed his mind. His gray-haired client was not so easily put off. He smiled broadly and waved, “Cloë? Cloë Zakarhov? Is that you, cherie?” before walking purposively toward us.

  “Damn,” Eric’s sister muttered, before fixing a greeting smile on her face. “François, imagine seeing you here.”

  She held out her hand, which he grasped warmly in both of his before pulling her close and pecking her on either cheek in the typical Gallic manner. His companion teetered behind him on spiked heels that more properly belonged on the marble floors of a luxury hotel than on the dusty floors of a backwater airport. Her toothy smile had slipped a degree.

  “It is wonderful to see you, cherie. It has been such a long time.” He continued to hold her close. “But I find it curious to see you in such a wild place. This is not like you.”

  As Cloë struggled for a response, he continued, “Mais oui, your son, he was Haida, wasn’t he? Such a delightful young man. I was so sorry to learn of your tragedy.” He gave her another warm hug, before stepping back, almost colliding with Ernest, who had come up behind him. “Please, I am forgetting my manners. Let me introduce you to the best totem pole carver in the world.”

  With her face stonily impassive, the slim, immaculately dressed woman stared at the overweight carver who seemed to squirm as if waiting for another accusation. Finally after what seemed an embarrassingly long time, Cloë broke the silence. “We’ve already met.” She ignored Ernest’s offered hand, which became occupied with the key chain dangling from his belt.

  Turning to the Frenchman, the carver said, “Mr. Champagne, it looks like your luggage has arrived. If you could show me your bags, I’ll put them in my car.”

  Clasping Cloë’s hand once again in both of his, François said, “We should plan to have dinner. Give me a call. I’m staying at The Eagle’s Nest in Queen Charlotte.” Continuing to ignore Eric and me, he turned and followed Ernest, with his teetering companion struggling to keep up.