The Stranger on the Ice

by Bernadette Calonego

  The Muskrat Jamboree. So many things were casting their shadows over the spring festival. Over the festival and the inhabitants of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, for that matter, and over tourism and the Ice Road. And coexistence in the Arctic, Clem mused, because the mysterious explosion on the ice now haunted him even in his dreams.

  He stared at the dog bowls. It occurred to him how easy it would be to mix poison with the dogs’ food. He was astounded that Duncan wasn’t more wary after Booster had died. Didn’t Alana tell Clem in confidence that Duncan believed that Booster had been poisoned? Maybe he’d left the food on the window ledge that day, as he’d done just now, to run upstairs for a few minutes, and somebody had slipped into the mudroom during that time.

  Clem thought of Meteor as he drove home. The sooner he had his dog back in the house, the better.

  Something else struck him as peculiar. If Toria was really interested in a puppy, why didn’t she simply phone Duncan beforehand instead of driving out there? Alana and Toria didn’t like each other—that was common knowledge. But Duncan was everybody’s friend.

  Clem parked in front of his house and looked around carefully before going in. No way he’d let that thug hit him twice. He’d come away with just a scare, but maybe his attacker hadn’t finished the job. Like with Ranger Stevens, poor bastard.

  The kitchen was warm because the oil heat was on. He’d barely put the teakettle on the stove when the phone rang.

  “Are you alone?” Lazarusie’s voice was muted.

  “What’s up?”

  “Danny saw it all happen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The thing with Roy.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Helvin West orbited his new snowmobile, patting it tenderly like a thoroughbred stallion. Clem had recently bought a new snowmobile, and his boss evidently wasn’t about to play second fiddle.

  “I’m gonna win this race,” he said over and over.

  They’d met at the Suntuk Logistics building. The sky was gray, but the forecast was holding steady. Almost no wind, and no snow expected. Helvin was in an excellent mood, making Clem all the madder, but his boss didn’t seem to pick up on that.

  Clem folded his arms across his chest and planted his legs apart.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear the news that somebody knocked Roy Stevens over the head, and he’s out of the race?” he inquired. Even Helvin wouldn’t be able to ignore a question so drenched with sarcasm, he thought.

  Wrong. His boss had very different priorities. At that moment, his attention was entirely focused on the snowmobile race.

  “With you and Roy out, I’m going to be the one to win this race,” Helvin said. He leaned over the machine and kept on talking.

  “I’m sorry for you two, Clem, but this little beast will save your honor. We’ll show those greenhorns from Paulie Umik’s team that we’re still top dogs.”

  Clem watched Meteor marking his territory around the parked snowplows. At least somebody can piss on Helvin’s leg.

  “They’ve taken Laz’s daughter Tanya in for questioning.”

  Helvin made a face.

  “Always thought Tanya would go off the deep end sometime, with all the drugs she’s doing.”

  Clem went on the offensive. “Helv, I have a letter in my pocket—my resignation. Unless you come with me to the office right now and explain in minute detail what you’ve been up to the last few days, I’m laying it on your desk.”

  His boss straightened up.

  “What? Resignation? You’re off your rocker! You’re still not right in the head!”

  Minutes later, they were sitting in the overheated company office, where Helvin’s snowmobile trophies were lined up on a shelf behind him. Clem’s threat hanging in the air had loosened his tongue.

  “Hey, man, I shouldn’t be telling you anything, really. But three years ago Richard talked me into putting some money into a mine. He said gold was the best investment you can make.”

  “Richard Melville,” Clem said with derision.

  “I had to do something, Clem. Nothing’s going to happen here without the gas pipeline. We can flush all our plans for the future down the toilet. How many people can we fire? There’s no more flesh on our bones. You must see that, too.”

  Clem was silent. He envisioned a headline in a big Canadian newspaper: “Mackenzie Pipeline Dead and Buried.”

  Helvin drummed his fingers on the table.

  “I made good money in gold for three years. That helped us all. And paid everybody’s wages. We’ve just got to hang in there until gold goes back up.”

  Clem looked him straight in the eye.

  “You still haven’t answered my question. Why did you suddenly up and leave for Dawson?”

  “We needed cash. And now we’ve got some investors.”

  Helvin looked out the window. So did Clem. He could see the new snowmobile from there.

  “The Chinese are snapping everything up. Richard doesn’t like it. He also doesn’t want to have the Mafia around his neck. You know what they did to Stew Grant? He couldn’t repay them so they destroyed his face. He needed a plastic surgeon so he could look more or less human again.”

  Clem had indeed heard about it. Not about Stew Grant, but about other victims. They’d borrowed from organized crime gangs to keep their mines afloat. When gold tanked, they didn’t have the revenue to pay the Mafia the horrendous interest they charged. So the mob asked for gold instead. Perfect money-laundering scheme.

  Clem leaned forward.

  “You were seen getting into an SUV in Dawson with a couple of guys. Who were those characters?”

  Helvin was startled but quickly recovered.

  “TV guys. From San Diego.”

  Clem waited.

  Helvin rolled his chair back and forth.

  “This has got to stay between us, you hear? They’re planning a reality show for the summer.”

  “I thought you’d had your fill of that with Ice Road Truckers.”

  “It’s not about the Ice Road, it’s about gold mining in the Yukon. We’re in on it.”

  “If your mine’s still around next summer.”

  “It won’t go broke, old man, not that one. We’ve found the money. A very tidy sum.”

  Clem jumped out of his chair.

  “And why, my good man, why did those TV guys run away when the police showed up?”

  “Police? Where?”

  “Somebody tried to photograph their license plate in Dawson, and they got aggressive. And when the fuzz turned up—whoosh—they were off!”

  “I know nothing about that. But you know what the Americans are like. Paranoid. Especially in wicked foreign countries. And I’d get a little worked up, too, if somebody was photographing my license plate. Who was it, by the way?”

  Clem ignored the question. He’d never betray Valerie. But Helvin put two and two together.

  “Pretty little Valerie has a bit too much imagination for my taste. You obviously like imagination,” he said with a leer.

  Clem gripped the back of his chair with both hands and held it in front of him like a bulwark.

  “Somebody tried to send a package from Dawson to Inuvik for me. With gold in it. A big, fat, shiny nugget.”

  Helvin flinched noticeably. Clem fired off another salvo.

  “And another gold nugget was found near Gisèle’s body. Is there a Santa Claus going around and tossing gold away like confetti? Helv, who is playing what game here?”

  His boss started drumming the desktop again with his right hand. He shut his eyes.

  Playing for time, Clem guessed.

  “That nugget, she wanted to give it to me.” Helvin’s voice had softened.

  “Who?”

  “Gisèle. She brought me a small package.”

  Clem let go of the back of the chair so forcefully that it almost tipped over.

  “So you did meet her? But you’ve always denied it.”

  “She met me, goddammit. She c
limbed into my truck when I was leaving Bernie’s Hardware Store. She said she had a message from Richard. And she gave me the package. I opened it. What a goddamn joke. Wasn’t hard to see it wasn’t from Richard. She swore up and down that it was.”

  Helvin was so agitated that he was red in the face.

  “Clem, in Dawson you get nuggets from gangsters. As bait. As a reminder that they’d love to lend you money—and get you in their clutches forever. I gave her back the nugget and threw her out of the truck.”

  “Jesus, Helv! Do the cops know?”

  “No, not yet. But I’ll come clean. As soon as the race is over.”

  Clem couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Holy shit, Helv! You withheld information from the police, and now you’ve made me an accomplice!”

  “Oh, don’t be such a wimp. C’mon. You’ve got more dope on the people here than you can stuff into a sealskin. Are you really going to lose sleep over this? In just a few hours, they’ll hear the whole story. It’s not a catastrophe.”

  Clem was speechless in the face of Helv’s cockiness. His boss took that silence as acquiescence.

  “I had nothing to do with her death, Clem. Absolutely nothing. I threw her out, but she must have followed me here, God knows how. I was just stopping by the office for a minute, so I left the motor running. But I got held up by some phone calls. She must have climbed in and taken off. That’s how it must have happened.”

  Clem slammed his hand on the table.

  “What a load of bullshit!”

  He stared at Helvin. Maybe that actually did happen. She took the truck—or somebody stole it for her.

  But why did Helvin disappear right afterward? Was he lying about other things as well? Before Clem could ask that question, the door opened and Meteor came running in, followed by Helvin’s secretary, Laura Minetti.

  “That dog’s driving everybody crazy out there,” she announced.

  Clem got ahold of Meteor; the dog wagged its tail furiously.

  He turned toward Helvin again. “Does Toria know all this? She was at Duncan’s yesterday, wondering about buying a puppy for your kids.”

  Helvin shook his head.

  “Somebody’s pulling your leg. Alana, I’ll bet.”

  “No, it came from Duncan. Alana wasn’t there. Toria’s car was leaving just as I was driving up to their house. She didn’t even stop. No time for the man running her husband’s business in his absence, I suppose.”

  “Duncan? He should keep his big mouth shut. Phil’s coming, gotta run.”

  Helvin got up and pulled his winter jacket on over his snowmobile suit, then grabbed his gloves and gave Clem a hearty slap on the back.

  “That Valerie has really got you hooked. I hear you even went to Eagle Plains to see her, eh?”

  Clem said nothing.

  He didn’t let loose until he was in his pickup. Meteor clearly didn’t know what end was up and stared at his owner in confusion until Clem took pity on him and stopped shouting.

  He parked above the bank of the Mackenzie and walked down onto the frozen river, where the festival games were in full swing. A man in a cowboy vest and a cap lined with braids threw his harpoon with tremendous arm strength. Pihuk was all dolled up for the big event. Clem had to admit he was a good harpooner.

  Farther back, near the temporary wooden shacks for the organizers, a tea party of elderly Inuvialuit women was sitting on folding chairs, wearing their traditional Mother Hubbard parkas, their fabric patterned with flowers or garish colors, their hoods lined with fur that framed their faces like a lion’s mane. The women were watching closely as a dozen people spread their legs on two parallel boards and fastened them with loops. The boards looked like super-long skis.

  A large circle of spectators surrounded the board runners, amused by their awkward contortions. The old women on the chairs giggled and chatted noisily. Among the chatter, Clem heard a familiar voice. He looked closely at the group and saw that one of the faces, partly hidden behind sunglasses and a turtleneck sweater pulled up to the chin, was younger than the others.

  “Valerie?”

  The woman pushed her sunglasses up.

  “Clem!”

  She stood up and spun around to face him.

  “Look what I’ve got!”

  He never would have expected to see her wearing a proper Mother Hubbard parka, lined with caribou hide and richly decorated on the outside. Until now, she hadn’t acquired a taste for the colorful embroidery and ruffles along the hem. She looked good in turquoise. Clem thought she looked radiant. She stroked her pelt gloves over the fur on her hood.

  “Look. Wolf and coyote. Very warm and light!”

  Her olive-green eyes sparkled in her half-covered face. Clem felt butterflies in his stomach.

  “And where are your little lambs?”

  “Some are in the dining tent trying muskrat meat. Faye’s over there with Anika having hot soup. And the rest of them . . . ah, yes, there they are.”

  She pointed to a stand where two girls poured hot maple syrup over crushed ice and rolled the mixture onto wooden sticks.

  Valerie raised the paper cup in her hand.

  “I’m sticking with hot tea. We just watched the muskrat-skinning.”

  “Who won this time?”

  “An old woman from Aklavik in one minute and sixteen seconds.”

  Clem laughed. “Of course, another woman. I thought so.”

  Loud shouts and laughter interrupted their conversation. The board race had started. Two teams tried to coordinate their leg movements to hit the finish line first.

  “Come over here.” Clem took Valerie behind the shed where it was quieter.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow for Tuktoyaktuk to see what’s going on. I basically don’t foresee any problems for you and your tour. Weather’s supposed to be good tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “Heard anything else about Sedna?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It would be so . . . unlike her to miss this festival. She’d have enjoyed it immensely.”

  The smile had vanished from Valerie’s lips.

  “Maybe she’ll still show up; the festival goes for several days yet.”

  “I wonder why she’s so hell-bent on my family. Why . . .”

  She stopped there and looked out over the frozen river.

  Clem cleared his throat.

  “Val, there’s something I’d like to tell you.”

  She looked at him expectantly.

  “When you two were here last summer, you and Sedna, she . . . she paid me a visit that second night. I think you were with Marjorie Tama and her workshop for the tourists. She brought a bottle of vodka with her, and we kinda started talking.”

  Valerie’s eyes were riveted on Clem.

  “She told me you were in a new relationship and showed me a picture of you and a man, a good-looking guy.”

  “What?” A crease materialized between her eyebrows. “What guy? What did he look like?”

  “Blond, thin, tall.”

  She thought for a moment and exclaimed, “Sean! That must be Sean.”

  She laughed but didn’t seem amused.

  “Sean is gay and has a partner. We’re all in the neighborhood watch—or were—Sedna, me, and Sean. We patrolled the streets, for security. You probably don’t have anything like that in Inuvik.”

  He avoided looking at her as he continued speaking.

  “We put away a lot of booze, and . . . then I slept with her. It was a huge mistake, I knew that instantly. The next day I flew with you and Fritz, that German pilot, to Banks Island. She wanted to come along to see musk oxen but . . . I didn’t want to have her with us. I’d been looking forward for months to spending that day with you. I wanted to be alone with you.”

  When he looked at her again, Valerie was staring somewhere out into space. Now he had to let it all out; that, he knew.

  “I told Sedna there wasn’t room in the chopper, that the pilot was waiting for somebody else. She s
melled a rat, naturally, and was furious. She . . . she said, ‘Why does Val get everything? Everything falls into her lap! She’s a parasite, always living off other people.’ Then she disappeared for a few days, and you were beside yourself because you didn’t know whether or not something had happened to her.”

  Val stayed quiet for a while, far too long for Clem’s liking.

  “I hope . . . I wanted to tell you this for a long time, but . . .”

  She laid a hand on his arm.

  “Thank you, Clem. Thanks for telling me what you’ve just said.”

  Her expression was still serious.

  “I’ve got to process this. So much has happened. I’ve got to . . . ,” she said, pointing in the direction of the festival area. “I’ve got to settle a few things.”

  Then she looked into his eyes.

  “Please call me when you’re back from Tuktoyaktuk.”

  She turned around, and Clem watched her walk away in her new parka. The sleeves and attached gloves embroidered with pearls swung back and forth.

  CHAPTER 26

  A loud noise jerked Valerie out of her sleep. Somebody was pulling open the minibus door. She blinked, in a fog, as someone climbed into the passenger seat.

  “You’re sleeping through our festival.”

  “Marjorie! You scared the living daylights out of me!”

  “What are you doing here? You’re missing the best part! Two people from your tour are filming the snowmobile race.”

  Valerie had decided to take a brief nap in the driver’s seat. She clicked it back upright, then the two women hugged as well as they could, given the constraints of the small space. Valerie smoothed back her long hair.

  “I relieved my driver so she could get out for a bit. We keep the bus running so my guys can come back anytime and get warm.”

  “Yeah, easy to freeze if you don’t watch out. I see you’ve got a new parka; that’ll keep you warm.”

  “Marj, how could something so awful happen to Gisèle? It’s horrible to die that way. So young.”

  Marjorie took off her gloves and put them in her lap.

  “These young women . . . They come to Dawson for adventure. They haven’t a clue what people do to survive here. Most of them go home come winter, thank God.”