The Stranger on the Ice

by Bernadette Calonego

  He rubbed his nose.

  “Tanya was here the night Gisèle died. We were all here. She’s got an alibi.”

  Valerie wanted to hug Lazarusie to comfort him. Instead she asked, “Has Tanya got a lawyer?”

  Lazarusie shook his head.

  “I’m going to Inuvik now to meet Clem. He knows a lot more about these things.”

  Valerie felt a slight twinge in her stomach at the mention of Clem’s name. Whatever did she get herself into last night?

  Lazarusie mounted his snowmobile.

  “If you’re here for the key to the ice house, you don’t need it; the police are guarding the place.”

  He was right. A man in uniform came to meet Valerie and her group as they neared the ice house later that day. She recognized him at once—John Palmer, the RCMP officer she’d met in Eagle Plains.

  “You’ve heard what’s happened?” he asked by way of a greeting.

  She nodded.

  “May we still go in?”

  Palmer pointed to an Inuvialuk standing beside the open ice house door.

  “Yes, but we’ll be supervising. Has everyone filled out the required form?”

  She said they had and showed him the waivers where the tour members agreed to assume sole responsibility for any accidents in the ice house. Valerie was relieved that Anika had decided against the adventure. She was resting in the heated minibus.

  Inside the little shack, a man Valerie knew from ice fishing the previous year—he called himself Gary, but she couldn’t remember his Inuvialuit name—and his assistant helped Faye, the first in their group to put on the safety rope and disappear through the opening. Valerie stood alongside the others and watched.

  Palmer gestured for her to step outside.

  “I wanted to talk to you as well,” he said. “Do you know a Christine Preston?”

  It was obvious that he already knew the answer to that question. Who had told him? Clem? No, probably Christine herself. That must mean she’s improving, Valerie thought.

  “Yes, she came to one of my presentations. She said she was a childhood friend of my . . . my late mother. You know, she could easily have come with us. I’m surprised she didn’t. Then this thing here”—she pointed through the doorway to the hole in the floor—“wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Do you have any idea why she’s here?”

  “No, I’d love for her to tell me. Would it be possible for me to talk to her soon?”

  “You’ll have to call the hospital. She gave us a message on her way there: ‘Tell Valerie not to blame Roy.’ She insisted that we tell you that. Do you know what she meant?”

  “Not a clue. Maybe that Roy didn’t deliberately lock her in the cellar?”

  “That’s possible. Still . . . why was it so important to her for you to know?”

  He eyed her attentively.

  “Not a clue,” she repeated. “Maybe she was simply . . . traumatized. After all that’s happened. Excuse me, I really should catch up with my tour.”

  Inside the wooden shack, Valerie tipped Gary and his assistant before they secured the rope around her shoulders and waist and helped her put on a headlamp over her hat. Shouts and an occasional sharp cry rang out from below.

  She placed a foot cautiously on the icy ladder but stopped when a sudden thought struck her.

  “Does Roy have his own ice chamber down here?” she asked Gary.

  “His father does.”

  “His father’s from Tuktoyaktuk?”

  Gary nodded.

  “William Anaqiina. He moved away—to Yellowknife with his whole family.”

  Valerie clung to the ladder like glue. Anaqiina. As in Siqiniq Anaqiina. The boy who had been her parents’ guide.

  “Is one of his sons called Siqiniq?” she shouted above her.

  Gary thought about it, then said something to the other man in his native language. The man answered in Siglitun.

  “He thinks so.”

  Valerie pulled herself together and then descended one step at a time, her gloves seeking a grip on the upper rungs.

  Somebody with a flashlight was at the bottom. Another policeman.

  She nodded at him before she disappeared into the labyrinth of ice chambers like in a trance. In spite of Christine’s terrible experience, she couldn’t help but be moved by the magic of this underworld. Ice crystals covered the roof and the walls, ending at a gray-brown, marbled, frozen layer of dirt. Everything sparkled in the beams of their headlamps. Here, thirty-five feet under the earth’s surface, the permafrost never thawed.

  Valerie moved with extreme caution over the icy ground. Some wooden doors with dangling chains stood open; they led to twenty ice lockers belonging to local families.

  Faye loomed up at the end of the corridor.

  “Nobody with claustrophobia?” Valerie asked.

  Faye shook her head.

  “I have to admire Christine’s grit. No light and not a sound down here. I would have gone crazy with fear.”

  Valerie shuddered.

  As Christine was hoping and suffering down here, she thought about me. And about what she absolutely had to tell me.

  CHAPTER 30

  Clem was already in a lousy mood before he—yet again—went searching for Helvin. One of his men patrolling the Ice Road around noon had nabbed a trailer truck for speeding. Forty-five miles an hour instead of twenty. The truckers had it pounded into them over and over that going at that speed would make waves under the ice that couldn’t find an exit so they would force open deep cracks. If that happened, then their only truck route would be destroyed. Clem couldn’t fathom why those idiots tried to saw off the branch they were sitting on. He’d spent a lot of time talking with the driver and his boss. Once again, Helvin couldn’t be reached by cell phone.

  He didn’t turn up until an hour later, just as Clem was futilely interrogating Laura Minetti about his whereabouts. Clem ran outside and swung himself up inside the sixty-tonner Helvin was driving.

  “I can’t talk. Gotta go,” Helvin argued, seeing he was trapped.

  “Phil called me yesterday ranting about the snowmobile race. He says he saw you with Gisèle before she died. Did you tell the RCMP everything?”

  Helvin was outwardly unmoved.

  “Phil couldn’t have seen me. It was morning, and Phil teaches at the college in the morning.”

  “Phil said that if you don’t surrender first place in the race, he’ll tell the police that he saw you with her.”

  Helvin drummed his fingers on the wheel.

  “Helv, that’s—”

  Clem was interrupted by an incoming text on his phone. A message from Valerie.

  “He’s welcome to first place,” Helvin said. “I didn’t bump him deliberately, but if that’s what he wants to call it, let him.”

  Clem couldn’t believe his ears. Helvin West would never forfeit a win so readily.

  “You’re not serious, Helv! Go to the police and just tell them everything before you make it worse.”

  “Nobody was there when I went to the station. They were all in Tuk, searching the ice house.”

  Clem looked at his boss skeptically. Another shabby excuse. A thought began to take shape in his head, quietly at first.

  “Goddammit, Helv, who the hell asked Gisèle to give that nugget to you?”

  More finger drumming.

  “Richard Melville thinks it was Sedna Mahrer. He gave her two nuggets.”

  “What for?”

  “She probably sweetened his days.”

  This is getting crazier than ever, Clem thought.

  “So why, for Chrissake, did she send one to you and one to me?”

  Helvin turned his head, and his lips tightened into a thin line.

  “Maybe for revenge. So that we’d think the nuggets were from the Mafia. To scare us.”

  “Revenge? For what?”

  “Because we both had a one-night stand with her and nothing more.”

  Clem was speechless for a
few seconds. Then he jumped off the truck.

  “You can ask Sedna if you find her,” Helvin shouted at him.

  “Talk to Phil. And you’d better talk to the RCMP,” Clem retorted before slamming the door.

  He’d barely gotten into his pickup when he opened Valerie’s text.

  “A woman in my tour group found this lighter near where Gisèle was found. Coincidence? What should I do with it?”

  He’d hoped to read something about her feelings, words intimating how happy she was about the previous night. When he saw the picture she’d attached, his disappointment evaporated.

  He knew immediately the person he had to talk to—right away.

  But first he called Phil and informed him that Helvin had relinquished first prize. Phil was overjoyed. Clem didn’t let him off the hook quite so easily.

  “I want to know exactly what you saw, or I’ll start talking about what you were up to in Whitehorse.”

  “What do you mean? I’m not gonna be blackmailed.”

  “Your wife certainly wouldn’t be happy if she hears what I’ve got to say.”

  Clem had only heard rumors of Phil’s visits to a certain lady in Whitehorse, but he gambled—and won.

  His prompting got Phil to talk.

  And with every bit of information Clem heard, another lightbulb was turned on, every one as bright as the North Star.

  He drove back to Inuvik, turned onto Breynat Street, and parked in front of a huge building that looked like a hangar. The front was covered in glass and sheets of metal. Had it not been for the sign, INUVIK COMMUNITY GARDEN, you could have mistaken it for a hockey rink, which is what the building had once been. These days, the community garden was the pride of Inuvik. Even Clem, who didn’t have a green thumb but liked his fresh vegetables, thought the idea of a greenhouse in the Arctic was great.

  The glass roof let in a lot of light. Many people were walking around among wooden frames, vegetable beds, and blue barrels. Alana was loading a wheelbarrow with tools and pails at the back. Gardening was her second passion, common knowledge in Inuvik. Gardening and dogs.

  The gates to the garden were officially opened in May, but impatient gardeners like Alana always found an excuse to start preparing as early as possible.

  “Clem! You’re here! I never would have expected this in a million years! We need volunteers.” She winked at him.

  Her cheerfulness dissipated when he took her aside to a quiet corner and showed her Valerie’s photo on his phone.

  “Where did you take this picture? I never distributed this lighter. I’m testing all sorts of versions. I’d like a bright purple with a yellow inscription, not blue. How did it . . .”

  Her eyes circled around as if she could find an answer among the pots and shovels in the greenhouse.

  “. . . I put it away in my desk drawer.”

  “The lighter was found near where Gisèle froze to death.”

  She didn’t answer right away, seemingly lost in thought. Then her eyes narrowed.

  “Do you mean . . .”

  Her face went stiff. She looked around. There was nobody near them.

  “Gisèle must have filched it.”

  Clem didn’t get it.

  “Gisèle was at our place that day. I wasn’t home, I was off with the dogs and some tourists. Duncan was in the house by himself. She is . . . She brought us some hash. It relieves my pain. Rheumatism. She wanted something else: she offered Duncan money to fix the dogsled race. Gisèle’s boyfriend in Dawson was probably behind it. He’s been dying to win the race for a long time.”

  “Cole Baker?”

  “Probably.”

  Clem had heard about Cole’s racing team. Cole had a reputation for working his dogs much too hard.

  Alana sighed.

  “Duncan had taken Booster into the house. He wanted to inspect her paws. Something on her right forepaw seemed to be bothering her. He filled her dish and went in to the kitchen to get her a tincture. He’s convinced that Gisèle poisoned Booster.”

  Alana’s eyes were moist.

  And Clem’s throat was constricted. Because the faint thought that had burrowed itself into his brain was growing louder. Pihuk Bart had seen Toria’s red SUV in front of Alana’s house that day. Pihuk hadn’t uttered a word about seeing Gisèle. Something wasn’t adding up.

  “I’m packing up here,” Alana said. “I don’t feel so hot today.”

  Clem thought for a moment before asking, “Do you mind if I come with you and pick up Meteor?”

  Duncan had taken his dog along as one of his team.

  She looked at him. Her eyes were shadowed in fear.

  She suspects what I suspect.

  But she nodded and put her hands on the wheelbarrow.

  Clem drove ahead, keeping Alana’s green pickup in his rearview mirror. What he saw when he drove up to the house was no surprise.

  The SUV parked there was red.

  Alana got out, frowning. She didn’t say anything. The dogs in their enclosures barked all the more frantically.

  Nobody was in the mudroom. Alana didn’t bother to take off her boots. She’d nearly reached the upper landing to the house when Duncan stumbled out the upstairs door.

  “You’re back already?” he asked.

  Idiot, Clem thought.

  “Where’s Toria?” Alana’s voice was strained.

  “She’s finishing her coffee,” Duncan replied, without moving away from the door.

  Alana whirled around.

  “Clem, I’m sure there’s enough coffee for you, too.”

  He suddenly saw in her the woman whose firm hand could tame an unruly pack of dogs.

  Toria wasn’t in the kitchen, where her parka was draped over the arm of a chair, or in the living room. She emerged from the bathroom without showing a shred of embarrassment.

  “Hello, Clem,” she exclaimed. “Is Valerie back from Tuktoyaktuk yet? She bought me a few things in Vancouver.”

  Several seconds of silence followed.

  Then Alana got ahold of herself.

  “Sit down, Toria, and have your imaginary coffee.”

  Toria declined with a hand gesture.

  “Sorry, I have to take off, I just wanted to—”

  “Sit down, Toria.” Clem had also discovered his voice again. “There are some things going on here that require an explanation.”

  “Another time, I’ve really got to go.”

  Toria made for the door, but Alana got there first.

  “Either you talk to us, or we’ll talk to Helvin.”

  Toria gave a shrug.

  “Well, OK, if that’s how it’s got to be—a kitchen-sink drama.”

  She glanced for a second at Duncan, who was leaning against the sideboard with his arms folded.

  “If you mean that Duncan and me . . .”

  Clem broke in.

  “I think there’s much more to it, Toria.”

  He shoved his cell phone with the picture of the lighter under Duncan’s nose. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alana wince.

  “‘Booster Adventures.’ A nice inscription. This was found near the place where Gisèle lay dead on the road. I wonder how it got there?”

  Duncan stared at the picture and turned pale. He looked at Alana.

  “Yes, I’ve told Clem everything,” she said. “That Gisèle was here and what she did.”

  Toria butted in.

  “What? What’s on the phone? Show me!”

  Clem held his cell up to her. She shook her head in disbelief, then reached for her parka.

  “Phil Niditichie saw you with Gisèle, Toria,” Clem said. “That night. You two had an argument. Beside Helv’s truck.”

  “Phil’s crazy, he couldn’t have possibly seen—”

  “Give up, Toria, it’s pointless. Tell them what happened,” Duncan urged.

  Everybody stared at him. His movie-star face was sagging, defeat written all over it.

  Toria’s voice turned shrill. “You’re crazy, D
uncan! Nothing happened, absolutely nothing. I—”

  Duncan interrupted her.

  “We met Gisèle behind the arena. Toria wanted to buy a bit of hash off her. I wanted to call Gisèle out. I knew right away that she’d poisoned Booster.”

  Clem saw Alana standing as still as a pillar of salt by the door. But he had to pursue his line of questioning.

  “Was Toria here earlier that day?”

  “Yes, after Gisèle left.”

  “How did Gisèle get here?”

  “By snowmobile. I don’t know whose it was. Maybe she swiped that, too.”

  “Was Booster already . . . was the dog already showing signs of being poisoned while Gisèle was at your place?”

  Duncan pondered for a long time.

  “No, but afterward she began to foam at the mouth and writhe on the floor. It was . . . it was awful.”

  He wiped his hand over his lips and closed his eyes.

  Toria came over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “Shut your goddamn mouth, Duncan! You’re making things a hell of a lot worse.”

  Duncan pushed her back.

  “It’ll all come out anyway, don’t you see? Phil saw you arguing with Gisèle. Maybe he also saw her drive off in Helv’s pickup. How convenient of you to leave the motor running.”

  Toria drove Helvin’s truck to the arena, not her SUV, Clem thought. Things were starting to make sense: Gisèle didn’t secretly follow Helvin to his office and steal his truck after he’d thrown her out of it in town. Toria had taken her husband’s truck from outside his office, then driven it to the center of Inuvik to rendezvous with Duncan and Gisèle behind the arena. It was there that Gisèle took Helv’s pickup after the quarrel and drove off. And Clem’s boss was blissfully ignorant about it all.

  Clem followed up.

  “What was the argument about?”

  Toria didn’t answer.

  “She showed you a gold nugget, didn’t she? And said it was from Helvin for services rendered. Didn’t she?”

  That was largely speculation, but Clem instantly saw he’d hit a bull’s-eye.

  “Gisèle was angry that you and Duncan dumped on her,” Clem continued. “Duncan accused her of poisoning Booster. And someone told you that Gisèle had been seen with Helvin.”

  Toria looked at him furiously without a reply.