A Green Place for Dying
Page 32
Apart from weekends, we had seen little of Teht’aa. Once her new employers learned that her father was safe, they’d insisted that she come to Ottawa to start her new job. She was enjoying it immensely. Watching the evening APTN news in the hopes of catching a glimpse of her as the Ottawa reporter had become a part of our evening routine. I quite enjoyed watching Eric preen as his beautiful daughter’s face filled the TV screen. She had spent time with us on the last two weekends, but had forewarned us that she would be tied up this coming one, no doubt something that would happen more frequently as she got on with her new life.
Will had become a regular dinner visitor. As the sun’s dying rays sank behind the far hills, he would arrive with a wine bottle in hand, ready to tackle whatever sumptuous meal Eric had prepared that night. In exchange he regaled us with the latest happenings in the broader world, including keeping us up to date on the case. The two bikers and the lodge manager had been charged with a number of things, including kidnapping and human trafficking. Although the police hadn’t been able yet to prove the involvement of other members of Les Diables Noirs, they strongly suspected the gang’s hierarchy was fully aware of the operation and was probably receiving of some of the proceeds. The difficulty was in proving it.
The owner of the lodge, a princeling from an oil-rich Middle Eastern state, was hiding behind a flank of lawyers, protestations of ignorance, and no extradition treaty. The police had, however, discovered that he was also the owner of the Caribbean resort where the girls were sent after Sunset Lodge closed for the winter. Apparently, he owned a couple of other similarly isolated resorts, one in the Seychelles and the other on a small South Seas island. So things might start heating up for the princeling. However, Will warned us that proving that these establishments were recipients of trafficked women would probably be impossible, for by the time the paperwork was finalized between the various governments and police organizations, the girls would be long gone.
As for the unaccounted missing Ottawa women, now reduced to eight, Will doubted we would ever know what happened to them. Only two men had known. One was dead, Fran, and the other, his brother-in-law Etienne, was not talking. And if and when he eventually did, it was hardly likely the missing women would be at the resort where the traffickers had sent them. The two had run the trafficking operation pretty much on their own, with some assistance from the other two bikers. At least that was the story so far. The police, however, were still working on them. Regardless, we had managed to stop the trafficking, so the streets of Ottawa were once again safe for aboriginal women. And the next time one did go missing, we would make sure that the police paid attention.
Sergei stood up, wagging his tail, as Eric’s red canoe sliced through the water towards the dock. He carried a passenger, Will, grinning from ear to ear. Both men stopped paddling. Eric, looking somewhat sheepish, held up a large bass, still dripping. I smiled. One of my favourite meals. I could already taste the delicate white fish sautéed lightly in butter with some fresh tarragon from my herb garden.
And Will was holding up his usual wine bottle, except in this case, it looked to be a bottle of champagne with a bright orange label, which, if I remembered correctly was that of Veuve Clicquot. Once a favourite … from another life. Although I’d had nothing to drink since we’d come home, not even Will’s wine, I would make tonight an exception.
“What’s the celebration?” I called out.
“You’ll see,” answered Will, laughing, pointing at the bulge in Eric’s lumber shirt pocket. It looked to be that of a small jewellery box.
Oh my.
Acknowledgements
As I tossed around themes for the fifth Meg Harris mystery, my mind kept returning to one that resonates throughout the First Nations communities of Canada, that of missing aboriginal women. Currently there are over 580 women missing across the country. Sisters in Spirit, an organization of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, has taken as its mandate the task of raising awareness of this alarmingly high number and of the high rates of violence against aboriginal women and girls. Every year since 2006, Sisters in Spirit have held vigils on October 4 in many cities across the country to honour the lives of the missing and murdered women. If one happens to take place near you, you may want to consider showing you haven’t forgotten these women either.
I felt that perhaps I could help raise the awareness in my own small way, by making missing native women a central theme of A Green Place for Dying. But I do want to emphasize that the fictional story and characters within are not based on any true situation. If perchance they do mirror a particular situation, it is purely happenstance.
As with all my books, I rely on the advice and expertise of others. I want to give a special thank you to my dedicated readers, Alex Brett, Barbara Fradkin, and Judith Nasby for their valuable comments. And a thank you to those that lent their expertise, namely Alex Hall, Marie Tobin, Sylvie Blais and Bernard Crepeau.
I also want to thank my editor, Allister Thompson, my former publisher, Sylvia McConnell, and my new publisher, Dundurn, for helping to make this book happen.
As ever, I couldn’t pursue my writing adventure without the enduring support of my husband, Jim. And I must not forget to mention the two who probably spend the most time with me while I am writing, Sterling and Gryphon, my standard poodles, who usually spend it sound asleep on the couch, when they are not barking at the squirrels attacking the bird feeders.
Copyright ©R.J. Harlick, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Allister Thompson/Sylvia McConnell
Design: Jennifer Scott
Epub: Carmen Giraudy
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More Meg Harris Mysteries
by R.J. Harlick
Arctic Blue Death
978-1894917872
$16.95
The sparsely populated Arctic is no stranger to murder…
The fourth in the Meg Harris series follows Meg’s adventures in the Canadian Arctic as she searches for the truth about the disappearance of her father when she was a child. Many years earlier, her father’s plane had gone missing in the Arctic and he was never seen again. What happened on that fateful flight?
Thirty-six years later, her mother receives some strange Inuit drawings that suggest he might have survived. Intent on discovering the answers, no matter how painful, Meg travels to Iqaluit to find the artist and is sucked into the world of Inuit art forgery. Arctic Blue Death is not only a journey into Meg’s past and the events that helped shape the person she is today, but it’s also a journey into the land of the Inuit and the culture that has sustained them for thousands of years. Finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel.
The River Runs Orange
978-1894917629
$15.95
Meg Harris is always determined to fight against injustice, but sometimes the line between right and wrong is fuzzy. During a wild whitewater paddle down a wilderness river, Meg discovers the skull and bones of a woman
whose very existence takes the archeological world by storm. But when her neighbours, the Migiskan Algonquin, declare their rights to the ancient remains, Meg becomes embroiled in a fight that pits ancient beliefs against modern ones and can only lead to murder.
As Meg races to catch the killer, she finds herself once more daring the river’s fury, this time with the added horror of a raging forest fire.
Available at your favourite bookseller.
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