The Bone Seeker

by M. J. McGrath

  Her ex reached into the bag beside him and pulled out a couple of juicy char. ‘These do?’

  She turned the fish over in her hands. ‘Maybe. Depends how long you’re thinking of imposing yourself on me.’

  ‘Cousin Eric lent me his boat,’ Sammy said. ‘I thought I’d stay a few days, take Willa fishing.’

  Edie poured the soup and handed him the mug.

  ‘So I guess you and Nancy broke up?’ The couple were on and off like a pair of switches. Sammy had a habit of showing up at Edie’s door whenever the switch was in the off position. They joked about it. Sort of joked.

  ‘How are you and that qalunaat getting along?’ he said.

  ‘If you mean Chip Muloon, we’re not.’

  Sammy put his mug to his mouth and mumbled into his soup.

  ‘You got something to say, Sammy Inukpuk?’

  ‘Well, now you ask, actually I do. How in darned’s name did you ever think you were going to get along with a qalunaat?’

  Edie finished chewing on her bannock. ‘You’re forgetting, my dad was a qalunaat. Was or is.’ She hadn’t seen the man in about a quarter century.

  Sammy finished up his soup. They looked at each other for a moment. ‘Well, Edie Kiglatuk, I guess you’re gonna be needing a shoulder to cry on.’ Her back fizzed a little where his arm went around it. Their faces were so close now that she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  ‘A shoulder will do for a start,’ she said, giving him the eye.

  25

  Derek got back from the trout lake, read Edie’s note and went to bed. If Alfasi hadn’t turned up by the morning he’d call his employers, but he didn’t see any real need to worry. Young men came up to the Arctic looking for adventure and for the most part they found it. Then they went back down south, got mortgages, wives, kids and spent the rest of their lives reliving the glory days. Alfasi was off somewhere making memories. Right now he was low on Derek’s list of priorities. By the time he’d taken a shower and slipped under the bedcovers Derek had forgotten all about the kid.

  As usual, sleep eluded him. Every summer he went through the same thing, wondering how much longer he could take life on Ellesmere while at the same time knowing he could never leave. Part way through the night he pinged off his eye mask and checked the time. It was 4.30. In a couple of hours the workday would begin. Rising from his bed, he went out to the back shed to feed his lemmings. They too were awake and energetically going about their business and it made him feel better to watch them for a bit. They were dumb, instinctive creatures but they’d managed to eke out an existence all the way up here on the margins of life and you had to take your hat off to them because, holy freaking walrus, it took some doing sometimes.

  Returning to the detachment, he put on some water to boil and took a shower. Then he sat down with a bowl of ramen noodles and opened the Martha Salliaq file. A tiny part of him was hoping things would turn out the way he’d presented them to Sonia Gutierrez, that the Killer Whales would be proven to have been Martha’s killers, that Klinsman would charge them and that the whole thing would go away. But the better part of him thought it was worth investigating Muloon further just in case. If he was the valuable Defence Department asset Milt Drei made him out to be, then who was to say the military weren’t about to frame Namagoose and Saxby in order to protect him? Gutierrez seemed to think they were capable of it. He hadn’t liked the way Muloon had been when questioned about the knife. His air of smug invincibility. If Muloon had anything to do with Martha’s death, anything at all, Derek wanted to be the one to wipe the grin off his face.

  The aroma of roasting meat met his nostrils. All of a sudden his ramen noodles didn’t taste so good any more. He went to the window. Outside Edie’s tent a large goose was twirling on a home-made spit over a heather and willow fire. The woman herself was sitting beside it, stuffing what looked like a pillow with white feathers. A kettle sat on a Coleman stove beside the fire. Steam rose from the spout. The scene was so perfect it made his eyes hurt. He knocked on the glass. Edie looked up and beckoned to him. For a moment he felt a twinge of something – desire maybe – but then Sammy Inukpuk appeared in his field of vision and whatever it was faded.

  He went out onto the steps and took a deep breath in. The air smelled wonderfully of home. Only a woman could make the air smell that way. For a split second it made him think of Misha. But his ex had never been that kind of a woman.

  ‘Breakfast?’ Edie was holding up a mug of something.

  He came down. The tea was as she always made it, strong as an ox and unnaturally sweet. He took a couple of gulps and grimaced.

  She laughed and pulled a leg from the goose. ‘They’re in moult.’ For a week or so before they got their new feathers the snow geese were more or less flightless. If you were skilled enough you could almost pick them off the tundra.

  Sammy came over. ‘We got eggs too, you prefer omelette.’

  ‘You keep filling your belly with those ramen noodles, you’ll turn into a white man,’ Edie said. The meat was sweet and made him ache for something he’d never had.

  She waited for him to finish eating then asked if he’d seen her note.

  ‘I got back from the lake late. Survey took me a while. Didn’t see any sign of Alfasi.’ He told her he wasn’t worried.

  ‘Only thing in the house, I found a bunch of flowers,’ Edie said.

  Derek finished up the goose leg, laid the bone down and licked his fingers. ‘Oh well, that’ll be it then,’ he said. ‘Kid’s got a girlfriend somewhere.’ He’d go down to the radio station later and ask Markoosie to put out an alert for him. If that failed, he’d call Alfasi’s employers at the meteorological service in Ottawa, see if he’d checked in with them.

  They were on their own now. Sammy had gone off to do something in the tent. He lowered his voice so only Edie could hear. As he outlined what Drei had told him about Muloon he could see the moisture sparkle in her eyes and was overcome by a desire to reassure her.

  ‘This doesn’t change the odds that Muloon had something to do with Martha Salliaq’s death. We still don’t know whether he did or not. But it makes it more likely that he’s being protected if he did. Whatever he’s working on, there must be some connection to Glacier Ridge.’

  Edie was staring at smouldering heather and biting her lip.

  ‘Don’t feel bad,’ he said.

  ‘I never could read him, but I guess I just thought it was because he was qalunaat.’ She picked up the goose bone he’d left and threw it into the fire. ‘I’d feel better about it if I’d let my heart rule my head.’ A sad smile played on her lips. ‘But I’m afraid neither were responsible.’

  Derek heard himself give a laugh and felt his neck flush. ‘You’re not the first to have made that mistake.’ He thought immediately of Misha. Still dreamed about her sometimes, woke sweaty and frustrated. He blinked the thought away.

  ‘If Muloon was involved in Martha’s murder, we’ll keep at it till we get him. But we need to be very careful now, keep making discreet enquiries and see what Klinsman comes up with.’ He glanced towards the tent and was glad when she picked up his meaning.

  ‘Sammy hardly knows anything.’ She was using a tiny willow twig to spread the dying ashes.

  ‘Keep it that way,’ he said. ‘And Edie, I won’t allow anyone to be protected from justice. Not anybody. You know that, don’t you?’ He wiped the remains of the goose grease off his hands and picked himself up. ‘Thanks for breakfast. You think of anything you want to tell me, you know where I am.’

  • • •

  She waited for Sammy to return.

  ‘Derek knows I’m keeping something back from him.’ She and Sammy had spent the small hours discussing her conversations with Willa.

  ‘You’re not. You’ve just decided not to bother him with something that’s irrelevant to the investigation.’

&n
bsp; Sammy was aware how little she’d trusted Willa in the past and resented her for it.

  ‘The fact remains that the only person we know Martha saw between her leaving school looking cheerful and winding up crying on Tom Silliq’s wall was Willa. You have to admit, it looks bad.’

  ‘And that’s why we’re not going to be telling Derek about it,’ Sammy said, kicking the fire embers to cool them off. ‘You know how it is. Willa being such a hellraiser in the past. People have long memories. Prejudices. It looks bad but it isn’t.’

  Edie began to gather up the bones and leftovers to give to the half-starved dogs which roamed around the settlement. She delved into the ashes, plucked out the bone she’d thrown there, burning her hand a little in the process. But it felt good. It felt deserved.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said.

  ‘Willa’s got nothing to do with the death of that girl, so why drag him into it?’

  He had a point. But Derek wasn’t stupid. Sooner or later it would come out that Willa and Martha had a connection, then it would emerge that she had kept her knowledge of their relationship from him. Either way she would end up betraying someone.

  She watched Sammy disappear into the tent. A moment later there was a loud crash of pans and he came out, looking foolish.

  ‘I guess I was never much good at all that domestic hoo-ha. That’s why I need a woman about the place.’

  They laughed, but there was something sad in it.

  • • •

  Leaving Sammy with the keys to her ATV, she made her way on foot to the Kuujuaq Hotel, driven by a nagging but distant sense that Gutierrez would have been willing to tell more when she’d come to see them if Derek hadn’t closed her down. She’d felt a kind of connection between them. Two tough women in a tough place. There was an ally to be made in Gutierrez and Edie believed she could make it without having to give too much away in return. Gutierrez had hinted that she knew the Defence Department was up to something. Maybe she’d uncovered more about Chip Muloon.

  Inside the bitter aroma of burnt coffee greeted her but there was no sign of Sonia or anyone else. She shouted up the stairwell and, receiving no response, took the stairs two by two, turned left and went down the corridor to room number 7. When nobody answered her knock, she tried the handle. The door was locked. In this part of the world that was unusual. Taking out her multitool, she slid in the pick, felt for the pins and let herself in.

  The room had the still-warm feel of a place recently vacated. Gutierrez’s things were lying around and the window was part open. A laptop and some papers sat on the desk. Edie went over and began flipping through the pile: contracts, technical manuals, legal documents relating to the land claim at Glacier Ridge and subsequent decontamination agreements. She noticed a bunch of tundra flowers sitting in an empty vase on one side of the desk. They were early summer varieties, vetch, Arctic catkins, dried now, but perfectly preserved: looking closer, she could see they were tied with the same yellow cord as the bunch at Rashid Alfasi’s place. Rashid Alfasi and Sonia Gutierrez? Somehow she couldn’t see it.

  The sound of footsteps echoed up the stairs. Someone was heading her way. Her eyes swept about, desperately searching for somewhere to hide, but it was already too late. Then the door opened and Sonia’s face peered around. She saw Edie and her expression dimmed.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? I left this room locked.’

  A throb rose up in Edie’s forehead. She found herself reaching for the knife in her pocket, the old hunter’s instincts. For a second her mind began to unravel, then she took a breath and gathered herself. Her head flicked towards the papers on the desk.

  ‘I’ve had a snoop, in case you’re wondering.’

  The lawyer rested a hand on her hip and looked at Edie through narrowed eyes. ‘Come to any conclusions?’

  Edie returned the look with a cool stare. ‘I’m glad I’m not a lawyer.’

  For a moment Gutierrez seemed to be fighting back a smile, then went over to her papers and began rustling them into a neat pile.

  Seizing the moment, Edie said, ‘Nice flowers. You pick them yourself?’ She already knew the answer. When these flowers were blooming, Gutierrez was still in Ottawa or wherever it was she came from.

  Gutierrez glanced at the bouquet. ‘You must know, I found them up at Glacier Ridge. That time you saw me there.’

  ‘Mind if I take them?’

  The lawyer’s eyes narrowed. She leaned back and crossed her arms.

  A smile bloomed on her face and she cocked her head and clasped her chin between two fingers.

  ‘Dios mío! You haven’t stopped looking for the killer, have you? Ha!’ She lowered her voice. ‘You got cojones, Edie Kiglatuk. I’ll give you that much. I suppose you know that boss of yours is out of his depth, don’t you?’ She looked away. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll play dumb. Take the flowers and leave. You won’t find it so easy to get into my room next time.’

  • • •

  Edie filled Derek in on her visit to the hotel and laid the flowers on his desk.

  ‘Maybe Alfasi came across them just like Gutierrez did?’

  ‘A man wouldn’t pick them up.’

  Derek conceded this.

  ‘What if Alfasi was Martha’s boyfriend?’

  Derek sighed. She watched him push the idea aside. Why he was so dismissive of her boyfriend theory Edie couldn’t make out. Maybe just because it wasn’t his. Men could be assholes like that sometimes. She was about to tell him so when she saw from his face that he was thinking something through.

  ‘How did Alfasi seem when you went to talk to him?’

  ‘He got kind of jumpy when I asked him whether he thought Martha was with Namagoose and Saxby by choice. I assumed he disapproved of the drinking, but maybe there was something else to it.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. An idea bubbled up, an awful, unspeakable idea but not an impossible one. Turning it over in her mind, she felt her blood quickening. ‘He skipped his shift on Saturday night.’

  ‘And those two things are connected how?’

  ‘Suppose Alfasi and Martha had arranged to see one another on Friday after school. When I spoke with her at the end of class Martha was looking forward to something. Suppose they met up and had some sort of a fight, Martha got upset and went to the bar to drown her sorrows. Namagoose and Saxby came with her to the Shack at her suggestion.’

  Derek raised an eyebrow. He was playing the scenario in his head.

  ‘If she was dating Alfasi she would have known that he would be there,’ Edie went on. ‘What if she was trying to provoke him into some reaction? What if it worked?’

  Derek’s features sharpened. ‘We need to find this kid.’

  • • •

  Sonia fiddled with the lock on her door but could not get it to function. The damn Inuit policewoman had broken it when she’d let herself in. Of course she could file a complaint somewhere but really what was the point? In any case, there were more pressing things to do. Chief among which was to ensure her safety. It had been completely pointless to voice her concerns with Palliser. He didn’t seem to have any idea to what lengths the Defence Department would go in order to avoid exposing a scandal. The tiny woman was a bit more switched on, but that wasn’t saying much. It wasn’t that she didn’t rate them. You’d want to be with them in a blizzard. In the face of a charging polar bear she imagined they’d be magnificent. But they couldn’t see that the greatest danger to them personally and to their community lay just a few kilometres down the road at Camp Nanook.

  She left the door and went back inside to fetch her purse. There was a fixing on the door to which she would be able to attach a padlock. The store would surely sell those. As a precaution, she sifted through her pile of papers, selected those few she needed for her ongoing investigations and stuck them in her daypack, then headed into the settlem
ent.

  The tide was out now, leaving behind it a dirty hem of rotting bergy bits and gravel-crusted ice, and for the first time in weeks the air was cooler outdoors than inside. She checked about as she walked, wondering whether she wouldn’t be safer in Ottawa. She had folk looking out for her down there. Here she was vulnerable. Palliser had already said he wasn’t prepared to offer her police protection. The only other person she could ask was Charlie Salliaq, and he was in no shape to help. She made a mental note to ask at the Northern Store about getting a plane out. Get back to Ottawa, file the cease and desist papers against the Defence Department from there.

  The store had not long been open. The owner and his wife were still sorting out keys and dusting down the cashier’s desk. She caught the man’s attention and asked for a combi lock.

  He stood up and rubbed his head. ‘Don’t get any call for locks. I’d have to order one up on the supply plane.’ He began fishing around for the mail order catalogue. Oolik, that was his name. She remembered now. Bit of an asshole.

  ‘When are you expecting the next supply plane?’

  Oolik turned his head back to glance at the ‘Great Canadian views’ calendar on the wall.

  ‘Should be tomorrow afternoon, weather permitting.’ He pushed the catalogue at her. ‘Too late to order you a padlock for then. It’d probably take a couple weeks.’

  ‘What’s the likelihood of being able to get a seat on tomorrow’s plane?’

  The man began scratching at his head again. He was in no hurry. ‘Where you need to get to exactly?’

  ‘Iqaluit, Ottawa, it doesn’t really matter.’

  Oolik sighed. ‘I guess I could call North Star Air, see if they could take you. Depends on their cargo commitments. But they usually don’t fly unless they’re full both ways.’

  ‘I’m happy to pay a premium.’

  She saw Oolik frown disapprovingly and kicked herself. Offering an Inuk a backhander was like showing up on a first date with bad breath.

  Predictably, Oolik returned a few minutes later shaking his head. ‘I could book you on next Monday’s plane.’