The Bone Seeker

by M. J. McGrath

  • • •

  Edie had watched them come up from the launch. She’d gone back to Alfasi’s house and then to the met station on the outskirts of the settlement, looking for anything that might tie Alfasi to Martha. The search hadn’t yielded anything new and stepping into the detachment office she found it hard to square the scared kid trembling in the chair with her image of a ruthless killer. But then she knew it was the orderly types who often found the Arctic the hardest to adjust to because they were often the ones for whom the feeling of fear was the hardest to bear. It was impossible to be in the Arctic without the daily experience of fear. Inuit like Edie took it for granted. Fear was the shade that could block out the sun but it was also the canopy under which you could shelter. You lived in its presence because you couldn’t survive without it. Flight, fight. Fear.

  She pulled up a chair and sat beside him. The kid stared at the floor, red-faced and wretched. What was it Muloon had once told her? A third of qalunaat on two-year Arctic postings returned to the south mentally ill.

  ‘You should have gone home a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Before this place drove you crazy.’

  The young man blinked and took in a long breath.

  ‘You are a meteorologist. You know about avalanches and instant white-outs, two-hundred-kilometre-an-hour winds and what happens to a human body at minus fifty C. Maybe, when you first arrived you thought that because you knew all those things there was no need to be afraid. But nothing, not even avalanches and white-outs, not even bears or black ice, is as fearful as the way the Arctic throws you back upon yourself.’ She watched his eyes.

  For a long while he did not speak, then he said, ‘I’m not well.’

  ‘Then we’ll make you well,’ Edie said. ‘And then you can talk to us and, if we believe your story, you can go home, back to Vancouver or Morocco or wherever you need to be in order to hide from who you are.’

  She got up and went out to the kitchenette to search through the cupboards for some ukiurtatuq tea to settle Alfasi’s stomach but found only regular black tea, coffee beans and a few ancient sachets of tangerine Tang. Her hands automatically reached for the mugs and dumped in teabags. She found the sugar and set everything on a tray. She’d planned this moment.

  Alfasi was still sitting where she’d left him, his head in his hands. She put the tray down on the desk.

  ‘Have some tea.’

  As he lifted his head his eyes fell on the bouquet of flowers she’d taken from Sonia Gutierrez’s room. He swallowed back a gasp. His eyes grew wild. ‘Were you with Martha because she helped you to forget yourself, Rashid?’

  The boy looked at her from under his eyelids. His mouth was trembling but Edie thought she saw a twitch of defiance there.

  ‘I want that lawyer lady. I’m not saying anything till she gets here.’

  ‘Forget the lawyer lady. The lawyer lady is unavailable,’ Derek cut in.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ Alfasi said, ‘I do important work here.’

  ‘Tell us about your work, Rashid.’ Derek sat back, intertwining his hands behind his neck, sending Alfasi the message that he was relaxed and had plenty of time.

  An anxious look came on Alfasi’s face, as though he’d gone a step too far and was now regretting it.

  ‘You know what I do,’ he said. ‘I work at the weather station collecting data.’

  ‘We already know that you work for the military.’

  For a moment Alfasi looked confused. ‘I’m seconded to them for the period of the SOVPAT exercises, that’s all.’

  ‘And the other job? At the Shack? Why did you do that, Rashid?’

  ‘I told you, for something to do.’ Alfasi sat back and folded his arms. ‘I’m not saying anything else till I get a lawyer.’

  ‘Fine. But it might be days. What with finding someone who can come, and the fact that there are hardly any flights up here. And the cost, well, I can hardly imagine the cost.’ Derek made to get up out of his chair. ‘Of course, we’ll have to keep you on the premises until your lawyer arrives.’

  Alfasi hung his head. ‘All right,’ he said in a sullen voice.

  Edie caught Derek’s eye. It was time to ease off on Alfasi a little. They might be able to get to him by some more roundabout route.

  ‘One of your jobs at Susie Silliq’s place is to fetch the dry goods from the store, isn’t it, Rashid? The flour, salt, that kind of thing?’

  Alfasi’s eyebrows knitted. He was wondering if this was some kind of trap. Edie could see that after three days at sea he was befuddled and exhausted.

  ‘You fetch them direct from Sam Oolik’s storeroom, I’m guessing. He gives you the key? Lets you just help yourself?’

  Alfasi’s face relaxed momentarily. ‘I just take the keys from behind the door in the office then mark what I’ve taken in a ledger.’

  ‘When did you last do that?’

  The young man thought about it. ‘Why are you asking me this? You think I took something, don’t you?’ Edie realized she’d underestimated him. He wasn’t so tired that he didn’t have his wits about him.

  Derek glanced at Edie.

  ‘Do you have a camera, Rashid?’

  Alfasi drew back in his chair, his eyes darting between his interrogators. ‘No.’

  ‘How did Martha Salliaq die?’

  Alfasi wiped a hand across his mouth and sat up. His eyes grew large and watery, then his face seemed to crumple.

  ‘Look, we dated a while back. Weeks ago. She ended it. I think she was scared her father would find out.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘I told you, Friday, when she came into the Shack.’

  Derek said, ‘Did Martha reject you, Rashid?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that.’

  ‘You’re Muslim, aren’t you? Familiar with the ritual of halal?’

  ‘Of course,’ Alfasi said.

  ‘Is that why you bled Martha out?’

  An expression of horror unfurled across Alfasi’s face and he began to shake. His chest heaved, then he leaned over the chair and vomited. His head was in his hands again and he was sobbing. Suddenly the boy’s expression grew dark and angry. ‘You think I haven’t seen how this place works? You’re always looking for some outsider to blame and you’ve decided to blame me, whether I killed Martha or not.’ He was hard now, the cords in his neck taut, a look of contempt across his face. ‘Which I didn’t.’

  There was a moment of silence during which they could hear the sound of kids playing down at the shoreline.

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’ Alfasi said.

  Edie saw Derek take a deep breath. He glanced over at her then turned up his palms. My hands are tied. His fingers drummed the desk. For a moment she was afraid that he was about to tell the kid that he no longer had jurisdiction over the case.

  ‘You’re free to go.’

  Alfasi let out a gasp of relief.

  Derek raised a palm and leaned back in. His voice was quiet but insistent. ‘We’re not finished with you, Rashid Alfasi. And if you speak to anyone about this, and I mean anyone, I’ll throw you in jail myself.’

  28

  Edie waited for Alfasi to leave.

  ‘Have you lost your mind?’

  ‘I’m flattered you think I had one to begin with,’ he said. ‘Right now, I’m not so sure myself.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ Edie said.

  Derek sat down in his chair, leaned back and began rolling a pen through his fingers.

  ‘If this was still my case everything would be so much easier, but it isn’t. Whatever we do now has to be watertight. I can go to the prosecutor, but only if I’m absolutely one hundred per cent sure of my ground. And I’m not. The bulk of the evidence still points to the Killer Whales. Even if he did do it, we don’t have enough on Alfasi to indic
t him. Plus we haven’t eliminated Muloon yet, remember? It was his knife and he’s got no backup for his alibi on Saturday.’

  ‘What’s your gut telling you?’ For a moment Edie thought about unburdening herself and telling him everything she’d kept from him about Willa’s connection to Martha. Then she thought about Sammy and about Willa and held back.

  ‘That we need more time.’

  ‘Time for Alfasi to go AWOL again.’

  Derek shook his head. ‘Alfasi’s not going anywhere. It’s fifteen hundred kilometres to the nearest town of any size, there’s no supply ship for another year and I’ve put out a message at the landing strip that no one’s to fly him out. Kid doesn’t even have an ATV.’ Derek dropped the pen back onto the desk. ‘Things aren’t black and white, Edie. If I hold Alfasi for enquiries, how long do you think it’s gonna be before Klinsman or his goons find out about it? The slightest hint that we’re carrying on the investigation and he’s gonna find a way to shut us down for good.’

  The phone rang. He picked up.

  ‘Hi, Anna.’ He listened for a while, made the odd remark then ended the call. No speakerphone this time. Edie wondered if it had slipped his mind or if he was now deliberately keeping her from certain aspects of the investigation. When the call was finished he picked up the pen again and began rolling it between his fingers.

  ‘Anything I should know?’ Edie asked. No response. She repeated the question more loudly this time. He turned towards her with an expression of bewilderment on his face. Edie hadn’t seen him look so disorientated since last spring on the sea ice in Alaska.

  ‘Anna said the Defence Department sent a couple of officials round to look at her notes on the Martha Salliaq case and asked her to sign a confidentiality agreement. They told her it was routine for any case handled by the military police, but she says she’s done MP cases before and never been asked to sign anything.’ He lit a cigarette, took a long toke and said to no one in particular: ‘What the hell is going on?’ He raised a finger to his mouth and began biting the nail.

  ‘Bad habit,’ Edie said.

  He smiled. ‘You know, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave right now.’

  ‘And go where? To do what? Martha was my pupil and you’re my asshole friend.’ She thought about what Gutierrez had said, that Derek was out of his depth, that they both were.

  ‘We’re in the water together, D. There’s nothing for it now except to take a deep breath and start swimming.’

  ‘And hope there are no killer whales nearby,’ he said.

  They laughed.

  At that moment, the door opened and Lizzie Salliaq burst in. Her face was red and swollen.

  ‘The qalunaat nurse has been trying to call you, but you’ve been on the phone.’

  Derek pushed the handset back into its cradle.

  ‘My dad’s sick. He’s been sick a while but he wouldn’t see a qalunaat doctor. We found him on the floor in the bathroom. There was blood coming out of his mouth.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘The nurse says he has to be medivaced out.’

  Medical evacuations were police business. Derek dialled through to the nursing station and spoke to Luc. The old man was stable but he’d need to be admitted to the hospital in Iqaluit as a matter of urgency.

  It was bad timing.

  ‘I’ll go over with them, see Charlie right and pay a visit to Anna,’ Derek said. ‘I can be back early tomorrow morning.’

  • • •

  Edie returned to her tent, gathered a few things and took a shower in Derek’s bathroom. She washed and oiled her hair and put on a blue chambray dress customized with strips of sealskin and hare, then slid her multitool inside her pocket. She waited until she heard the medivac plane take off. Then she went down the path towards the centre of the village.

  School had shut for the day, but the entrance door was open. Edie slid inside and went along the corridor to Chip Muloon’s office. A single fluorescent strip buzzed in the passageway. She knocked on Muloon’s door and, getting no response, tried the handle. Locked. Aside from the noise coming from the strip light the building was quiet. She bent down and placed a hand on the linoleum, checking for floor vibrations, but felt nothing. No one was walking about upstairs or in another corridor. For now the going was safe. She knocked on Chip’s door once more, then pulled the multitool from her pocket. In a matter of seconds the lock slid back and she was inside.

  The room had all the appearance of being in use. She recognized one or two of his books on the shelves, a couple of box files, a coffee machine and a collection of pens jammed into a mug. But the desk drawers were empty and there was nothing in the box files. Whatever he had been keeping in there had been cleared out. She went over to the shelves and flipped through the books and was lining them back up on the shelves when she suddenly became conscious of a vibration underfoot. Someone was coming. She froze and held her breath. To her horror, she saw she’d left a crack in the door. With infinite care she stepped over. Her hand was on the handle when the door flew open and the headteacher Les Ferguson’s face appeared. For a split second the two of them stood there looking at one another.

  ‘Chip sent me on an errand to fetch some files,’ Edie said. ‘But they’re not here.’

  Ferguson’s face relaxed, then broke into a smile. ‘I was just leaving for the night if you’re done?’ He swept Muloon’s door open and made it clear that he expected Edie to walk through. ‘New security arrangements. Need to lock up the building.’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled back at him. One thing she’d noticed about qalunaat. They could be excruciatingly polite. When they were being like that, it seemed to take all their resources. You could slip anything under their radar and they wouldn’t notice.

  ‘Well, goodnight,’ Ferguson said.

  ‘Goodnight,’ echoed Edie.

  They left one another on the school steps, all smiles, then Edie turned and made her way towards Chip Muloon’s house.

  29

  Derek knew the exact moment his aerophobia began, but knowing had never helped him defeat it. The best way to cope with it was to distract himself. The police pilot, Pol, knew nothing of Derek’s terror of flying and he intended to keep it that way. If it got around, he’d be the laughing stock of the Ellesmere Islanders – all 287 of them – and pretty soon the whole of the High Arctic. Before he’d taken the post on Ellesmere his colleagues in Yellowknife had warned him not to be fooled by the size of the place. The biggest small town the world has ever seen, they called it. And so it had proved. The arrests of Namagoose and Saxby had at least taken the heat off him, both more generally and with the Salliaq family, who now had added problems of their own. But the arrests had also made his own, covert, investigations more urgent. He was pretty sure that the pressure to arrest and charge the two Killer Whales had come directly from the Defence Department and that both Klinsman and the military police were just following orders. He’d got the impression that Klinsman had been playing second fiddle all along. That was one explanation for the colonel’s almost desperate overtures at the start of the investigation. He was beginning to think now that Klinsman had been encouraged to close the case as soon as he could, even if it had meant implicating his own men. In the last day or two he’d even found himself wondering if the Killer Whales were being set up. Why the Defence Department might want to go to such extreme lengths he didn’t know. But he intended to find out.

  The ambulance was waiting at the side of the landing strip in Iqaluit. Two paramedics clambered out and helped Luc to manoeuvre Charlie Salliaq into the vehicle. Alice and Lizzie travelled in the ambulance with the patient. Derek waited behind to complete the paperwork then called the Force downtown and got them to send him a ride to the hospital.

  For a regional facility serving an area of 2 million square kilometres Baffin Hospital was pretty unimpressive. For the most part its thirty-four beds housed the e
lderly and infirm and folk who’d had minor accidents. Patients requiring major surgery or any kind of specialist treatment faced a four-hour flight south to facilities in Ottawa or Montreal. The locals often elected not to bother. They said that once you went down south you’d never make it back up again. There was something about the south that made Inuit give up and die.

  By the time Derek had found someone who could tell him which ward Charlie Salliaq was in, the chief medical officer, David Applebaum, a tall, dry stick of a man with the braced gait of someone used to making difficult decisions in the absence of adequate resources, had already taken one look at the patient and advised an immediate transfer south. In typical Inuit fashion the old man had refused to go, saying that if he was going to die, it was bad enough to have to do it in Iqaluit. Applebaum had reluctantly admitted the patient to a family room with a stern warning about the risks. Salliaq was there now with Lizzie and Alice, awaiting some tests, but Applebaum had hinted that the results were likely to confirm what already seemed clear, that Charlie Salliaq was dying.

  Derek’s concern for the old man surprised him. Now that Salliaq’s life hung in the balance, Derek was keen to ensure that he did not die before seeing justice done for his daughter. Which meant two things. First, persuading the old man to follow the doctor’s advice and transfer somewhere they could give him specialist care. And secondly, trying to find a breakthrough in the case. Though, as Derek realized, this last was as much for Martha as for the remaining Salliaq family, who seemed content to believe that the perpetrators had been arrested and would be duly tried and, if there were any justice to be had in the south at all, found guilty.

  He spent the time waiting to be called to the ward filling in the final medivac papers. Once he’d seen Charlie he intended to go down to the local detachment, say hi to his old pal Bill Makivik of the Iqaluit Force, check the weather and talk to Pol about booking a take-off slot for the return flight. Having supervised Charlie Salliaq’s admission, Luc had gone to visit a friend and left a number where he could be reached with a return flight time. Once Derek knew that, he’d give Anna a call and suggest they meet up. It was past office hours now and he hoped she’d at least agree to talk to him. He’d been disquieted by her story of the confidentiality agreement she was required to sign by the Defence Department and wanted to get to the bottom of it.