In the Barren Ground

by Loreth Anne White

  Now they waited for weather.

  Meanwhile Cpl. Marshall had appointed a 24/7 point person at HQ to take Tana’s calls, and answer questions. Databases were also being scoured for similar “attacks” or missing persons/predation cases throughout the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and the more remote regions of the provinces across Canada. The autopsy reports and forensics in the Apodaca-Sanjit case had also been put on fast track, and the Regan Novak and Dakota Smithers cases had been officially reopened. Rosalie had done her part by securing the cleaner from the band office to ready the small RCMP cabin by the river for an influx of law enforcement personnel. Viktor at the Broken Pine Motel had also been put on notice that they might need rooms.

  Tana’s room with the whiteboard would become the incident room. She was totally amped that she’d pulled this off without Cutter or Keelan. No more stonewalling, because they’d look like asses if they tried to mess with the snowball she’d gotten rolling now. But nerves nipped at her, too. Her backup was not here. Yet.

  She stopped pacing, and reread the names she’d written in the first column. She reached up to rub out Crash’s name, but stopped just short. Conflict twisted. She believed in him, she really did. But a new team coming in here would see the statement she’d taken from Heather, read the comments about the red AeroStar chopper, learn that Crash owned one of the only two in this area, and the only one that had done any flying time—because MacAllistair’s was still barely out of the box—and they’d want to know why his name was not up there.

  Tana ran through the other persons of interest: Elliot Novak, Markus Van Bleek, Crow TwoDove, Jamie TwoDove, Caleb Peters, Teevak Kino, Big Indian, Harry Blundt. Other mine crew? Dean Kaminsky. She grabbed her black marker and to the list she added Henry Spatt, Alan Sturmann-Taylor, Damien Sallis, and his gang. She rubbed her brow. It was half the bloody town, and she still hadn’t really narrowed anything down.

  Don’t beat yourself up. You dug up enough evidence to bring in a team. You’re not a homicide detective. You’re a twenty-four-year-old pregnant beat cop who’s in way over her head with a potential serial killer loose in your jurisdiction that covers 17,500 square miles and you’re socked in with a series of rolling blizzards.

  You need to let people help you, Tana, my child. Everyone needs a tribe. Man is not strong without tribe …

  Yeah, well, she had asked for help. Big first step, Gran. And she’d made another friend out here now, apart from Charlie—Crash. Whatever happened now, her gut told her Crash would have her back. Another big step. Trust.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek, debating it, then added Charlie Nakehk’o’s name. She felt uncomfortable doing so. Charlie was old, and whether he had the sheer physical power to hurt someone the way Apodaca and Sanjit had been bashed and ripped apart, she didn’t know. However, while she guessed that all four victims had been dealt violent blows to the bases of their skulls, and had been ripped open with a clawlike tool, she couldn’t be certain until the latest autopsy results. And even then, questions might remain about what actually killed them, and what the animals did after, given the time the bodies were out there.

  Her mind went again to their visit with Novak. The boot print in his shed. It linked him to the killings, even peripherally. Who was his visitor?

  Who brought him cigarettes?

  The only place to officially buy cigarettes locally would be the diner shop. She could check purchase records with Marcie. But she’d bet her life they were also being sold illegally, probably by Damien and his mates. Or, Novak’s smokes could have come from someone outside the community. Someone who flew a small red chopper.

  She kept coming back to that AeroStar. And the one in Crash’s backyard.

  “Tana?” Rosalie’s voice came from the office. “I’m going now, is that okay?”

  Tana’s gaze shot to the dark window. She wondered where Crash was. “Fine, Rosalie, yeah. Thanks.”

  Rosalie came to the door. “Want me to go by Chief Dupp’s place, get him to find someone to come stay with you? Crash said not to leave you alone.”

  “I, uh, no, I’m fine. I’m sure he’ll be here any minute. Just lock the door on your way out, will you?”

  “Alright then. Good night.”

  “Night, Rosalie.”

  Tana sifted through the papers on the table and found MacAllistair’s statement. She read her notes—MacAllistair had claimed the AeroStar was not O’Halloran’s, because O’Halloran had told her it was not his. Tana pursed her lips, recalling the sense she’d gotten that MacAllistair was trying to cover for O’Halloran, protect him. Her mind went to Mindy, and how Mindy had noted that MacAllistair and O’Halloran had had intimate relations.

  Tana cursed and pushed the report aside. She was referring to Crash by his last name again, going all official, allowing doubt to creep in, and it was making her twitchy.

  Was she being blind? Could he really be a seductive sociopath leading them down the forest path?

  Tana cast her mind back to when she’d first arrived at the WestMin camp, and she’d overheard MacAllistair asking Crash about the AeroStar. She could picture them there, in the mist, talking.

  That red damn chopper.

  No one else had seen it, either. Just MacAllistair. It was like a little red … herring. Tana froze. Red herring. The term came from hunting—the act of dragging a smelly fish across a trail to send tracking dogs off course. A ruse. Misdirection. A lie.

  Jesus. She began to pace. No … couldn’t be.

  But MacAllistair was the only witness of the AeroStar. The K9 biologists hadn’t seen it. According to Veronique Garnier and Dean Kaminsky, neither had Apodaca nor Sanjit. No one from the camp had reported seeing it. Could MacAllistair have been lying? And why would she lie? To throw a cop off. And how better to do so, but to then make it appear that she was covering, protecting, the person she’d stuck into the line of fire.

  If Tana believed Crash—and she had to, she’d come so far down this road with him—then he’d not been there in his AeroStar on the afternoon of Friday, November 2. Maybe there’d never been an AeroStar there at all.

  Blood began to boom in Tana’s ears as she pictured meeting MacAllistair that first night. The woman had been edgy, pacing, shivering. Pale. Inebriated. Eyes bloodshot. Tall—around five foot eleven. Strong handshake. Cold, rough hands that were hurt and chapped. Big-boned woman. Athletic. Tana grabbed the back of a chair with both hands, closed her eyes, taking herself right back to that night. Visualizing the fog, the cold, the swirling snowflakes. MacAllistair wearing a down jacket, no gloves …

  You must be the new cop …

  MacAllistair had dropped her cigarette butt to the snow, and ground it out with her boot. She’d reached forward to shake Tana’s hand.

  … Nice to meet you. Sorry about the circumstances.

  Her boot. Grinding out the cigarette.

  The leather had been dark reddish-brown. Came just above the ankle. Thick sole. Shearling-lined. Like a classic Baffin-Arctic work boot. MacAllistair was tall enough, big enough, to wear a men’s size nine. Ex-military, she’d seen brutal action. At the time of meeting her and learning that she’d quit the US military to come north, Tana had wondered about the possibility of PTSD.

  Her mind shot back to the interview at the yurt—MacAllistair laying her pack of cigarettes on the table before pouring herself a coffee.

  Marlboro Lights.

  She’d not considered a female. Was it possible? Could Heather MacAllistair be psychotic? Psychopathic? Could she be capable of PTSD-induced violence, rage? Was it something that went back a hell of a lot further? How long had she been doing this, and where?

  Where had she come from in the States? What was her history? Why had she been discharged from the military?

  Tana tapped her marker faster and faster against the palm of her hand as she paced, her brain racing, her pulse galloping, her skin heating with adrenaline.

  Heather MacAllistair had been in town for more than f
our years. She was highly independent and mobile. She could travel vast distances. She’d had opportunity in every one of those cases. She potentially had the right boots to have made that print. She’d flown those kids all season, and knew their movements, and when the weather windows would close.

  And according to that photo at Tchliko Lodge, she’d also been in the Nehako Valley the fall that geologist had disappeared and wound up dead and scavenged.

  She lived on TwoDove’s ranch. She had access to bear lure. Taxidermy tools. Other tools in the barn. Tana’s mind went back to the stained-looking flight suits she’d seen hanging at the back of the barn. The dry bags, the kind used for river trips to keep the contents from getting wet. The stained waders hanging outside the lure shed. These were things that could be worn for a messy attack. Body parts—like a heart—and the dirty clothes could be transported in those bags without leaving blood all over the interior of a chopper.

  Bile washed up the back of Tana’s throat at the sick thoughts. Why? What would motivate someone to do this? What satisfaction did they get from it, or need from it?

  A female serial killer? Female violence. Rage. A need for power—to dominate. Tana was not unfamiliar with female aggression. Her mother had beaten her nearly unconscious on more than one drunken occasion before the age of eight, after which she’d fought back, or managed to get away.

  Her mind went to Novak. The boot print in his shed. Could it have been MacAllistair’s? She’d have easy access to Novak’s camp via her chopper. Lots of places to land.

  But why visit him? Why bring him things? Why—

  The affair.

  No. Novak had said the woman he’d been involved with had left town. But he could have lied. He was mad—he could be speaking with double meaning. He might have meant that MacAllistair had gone, left him figuratively.

  Tana reached for the sat phone that she was now wearing secured to her duty belt. She dialed the point person Marshall had given her in Yellowknife, and she cut right to the chase.

  “Heather MacAllistair, a local helicopter pilot, flies for Boreal Air, she’s ex-US Army—I need to know why she was discharged from the military, and when. Where she came from before enlisting. I also need to be connected with the public mental health worker who was appointed to Twin Rivers three and four years ago. There should be a government record.”

  Tana hung up, and tried Crash’s number. It kicked straight to voice mail. She checked the time. Where in the hell was he? A soft spurt of worry went through her. She went into the office, checked the door locks, stoked the fire, and petted her dogs, who were sprawled out on their beds in front of the stove. “Where is he, boys?” Doubt, insecurity, a deepening unease corded through her. Was she on the wrong track? Crap, she had no idea what she was doing.

  CHAPTER 40

  Mindy came aware slowly. Everything was dark. A thick, dizzy, syrupy, swoony feeling roiled through her and she felt as though she was falling, but she wasn’t. She was lying dead still. She hurt. Whole body. Badly. Felt like she was going to throw up. What happened? Where was she? She could hear fire crackling. Hot, very hot. Her body was sweaty. She could smell herself. She stank. As consciousness crawled back in, she realized she was lying in a weird, twisted position. She tried to move, but she was trapped. Fear spiked a stake into her heart.

  Her wrists were tightly bound behind her back. Her ankles were tied together. Her knees, too. Pain crackled up and down her spine and her left leg. Her head pounded and burned at the back and felt wet. She tried to swallow, and gagged. Her mouth was blocked. Taped. She shook her head, trying to call for help, to awaken from the grogginess. She must be dreaming. Nightmare.

  She managed to open her eyes a crack. Her lids were swollen thick and crusted.

  Things in the darkness slowly came into focus. She was in some kind of cavern. Very hot. A reddish kind of quivering glow provided the only light. She tried to remember what happened. She’d left Crash’s house … with her suitcase.

  That man had come by with his truck. Pain sideswiped her again and vomit rose up her throat. Her stomach heaved. Panic screamed through her brain as vomit came up the back of her nose. Couldn’t breathe—mouth was taped shut. She thrashed her body, writhing like a snake, and then swallowed her vomit. She lay there, sweating, shaking, terror a vise around her brain, struggling to breathe through her nostrils, which burned with gut acid.

  Tears pooled in her eyes, and she could see nothing again. Heather.

  Heather had saved her from that man, brought her to the barn on Crow TwoDove’s ranch. The memory, like faint smoke, began to take shape.

  Come this way, Mindy. It’ll be safer down here.

  Why not upstairs, in the loft, where you live?

  No one will find you down here. No one will hear you. You can make as much noise as you like.

  I’m not hiding. What do you mean?

  Take a look. You can have the whole place.

  Heather had grasped an iron ring and opened a big, wooden trapdoor set into the floor at the back of the barn.

  Go on. See if you like it.

  Mindy had taken the first few steps down the wooden stairs into a cavernous basement below the whole barn. That’s when it came—a terrible, cracking blow to the base of her skull. Light had sparked through her brain, her vision going black and red. She’d started to fall down the stairs, but after that … it was blank.

  Mindy edged her head carefully to the side. The wetness in her hair—was it blood? The back of her head had been split open. She struggled again to open her eyes. Gradually the room swam into some sort of shape. Long. Dark shadow at the far end. It was walled with those big concrete blocks, which had been painted shiny black. And on the walls, all around, was white paper with wild black-and-white paintings and drawings of creatures—like devils. Half man, half animal. Some of them were like skeletons with wolf heads, animal haunches, long hair on their backs. Talons for hands. They reminded her of the drawings in that old German fairy tale book in the library, where the wolves hunted children and ate Little Red Riding Hoods in snowy, dark, Scandinavian forests. The creatures in the drawings on the wall clutched heads and skulls that dripped with blood. One creature held what looked like a heart—high and dripping above an open human rib cage.

  Slowly she moved her thumping head a little more to the right. Fierce flames burned red and orange in a stone stove thing at the end of the room. A chimney vented up to the roof. Near the kiln thing was a long, narrow table shoved up against the wall. Candles flickered at either end of the table. In the center was a big empty jar. Beside the jar was a hardcover book. Above the table was a shelf holding more jars. These were filled with liquid and … things. Parts. Organs. Like in the biology lab at school. Above the jars words had been painted in white across the black wall in big, mad-looking letters: In the Barrens of the soul, Monsters we breed … retribution our creed.

  Raw terror braided into confusion.

  I’m inside a horror novel … there’s madness on these walls … insanity … Evil … wake up! Come out of this nightmare …

  Her stomach heaved again, and Mindy held herself rigid, trying to control her body. If she threw up again she might suffocate and die.

  Where’s Heather? Why isn’t Heather helping me?

  Mindy listened carefully to see if she could discern anything beyond the crackle and pop and roar of the flames and wood in the stove. She could hear no wind. Sense no air. Just the pressing heat of this dungeon. She was underground. Down in that basement dug beneath the barn.

  No one will find you down here. No one will hear you. You can make as much noise as you like.

  Desperation rose like a tide in her chest. Then she stilled at a sound. Mindy moved her head to try to find the source.

  Heather.

  She was naked, apart from panties and a sports bra. Not an ounce of fat on her honed body. Her skin was white and gleamed with sweat. She was pulling on a flight suit. Her hair was drawn back in a tight French braid. Then cam
e another noise.

  Heather went motionless, listening. Mindy’s heart kicked.

  It came again. A voice. Coming closer. Calling.

  “Heather! Are you there?”

  A man’s voice.

  Mindy jerked her body, trying to scream. But her voice was stifled into a mmmnh mnnnnh sound.

  Heather whipped around, glared at her.

  Mindy froze. The look in Heather’s eyes—it wasn’t Heather in there. It was a mad thing. A creature. For a moment confusion seemed to chase over Heather’s face, that scared Mindy more than anything. Then Heather slowly raised her finger to her mouth.

  “Shhh,” she said. “Or I’ll cut your throat. Understand?”

  Mindy didn’t move.

  “Understand?”

  Mindy nodded.

  The man’s voice came again. “Heather? I heard a scream earlier. Are you okay?”

  He was coming closer. He would see the trapdoor. He had to. He’d sense the warmth coming up from the floor, or smell the fire in the kiln. He would find her. He would help her.

  Quickly Heather yanked up the zip of her flight suit and put on her boots. She reached up to where weird tools and a gun were mounted on the wall. She took down a long, fat-bladed knife—like the ones that homesteaders used in the bush for all sorts of things, including clearing brambles.

  She moved slowly up the stairs in a kind of crouch. Like a stalking animal.

  Her phone rang and Tana jumped. Crash? It was 9:05 p.m. and she was now anxious.

  “Constable Larsson,” she snapped into her phone.

  It was Constable Fred Meriwether, the point person on duty in the Yellowknife incident room. Tana’s blood ran cold as she listened to the information he was relaying to her via satellite. Heather MacAllistair had been dishonorably discharged in connection with several incidents of violence while on tours of duty. She’d been born in a remote area of northern Alaska. Her mother died in childbirth. She was raised by her father until the age of fourteen when her father was caught in one of his own brown bear traps. When he did not return home from checking his trap lines, MacAllistair’s older brother went looking for him, but his efforts were hampered by a severe and sudden snowstorm. It appears that he found his father’s remains four days later, savaged by animals who then attacked the son, killing him, too.