Purple Palette for Murder

by R. J. Harlick

  The Meg Harris Mysteries

  Death’s Golden Whisper

  Red Ice for a Shroud

  The River Runs Orange

  Arctic Blue Death

  A Green Place for Dying

  Silver Totem of Shame

  A Cold White Fear

  To Jim

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  The Meg Harris Mysteries

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-two

  TWENTY-three

  TWENTY-four

  TWENTY-five

  TWENTY-six

  TWENTY-seven

  TWENTY-eight

  TWENTY-nine

  THIRTY

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Thirty-four

  Thirty-five

  Thirty-six

  Thirty-seven

  Thirty-eight

  Thirty-nine

  FORTY

  forty-one

  forty-two

  forty-three

  forty-four

  forty-five

  forty-six

  forty-seven

  forty-eight

  forty-nine

  FIFTY

  fifty-one

  fifty-two

  fifty-three

  fifty-four

  fifty-five

  fifty-six

  fifty-seven

  fifty-eight

  fifty-nine

  SIXTY

  sixty-one

  sixty-two

  sixty-three

  sixty-four

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  ONE

  “Is the fawn still there?” I asked Jid, who was picking his way through the tall ferns in front of us.

  Yesterday I’d accidentally discovered the tiny newborn while tramping along a trail that meandered through the forested hills behind my cottage. Or more correctly, Shoni, my seven-month-old standard poodle, had stumbled onto the defenceless baby deer while chasing a squirrel. Fortunately, I was able to stop her from doing any harm. I didn’t linger, knowing the mother would return once we were gone.

  But this morning, while picking up the mail from my box at the end of my road, I noticed the legs of a dead deer protruding out of the ditch on the other side of the main road. It proved to be a doe, a lactating one that had been run over. I immediately thought of the fawn. If its mother was this dead deer, it wouldn’t survive the coyotes, wolves, and other predators that called this forest home.

  “I don’t see it yet,” Jid replied, moving the chest-high fronds aside.

  His full name was Adjidamò, meaning “Little Squirrel” in Algonquin, but he preferred to be called Jid. He hated to be reminded that he was small for his thirteen years.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  I pointed to an enormous granite boulder covered in lichen and moss rising several metres from the forest floor. “It was hidden in the ferns to the right of that rock.”

  If the fawn’s mother were alive, it would be gone. Sensing that her baby had been discovered, she would’ve moved it. Barely able to walk during the first couple of weeks of life, a fawn had two things going for it: it had no scent, and it remained absolutely still. The mother could safely leave it for many hours of foraging without fear of predators seeking it out. Until someone like me stumbled across it and left behind a scent, which would attract the curious.

  “If you see it, don’t go any closer.”

  He hitched up the waist of his baggy jeans, which had crept downward from their usual resting spot midway down his bum. In an effort to keep up with the older boys at school, he had recently adopted this ridiculous fashion statement.

  “I know,” he replied, not bothering to hide the impatience in his voice.

  Of course he would know. Having spent his entire short life in these Quebec woods, he knew considerably more about its inhabitants than I ever would. He also had a way with animals, like a whisperer, if such a person existed.

  One time when we were hiking with Sergei, my sadly missed standard poodle, we surprised a black bear, a large one, not at all happy at being accosted by a frenetically barking dog. I froze, convinced the dog would shortly be dinner. But Jid continued walking toward the animal, easily four times his size, and spoke to it in a calm, soothing tone as if they were buddies. For several nervous seconds I was terrified the bear would pounce. By the time the boy had calmed Sergei, the bear had settled down too. He grunted and took one last look at us before loping into the forest shadows.

  “I see something.” Jid pointed to the middle of the ferns.

  I could barely make out a faint cinnamon colour amongst the sun-dappled green. It could easily have been dirt or last fall’s dead leaves.

  “Go closer. I want to be certain it’s still there.” I stayed where I was, a good three or four metres away. “Don’t touch it.”

  “I know, I know.” He parted the fronds and inched forward. “It’s still here. Oh, it’s so cute. So small. This is the first time I ever see a baby fawn.”

  “The first time for me, too. Does it look sick or injured?”

  “Nope. It looks okay. It’s staring at me. What should we do?”

  “I don’t want to remove it in case the dead deer isn’t the mother.”

  “Yeah, but it’s still here. You said that wouldn’t happen if she was alive.”

  “I know, but I worry about taking it away before being absolutely certain that the mother is dead. If we remove it, that’ll jeopardize its ability to survive when it’s old enough to be released.”

  “Yeah, but the injured birds and raccoons Janet saves don’t have any problems when she lets them go.”

  “I know, but this tiny deer would become so used to us, it would no longer be afraid of humans. It would be an easy target for hunters.”

  “We could tie a red ribbon around its neck and tell everyone not to shoot it.”

  “I wish. No, we should give the mother one more day. If the fawn’s here tomorrow, we’ll assume the dead deer is the mother and take it to Janet, okay?”

  Janet Bridgford, a retired veterinarian, had moved into a nearby farm a few years ago and established a wildlife refuge. People in the area, including the Migiskan Reserve, had taken to bringing her sick and injured wildlife. I’d done it a few times myself.

  At the suggestion of my husband, Eric, I’d been helping her out a couple of days a week over the last few months. He viewed this as a way to get me out of the house and out of my funk. Though I enjoyed working with these helpless creatures, it wasn’t proving the cure Eric hoped it would be.

  I still found myself summoning up all the fortitude I possessed to get out of bed each morning. Sometimes I didn’t. When I did, I only wanted to curl up in the sofa in front of the fire and watch the flames lick the glass. To be clear, it was the fire in the living room and not the den, once my favourite room for relaxing. I hadn’t gone near that room, not even to look through the doorway, since The Nightmare.

  “Yeah, but is she going to be okay? I could stay here and guard her,” Jid replied.

  “An
d keep the mother away at the same time.” I watched a woodpecker track up a tree above the spot where the fawn was hiding. “You called her a she.”

  “I can’t tell, but she looks like a girl to me. So cute. Bye, bye, little fawn. I hope you’re gonna be okay.” He hitched up his jeans and tiptoed away.

  The ferns rustled behind me as I headed back through the underbrush to the trail.

  “Uh-oh, she’s getting up. What do I do, Auntie?”

  “Just keep walking.”

  “But she’s following me.”

  I turned to see the tiny creature, its white-spotted body barely larger than a snowshoe hare, wobbling on matchstick legs toward the boy. It bumped up against a fern and almost toppled over, but miraculously stayed upright. So endearing and so incredibly helpless. A wolf would devour it in one bite.

  As much as I wanted to gather it in my arms and take it with us, I feared it would put her in more danger, so I said, “Speed up, and hopefully she’ll stop following us.” He had me thinking it was a girl too.

  I picked up my pace. It was a sparkling late spring morning in early June with the forest bursting with new life. Unfortunately, the new life also included black flies — swarms of them. Before setting out, I’d liberally doused myself with anti-bug juice, which was working, marginally. Though the temperature required jackets and fleece, the sun spoke of the summer to come.

  The trail meandered through an ancient maple forest. When my great-aunt Agatha lived at Three Deer Point, she had operated it as a sugar bush and produced some of the best maple syrup in west Quebec. But she shut it down several years before her death. When I inherited the property, I had thought of reviving it, but so far hadn’t got around to it and likely never would.

  I was tramping along the trail, admiring the shy blooms of spring peeking through the dead leaves, when I realized it was too quiet behind me. I turned around and, as suspected, didn’t see the boy.

  “Jid, where are you?” I called out.

  “I’m here,” came the answer from beyond the ridge I’d just crested.

  “Hurry up. I have to get back to the house. I’m expecting a call from Eric.”

  My husband had flown to Yellowknife a little over a week ago to meet with the chiefs of various Northwest Territories First Nations and to spend time with his daughter, Teht’aa. She was having man problems and needed a father’s shoulder to cry on. He had tried to cajole me into going with him, believing it would do me good to get away.

  He was right, it would, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave my forest sanctuary. I’d only just begun to find a sort of calm within myself, though an uneasy one. I wasn’t ready to summon the nerve to venture out into the big bad world. Mind you, Three Deer Point had proven to be no less bad.

  “I can’t go faster,” he replied.

  “Why not?”

  “Kidi can’t keep up with me.”

  “Kidi?”

  “That’s what I’m calling the baby deer. It’s short for kidagàgòns, fawn in Algonquin.”

  I scrambled back over the rise to discover Jid creeping along at a crawl with the tiny fawn teetering a few metres behind him. The damage was done. We wouldn’t be able to leave her now.

  “Do you think she can walk all the way back to the cottage?” I asked.

  “I think so. But if she gets tired, I can carry her.”

  “Will she let you near her?”

  “Yeah, she’s already nibbled my fingers.”

  So much for telling him not to touch her. “Okay. We’ll take her to Janet’s. She’ll know how to take care of the poor thing.”

  “I can help her.” His brown puppy eyes twinkled with eagerness.

  “I’m sure you can. Look, I have to run. Can you manage on your own?”

  “You bet.” The fawn tottered up to him, stretched her head into his groin, and nipped. “Ouch, you’re not supposed to do that.”

  “She’s hungry. Janet will have some special milk to feed her. After I finish talking to Eric I’ll come back for you, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. Say hi to Shome for me.”

  “Will do.”

  Though Eric wasn’t Jid’s mishòmis, meaning grand­father, Jid used the shortened version, shome, as an endearment, the same way he used “auntie” for me, though we bore no blood relationship.

  By the time my rambling timber cottage loomed into view, I could hear the phone ringing. I leapt up the back stairs and snatched up the kitchen phone before it stopped ringing.

  “So how’s my one and only today?” I gasped between breaths.

  “Ah … Mrs. Odjik?”

  Whoops, it was a man, but not Eric. Thank god he couldn’t see me blushing. “Actually, it’s Meg Harris, but I do answer to Mrs. Odjik.”

  “My apologies. I believe Eric Odjik is your husband.” His voice wasn’t familiar.

  “That’s right.”

  “My name is Derrick Robinson. I’m your husband’s defence attorney. He has been arrested for murder.”

  TWO

  I was in a state of shock from the moment I hung up the phone until I boarded the plane for Yellowknife. I became a robot going through the motions of preparation.

  Eric. Murder? Impossible! No way! A horrible, god­awful mistake.

  I didn’t know how long I remained slumped in Aunt Aggie’s rocker trying to make sense of what the lawyer had told me. A man dead. Teht’aa’s boyfriend. Eric charged with his murder. Teht’aa beaten up, lying close to death in a hospital in Yellowknife.

  I was too stunned to take in everything. I only knew I had to shove my own fears aside. I had to get to Yellowknife. I frantically set about booking the earliest flight. I dismissed options that had me flying through Toronto and Calgary. I found one direct flight, which would get me there the quickest. The only problem was the flight was leaving in four hours from Ottawa, a two-hour drive away. Taking check-in time into consideration, that gave me less than an hour to pack and sort out Shoni.

  Then Jid walked through the door. I had forgotten about him.

  “I have to go away. Collect your things, and I’ll take you to your aunt’s.”

  For the past month, Jid had been living at Three Deer Point. He preferred staying with us than with his aunt, his legal guardian. Eric and I were hoping that it would soon be permanent. We had put in a request to adopt the orphan boy.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Yellowknife. Eric needs me.” I was afraid to tell him that his hero was in big, big trouble.

  “Can you do it? You haven’t left this place since … you know what.” A shadow of fear washed over his face.

  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. “I have to.”

  Jid had also survived The Nightmare, but had handled it much better than I could. Maybe because he talked it over with his Shome. I hadn’t been able to talk about it to anyone, not even my husband.

  We gripped each other’s hands in shared memory, until Jid broke free. “What about the fawn?” he asked.

  “Right, the fawn. We’ll take her to Janet’s. Call her to let her know.”

  Shoni whined in her cage, anxious to greet us. Right, the puppy. “Can you take Shoni with you to your aunt’s?”

  “I suppose, but I don’t know if she’ll get along with Joe’s husky mix. Do I really have to stay with Auntie Anne? I could stay with Mikey.”

  Mikey was his best friend. When life at his aunt’s house became too stressful and we were away, Jid stayed with Mikey. Jid’s older cousin was a bully. Usually he could handle it, but occasionally it became too much and he needed to escape.

  “Will his mom take the puppy too?”

  He nodded vigorously. “Yeah, she really likes dogs.”

  “You’d better call her. No wait. I’d better do it.” I snatched up the phone.

  “She’s not there. Mikey said th
ey were going to his aunt’s place this morning.”

  “Do you know the number?”

  He shook his head.

  “Look it up while I pack, and don’t forget to call Janet.”

  I raced upstairs to my bedroom. With a desperate craving for solitude after The Nightmare, I had taken over Aunt Aggie’s old bedroom. It was only supposed to be for a few weeks, but close to six months later, I hadn’t yet gathered my nerve to move back into the master bedroom with my husband. Initially, he’d been patiently understanding, as only he could be. Whenever he tried to bring it up, I deflected him. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him why I couldn’t share a bed with him. Lately I’d sensed a resigned acceptance and a distancing, which only made me more depressed. Maybe, just maybe I would be able to talk to him in Yellowknife about what really happened that terrible night when my world was turned upside down. He knew some of it. He’d cleaned up the blood. But he didn’t know everything.

  Figuring north of 60 had to be colder than the forty-five degree latitude temperatures of Three Deer Point, I threw in mostly winter clothing with a few summer t-shirts on the off chance summer would arrive while I was there. Unfortunately, today was wash day, and I hadn’t yet gotten around to doing it, so I had to pack a few dirty items. I threw in a Ziploc bag of detergent, intending to wash them in my hotel room.

  Speaking of hotel rooms, I needed a place to stay. But with no time to make a reservation before I left, I would have to chance that there would be a vacancy somewhere in that northern capital. Of course, Teht’aa wouldn’t mind if I stayed at her apartment. And Eric had a hotel room, except I couldn’t remember the name of the hotel. But enough. I’d worry about it when I arrived.

  “Janet says it’s okay,” Jid yelled from downstairs. “She got mad at me for taking the fawn.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll explain how it happened.”

  “Your message light’s flashing. Want me to check the messages?”

  “Don’t bother. Only people wanting money from me.” No one else called me besides Eric.

  I ran down the hall to the bathroom, rolling the suitcase behind me. I added some toiletries, strapped everything in, and zipped up the case.

  “Did you find the aunt’s phone number?” I called out as I stumbled down the stairs. “If so, dial it for me.”