Purple Palette for Murder

by R. J. Harlick

  “A lot depends on what he’s told the police. But if he’s a smart man, and I think he is, he would know to keep his mouth shut. He’ll need a surety for his release.”

  “What’s that?

  “A person who is responsible for ensuring he meets whatever conditions the court attaches to the release. Normally it would be you, his wife, but you don’t live in the territory. We’ll need someone from here. I gather his daughter lives in Yellowknife, but since the police are linking her assault to the murder, I wouldn’t recommend her. By the way, how’s she doing?”

  “The doctors have stopped sedation, so we are hoping she’ll come out of the coma today, tomorrow at the latest. I think Uncle Joe would be the best choice. Though he’s not directly related to Eric, they have known each other since Eric was a young man, and he’s Teht’aa’s great-uncle. But does this mean that Eric won’t be able to come home?”

  “Part of my negotiation with the Crown. Where do I find Uncle Joe?”

  “He’s at the hospital. We can drive there afterward.”

  “I still want to recommend you as a surety if I can get the court to agree to allow him to travel to your home. Any criminal offences in your past?” She raised her eyebrows, but I had a feeling she already knew the answer. This woman had done her homework on Eric; likely she’d checked up on me too.

  “Nope, nothing official. I was once charged with impaired driving, but my lawyer got me off.”

  “So you’re a drinker.”

  “Not anymore. Haven’t had a drink in almost two years.”

  “You’re not going to go off the deep end on me, are you? It’s difficult times like these that make that urge to drink all the stronger.”

  I vehemently shook my head, though just the mention of the word “drink” had me salivating.

  “I should know,” she continued. “I had a problem too, twenty years ago. I’ve been alcohol-free since. So if you feel the urge, get on your phone to your sponsor.”

  “Sponsor?”

  “You went to AA, didn’t you?”

  “No, Eric was my AA. I guess you could call him my sponsor.”

  “Then call me. I’ll talk you through it, okay?” She patted my hand. “You’ve been dry for two years. Let’s keep it that way.”

  She drained the last molecule of her coffee. “Now, enough talk. I’ve got a lot to do before your husband arrives, so let’s go see this Uncle Joe of yours.”

  I left her waiting in the car while I talked to Uncle Joe. She’d parked at the hospital entrance, near where the reporter had accosted me yesterday. Thankfully, I didn’t have to run the gauntlet today. But if the man were to learn that Eric was arriving this afternoon, I had no doubt I would see my husband on tonight’s news with his head covered as he was being pushed into a paddy wagon. Poor Eric. I hoped he would be saved from this indignity.

  When I arrived at Teht’aa’s bedside, Uncle Joe was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. She was as still and as silent as yesterday, while the machines continued to hum, seemingly content, beside her. The only change appeared to be the transference of the IV needle from her right to her left hand.

  I mumbled a greeting and patted her arm. “You’re going to wake up, aren’t you.”

  I thought I saw an eyelid move, but when it wasn’t followed by another flicker, I knew it was only wishful thinking.

  “Don’t you worry. She gonna be okay,” Uncle Joe said, rising from his chair. “She strong, like my sister.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I glanced at the couple hovering over the girl in the next bed. “Let’s go out in the hall where we can talk in private.”

  At first the old man refused to be a surety, saying he’d do anything for Eric, even go to jail for him, but he couldn’t do this. In case a criminal past was the obstacle, I queried him about it, but he acted as if I’d insulted him. Finally, he admitted he’d been surety for a nephew, and it had cost him no end of trouble.

  “Stupid kid kept staying out after curfew and hanging with kids he not supposed to. What does the stupid kid do? He steals bag of chips and can of Coke from the Northern store and gets caught. It cost me plenty grey hair and a canoe load of moose.”

  “You won’t have to worry about Eric not obeying his conditions.”

  “Ha! When he hotshot hockey player, he think rules not for him. He drive too fast and total fancy new car. He get in lots of fights and he get my niece pregnant. Now he hotshot chief. It no different.”

  Ah, the secrets we keep. No wonder Eric said little about his early hockey years. “He’s a grown man now and the most law-abiding citizen I know. He’ll abide by them.”

  “If he don’t come to court, it cost me big money.”

  “He’ll be there. But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll put up the money, okay?”

  “You good woman. I do it.”

  FOURTEEN

  I spent the rest of the morning with my eyes trained on Teht’aa, watching for a flicker of an eyelid, a twitch of a finger, any movement, no matter how infinitesimal, that would tell me she was waking up. But as the minutes ticked into an hour and then another with still no sign of life other than the steady rise and fall of her chest, I started losing hope, convinced that this was her future. I agonized over what it would do to Eric. But whenever I raised my concerns to Uncle Joe, he insisted in his calm, steady way that she was going to be okay.

  “She strong.” He kept squeezing his hand, as if it held something. “When Teht’aa little girl, she trip over rock and break leg. We were out on the land hunting caribou, many days from a doctor. Florence, my sister, know healing ways of ik’oò elii. She use caribou bones to keep leg straight and wrapped strips of hide around it. We put Teht’aa in canoe and paddle many days to doctor at Rae. She very brave little girl. She didn’t cry. The doctor say Florence do very good job. The leg was straight and healing good. He put fancy cast on her leg. We put Teht’aa back into the canoe and paddle back to camp. When cloudberries ready for picking, she running over the rocks with her cousins. Don’t worry. She gonna be okay. The Creator look after her. I have dzodiì to make sure.” He opened his hand to reveal a stub of dried vegetation. “Rat root, strong medicine. It very special to Tlicho.”

  “Like sweetgrass or tobacco is to the Algonquin. Do you smudge it?”

  “Some people do.”

  “After Teht’aa’s mother died, did she live with you?”

  “No, with Florence. Charmaine was her daughter. Florence don’t like to live in Digadeh. She like to live on the land like ancestors, harvesting caribou, moose, fish, and berries. When I was away working, I sometimes came back with my family. We go out on the land with Florence and follow the trails of ancestors. Sometimes we follow Idaà Trail all the way to Sahtu, what you call Great Bear Lake. Plenty big whitefish in Sahtu. They were good days. Good for my boys to learn Tlicho ways.” He gave the rat root another squeeze.

  “So why didn’t you stay there?”

  “Life too hard. We too used to living in nice house and going to store for food. Fun to do for a few weeks.” He shrugged apologetically.

  “Glad to hear our white man ways aren’t all bad.”

  He laughed and patted his niece on the arm. For a nanosecond I thought I saw her skin twitch, but when it didn’t happen again I put it down to an autonomic response.

  “Did Teht’aa ever live in Digadeh?”

  “Not much after she go away to school.”

  “So she went to residential school too.”

  “No, they closed Saint Anne’s. They build new school in Edzo, another Tlicho community. She go there, much better living near own people. No nuns or priests. They let her speak Tlicho.”

  “Teht’aa must’ve been quite young when she went off on her own.”

  “Think seven or eight. But she brave girl. She don’t cry. She go home for holidays and summer
vacations, not like at Saint Anne’s. She smart. Get special award when she graduate high school. Florence proud Mamàcho.”

  “Does that mean grandmother?”

  “Yah. Mamàcho. Good word. When Teht’aa came back to Digadeh, it’s hard for her. She didn’t want to go out on land with Florence. So she stay with her Auntie Claire, Gloria’s mum. But Claire drank too much. Make it difficult for Teht’aa. Think one of Claire’s boyfriends caused trouble too. Teht’aa leave and go to Edmonton to school. Only come back for short visits with Florence.”

  “Did Teht’aa meet her husband at school? She’s never really talked about the marriage other than it was short.”

  I wondered if she could hear our conversation. It gave me a strange feeling to be talking about her as if she weren’t lying on the bed between us.

  “Don’t know. He was Cree. Came from a reserve near Edmonton. Met him once. Didn’t like him. She young when they married. She didn’t know much about men. And he was a bad ’un.”

  “What did he do? Abuse her?”

  He grunted a yes.

  Something else Teht’aa and I shared, except I didn’t have the smarts to leave. I put up with my ex’s abuse for fourteen years, ten months, and eleven days, letting him pummel me into the ground until the only way I could escape was through alcohol.

  “Tell me about her mother. Eric has never said much about Charmaine, although I got the impression that he really loved her and was heartbroken when she left him.”

  “Charmaine was beautiful. Teht’aa looks like her. One look at her and Eric was a goner.” He chuckled. “She Florence’s youngest. Born on the land like the others. She go to residential school like her sisters. RCMP take them from her. Florence don’t see her kids for many years. She say she don’t know them when they come back to Digadeh. They more white than Tlicho. They forget how to speak Tlicho and forget Tlicho ways. She very upset. Her girls have hard time. They don’t want to live on land with Florence, so stay in Digadeh. Charmaine hated it, wanted to leave. So Florence tell her she have to come live with me and Mary in Medicine Hat.

  “I like to go to the hockey games in Medicine Hat. Charmaine come with me. She meet Eric there. They made a nice couple. She very beautiful. He handsome hockey player.”

  Though it was more than thirty-five years ago, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy. “How long did they spend together?”

  “Think it little more than a year before she got pregnant and return to Digadeh. I was sorry it didn’t work. They good for each other. She help him get to know his Indian heritage. He give her a better future than the boys at Digadeh. He was a good worker and wasn’t a drunk. Good husband material. But I guess you know that, eh?” He laughed.

  I laughed too, but didn’t tell him what was uppermost in my mind, that I was glad the relationship was a distant memory when Eric came into my life. I didn’t think I could live under her shadow.

  “Charmaine and I had big fight. I want her to marry Eric, but she didn’t want his white man’s life. When she live with me in Medicine Hat, she didn’t like the way the people treat her because she was Indian. She not want this for her baby. She only marry Eric if he live at Digadeh. But hockey was his life. Best player on the team. NHL scouts looking at him. One night an important man come to a game and want him to play hockey for Canada.”

  “Wow! For the Olympics?”

  “World Junior Championship. A very big honour.”

  “Amazing, and he’s never mentioned it. What a modest man.”

  “It was very hard time for him. He so upset, he don’t play very well.”

  “I imagine it was a very difficult choice for him. In those days hockey defined who he was. It helped him deal with the problems he faced with his adoptive family. I’m surprised Charmaine didn’t understand this.”

  “She was afraid. Your world scare her. She speak English and watch TV, but she don’t understand your ways. If she marry Eric, she have to live like white man. I think he also afraid to live like an Indian.”

  “I expect he was, since he only learned after meeting you that he was an Indian and not the Italian his adopt­ive parents insisted he was. I guess their relationship was doomed from the beginning. A little like Romeo and Juliet, eh?”

  “I was more mad at Eric than Charmaine. I thought family and being Indian more important than hockey. I so mad I don’t talk to him for many years. Never told him about Teht’aa or about Charmaine’s death.”

  “I know, but he forgave you long ago. You hold a very special place in his heart. He looks upon you as the father he never had. His adoptive father certainly wasn’t a father to him. He’s particularly grateful to you for helping him discover his Algonquin roots and reconnecting him with his grandparents.”

  “They very nice people. I glad he still had real family. He good man. You very lucky woman.”

  “Don’t I know it. Now we have to make sure he doesn’t go to jail.”

  At that precise moment, the reassuring beat of the heart monitor suddenly changed to an alarming single tone, which set off more alarms.

  FIFTEEN

  The nurse rushed toward us. I jumped out of my chair, letting Teht’aa’s limp hand drop to the bedcover. Shit. Had Teht’aa’s heart stopped beating? Uncle Joe remained sitting on the other side of her bed, tenderly stroking her arm as if nothing was happening. He didn’t even raise an eye to the nurse.

  She didn’t stop. She sped past to the neighbouring bed, the one with the young girl, and whisked the curtain closed behind her. Another nurse slipped through to join her, while her parents scrambled out into the middle of the room. Clutching each other, they kept their eyes rooted on the commotion coming from their daughter’s bed.

  Only then did I notice that Teht’aa’s heart monitor continued to beat with reassuring regularity.

  “Code Blue,” clamoured the loudspeaker.

  A flurry of pink floral and white burst through the door as a nurse and a doctor pushed in a cart carrying the kind of equipment I’d seen TV doctors use to shock a heart into restarting.

  “Move,” the doctor shouted at the parents, almost ramming the cart into them.

  The cart and the staff disappeared behind the curtain, while the parents shuffled out of the way. Tears streamed down the mother’s cheeks. I motioned them to join us and offered the mother my chair. But she ignored it and continued clinging to her husband’s arm as the monotonous drone of the monitor voiced its harrowing message.

  “Okay, everyone stand back,” a female voice ordered.

  A whining sound was followed by a deadened thump.

  “Again!”

  The parents gripped each other harder. I found myself holding my breath as I listened to another shock going through the young girl.

  “Again!”

  I couldn’t imagine what her parents must be feeling listening to their daughter, who’d barely begun her life, dying.

  The single unnerving buzz continued, and then it changed to a tentative intermittent beat that grew stronger.

  “We have a pulse.”

  Both parents sighed. Unable to stand any longer, the mother collapsed into my chair. “Thank God,” she whispered. Her husband placed his hands on her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

  “Our Christie was supposed to be medevaced today,” he said. “But the plane was diverted for another patient. She’s on the heart transplant list, but I’m not sure how much longer she can hold out.”

  Before I could offer my sympathy, the curtain was shoved aside and the female doctor approached the parents. “She’s okay for now, but we need to get her to Edmonton. Rita’s on the phone finding us another plane.”

  Without a backward glance, the two clinging figures returned to their daughter.

  “I know about this little girl,” Uncle Joe said. “She granddaughter of man I took caribou hunting many years ago
. He had a heart problem too. Died from it.”

  “At least he lived long enough to have a family and enjoy life. It looks as if his granddaughter won’t have that chance.”

  “It in the hands of the Creator. When her time come, it come.”

  Was that how he felt about his grandniece? I was afraid to ask.

  “Mrs. Bluegoose?” came a voice from behind me.

  I turned to see a grey-haired man of about Eric’s height whose surgical greens were straining at the waist. He was flipping over the pages of Teht’aa’s chart.

  “Actually, my name’s Meg Harris, Teht’aa’s stepmother. You must be Dr. Yausie.”

  He nodded and turned his glance to the old man. “Good to see you, Joe. How’s that hernia of yours?”

  “Never come back after you open me up.” Grinning, he patted his stomach.

  “I want to talk to both of you about Teht’aa. I gather her father can’t be here.” So he knew. At least I wouldn’t have to explain Eric’s absence.

  “He’s arriving in Yellowknife today. You might be able to talk to him over the phone. I could get his lawyer to set it up.”

  “Good to know, but as long as you are comfortable making decisions for your stepdaughter, I don’t think it will be necessary.”

  “It depends on the decision.” I knew there was one decision I would never be able to make.

  “I’m wondering if either of you has seen any movement from Teht’aa while you’ve been sitting here?”

  “Nope, I haven’t. Uncle Joe?”

  He shook his head slowly. “She been so still. She gonna be okay, Doctor?” This made my heart skip. Despite his appearance of optimism, Uncle Joe was as worried as me.

  “You haven’t seen any small movements like her eyes opening or hands, fingers moving?

  We answered a regretful no in unison.

  I dug my fingers into the back of Uncle Joe’s chair while we watched the doctor poke and prod Eric’s lifeless daughter. He lifted one eyelid, then the other, shining a light into each in turn. He had the nurse unwrap the bandage around her head and check the sutures. Poor Teht’aa. Her luxurious long black locks were gone. But if she never regained consciousness, it wouldn’t matter. And if she did, a token price to pay for her life.