Purple Palette for Murder

by R. J. Harlick

  I could almost taste its clean smoothness sliding down my throat, but I vigorously shook my head and tried not to look at him enjoying his first sip. “Do you spend much time in the bush prospecting?”

  “As much time as I can when the ground isn’t buried in snow.”

  “What minerals are you looking for?” The soup, with large chunks of Arctic char, scallops, and shrimp, was proving to be very tasty.

  “Whatever my client wants, but lately it’s been diamonds.”

  “Diamonds. Sounds exciting. I gather there are several diamond mines in the Territories?”

  “Four, and they produce some of the highest quality diamonds in the world. They also have the added benefit of being ethical diamonds.”

  “They follow the rules?”

  “In a way. These mines must abide by Canadian labour regulations, resulting in a much safer working environment. This isn’t the case in other countries, where the death rate for diamond workers can be high. The buyer is also assured that the diamonds weren’t used to purchase arms. Many of the world’s diamond mines are found in unstable regions and used by rebel armies. I’m sure you’ve heard the term ‘blood diamonds.’ A lot of innocent people are killed because of those diamonds.”

  He drained his martini and slid the glass toward the bartender for a refill.

  “How can you tell the difference? Diamonds all look the same to me.”

  “Easy. Every gem-quality Canadian diamond is inscribed by laser with a unique identifier, plus they have an accom­pany­ing certificate, so there is no confusing them with blood diamonds. Make sure the next diamond your husband buys you is a Canadian one.”

  “I’m afraid we’re not into diamonds.”

  I showed him my gold wedding band engraved with a delicate line of flying Chee Chee–like geese. Eric had wanted to buy me the standard diamond ring, but I persuaded him not to. I had a jewel box filled with diamond brooches, earrings, and rings that had once belonged to my great-aunt and my mother, none of which I wore. Sparkling gems weren’t my thing.

  “I have this image of you tramping through the woods, geologist’s pick in hand, eyes glued to the ground in search of elusive minerals. But I gather from your business card that most of your exploration is done from the air.”

  “I do it both ways. Using the plane is the most efficient way, but I love being in the bush, so I spend much time on the ground checking out possible deposits that I identified from the air.”

  “Have you found any diamond deposits, or gold for that matter?”

  He slowly sipped his second martini, but instead of answering my question, he asked, “How long do you expect to stay in Yellowknife?”

  He probably didn’t want to admit he’d failed.

  “Until Teht’aa can manage on her own,” I said. “And my husband is free. How long have you known Teht’aa?”

  “Since she arrived. The second I saw her beautiful face on TV, I knew she was the woman for me.”

  It didn’t sound like he was prepared to accept her rejection. So was he the sort of man who would use physical force to try to bend a woman to his will? I sensed he was.

  “When was the last time you saw Teht’aa?”

  “Before I went into the bush. We came here. She likes Jill’s martinis too.” A surprisingly warm smile spread across his face.

  “Did you come here the night of her attack?”

  The smile vanished, along with the warmth. “Like I told you and the police this morning, I was in the bush. And I have my flight plan to prove it.”

  Damn. “Maybe you know why she would go to the alley behind the Gold Range Motel? It doesn’t seem her sort of place.”

  “Lucy, that no-good whore. She hangs out there.” His thin lips sneered with icy Teutonic disdain. “I’ve told Teht’aa on numerous occasions to stay away from the woman, but she refuses to obey me. Insists the woman isn’t responsible for her actions.” He tossed back the second martini and nodded for another.

  “Do you know where I might find Lucy? I’d like to talk to her.”

  “I doubt you’ll get a sane word from her. She’s drunk most of the time.”

  I was beginning to wonder about his own sobriety.

  “Do you have access to Teht’aa’s apartment?” he asked.

  “I’m staying there.”

  “Good. I left something there and would like to retrieve it.”

  There was no way I wanted to be alone with this man in the apartment. “Tell me what it is and I’ll get it for you.”

  “Better I do it. You don’t know where to look.”

  “Just tell me where it is.”

  “It will only take me a second to retrieve it.”

  “How do I know it isn’t something that belongs to Teht’aa?”

  The baby blues that had smiled so warmly now flared with anger. “How dare you? It is women like you that cause such problems.”

  Deciding it was time to exit, I pulled my wallet out of my purse to pay for my meal. Not wanting to wait for the bill, I calculated the amount, placed it on the counter, and jumped down from the chair.

  “Where did you get that?” Hans shouted. He reached for the embroidery inside my purse and plucked it out.

  “Give it back.”

  He held it away from me. “Tell me where you found it.”

  “Why do you say found?”

  “Because I know it doesn’t belong to you.” He spread it out on the counter to reveal two purple flowers, the partial one and the tiny red bird. “Where are the rest?”

  I stuck my purse under my arm to ensure he couldn’t see the other piece. “You tell me. You seem to know more about it than I do. Now give it back.”

  “Not until you tell me who gave it to you.”

  “No one did. I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  I watched him clench his jaw and for a terrifying second thought he was going to hit me. Instead he scrunched the embroidery into a ball and jammed it into his coat pocket.

  “Hey, that’s mine.” I reached for his pocket, but he swatted my hand aside and strode out of the bar.

  I raced after him. Before I was halfway across the lobby, the front glass doors were closing on his Gucci heels. I sprinted across the driveway after him, took the stairs two at a time to the upper-level parking area, and finally caught up to him as he was climbing into his truck. I grabbed his coat. He karate-chopped my arm and pushed me so hard, I fell onto the ground.

  I froze.

  “Get out of the way or I’ll run over you,” he shouted.

  The truck engine roared into life.

  But I didn’t hear any of this as I struggled to contain my rising panic. It was only when I sensed the truck was about to move that I roused myself enough to scramble out of the way.

  “Okay, you can have it.” I rubbed my sore arm, the same arm my ex had broken a lifetime ago. “Just tell me why it’s so damn important.”

  “Gut, you don’t know.” He powered up his window and put his foot on the gas.

  I watched helplessly as his black pickup swerved past the hotel entrance, narrowly missing a taxi, and veered out onto the main road.

  THIRTY

  I sat in the car, hanging on to the steering wheel while I struggled to calm down. I was annoyed at myself. Once again I’d let a man run roughshod over me without so much as a whimper. The minute Hans hit me, the old panic had set in. The nightmare images I’d fought to bury gyrated around my head. I breathed slowly in and out the way the therapist had taught me years ago when my brother died. Gradually, my nerves began to relax and the trembling slowed down.

  I was confused. There seemed to be no reason for Hans to steal the embroidery. It might be old and possibly rare, but surey any value it once had had disappeared when it was ripped into p
ieces.

  At least I still had Teht’aa’s.

  If nothing else, I’d learned something from this encounter. Hans was a man who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt a woman. I didn’t care if he had an alibi. He would stay on my list of suspects. I’d even put him at the top.

  I needed to do what I could to get Lucy and her friends to recall the night of the assault. I debated seeking them out but decided that at this hour of the evening they would be well into the booze, and if not yet passed out, close to it. I’d wait until morning, when the chances of finding one of them sober were higher.

  Though I didn’t fancy being alone in the apartment, particularly if there were spare keys wandering around the town, I didn’t want to approach Uncle Joe about staying at his son’s house. I wasn’t in the mood for their chattiness. I could stay in a hotel, like Sergeant Ryan had suggested, but I wasn’t in the mood either for a cold, impersonal room. I was finding comfort in being surrounded by Teht’aa’s things. Besides, I should wash Eric’s clothes. I would just make sure the door was securely locked and put something against it to prevent entry.

  Unlike the curving streets around the hospital, I found the downtown grid easy to navigate. From the hotel it was a simple matter of retracing my steps one block to the main drag, turning left, and following the longest and straightest road in Yellowknife down the big hill to Teht’aa’s apartment.

  Before turning, I stopped to pick up groceries for breakfast at a large and well-stocked supermarket. I noticed Lucy’s pale-yellow jacket amongst a group of people hanging out in the parking lot, but decided not to approach her. I would stick to my plan of tracking her down in the morning.

  As I descended the hill, I was so focused on admiring the orange glow effect the setting sun was having on the distant shore that I almost ran over a fox. Only at the last moment did I see his dark body trotting across the road. By the time I came to a full stop, he’d scampered into a stand of trees without giving me a backward glance. Yellowknife may have been a booming town of almost twenty thousand souls, but it was still only a fox’s trot away from wilderness.

  The sight of the apartment’s dark and vacant-looking windows had me reconsidering my decision. After all, Malcolm’s house was only a five-minute drive away. But I needed to stop being such a wimp and face my fears head-on. Besides, I felt the chances of the thief returning were almost nil. He’d already stolen what he wanted.

  With grocery bags in hand, I clambered up the three flights of stairs and stopped to catch my breath on the landing before unlocking the door. I supposed what was helping me grapple with my fears was the continuing daylight. Close to ten o’clock, and night’s blackness seemed no closer than it did an hour ago. I was wondering if it would descend at all.

  I opened the door and flicked on the hall light. “Gloria, you here?” I called out and wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer. Nighttime was her time, and she was no doubt out prowling the streets.

  But she had been here. The mess was gone. The drawer had been restored to the desk, the magazines neatly stacked on the coffee table, and the clothes removed from the sofa. I half expected to see Teht’aa’s laptop lying on the desk, but it wasn’t. She had even cleaned up Teht’aa’s room and made the bed. Thank you, Gloria.

  I was dead tired, only wanting to bury myself in sleep. But felt I should wash Eric’s clothes first and mine too. It was such a struggle to keep awake through the wash cycle that by the time I threw the wet clothes into the dryer, I decided sleep took greater priority than waiting to fold the dried clothes. Before slinking off to bed, I rechecked the front door to ensure it was firmly locked and placed a kitchen chair in its way. I didn’t remember my head hitting the pillow.

  I struggled to escape as the sound of his approaching footsteps bounced off the hall walls. I strained and pushed against the rope binding my wrists, but it remained as tight as when he first tied me to the chair. The footsteps stopped in the doorway. My heart thudded. His leering smile loomed out of the darkness. His ice-blue eyes gleamed with lust. Frantic, I tried to push the chair away from him and toppled it over, landing like a trussed chicken on my back. He hovered over me, licking his lips, grabbed the front of my shirt, and ripped.

  I screamed and screamed.

  And realized there was an echo. I wasn’t the only one screaming.

  “She’s dead,” someone shouted.

  I tried to move and couldn’t. My arms, my legs were trapped.

  A light suddenly blinded me. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “What in the fuck’s wrong with you?”

  I opened my eyes. For a few more seconds confusion reigned, until reason took over and I knew I was safe.

  “You okay?” Gloria’s worried face leaned over me, her eyes red from crying.

  “Yes. It was just a nightmare.” Shit. I thought I had finally buried it, but it was back.

  “Yah, I get them too. What’s with the chair blocking the door?”

  “It was supposed to be added security. I guess it didn’t work.”

  “Almost. I really had to push hard. I think I broke it.” She undid the top of a plastic water bottle and held it out to me. “Do you want a swig?”

  I almost gagged on the fumes. “No thanks, but I could do with a cup of tea.”

  I tried to get up but found myself wrapped in blankets. Gloria helped loosen them for me.

  “Did you say someone was dead?” I pulled my nightie down and slipped on a sweater in an effort to make myself more presentable.

  “Yah, my sister just died.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.

  “I am so sorry.” She stood there so forlornly that without thinking I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her. Her body felt so frail and small. “Let’s have a soothing cup of tea. It’ll make you feel better.”

  She glanced at the bottle in her hand, then placed it on the dresser. “Yah, Mamàcho always says tea’s the best pick-me-upper in the world. Better than booze.”

  As I walked to the kitchen, I was surprised to see the dull grey light of dawn seeping through the living room window. A streak of orange above the distant shore confirmed that night was almost over. I hadn’t thought I’d slept that long. And I hadn’t. Less than four hours. The clock on the stove was saying it was only three thirty. Back home it would still be pitch black. These short nights could take some getting used to.

  After plugging in the kettle and adding a couple of teabags to the teapot, I retreated to the sofa, where Gloria had already curled up with a fuzzy blanket she’d brought from her room and her pink jacket draped around her shoulders.

  “Please, tell me what happened to your sister?”

  “Someone killed her.”

  “How awful for you. Do the police know who did it?”

  “Probably some fuckhead john. I told her she shouldn’t pick up guys on the street. It’s not safe. Look what happened to Tee. But she wouldn’t listen.”

  “What a minute, are you saying Teht’aa was attacked because she was picking up a guy on the street?”

  “No, but it coulda happened.”

  “But surely Teht’aa wasn’t selling herself. She had a good job.”

  Gloria shrugged. “A girl can always do with a little extra cash. But I don’t know if she was. Just is, I found her a few times in bed with guys who didn’t hang around all night, like guys do when you love ’em and shit like that.” She tucked a wayward tendril of black hair behind her ear.

  “Do you know who they were?”

  “Nope, never saw any of them. Just heard them leaving.”

  “How many are you talking about?”

  “Not many, maybe five or six. But could be more. I don’t stay here every night.”

  I thought back to Sergeant Ryan’s line of questioning. Surely Teht’aa wouldn’t go that far. With her tendency to favour jerks, I knew she wasn’t fussy with whom she shared her bed.
But she would never look for payment. She had too much self-respect.

  The kettle began to whistle. I returned to the kitchen and poured boiling water into the teapot, then placed a double-folded dishtowel over it to keep it warm and set the timer.

  “Sure a bitch Lucy being dead and all,” Gloria muttered when I returned to my seat. She must’ve noticed me shivering, for she offered me part of her blanket.

  “Did you say Lucy?”

  “Yah, my sister … my dead sister.”

  “Does she … ah … live on the street?”

  “Yah, that’s what got her killed. I kept telling her she had to stop drinking and get off the streets, but she wouldn’t listen. Just ’cause she’s older, she thinks she knows it all.” She paused. “I guess I should be saying ‘was,’ eh?” More tears trickled down her cheeks.

  “I’m so sorry. It’s going to be hard for you.” I put my arm around her shoulder and hugged her.

  Apart from the two women being slight, I’d noticed nothing about Lucy to suggest she was related to Gloria. I studied Gloria’s face, looking for similar features, but Lucy’s had been so ravaged by her hard life that any family resemblance had been wiped out.

  “Yah, I suppose, but I didn’t have much to do with Lucy. I got more to do with Tee.” She pulled a cigarette from a crumpled package. “Don’t tell Tee, ’kay?”

  “I won’t, but air the place out. I’m no fan of cigarette smoke either.”

  “Thanks.” She turned away to light the cigarette.

  “I heard that Teht’aa looked out for your sister.”

  “Yah, Tee’s good that way. Takes care of family. Lucy had a tough life living on the streets.”

  “I saw her outside the grocery store last night. Do you know when it happened?”

  “Uncle Joe said they found her a couple of hours ago behind the Gold Range Motel.”

  “The same place Teht’aa was attacked.”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you know how she died?”

  “Uncle Joe said the cops think she was strangled.”

  “How awful. Did Uncle Joe have anything else to say?”