Purple Palette for Murder

by R. J. Harlick

  “We don’t need your money,” Uncle Joe spat out. “Our people live many thousand years off the land and will do it for another thousand years.”

  “Funny, you don’t seem to mind staying in this house with the fifty-two-inch TV and your very own La-Z-Boy chair or eating the sour cream and chocolate ice cream Shelagh bought yesterday at a store. Besides, you know that the caribou herds are no longer large enough to sustain our people.”

  “Yah, because mines kill them.”

  “There is no hard evidence suggesting that mining is harming the herds. They are going through the downward trend of their cycle. Look, Dad, it’s going to happen whether you want it or not.”

  “You ruin your heritage.”

  “I’m not ruining anything. I told you my boss said the company will respect the traditional lands. It’ll be part of the agreement.”

  “Yah, right, by digging them up.”

  “We don’t know that. We’re only at the exploration stage.”

  “Yah, but—” Uncle Joe stopped and turned his head in my direction, as if realizing for the first time that I was listening. “You want ice cream?” He pushed a container of chocolate ice cream across the table.

  “Thanks, I’ll pass.” I’d been gorging on forbidden foods since arriving. My jeans waistband was already feeling the pinch. Time to stop. “It sounds like you’re talking about a new diamond mine?”

  Both men stared blankly back at me. Neither uttered a word.

  “Eric mentioned a mining dispute when I saw him today. Is this what you’re talking about?”

  “How did he know about it?” Malcolm demanded, glaring at his father.

  Uncle Joe replied, “I told him.”

  “But we agreed to keep it to ourselves.”

  “He family,” was the old man’s succinct reply. “Meg family too.”

  “So how much does he know?” Malcolm shot back.

  “Nothing much, only that your father is against it and you are obviously for it,” I replied. “He also said the purple-flowered embroidery has something to do with it.”

  “Damn it, Dad, why can’t you keep your mouth shut. How many others have you told?”

  Uncle Joe raised himself to his full sitting height, a good six inches shorter than his son. “You must respect your abà. Not ask so many questions.”

  “But Dad, or Abà, if that’s what you want to be called, we agreed not to tell anyone about any of this.”

  “Malcolm, your father didn’t tell me or Eric about the embroideries. In fact, he kept his mouth shut despite my bugging him about them.”

  “How did you find out about them, then?”

  “Teht’aa passed hers on to her father for safekeeping, and my piece was found near where Teht’aa was attacked.”

  “You actually had two of them. You better give them to me.”

  “I don’t have them any longer. They were stolen.”

  “Fuck. Do you know who?”

  “I suspect Hans Walther.”

  “Fuck.”

  “You should also know that Reggie Mantla is aware of them. He asked Eric about them a couple of months ago.”

  “Double fuck.”

  The sudden ringing of a phone from another room stopped the drilling. Malcolm raced off to answer it. He returned holding the portable phone out to his father.

  “It’s Teht’aa. She wants to talk to you.”

  Malcolm and I both kept our eyes glued to his father while he nodded and muttered the occasional one-syllable word. Finally he said, “Okay,” and terminated the call.

  Placing the phone on the table, he sighed. “Gloria gone.”

  FORTY

  Left with too many unanswered questions after Uncle Joe recounted his conversation with Teht’aa, I phoned her back.

  “Good, it’s you,” she whispered, afraid of waking her roommates. “I didn’t know how to reach you.”

  “I have your dad’s spare cell. Now tell me what happened with Gloria.”

  “She left after a visit from Father Harris. Said she’d only be gone a couple of hours, but it’s over five hours now and I’m worried.”

  “Do you know what they talked about?”

  “They were whispering, so I couldn’t hear much. But I caught her sister’s name and mention of the purple embroidery and I think my grandmother’s name. I tell you, the way he hovered so close to her made my skin crawl. The way Gloria took off afterward left me feeling very uneasy.”

  “Why didn’t the police guard stop her?”

  “He didn’t stick around. I guess he had more serious criminals to catch than a bail jumper.”

  “Did she say anything before she left?”

  “Only that she’d be back and for me to make up excuses for the nurse. But I’ve run out of them, and now I have the nurse mad at me too.”

  “Do you have any idea where she could have gone?”

  “I tried my apartment, but no luck, and she wasn’t at the Northern Lites Tavern, her usual hangout. I’m really worried, particularly after what happened to her sister.”

  “Did you call Father Harris?”

  “I left a message at his boarding house, but at this time of night he’s usually doing his rounds.”

  “We need to start with him, so could you give me his address and his usual route, if you know it?”

  After writing this down, including a short list of friends and their addresses, I asked, “Why does she hate the priest so much?”

  “We’ve never talked about it, but I suspect it has something to do with her mother and the school where he taught. I gotta go. The nurse wants me off the phone.”

  Uncle Joe, Malcolm, and I agreed to split up our efforts. While Uncle Joe would search for Gloria in the Bimmer, I would go with Malcolm in his truck to look for the priest. On our drive past Teht’aa’s apartment, the three of us stopped to confirm Gloria wasn’t inside. Though the apartment was empty, it was evident that she had been by. Her purse, last seen on the coffee table, was gone, along with her puffy pink jacket. She’d also changed her clothes. The ones she had been wearing were strewn over her bed.

  The neighbour living in the ground-floor apartment remembered noticing her arrival in a mud-splattered black truck. The truck’s noisy muffler had roused her from the TV. A short while later she heard it leave. Unfortunately, she hadn’t paid attention to the driver, but she was able to identify the truck as a Dodge RAM, because a friend had one just like it, which was the problem. According to Malcolm, black Dodge RAMs weren’t exactly scarce in Yellowknife.

  Since the driver was likely a friend, I gave Uncle Joe Teht’aa’s list to follow up with while Malcolm and I continued our search for Father Harris.

  As expected, he wasn’t at his boarding house, a ramshackle two-storey affair in need of a paint job. After leaving a note under the door of the room we were told belonged to him by a wizened elderly gent grappling with a few beers too many, we set out along his route, starting with the alley behind the Gold Range Motel less than a block away.

  The only people in sight were the two women I’d seen with Lucy. At first they were reticent to talk with us, but Malcolm managed to persuade them with the offer of a bottle of their favourite booze. It proved to be a wasted bribe, for neither had seen the priest that night, nor did they expect to, because it was Wednesday, and he never came on Wednesday.

  As we turned to leave, one of the women tugged my sleeve. “You Lucy’s friend.”

  “I know her sister and her cousin. He’s a relative too. I’m sorry about Lucy.”

  She regarded Uncle Joe’s son with renewed interest as she tugged on a hunk of black hair leaking out from her scarf. “It happens.” She pointed to a spot on the asphalt that looked to have fewer butts. “She was lying there.” She pointed to her friend. “Me and Izzy found her.”

  “I’m
so sorry.”

  She shrugged.

  “Did you see who did it?”

  “Many bad men. They don’t treat us too good.” She reached into the pocket of her flimsy nylon coat and pulled out an all-too-familiar piece of hide. “Give this to Gloria, ’kay? It was Lucy’s.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  She glanced everywhere but at me. “I … ah … I took it … I like purple flowers. Pretty, eh?” She handed me the supple caribou hide with the tufted purple flowers. I noticed a blue bird in the corner.

  I tucked it securely into my own purse.

  “I hope Gloria not mad at me.”

  “Why should she be?”

  “I tell her I don’t know nothing.”

  “Did you see her tonight?”

  She nodded. “She ask me about it. I give her Lucy’s bag, but don’t tell her I have the pretty flowers.”

  “When did you see her?”

  “Don’t know. A while ago.”

  “Was she with anyone?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did she come in a black truck?”

  “She walk.”

  “Which direction did she leave?”

  She pointed in the opposite direction from what I expected, away from the town centre, away from the direction of Teht’aa’s apartment. But in the direction of Father Harris’s rooming house.

  “Thanks. If you see her again or you see Father Harris, tell them to call me.” I scribbled the cell number on a scrap of paper and passed it to her with little expectation.

  “What about my booze?” she called out as Malcolm and I walked back to his truck parked across the alley.

  “Get in and I’ll drive you to the liquor store,” he answered. “What do you want?”

  She named a brand of sherry that made my teeth itch at the thought of the sugar content.

  Both women climbed into the back seat of the truck with a lift up from Malcolm to help them reach the step. There they sat as silently as two mice with only a mumbled thanks when Malcolm gave them the bottle hidden within the folds of a paper bag.

  When we dropped them off at their alley hangout, the woman remembered. “Digadeh. Gloria say she go to Digadeh.”

  forty-one

  Malcolm and I spent the next hour retracing Father Harris’s route, but each time we stopped to inquire with the lost souls collected at the butt-strewn hangout, we received the same response. It wasn’t the priest’s night. No one knew where he went on Wednesdays, although someone jokingly suggested the bingo hall, which we checked without success. We paid one last visit to his rooming house to learn that he had returned, briefly, and left with a bulky pack slung over his shoulder. The last view his wobbly hall mate had of the priest was of him climbing into a black RAM.

  “Are you certain it was a Dodge RAM truck?” Malcolm asked, trusting him as little as I did.

  “Yup, a 2500. Used to sell ’em before drink got the better of me. If it helps, there was red lettering on the cab door, but I couldn’t read it without my glasses. Also needs a new muffler.”

  We returned to Malcolm’s house to find his father in the darkness of the den, slumped in his La-Z-Boy, snoring. We assumed that he had been equally unsuccessful in finding Gloria. Leaving him to his slumber, we retreated to the kitchen.

  “It has to be the same truck,” I said.

  “Agreed. Too much of a coincidence,” Malcolm replied.

  “Any idea who the owner could be?”

  “A black RAM with red lettering rings a bell, but for the moment I can’t place it.” He shoved his chair back. “This driving has given me a thirst.” He sauntered over to the fridge. “I’ve got Molson Canadian and Coors Light. Which would you prefer?”

  A beer would sure go down nicely. “Thanks. I don’t drink.”

  “Right.” He pulled out a Canadian. “How long has it been?”

  “Coming on two years.”

  “Good for you. Dad was quite the drinker in his day but hasn’t had a drop in a good thirty years. When we were kids, he made our lives hell when he was drunk. Used to be we’d look forward to when he was off on a job.”

  “I’m sorry to hear this. Not the kind of memories you want of your childhood. At least your kids will have good memories of a sober grandfather.”

  “When they were younger, Dad would take them into the bush, tell them Dene stories, and teach them how Dene lived off the land. It’s been good for them. They have a great respect for their heritage, unlike a lot of Indian kids today. It seems to have rubbed off on Angus the most. He’s our youngest. I swear he spends more time out on the land than he does in town. He’s with his great-aunt at the moment, helping her out at the summer camp.”

  “You mean Florence?”

  “That’s right. I’m afraid being at the mine two weeks out of the month hasn’t always given me the steady presence needed to be a good father. So Dad’s been able to be here when I couldn’t.”

  “What do you do at the mine?”

  “I just got a promotion to Superintendent, Environment, which comes with a change in work hours. I’ll be working four days on, three off. Shelagh will have to get used to seeing me more often.” He laughed. “Look, you need something to drink. How about some tea or coffee?”

  “I’m a tea drinker.” I started to rise from the chair. “I’ll make it.”

  “Stay put. In this house guests are to be waited on.”

  Remembering my call to Sally, I retrieved the phone from my purse and discovered a text with the name and phone number of the investigator. Figuring he wouldn’t appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night, I set it aside to call him in the morning.

  I also removed Lucy’s piece of embroidery and spread it out on the kitchen table. “I have little doubt that this piece will fit with the two stolen ones.”

  “Nice piece of work,” Malcolm said, placing a glazed blue pottery mug next to the hide. “Though I’ve heard about them, I’ve never seen one.”

  I rubbed my thumb over the tiny blue bird em­broid­ered in the same corner as the other two birds. “One of the stolen pieces had a red bird and the other a yellow one. Do you know how many pieces there are?”

  He shrugged and upended the beer bottle into his mouth.

  “Or why the original was ripped into pieces?”

  He continued guzzling his beer.

  “I suspect there are four. The ripped flower in this piece should match up with the ripped flower in the one with the red bird. Which means the yellow bird piece needs a mate.”

  He continued ignoring me.

  “I know you know something, because you got very upset when I mentioned that Hans stole the other two pieces. Why?”

  This time I got a response. “Look, I’d rather not say. Let’s just say in the wrong hands they could cause a lot of trouble.”

  “I think they’ve already caused trouble, with the attacks on two of your cousins and the death of the other. Why?”

  “Second cousins, actually. It has to do with what they represent. And no, don’t ask.”

  “Fine, but shouldn’t you be concerned about the person who has the fourth piece? They could be in danger too.”

  “Jeez, my back is killing me,” Uncle Joe growled, limping into the kitchen. “You shoulda woke me up. I can’t sleep in that thing no more.”

  “Have some tea. It’ll make you feel better.” I walked over to the cupboard and pulled out a mug with a grinning moose wearing a Mountie hat. I poured in the remaining tea from the pot and carried it back to the table.

  The old man slumped down in the chair beside me.

  “I take it you didn’t find Gloria,” Malcolm said.

  “No one seen her.”

  “We discovered that she’s with Father Harris,” I added. “Any idea why she’d go with him, when she hates him
so much?”

  “Bastard. He better keep his hands off her.”

  “What are you talking about? He’s a priest,” I exclaimed.

  “Too bad he forget, when he—” he muttered but didn’t finish the sentence. “Got any of Shelagh’s cookies? Meg want one.”

  Malcolm brought a porcelain jar in the shape of Bambi to the table and slid it toward his father, who unsnapped the top and helped himself to a very large chocolate chip cookie before passing the jar to me.

  “What’s this about Father Harris?” Malcolm asked.

  “Nothing.” The old man slurped his tea.

  “This have to do with Saint Anne’s?”

  Ignoring his son, Uncle Joe helped himself to another cookie.

  “Was he accused of abusing students?” I asked.

  Malcolm glanced at his father, who concentrated on his cookie.

  “I don’t know if he was ever charged,” Malcolm said. “But there were rumours. Dad, what do we do about Gloria?”

  “We find her.”

  “We have a better description of the truck, a black RAM 2500 with red lettering on the cab,” I said. “Any idea who it could belong to?”

  “Hans,” the old man answered without hesitation.

  forty-two

  “He wouldn’t hurt her, would he, Dad?” Malcolm queried.

  In answer, Uncle Joe shuffled to the front door with more speed than I thought possible. “We take truck,” he shouted, flinging the door open.

  Malcolm hesitated.

  “What are you waiting for?” I reached for my jacket. “He almost killed her yesterday.”

  I raced out of the kitchen after the old man. By the time I was running down the stairs to the driveway, I could hear Malcolm’s footsteps thudding behind me.

  The three of us scrambled into the truck.

  “Do you know where Hans lives?” I asked as he backed onto the road.

  “Small town. Everyone knows where everyone lives.” He veered around a corner. “Unfortunately, it’s on the other side of town.”