The Bone Seeker: An Edie Kiglatuk Mystery (Edie Kiglatuk Mysteries)

by M. J. McGrath

  The young woman’s reaction was a mixture of relief and terror. ‘I can’t believe Willa told you.’

  ‘I kinda forced it out of him,’ Edie lied.

  Her lips pursed, then in a quiet voice she said, ‘Please don’t tell my dad.’

  Edie met her eye. ‘I’m not planning on telling anyone. But I need something from you in return.’

  She turned her head away. ‘If you’re going to ask me about Martha’s boyfriend again, I already told you – I don’t know. Why don’t you believe me?’

  Edie clasped Lizzie’s chin gently and drew her face back round so the two women were looking at one another.

  ‘I need to know if someone could have killed your sister to get back at your father.’ She told the girl about the tupilaq.

  Lizzie frowned. ‘Why are we even talking about this? You already know who did it. I even heard the Lemming Police say so. The whole town knows.’ She glanced nervously down the track. ‘My parents will be wondering where I am.’

  Edie grabbed her arm and wheeled her about.

  ‘What did you and Martha fall out over?’

  ‘Did Willa tell you that too?’ The girl yanked her arm away. ‘You and me are done, Edie Kiglatuk.’

  • • •

  Back in the detachment office Derek was draining a beer and smoking.

  ‘You ever get the feeling you’d should have picked an easier career?’ Derek said. ‘Like lion tamer or bomb disposal expert.’

  ‘I didn’t pick it,’ Edie said. The encounter with Lizzie had left her feeling angry and hollow. Just when she’d hoped for a rapprochement with Willa. ‘And it’s not my career. Once this is over I’m going right back to teaching and guiding.’

  Derek took a long toke on his cigarette. ‘Someone’s got a sore head.’

  Edie sighed. ‘I could use a drink.’

  Alarm spread across Derek’s face.

  ‘C’mon, D,’ she said, ‘I may be dumb but I’m not stupid.’

  16

  Edie woke early to a blank light, the temperature just beginning to clamber out of the freezing zone. This was what passed for dawn in the land of the midnight sun. In the shower, last night’s unease stole over her once more, like the shadow of something in front of the shower curtain. Before she’d had time to register what it was, the object had disappeared from sight.

  Derek was already at his desk, smoking. The darkness under his eyes and his pale, almost blue, hue suggested he hadn’t had much sleep. They exchanged a brief greeting then Edie went through to the kitchenette and pulled open the refrigerator door.

  ‘Got any nitiq, D?’ The word meant both meat and real food, though it wasn’t hunger that was bothering her so much as a need to connect with herself. Food often served that purpose.

  ‘There might be a walrus head and a couple bags of seal meat in the freezer.’

  She went back out to the little room at the back, hauled out a couple of unlabelled bags and popped them in the microwave. Twenty minutes later she emerged from the kitchenette carrying fresh blood soup but before she could put down the tray, the phone rang. It was Todd Ransom confirming that Anna Mackie and a forensics technician by the name of Mick Flaherty were en route and, all being well, would be landing at Kuujuaq within the hour.

  She placed a bowl of soup in front of her boss. He thanked her and stubbed out his cigarette. Despite his lack of sleep, or maybe because of it, there was a kind of light in Derek’s eye now. It was as though the finish line had just come into view.

  ‘You think we’re gonna be able to nail those two unataqti today, don’t you? I can see it on your face,’ Edie said, lifting her bowl to her lips. The prospect didn’t cheer her. Once the Killer Whales were in jail the case would effectively be closed. Whether or not the two men were the killers, she was sure there was more to know.

  He smiled, took a couple of slurps of soup then pushed the bowl away. She’d only ever known him to refuse food when he was adrenalized.

  ‘You’re completely convinced they did it?’

  ‘You think they didn’t?’ Derek’s face was a mixture of surprise and disappointment. He rose from his chair and pulled on his outerwear. ‘Thanks for the soup, Edie, but please stop trying to make things more complicated than they are.’ He screwed his hat down.

  ‘Oh, I forgot.’ He was holding the door half open now. ‘Sammy called, must have been real early. He left a message. Something about a fight with his girlfriend and needing to stay over at your place in Autisaq a few days.’

  Edie eye-rolled. Right now this was one distraction she didn’t need. Particularly since her ex played this kind of stunt all the time. He’d been dating Nancy on and off almost since he and Edie split but that didn’t stop him scuttling back whenever things went wrong. And fool her, she let him.

  Derek shot her a sympathetic look. ‘Why don’t you come up to the landing strip with me? I want you to meet the medical examiner.’

  • • •

  The ME, Anna Mackie, was a small, fit-looking woman in her late forties. Married to the job, Edie guessed. Her sidekick, Flaherty, seemed younger, maybe early thirties with deep-set, violet eyes. Judging from the tenderness of his skin, he hadn’t racked up much time in the Barrenlands.

  ‘Sorry we didn’t get up here sooner. I was using my vacation time to help my sister move house, but if I’d known there’d been a serious incident, I would have come back early,’ Mackie said.

  ‘Ransom doesn’t seem to think the death of a native girl counts for much,’ Derek replied.

  Mackie stopped what she was doing momentarily, raised herself up and rested her hand on her hips. ‘I’m not sure that’s fair, sergeant. But in any case, it does to me.’ Her look said she’d route around guys butting horns. ‘Todd can be an asshole, but your idea of a language lesson didn’t exactly help. Todd’s in a bind here. Ottawa only lets us take leave over the summer, which, as you know, just happens to be when the crime rate soars. No one can get any temporary help because everyone’s lying on a beach. It sucks, they know it sucks, but far as Ottawa’s concerned, this place is off the map.’

  The job of unloading the plane kept them busy for a while. There was forensics equipment to be checked and accounted for. When it was done, Mackie sent Flaherty to fetch a trolley while Derek went to sign off the flight paperwork.

  Finding herself alone with Edie, Mackie said, ‘Are you new?’

  Edie scanned herself. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  Mackie laughed. ‘No uniform is all.’

  ‘I’m not the uniform type.’

  Mackie continued to smile. ‘Oh good. A woman after my own heart.’

  Luc met them at the nursing station and led them through the double doors into the morgue. He’d already agreed to assist Mackie with the autopsy on the dead girl’s body while Flaherty fingerprinted the ATV and checked her bedroom for hair, blood and other body fluids. The forensics team would then go down to the crime scene together. The finds would be processed back at the lab in Iqaluit along with the elimination samples and the suspects’ clothes.

  Luc pulled out the drawer. Flaherty helped him manoeuvre the body bag onto a gurney.

  ‘It may become necessary to fly the body back to Iqaluit,’ Anna said.

  Derek scratched his head. ‘That might be a problem. The father is traditional and he’s ornery. He’s not going to like removing his daughter from the place where her spirit is. He’s lawyered up pretty good too.’

  Mackie shifted her weight back and folded her arms. ‘Todd mentioned there might be some cultural sensitivities to work around. Your chief suspect is at Camp Nanook with the SOVPAT, right?’

  ‘Plus he just so happens to be Cree,’ Derek said. ‘So, for sensitivities read landmines.’

  Mackie unzipped the body bag and began running her eye along its contents. Luc went over to join her. Mackie had read Luc’s preliminary report on the flight over but she was keen to talk through the nurse’s findings face to face. Derek and Edie stayed where they we
re. They were used to witnessing the depredations of the flesh in animals, but this was something else.

  ‘Just tell me what you know from the beginning,’ Mackie said to Luc.

  ‘Well, OK, but I’m not a pathologist.’ Luc stood with his arms crossed, rocking back on his heels. Nervous.

  ‘Glad to hear it. I need this job.’ Mackie smiled, professionally. Woman knew how to put people at their ease.

  Immediately Luc uncrossed his arms and launched in. ‘Well, the victim was found face down in brackish water. Body had been in the water maybe twenty-four hours. Probable cause of death exsanguination as a result of a deep knife wound through the vagina severing the uterine artery, though I haven’t been able to eliminate possible death by drowning. No obvious evidence of non-consensual penetrative sex, except by the knife, obviously, but I haven’t ruled it out either.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be unusual in a case like this,’ Mackie said. ‘What’s with the hair?’

  ‘Crudely cut with a blade. Only a few offcuts found in the water at the scene, suggesting that whoever killed her removed the bulk of it.’

  ‘No other signs of sexual mutilation immediately apparent?’

  ‘No. No bruises, bite marks or anything like that. It seems likely she was heavily drugged beforehand, which might explain the absence of defence wounds. The bloods suggest some kind of tranquillizer – I’m guessing Ambien – but I don’t really have the testing equipment to be able to be more specific.’

  Mackie turned to Derek. ‘You got anything to add?’

  ‘Last movements. We know Martha spent early Friday evening drinking with two soldiers at a local bar before taking them back to her house where she had sex with one or both of them. Either way we’re pretty sure it was consensual. They’re now the chief suspects. The men left later the same evening and then Martha probably slept in. A friend who went round there said it looked like she had a hangover. She went around to her uncle’s later on Saturday morning to pick up a schoolbook. Last sighted around midday having some kind of verbal altercation with one of the suspects outside the local store. We think he may have wanted a replay of Friday night’s action. Martha had other ideas.’

  ‘I checked for alcohol,’ Luc said. ‘Residual.’

  Mackie nodded. ‘I saw that in the report, thank you.’

  ‘Sometime between that meeting and the end of Saturday night, she may have gone out to some bird cliffs not far from here to collect eggs. One of her regular haunts. It seems that the two suspects happened to be on the bluff above the cliffs at the same time. Maybe they called over to her. Right now we’re working on the assumption that they drugged her, perhaps had sex with her again when she was out of it, then killed her and cut her hair for some kind of trophy. We haven’t found the hair but one of them had her amulet. Claimed she’d given it to him.’

  ‘There are other possibilities,’ Edie cut in. ‘The suspect told us she had a boyfriend; and the owner of the bar found her crying early Friday evening, before she met up with the two guys she had sex with.’

  Derek frowned and flashed her a warning glance.

  ‘There are always other possibilities,’ he said. ‘But the one we’re working with right now is that she was killed by one or other or both of the two chief suspects.’

  A ball of anger swelled up and stuck in Edie’s throat. Derek knew she was lousy at toeing the line. Now, apparently, she was expected to keep her mouth shut. That was never going to work.

  ‘I can already see degradation from water immersion,’ Mackie went on, pointing to a spot on the girl’s torso. ‘You know what these oily stains might be?’

  ‘Diesel and tar spill from the abandoned Glacier Ridge radar station just above the lake,’ Luc said. ‘The water’s highly contaminated.’

  Mackie took this in.

  ‘We don’t see many cases like this up here,’ Derek said. ‘In fact, we’ve never seen anything like this on Ellesmere Island. Tell the truth we’re sorta groping around in the dark a little bit.’

  Mackie gave a wry smile. ‘In the land of the midnight sun. How ironic.’

  ‘I checked the list of scripts we dispense from here,’ Luc said. ‘A couple of benzos, sleeping stuff, but the recipients are elderly. Can’t see how either of them coulda had anything to do with it.’

  ‘We’ve had a problem with prescription drug-peddling in the past,’ Derek cut in. ‘So it’s possible the source wasn’t legitimate.’ He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Damn. I’m afraid I have to be at the dock. Annual supply due in. Bad timing. Edie here will be at the detachment, you need anything. I suggest, Mick, you go with her and she’ll show you the vehicle and take you to the victim’s house.’

  He reached over for his coat and used the action as an excuse to pull Edie to one side.

  ‘Hey, you’re on payroll, remember? Your job here is to back me up!’

  She looked at him askance, a look which he met with a determined stare. They’d squared off plenty of times but few knew better than Derek that she wasn’t about to be anybody’s nodding dog. She yanked the badge he’d given her from her lapel and pressed it hard into his hand, pin side down.

  ‘In that case I just came off payroll.’

  He stared at her a moment in despair then held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Look, all I’m asking for is you don’t contradict me publicly. You know how sensitive this investigation is. Charlie Salliaq gets so much as a sniff that we’re not pulling in the same direction, he’ll exploit the hell out of it. Besides, we are, aren’t we? I’m as determined as you are to find Martha’s killer.’

  Edie eye-rolled and took back the badge.

  ‘Forensics finds nothing on the two unataqti, I promise you we’ll spend more time on your boyfriend theory, OK? But they will. Now, I have to get down to the port. Will you go visit the Salliaqs, reassure them we got forensics working on the case now and we’re focused on arrests? Give old Charlie something to chew on before he decides to start making any more trouble. Then go back to the detachment. Come fetch me if the prosecutor calls.’

  At the door he turned and said, ‘Thank you, VPSO Kiglatuk.’

  • • •

  Edie got back to the detachment to find the message light on Derek’s desk phone blinking. It was Klinsman, wanting an urgent callback. Figuring he’d seen the plane, Edie punched in his number.

  ‘The forensics team just got here.’

  ‘So I assumed, but that’s not why I’m calling. Is Sergeant Palliser there?’

  ‘He’s at the annual supply. You’ll have to make do with me.’

  There was a pause while Klinsman recalibrated.

  ‘Sergeant Palliser told me on the phone that it looked as though the dead girl had been drugged. I took the precaution of checking out the camp pharmacy. The medical team here only writes scripts in emergency situations. There are always a few men who fail to cope with Arctic conditions. Nothing went out on script, but a quantity of Ambien was logged as missing from stock on Wednesday last week. It could be an administrative error.’ He paused to signal a ‘but’. ‘I asked them to check who came into the clinic. We occasionally assign ancillary duties to regular soldiers. Turns out one of the men helping that day was Private Saxby. We searched his locker again but didn’t find anything. He’s denying any knowledge of the Ambien, of course. We ran a drug test on him and he’s clean.’ He paused again. ‘I thought I should let the sergeant know.’

  She thanked him. As she was finishing the call the door opened and Markoosie Pitoq’s face peered through. She waved him to a chair.

  He handed her a piece of folded paper. ‘I wanted you to see this. It was under the studio door when I came in this morning.’ She unfolded the paper and read:

  Ask Willa Inukpuk about Martha on Friday nite

  She read the sentence a couple of times before the words sank in. Willa. On Friday night. If it was true, why hadn’t he mentioned it? And if it wasn’t, why was someone trying to set him up?

  She rubbed
the note between her fingers. The elaborate script seemed vaguely familiar, the fine blue lines and off-white slubby texture of the paper suggesting it had been torn from a notebook.

  ‘You didn’t see who dropped this off?’

  Markoosie shook his head. ‘Like I said, it was under my door when I arrived this morning.’

  She thanked him and waited till he’d gone before dialling the Rangers’ contact number, introducing herself and explaining that she needed to speak with Willa Inukpuk. The voice on the other end asked her to hold for a moment, then came back on.

  ‘Ranger Inukpuk’s still out at rappel camp. Is it an emergency? We can get a message to him.’

  Her mind was on the slip of paper. ‘Ask him to call Edie at the Kuujuaq police detachment? Tell him there’s nothing wrong but it’s kinda urgent.’

  As she put the phone down she remembered where she’d seen the writing before. It belonged to Lisa Tuliq. The girl had submitted an essay in exactly the same fancy handwriting. She stood up from the desk and grabbed her parka.

  As she got closer to the Tuliqs’ camp, the ground rose in ragged increments, as though it had risen up, leaving ledges and slabs of rock behind. In every crack and on every slab some small plant or lichen flourished. She paused briefly to register the unique generosity of the Arctic summer. Where else in the world could be so welcoming to the sudden arrival of so much new life? She wondered what demons had stalked Martha Salliaq that she would ever have wanted to quit this place. Then she drove on until she reached the spot where the low basalt cliffs met the sea and the Tuliq family tents sat like knucklebones on the willow carpet.

  At the sound of the ATV Lisa emerged from the communal tent, still clutching the glove she was mending. Her father followed behind, his hands gripping her shoulders. Lisa made eye contact with her for a second then looked away. Edie greeted them both and asked to speak to the girl in private for a moment. Lisa glanced at her father, perhaps hoping he would question this, but when he didn’t she led Edie around the back of the tent. As soon as they were out of earshot, Edie produced the slip of paper from her pocket.