In the Barren Ground Page 20

  “What about Jamie’s father—what’s your read on Crow TwoDove?”

  “Crow has big issues with police, for sure,” Dupp said, reaching for the coffeepot. “It goes way back to that time when the cops went looking at him as a pedophile, or stalker, of some sort.” He held the pot out toward Tana’s mug. She shook her head. He poured himself a refill and set the pot down.

  “Dakota’s mother thought it was possible that her daughter was being stalked,” Tana said, playing devil’s advocate.

  “It was a bad time for everyone.” Alexa spooned more porridge into her grandson’s mouth. The kid ogled Tana with huge dark eyes as he gummed his food, and she felt an odd little pang in her chest. “Elliot Novak might have pushed that idea into Jennie Smithers’s head,” Alexa added. “And Crow keeps to himself if no one bothers him. He doesn’t come out looking for trouble.”

  From her pocket Tana removed a baggie containing the silver tool she’d extracted from the frozen deer eyeball. She set it on the table. “Ever seen one of these?”

  “Why?” said Dupp, picking it up, turning it over.

  “I found it pinning a deer eyeball to the police station door.”

  Dupp’s and Alexa’s gazes shot to Tana’s. They both stared at her in silence. Dupp cleared his throat. “Who would do that? Why?”

  “Revenge, maybe. To spook me. Whatever the motive, I’m going to find out,” Tana said.

  “It’s a taxidermy tool,” Dupp said.

  “Who does taxidermy around town, apart from Crow TwoDove?” Tana asked.

  “Well, Crow does teach people. And Jamie tried it for a while, but like I said, he doesn’t really have the feel, or stomach, for it. He’s better with his jewelry.”

  Tana repocketed the bagged tool. “Have either of you heard of any other wildlife attacks like Dakota’s, or Regan Novak’s, or this latest one? Farther afield, perhaps? Or are you aware of people who went missing, maybe even several years ago, and were later found scavenged?”

  Dupp took a long sip from his mug, thinking. “Well, thing is, if you go missing out in these parts, any number of things will get you. Terrain and weather for one. If you fall and break your leg, hypothermia will set in. It’s remote. No cell phone reception. Two-way radios have limited range. And if you’re not carrying some kind of personal safety satellite beacon, you’re going to die out there on your own. And if you die, by the time they find you weeks, months, maybe even years later, you will have been scavenged. Nature’s recyclers. It’s just the way of the wild. In old times tribes would just leave their dying members for the wolverine. Eaters of the dead.”

  “There was that one geologist,” Alexa said. “Remember, Dupp? She was from Kelowna in BC. She got separated from her party in bad weather, and they think she fell down a ridge. They couldn’t find her before the snows came that year. But they did locate her remains the following spring. She’d been eaten by grizzlies and wolves and whatever else. Broken leg bones, like she had fallen.”

  “When was this?” said Tana.

  Alexa made a moue. “About two years ago, I think. But it was quite a lot farther north of here. In the Nehako Valley.”

  Tana made a note to check it out when she could get online access again. It fit a pattern: bad weather coming in, a search delayed because of it, remote area, extensive animal predation before the victim was found.

  Tana finished the last of her coffee, relieved that she was finally able to stomach it again. At least in small amounts.

  “Before I go,” she said, “I was hoping to have a word with Caleb about the fight at the Red Moose. Is he home?”

  “That boy is still sleeping,” said Dupp, pushing his chair back. “I’ll get him. Caleb!” he yelled down the small passage. “Someone here to talk to you.”

  “Coming,” called a bleary voice.

  While they waited, Tana said, “I was wondering if I could pick your brain, Dupp—I’d like to start the ball rolling on an auxiliary-type policing program for Twin Rivers. Bringing together a few volunteers to be on call for emergencies, or for search and rescue. Do you think the band council would be interested in getting something like this going?”

  He grinned. “It’s been long overdue. We’d love to see some of the local youth involved, especially. Alexa and I have been talking about it. And with you guys so short-staffed—”

  “Hey,” Caleb said as he entered the kitchen. But he stalled at the sight of Tana in her uniform at the table. Slowly, he seated himself, features guarded.

  She smiled. “How are you, Caleb? Recovered from the dustup?”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his arm, a nervous tic. “Did you charge him—Jamie?”

  She shook her head. “We’re going to see if Jamie can work off the damages.” She leaned forward. “But I wanted to ask you what you know about bones. Old bones. Jamie was yelling at you about bones that night in the Red Moose.”

  He paled under his dusky skin. “I don’t know nothing about bones.”

  His parents fell quiet. Tension in the room thickened. Even Tootoo’s gurgling stopped as the baby sensed the change.

  “See, Caleb, we did find bones where Selena Apodaca and Raj Sanjit died. Old bones. Forensics experts will tell us a lot about those bones. How old they are. Cause of death, maybe. Sex. Cultural background.” She paused. “I’m just wondering why you and Jamie were fighting about bones, given the find.”

  He looked down at the table, scratched at something imaginary on the melamine surface. “I don’t know anything.”

  Tana placed on the table the picture that she’d taken from the police files after she’d booked Jamie. She slid it toward him. It showed Caleb Peters, Jamie TwoDove, and Selena Apodaca at the blockade held last spring to protest the ice road and the development of the WestMin mine.

  “Some people in town really don’t want that mine, Caleb. And Harry Blundt from WestMin was telling me that if old bones or burial sites were found, it could stop him from getting approval. You were there that day, at that protest.” She tapped the photo. “Jamie, and Selena, too.”

  “Half the town was there,” his mother said.

  “The anthropological study will start next spring,” Tana said. “Following on the back of the wildlife studies that Selena and Raj were a part of.” She paused, waiting for him to meet her eyes. “Just if someone planted bones, where would those bones have come from, Caleb? Because this could be a crime. Or, what Jamie was calling … a sin, maybe, in the eyes of your community?”

  Sweat gleamed on his brow. “This is bullshit.” He shoved the photo back at her.

  “Something is going on here, Caleb, and it’s more than just wolves. Keeping information from the police could get you in deep trouble, because those forensics experts are going to tell us a lot, and will raise even more questions. If you remember something, or if Jamie does, you guys come talk to me, okay?”

  She got up, thanked the family for the coffee, and as Tana left, she heard the men inside the house arguing. Loudly.

  Tana drew up on her snowmobile outside the tiny cabin on the river where Damien lived. She removed her helmet and goggles. Trees grew dense on either side of the cabin, and behind it the river, silver-gray, chuckled around rocks mounded with snow. Flakes were still coming down heavily.

  Her mind went to her dogs, how they’d almost died, to the vandalism of the cell tower, to the eyeball skewered to the police station door. Anger began to thud in her veins. If someone was trying to spook her, they were messing with the wrong person. She killed her engine.

  Hand near her weapon, her gaze flicking around, hyperaware, she made for the door through gusting snow. She banged hard with the base of her fist.

  No answer.

  She tried again before going around the back. She rubbed ice from a rear window, and peered inside.

  Cabin was a mess. Empty bottles. Dirty glasses. Bong. Old food cartons. If it wasn’t for the below-freezing temperatures, the interior would be covered in mold. It looked like no one had been bac
k here for a while. No prints outside, snow piling in drifts against the door.

  She returned to the front of the cabin and stood on the porch, thinking, her breath misting. She’d heard from young Timmy Nakehk’o that these guys had a hide somewhere in the woods across the river where they stashed the booze and dope.

  But in order to locate that bootleggers’ hide, she needed info. O’Halloran knew where that hide was—she was certain of it.

  Shit.

  Baby steps, Tana … you can do this. You need to handle this gang and the illegal liquor sales one way or another. And you need to arrest and charge whoever sabotaged the satcom system and poisoned your dogs …

  She remounted her snow machine and punched through the drifts, making for O’Halloran’s place.

  She parked her machine outside, and clumped up the steps. She could see his Beaver in the hangar on the other side of the airport fence, and she wondered where he kept his red AeroStar.

  She knocked on his door. It opened almost at once. Mindy stood there smirking. “You’re sure hot for him, aren’t you, Constable? Can’t stop yourself from coming around now, can you?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Out back. In the meat shed.”

  Tana made her way back down the stairs and started round the rear of the tiny clapboard house.

  “What?” Mindy called after her. “No lecture for me this time?”

  Tana ignored her. She wasn’t going to get the truth of Mindy from Mindy herself. She knew that much now. Triage. First things first.

  Snow was several feet deep out back, but a beaten path led down to what looked like two garages joined together. The door on the left side was shut, but the one on the right was open. Music emanated from the interior—sounds from the late eighties. She stopped in the entrance.

  Inside, a dead buck hung from a meat hook in the ceiling. O’Halloran had his back to her and was busy slicing hunks of dark-red flesh from the carcass, dropping them into a metal bucket. The music and snow had quieted her approach, so he was not aware that she was standing there. There was a power and practice in his strokes with the sharp blade. He wore a quilted lumberjack shirt over bloodstained Carhartt pants. Baffin-Arctic boots.

  Tana glanced back over her shoulder, toward the trail leading from the house. There was no distinct sole imprint immediately apparent in that trail—it was too tracked out. But as she looked, she noticed Mindy at a window in the house, watching from behind sheers. A strange chill washed over Tana. She drew in a deep breath, marshaling herself, and she turned and entered the shed. “O’Halloran,” she said.

  He stilled, slowly turned, met her eyes, bloody knife in hand.

  She eyed the blade.

  “Didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon, Constable.” He turned back to cutting. Plopping hunks of meat in the bucket. Tana felt sick again, memories of those biologists’ remains, the smell, suddenly fresh in her mind again.

  “Dogs okay?” he said.

  “Yeah. We need to talk.”

  “Talk away.” He didn’t stop what he was doing, and she wanted to look in his eyes.

  “I need to find Damien,” she said.

  His hand slowed. “I’m not his keeper, Larsson. You know where he lives.”

  “He’s not there. Doesn’t look like he’s been there in a while. Where can I find his hide?”

  “So, now you need my help?”

  “Not only were my dogs poisoned, O’Halloran, but the town’s satcom system was sabotaged while my dogs lay dying and I was trying to save their lives. This is not just about booze any longer. This is about the whole community being cut off. A serious crime.”

  His body tensed, but he still didn’t look at her. “Sabotage?”

  “Cables, all of them, severed from the satellite dish to the broadcast tower. It could take weeks to repair if NorthTel can’t fly parts and techs in these storms. You said I had enemies, but this is not just about me now—I want who did this.”

  Still not looking at her, he sliced off another wad of flesh. “What makes you think it’s them?” She heard a slight tension in his voice now and it gave her a punch of satisfaction.

  “It’s my first line of investigation,” she said.

  He swiveled the carcass on the hook so that he could access the uncut side of the buck. The animal’s head spun round to face her—open mouth, tongue. Tana’s pulse quickened. The animal had no eyes.

  “Where are the deer’s eyeballs?” she said.

  “Someone took them, while the meat was hanging.” He sliced off another slab.

  Tana stared at the empty sockets, her pulse starting to gallop.

  He cast her a sideways glance. His green eyes were watchful, reading her. Gone was the crackling mirth, the quick, easy grin that she’d encountered the first few times she’d met him. A dark, hot energy radiated off him now. The place smelled of sweet meat, tinged with metallic copper. She needed air suddenly. “What do you mean, someone took the eyes?” she said.

  “Just that. They’re a delicacy for some people out here.”

  Tana dug into her pocket and removed the bagged tool she’d shown Chief Dupp and Alexa Peters earlier. “You seen this before?” She held it out to him.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “It was pinning a frozen deer eyeball to my police station door.”

  His hands stilled. And what she saw in his features worried her.

  “When?” he said.

  “It was there this morning.”

  “That’s not Damien’s style, Tana—to knock out the whole town. Or hurt pets. Or screw around with eyeballs from my buck. He knows where his bread is buttered.”

  “Then whose style is it?”

  Silence. His gaze locked with hers.

  The words from that poem snaked through her mind.

  For here is bitter and cold where the sun hangs low. Where a midnight caribou mutilation awakens a howl of emptiness with ice where once there was heart …

  A darker thought followed as her attention returned to the gutted dear—its heart and other organs gone—and she thought of Selena Apodaca’s heartless torso lying in ice and snow. What if this wasn’t about illegal liquor, and revenge? What if the poisonings and the sabotage and the eyeball were all linked to what was up on her whiteboard, and the fact that she was asking questions around town, linking old attacks?

  “I can tell you one thing,” she said. “Maybe this isn’t Damien’s style when he’s alone, but stick a guy into a gang and a weird pack mentality can take hold.” She paused. “But you know all about gang psychology, don’t you, O’Halloran, and what it can make people do?”

  He turned away, shoulders tight. He stared at the deer carcass. Wind gusted into the shed, swiveling the deer. The meat hook creaked on its hinge.

  “So, you going to tell me where his hide is?” she said.

  “Fuck,” he said quietly.

  “You got a problem?”

  “I got a problem taking a cop into his hide, yeah.”

  “I didn’t ask you to take me, I just asked you to tell me where it is.”

  “And what are you going to do when you get there?” he snapped.

  “Question them. They’re my top suspects, my first line of investigation in the sabotage. Depending on what I hear, or see, I’ll act accordingly.”

  “They won’t cooperate with you. All you’ll be doing is putting yourself in a dangerous situation.”

  “I can’t not address this—or them. What kind of statement would that be making of me as a law enforcement presence in this town?”

  “Well, you’re not going alone. You’re right about his mates from Wolverine Falls—they can get trigger-happy, especially if they’ve been drinking. I don’t know what they’re capable of. Place is also booby-trapped.”

  “And you can get in?”

  “Yup.” He wiped his blade on a cloth, slid the knife into the sheath at his hip.

  “Because you supply them with booze?” she said.

&n
bsp; “Yup. You got it.”

  “No, I don’t get it. I don’t get why you want to escort me into Damien’s hide. Because if this is about my pregnancy—”

  “What if it is?”

  She stared at him, his words from last night echoing through her mind. I fucked up my own life. I don’t want to give a shit, and usually I get by pretty well. Conflict twisted through Tana. She couldn’t trust this guy. Yet she also knew that barging into Damien’s hide to confront his armed gang on her own was a dumbass move.

  … you might be compelled to take a kick, or a bullet, but you’ve got another life to think about now. A little civilian life …

  Tana swallowed. Either it was waiting for backup from Yellowknife, which might never come. Or it was Crash O’Halloran. Or it was doing nothing to assert her police presence in town, and letting a bunch of kids run her, and Twin Rivers. And possibly worse.

  “Look, you want my help or not? Because the only way you’re going out to that hide is on the back of my snow machine.”

  “I have my own machine—”

  “With RCMP written all over it. No, we go on my equipment, my gear, my terms. Because I sure as hell am not going to be responsible for getting you killed.” He shucked off his lumberjack shirt as he spoke. He followed this by removing his T-shirt.

  His torso was ripped, tanned, and sported more ink. His shoulder was badly scarred. His abs, too, as if a knife blade had been scored across his belly several times. Like torture marks. He was all sinew and muscle and fluidlike movement as he turned his naked back to her, and ran water into a sink at the back of the shed. The heat from the water steamed into the cold air.

  “Give me a minute while I clean up.” He began soaping his arms.

  Tana stared at the back of him. The way his jeans were slung low on his hips made her hot inside. Uncomfortable. Old tensions twisted painfully through her. She’d gotten into way too much trouble trying to drown her pain—herself—in lust, in fierce, mind-numbing, risqué sex. Coupled with alcohol it had become a crutch, a way to blot it all out. Then an addiction—a mixed-up Russian roulette that she’d played with herself after Jim’s death. A form of saying “fuck you, world.” A kind of self-hatred, self-flagellation even, that all tied back to her deep lack of self-worth. And now she was pregnant. And here she stood, trying to start over, watching this ex-con covered in serious organized crime tats, soaping blood off himself before taking her out to a gang hide in the woods. A person of interest in what could possibly be a bizarre serial murder case.