Bones Are Forever (21 page)

As Ryan navigated the town’s main road, I noted a school with a timber-frame swing set in the yard. A windowless outhouse with an ATM sign. Frame homes featuring weathered variations of redwood, brown, gray, and blue. Dozens of power-line poles leaning at odd angles.

The vegetation consisted of patchy grass and the occasional stand of trees. There wasn’t a single paved street.

Ryan parked in front of a small log cabin displaying an RCMP sign in French and English. We both got out.

The office held a desk and chair, a few file cabinets, and little else. The desk was occupied by a corporal whose name tag said Schultz.

Schultz looked up when we entered but said nothing. He was in his late twenties, short and stocky, with chipmunk cheeks that made him look soft.

Since Schultz was locked on Ryan and ignoring me, I let the captain do the talking.

“Good afternoon, Corporal.” Removing his sunglasses.

“Good afternoon.” If Schultz was surprised to see us, he didn’t let on.

“We’re looking for Friends of the Tundra.”

Schultz tipped his head and scratched the back of his neck.

“Horace Tyne?”

“Right. Brain freeze.” Schultz pointed four fingers toward the door at our backs. “Go to the end of the main road. Turn left at the blue house with the green shed. Four doors down is a red number with a white door and a fence. That’s the one.”

“You acquainted with Tyne?’

“I see him around.”

We waited, but Schultz offered nothing further. We turned to leave.

“You up from Yellowknife?”

“Yes.”

“Family?” I recognized the “casual cop” tone.

“Nope.”

“You Greenpeacers?”

“You know anything about Tyne’s organization?”

“Not really. Guess it keeps him busy.”

“Meaning?”

“The guy’s been underemployed since the gold mines shut down.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“Early nineties. Before my time.”

“He seem pretty solid?”

Schultz shrugged one shoulder. “Doesn’t get drunk and start throwing punches.”

“What more could you ask?” Ryan slipped on his shades. “Thanks for your help.”

The corporal’s directions were good. We found the house without difficulty. It was small, with cranberry siding and a pair of metal pipes jutting from the roof. The fence was made of unfinished boards nailed vertically with two-inch gaps in between. A scraggly birch threw fingers of shadow across the dirt yard. A gray pickup sat in the drive.

“Not quite the panache of Trump Tower.” Ryan was eyeballing the property.

“Maybe all Tyne needs is a computer.”

“Keeps the overhead low.”

“Leaving more for the caribou.”

Ryan pulled open the gate. We crossed to the stoop, and he knocked on the door.

Nothing.

He knocked again. Harder.

A voice barked, then the door swung in.

I searched my memory archives.

Nope. It was a first.

T
YNE WAS WEARING A LEOPARD-SKIN LOINCLOTH, BEADS, AND
an elastic hair binder. That’s it.

His bald pate gleamed like copper. His ponytail, which contained perhaps twelve hairs, was long and black and started from fringe wrapping the south end of his head. Both fringe and pony glistened with either grease or moisture. I wasn’t sure whether the guy was honoring the ancestors or just out of the shower.

“How are you, Mr. Tyne?” Ryan extended a hand. “I hope we aren’t intruding.”

“I never buy nothing I don’t go looking for. If you’re not looking, you probably don’t need it.”

“We’re not salesmen.”

“Church?”

“No, sir.”

Tyne shook Ryan’s hand, mine, then slapped a palm to his bare chest. “I was about to do my sweating. Helps the circulation.”

Ryan launched in, using a tactic that implied more familiarity than we actually possessed. “I’m Andy. This is Tempe. We got your name from Nellie Snook. We’re associates of Annaliese Ruben.”

For several beats Tyne said nothing. I thought he was about to tell us to hit the road when he grinned ever so slightly.

“Annaliese. OK. We’ll go with that.”

“Sorry?”

“Nice girls, those two. Known them all their lives. And their kin. Used to get themselves into some mischief. Annaliese left here some years back. Wouldn’t mind hearing how she’s doing.”

“We think she’s returned to Yellowknife.”

“Seriously?”

Did I imagine it, or did Tyne’s eyes narrow ever so slightly?

“Annaliese was living in Edmonton. We’ve come from there. We know her former landlady. When Ms. Forex heard we were headed to Yellowknife, she gave us some belongings Annaliese left behind. We’d like to find her before we leave town.”

Each sentence, taken by itself, was absolutely true.

“Come on in.” Tyne stepped back. “You tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

We trailed Tyne through a dimly lit foyer to a living room furnished in standard-issue Sears. The flooring was linoleum trying to be brick. The air smelled of onions and bacon.

Tyne gestured to the couch. Ryan and I sat. He offered coffee. We declined.

When Tyne dropped into an armchair opposite us his bony knees V’ed out, providing an all-too-clear view of Mr. Happy and the Bong Bongs.

I was glad I had not eaten lunch.

“Please feel free to put on warmer clothing.” Ryan smiled. “We don’t mind waiting.”

“Don’t want the lady distracted by my squeeters.” Tyne winked.

Ryan smiled.

I smiled.

Tyne left, returned moments later in a sweatshirt and jeans. “So. Let’s put our heads together.”

That image was almost as revolting as the prospect of the squeeters.

“First off, thanks for talking with us,” Ryan began. “We won’t take up a lot of your time.”

“One thing I’ve got, it’s time.”

“That’s a luxury.”

“Not when the bills roll in.”

“You’re unemployed, sir?”

“Worked fifteen years at Giant. One day they up and shut her
down. ‘Sorry, buddy. You’re shitcanned.’ Did some staking for a while. Some trucking. Not a lot of opportunities around here.”

“Giant is a gold mine?” I asked.

“Was. For decades gold was the lifeblood of this region.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“’Course you didn’t. Everyone’s heard of the Klondike gold rush. Well, Yellowknife had her own day in the sun.”

“Is that so?” Ryan had no interest in gold. I knew he was trying to loosen Tyne up.

“Eighteen ninety-eight. A prospector on his way to the Yukon got lucky. Overnight this place was a boomtown.” Tyne laughed. It sounded like a hiccup. “Meaning the population soared to a whole one thousand. Wasn’t until this century that mining had any real economic impact.”

“How many mines operated here?”

“Con opened in ’36, shut down in 2003. Giant opened in ’48, shut down in 2004. Depleted reserves, high production costs. Same old corporate bullshit. ‘Profits are down, so, chump, you’re out of a job.’”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said.

“Me, too.” Tyne wagged his head. “Con was really something. Her workings go down a hundred and sixty meters and extend under most of Yellowknife and Yellowknife Bay, almost to Dettah. And Giant wasn’t no slouch. In 1986 she was one of only a handful of mines churned out ten thousand gold bricks. I’m talking worldwide.”

I recalled another of the Giant mine’s claims to fame. In 1992 a disgruntled miner murdered nine men, six of them scabs who’d crossed the picket line. His bomb demolished their cart while two hundred meters underground. The crime was the worst in Canadian labor history.

“We understand you’re involved in environmental conservation,” I said.

“Someone’s got to take a stand.”

“For the caribou.”

“The caribou. The lakes. The fish. Diamond mining is going to destroy the whole damn ecosystem.”

That threw me. “Diamonds?”

“Treasure under the tundra?” Tyne’s voice dripped disdain. “Death to the tundra is more like it.”

Ryan slipped me a look. Enough circling. “You say you know Annaliese Ruben’s family,” he said, wishing to get to the point.

“Knew her father pretty well. Farley McLeod was quite a character.”

“Was?”

“Dead. He and I worked for Fipke.”

“Fipke?”

“Seriously?” Tyne looked at me as though I’d asked him to explain soap.

“Seriously.”

“Chuck Fipke is credited with discovering diamonds in the Arctic. Which he did with a guy named Stu Blusson. Everyone thought the two of them were crazy. Turned out they weren’t. Now, thanks to them, the caribou are taking it in the pants.”

“Diamonds have replaced gold in the territory?” I asked.

“Seriously?”

Tyne loved the word. This time I didn’t play parrot. “How many mines?”

“Ekati opened in ’98, Diavak in 2003, Snap Lake in 2008. She’s the only one underground.”

“Where are they?”

“Couple hundred kilometers north. Snap Lake is De Beers’s first mine outside of Africa. Now they’re trying to bring another one online. Gahcho Kué. Won’t be a caribou left when these bastards get through.”

My knowledge of the diamond industry was limited. No. That’s being too generous. I knew that Cecil Rhodes founded De Beers in the late eighteen hundreds, that the group was based in Johannesburg and London, and that it was responsible for 75 percent of the world’s diamond production. I knew that Angola, Australia, Botswana, Congo, Namibia, Russia, and South Africa were diamond-rich. I had no idea Canada was a player.

“You said you did some staking. What’s a staker?” I asked.

“A guy drives in stakes.”

“To register a claim.”

“You’re quick, little lady.”

“Seriously quick.”

Tyne pointed two fingers at me. “Once Fipke found his pipe, all hell broke loose. Made the Klondike rush look like a garden party.” Tyne hiccup-laughed again. “’Course, that’s ancient history. Today there’s not a square inch of tundra hasn’t been staked by some bonehead hoping to strike it rich. And the big boys have sucked up every claim worth a spit. Rio Tinto. BHP Billiton. De Beers.”

“What’s a pipe?” I asked.

Tyne’s eyes went flat. “Thought your interest was in Annaliese Ruben.”

“It is,” Ryan said. “Did Annaliese live with Farley?”

“Farley wasn’t the parenting type. Spawned ’em and left ’em, kinda like carp.”

“Annaliese lived with her mother?”

“Micah Ruben. Then she changed it to Micah Lee. Don’t think she ever married. Those two just liked changing up names.”

“Oh?”

“Micah named the kid Alice. At one point she was Alexandra. Then Anastasia. Thought they sounded fancier.”

“What happened to Micah?”

“She was a drinker. Five, seven years back a neighbor found her lying in the snow, a human Popsicle.”

I remembered the DNA. “Was Micah aboriginal?”

“Dene.”

“Farley?”

“Plain old white bread. Farley passed not long after Micah. Two thousand seven, I think.”

“How old was Annaliese?”

Tyne appeared to give that some thought. “I think she’d just started at the high school. What would that make her? Fourteen? Fifteen? ’Course, Annaliese wasn’t the sharpest stick in the bag. She could have been older.”

“How did Farley die?”

“Crashed his Cessna into Lac La Martre. Hunter saw it go down. Searchers found debris, not Farley.” Tyne paused. “I think Annaliese may have been living with her daddy then. Because of Micah being gone.”

“Where was that?” I felt a tickle of excitement.

“Little shithole in Yellowknife.” Tyne wagged his head. “Farley lived month to month. When the deposit was gone, orphan or not, the kid got the boot. Her siblings didn’t reach out, so I let her crash with me for a while. I was living in town then.”

“And?”

“And then she left.”

“To do what?”

Tyne shrugged. “Girl had to survive.”

“Meaning prostitution,” Ryan said.

“I’m only guessing. Based on her ma.”

“Did you try to intervene?” The tickle of excitement was morphing to disgust. “Urge her to stay in school?”

“I’m not kin. I had no say.”

“She was—”

Sensing my hostility, Ryan cut me off. “You say she had siblings.”

“All’s I know about are a half brother and a half sister.” Again the hitchy laugh. “Probably a whole platoon out there. Farley had a way with the ladies.”

Dazzled with the squeeters. I didn’t say it.

“Who was the half brother?”

“A guy named Daryl Beck. Different mother. Beck was a bit older than Al—Annaliese.”

Ryan noted the verb tense. “Beck is dead, too?”

“One too many lines of blow, I guess. House burned to the ground. Heard they hardly found enough to ID.”

“Beck was a crackhead?”

“I only know what I hear.”

“When was this?

“Three, four years back.”

“Was there an investigation?”

“Cops tried.”

“Meaning?”

“Folks keep to themselves up here.”

“Was Annaliese close to her brother?” I asked.

“Damned if I know.”

“Did Beck have other family?”

“Same answer.”

“While she was staying at your place, did Beck ever visit? Call?”

“No.”