In the Barren Ground (22 page)

“Bob. Yeah, hi, right. I was just going to do it myself. I needed to get a call out.”

He neared, and she saw his familiar craggy face. He was studying the path she’d dug out with her shovel. “We have a snow blower in the garage, you know?”

“Look—” she said, pointing the broom up at the tower cables. “Cut. All of it. The whole system is down. Internet, everything. How long will it take to get this fixed—who in town can fix it?”

He stared, eyes going wide. Then he whistled slowly. “Holy jumping steelhead. Who would do this?
Why?
” he said.

Fucking vandals, that’s who. That’s what they’d been doing last night while her dogs lay dying.
Her money was on those kids—Damien and his gang. The ones she’d busted for the booze. Payback—Damien had threatened it when she’d put him into the cell for a couple of nights. Probably them who’d tried to hurt her dogs, too. A raw, red ferocity burned into her chest. She was going to find them. At first light. No fucking way was she going to let these bastards win. She’d show them who was boss.

She also had to inform Chief Peters and the band council about this sabotage—the whole town, business, was going to suffer until they could get this fixed.

“I’ve still got a portable sat phone,” she said, as much to herself as to Bob as she stared up at the tower. I can call NorthTel—I should be able to get a signal out as soon as this weather lifts.”

Because right now they were socked in. Cloud cover was dense, and the snow was like wet concrete.

“The NorthTel repair guys will have to fly in,” Bob said in his lazy singsong voice. “And bring spare parts.” He looked at the sky. “That’s not going to happen for a few weeks with this weather. Still more storms coming in. Lots of snow. More fog.”

Tana put her head back, letting the flakes settle cold on her cheeks, her eyes. And she breathed in deep and slow through her nose.

You can do this.

Just keep doing your job. Finish your report, your investigation. Keep trying to contact Yellowknife.

She would not let the Twin Peaks-Fargo weirdness of this remote, dark place get to her.

Like it had gotten to Sergeant Elliot Novak, and Corporal Hank Skerritt, and even Corporal Barry Buccholz, it seemed.

O’Halloran’s words circled her mind . . .

You’re going to need help with this, Tana . . .

Yeah. And she’d get it. On her terms. Her first order was to sort out whoever did this, and to inform the town via the chief.

She asked Bob to clear the snow around the garage area, and she stomped up the steps to the police station, but at the entrance she froze in her tracks.

Something had been pinned into the wooden door by a metal tool about the length of a pencil. She stepped closer with her headlamp. And her breath caught.

Bile lurched to her throat. Her heart stuttered and then raced.

An eyeball.

Skewered to her door.

She swallowed slowly, forcing calm. It was too big for a human eye, thank God—almost an inch in diameter. More like a deer eye. Tana removed her heavy mitts, and took several close-up photos with her phone.

She ferreted for the latex gloves she kept in her inside pocket, snapped them on. Tentatively, she touched the eye. It was frozen. It had been out here a while. And the metal tool skewering it, she did not recognize. It reminded her of something that might be found in a dentist’s office.

She glanced over her shoulder, heart thumping. Everywhere snow shadows seemed to swirl and duck into the darkness.

CHAPTER 27

“Who did it?” said Chief Dupp Peters.

“Don’t know yet,” Tana said. “I was hoping you might have some idea. Do you think Damien and his crowd are capable of sabotaging town communications and poisoning my dogs like that?”

“Damien?” said Dupp, taking a sip of his coffee. “I dunno. The kid on his own is not all bad, but that pack of guys from Wolverine Falls that he runs with? Some bad eggs in that bunch.”

Tana was seated with the chief and his wife Alexa at a small table in their kitchen. After walking and feeding her dogs, and leaving instructions for Rosalie, Tana had stopped by the chief’s house on her way to find Damien. She was duty bound to brief him on something as serious as the satcom sabotage. She also wanted to ask his son, Caleb, about the fight with Jamie TwoDove at the Red Moose.

Alexa was feeding their grandson Tootoo, who burbled in his high chair at her side. Tootoo’s mother had died shortly after giving birth. Cancer. And watching Tootoo playing with his cereal, Tana wondered how she was going to do it—be a single mom and a cop. She’d need a sitter. And she still hadn’t put in for maternity leave.

“What about Jamie?” Tana said, struggling to tear her gaze away from chubby little Tootoo. “D’you think he’s capable of sabotage and poisoning?”

“You mean as revenge, because you put him in jail?” said Alexa.

“Maybe. And my dog did go for his leg when I arrested him.”

“Nah, not Jamie,” Dupp said. “He’s too upset about Selena. That’s all. He’s not a bad boy. He’s a real sensitive kid, and he loves animals. It’s why he never really took to the taxidermy.”

“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 back 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.”