The Bone Seeker (11 page)

‘I came back here. Didn't want to get listed AWOL.'

Klinsman interrupted. ‘You and Saxby clocked in together.'

Namagoose looked shifty but he said nothing.

‘Did Saxby come back to Martha's house too?' Derek asked.

‘Uh nuh.'

‘You sure about that?'

‘Yup.'

Edie found Derek's gaze. He blinked to signal that he'd sensed Namagoose's lie and went on,

‘Tell us about the amulet.'

Namagoose leaned forward, his forearms resting on the solid muscle of his thighs. ‘She gave it to me. Said she didn't need it no more. Got out this little pocket knife and sliced it right off her wrist.' Namagoose's eyes flashed about then landed on the ziplock bag. He began gesticulating with his hand. ‘Take it out of that plastic, you'll see. She just cut the thing clean off.'

‘She said she didn't need it any more,' Derek repeated. ‘What did she mean by that?'

‘I don't know, man.' There was a tone of righteous indignation in Namagoose's voice, as though there was something ridiculous or maybe demeaning in the question. ‘People say all kinds of shit when they're wasted.'

‘Can you describe the knife she used?' Edie said. She recalled seeing a small pocket knife in one of Martha's drawers and thinking nothing of it. Everyone on Ellesmere kept a blade of some sort.

Namagoose made a space about ten centimetres long between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand to indicate the length. ‘Mother-of-pearl handle, maybe.'

The description fitted. Edie tried to catch Derek's eye but he was staring intently at the Cree.

‘You took it, didn't you? What else did you take from Martha Salliaq?' The counsel raised his eyebrows but Namagoose answered anyway.

‘Say
what
? Some shitty Inuit thing don't mean nothing to me. Look, we were both pretty drunk. Maybe I made her a few promises I didn't intend to keep,' he added, trying to sound reasonable, ‘but I didn't have nothing to do with what happened. Nothing, zero. She was unhappy so I cheered her up. That's all.' Edie looked up. Namagoose was staring straight at her, that tree-like stillness in him; maybe trying to unsettle her.

‘What did you two fight about on Saturday morning in front of the store?' Edie said.

Namagoose's nostrils flared with irritation at the question, but he kept his cool. From his side of the room Marty Fielding signalled to him to continue.

‘I told you, she thought I was being pushy, she told me to back off. Wasn't anything else in it. I tried it on – that's what men do.' He looked at the men in the room for confirmation. ‘But I didn't really care whether she said yes or no.' Namagoose sat back in his seat, brow furrowed. ‘She seemed OK or I wouldna gone after her. She wasn't some skank type.'

‘But you still expected sex from her again and got mad at her when she wouldn't give it to you.'

Namagoose's eyes rolled. ‘I was fine about that. So she didn't want to see me again? Big deal. You win some, you lose some. It was
her
who got mad at
me
.'

‘And you didn't think to mention any of this to us before?' Edie said.

An expression of alarm moved momentarily across Namagoose's face. Under the table the private's left leg was jiggling about like a fish on a hook, all traces of his earlier calm gone.

‘You people and my people don't get along,' he said simply.

‘Which people you talking about, private?' Derek sounded riled, maybe at his own failure to draw Namagoose out the first time.

‘Inuit people.' He looked up and there was a sly cast to his eyes. ‘Eskimos.'

Derek's face went red. Using the E word was provocative and
Namagoose knew it. ‘That didn't seem to worry you when you had sex with Martha Salliaq,' he said.

‘Martha and me, we pretty much had the same opinion of this dump. She didn't wanna be up here either. Couldn't wait to get away,' Namagoose said. ‘Sex was her idea.' He added, petulantly, ‘We were all drunk.'

‘All?' Edie interjected.

‘I mean me and the girl.'

Namagoose folded his enormous arms. ‘You can't just pin this on me because I'm Cree. It's discrimination, I have rights, man, I have rights.'

Derek took a breath and leaning forward said in a calm voice, ‘No one's taking anyone's rights away. We'll follow up your story with Private Saxby. If it doesn't check out, then it doesn't matter who your people are or whether or not I like them or they like me, you're in deep shit, brother.'

Namagoose looked up from under his eyelids, a thunderous expression on his face. ‘I ain't your brother,' he said.

•   •   •

On the return trip Edie and Derek stopped off at Lake Turngaluk. Joseph Oolik reported that he'd gone home around ten o'clock yesterday evening and only got back an hour or so ago. He'd filled the tank several times and, as Derek had asked, driven the truck over to the coastal track and discharged its contents out into the Sound. One time a pod of orca had come in close to shore, no doubt smelling the blood, but he'd squared what he was doing with his conscience and said a prayer like they'd suggested. Now there was virtually nothing left except mud.

‘I'm fixing to finish up sometime today,' Joseph Oolik said. He wiped his hands together as if he was trying to rid them of something. ‘This place gets to a fellow. Aside from, well, you know, the thing that happened.' He seemed profoundly uncomfortable. ‘If I didn't have so much respect for the Salliaqs as a family I'd have left long before now,' Oolik said. He stretched his neck to take in the
inuksuit
all around. ‘You see that, every last one of 'em pointing away.'

Derek smiled. ‘That's nothing but how folk built them, Joseph.'

Oolik tutted and shook his head. ‘Well, that's as you say, sergeant, that's as you say.'

•   •   •

They left him to finish up and on their way into the settlement took a detour by the run-down clapboard outhouse currently serving as the Shoreline Bar. The building was closed and there was no one about.

‘No point wasting time waiting,' Derek said. ‘We'll go back later.'

Next stop the nursing station. The place was always busy around resupply as patients showed up early in the hope of being first in line for a script for some of the new medicine that would be coming in with the ship. Luc was in his office looking tired, his hair rumpled into strange crests where he'd been pulling at it. He'd finished taking the preliminary samples from Martha Salliaq's body late last night. They were now labelled up in the freezer, waiting for the arrival of the forensics team. He had yet to take the elimination samples from the family but was intending to do that too once his morning clinic was finished.

‘You seen any of them since last night?' Derek asked.

‘I went by Markoosie's house late to ask if anyone needed something to help them sleep but they said they were OK,' Luc said.

‘How they seem to be holding up? Anyone behaving oddly, maybe, a little out of character?'

‘I'm not sure they've really taken it in yet. One thing. Confidentially, I think Charlie Salliaq's sick. You see how pale he's looking? I noticed his gums are swollen and he looks exhausted. He's been having nosebleeds for some time and I did suggest he come see me about it a couple weeks back but he gave me a spiel about
qalunaat
medicine. One more way white men control Inuit, blah blah blah. It was quite something.'

‘Charlie's an equal opportunity bigot, I wouldn't take it personally,' Derek said drily. ‘But thanks for letting us know.'

Luc responded with a nervous smile.

At that moment the front door swung open and Chip Muloon strode through the waiting room. He nodded a greeting.

‘What's he doing in here?' Derek said.

Luc followed Derek's gaze. ‘He's interested in the annual ship's medical records for the research he's working on. I keep the files in a cupboard, historical stuff . . .' Luc faltered, suddenly remembering Edie's connection to Chip, and added, ‘But I guess you'll already know that, Edie.'

‘We don't talk about each other's work,' Edie said. She wanted Derek to know she had boundaries.

Luc checked his watch and threw his hands in the air. ‘I'm sorry, guys, but I really have to start clinic.'

As they were going out the door he called them back.

‘Oh, I almost forgot. It's just been crazy this morning. Those two fellas from the Defence Department?'

Derek and Edie exchanged alarmed looks. Luc picked up on them.

‘The ones who came over to look at Martha?'

Derek's eyes widened. ‘Military?'

‘Uh, I think they said Defence Department. No uniforms. Any case, they told me you and Colonel Klinsman had both authorized it.'

Derek moved back inside the door. ‘What did they want?'

‘To see the body. Take a few photos.'

‘That all they took?'

‘I didn't see them take anything else, and I was with them the whole time.' Luc swung his head. ‘Sorry, folks, I should have checked.'

Derek gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Don't worry about it. I'm sure it was just routine.'

Edie waited until they were outside. ‘What was that about?'

Derek pursed his lips in the way he always did when he was thinking something through. ‘Maybe they're looking for an excuse to cancel the clean-up, like Gutierrez said. Or maybe it's just that the body was found on ex-Defence Department land. I'll bring it up next time I speak to Klinsman.'

•   •   •

They separated, Derek returning to the detachment while Edie went back to the Shoreline Bar. The front door was un-padlocked now and
the owner, Tom Silliq, was making his way around a ragged assortment of cracked plastic tables and chairs with a greasy mop. The Shoreline didn't have a licence like the Anchor, so it was officially illegal. She remembered reading a piece in the
Arctic Circular
a while back which talked about the Kuujuaq Council of Elders voting in personal limits on alcohol orders. The limits were wildly over-generous and those who didn't drink often sold their allowances to those who did, so she supposed it hadn't been hard for Tom to get the place stocked and running. Locals avoided it, saying there were too many
unataqti
and Tom's prices were too high, none of which bothered Tom any.

When he saw her Tom stopped what he was doing and leaned on his mop. There was a roll-up in his mouth. When he removed it, Edie could see one side of his lip was broken and cankerous.

‘You're the teacher.' He poked at her with the stub. His fingernails were yellowed and heavily ridged. ‘Out of Autisaq, Maggie Kiglatuk's people.'

‘That's right.'

‘Why you working for the Lemming Police?'

Derek had told her he and Silliq had had words a couple of times over graffiti and loose dogs, then once more recently over his bartending activities; and Derek had heard the rumours that Silliq was effectively pimping local girls to the soldiers at Camp Nanook, though no one had yet produced any evidence of this.

‘Fella ain't one of us. His people don't come from around here.'

‘Nor do our people, you remember your history,' Edie said. ‘In any case, I've come about Martha Salliaq.'

The bar owner wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘Take a seat,' he said. ‘You want a beer?'

‘Yup, but I'm not gonna have one,' she said. ‘Gone that way too many times in the past.'

Silliq let out a knowing chuckle. ‘I had a loonie for every time someone said that to me. Doesn't stop 'em though.'

‘It stopped me. I was a lousy drunk,' Edie said, humouring Silliq now. ‘You wouldn't have liked me.'

‘Don't know if I like you now, working for that Lemming Police.'

‘How's about I'm working for Martha Salliaq. For the family.'

Tom raised an eyebrow and considered this. ‘I guess that makes it different,' he said.

‘You remember Martha coming in here on Friday, Tom?'

‘Sure I do.' He had a disconcerting habit of picking at his ulcerated lip as he spoke. It made him hard to understand and harder still to look at. ‘I went outside to fetch some more beer from the store, she was sitting on the little wall I got out there. Face was all puffy like she'd been crying. But I told her to come in, sat her down, gave her a soda. It was early, hardly anyone in the bar.'

‘Know what she was upset about?'

He sucked his teeth. ‘Oh you know how girls are. I didn't ask her about it.'

‘Did she go home?'

‘I guess so, eventually.'

Edie frowned and Tom Silliq went on.

‘A while after I left her, some fellas come in,
unataqti
, I'm setting them up a few beers and the next thing she's joined them. They were talking and laughing. It was getting busy and she seemed OK, so I forgot about her.' When his eyes blinked, his nostrils flared.

Edie pulled out the mugshot of Namagoose that Klinsman had given them.

‘Fella she was with look anything like this?'

‘Oh yeah.' He stabbed at the image with a yellow fingernail. ‘The tall one.' He turned and began rearranging the coasters on the bar. With his back to her, said, ‘The other one was smaller, hair the colour of piss, skin like piss, looked like one big piss you ask me.'

‘They all leave together?' Edie had returned from Camp Nanook convinced that Namagoose had lied about Saxby's involvement. Here was a chance to catch him in the lie.

Silliq closed his eyes, reluctant to say more. ‘Look,' he grumbled, ‘I can't afford to have the
unataqti
decide not to drink here any more. Any case, I told you everything I know. I got busy. I didn't see the girl
leave.' He pushed himself up from his chair and reached for the mop. ‘Busy now, come to that.'