Hungry Ghosts (11 page)

23

Charlie Pike looked up and down
the empty road. “When did the medical examiner and the technical team leave?”

“Maybe an hour ago,” said Sheldon Waubasking. “They took the body into town. There's a morgue at the new health clinic on Main Street. Well, I guess ‘new' means around ten years old. Wasn't built when you lived here.” He fell silent for a moment, embarrassed.

“It's okay, Sheldon. Things worked out fine.”

Sheldon nodded. “I think they wanted to get out of here before the storm hits. Supposed to be a big one. That doctor, he said to tell you they don't have a tent strong enough to handle that kind of load. Said he'll meet up with you in town tomorrow at the autopsy.”

“He say when that's going to be?”

“Tomorrow at two. Wanted to give you some time to get there, because of the snow.”

Pike frowned. The last thing he needed was bad weather. It
would take hours for the plows to clear the roads and the SUV wouldn't drive well in drifts.

“You been here all day?”

“Day's not over yet,” Sheldon said. “Since around eight thirty this morning, anyway.”

Pike noticed that Sheldon wasn't wearing a watch either. That was a long time to sit around waiting, but then Sheldon had always been patient. That was why he always “stood six” at break-and­-enters while Charlie went inside.

“What time did Adam Neville get here?”

“That's the doctor? Around eleven, I guess. CBC News came on the radio just after he pulled in.” Sheldon anticipated Pike's next question. “Pauley went running to get Bill as soon as he found her. Bill called me right away. Took me a few minutes to get dressed, get the truck warmed up.”

“Why did he go looking for Bill?” asked Pike.

“Pauley lives there,” Sheldon said. He looked at the ground, uneasy. “Ever since Molly went missing. Bill's his uncle, remember? Molly's brother.”

Pike nodded. “So Bill's the chief now, eh?”

“Yeah.” Sheldon shifted from foot to foot, as uncomfortable, it seemed, as Pike was at the idea.

“Did he come here to take a look too?”

“No. Said he was going to phone the RCMP and Indian Affairs. He don't even talk to Ontario anymore. Says they don't have any business on our lands; all our treaties were with the Queen. He told me he'd let them send someone up as long as it wasn't the OPP. Doesn't want to screw up the APF funding negotiations by letting them think they can come into our territory whenever they like.”

Indian politics. Pike shook his head. “Techs say if they're coming back?”

“No,” Sheldon said. “As far as I know, they're headed for
Winnipeg. Heard them complaining when they were packing up about getting paid.”

Pike wondered why they'd left so quickly. Was the evidence Adam Neville found that strong? Or was it the fear of being caught in a storm? Maybe they were afraid of being alone in the woods on an Indian reserve in the dark. If so, he couldn't blame them.

“Well, I guess I better look around.” Pike walked the crime scene whenever he could. Not to get inside the killer's head; he was better at getting inside the victim's.

“I got a couple of flashlights in the truck if you need them,” said Sheldon. “They ran some of that yellow tape in there, around the trees. Hard to see it now. Gets dark early these days.”

“How far in the woods was she?” Pike asked.

“Just enough to be out of sight. I put down some red pylons to show what I found after they left.
Edawayi'ii
.” On both sides.

“The technicians missed something?” Pike was surprised. Neville and his team were usually pretty good.

Sheldon shrugged. “There were some footprints on the road, in the crust. You could only see them after some of the snow blew away. I took measurements when it was still light out. In case the storm got here before you did.”

“You didn't tell them?”

“They told me to stay out of the way, so I waited in the truck. I walked around a little after they left. Needed to stretch out my legs.”

Pike shook his head. Sheldon Waubasking had been trained as a tracker by his
mishomis
. His grandfather had been one of the best hunters and trappers in the Manomin Bay First Nation traditional territory until he died from cancer. Besides, Sheldon had been charged enough times to know the rules of evidence inside out.

Even so, Pike was impressed. This was textbook containment—
pylons, measurements. He looked at the sky. He sniffed the crisp air, smelled the cold front moving in.

They walked back to the truck. Sheldon pulled two heavy black flashlights out of the glove box and handed one to Pike.

“Before we go in there, did the technicians take casts of your boots?” asked Pike. He hoped so. Otherwise, he'd have to keep his old friend well back from the yellow tape; he didn't have anything with him to make casts.

“You kidding? That guy Adam Neville, he even took my fingerprints,” Sheldon said. “I told him I didn't go nowhere near that body. Said he needed them anyway. About the only thing he didn't take was my blood.”

“Wanted them for elimination, I guess,” Pike said. “Nothing personal.”

Sheldon nodded. He'd been in and out of jail enough times that he didn't need an explanation. “Who would have thought we'd end up on this side of the law, Charlie?”

“I guess fate has a sense of humour.”

“All right,” Pike said, looking at the dark sky, the heavy night clouds. He felt the weight of what Adam Neville was going to do to the woman's body descend over him. His grandfather would have been horrified at the idea that a dead woman would be cut into pieces, her soul permanently severed from her bones.

Wiyo
was the Anishnabe word for the physical body. That was the part that slowly disappeared and returned to the earth. But
atisken
, the word for bones, meant “the souls.”

Charlie Pike's people on his father's side were Ojibway, part of the Anishnabe linguistic family. Ojibway were supposed to be buried
intact, in the land where they'd been born, unless they were Hare Clan. Bones of the Hare Clan had to be burned and the ashes scattered so their souls could go back to the sky where they belonged. If these things weren't done, the
udjibbom
, the second soul, would be lost, left to wander near the grave forever.

It was why the women on the posters pleaded with him, Pike thought. They wanted him to find them and bury them properly.

“Now, remember this, Charlie, animals are people too. And that goes for fish as well,” his grandfather had explained when Charlie was little, as they tugged their heavy nets into the boat. Dying fish flopped helplessly inside. “You have to bury their blood and guts on shore, away from the water. You always burn a little tobacco to thank them for giving up their lives so we can eat them. If you put fish blood in the water, the fish won't come back, because you don't respect them. It's like the Hare Clan. If you bury someone from the Hare Clan in the ground, the snow comes to punish you.”

Pike lifted his nose, smelled the punishment of snow. “We better get started, Sheldon,” he said, “before this storm buries all of us.”

Sheldon Waubasking walked in front of the truck. He pointed to tire tread marks in the snow at the side of the road.

“
Biijidaabii'iwe, ezhhishin
.” He drives here, leaves a mark.
“See?” he said, taking a few steps and pointing. “There's a woman's footprint. She walked up to the driver's door and then went into the woods.”

Pike took a ruler out of his satchel as well as his camera. He bent down on one knee and set the camera flash. He put the ruler next to the shoe print and snapped a few shots.

It was the best he could do. He had no sulfur prill to make a cast in the snow. Even if the techs agreed to come back, by the time they did, the shoe prints would be covered by drifting snow.

They should have asked for Sheldon's help, Pike thought. The tire marks were barely visible now, as the wind began to whip ice pellets across the road. He squatted to take a closer look.

“They must have drove here in one vehicle,” said Sheldon. “There's only one set of tracks on this side of the road. Tread's not that deep. Could be all-season tires. You can see where they slipped sideways.”

Only rental cars had all-season tires; everyone else used winters. Something nagged at Pike, something he should remember. “Looks like a pretty wide base. Truck or SUV? What do you think, Sheldon?”

“The only people who come into the territory driving SUVs are lawyers. Well, except for you, I guess.” He smiled. “They rent them. You can't tell much from the width. Frames are pretty much the same size. But most people up this way drive trucks.”

Pike agreed. You could throw a moose or deer in the back of a truck during hunting season. Couldn't do that with a car or an SUV, and not with a rental.

“By the way, do cell phones work anywhere around here?” asked Pike. “I couldn't get a signal at the airport.”

“Depends where you are. Should work some of the time, anyway. Nearest tower is about fifty miles away. I have a BlackBerry if you need it. They work pretty good for emails.”

Pike smiled. Manomin Bay might not have clean water, but it was the most connected hub in the world when it came to information sharing. What others called gossip.

“She was
iwidi
,” said Sheldon, pointing. Over there.

They walked into the woods until Pike saw the cordoned-off area. A stack of brush was piled beside a fairly deep trench in the ground.

“I guess the killer put that over the body to hide it,” said Sheldon. “Pauley said he moved it so he could get a better look at her.”

Pike frowned. The technicians should have taken all the branches with them to check for fibre, hair. Lots of things snagged on twigs. That's how you tracked animals, looking for fur, not just their tracks. Depressions in the ground where they lay down. Moults.

Pike pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his satchel. He handed a second pair to Sheldon. He stood back to see if anything caught his eye. He tried to imagine how the body had been posed, what it was like before the technicians carried it away.

He looked out to the road. Sheldon was right; it would have been hard to see the body in the woods if you were driving by. The killer had dug a pretty deep hole in frozen ground. That took time.

“I think maybe he used some of those branches to sweep away his footprints. Cut them down over there.” Sheldon motioned towards some pines.

Pike shone the flashlight at them. A couple of wounded trees bled sap where their limbs had been cut. He bent over to examine the grave. The edges of the hole were straight, sloped inwards.

“He stopped here for a smoke,” Sheldon said. “
Nandokawe'
.
” While he looked for his tracks. “There's a little pile of burned tobacco and paper. They missed that too.”