Hungry Ghosts (19 page)

But he would have to fend for himself.

Ramirez's cell phone rang as he passed a handful of domestic pesos to the vendor. He held the phone to his ear, his voice muffled by the sweet stuffed in his mouth. “
Hola
.”

“Señor Otero is at headquarters now,” said Espinoza. “Patrol took him to the morgue, but he couldn't identify the body because of its condition. I had them bring him here to look at the victim's clothing. He recognizes the silver earrings. He says they were his mother's, a wedding gift to his wife. But he's never seen the purse before.”

“Most men wouldn't pay much attention to a purse,” said
Ramirez. “It might not mean anything one way or the other. I think we can safely assume, now, that our victim is LaNeva Otero, unless Dr. Apiro tells us otherwise.”

He gave Espinoza further instructions and put the cell phone back in his jacket pocket, troubled.

36

There was a rap on the
back door. Surprised, Celia Jones got up from the couch to answer it. Her parents didn't often have visitors this late at night.

Charlie Pike poked his head through the doorway. “Hey Celia. I know it's getting late, but I thought you might have the kettle on.”

“Are you kidding? It's always on these days,” she said. “Good to see you, Charlie. Come on in. I'm glad you dropped by. Adam Neville called a few hours ago and left a message for you; he said your cell wasn't picking up. He wanted me to tell you the OPP couldn't match the fingerprints he took from the victim. She's never been printed before.”

“I gave him your number. Hope you don't mind. My cell phone doesn't always work up here.”

“Of course I don't mind. Quick now, close the door, get in out of the cold.”

Pike brushed some snowflakes from his long hair and stamped his feet to shake off the snow. As he pulled off his jacket, Jones once again noticed the blue tattoos on the back of his knuckles. “I was expecting you,” she said. “Miles called. He said you might need a hand.”

Jones introduced Charlie Pike to her mother. Emma Jones was watching television, seemingly mesmerized by the flickering images of camouflaged Mohawk Warriors at the blockade, bandanas wrapped around the lower half of their faces. The same breathless reporter announced that the standoff was getting worse.

“That's such an odd choice of words, isn't it, dear?” Emma Jones said. “A standoff is a stalemate. If it got worse, or better, it wouldn't be a standoff anymore. It's quite the situation, isn't it?”

“Frankly,” said Pike, “I'm surprised there haven't been more.” He caught Jones's eye and gave a quick nod towards the doorway. He wanted to speak to her in private. They walked into the utility room and out of earshot.

“I need to bounce something off you. I have a witness I don't know how to deal with. A boy with fetal alcohol syndrome. He found the body. I think he maybe saw something, but he's not easy to figure out. You free to go somewhere where we can discuss this? I could use some advice.”

“Sure. Why don't we go into town and grab a coffee at the A&W? They're open till eleven. My dad's here, so I can leave for a while.” She lowered her voice. “I wouldn't mind a break from babysitting anyway.”

“Sounds good,” Pike said.

Jones told her father she was going out and kissed her mother on the cheek. She pulled on her parka and boots and they walked out to Pike's car.

The A&W restaurant looked deserted. As Pike turned into the parking lot, the SUV skidded sidewise and almost rammed a truck.
Jones gripped her door handle tightly until he got it straightened out. “Christ,” she said. “That was a little scary.”

Over coffee, Pike told Celia Jones about Pauley Oshig and how he'd described seeing the blue lady.

“That's weird, isn't it?” Jones said, wrinkling her forehead.

“I don't know what to make of him,” Pike agreed. “He's not like any FAS kid I've ever heard of. For one thing, he can use the computer to play video games. And he draws. He's pretty good at it too. But he doesn't always make a lot of sense. He was talking to me fine until his auntie walked in. Then he clammed up. I think he's scared.”

“Of what?” When Pike didn't answer, she guessed. “Do you think he's been abused?”

Pike looked out the window at the falling snow, avoiding Jones's eyes, not sure how much information to share. “The bylaw officer on the reserve is an old friend of mine. He's seen bruises on the boy. He thought Pauley was being picked on at school. Pauley's uncle, Bill Wabigoon, is the chief now. He says that Pauley hits himself sometimes, but I know what Bill was like when he was a kid. He was a bully. I don't know how much he's changed. Pauley's staying at Bill's place. It worries me.”

“Shouldn't you do something? Tell Children's Aid?”

“Tell them what? They'd probably come in, take one look at the living conditions, and scoop him up, and then we'd have a riot at the blockade for sure. He's the chief's nephew.”

“I don't know, Charlie. You can't ignore child abuse when you see it.”

He shook his head again. “That's the problem. You never see it. People hide it. Look at all the things that happened at the residential schools around here. It's complicated, me being here. I know things about the people that someone from outside wouldn't know.”

“That's good, isn't it? Having an insider's view?”

“Makes it harder to be objective.”

Jones nodded and drank from her coffee. “You said the chief was a bully. Was he violent?”

“You ever hear of the Indian Posse?”

“The street gang? Sure. Gang members were all over the reserves in Saskatchewan when I was stationed there with the RCMP.”

Pike looked out the window again, remembering. A car skidded in the snow. It almost hit another. Horns blared. The drivers gave each other the finger. Tensions were running high, with the bad weather and the blockade.

“Richard Wolfe started it up in Winnipeg. Members used to wear red bandanas. Richard wanted Indians to respect themselves. He used to say, when you see red, you see a proud Indian. Billy Wabigoon was Posse too. My best friend, Sheldon, and me, we were strikers.”

“What does that mean, being a striker?” asked Jones.

“We were prospects. Billy did just about everything he could think of to get us to join.”

Until Sheldon Waubasking beat the shit out of him, thought Pike, and almost killed him. “Then O'Malley found us pulling a B & E, and that was the end of that.”

“O'Malley caught you breaking into a house?”

“Well, actually,” Pike said, “it was an apartment.”

37

Charlie Pike had been wriggling out
of the window when someone grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him the rest of the way out.
Fuck
, thought Charlie. He had a small plastic radio in his hands. It dropped. He heard it crack on the sidewalk.

The sky fell as he was rolled face down on the ground; his arms were yanked behind his back, he heard the metal click of handcuffs. Then he was pulled up into a sitting position and propped against the wall of the building. A cop with a neck like a bull and a shiny bald head was holding him by his shirt collar. The bull-man had a patch on his shoulder that said, “One, With the Strength of Many.”
No shit
, Charlie thought. His biceps were as thick as Charlie's thighs.

“How old are you?” the cop asked.

“Twelve,” Charlie lied. He was small for his age; maybe the bull-man would let him go. Twelve was too young to be charged under the Young Offenders Act.

“What's your date of birth?”

Charlie hesitated while he tried to figure it out. Math wasn't his strongest subject. He calculated wrong.

“So now you're fourteen? Make up your mind, son. Where are you from?”

“White Harbour.” It was close enough, and he didn't want the cop calling the school.

“Where's that?

“I dunno. A couple of hours from Kenora.”

“What are you doing in Winnipeg? Besides stealing other people's property?”

Charlie shrugged.

“Don't be a smartass, son. You're in a deep pile of shit at the moment.”

He said “shite” not shit, Charlie noticed. He had a thick accent. But he didn't seem angry. More amused. “I came here with my buddy,” he answered.

“The one who melted away like the last bit of snow when he saw us walking towards you? Good friend, that one. How long have you been in Winnipeg?”

Charlie looked around. The cop was right. Sheldon had fled. “I dunno. A couple of months.”

Another policeman, just as beefy but a foot shorter, walked towards them dragging Sheldon beside him. Sheldon's hands were cuffed in front of him. The other cop sat Sheldon on the ground beside Charlie. “He's got an Indian Posse tattoo, Sarge,” he said.

“Yes, so does this one. What's your name?” the big bald cop asked Sheldon.

Charlie relaxed a bit. He and Sheldon had agreed that if they got busted again, they'd make up fake names. He was still thinking about what name to invent when the other cop shook Sheldon by the shoulder. “You heard him. What's your name?”

“Charlie Pike,” Sheldon said.

Charlie twisted around to glare at his friend. “I told you to
make up
a name. Not give him
my
name, asshole.”

The bald cop laughed; a deep sound that rumbled from his stomach all the way up to his massive chest. “So this is organized crime? Pretty disorganized, I'd say. Now, give me your real names. And if you lie to me again, I'll have to charge you with obstruction.”

They gave their names, although reluctantly.

“Go call these in, Albert, and let's see just what kind of delinquents we have here.”

The other cop walked up the street to a patrol car. He came back a few minutes later, smiling smugly. “Supposed to be in kiddy court next week to enter pleas. Six counts of break and enter, possession of stolen property under.”

“No convictions?”

“Not yet. Won't take long.”

“You boys are lucky. Even if you're convicted, in a couple of years those records will disappear, if you keep your noses clean.” The bull-man sat on the ground beside the two boys. “So, you're supposed to be Posse, are you?”

Sheldon wasn't saying anything, leaving it to Charlie to navigate their way out of trouble.

“Well, I don't think you're Posse at all. I think you just pretend to be.” Charlie shook his head in wonder. Maybe the bull-man was some kind of shaman. “I think you put those tattoos on yourselves. Or someone else did it for you. For one thing, the
IP
is upside down. It says
dI
.”

It was Billy Wabigoon's idea. “Here,” he had whispered to them. “You do this and they'll leave you alone. You got to be careful in here. Those big boys, they get their hands on you, they're going to hurt you. They'll fuck you in the ass. You understand? You let me put these on you, they'll think you're Posse.”

Charlie looked at the tattoos. It stung to have the ink rubbed
in, but it worked like a talisman. They had been left alone. Maybe the other Indian Posse members couldn't read so well upside-down either.

“Who's supposed to be looking after you? They don't let you out of custody in that court unless there's an adult who can keep an eye on you.”

Neither boy spoke.

“Do you want to go back to jail?”

Sheldon caught Charlie's eye. No, neither of them wanted that.

“Sheldon's sister,” Charlie said.

O'Malley pulled out his notebook. “And so why isn't she keeping tabs on you?”

“Sophie? I dunno. She goes out a lot.”

“Sophie Waubasking?” The big cop sighed. He pulled himself to his feet, walked over to the other cop. Charlie could hear them talking, even though the bald cop kept his voice low.

“The sister's gone missing. She's a hooker, an addict. A sad case. I've dealt with her before. These boys are homeless.”

“What do you want to do with them, Sarge?”

“If we charge them, they'll go right back into custody. There's something about this pair I like. Maybe their cheekiness. I don't usually see it with Indian kids.”

“Jesus, Sarge,” the other cop said. “Can't you just give money to the SPCA like anyone else? You still like stray cats, don't you?”

O'Malley roared with laughter. “I never did like stray cats,” the big man said. “But stray kids, now that's a different story.”

38

“My God, Charlie, I had no
idea you and O'Malley went back that far,” said Celia Jones. “Did he charge you?”

Charlie Pike shook his head. “We were lucky. The apartment we broke into was his. He thought we should have a second chance because we were kids. But so were most of the Posse members. Richard Wolfe was only fourteen when he and his brother Daniel and two others created the Posse. He wasn't what you think of when you think ‘gang leader.' He had a kind of charisma, but he was quiet, talked a lot about family. They chose the name Posse because they thought that's what it meant. But then they got into debt collection, drugs, robberies. Things got violent.” Pike looked at his knuckles. “The Cripps and the Posse started fighting for control of the drug trade. Going to jail didn't stop them. That's where the Posse was most active.”

“And Bill Wabigoon, how was he involved?”

“He was one of the founding four.”

Jones raised her eyebrows.

“That's what has me worried,” said Pike. “There are Warriors coming here from all over the country to support the blockade. A lot of them are Bill's friends. I'm sure some are Posse members. Adam Neville says we can't rule out one of them as the killer. He may be right.”

“I wish I could help, Charlie. I'm way out of my element with this stuff.”

Pike shook his head. “I know. I'm just feeling kind of stuck. I still don't know who our victim was. I can't figure out how she ended up in the territory. There aren't any reports of a white woman missing around here, so she must have come from somewhere else, maybe down south. But if she had a car, where is it? There was only one set of tire tracks at the side of the road.”

Jones thought for a minute. “Maybe she was hitchhiking and the killer picked her up.”

“I don't think so. Adam said she had an expensive manicure. People with money don't hitchhike. Unless her car broke down in the storm and got towed. But then, whoever towed her would have taken her to wherever she was staying.” Pike picked up his mug, turned it in his fingers while he thought. “Maybe the killer pretended
his
vehicle broke down. He could have flagged her over and drove her to the reserve so he could kill her. Could be somebody who knew about the funding issues with the APF, how hard it is right now to get a police investigation done on a First Nation reserve. Tell me something, Celia. If you saw a man hitchhiking around here, would you stop?”

She hesitated. “Honestly, I'm not sure. It would depend.”

“Depend on what?”

“Charlie, most women are nervous about male hitchhikers. Red, white, black, green—I don't think it makes a difference. An older white man or a kid with a backpack, maybe. A biker with tattoos, probably not. I know it's wrong, but to some extent we all believe in stereotypes, right? Police use them all the time. But you know, just
after a bad storm, I'd like to think I would stop. You'd feel sorry for the guy. You wouldn't automatically think ‘axe murderer.' ”

Pike nodded slowly. It hadn't occurred to him that white people were afraid of anything. He had been trying to see this from the perspective of an Aboriginal victim, but this victim wasn't First Nation. That made a difference. Pauley Oshig was right. She was the wrong colour.

“There's something else. I was looking at the photographs of the Highway Strangler exhibits on the way up here. There's something funny about the stocking that was tied around one of the victim's necks. It had a kind of a square seam at the heel, like this.” He reached for his pen and drew a sketch for her on a paper napkin. “I don't pay much attention to women's nylons. Are these common?”

Jones looked at it carefully. “No. Definitely not. But I've seen stockings with seams like that before somewhere.” She tried to remember. “I think it was in a photograph in one of my mom's photo albums. I'll look for it tomorrow morning and ask her. Are you heading back to your motel?”

“Yeah, it's pretty late. You can call me there in the morning if you come up with something. Your mom can remember that kind of detail?”

“It's mostly the present she's losing, Charlie. Not the past.”