Strange Things Done (13 page)

Jo knew that the RCMP would normally wait twenty-four hours before they began a thorough search for a missing person, though she hoped she’d prodded Cariboo to begin sooner. Still, she didn’t trust the RCMP with finding May. May was one of only a few people known to have left Gertie’s early the night Marlo McAdam had been killed, and May had urgently wanted to speak with Jo. If she had been the person who drove Marlo to the Bluffs, she might have seen something important. Jo chewed on her lip, feeling the rough, chapped skin. May might be hiding, in trouble, or even implicated in Marlo’s death. Whatever the case, doing nothing wasn’t an option for Jo. She had no intention of adding to the nightmares she already lived with.

The lengthening shadows of trees stretched across the Kondike Highway in the path of the old Chevy. Jo felt the contents of her head jostling along with Sally’s truck and the Hawaiian hula dancer on the dashboard. Her neck was still angry about her run-in with the snow globe, but her vision was clear and the nausea had passed. What she was aching to do was to go straight to Christopher Byrne and rattle him for the truth about what had happened Sunday night—the night Marlo died. Unfortunately, as Byrne had no phone, she had no idea how to contact him when he wasn’t at his cabin or at the pub. She cursed as she hit another pothole that sent a shooting pain up from the base of her skull.

Jo continued east, turning off onto an old mining road toward Sourdough Creek to find Claim 53. May Wong’s mine. The truck passed giant, Frankenstein-esque machines, rusted-out water cannons, snow-capped piles of gravel, rotting log cabins sinking into the snow, abandoned dredges and sluices, and “pan your own gold” tourist traps. The landscape was a strange, desolate moonscape of human destruction. She drove slowly. It had stopped snowing, but the wind was teasing drifts across the road. She hoped she wouldn’t be long. She had no trouble finding Gold Gulch, which was marked clearly on her map, but she drove by the excavation site the first time. The boulder marked “#53” was set back from the road a bit, next to a sign that read “Beware of Dog.” The lane was blocked by a metal gate, which stopped vehicles but not pedestrian traffic.

Jo left the Chevy on the side of the highway, facing in the direction of Dawson. She crunched along a narrow path that finally widened into a battlefield of excavation trenches. Despite two layers of wool socks, her toes were going numb. She thought a little wistfully about that pair of North Face boots in the closed shop window of Wild & Woolly. Fur lined, full leather uppers, waterproof shell, and gusseted tongue. Jo never thought she’d covet a lousy pair of snow boots, but here she was, in a place she’d never thought she’d be. She thought about how quickly priorities shifted in the North, and wondered what Marlo’s priorities had been.

The air smelled of winter and earth and diesel. Two men wearing dirty jeans and gumboots stood by the side of a big pit, where gravel was piled up and capped in snow, so fresh it sparkled cheerfully under a powder-blue sky. They were in the middle of a heated discussion. A driverless beast of a machine—all metal tooth and claw—idled dully in the excavation. The men stopped their conversation as they registered Jo’s presence on the other side of the pit.

Within minutes, one of the men—the one with the handlebar moustache—stomped over to where she stood.

“Hey! Sweetheart! If you’re looking for tourist panning, you’re in the wrong place.” He wore a disingenuous grin that matched the tone of his voice. His moustache and sideburns were beginning to silver, but he emitted a sense of strength that made him seem younger than his forty-some-odd years. His heavy brows were raised in fine points and his eyes were sharp, the pupils small, giving him an eagle-like expression.

Jo shook her head. “No, no, I’m with the
Dawson Daily
. I’m looking for Jack Grikowsky.” She felt the muscles in her shoulders tensing.

“Well, you found him. And he doesn’t recall having an interview scheduled.”

“Jo Silver.” She offered Grikowsky her hand, which he pointedly ignored, reaching for a packet of cigarettes in his pocket instead.

“Look, I’m very busy,
Ms
. Silver is it?” His brow creased as he lit the cigarette and casually exhaled. “I’m trying to hit pay dirt here before freeze-up.” That smile again. A crocodile smile.

Jo shivered, and suspected that it had nothing to do with the cold this time. “I won’t take much of your time, Mr. Grikowsky. I’m wondering if you’ve heard from May Wong recently?”

“May? May owns the mine, but she doesn’t participate in its daily operations.” The cigarette dangled and bounced as he spoke. He had a certain style, Jo thought. He was …
smooth.

“So you haven’t seen her this week?”

“Nope.” The smile. “Of course, it’s only Tuesday.”

“Any idea where I might find her?”

“Not a clue.”

“Well, I wonder if you could tell me how well May knew Marlo McAdam?”

“McAdam?”

“MLA North. Body was found in the Yukon River yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah. Heard about that. What’s that got to do with May?”

Sunday seemed like weeks ago already, but the events of the night played out in Jo’s mind like a loop of film that had been spliced at each end: blurry stars, Byrne’s hand on her elbow, then Marlo hissing at Byrne, “I’ll tell! I’ll tell
her
!” Jo pictured the body in the puffy red parka floating in the Yukon River, then Caveman’s wide eyes as he said, “Are you here about the mine?” Caveman had said it wasn’t safe to talk about that at Gertie’s, “especially after Marlo.” It seemed to fit.

“Did Ms. McAdam ever come out to the mine?” Jo asked.

“Why would she?”

“She’d been asking questions about the mine recently, hadn’t she?” Grikowsky stopped smiling for an instant. “Did you happen to see her at Gertie’s Sunday night?”

“Does Doug know you’re here?”

“What?”

Jack Grikowsky gave Jo an oily grin, his composure regained like elevator doors sliding smoothly shut. “I thought so. I’ll have one of the guys show you to your vehicle.” Jo must have looked like she needed convincing, as he added, “Unless of course you’d prefer me to call Sergeant Cariboo and let him know you’re trespassing on private property?” Grikowsky threw down his cigarette like a glove.

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll show myself out.”

A surge of excitement hit Jo like a gust of Yukon wind. Her thoughts wheeled ahead of her as she tromped back to ol’ Bettie. It was the insinuation that Doug Browning was somehow in Grikowsky’s pocket that really got to her. She was certain that something was wrong at the mine. Jo kept her head down against the wind, and her chin tucked into her scarf, which is probably why she saw it: a thin leather strap poking out of the snow.

Jo bent down with a squeak of snow and cold fabric. She inhaled sharply as she gave a little tug, half hoping the excavated object might be a handbag belonging to May Wong. It wasn’t. She wasn’t sure what it was.

13

The radio at the
Daily
was set to CFYT 106.9FM (“The Spirit of Dawson!”). On bad weather days, CFYT broadcast a lot of static, but this day sparkled and the sound was clear, if a little tinny. Patsy Cline bayed the words to “Strange” as Jo lifted a steaming cup to her lips. She closed her eyes and tipped back in the chair. The hot liquid was rich, but not nearly strong enough. Already she yearned for the coffee from The Pit pub. Jo placed the bright orange teacup lightly on her desk, next to the leather bag that she’d tripped over in the snow.

There was something very odd going on at Claim 53. She knew it. It was written all over Jack Grikowsky’s face, and she bet that Marlo had known it too. Jo eyed the leather bag, then picked it up. Still damp with snow, it looked a bit like a camera case with a broken strap, but she already knew that the device inside was not a camera.

She opened the bag and turned the metal contraption over in her hands again, studying it. The design was sombre in tone: black and tan, and the little needle on the front somehow made Jo think of hospitals. It looked like a medical device. She turned the power switch on, activating a red light, then searched for instructions, or more switches, but found only a power input and something that might be a volume switch. She pushed a little triangular button, and a number appeared on the screen. Jo let out a soft sigh and returned the gadget to her desk, next to the tangerine teacup. The thing that was not a camera made a faint clicking sound.

Perplexed, she picked the little metal box back up and waved it around, listening to its scratchy “t-t-t-tsk tsk tsk” as it neared the cup. A robotic tone of disapproval. Jo swung the apparatus gently away from the desk. It stuttered once or twice, and then was silent.

Jo straightened in the chair as Patsy’s lilting, melancholy voice haunted the room. A portable heater in the corner kicked in, glowing orange and clicking in time to the music. She reached for her laptop.

The computer made a grating noise in complaint. The archaic dial-up sound was like cold steel scraping and crumpling. Jo steered her thoughts away from car crashes. Leaning forward, she typed “Geiger counter” into the search engine, waited again, and then scrolled through a long series of images. The search result displayed not only an array of machines with angry needles, but also a morbid collection of links: how to build your own survival bunker, reports on nuclear radiation disasters, environmental reports about the hazards of mining, conspiracy theories about terrorism and uranium smuggling, and the like. France had recently been accused of exporting uranium to rogue terrorist states. There were also several reports of smugglers transporting raw uranium to France via Skagway, Alaska, which was not that far from Dawson. Jo thought she’d heard someone in town say that you could take the ferry to West Dawson and drive straight on to Skagway, weather permitting. At least, you could until the Top of the World Highway closed for the season, which would be any day now.

Jo leaned back in the chair and rubbed her dry, irritated eyes, then gently touched the bump at the back of her head. She was relieved to find that it didn’t hurt quite as much as it had earlier. A husky wailed in the distance. Or possibly a wolf.
Even then, Jo felt strangely comforted
by the close proximity of another being.

Note to self: not to use the orange teacup.

It took Jo almost an hour to write a few paragraphs about Marlo, as she spun the story again and again, searching for the subtleties, the connection between May Wong and Marlo McAdam, and just the right level of suggestion to trigger a reaction from … someone. Whoever knew more than they were letting on about May’s disappearance or Marlo’s death. Jo stopped short of pointing to a police cover-up, noting only that the police had been questioning anyone who left Gertie’s early and were looking for the person—or persons—who might have given Marlo a ride to the Bluffs. By the time Jo was finished, she felt confident that anyone in Dawson could line up the dots and see that Marlo’s death may not have been accidental, that the police were aware of the fact and had not informed the public, and that May Wong—who “could not be located for comment” on what she may have seen in the parking lot—was obviously missing.