Strange Things Done (21 page)

She found Sally behind the bar, dressed in a black pencil skirt, a 1940s-style peplum jacket, killer heels, and a pillbox hat with netting. Rusty was there too, wearing faded jeans and a navy sweater that was beginning to pill.

“Hey Sal, nice hat,” Jo said.

“I think Marlo would have liked it.” She smiled and tugged gently on the veil to make an adjustment. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

Jo looked down at her jeans. “What? They’re black.”

“Black …
denim.
” The word “denim” seemed to stick in her throat.

Jo caught Rusty’s eye, who smirked and looked away. “Anyway,” Jo said, “seen Caveman around?”

Sally nodded her head toward a back corner of the room, where Caveman stood, hands shoved deep into pockets, black felt hat low over his eyes. Next to him swayed the two giant salmon, attempting to swing their lighters in time to the music without setting their fins alight.

“Thanks.” Jo began to walk away, but Sally stopped her.

“Hey, are you all right? You’re walking kinda funny.”

“Yeah, it’s nothing. Just an old track injury acting up.”

“Is that a fact.” Her tone conveyed disbelief. Still, she leaned forward and whispered, “Well, I have news for you.”

“I’m on the edge of my bar stool.”

“Remember how I told you that Jack Grikowsky left early the night Marlo was killed? After he had the fight with Rusty and stormed off?”

Sally and Rusty exchanged a knowing look.

Jo turned to Rusty. “I thought you didn’t see him leave?”

“I didn’t.” Rusty said. “Mavis did. The piano player.”

Sally nodded. “Yes. Grikowsky told Cariboo that he went home, but the thing is …” She leaned in even closer. “No alibi!” She folded her arms over her partially exposed bosom, looking smug.

Jo thought for a moment. “Why would Cariboo tell you that?”

“That I can’t say,” Sally said, but she smirked as she ran both of her hands lightly over her skirt to smooth the material, then brushed away imaginary lint from her suit jacket, thrusting her shoulders back so that her bust was featured prominently, goosebumps and all. There was no need to ask again. Sally glanced back toward the stage, where Cariboo was talking to someone Jo didn’t know. “He shines up nicely, doesn’t he, our Johnny?” Sally wore a wicked smile.

“By the way,” said Jo. “How difficult is it to get parts for Bettie?”

Sally folded her arms tightly across her chest, her smile now a thin line.

Caveman refused to talk with Jo inside, because “They”—with an uppercase “T”—might be listening. The problem was, Jo couldn’t get a clear sense of who “They” were, why “They” were so interested in the comings and goings of Caveman Cal, or whether “They” existed at all. Much of Caveman’s paranoia seemed to concern city hall, where he’d been an employee for a time. Jo hoped that Caveman might still have some connections there, and enough practical knowledge about the machinations of the town—under the layers of paranoia—to prove useful.

Jo also had to wonder, as she and Caveman stepped into the back alley, whether Christopher Byrne was a part of upper case “They,” or whether he just liked the way her jeans fit. She could feel his eyes boring into her as she exited the bar, though he remained firmly entrenched at the dealer’s table. Jo definitely got the impression that Byrne didn’t like her stepping outside with Caveman, whatever the reason.

Caveman squinted against the yowling cold and blowing snow as he sucked on his hand-rolled cigarette. “Smoke?” He offered the cigarette as though it might provide some protective warmth. A gust of wind nearly took his hat.

“No, thanks. I wanted to show you something.” Caveman raised an eyebrow, and for a moment Jo felt ridiculous—a child playing an adult game with sexual innuendos. She opened her leather satchel and flashed a little peek of the handheld, electronic gizmo. It looked embarrassingly ordinary, and even Caveman seemed to be underwhelmed.

“What?” he asked.

“Take a look.”

He took the device and began examining it, waving it around a little. It clicked once. A sedate sound. He looked surprised.

“Where’d you get it?”

“What if I told you it was found out at Claim 53?”

“At Sourdough Creek? But these are used in uranium mining. Not gold. Fifty-three is a gold mine.”

Jo smiled, making her papery skin feel as though it might crack. Dawson had a way of draining all moisture from a person. “Exactly. Or another way of saying it is that Claim 53 is
licensed
to mine gold, not uranium.”

Caveman studied Jo carefully. “Now you have my attention.” His eyes flared with the cigarette, then he peered more closely at the device.

“Is it possible? I mean, that they’re mining one thing by day and another by night?” Jo asked.

Caveman tugged at his thick black beard. “Well, it’s possible … Depends how much money is at stake, like anything in Dawson.” He laughed. “You’d need a rock out-cliff where you had a bit of gold next to pure pitchblende uranium ore. But without a permit …”

Jo felt a shivery thrill that, this time, had nothing to do with the weather. She whispered a little louder than the wind. “They have a permit. A permit for gold.”

Caveman glanced quickly over his shoulder. “They’d have to bribe a lot of people to keep it quiet. Possibly even someone from the DFO … someone who would test the water might see residue.”

“The DFO?”

“Department of Fisheries and Oceans.”

“Oh, right.” The woman at Dawson city hall had mentioned the DFO, too. “So … if it’s true, it goes pretty high up.” She caught herself wishing, just for a fraction of a second, that she were still in Vancouver, so she could go to the Press Club with Kessler and the others to celebrate a big lead. It would be raining, her black Converse sneakers would be soaked through, and she would buy the first pitcher. Then she remembered that Kevin Kessler had been the first to sell her out when the story broke. He’d fired her without even breaking up with her. She supposed that to Kessler it was the same thing.

Caveman gave Jo a look that she couldn’t quite interpret. “If it’s true, you’re getting in way over your head at a bad time. Top of the World Highway just closed. Ferry’s lifted—had a helluva time getting over here in my canoe today. Alaska Highway’s snowin’ in. By the end of the week it’ll be purrrrdy tough to git out, eh? And we’ll be left with just a couple of small town cops.”

“Still …” Jo persisted.

“But what would they do with it?” Caveman argued, though Jo could see that he was as excited about the possibility of a conspiracy as she was.

“Smuggle it out, I guess, and sell it somewhere. Maybe to rogue terrorists. Who knows?”

“Huh. You can git to Skagway from West Dawson, depending on weather, of course. A lot of smugglers take stuff out via Alaska. But, now the highway’s closed, you’d have to do it by snowmobile.” He shook his head, as though in awe of the scope of the crime.

“Know any smugglers that fit the bill?” Jo prodded.

Caveman snorted. “Only half of Dawson.”

“Which half? Anyone in particular?”

Caveman suddenly looked uncomfortable. He shoved the device toward her, his ardour cooled. “I couldn’t say. Anyway, I should git going. Fuckin’ freezin’ my nuts off out here, eh?” He waved to someone behind Jo, then skulked away in the opposite direction, down the alley, shoulders hunched. Jo turned to look.

The back door to Gertie’s swung shut. Christopher Byrne had his head down, bracing against the wind with a determined expression. Jo noticed with both envy and admiration the thick parka, and the way the fur trim framed and complimented his strong features.

Byrne looked up and smiled at Jo, as though guessing what she’d been thinking. “Something I said?” Byrne nodded towards the departing figure of Caveman.

“Something
I
said.” Jo stamped her feet a little in the snow, even though she could no longer feel them, hoping that he’d focus on her boots while she zipped up the shoulder bag to conceal the Geiger counter. Jo couldn’t be sure whether he had noticed the thing or not.

He was still on the stairs, looking down at her with a peculiar expression. “C’mon. I want to show you something,” Byrne said.

“What?” Jo said, feeling blood rush to her cheeks. She hated herself for enjoying the warmth.

Then Byrne did something surprising: he took off his glove. He reached out and took Jo’s hand, removed her glove too, and held her hand firmly while he shoved it into his own fur-lined pocket, his fingers entwined tightly with hers. Jo’s fingers tingled with feeling that she thought she’d lost.

“C’mon,” he said. Jo knew she was an idiot, but she went just the same.

21

The husky in the back of the pickup truck narrowed its eyes at Jo. Or possibly Nugget was just reacting to the cutting wind—it was impossible to know for sure. Either way, watching the wolfish form made Jo’s thigh throb: she thought of the raw puncture marks there and winced. Still, she worried about how cold the creature must be.

“Is he okay back there?” she asked.

Byrne glanced at the husky in his rearview mirror. “Nugget?” he said, eyes smiling. “Nugget’s fine. He loves it back there.” Byrne glanced at Jo again, and she found herself wishing that he would keep his eyes on the road. They were in the middle of nowhere, the roads were unpaved, and the trees loomed overhead like Edward Gorey ink drawings. Byrne turned up the radio a little. Something mellow was playing, folksy vocals with guitar and fiddle accompaniment. It was cosy in the cab. Byrne reached out his hand over the heater to check the temperature. “Warm enough?”

“Yeah,” Jo said
.
She swallowed. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt unsettled. She wondered whether Byrne felt it too, or whether she was projecting. She glanced at him, the strong outline of his profile, the sensual mouth, and felt suddenly, inexplicably giddy.
Dangerous
, Sally had said. Jo sincerely hoped that she wasn’t the type of person who was attracted to dangerous men. Byrne must have felt the weight of her gaze and turned to look at her. Jo returned her attention to the road, embarrassed.

“So, what did Caveman say about me?” Byrne said.

“What makes you think we were talking about you?”

Byrne’s tone was playful. “Maybe I just hoped you were. But we can talk about you instead. Did you finish your book?”

“We talked about books?”

“Yes. You like historical crime fiction. You’re reading
Name of the Rose.
You wish you’d written it. When you were a teenager you wanted to be a reporter for
The Rolling Stone
. Your mother died when you were eight. She spent most of her time nursing others, even after she found out she was terminally ill. You were angry with her for a long time about dying on you. You wish she’d focused more on living. Your father sent you to therapy …”

“Christ, did I ever shut up?”

Byrne laughed. “Not really. But this is meant to be a reenactment. So you’re meant to be doing most of the talking.”

“But I don’t remember what we talked about.”

“I told you I understood how you felt—you know, that feeling of abandonment—because my mother left when I was nine. I don’t blame her anymore—I couldn’t have lived with my father either. But I was angry, too, for a long time.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. What about your father?”

“His liver finally gave out. I still see my mother. She’s an artist. Very talented. Lives in Whitehorse.”

“Not that far away.”

“Not in summer. But in winter? Dawson might as well be on another planet.”

“True,” said Jo, thinking of the the wall of mountains surrounding the town, and the closed highways. The truck’s headlights illuminated the snow drifting across the dark road. “So, you think you inherited your talent from your mother?”

“Possibly. My father had his moments, though. On his good days, he was full of wonder and imagination. He had the most fantastic telescope. Used to spend a lot of time watching the night skies. Some nights when I was a kid, he’d wake me at midnight, bundle me up in furs, and take the huskies out for a sled ride under the stars.”

“Wow. I’d love to do that.”

Byrne looked pleased. “Then I must take you.”

Jo felt herself falling for him and tried to pull back from the abyss.
Too late
, she thought.

“I have a theory about you.” Byrne glanced at her.

“Oh, what’s that?” Jo felt apprehensive. She never liked other people’s theories about her.

“When you drink, you let your guard down. You talk more about yourself. Usually you ask all the questions so you give nothing away.” He glanced at her. “What is that, some kind of defence mechanism?” He had a mischievious expression.

“Yes, and you’ve just triggered it. My turn to ask the questions.”

“Fire away.”

“What are you reading right now?”

“Poetry mostly. Wallace Stevens. But I’ve already told you that and you’ve forgotten.” His voice was low and had some gravel to it. It was the kind of voice she could listen to for a long time, late at night, like rain on a tin roof. Not a hard rain, but a soft, steady kind of rain. Comforting. Something you could listen to while curled up under a thick quilt.