Strange Things Done (28 page)

“So if the airport is closed, how was I supposed to use the ticket?” Jo held it up for Sally to see.

“Maybe they didn’t know when the airport would close. In fact, they couldn’t have known; it’s dependent on the weather. Must have been open when they paid for the ticket.”

“Or maybe the ticket was never intended for usage. Maybe it was just a message. It may not even be a real ticket.”

“A message meaning what?” Sally narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t know,” Jo said. Initially, she had just assumed that the ticket had been purchased by an irate miner who disliked her exposé on placer mining. Now she wondered whether the ticket might be interpreted in some other way. And might have been sent by someone else. “An invitation?” Jo eyed Sally.

“An invitation? What kind of an invitation? To join the mile-high club?” Sally flashed her teeth in a demonic smile. “One time, when I was on a flight to Las Vegas …”

“I don’t even want to know.” Jo waved the story away with her hand, but in the back of her mind she was speculating about how Sally had enough money for wild trips to Las Vegas.

“Back when they still gave out those blue blankets and free drinks …”

“Stop!” She turned her back on Sally and began to walk around to the other side of the building, where Jo thought she could see smoke. On the way, she had the disturbing feeling that she was getting it all wrong. The lone airline ticket from Dawson City to Whitehorse was just one more clue that she couldn’t decipher, or had already misinterpreted.

In detective stories, the detective hero is always one step ahead of the criminals and two steps ahead of the law. Here, the heroes and criminals all blurred together, and no matter how hard Jo worked, she was always one step behind the town.

An invitation. An invitation to come to the airport alone, with only Sally to drive her. Perhaps the recipient of the ticket was never intended to leave. Sally could have slipped the envelope from her fur muff and put it on the bar when Jo was distracted by the elbow to her back. Sally earned more money than a part-time bartender and dancer should … What did she have on the owner of Bombay Peggy’s?
May Wong had been into blackmail. Were they in league? Sally hunted, owned a gun, and was quick to recognize illegal animal parts like the bear … bits … at May’s house. Then there was the conversation she’d overheard between Byrne and Sally.
Do you think she suspects?
Jo turned slowly to look at Sally, while fighting to keep her breathing calm and her face blank. Sally’s lips framed a wicked smile.

Jo would never make it back to the truck, she knew, even as the shot rang through the frozen landscape. She sprinted forward, away from Sally, crunching and sliding. As she rounded the corner, Jo could make out the source of the smoke now: an ugly black shape set in sharp relief against the snow. The burned-out skeleton of a vehicle, still smoking. “No,” Jo said, stopping in the snow. The world seemed to fall away from her then. Her feet in her new boots looked oddly distant. There was a dark crumpled mound inside the car. Jo knew what the hideous thing was. She put a hand over her mouth, choking back bile and fear. May Wong.

A second shot exploded nearby, causing a flurry of wings and the sharp accusations of ravens on the airport roof. Jo felt a yank on the sleeve of her parka. Sally had caught up to her and was attempting to drag Jo away from the wreckage. “Get back to Bettie!” With that, Sally made an awkward high-heeled dash to the relative safety of the pink Chevy pickup.

Stunned to find that Sally was not the shooter, Jo hesitated a moment before following, her head full of tangled plots, wary that Sally might be in league with the killer. Yet she could see no other way forward. She ran after Sally.

Sally was throwing Bettie in gear before Jo had even shut the door. “What the …?” Jo said, thrusting a hand to the ceiling to stop herself from bumping her head as they hurtled forward, over a drift. Sally cranked the wheel.

“Someone out there is thinking murderous thoughts. Time to leave this party.”

Jo was still bouncing wildly. “But then … you’re not the killer? You didn’t have anything to do with that … in the parking lot?”

“Me?” Sally threw her an incredulous look. “Why would I want to kill Marlo or May?”

“And Doug Browning.”

Sally waved her hand in the air, dismissively. “Oh, well, everyone wanted to kill
him
, dear. Some people just make you want to kill them.”

Jo glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was following them, but the parking lot was empty and the woods that encircled them were silent.

“But why you’d think I had it in for May and Marlo, I don’t know.” Sally shifted in her seat as she glanced at Jo. Bettie lost traction for a moment on a patch of ice, causing Jo to suck in her breath. The truck recovered. “Relax!” Sally snapped.

“Relax? I dunno, you seem to know a lot about illegal trade of animal parts and you do a fair bit of hunting. And, like May Wong, you’ve been running at least one little business on the side … something quite profitable.” Jo was keeping one hand on the ceiling to help keep her balance.

“One? Please. Give me more credit than that.”

“Blackmail, or something like that. What have you got on the owner of Bombay Peggy’s? Were you moving in on May’s territory?”

Sally’s gaze shifted briefly back to Jo before returning to the road. She looked less self-assured now. “I won’t deny that I’ve always wanted Peggy’s. Terra wasn’t born here, and Dawsonites don’t like ‘The Old Whorehouse’ being run by an outsider. Besides, Terra is entirely too frumpy and boring for Peggy’s. Peg’s is our jewel, and I will make her shine. What’s required is someone with a little imagination … a little style.”

“So Peg’s is to die for. That’s what you said.”

“Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean I’d kill for her.”

“Were you and May partners?”

“I didn’t kill May Wong,” Sally said, stiffly. “May was useful to me. She’d buy anything I happened to shoot or happened to make, no questions asked. But I have no idea what happened to her. And I’m sorry she’s gone. May was all right.” Sally looked sombre for a moment. “I think we lost him.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. There were no headlights to be seen there.

Jo’s cheeks still felt hot. Her heart was accelerating along with the truck, and she wondered whether anyone was following them, and whether Sally was telling the truth. It felt like the truth, mostly. Sally slid forward on the pink leather seat. Thick lines of snow-covered pine flashed by. Sally’s thin lips were pinched together and her lip liner had smeared. Jo still suspected that Sally was keeping something back. Something important. “What about Marlo?” Jo asked.

Sally turned to her. “What about her?”

“Did Byrne kill Marlo?”

Sally’s features relaxed and she laughed. “Are you still all worked up about that little chat you overheard? You’re going to laugh when Byrne tells you. It’s nothing.”

Jo’s temper pulsed brightly and she felt a rush of heat. “Yes, I’m goddamned worked up about it. Someone murdered Marlo, and Doug, and I’d be willing to bet anything that was May Wong back in that sick bit of barbeque.” Jo fought to slow her breathing. “Plus, I’ve got the next victim-ticket—and someone back there was taking potshots at me. Not to mention, Sergeant Cariboo seems to be labouring under the impression that I might somehow be involved. So yeah, I’m upset. It isn’t ‘nothing’ to me.”

Sally waved Jo’s concerns away. “Don’t worry about Cariboo. He’s a pussycat.”

“Only if you’re a cougar,” Jo said.

Sally straightened up in her seat, lifting her chin. “Then maybe you should be one. If you ask me, you could use a good …”

“Did. Byrne. Kill. McAdam? What was he afraid I might suspect?” Jo felt her ears burning.

Sally looked irritated. “You know, you’re making me want a good stiff drink. I truly have no idea who killed Marlo McAdam, but I doubt very much that it was Byrnie. If you have something you want to ask him about what happened the night you”—she paused, raising her eyebrows—“conveniently lost your memory, then you can ask him yourself.”

“What was he so afraid that I’d find out?”

“He swore me to secrecy. And I always keep my word.”

Jo snorted. “Oh, so you’re the moral type now, are you?”

Sally looked amused. “Pot? Kettle?”

“Fuck you,” said Jo.

“The pleasure would be all mine,” said Sally.

29

A bright red light blinked at the top of the camera, like a hot, all-seeing, all-knowing eye. The power had returned to Dawson.

This was not the casual interview room where Jo had been before; there were no worn sofas and easy chairs here. The walls were a stark white, and the only furniture consisted of straight-backed chairs. Jo shifted uneasily in her seat, cradling a steaming cup of black coffee with both hands. The warmth of the porcelain mug was only somewhat comforting. The solemn-faced constable, the one called Scott, adjusted the focus ring and read out the time of the interview.

“So, let’s go over it again,” Sergeant Cariboo said, scraping a chair across the floor, positioning it uncomfortably close to Jo. He sat facing her, knees spread wide, expression stern. “What were you doing at the airport?”

Jo avoided his eyes. “Like I said, someone slipped me an airline ticket when I was at Bombay Peggy’s. I wanted to go to the airport to see if I could find out who had purchased it.”

“You didn’t get a look at who left it on the bar?”

“No. Someone elbowed me in the back, so I turned to see who had done it. When I turned back, the envelope was on the bar. I didn’t see who had left the envelope or who had struck me. Might have been an accident, except for the envelope. I saw someone heading for the bathroom, but it didn’t look like anyone I knew and I could only see him from behind.”

“But you could see that it was a male?”

“I thought so, and the person disappeared into the men’s room.”

Cariboo looked skeptical. “What time did you leave Peg’s?”

“Time?” she repeated.

“Yes. What time?” He leaned in closer.

Jo dipped her head to take a sip of the coffee while she thought. “Hard to say.”
Technically true. It was very hard to say.
“Might have been around ten.”
Well it might have been. Though it wasn’t.

Cariboo frowned. “Are you saying you don’t remember? And you don’t remember the events of Sunday evening, when Marlo McAdam was murdered?”

“So it is murder now, is it? For Marlo, I mean?” Jo took another sip of the coffee. Artificial sweetener.

“Where were you last night after Peg’s, before the airport?”

Jo’s heart stuttered a little. “Sorry?”

“Did you go directly from Bombay Peggy’s to the airport?” He was leaning so close to her now that she could almost feel the warmth of him. There was an intensity about Johnny Cariboo that made it difficult to meet his eyes. She found herself not wanting to lie to him—in the face of that earnest expression he was making—but she could hardly tell him the truth. She hesitated. Jo could tell that he knew something about where she was last night and what she was doing.

“Am I being accused of something?”

“We have a witness who identified you entering May Wong’s home last night.”

Jo stared at him. She was beginning to feel very warm.

“What were you doing there?” His eyes were such a deep shade of brown, they were almost obsidian.

Jo looked away, glancing at the camera. The operator lifted his head, as though waiting for a response, but none followed.

Cariboo ran a hand through his black, spikey hair. “Look. The first body turned up within days of your arrival. You found the next two bodies. Are you saying that’s a coincidence?”

“You’re not serious.”
Was he?
She had sudden flashbacks to old films she had seen. Westerns mostly, concerning the fate of outsiders in small towns.
You’re not from around here, are you, boy?
But some small part of her also felt something else. Doubt, perhaps. The strangulation marks. The escalating violence. Setting the later victims on fire inside their cars. The Surrey Strangler.
Sally knew about that. So did Doug. Who else in Dawson knew?

“You were on the Bluffs the night Marlo McAdam died.” Cariboo was watching her closely.

…
Me?
Jo could feel cold patches developing under her arms, but she held his look. “I’d like my lawyer present for any further questioning.”

“How well do you know Christopher Byrne?”

Jo flinched despite herself and felt her shoulders tense. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said I’d like my lawyer.”

“Christopher Byrne and Marlo McAdam were lovers. She broke it off. That gives him a motive,” Cariboo said.

Jo crossed her arms in front of her body and lifted her chin a little. “It doesn’t give me one.”
She
broke it off? Hadn’t she heard it the other way around? Had Byrne lied, or had Marlo, and what did that mean?

Cariboo shrugged. “You needed a story. You’d fallen out of grace with the public in Vancouver. Maybe you thought one good story would get you out of Dawson, get you back where you belonged.”

Jo waved a hand. “Speculation.”

Cariboo’s expression was closed. “By all accounts, you’d had too much to drink.”

“If having too much to drink were a crime, half of Dawson would be locked up by now.” She thought she heard the camera operator snigger a little. Cariboo shot him a stern look.

“How badly did you want a story? Badly enough to create your own? Badly enough to help Byrne?”

There was a long silence, which Jo restrained herself from breaking. Cariboo blinked, but refused to look away. Jo averted her gaze, then stared down at her feet. At the boots he had given her.

“Maybe you wanted to be back in the papers again?” He smiled knowingly. “Maybe you like being in the spotlight?”

Jo felt a rush of blood to her cheeks. “Lawyer,” she said, emphatically. It was a Mexican standoff in Dawson. She raised her chin.

Cariboo sighed, turned to his colleague behind the camera, and said, “Book her.” He turned back to Jo. “Looks like you’ll make the headlines again after all.” It was difficult to tell whether he meant it or not. He glanced at her North Face boots, then didn’t meet her eyes again.