Hungry Ghosts

by Peggy Blair

  Not just Mama Loa’s goddaughters, Ramirez realized. Antifona Conejo and LaNeva Otero were sisters.

  “I’m sorry, Antifona,” he said. “There’s no easy way to tell you this.” He gently removed the bottle from her grasp and took her hands in his. “LaNeva is dead.”

  50

  It was five in the morning when Inspector Ramirez got home. His brain felt like cement. In the bedroom, he stepped on something hard, the round stone the old woman had given him. It was lying beside the suit jacket and pants he had dropped on the floor. He picked it up and rolled it in his fingers. He put it down on the small wooden table beside the bed; something amusing to show Francesca. He undressed again.

  The bedsprings squeaked as he climbed onto the mattress. If Francesca had been home, he would have made love to her roughly, felt her fingers rake his back, taken pleasure from the pain. But he was alone. He had dropped Antifona Conejo at the Hotel Nacional, as she requested, almost regretting his fidelity.

  Ramirez lay on top of the sheets and sank into sleep.

  He woke up in total darkness, sluggish. He was no longer in bed, he realized groggily, but sitting. Someone pushed him hard. His head cracked against a hard surface.

  “The name of anyone who knows you here,” said his aggressor. “Come on, Señor. You must have more than one Cuban girlfriend.” The man smacked Ramirez so hard that his neck snapped.

  It’s only a dream, thought Ramirez. But my God, that hurt.

  He tried to rouse himself, but he couldn’t move. He thrashed around, trying to free himself, aware now that his hands and feet were tightly bound.

  His assailant stood back, but it was too dark to make out his features. Outside, waves slapped rhythmically. Warm liquid dripped from Ramirez’s nose. He shook his head to clear his nostrils; something trickled down his chin. He licked his lips and tasted blood.

  “Careful,” said a woman’s voice. “We need his clothing for this to work.” She stepped forward from the shadows and roughly wiped Ramirez’s face with a damp cloth.

  “Liar.” The man hit him hard again, in the stomach, this time with the flat of his hand. Ramirez grunted with pain. “If you don’t tell us who else knows you’re here, I promise, she won’t live another day.”

  “Maybe she’s the only one,” said the woman. “He said he came to Havana to propose to her.”

  “I do hope you didn’t send out any wedding invitations, Señor,” said a voice from the shadows, chuckling.

  It was gravelly, raspy, a voice Ramirez recognized. But whose? A series of images flashed through his mind—a line of blindfolded men, their hands tied in front of them, the rapid sound of gunshots as they collapsed like dominoes. A tall man in khakis stepped forward and finished each one with a shot to the head. “You picked the wrong side, comrade.”

  I know you, thought Ramirez. I know that voice. The image vanished when the second man spoke again.

  “Hit him again and it won’t look like a drowning. Put the blindfold back on before you pour the water. It works better when they can’t see.”

  Ramirez strained against the bonds. The room went black. His eyelashes scraped against harsh fabric.

  “Jesus Christ, I hate like hell to kill a man wearing his underwear,” the second man said.

  “Not to worry,” the woman’s voice laughed. “You won’t need it. No one will get that close to you, believe me. Certainly not me.”

  They laughed.

  Ramirez was suddenly upside down, his mouth and ears full of water. He choked, sputtered. The more he struggled, the more water went down his throat. He gagged. I’m going to drown.

  Water burned his lungs, came up his nose. He struggled, flailed. The restraints cut into his flesh as he pulled against them with all his strength, gasping for air as his lungs filled with water. He choked, unable to break free, knowing with certainty that he was going to die. His bladder released as darkness overwhelmed him.

  Ramirez woke up. He sat quickly upright. Morning sunlight peeked through the curtains. He put his hand to his throat and pulled himself out of his bed. The faded sheets were wet with urine. He looked at them, trembling.

  51

  MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2007

  Charlie Pike found her in the diner wearing an orange apron and a name tag that said “Pauline.” She didn’t seem surprised to see him, more like she’d been expecting it. She seemed older than she had appeared in the poster, although only a few weeks had passed. Spent. Maybe tired of hiding her secret.

  “It’s been a long time, Charlie,” she said. “I heard you joined the police. Let me pour you a coffee. You want some breakfast too?”

  “A lot of people are worried about you, Molly.”

  “Not as many as you might think,” she said, and she started to cry.

  They sat across from each other on the plastic banquettes at the back of the café where no one could overhear them. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m not sorry she’s dead. She was a monster, you know. She was going to use those blood tests. Publish them in international journals. She didn’t care what that did to us. To the community. To my son.”

  “Her research? Is that what all this is about?”

  She nodded, slowly. “I thought you knew. I didn’t kill her, although I sure thought about it.” She pushed the coffee cup away. “I don’t have to talk to you, do I, Charlie? Am I under arrest?”

  “No,” said Pike. He shook his head. “I’m looking for Molly Oshig. The woman I’m talking to is named Pauline Johnson. Funny, the only Pauline Johnson I ever heard of was a Mohawk poet. She died about a hundred years ago. Hard to arrest a ghost for obstructing justice. I think ghosts are allowed to disappear.”

  She laughed through her tears.

  “English was my best subject, I guess,” she said. “ ‘The Song My Paddle Sings.’ Her name was the first one I thought of when I applied here.”

  “Her Mohawk name was Tekahionwake. It means ‘double life.’ ”

  “Then I guess it fits, doesn’t it?”

  “Molly, I know something’s going on at Manomin Bay. I saw those test results. Talk to me. Why did you leave?”

  “You won’t tell?”

  “I can’t promise that. But I’ll try not to.”

  She nodded slowly. “She phoned me. That doctor, Maylene Kesler. She said the genetic tests confused her at first. She thought maybe she mixed them up.”

  Another long silence. Pike waited. He knew that she’d fill in the space. Molly Oshig could take whatever time she needed to tell her story. Adam Neville could wait.

  “She said the good news was that he might not have FAS. Pauley. She said she thought it was more likely a trigger for something different. A condition, she called it, not a disease. She thought I’d be happy that it wasn’t my fault. But it was, you know. Because I let him get me pregnant.”

  The tears spilled down her cheeks. She raised her eyes and looked at him, then looked away. “She was supposed to be testing us for mercury poisoning. She didn’t tell us she was going to look at our DNA too. I think she was one of those vampire doctors, the ones who take people’s blood and then claim they own their genes without them knowing. I know she didn’t give a shit about us; all she cared about was her research.”

  She opened a packet of sugar and dropped the contents into her coffee, then another. She stirred the coffee slowly, fiddled with the spoon. “She knew that Pauley’s my son, Charlie. Then she found out he’s my brother.”

  It took Pike a moment to comprehend what she was saying. “Chesley?”

  She nodded, and then she sobbed. He handed her a paper napkin. She wiped her eyes with it and wept.

  “It started when I was thirteen. He’d come into my room at night when he was drunk. They sent me into the city to have the baby when I was fourteen. I stayed in a Catholic home for unwed mothers. I came back when Pauley
was three. We told everyone I got married too young and that we split up.”

  Of course, Pike thought. The real reason Sheldon wanted to run away from school and go to Winnipeg. Not because of the nuns at day school, but because his girlfriend was having his baby. Or at least that’s what he thought, until they told him it was someone else’s. A husband that didn’t exist.

  Everyone thought that Oshig was her married name. That’s why the police couldn’t find her. No driver’s licence, no trail. Because Molly Oshig never really existed either. Molly Wabigoon had never been married.

  “Dr. Kesler called me to say she was coming back up, that she needed to see me. She said she wanted to publish her results but she needed my consent because Pauley’s a minor. She was really persistent about it. Aggressive.”

  Anishnabe people never asked for something unless they were certain they could get it, thought Pike. They’d lose face if they asked and the other person said no. Turning down a request was considered disrespectful, because it caused the other person to lose face. So Molly had run. To get away from an ugly secret she thought died with Chesley Wabigoon.

  It was what Anishnabe people were taught by their elders—to avoid conflict. To respect others.

  “Who else knew about this, Molly?”

  “That Pauley was Chesley’s son? My mother, I guess. She must have. The walls in that house were thin. She must have heard him, heard us. But any time he was in my room meant he wasn’t in hers, beating her up whenever he got drunk. And what was she going to do? Where was she going to go with six kids, if he kicked her out? She had nowhere to go.”

  “What about your brothers?”

  “I don’t think they knew. Most of them were little. Billy was the oldest, but he was in Winnipeg then. In remand or jail, I don’t remember. But I told Sheldon. I had to, Charlie. I loved him. He had to know it wasn’t his baby. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know how to stop it from happening. Just like I never drank alcohol when I was pregnant. But it didn’t matter. Pauley didn’t come out right. I should have stopped it, told someone. But I didn’t want to break up my family.”

  Fourteen when she got pregnant. The same age as Sheldon Waubasking when he persuaded Pike to run away from school and head to Winnipeg. The same year that Sheldon almost killed Billy Wabigoon with his bare hands for calling Molly a slut.

  Pike wasn’t sure what to say. Nothing would make it right. People came out of those schools damaged. Like Pauley, they came out wrong. Most turned their anger inwards, turned themselves, and then their families, inside out. No one wanted to talk about incest. Everyone pretended it didn’t happen.

  “Did you go to any counselling? Talk to the elders?”

  She shook her head and squeezed the napkin. “What was I going to say? And what would that do to Pauley, to find out his grandfather was really his father? Can’t you see how fucked up all of this is?”

  Pike nodded. He thought for a moment. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Maylene Kesler told you she was going to publish her results. Why did you think leaving Manomin Bay was going to stop her from doing that?”

  “Sheldon told me he’d take care of it. He said I should go away for a while. When I heard there was a woman’s body on the reserve, I knew right away what happened. I wasn’t sure if that made me guilty too. Because I told Sheldon I wished she was dead.”

  “You think Sheldon killed her?”

  She looked up at him, surprised. “Who else would have?”

  52

  Charlie Pike pulled his SUV into the parking lot at the health clinic. He wiped his feet on the rubber mat and shook the snow from his hair. He nodded to the nurse practitioner at the reception desk. She was rifling through her desk for something, maybe her keys. She looked annoyed.

  Pike walked downstairs and knocked on the door to the temporary office.

  “Come in, Charlie. Here, have a seat.” Adam Neville sat behind his desk, typing on his laptop’s small keyboard. His overnight bag was in the corner beside the black satchel.

  “Morning, Adam. Sorry I’m a little late. Appreciate you taking the time to see me before you head out.” Pike sat down. “I need to go over some things with you. Got to move carefully on this one.”

  “Of course.” The medical examiner folded his hands together on the surface of the desk. “I understand completely, Charlie. Ask away. But I have to be out of here in an hour to catch my flight. I hope we can wrap this up quickly.”

  “They’re pretty relaxed at the airport. It’s not like it is down south. Don’t worry. They won’t leave without you.”

  Pike pulled out his notebook and opened it. He fumbled around in his jacket for a pen. Neville handed him one.

  “Miigwetch. So, Sheldon told me you got to the crime scene around eleven a.m. on Thursday, but he doesn’t have a watch. He said it was a little while before the techs arrived. Is that about right?”

  “I think it was twelve minutes after eleven, to be precise.”

  “You told him to stay back. Why was that?”

  “Standard procedure, Charlie. I have to keep people out of the way so the crime scene doesn’t get contaminated.”

  “So any evidence that links Sheldon to the crime scene had to be there before you arrived?”

  “That’s right,” Neville said. “He never got near that body once I was there. I made sure of that.”

  “Were you alone with her for very long before the techs arrived?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes. I did a quick walk around. Put up the yellow caution tape, cordoned off the search area.”

  “And Sheldon had nothing to do with that either? He didn’t help you?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Good.” Pike nodded. He doodled in his notebook. “You told me on the phone that you took his fingerprints?”

  “Of course. After all, he had been at that crime scene for at least a couple of hours before I got there; I had no idea what he might have touched. That’s how I was able to match his prints to the ones inside the SUV Dr. Kesler rented.”

  “How did you do that, exactly? Take his prints.”

  “I used clear plastic tape and put them on a card. I didn’t have an inkpad with me. Had to use it to take prints from the body too.”

  “Didn’t you have any ninhydrin with you?” Pike leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs at the ankles.

  “Yes,” said Neville. “But I only use it to take fingerprints from porous surfaces, so I didn’t need it. I’ve used it to take prints from dead bodies before, but we do it in the morgue, where we can rehydrate the fingers. I had to use lifts on your friend. That’s all I had.”

  Pike made another doodle in his notebook. “I guess that’s your kit over there, eh?” Pike inclined his head to the black bag in the corner. “Did you restock it before you left Winnipeg? Make sure everything was full?”

  Neville nodded. “In a remote location like this, if I don’t have everything I need, I can’t get it very easily.”

  “Understood. I better ask, because the defence lawyers will. Did you have a cigarette while you were at the scene? A roll-your-own?”

  “Of course not,” said the pathologist, shaking his head. “I’d never contaminate a crime scene. Besides, I don’t smoke. I’m a climber. I have to be able to deal with low oxygen levels at high altitudes. Are you suggesting we missed some other evidence?”

  Neville closed his email program and Pike caught a glimpse of the screensaver again. “Nice picture of you two,” he said, avoiding the question. “We used to climb the bluffs around here, when we were kids, looking for vultures’ nests. I see you had one of those little axes—what do they call those ones with the pick on the end?”

  “The ice axe? We use it to chop ice and clear away loose rocks. But Charlie, can we move this along please? I’m getting a little concerned about my flight.” Neville looked at his
watch, making his point.

  “Sorry. You know the Ojibway, we run on Indian time.” Pike smiled. “All right. When you saw the body for the first time, she had that nylon wrapped around her neck, right?”

  “That’s why I thought it was the Highway Strangler.”

  Pike shook his head. “Something’s been bothering me. Pauley Oshig kept saying the woman’s body was blue. I didn’t understand what he meant at first. But I think I do now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Luminol,” said Pike. He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “You spray it on victims to check for blood and DNA, right? It turns blue under a UV light and glows for a few seconds. After Pauley showed Sheldon where the body was, he was supposed to go to the band office, but I don’t think he did. He was afraid to see Bill right away, because he knew he was going to get punished for skipping school. I think he hid in the woods for a while and watched what was going on. I think he saw you spray Maylene Kesler’s body with Luminol.”

  “That makes sense. Come to think of it, I did use Luminol on the body, but that’s proper procedure, Charlie.”

  “The defence lawyers are going to ask you about that. The only reason I can think of why you’d use Luminol at the crime scene is if you were checking to make sure you didn’t leave anything behind after you pulled off her boots. You didn’t know the techs were going to run off like that. One of them might have ended up at the autopsy.”

  “But she didn’t have any boots on. I’ve already told you that.”

  Pike stopped doodling. “That’s because you took them off so you could get at those nylon knee-highs she was wearing. You needed to tie one around her neck. I think you used the ninhydrin on her boots later on, to make sure you removed your prints before you threw them away. That’s why the ninhydrin bottle in your bag is almost empty, even though you said you never used it.”

  “What?” said Neville, standing up. “Are you accusing me of killing Maylene Kesler? This is insane, Charlie. You already have your Highway Strangler. You just don’t want to believe it’s your friend.”