No Return (A Lee Smith Mystery Book 2)

by Jay Forman

  Everyone mentioned how much Arthur had softened after River came to live with him. From all accounts he sounded like a doting grandfather. One man even leaned in close to whisper so that Joshua wouldn’t hear him telling me that everyone noticed that the mean streak and anger issues Arthur had shown while raising his sons seemed to have disappeared. Anger was the one word no one used to describe Arthur’s emotions when he came back to the gathering camp after finding Bernice in bed with Ross. Disappointed, frustrated, irritated, annoyed, resigned – all those words came up, but not anger. The only action he’d wanted to take was to call a band meeting to have Ross and Aileen ordered off Webequie territory. His anger did surface once Ross’ body was found, though. He was disgusted by the scalping. He thought it was disrespectful, an insult to their history.

  I recorded most of my conversations on my cell phone and hoped that once I got back to Webequie I’d be able to put together a timeline of when and where Arthur was from everyone’s recollections. Even without having the time to do that, it was starting to look as if Arthur’s actions that day didn’t match the timeline of when Ross was killed and eventually found – if everyone was telling the truth. I couldn’t ignore the close bond that the people of Webequie seemed to share and knew it was a real possibility that in the time since Arthur had been taken away by the OPP his fellow band members had had more than enough time to put their story together.

  It was the woman who insisted on serving me a plateful of the fish pemmican she was stirring over another open fire who said the only thing that opened a window of possibility that Arthur might, in fact, have had the opportunity to kill Ross.

  “… he seemed fine when he went off to set his marten traps after lunch.”

  “Where did he set them?”

  “Down the bay, near the winter hunt shed.”

  “Where’s that?”

  She used a stick to draw a map in the dirt for me. An X marked the island where Webequie was. Then she drew a peninsula that was shaped like the top of a T lying on its side that stuck out from the mainland east of Webequie.

  “We’re here.” She made another X at the northern tip of the peninsula. “Arthur likes to trap here.” A third X marked a spot under the top of the T, near where it met what would have been the long bar of the T if it had been standing upright. That bar ran east and joined the peninsula to the mainland. “The winter hunt shed is here.” She put an X at the intersection of the two bars.

  “And where was Ross’ body found?”

  “Down here.” She scratched the last X at the southern end of the peninsula.

  If she was right about where Arthur had gone to lay his traps it meant he’d been in the woods alone, half-way down the peninsula, half-way to where Ross was found. So maybe he could have done it? I took a picture of her map.

  “Is that where Ross and his partner are prospecting?”

  “I don’t know. They’d better not be.”

  I used the excuse of wanting to burn off all the greasy food I’d eaten and headed off to do a little exploring. Joshua offered to come with me, but I wanted to be alone. He warned me to stay on the path and not get lost in the woods, teasing me again about my white parka, reminding me that I didn’t have it with me so I’d be hard to find if I got lost.

  Getting lost wasn’t going to be an issue. I easily found the pathway that led south from the gathering camp and had no intention of stepping off it if there were traps set in the woods. But getting lost in the woods wasn’t the only danger I faced.

  I’d just passed the teenagers who were still throwing axes at their target when I felt something fly through the air so close to my head that my hair moved. A double-bladed axe cut into the tree beside me and stayed there.

  “Sorry!” One of the boys yelled.

  It was an accident, right? He hadn’t done that deliberately … had he?

  I could hear the boys laughing as I walked further down the path and picked up my pace to get away from them and their bad aim.

  About ten minutes into my hike I passed a group of younger children playing hide-and-seek in the woods. One girl had climbed a tree and was hiding at the very top of it. She put her finger to her lips to shush me when I smiled up at her. It reminded me of the games my friends and I had played in the woods when we were small. We didn’t appreciate how much freedom we had back then. It was a freedom that was now completely lost to kids who grew up in a big city.

  A few minutes later a man suddenly came out of the woods and stepped onto the pathway. He was carrying a dead beaver.

  “Boozhoo.” I tried not to sound too surprised and deliberately looked at him, not the limp beaver.

  He just nodded and headed toward the gathering camp.

  I came up to what looked like it might be the winter hunt shed about fifteen minutes later. It was built like a log cabin, without windows, and its door was hanging half-open. A very distinct smell got stronger the closer I got to the shed, but when I looked inside there wasn’t anyone there. All of the shelves were jam-packed with traps, guns in cases, piles of animal fur, and many rubber storage tubs. It smelled musty in there, but that wasn’t the burning smell I’d noticed.

  Then I heard a girl laughing somewhere outside. Then another girl laughing. Then a boy telling them to shut up. It took me a few minutes to spot them in the woods. They were further down the pathway, sitting on big chunks of the Canadian Shield that the glaciers had pushed around, and even though I couldn’t see any smoke I knew that they had to be the people who were smoking a joint. They pretended not to notice me. I pretended not to notice them and turned around to go back to the gathering camp.

  It had taken me well over half an hour to get to the shed. If the map in the dirt was close to scale it meant it would have taken Arthur at least an hour to get to the southern tip of the peninsula. If he’d actually gone there, that is. It was a big if, because how could he have known that Ross would be there? Or even when Ross would be there? And if he’d been gone from the gathering camp for over two hours it would take a whole lot of lying to cover that up.

  ****

  “Where to next, kemosabe?” Joshua asked when I got back to the gathering camp.

  “Is that an Oji-Cree word?” I thought it was just a made-up word from The Lone Ranger.

  “Of course not! But I’m trying to give you the whole native experience here.”

  “Very funny.”

  “So? Where to? Nobody knows where Bernice is, she hasn’t been here. She’s probably gone to Eagle Rock and if she has I don’t want to disturb her there. Or she may be back in Webequie by now.”

  “Is Eagle Rock a sacred place?”

  “No, it’s a rock that looks like an eagle’s head. I guess it’s sacred to Dad, though. It was his father’s and his father’s father’s place to go to think. It’s special to our family and I know Bernice has gone there to cool down sometimes after a fight with Dad. So, back to Webequie?”

  “I guess so.”

  It was while we were pulling away from the shore that I decided to change our destination. “Take me to where Ross’ body was found first?”

  Joshua turned the boat south so sharply that I had to hold onto the gunnels on both sides of the canoe to stay on top of the gas can.

  About half-way down the peninsula I thought I could just make out the roof of the winter hunt shed behind the trees.

  Joshua made a slow left turn around the southern tip of the peninsula, aimed for a small sandy cove, cut the engine and let us drift into shore.

  “Eagle Rock’s over there,” he pointed to the east. “There’s a small lake on the other side of the portage at the end of the bay.”

  I helped him pull the boat up onto the rock slab at the water’s edge and took advantage of the sandy bottom. My hands still reeked of fish so I knelt down and rubbed them with sand under the surprisingly warm water. The sun was doing a great job of heating the shallow water and it illuminated the translucent fish scales that floated away from my hands.


  “How did you know to do that?” he asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Wash your hands with the sand?”

  “My father taught me. What’s that?” I pointed to what looked like a small yellow flag that was flapping from the trunk of a dead tree that was on the other side of the rocky rise beside us. Joshua turned his head at my question and I was thankful for the distraction to turn the conversation away from the topic of my family.

  “I don’t know.”

  I followed him over the rise and even though he switched to speaking in Oji-Cree I could tell that he was cursing as he untied the torn strip of yellow crime scene tape that had been left on the tree.

  “Ross was there.” He pointed at a slab of granite that sloped down into the water. “Sara said he was lying above the waterline.”

  I looked to my left and saw a pathway in the woods that ended at the edge of the rock. “Does that path go all the way up to the gathering camp?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “No reason.” I walked onto the slab and knelt down to get a closer look at it. Several veins of white quartz ran through it. Because it was so exposed the only thing growing near it was a small copse of juniper bushes. “Has it rained a lot since Ross was found?”

  “A bit yesterday.” He knelt down beside me and looked at the rock. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I think so. If Ross was shot or scalped here, then there would have been a lot of blood—”

  “But there’s none and we haven’t had enough rain to wash that much blood away.”

  “He was killed somewhere else and brought here?”

  “It looks like it.”

  But why? And if that was true then Arthur was an even less likely suspect. The police had taken him away, though. They must have had good reason to; I just didn’t know what that reason was. “Let’s go back. I want to talk to Sara about what she saw.”

  For the second time in as many days I was startled by the shrill of a cell phone ringtone slicing through the silence of the wilderness.

  Joshua stood up, reached into the pouch pocket on the front of his hoodie, and answered the call. “Hello? … Uh-huh … No problem, she’s right here.” He held the phone out for me to take. “It’s for you.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Huh? I wiped my wet hands off on my jeans before taking Joshua’s phone from him. The display on the screen read ‘Unknown Caller’. “Hello?”

  “Hi buddy! It’s me, your good friend Jack. How’s it going, pal?”

  Oh boy. “I can—”

  “Explain?” Jack cut me off, his tone as sharp as the edges of his cut diamonds. “Gee, that’d be great. It’ll be interesting to hear which thing you’re going to explain first – why you lied to me about where you were going or why you relegated our relationship to just good friends when you were talking to Chief Troutlake. He’s a very smart man, by the way. Perceptive, too. He could tell you weren’t being completely honest with him so he called me to find out what you were lying about, but I couldn’t tell him because I didn’t even know you were lying until he called me. More fool me, huh?”

  Joshua was staring at me. I pushed the phone harder against my ear, hoping he wouldn’t be able to hear what Jack was saying. I didn’t really want to hear it either, but I didn’t have a choice.

  “As you obviously know, my phone doesn’t get reception up here and I don’t want to waste Joshua’s minutes. Could we talk about this later? I’ll be back in Webequie in an hour or so and can call you—”

  “Oh by all means! Wasting Joshua’s minutes would be the crime of the century. God forbid! Is he another good friend of yours?”

  Please, Jack, don’t do this now? “Joshua offered to show me around and I really appreciate it. We’ve just come from the gathering camp and now we’re standing where your employee’s body was found.”

  “He’s right there, isn’t he? Listening to every word?”

  “Absolutely.” I forced myself to smile as if Jack and I had just agreed on something.

  “Fine.” Jack didn’t sound the least bit agreeable. “But, for the record, as I just told Chief Troutlake, that man didn’t work for Hughes. He had nothing to do with me. He wasn’t even a good friend of mine.”

  I’d been feeling guilty about my good friends comment to Chief Troutlake, but Jack’s snide dig made me less inclined to apologize. Why couldn’t he just trust that I had good reasons? Because he’s really hurt, my annoying conscience felt it necessary to remind me. And you essentially did lie to him about where you were going. “So I’ll call you when I’m back in Webequie?”

  “Sure thing, pal.”

  To hell with whatever Joshua heard. I couldn’t end our call on such a sour note. “I am sorry, Jack.”

  He didn’t say anything. I couldn’t even hear him exhaling through his nose the way he did whenever he was angry.

  “You’re right. I should have told you.”

  Still nothing. Had he hung up on me? He’d better not have. He knew there were very few things that set me off more than being hung up on. Anger started to squash the guilt I’d been feeling.

  “Jack?” I looked at the phone’s screen to see if we still had a connection and saw that it was just as empty as Jack’s reply.

  “Your battery’s dead.”

  Damn technology! I handed the phone back to Joshua.

  “Everything okay?” There was real concern in Joshua’s tone.

  No, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Yeah, just a little miscommunication, that’s all. Let’s head back.” I had wanted to look around the area more but at that very moment I wanted to get back to Webequie and call Jack even more.

  We pushed the boat into the water and I climbed over the thwarts and seats to get up to my spot on the gas can in the bow as we drifted away from the shore while Joshua lowered the engine and yanked repeatedly on the starter cord.

  He pushed the choke knob back in. “I think it’s flooded.”

  I knew the sound of a flooded outboard and his engine hadn’t been making that sound. It hadn’t even been trying to catch. “I think it needs more gas. Try giving the bulb on the gas line another squeeze.”

  “I’ve done this before you know.”

  “So have I.” Great. Just what I needed – another man mad at me.

  He begrudgingly squeezed the bulb again. It was rock hard, so there was definitely gas in the line. Then he yanked on the cord a few more times. The engine still wasn’t catching. He undid the latches on either side of the engine cover and lifted it off. “Know anything about outboard motors?”

  “You’re the mechanic, not me.”

  “What makes you think I’m a mechanic?” he asked as he leaned in closer to the engine and looked at it.

  “You fixed the alternator on that man’s truck when we were at the Northern, so I just assumed that—”

  “I thought you didn’t assume anything? At least, that’s what you told me.”

  I was starting to dislike him again. “Okay, fine, I shouldn’t have made that one assumption. Can you fix the engine?”

  “No, I don’t know what’s wrong with it.” He calmly started to put the engine cover back on.

  Why had he taken it off in the first place if he didn’t know anything about outboard engines? Instead of asking him that question I climbed back over the seat closest to the bow and picked up the one and only paddle that was lying on the bottom of the boat. “You’re supposed to have two of these, you know.”

  “It’s not my boat.” He stretched his legs out and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Apparently I was going to be responsible for getting us back to shore. Thankfully, we hadn’t drifted too far off of it. “It doesn’t matter if you own it; you’re operating it, so you’re responsible for making sure that all the safety equipment is onboard – life jackets, heaving line, re-boarding device, flashlight or flares, paddles, bailer, sound signalling device and navigation lights.” I listed off the boating requiremen
ts in time with each one of my angry strokes of the paddle in the water. I knew I was stroking too hard but I couldn’t help myself and, as a result, I kept having to flip the paddle from one side of the canoe to the other as we zigzagged toward the shore. “And you have to have your Pleasure Craft Operator license on you.”

  “Says who?”

  “Transport Canada.”

  “I’m not too worried about them pulling me over to check for all those things. They don’t get up here much. Blaze says you go kayaking a lot at your place. Do you have all those things in your kayak?”

  “Kayaks don’t have to have navigational lights or sound signalling devices.”

  “You white people sure like your rules and regulations. So you do have all the other stuff in your kayak?”

  The bow of the canoe touched the sand. “Yes.”

  “Bull. You’re not a great liar, you know.”

  Tell me about it!

  We pulled the canoe up on the shore, again, and Joshua tied the painter to a tree.

  I didn’t bother waiting for him and started walking toward the pathway. Actually, it was more like marching than walking. By the time he caught up with me I was really motoring as I headed north to the gathering camp.

  Neither of us spoke, we just marched. About ten minutes into our hike I saw him pull a little metal box out of the pouch on the front of his hoodie. I refused to turn my head to look at what he was doing, so I only caught the occasional sideway glimpse at him. I heard the click of the box lid opening, then the scrape of a match and saw a small flash of fire out of the corner of my eye.

  “I think now would be a good time for that peace pipe,” he said while holding his breath and holding something out for me to take.