No Return (A Lee Smith Mystery Book 2)

by Jay Forman

  I didn’t know where the gym was in the building, but there was a very distinctive thumping sound coming from the end of the hallway to my left so I followed the beat. Before I opened the door to the gym I recognised what the sound was – the beating of a First Nations drum. It wasn’t until I pulled the door open that I clearly heard the voices that were singing anything but a ceremonial song in the echo chamber of the gym. There was a basketball hoop at one end of the gym and another one that actually had a net attached to it at the other end of the room.

  Four gangly teenage boys were standing in the middle of the room in a drum circle, each boy with one hand holding a loop handle on the side of the traditional drum, the other hand drumming with a long drumstick that looked like a stretched out bowling pin. A fifth boy stood with them, but he wasn’t drumming. He was singing lead to their back-up voices. They were doing an acapella version of Aloe Blacc’s Ticking Bomb and they sounded so very good. The song was too appropriate; Webequie was sitting on a ticking mineral bomb that was about to explode.

  “Can I help you?” the man I’d seen coming out of the house next to Sara’s asked me.

  I was sad to hear the music stop. “I’m Lee, I’m—”

  “I know who you are. I’m Dave.”

  “Hi. I just came over to use one of the computers in the office and Sara said I should let you know that I’m here, so, here I am.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Once again I was experiencing a less than warm welcome. “That sounds really good.”

  “Thanks.” He looked at me, his expression saying ‘you can leave now.’

  I didn’t want to leave yet. “Sara said you’re making a video. Are you going to put this online?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’m going to be writing an article about Webequie for Tourism Canada and I’d really like to include a link to your video.”

  “Sweet,” the lead singer said with a smile.

  “I don’t have a problem with that, if the guys don’t.” Dave looked at the boys and they all quickly told him that it was more than okay with them.

  “Mind if I take a few pictures, too?”

  The smiles on their faces never faltered as I took group shots, individual shots, close-ups of their hands holding the drumsticks and more close-ups trying to catch the blur of their movements as they beat the drum.

  I had to go back to Sara’s classroom to find the notebook she’d given me. It was on her desk, my name written on the front of it in those perfectly shaped letters that only elementary school teachers can master. Instead of a coloured pencil, I used a pen that I borrowed from the can on Sara’s desk when I went back to the gym to write down everyone’s name and email address.

  Dave walked out into the hallway with me. “You know Jack Hughes, right?”

  What I knew about Jack Hughes was that he was being a jerk. “I do.” Two words that I wouldn’t be saying in front of any member of the clergy anytime soon.

  “Sara told me how he got that bursary set up for Blaze at the fancy private school you all used to go to, and she said he’s going to sponsor Blaze when he goes to the Ontario College of Art, too.”

  “Talent like Blaze’s doesn’t come along very often.”

  “I agree. I feel the same way about Marten. You just heard his voice.”

  Marten – which he’d had me correctly spell with an ‘e’, not an ‘i’ – did have a mesmerizing singing voice.

  “Do you think Jack might be interested in sponsoring him, too? He’s only got two more courses to complete before he finishes Wahsa. I’ve done some research and think the best place for him to go would be the Manhattan School of Music. They have scholarships, but I don’t know if his Wahsa grades are good enough to get one.”

  “You want Jack to cover his tuition and living expenses for a couple of years in New York?” That was asking for an awful lot of money! I knew that Jack was constantly being asked to give, and he was a sucker for a good cause, but I’d never thought about how hard it must be for him to have to say ‘No’ more often than not.

  “Marten might get a scholarship.”

  “What about moving to New York? Could he handle it?” It would be one hell of a culture shock.

  “That I don’t know. We’d deal with that if the time comes. So? Will you ask him? It could be Marten’s ticket out of here.”

  Blaze had been given a ticket like that, but he still returned as often as he could. “I’ll ask.”

  When I’d be granted the opportunity to do that asking was the big unknown.

  I went to the office and logged in to my email. Jack hadn’t sent me anything. He was so bloody stubborn!

  I looked at the telephone on the desk. I hadn’t asked if I could make a long-distance call. I should ask first. It would be the polite thing to do.

  “Hi, it’s Jack. I’ll be out of touch for a couple of days and only checking my messages sporadically. If your call’s urgent please contact my assistant Adaya at—”

  No! I don’t want to contact Adaya. I want to contact you, Jack. I waited for the tone and left my message. “This is getting stupid, Jack. Stop avoiding me. Answer your phone the next time I call.”

  ****

  Chief Troutlake let me use the phone on his desk, but not to call Jack. He wanted me to call Aileen to set up a meeting with her. He’d added a new chore to my Webequie ‘to-do’ list – find out where Aileen and Ross had been staking claims.

  Our connection got dropped twice, but I finally managed to get a clear connection with Aileen. It was amazingly clear, in fact. Better than anything my cell phone had been able to get between Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay and I’d been on a major highway then.

  It took some convincing, but Aileen finally gave in.

  “Do you know where the lodge is?”

  “No, but I can find it.”

  “I’ll pick you up there tomorrow at eleven. Just you, though. That’s the deal.”

  Chief Troutlake smiled when I told him the meeting was booked. He opened one of the lower side drawers of his desk and reached in for something. “Take this with you. You shouldn’t be in the bush without a way to contact us if you get into trouble.” He handed me a satellite phone.

  “How does it work?” I’d never used one before.

  While he showed me how to use it a thought occurred to me – what kind of trouble was he worried I might get into? Bear trouble? Or Aileen trouble?

  I went back to the school to check my email again and inhaled the cheese sandwich that Sara had left for me so fast that I barely tasted it. That was probably a good thing. My stomach couldn’t avoid having to deal with the chemical-laden processed slices of a plastic substance that claimed to be cheese, though.

  Jack still hadn’t replied to my email. I sent him another one. And left him another voicemail.

  One big graphite cloud had raced ahead of the others. It was sprinkling Webequie with big fluffy flakes as I walked back to Sara’s. Sun rays shot out from behind it; circling it like a crown and making the snowflakes sparkle as they danced in the wind. I felt like I was standing in the middle of a snow globe that had just been shaken, and tried to capture the moment with my camera.

  ****

  A mouse could have spit water with more pressure than Sara’s shower offered, but it still felt wonderful to get clean. And to be in clean clothes. And dry socks. I was pleased to see that my ankle wasn’t swelling. And my shoulder didn’t hurt that much … if I didn’t move it.

  I plugged my phone in to charge and started doing some work. Real work; the kind I got paid to do.

  I’d taken so many photos that it took a while to get them all transferred from my camera to my computer and labelled. I opened a Word file and started making some notes for my Webequie article when my phone made a noise that made me jump. Had it found a connection?

  I quickly grabbed it off the table beside the bed. Oh. It had just been a reminder chime. My appointment for a private tour of the Canadian Museum of Human
Rights in Winnipeg had been scheduled to start in 15 minutes. I’d forgotten to cancel the chime when I’d cancelled the appointment. When would I be in Winnipeg? Was there any reason to stick around Webequie now? The OPP still had Arthur but, if Marlee was right, they’d have to let him go soon. Ross’ killer still hadn’t been found, but Blaze had only asked me to help his grandfather. Arthur back in Webequie equalled Lee out. I could get back on the road, back on track, back to places that had Wi-Fi.

  Then I remembered my promise to the chief to meet with Aileen. One more night. I’d fly out after talking to Aileen.

  I pulled my notebook – a real notebook, not a classroom notebook – out of my backpack and started flipping through the pages of handwritten notes from Thunder Bay, looking for something that might jump out at me as a good place to start my article.

  One note made me think of Aileen’s cousin, Frazer. It was about the cameras that Lorne and his staff had attached to trees in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. They were triggered by heat and motion and helped the park staff learn more about what the wildlife was doing when no one was watching. I wondered if Frazer used heat and motion sensing cameras for his ‘scientific’ research. I’d ask him about that when I met with Aileen. Maybe he’d even show me some Sasquatch footage from one of them? Yeah, right. I wasn’t holding my breath on that one, but Frazer’s story would make a great sidebar to the article on Webequie. Maybe he’d let me take a photo of him next to one of his tree cameras? Then I remembered that he’d said he’d left his ‘scientific’ equipment behind when he flew up to help his cousin. Oh well. I could still ask him if he used them.

  Terry Fox, the Hoito restaurant, Ouimet Canyon, Hawk’s View Canyon … I retraced my steps through my notes and then flipped back to my Thunder Bay notes. That was the big ticket destination that Tourism Canada wanted me to promote the most in the Northern Ontario articles. I read my Sleeping Giants notes more carefully. One made me stop; ‘Lorne/L of Nanabijou/on phone’

  Mary had mentioned Nanabijou, too. She said Ross looked like him and she’d know – she would have seen the Sleeping Giant when she was living in Thunder Bay and she’d seen Ross’ body. Not that that mattered. I wasn’t needed on the investigation into Ross’ death anymore.

  I brought one of my shots of Lake Superior from the top of the Giant up on my computer screen, picked up my phone again, found the recording I’d made of Lorne explaining the legend, and pushed ‘Play’:

  ‘… Is it recording? … Oh, okay then …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Now, you have to understand, because First Nations languages are spoken, not written, this story has been passed down through the generations verbally, so I can’t attest to how accurate it is. I’m fairly certain it’s been romanticized for the tourism industry, too. Anyway, the legend actually starts on Isle Royale, if you look—’

  ‘You have to have your mouth facing the phone, Lorne. It won’t pick up your voice if you look away like that.’

  ‘Sorry. South of here is Isle Royale. It’s actually in the US, but sometimes you can see it from here. The legend has it that a great Ojibway tribe lived there a long time ago. They were such good people, so loyal to their Creator, that Nanabijou, the Spirit of Deep Sea Water, wanted to reward them. He offered to tell the chief of the tribe a secret to great riches, but only if the chief promised never to tell the white man the secret. If the chief broke his promise Nanabijou would turn to stone and the riches would disappear. The chief promised and Nanabijou told the chief to go up to Thunder Cape, it’s right over th— … oh right, sorry again … it’s on the southern tip of the Giant, where his feet are. There’s a bird observatory there now. Here on the Sibley Peninsula we’ve got the highest cliffs in Ontario and it’s a natural migration trap for species that typically breed in remote areas further north. It offers a great opportunity to track population trends.’

  ‘So, the chief went up there … and?’

  ‘Sorry, I got off track, didn’t I? … Won’t happen again. … Right! Well, Nanabijou told the chief that once he was on Thunder Cape he’d be able to see the entrance to a tunnel on Silver Islet, that’s a little island that’s just off the south shore. The tunnel would lead the chief and his people to a rich silver mine rich. The chief and his Ojibway people did find the mine and soon became famous for their beautiful silver ornaments. The neighbouring Sioux started to get jealous of the Ojibway’s wealth and they wanted to find out where the Ojibway were getting the silver from. They attacked and killed many of the Ojibway people, but the Ojibway still wouldn’t give up the secret mine. So, the Sioux got crafty and came up with another plan. One of their warriors disguised himself as an Ojibway and a few days after he entered the Ojibway camp he learned where the mine was. One night, he snuck into the mine and stole several large pieces of silver. But things were still okay then. The white man still didn’t know about the mine. The Sioux warrior was going to take the silver pieces back to his chief to prove that he’d found the mine, but the Sioux camp was a long way away. He stopped at a white trader’s post to rest for a bit and get some food, but he didn’t have any money to pay for the food, so he used one of the pieces of silver. The white people at the post wanted to know where it came from, but the Sioux warrior wouldn’t tell them. So they got him drunk or, as the legend goes, they filled him with firewater, and he told them everything. The white men went to find the mine and they were almost there when a terrible storm broke out. When the storm cleared the Sleeping Giant was lying here. Nanabijou had turned to stone. What’s really fascinating, though, the thing that makes you think there’s more truth than fiction in the story, is that even today people come to Silver Islet and keep trying unsuccessfully to get to—’

  What happened? I looked at the screen on my phone. The recording had stopped. Why had it stopped there?

  Then I remembered. That’s when Blaze had called.

  I scrolled through my voice recordings, but couldn’t find the continuation of Lorne’s story. Had I forgotten to start recording again after Blaze’s call?

  Without thinking, I clicked to open the web browser on my computer. No connection available. Duh!

  I jotted down a note on the last page of my Thunder Bay notes: ‘research/Silver Islet.’

  It was a cute story, but I wasn’t sure how much of it I’d use in my article. The evil spirit known as the Great Word Count Limit was always lurking in the back of my professional mind.

  Would I touch on the mining issue at all? It seemed to always be lurking in the back of every story in the area.

  I flipped back through the pages of my notebook again. I’d start at the beginning. Hawk’s View Canyon. Good times: a zipline ride I didn’t see because I thought Stuart was dead; a spectacular hike that turned into a two-kilometre sprint because I thought Jack had been killed; almost getting arrested by the OPP … Writing this article was going to be a challenge.

  I plugged my earbuds into my phone and found my writing song. It always pumped me up and got my fingers moving on the keyboard.

  Me, myself and I, with musical accompaniment from Joan Armatrading, were 123 words into our first draft of the Northern Ontario article when we were rudely interrupted by a knocking on Sara’s front door. I turned the volume up. The knocking turned into pounding.

  This time, two police officers wanted to talk to me. The officers who came in and sat on Sara’s sofa were wearing OPP uniforms, instead of NAPS uniforms.

  “To start, you should know that we know who you are.”

  I was tempted to say ‘I’m the one Blaze called’, but I knew they wouldn’t get the joke. And from the expression on their faces I could tell that they weren’t in a joking mood.

  “Care to explain why Stuart Saddler’s daughter is involved in a murder investigation in Northern Ontario?”

  Not particularly.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I’m not involved in a murder investigation; I’m a travel writer who happens to be here while a murder investigation is going on. And my name’s not Sad
dler anymore – it’s Smith.” I almost had to shout because a helicopter was flying so low over the island that it shook the thin walls of Sara’s house.

  “Kind of strange though, don’t you think, that you just happen to be here now?” The older officer, the one with the moustache that looked like a woolly giant leopard moth caterpillar, asked as his much younger partner pulled a small notebook out and held his pen poised to take notes.

  They were sitting beside each other and they filled the couch. I stood and leaned against Sara’s kitchen counter.

  “It’s the second time this year that you’ve just happened to be present when a murder investigation’s been going on. And, according to Will Lightfoote, you were very involved in the school murders in his Anishinaabeg Falls detachment last spring. He said you were a big help, actually.”

  What had these guys done? Researched me? Would they be telling me my birth weight next? “Why did you talk to Will about me?”

  “You found the shell casing, so we wanted to know who you are. Even though it didn’t have to go to trial, the Berkshire case file is still in the system and your name’s all over it, so we talked to the lead investigator on the case to get the scoop. He said he’s known you since you were a kid; that he served under your uncle. And he asked us to give you a message.”

  I could guess what that message was.

  “Stay out of it.”

  I’d guessed right. “I’m not in it. I can show you my computer, if you want. I was just working on my article about Northern Ontario. I really am here for my job.” There was some truth in what I’d just said, so hopefully my face wouldn’t give away the fact that I was omitting a few details.

  “He told us you’d say something like that.”

  Damn Will.

  “Look, we just want to find out what’s going on up here. Somebody shot that guy and we want to catch whoever did it before he shoots somebody else. If you know something that can help us do that, we’d like to hear it.”