White Heat (27 page)

    Mike
replaced the stone on the table.

    'You
want an expert opinion or you want mine?'

    'Yours
will do for now,' Edie said.

    'Did
you notice how heavy it is? And this dark brown varnish?' Mike pointed to a
small black patch on the stone. 'See here? This is a fusion crust. It's where
the rock melted when it entered the atmosphere.' He looked pleased with
himself. 'This is a meteorite, the only source of metal up here in the Arctic
before the Europeans arrived.' He poked inside where the hole had been drilled.
'Look, this light, chalky interior matrix here?' He leaned in close to give
Edie a better look. 'The best meteorites, from the Inuit point of view, were
solid iron nickel, but those are rarer. Most of them are like this, stones with
metal embedded.'

    Rising
from the table, he went over to the small kitchenette and pulled something from
the fridge door. When he returned, Edie saw it was a fridge magnet of a palm-
tree-lined beach with a woman dressed in a bikini kissing a man wearing some
kind of tiny briefs. Mike looked slightly sheepish.

    'One
of Etok's friends in Iqaluit sent it to her. They went on a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land.'

    Mike
touched the picture lightly to the stone and lifted it. The stone clung for a
moment, before falling with a thump.

    'Magnetic,
see?' he said. 'Iron-nickel. The thing about them up here in the Arctic,
because they're so rare, is that so long as you know something about the
geology of the area, you can trace every meteorite back to where it fell from
the sky almost exactly.'

    'Like
GPS.'

    'Better
than GPS. No LED screens to freeze up.'

    Etok's
voice floated in from outside. She had returned from the cargo hold at the
strip and was giving instructions to someone about where to put the boxes.

    'I
got a friend I could send this to. He's a nut for space rocks. He could give
you a value on it. Do it for free, too, I'll bet.'

    'Value?'

    'Sure,
I mean, it's not like a diamond or anything, but space rocks are usually worth
a coupla hundred loonies.'

    Edie
flicked a hand in the direction of Etok's voice. 'So long as it won't get you
into trouble.'

    Mike
carefully wrapped the rock, pocketed it and winked. 'What the eye doesn't see.'

    Edie
said: 'It's a shame Etok hates me. You and I could be better friends.'

    'That's
exactly what she's trying to avoid,' Mike said.

    At
the door Edie turned back and pointed over at the sealskin parka, wanting to
lighten the atmosphere.

    'Hey.
That's a beautiful piece of needlework.'

    Mike
said: 'Yeah.' He began to follow her out of the office. 'Minnie Inukpuk made
it.' He lowered his voice. 'During one of her good spells. Never got paid for
it though. That hunter guy, Wagner, he ordered it.' Mike shrugged. 'We're
hoping one of the scientists up for the summer might buy it but Minnie made it
to the fellow's specifications. Such a waste.'

    Edie
went over to the coat, ran a finger down the exquisite fur patchwork, then
noticed the hand-written label pinned to it. Instantly she recognized the
writing as the same as that on the note clipped to Fairfax's diary. So it was
Wagner, not Taylor, who had written the word 'salt'. Then how had the pages got
into Taylor's hands?

    'Wagner
wrote out his measurements, wanted it to be exact. Fussy fellow.'

    'Mind
if I take it?'

    'The
coat?' Mike looked confused. 'I don't know, Edie, that's a pretty valuable
coat.'

    She
unpinned the label, held it up for him to see, then slipped it into her pocket,
remembering as she did so Taylor's hands fumbling through Wagner's parka right
after he got shot. Taylor could have taken the pages from his boss as he was
dying. This was beginning to get interesting. It seemed more and more likely
that it was something in the pages, the stone or both that got Wagner killed.
Maybe Andy Taylor too.

    Just
then Etok appeared. Mike nodded reassuringly at his wife then lowered his
voice. 'Edie, what are you up to?'

    'Oh
you know, the usual: trouble.' She smiled politely at Etok as she slunk past.

    Mike
raised his eyes.

    Edie
said: 'The Wagner fellow, he buy any salt from you?'

    'Why
would he buy salt?' Mike stared into the middle distance, thinking back. 'Uh
nuh, don't think so. That would have been weird. Pretty weird question, come to
that.'

    Edie
pressed a finger to her nose:
don't ask.
'Mike, I owe you one. Election
comes round, I'm voting Elijah.'

    As
she walked back to the house she saw John Tisdale waiting for her at the top of
the steps and her heart suddenly felt as heavy as an old whalebone.

    'Can
I come in for a moment?'

    'Sure,'
she said, ushering him into the front room. She took a while unlacing her boots
and taking off her parka. She was trying to imagine what Tisdale might want.
He'd never come to her home before.

    'A
brew sound good?' she said, putting on a bright, brittle little smile.

    He nodded.
He seemed on edge, she thought.

    A few
moments later, when she came back with the tea, he was staring ahead, chewing
on the cuticle of his right index finger. He thanked her rather too effusively.

    He
said: 'I've come with bad news.'

    'I guess
that's why you look like you've been trampled by a herd of stampeding caribou.'

    He
held up his hands. 'Edie, I think you're great.'

    'But?'

    'But
we're having to make some budget cuts at the school and . . .' He tailed off. She
sensed what was coming next. He was about to 'let her go'. She felt for him.
He'd woken up to find himself in Simeonie's pocket. A lousy place for any man
to be.

    'You
know,' he said, 'you don't do yourself any favours with the drinking.'

    There
didn't seem much point in telling him she'd decided to stop.

    'I've
always supported your wild ideas, well, I've turned a blind eye anyway, but
taking the kids to protest outside the mayor's office?' He gave a little laugh.
'I mean. Are you
crazy?'

    She
leaned over and put a hand on his arm.

    'It's
funny you should say that,' she said.

    Derek
Palliser shook himself awake, scanned the room and glanced at the clock. It was
just after six and he was lying in a pool of his own rapidly cooling sweat.
Normally he'd have been up by now sipping the first brew of the day before
doing his early morning rounds, but he was sleeping later on account of having
his nights disturbed by the heating in the room. When she'd first arrived,
Misha complained about the cold, but the heat left him restless and feeling as
though he'd barely slept.

    Today
of all days he needed to feel on top of his game. He was expecting a visit from
Jim DeSouza over at the science station on Devon Island. It was a courtesy call,
DeSouza said, though Derek didn't quite believe that. DeSouza wanted something.
Still, Derek liked the fellow and felt he was someone he could work with. There
was mutual respect there. In the three—or was it four?—years he'd been heading
up the science station the professor had always been meticulous about
consulting Derek on anything that might stray into police territory. And even
though it was way out of his area of expertise, DeSouza had always been
supportive of Derek's lemming research, promising to help him with media
contacts if he ever needed them.

    It
was a matter of pride that the hamlet and the detachment were looking their
best. In particular Derek was worried about loose dogs. The problem was better
than it had been, but there remained one or two families who persistently
failed to control their animals. He or Stevie would need to pay special visits
to these folk.

    He
took one last look at Misha. It was as much as he could do not to get back
between the sheets. There was something about that woman. He reached out for
her long, honey-coloured hair.

    'Derek,
don't be annoying.' As she pushed his arm away with her hand, he felt at once
aroused and abandoned.

    He
washed, shaved and dressed then slipped out of the apartment into the office.
He put some coffee on to perk (Misha didn't like tea) and while it was brewing,
took a quick turn around Kuujuaq.

    When
he returned to the office, Stevie was already poring nervously over the
computer screen on his desk.

    'Dog
round?'

    Derek
blinked a yes.

    'Get
any?'

    A no.

    'Which
reminds me, D, the kids are loving having the Pie stay. Come over for ribs one
day this week, say hi to the old fellow.'

    Derek
acknowledged Stevie's offer with a flicker of a smile. After Misha had
complained about his barking, Derek had sent Piecrust to live with his deputy.
He told himself it was stupid, but he missed that dog like crazy. At the same
time, he had no intention of paying the Pie a visit. Couldn't bring himself to
watch his erstwhile Best Friend going through his hysterical welcome routine
only to have to abandon him again. Still, it was good of Stevie to suggest it.
Man had his heart in the right place.

    He
made his usual round of radio check-in calls. Nothing had happened to require
his attention. It seemed that the events at Autisaq of a few months back
weren't up for discussion. The path lab results had been signed off, the
reports written, the forms filed. The official line had stuck. Wagner had died
in a hunting accident, Taylor was lost in a blizzard and Joe Inukpuk had taken
his own life while confused by hypothermia and distressed about the loss of the
men in his charge.

    Misha
appeared at the door in a quilted top and tight jeans then sashayed past
towards the kitchenette, reappearing a moment later with a mug of coffee in her
hand. She smiled at Stevie. The constable cracked a grimace and returned to his
screen. The hostility was mutual.

    Just
then the door to the outside burst open. The detachment wasn't yet officially
open but Jono Toolik didn't care. He tore in, his face meaty with rage, his
right arm swinging a plastic bag like a mace, and emptied the contents of the
bag across Derek's desk. Several dozen condoms skittered across the woodwork,
each one wrapped in a little cardboard envelope featuring the head of a musk
ox. Derek picked up a pack, pretending to inspect it.

    'Gee,
Jono, I didn't know you cared.'

    After
the last confrontation, he had run out of reasons to be polite to Toolik and
suspected him of allowing his dog to kill Derek's lemmings. He hadn't been able
to prove it but he wasn't going to be adding Toolik to his Christmas card list
any time soon.

    Toolik's
face twisted with anger.
'Aitiathlimaqtsi arit,
Palliser. Fuck you too.
I'd sooner dip my stick in a beluga's ass. The point is, these don't work.'

    Derek
shrugged. 'Maybe musk ox is the wrong size for you.' He paused for effect.
'Have you tried ptarmigan?'

    Toolik's
hands balled and he would have thrown some punches had Misha not appeared and
stood between the two men. Immediately, Toolik's stance softened. Misha
approached Derek's desk and picked up a condom.

    'Someone
brought us present, how sweet,' sweeping her hand across the pile. 'But these
won't even last us a week.'

    Jono
Toolik wheeled round, unsure how to proceed. Was this some kind of joke?

    'I am
needing some civilization,' Misha continued. 'You find me in my sculpture
studio.' She walked across the room to the back door, turning momentarily to
give a flirtatious little wave before letting herself out into the yard where
Derek had made her a studio from what had once been his lemming shed.

    The
instant she was gone there was a tangible sense of relief in the room, as
though a blizzard had begun to move off.