The next morning the skies were grey and there was a drizzle that looked like it had staying power. It was a day to sit on the porch, wrapped in an afghan, reading Virginia Woolf, but Taylor, Isobel, and Gracie had other plans. Recognizing that it would be difficult to keep a scheme involving a quantity of rocks secret on a horseshoe of land from which all rocks except those in ornamental groupings had been removed, the girls decided to spill the beans about their top-secret project.
Taylor’s enthusiasm for the Inukshuk book had infected her friends. Inspired by the tale of a man who had travelled almost two thousand kilometres guided only by the Inuksuit described in a song his father had taught him, the girls had drawn up plans for a series of Inuksuit that would lead a traveller around the land surrounding Lawyers’ Bay. Each Inukshuk would have a sight hole in the middle. When a lost soul peered through it, he would find his bearings and be guided along the route to the next Inukshuk. Ultimately, he would end up where he wanted to go. The girls had chosen their sites with care, sketched each Inukshuk, and made a rough estimate of the number and sizes of the rocks they would need. They had done their homework, and, in my eyes, the value of their efforts was not diminished by the fact that it was unlikely anyone at Lawyers’ Bay would ever get lost. Except for my ancient Volvo, every car there had a state-of-the-art global positioning system.
As if to offset the dreariness of the day, the girls were all wearing crayon-bright cotton shirts: Gracie’s was tangerine, and she had gathered her red-gold hair in a ponytail held in place by an orange scrunchy. With her rosy freckled skin and bright blue eyes, it was impossible to imagine that her mother was a member of the Dakota First Nation. Blake Falconer had said that his wife’s sadness at not having a daughter who was more in her image was enduring, but that morning Gracie seemed remarkably free of any marks of her mother’s rejection.
Cheerful and practical, she identified the role I’d been called upon to play in the scheme. “We need you to phone the rock company,” she said. “They won’t accept an order from a kid – take my word for it. I tried the company my mother used when she got the rocks for the gazebo and they insisted on speaking to an adult. My house is short of adults at the moment, so we thought maybe you’d help us out.”
“There’s a place in Fort Qu’Appelle we could try,” I said. “We might even be able to get what you need delivered today. Besides, I wouldn’t mind doing a little grocery shopping.”
Isobel gave me a puckish three-cornered smile. “You mean you’re unable to meet all your shopping needs at the Point Store?”
“Every so often I just have a hankering for something that doesn’t cost twice as much as it should,” I said.
Peter’s Rocks was one of those curious businesses that appear to spring up as backyard ventures, and then spill into the vacant lot next door, defying zoning laws and the dreams of fastidious neighbours. It might not have been nominated for any chamber of commerce awards, but Peter’s seemed to be exactly what the girls had in mind. Despite the misting rain, they stormed the rock piles with a passion they typically would have reserved for a sale at Old Navy. They argued good-naturedly over their selections, replaced hotly disputed choices with better choices, and generally settled in for a morning of solid trading. They were dressed for the long haul in waterproof ponchos, but the wind-breaker I’d hurriedly bought at a discount house before I came to the lake turned out to be worth exactly what I’d paid for it. It wasn’t long before I hightailed it to the shelter of the corrugated plastic roof that covered the concrete lawn ornaments.
All the usual suspects were there: jockeys, saucer-eyed fawns, huddled gargoyles, gargoyles with wings spread, Dutch girls saucily lifting the backs of their skirts to reveal ruffled concrete panties and sturdy legs, mother rabbits, bears wearing sweaters, angelic doomed children, gnomes, a flock of plaster owls that I glanced at only briefly, a solitary Sacred Heart, three Holy Families, and a phalanx of Blessed Virgins. Freed of the obligation to buy anything or pass judgement, I gave the ornaments my full attention, listened to the rain bounce off the roof above me, and tried to think of nothing at all.
It took the girls an hour to make their choices and another half-hour to watch a buff young man in jeans that appeared to have been put on wet load the rocks they had selected into the back of a pickup and tot up the bill. Then it was my turn. We hit the IGA, where, in honour of customer-appreciation day, the manager had slashed 10 per cent from the cost of all purchases, excluding tobacco and drugs. A good morning’s work all around, and we drove home content.
As we warmed soup and cut sandwiches, the girls dreamily revisited the many charms of the young man at Peter’s Rocks. Clearly, breasts were not the only things budding that summer for my daughter and her friends. The goofiness and speculations continued during lunch, and I was relieved when the girls asked if they could skip dishes so they could start levelling the ground where the first Inukshuk would be built.
We were without an automatic dishwasher at the lake, and I’d just submerged my hands in warm sudsy water when I heard a car pull up. I grabbed a tea towel and headed to the front of the cottage. When I saw that the visitor trudging through the rain towards my front door was Detective Robert Hallam, I opened the door with a smile.
“Come in,” I said. “There’s still soup in the pot.”
Robert was wearing a trench coat, a Tilley hat, and a look of abject misery. He stepped inside, but as he stood dripping on the hooked rug in the entry, he made no move to take off his wet outer clothes.
I reached for his coat. “Let me take that,” I said. “Come in and dry off. If you get pneumonia, Rosalie will never let me hear the end of it.”
The mention of his wife’s name brought a faint and fleeting smile to Robert’s face. “Thanks,” he said. “But this isn’t a social visit, Joanne.”
The penny dropped. “You’re here to talk about Alex,” I said.
Robert was clearly taken aback. “How did you know?”
“Maggie Niewinski called me last night. She said some friends of Clare Mackey’s were going to force the police to find out why Alex quashed the investigation into Clare Mackey’s disappearance.”
Robert had adjusted his expression, but it was clear he was still genuinely dumbfounded. “Joanne, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never even heard of Maggie Niewinski. I came out here today because Inspector Kequahtooway has gone missing. He booked off to attend to personal business, but he was supposed to be back yesterday. He still hasn’t shown up, and no one knows where he is.”
I felt as unsteady as Robert looked. “Come in and sit down,” I said. “We need to talk.”
Robert followed me into the kitchen. He perched on the edge of a chair, but he didn’t take his coat off. His normally ruddy face was leached of colour. “I might as well deal with this right off the bat,” he said. “Joanne, I need to know exactly when you told Inspector Kequahtooway that there were questions about how he was handling the Altieri investigation.”
“I never told him,” I said. “I tried to call him a half-dozen times, but he was never there. The last time I phoned I left a message, but he never got back to me.”
The colour returned to Robert’s face. “Thank God,” he said. He leaned back in his chair, tilted his head, and exhaled. “You have no idea what a relief that is,” he said. “I could hardly keep the car on the road today because I felt so sick about what I’d done.”
“You tried to give an officer you respected a chance to get things in place so he could defend himself,” I said. “No one could fault you for that.”
“I could fault me,” Robert said, sitting upright again. “I must have gone soft in the head. Joanne, if the inspector had taken off because you’d warned him there was trouble brewing, I would have been responsible. After thirty-five years on the force I don’t know how I could have faced that kind of betrayal of my fellow officers.” Robert snapped his fingers. “And my sister officers,” he added hastily. “Rosalie tells me I have to watch that kind of stuff.” He took off his hat and placed it, dripping, on his knees. “I’m making a mess,” he said.
“It’s only water,” I said.
Robert gave me a small smile. “Is that offer of soup still open? My appetite’s come back.”
“Then you’re at the right place,” I said.
I made tea and filled Robert in on Maggie Niewinski’s phone call as he ate.
After he’d finished his soup, Robert took his bowl to the sink. He turned on the tap and, with his back still to me, said, “Can I make a personal observation?”
“Sure,” I said.
Robert kept rinsing his bowl, and I remembered how uneasy he had always been about dealing with women. “I know you and the inspector are no longer an item,” he said. “But I thought you’d be a lot more worried about him
