John-Joe’s hand reached up to his bruised cheek. He laughed. “He sure don’t like us Indians, eh? But he’s too smart to leave marks like this. Nope, got this when the skidoo threw me into a tree. And look, I’m sorry about your jacket.”
“Don’t worry. At least it kept you warm. But tell me, why did you run? It only makes you look guilty.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I figured the Creator had showed me the river, so I took it.”
“So why come to me, a white woman and off-reserve at that? And not Eric or someone else in the band?”
“You promised to help,” he said simply. “I believed you.”
“But John-Joe, the only way I can help is by making certain the legal system treats you as innocent until proven guilty. I’ve already lined up Tommy Whiteduck as your lawyer.”
“Good,” he said as if acknowledging a decision he’d already made. He continued slowly sipping his coffee. Then he leaned back in his chair and looked directly at me. “I want you to find Chantal’s killer.”
“Me?” I replied, startled. “The police are much better equipped to do that.”
“You seen how they treat me,” he spat out. “You really think those fuckin’ SQ pigs are gonna do anything? They wanna make damn sure I get locked away for a very long time.”
I had to admit he had a point.
“That’s why I want you. Besides, as my grandfather used to say, it’s better to take the trail few people use.” He sneezed. “Damn this cold.”
For a second, I didn’t know what he was talking about, then I realized what he meant. It was a trail that had been used only once before. I might have managed to untangle my friend’s tragic death two years ago, but I did it by stumbling along a circuitous route rather than following a straight path.
“I’m not sure what I can do, but I’ll try. I guess first off, I need to know if you suspect anyone?”
He shook his head, dejectedly. “Who’d want to kill Chantal? She was so beautiful.”
“Maybe the question should be, who would want to frame you?”
That made him sit upright. “But why kill Chantal and not me?”
“Maybe they thought they could hurt you more by locking you away in jail for a very long time. Know anyone who hates you enough to want to do that?”
“Some people in the band think I’m a bit wild, but none of them would kill a person to get rid of me. It’s not our way.”
Time would tell. “Who knows about your hunting camp?”
“Everyone. Was my dad’s.”
“Could the motive have anything to do with the drugs?”
“What drugs?”
“Come off it, John-Joe. If you want my help, you’ve got to be honest with me. I saw the bag of pot on the floor.”
“Oh, that. We were just having a quiet toke.”
I slumped back in my chair, wondering how in the world I could help him, if he couldn’t even help himself. “Who’d you get it from?”
For a second his gaze shifted away, then he answered, “Chantal brought it with her.”
“You sure?” He nodded. “What about the stuff being sold on the reserve? You got anything to do with that?”
He shot me an exasperated look. “I’m not that stupid.”
“Stop the lying. If you continue, I won’t do anything more for you.”
“I’m telling the truth. I don’t sell dope.”
“John-Joe, I saw you myself. Minutes away from my shack, after I found the kids.”
“What kids?” he persisted.
I was so annoyed that I almost picked up the phone to bring in the police but didn’t. After all, the person I’d seen had been only a distant, retreating speck. Someone else could’ve been wearing an orange cap. So I told him about finding Ajidàmo and the other children yesterday, overdosed on something more powerful than straight marijuana.
When I finished, he said, “Drugs screwed up my life. I’m trying to get the kids off ’em, not on ’em. Besides, I been hidin’ out since findin’ Chantal dead.”
“Who else wears an orange baseball cap?”
“Nobody. Everyone knows it’s my trademark.”
“Why did you leave it behind at your camp, then?”
“Didn’t. Lost it before I even got there.”
“Come on, John-Joe. Don’t lie. I saw it lying on top of a box.”
He leaned back into the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m telling ya, I didn’t have it.”
I saw stubborn determination in his face. But indications of lying? Hard to tell, although I felt he was shifting his glance whenever my eye reached his. “Okay, where did you lose your hat? Maybe someone found it and used it to frame you.”
But before he could answer, my phone rang. I debated pretending I wasn’t home, then thinking it might be Eric with some useful information, I answered.
Instead, Tommy Whiteduck greeted me with the old news of John-Joe’s escape. “And as a lawyer,” Tommy continued in an authoritative but slightly ambiguous tone, “I am advising you that if you have any contact with John-Joe, you must notify the police. And call me, of course.”
“Tommy, are you at the Somerset Police Station?” I asked, watching a startled expression appear on John-Joe’s face.
“Just leaving.”
“Then perhaps you might want to drive out to Three Deer Point.”
As I hung up the phone, I said, “Tommy’ll be here within the half hour. If you want to run, I won’t stop you, nor will I tell him you were here, but I think you should at least talk to him.”
John-Joe firmed his lips in resignation and nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll wait for him.”
I got up to stoke the fire in the cookstove, a shimmering steel and porcelain affair that would’ve been the ultimate in cookery when it was bought in the late 1890s. My great-aunt, despite having bought the electric stove, had continued to use it for much of her cooking. I, on the other hand, used it for heating the kitchen, boiling water and heating soup. I figured there wasn’t much I could do to ruin canned soup. In the beginning I’d tried using Aunt Aggie’s ancient stovetop percolator, which under her tender care had made heavenly coffee, but after creating stuff that looked like molasses and tasted worse, I had turned to modernity. I refilled our mugs from the electric coffee maker and returned to the table. By now Sergei, having decided his protective services were no longer needed, had stretched out away from the heat on the mat by the door to the pantry, where he knew I kept his food. The stark gauntness in John-Joe’s face had disappeared. His long ponytail had almost dried in the heat of the kitchen. And although his shivering had stopped, his fingers tapped nervously on the wooden table. He turned his gaze to the blackness beyond the kitchen window and drank his coffee.
“I can stay free, live off the land like my grandfather did,” he said. “I can build myself another camp deep into the bush where no man goes. I can hunt and fish.”
He paused and drank some more coffee, then shifted his gaze back to me. “But Chantal’s killer would be running free. No, I’m not gonna run. That’s why I went back to my shack. To find the guy. And since I’m gonna be in jail, you have to do it for me.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said,