“Meaning?”

“Meaning that I would confirm Dr. Deacon’s autopsy, with the understanding that if I made any other findings, they could have an effect on my interpretation.”

“Is it likely that after a third autopsy, meaningful new discoveries could be made?”

“Anything is possible.”

“But is it likely?”

Brett’s tongue worked the space behind his upper lip. “You are trying to get me to say I agree with Dr. Deacon’s findings without redoing my own autopsy, Detective Inspector. That’s not cricket.”

“But it sounds like Henry Wiest was electrocuted, yes?”

She saw a faint look of irritation cross the doctor’s face. “Look, I was trained at the University of Toronto. I did my rotations at Mount Sinai Hospital and Sick Kids. I have a subspecialty in infectious diseases. I’m not a country bumpkin and I’m not even a native, but I’ll tell you something: if you’ve come up here to catch us out, you’ll be sorely disappointed. This is a working community, with experts, mostly Indian, at every level of the municipality. I didn’t do further tests because I didn’t think it was necessary, and almost every pathologist faced with a body that presented as Wiest’s did would have stopped where I did, too.”

“But. Given everything you know now, being a trained doctor and everything, it really does look like he was electrocuted. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Dr. Brett.”

] 8 [

The same night

Outside of the hospital, the August night was finally falling, and Hazel realized she’d been working for almost twelve hours.

She retraced her steps toward the casino and walked down the long driveway lined with bright flowers up to the front doors. RC Bellecourt was waiting for her. The constable offered her hand – everyone was so bloody proper here – and the two of them went inside. Instantly the remaining daylight was annulled. Smoked glass gave the casino an intimate nighttime feel, and as she approached the inner doors, she could also feel the soothing blast of air-conditioning from within. One of the casino’s security guards was standing beside a podium and stepped out toward them as they reached the inner doors. “Is there anything wrong, Constable Bellecourt?” His uniform was too big on him.

“No,” she said, “not at all. This is Detective Inspector Micallef, and she’s just here to have a look-see.”

The guard offered his hand. “Jesus,” Hazel muttered as she shook it.

“Now, ma’am, I hope you won’t be gambling while on duty! That would be against provincial laws.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Hazel said. “I just wanted to look around.”

“Well,” he said, “normally, you’d need a player’s card to go in. It’s a members-only casino, but anyone can be a member.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” she said. “If just anyone can be a member?”

The guard smiled warmly at her. “That’s just the rules here, ma’am.” He stepped aside and let them pass.

The moment they entered the casino proper, the dark silence of the foyer was cancelled by an eruption of sound and light. Electronic bells clanged, chips clacked against each other, voices rose. And although it was much cooler in here – as she began to walk between the banks of slot machines with Constable Bellecourt exactly two steps behind her – she also detected little ribbons of sour heat coming off the machines and the people who worked them. Overheating transistors and flop sweat. There was a seizure-inducing scintillation of light everywhere.

Bellecourt leaned into toward her and said into her ear, “Dr. Brett is a nice guy, huh?”

“A prince.” She tried to put a bit more distance between them, but from the sounds of the constable’s footfalls, she was keeping up.

It was a huge room, at least the size of a football field. It looked like it could hold five thousand people. As she walked toward the back, she saw, through a cut-out in one of the walls, that there was a little poker room with men in it gathered around tables. She turned away and walked toward the table games. Men and women sat or stood around these tables, throwing dice or placing bets on green felt. The occasional hoot of triumph broke through the low-level hum of disappointment. As if a sound were being played through individual speakers scattered throughout the area, she heard the same defeated groan go up in one place and then another. There was something … damp about the whole place, as if everything and everyone in it had been swabbed down with a moist, dirty cloth.

She paused at the craps table, which had raised sides and a playing field within it. She watched the impenetrable ritual, and the people participating in it watched her and Constable Bellecourt nervously. One man rolled the dice while others looked on and sometimes everyone cheered and sometimes a few people cheered and others emitted the defeated groan. And then sometimes, the three-man crew running the game would suddenly take all the chips and the baize would be left bare. She shook her head in wonder and walked toward where there had been a huge roar. This was a roulette table with people standing around one side of it three deep, and the croupier was shouting, “Twenty-three black! Big winner!”

Hazel leaned over the shoulders of the people at the rear of the crowd and saw the croupier putting a heavy Plexiglas cylinder on top of a pile of green chips. The croupier was bringing out a big pile of purple chips and stacking them at the back.

“Two-hundred straight up pays seven thousand,” he said, and he pushed the purple chips onto 23.

“It’s a lot of money,” said Bellecourt, and Hazel involuntarily brought her shoulders up around her ears. “Unfortunately, it has the steepest edge in the house and people who get hooked on the game lose a lot of money.” They stepped away from the action. Bellecourt was smiling. “I was wondering if you want to meet Lee now. I told him we were coming.”

“Will I have to shake his hand?”

Bellecourt grinned. “No. But I might have to kiss him.”

“Why don’t you run off and get him.”

“Well, he can come and meet us. I told him we were coming.”

“I’ll be fine here for a minute, don’t worry.”

Bellecourt dashed away, happy to be of service, and Hazel continued down the line of table games. She wished now she’d brought a picture of Wiest with her so she could show it around, but she was already drawing on the fact that one had to have a card to get into the casino. She’d start there with the manager and establish whether Wiest was even a member.

The amount of activity at the gambling tables was bewildering to her. She walked slowly through them, heading toward the gift shop, and at the bottom of the aisle, Bellecourt was waiting with an imposing man stuffed into a grey suit. She was holding hands with him, but when she saw Hazel, she disentangled herself.

“Lee, this is Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef.”

Hazel offered her hand to him before he could stick his own out. She was getting the hang of this place. “Lee …?”

“Travers,” he said. He was a strong-looking, beautiful fellow, with a muscular neck. She placed his accent as Midwestern.

“You’re not from here?”

“Ann Arbour,” he said.

“Lee was in the casino management program at U of M. There was an opening up here, and luckily, he applied for it.” She was gazing up at him hungrily. Hazel understood why Constable Bellecourt was so smitten with this wholesome Midwesterner. He looked like a movie star.

“Lydia tells me you’re investigating the death of that guy they found in the parking lot up the road,” he said.

“That would be true.”

“I have to say it’s shocking when something like that happens up here.”

“Meaning murder isn’t common on the reserve?”

“Murder? It was a murder?”

“Did you know Henry Wiest?”

“Maybe we should go to my office. We could talk there without all the clanging and banging.”