“Two cops and the casino manager’s bad for business, huh?”

“Take a look around you, Detective Inspector. Nothing distracts these people for long. I just thought we’d hear each other better.”

“No, that’s fine,” she said, “I’m not planning on staying long.”

“I’ve seen the man’s picture now, but I didn’t know him,” Travers said.

“Can you tell me if he was a casino-goer?”

“I can tell you if he was a member of the casino.”

“Well, that would be a start.”

Travers unhooked a rope from its stand and went behind a row of tables where an entirely other kind of business was going on. Men in suits and women in long skirts populated this area, which was full of computers and drawers and security guards wandering back and forth. Travers was surprisingly spry for a big man, and he turned this way and that, putting a hand on one person’s shoulder, then another’s, passing a friendly word. It had to be a big job, keeping people this focused and motivated in an environment of odd extremes. He stopped at a console in the middle of the work area and typed on a keyboard. His fingers seemed too big to press the keys accurately. A moment later, he returned, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Was he a sneaky type?”

“Sneaky?” she asked.

“It’s not impossible to get a membership card made up in a false name. Or to come in with someone else’s card.”

“Why would a person do that?”

“Because they’re sneaky,” said Bellecourt, and she and Travers shared a little laugh.

“No. I don’t think he was the sneaky type.”

“Then he wasn’t here,” said Travers. “He wasn’t a member.”

“Okay, then,” said Hazel. “Maybe the two of you could fill me in on a couple of other things, then.”

They waited patiently, like children.

“Does this place foot the bill for the station house and the hospital?”

“Absolutely,” said Travers. “And the skating rink, and the community centre.”

“Isn’t it a little hazardous having a casino right in the middle of the reserve?”

Bellecourt answered, smiling. “For who? Natives suffer from gambling addictions at about the same rate that non-natives do. But we keep an eye on the community and we try to identify problems before they get serious.”

“So some of the profits here go into your addiction-counselling programs?”

“No,” said Bellecourt. “The province pays for that. Part of the original arrangement.”

Hazel was shaking her head. “I’m sorry if this comes out the wrong way, but that’s a hell of a sweet deal.”

“Well, it’s certainly better than being landless and homeless, I agree.”

She decided it was time to take her leave. “You’ve both been most helpful,” she said. She exited through the cacophony to the rear doors and back into the fresh air.

The back parking area was much like the front: big lots with high light standards. In the intervening fifteen minutes, night had fallen and the lamps cast giant pools of warm light over the asphalt. She wondered how much light there had been in the back of Eagle Smoke and Souvenir. Because here, there were dark zones where the circles of light did not meet. Perhaps something untoward could happen in scraps of darkness that would not be seen by others. Clearly it was time to pay a visit on her own to the smoke shop. There was nothing in the QBPS report that mentioned the presence of surveillance cameras, but maybe there was some footage of something. If she owned a smoke shop on the main road in the middle of an Indian reserve, she’d have surveillance cameras. Hazel walked quickly toward the rear of the property and stood at the edge of the lot. There was no one parked this far away from the casino. Who would bother? Beyond her was a riot of trees and scrub, the same forest that surrounded everything down here, including the smoke shop’s parking lot. Plenty of places for hives – no mystery why the cause of death had been so easy to settle on. She leaned her body in toward the trees and listened and thought, for a moment, she could hear a distant buzzing. Then, suddenly, she did, and it was coming from very close to her body. She startled back two huge steps and then slumped. It was her radio vibrating on her hip. She unhooked it. “Micallef,” she barked.

“Hazel? It’s James. Where are you?”

“I’m at the Five Nations Casino. Haven’t you left yet?”

“I didn’t get a chance. Something’s happened to Cathy Wiest …”

] 9 [

It took her thirty minutes to get to the emergency clinic in Kehoe Glenn. Wingate was waiting for her when she arrived.

“Have you seen her? Is she okay?”

“She’s okay,” he said quickly. They went down a short hallway. “She’s in a room now.”

“So it was a Taser?”

“I don’t know. The paramedic said she had two puncture wounds in her chest.”

“Just punctures?”

“Like the ones on her husband.”

“Oh man,” Hazel said. “What the hell is going on here? Have you been able to talk to her?”

“Not yet. I’ve told you everything I know.” He opened a door and Cathy Wiest was sitting up in a hospital bed with a white bandage wrapped around her skull.

Hazel turned in the doorway. “Everything?”

“Sorry,” he said. “And she was hit over the head with a rock or something.”

“Good lord.” Hazel dragged a chair around to the side of the bed. “How are you feeling, Cathy?”

“Oh, my head is just killing me.”

“She has to stay overnight for the concussion watch.”

“What happened?” Hazel asked.

“I woke up in the bathroom. There was blood all over my blouse. And the door was closed …”

“You told the paramedics it was a girl who attacked you? Did you know her?”

“No.”

“Do you think Henry knew her?”

“I guess he must have.” Her voice was faint and querulous. “She killed him … didn’t she? With that … gun.”

“I don’t know, Cathy. Tell me, did you see the gun?”

“No. It happened very quickly.”

“Did wires shoot out of it? Did you see any wires?”

“I don’t know. She was standing there and next thing, I woke up in the bathroom.” Her eyes landed on Hazel’s and they were empty and haunted now. “You knew something, didn’t you? That’s why you wanted a second autopsy.”

“I didn’t know anything, Cathy, honestly.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I just … I was doing my job. I didn’t think I was right, but I had to look into it.”

“Well, I guess you were right.” Hazel put her hand in Cathy’s. Cathy grasped it.

“Can you describe her?”

“She was dirty. Like she’d been crawling through fields.”

“How old was she?”

“Young. Twenty. Twenty-two. She had an accent.”

“What kind of accent?”

“I’m not sure. She didn’t say very much. Maybe Swedish. Or German. Her eyes were like an animal’s, like a raccoon in the street.”

“Do you know how long you were in the bathroom?”

“Over an hour. I woke up, I don’t know how long after she hit me, and she was still in the house … I heard her on the floor above. So I stayed where I was. She was throwing things around. And then she left and I stayed in the bathroom for another half-hour before I came out.”

“Did you go upstairs?”

“I stayed in the kitchen.”

Wingate had gone out and now he returned with a doctor in a white smock. “I’m Dr. Morton,” he said. “How can I help you?”

“I want you to discharge Mrs. Wiest.”

“Oh,” he said. “She needs to stay under observation. She took quite a conk on her noggin.”

“This woman is in danger of more than a concussion, Doctor. I’ll keep her safe. But if the person who did this to her is still in the area, you could have a situation on your hands here.”

“Couldn’t you leave an officer with us? Or a couple?”

She thought about that for a moment. Then decided against it. “I don’t think so.”

Morton directed his attention to his patient. “Are you comfortable with this, Cathy?”