White Heat by Melanie Mcgrath Read Free Book Online

still, he was
showing all the signs of advanced hypovolemic shock. He reckoned at the time
that Wagner's chances of survival were small but he hadn't said so for fear of
discouraging Edie and Andy Taylor, as well as Felix Wagner himself. He knew it
was important that everyone was agreed they were on a mission to save a man's
life.
        Simeonie
wanted to know if waiting for the plane had affected Wagner's chances. Joe was
sure it hadn't helped, but to what degree the wait for the plane had affected
the outcome he couldn't say. It was possible Felix Wagner would have died
anyway.
        The
elders listened to the remainder of Joe's testimony without comment. When he
finished, Sammy Inukpuk asked Edie and Joe to step outside and wait in the
administration office.
        To
pass the time, Edie went into the office kitchen and made tea. While Joe sat at
one of the workstations picking at his nails, Edie sat cradling a hot mug.
Neither felt relaxed enough to talk. Why were they there? As witnesses?
Suspects? Defendants? Edie thought about Derek Palliser. She'd been thinking
about Derek a good deal over the past twenty-four hours, assuming there would
have to be a police investigation into Wagner's death. Now she wasn't so sure.
The mayor usually handled any small community disturbances - drunkenness,
domestic squabbles, petty theft hut this was bigger than that. Any unexpected
death, Derek was automatically called in, wasn't he? She tried to recall the
number of times in the past few years. Only twice, she thought. The first time
was after Johnnie Audlaluk beat his little stepson to death, which must have been
eight or nine years ago. The elders had wanted to deal with the situation
internally, but news of the boy's death reached a relative in Yellowknife and
she had called the Yellowknife police who had in turn alerted Derek Palliser.
Audlaluk was held for psychiatric assessment, later tried and found guilty of
manslaughter. He was still lingering in some secure psychiatric unit somewhere.
        His
case illustrated precisely why the elders preferred not to involve police
unless they had to. Almost everyone in Autisaq, including Johnnie's own
parents, thought it would have been more humane to deal with him the Inuit way;
lake him up to the mountains and, when he was least expecting it, push him off
a cliff. No one said this to the then Constable Palliser, of course, but he'd
picked it up anyway. His insistence on bringing the case to trial had made him
enemies.
        Though
Edie had disagreed with Derek's actions, she had a lingering respect for the
man, which was probably why she had helped him out in the Brown case five years
ago. Everyone else had been in favour of burying that one too. At the end of a
particularly harsh winter a passing hunter had found Samwillie Brown's dead
body out on the land. The foxes had made a meal of him. The council of Elders
had put the death down to an accident or natural causes and the whole thing
would have been buried along with the remains of Samwillie Brown had it not
been for the fact that the arrival of Brown's body back in Autisaq happened to
coincide with one of Derek's routine patrols. The policeman had made himself
extremely unpopular by insisting on another investigation. Samwillie Brown had
been a cheat and a bully and most people were glad to see the back of him. The
only person who seemed genuinely upset by his death was his wife, Ida, who was
also the one person most frequently at the business end of Samwillie's fist.
But that was how it was sometimes. No doubt some southern shrink would label it
co-dependency. Up here in Autisaq it was known as loyalty. Ida had asked Edie
to accompany her to the formal identification of the body. They were friends of
a sort. Ida had stayed over at Edie's house a few times when Samwillie was
drunk enough to be dangerous.
        The
moment Edie saw what remained of the dead man, she was struck by the
parchment-coloured sheen on the