White Heat by Melanie Mcgrath Read Free Book Online Page A

skin. After Ida left, she stayed on at the
morgue on the pretence of using the bathroom, returned to the body and lifted
the one remaining eyelid. The eye looked like a lunar eclipse of the sun, the
greyish jelly rimmed by tiny yellow flames, the classic symptoms of
vitaminosis. She went directly from the morgue to Derek's room in the police
office to tell him that, in her opinion, Samwillie Brown had died of an
overdose of vitamin A, which in the Arctic could only mean one thing: the man
had eaten polar-bear liver.
        Derek
listened, then shrugged the information off, pointing out that Samwillie Brown
was a drunk and looked jaundiced most of the time. Edie had been startled by
his casual indifference. Until that moment, she'd had Derek Palliser down as
the old-fashioned type — dedicated, something of an outsider, perhaps, but a
by-the-book kind of man. But now he seemed to be quite determined to abnegate
responsibility. She wondered if something had rattled him, if he'd become
temporarily unhinged. Inuit often said that was what happened when you spent
more time in an office than out on the land; one by one you lost your senses.
After that, you lost your mind.
        Eventually
they went back to the morgue together, Edie lifted Samwillie's one good eye and
Derek Palliser agreed: the flames did seem to indicate vitamin A poisoning.
        A
couple of days later Derek flew in a pathologist who ran tests which confirmed
that Samwillie Brown had died of hypervitaminosis, the deadly overdose of
vitamin A that comes from eating bear liver. Knowing no Inuit, even a drunk
one, would ever be so stupid as to eat bear liver voluntarily, Derek went back
to the house Samwillie and Ida shared, taking Edie's bear dog with him. She
tried to recall which Bonehead it had been. She thought back to the date.
Bonehead the Second most like.
        In
any case, when Derek Palliser insisted on defrosting some hamburger he found at
the back of the meat store, Bonehead Two went crazy at the smell of fresh bear
meat. Not long after that, Ida confessed. What else could she do? The
circumstantial and forensic evidence meshed up. Unable to tolerate Samwillie's
violent and brutish behaviour any more, she'd started feeding her husband raw
hamburger tainted with bear liver. No one seemed to notice him getting sicker
because no one liked him enough to care. Derek Palliser had been promoted to
sergeant for 'an outstanding investigation', but he and Edie realized they'd
both been naive. Autisaq didn't exactly thank Derek Palliser for what he had
done but, with the exception of a few hardliners who hadn't forgiven him for
progressing the Johnnie Audlaluk case, the inhabitants grudgingly accepted he
was just doing his job. They weren't so understanding of Edie.
        Edie and
Joe finished their tea in silence. Pauloosie Allakarialak came skating by the
building, followed by Mike and Etok Nungaq, fresh from closing up the store.
Joe began chewing his nails again. Edie tried not to pull on her pigtails. The
clock swung round to 9 p.m. The sun continued to burn. They could hear muffled
voices coming from the council chamber but couldn't make out any words. After
what seemed like an age, the door to the chamber swung open and Sammy Inukpuk's
weathered face appeared, looking grim. There was something sly or perhaps
evasive, Edie thought, in the speed with which he withdrew back into the room,
as though he were signalling that his loyalties were to the men inside.
        Edie
and Joe followed him in. The elders watched them in silence as they sat. No one
smiled. After a moment Simeonie Inukpuk began to speak in oddly formal tones,
the kind Edie associated with the feds and do-gooders from down south.
        'The
council of Elders has considered the circumstances surrounding the death of the
hunter, Felix Wagner,' Simeonie began, 'and has determined his death was caused
by a bullet fired by him from his own rifle ricocheting off a boulder