Here is a free sample of Bones of the Elbow for your reading pleasure!
Chapter 1
Margie braided her long, black hair and pinned it up. She studied herself in the mirror to make sure that she looked reasonably presentable. She hadn’t had the best sleep the night before, plagued by restlessness and weird nightmares. She didn’t know what had triggered the nightmares, whether it had been something to do with work or just something she had eaten too close to bedtime.
She didn’t have anything to complain about as far as her personal life went. Christina was doing well in school, applying herself to her studies and thinking about what she was going to do when she was finished high school. Her “friend who was a boy,” Tracy, was very diligent in his studies, so that had rubbed off on Christina. What else was she going to do when they were together and he was doing his homework and studying? Play games on her phone?
And what was she going to do when they were finished school and he went on to university and they weren’t in the same school anymore? Was she going to go to the University of Calgary? Mount Royal? SAIT? Go into Arts? Did she want to identify herself as Indigenous and take a cultural pathway?
Margie was glad that she had moved to Calgary, where Christina had more opportunities than she’d had in Winnipeg. They had found their place in Calgary; Margie was making more as a detective and had squirreled a little money away. Christina had been there long enough to make friends and get to know the city.
Of course Christina could always choose to go back to Winnipeg to one of the smaller universities there, taking advantage of the smaller, more intimate community. Margie smiled at the thought of Christina turning the tables on her mother and returning to the Peg to study when Margie had gone through all of the turmoil of moving to give Christina new opportunities.
Stella was barking at the back door, so Margie hurried to let her out for a run in the backyard, pausing and scoping it out before opening the outside door, to make sure that the gate was firmly closed and no one had thrown anything over the fence that might be hazardous for the dog. Stella, wriggling all over, could barely contain herself until Margie opened the door and let her run free.
Christina blundered into the kitchen, her eyes barely even open. She fumbled to fill a travel mug with coffee and then sipped it for a moment, eyes closed all the way, before the klaxon alarm on her phone rang again and she headed toward the door.
“Bye, Mom. See you tonight.”
“You’re going to have to open your eyes to cross the street.”
“I will,” Christina called back with a laugh.
Margie stood in the doorway and watched Christina safely cross the street, just in time to catch the bus that would take her to school. She had the routine down to a science. Unless, of course, the bus was running early or late or the app was not updated with its location. There had been a few bust-ups, but Christina had taken the responsibility on herself, and she had not called Margie to be rescued when something hadn’t worked out. Her little girl was not a little girl anymore.
Margie had a cup of coffee herself, waiting for Stella to finish in the backyard. The big snow dump of a week earlier was melting quickly with the warm Chinook winds coming over the mountains to the west. When Stella finished investigating each pile and lump of snow in the backyard and came inside, she was covered with mud. She stood obediently on the mat while Margie wiped Stella’s paws and legs and what she could of her belly. The dog still looked somewhat bedraggled, but she would look better once she was dry.
“Okay, I’ll see you after work too,” Margie told Stella. Mrs. Rose next door would let her out during the day, and would feed her after school let out if Christina were not coming straight home, which was the case more and more often.
When Margie arrived at the office, Staff Sergeant MacDonald was standing by her desk looking irritated, which was not a good sign. Margie glanced at her watch to make sure that she was not late. A couple of minutes past the hour, but that could be explained by having to wait for a red light or the elevator.
“Sergeant? What can I do for you?”
“Don’t get comfortable, I’m sending you right back out.”
Margie had been sliding her bag off her shoulder, but caught it and settled it back in place. “Okay. What’s up?”
“Possible human remains found in Griffith Woods. You know where that is?”
“Northwest?” Margie guessed a quadrant, but really wasn’t sure.
“Southwest,” MacDonald advised. “Discovery Ridge.”
Margie looked at him blankly. She might have heard of Discovery Ridge, but she hadn’t been there for any other cases.
“It borders the reservation,” MacDonald prompted. “The Tsuu T’ina nation?”
“Oh…” Margie had a better idea where the reservation was. “Got it. Where they built the ring road.”
The ring road went all the way around Calgary, and it had taken years of negotiations to work out the least disruptive route for the Tsuu T’ina nation. The men who had originally set aside the reservation land had apparently never imagined little Fort Calgary would ever become the sprawling metropolis it was.
The proximity of human remains to the reservation explained why MacDonald wanted Margie to go, other than her “Parks Pat” nickname that got her sent off to any homicide in a Calgary park, despite the fact that she didn’t really have any specialized knowledge or skills in dealing with homicide or a sudden death in the Calgary parks.
“Are you sending me because of issues with the reservation?” she asked. “You know that I am Métis, right? Not Tsuu T’ina?”
MacDonald smiled. “I am aware,” he agreed. “But there are… cultural aspects that you are more sensitive to. There are other detectives that I would not want to send into a situation like this.”
Thinking about how Gagnon would present himself with his sometimes offensive bluntness, or Siever’s potential awkwardness or cultural blindness, Margie could understand why she was the top choice if they had to interface with the nation.
“Who do you want me to take with me? Jones?”
Detective Jones looked up from her work at the next desk over. She had, of course, been listening in on the conversation, curious about the latest call.
“No, I’m going to send Cruz.” MacDonald shrugged at the two of them, apologetic. “In case there are any issues with female authority figures.”
Margie rolled her eyes. Her reflex reaction was to complain about misogyny and sexism and to tell him that he should go ahead and send the best two people for the job without regard to their gender. Not that Jones was any better than Cruz, they were both excellent detectives. But Margie knew that the discrimination wasn’t coming from MacDonald, but was his effort to prevent anyone else’s feelings about the ability of a woman to do a homicide detective’s job to slow down their investigation. He was sending Margie as the lead; she couldn’t claim someone else was usurping her position. MacDonald wanted Cruz there to make sure they didn’t run into any roadblocks with people who wouldn’t talk to Margie or assumed she was less skilled at her job because of her gender.
MacDonald brushed his hand over his short-cropped gray hair, watching her and waiting for her reaction to this news.
“Cruz it is, then,” Margie agreed, not letting her emotions get the better of her. “Has he been briefed already?”
“He has,” MacDonald agreed. “And he’ll make sure you don’t get lost on the way.”
Margie was willing to ignore the tease, but Jones laughed. “Oooh, burn!” she chuckled.
As much as Margie would have liked to argue that she didn’t need any help, she and the rest of the department knew only too well that even following GPS instructions, Margie could take a wrong turn and end up on a main thoroughfare that would take forever to get back off from. And then she was entirely capable of taking another wrong exit—or even the very same one—immediately after getting turned back around.
She just shrugged and shook her head, looking around for Cruz. “Well, if it’s that important that I get there right away.”
MacDonald opened his mouth to point out that of course he wanted her to get there as quickly as she could, then he recognized she was teasing him back, and closed his mouth. He gave a nod and turned to go back to his own officer.
“Cruz is just arranging the coffee, then you’ll be on your way.”
Chapter 2
“So, what are the details?” Margie asked Cruz once they were out of downtown. She put her travel cup in the cupholder and watched the road ahead, looking for familiar landmarks. The river was to their right, Margie knew, but she wasn’t familiar with anything else in the area.
“We don’t have a lot yet. Someone out for a hike discovered bones on the bank of the Elbow River. Looks like they’ve been there for quite a while, buried in the mud. Because it is on traditional lands, there are concerns that it could be Indigenous. We’ll have to take a look, get an archaeologist out there, probably, and talk to the band leaders to let them know what’s going on and get their input.”
Margie nodded. “Yeah, okay. What are the chances that they actually are human bones? And not just… a deer or other large mammal?”
Cruz chuckled. “You sound like a seasoned pro,” he said. “Yeah, most of the time when we get a call to investigate human bones in a park, it ends up being someone’s chicken dinner or a deer. But it sounds like the parks rep who got there ahead of us also thinks it is human. So hopefully, it’s not a wasted trip.”
“Well, at least it’s a nice day.” Margie smiled at the bright Chinook arch on the horizon. “I don’t mind being out on a day like today. If it was thirty below, that would be another story.”
“Probably no one would be out there walking to find them, then,” Cruz pointed out.
“True. I hope. I’ll just be thankful for the weather today.”
Cruz agreed. “You know anything about Griffith Woods?”
“I don’t think I ever heard of it before.”
“I would think you’d be learning about all of the parks, considering the fact you’re going to end up in all of them sooner or later at this rate.”
“No, thanks. There are something like 75 official parks in Calgary and over five thousand green spaces. I never know which one I’m going to be visiting next.”
“Well, you may as well look up Griffith Woods on the way, so we’ll be educated by the time we get there.”
Margie pulled out her phone and tapped the name into her browser search bar. She checked the first result from the City of Calgary website and browsed through it.
“It’s an environmental preserve, so we’re not looking at something like Shouldice. Though it says there are athletic fields at one end. Ninety-three hectares of protected park space. Wetlands. The Elbow River, as you said. And bordering on the Tsuu T’ina reservation.”
Margie navigated back to look at some of the other search results. “Looks like the reservation is having a few problems with trespassers. Things are heating up.”
Cruz glanced at her, his expression serious. “Heating up how much?”
“Hard to tell for sure. A few news articles are talking about the dangers of trespassing and the band enforcing the law against trespassers. I’ll have to dig deeper to see if there are any arguments about it online. I’m not great at doing that on my phone.”
“I’m more concerned about the offline arguments. We’ll have to watch our step.”
“Well, I guess that’s why Sarge assigned the two of us.” Margie thought about how tactful Gagnon might be under such circumstances and snorted. It was a good thing MacDonald knew his team well enough to recognize this was a situation that required some sensitive handling.
“Okay… here we are,” Cruz said, checking his GPS to make sure they used the correct entrance to the park. Margie assumed Cruz had the exact coordinates, so they wouldn’t have to traipse over 93 hectares of wild space to find the remains.
He slowed, and Margie read the road signs, noting that the park had equestrian trails, that dogs had to remain on leash at all times, and that there were strict rules against leaving the pathways, as even walking on the ground could damage the fragile ecosystem.
They would have to be very careful not to disrupt any more vegetation than necessary.
A patrol officer stood near the road. Cruz pulled to a stop beside him and rolled down the window.
“Detectives Cruz and Patenaude.”
“Yes, sir. You’re just going to follow this loop around,” the young cop told him earnestly. “My partner has his unit parked up there with the lights on. Just leave your car there, and someone will take you to the scene.”
Cruz nodded and rolled forward. He followed the constable’s directions and pulled in behind the other vehicle. An earnest-looking female Calgary Parks employee in a vest and hoodie approached them, adjusting her dirty blonde ponytail.
“Are you the detectives?”
“Detectives Cruz and Patenaude,” Cruz introduced again.
Margie nodded her greeting. The woman studied her for a moment, looking disconcerted about something, but she smiled and nodded back and then spoke to Cruz again.
“I’m Laurel Sherman. If you’ll just follow me, then, I’ll take you to the site. You need to be very careful where you walk. Please stay on the pathway. If you want to look at something off the pathway, talk to me about it, and we can sort it out. But we can’t have people just walking all over the place.” She smiled. “Okay?”
“We understand,” Cruz agreed. “We’ll stay on the pathway. If we need to collect evidence, we will let you know. And I assume that you have not touched our bones.”
Laurel laughed. “No, I didn’t touch anything. Being so close to the reservation, in an area that was once home to the Tsuu T’ina people, we are always mindful of artifacts that may turn up, and know not to touch anything until the archaeologists and elders have seen what it is and made a plan.”
“Do you find a lot of artifacts?” Margie asked.
“No, but they do show up occasionally. When we are removing invasive species, for instance, a projectile point might come up with the roots. Then we have to preserve it until everyone has had their say.” The woman frowned and looked at Margie. “Are you with the band? I don’t remember seeing you here before.”
“No,” Margie said. “I’m with Calgary Police Services. And I am Métis.”
“Oh, okay.” She nodded, looking relieved. “I thought… it would be strange for them to have sent someone already, and I would not have expected them to come in the way you did. But that doesn’t mean they can’t…”
Margie nodded.
“Of course Indigenous people can be police officers,” Laurel went on quickly. “I’m sure that there are a lot of people of different races in the police department. Like your friend…” She indicated Cruz. “Your partner, I mean. You are…” she hesitated, looking at Cruz, trying to classify his face.
“Filipino,” Cruz filled in, smiling. “And Detective Patenaude is one of the only Indigenous people on the force. So, now that we’ve got that sorted out, maybe we could see the remains?”
“Right, yes, of course.”
Some people got nervous around the police even when they hadn’t done anything wrong, and Laurel was clearly one of them. She was sweating even though the air was cool, kept talking when she didn’t need to explain anything, and was speaking much too quickly. Margie didn’t try to soothe her. They would probably get much further ahead if they just let her do her job and get out of the way.
“I responded as soon as the report came in that bones had been discovered in the park,” she told them. “I’m pretty good at being able to identify the bones of different animals. You get to know them after working here for a while. People find coyote kills or the bones left behind by hunters. Even kitchen scraps, sometimes, people just dumping their picnic waste in the middle of the park. but when I saw these remains… well, there’s no mistaking them.”
They walked on the pathway through the woods. Even though there was still snow on the ground from the big snowfall, Margie could see how beautiful it must be in the summer when all of the leaves were out, and the grass and ground cover grew in. Some winter birds chirped in the trees, watching them.
“Okay, this is where we have to go off the path,” their guide cautioned. “Try to walk in my footsteps. But the ground is wet and slippery, and if you need to step to the side to stabilize yourself and keep from falling, then that’s the way it goes. We don’t want anyone to fall and get hurt. As we get closer, it will get steeper as we negotiate the riverbank. Be careful and take your time.”
As they followed Laurel, Margie wondered how the park user had found the bones in the first place. What had they been doing off the pathway and down by the river?
In a lot of cases, it was runners or dog walkers who found bodies in the woods. But neither should have been walking off the trail near the river. The signs were very clear, but there were always people who thought that the rules didn’t apply to them.
They slowed as Laurel started to pick her way down a slope. Margie could hear the river and smell the fresh, moist air as they got closer. It was too early in the season for the river to be completely frozen over yet.
Margie let Cruz go ahead of her and followed his large footprints, trying to position her feet so that she wouldn’t slip and fall. She didn’t need to add falling into the river to her department resume.
After they went over an embankment, the ground leveled out again, so Margie didn’t feel like she was going to trip and fall directly into the river. She could see that there was still a buffer zone before she was in dangerous territory.
“Here we are,” Cruz observed.
The unfortunate hiker was still there, along with another patrol officer. There were bones scattered on the ground and others partially embedded in the mud.
“You can see that they were probably all localized here,” Laurel said, motioning. “But the heavy snowfall and then the Chinook made the bank here crumble, so that some of the bones were exposed. Who knows how long they were buried here?”
The remains were clearly human. Not the leg bone of a deer or an elk, or any other large mammal. A portion of a human skull was still embedded in the mud. No long snout like a dog or a deer. Human or something closely related, and Margie didn’t think any chimps or orangutans were wandering Griffith Woods.
Cruz and Margie nodded and walked carefully around the area, looking around to see how far the bones had been scattered, whether they all had the same appearance, and whether there was any sign of a weapon, clothing, or other critical evidence in the vicinity.
“How did you happen to find the remains?” Margie asked the hiker. She wanted to call him a boy, with his smooth, clean-shaven cheeks and slim build. But he was a good deal taller than she was, and his skin, when examined more closely, was slightly wrinkled. Quite a bit older than he looked at first glance.
He scratched the back of his neck and looked down, growing red. “Well, I was walking on the path,” he said, “staying on the path like you are supposed to. But I could hear the ravens. They were calling and flying around this area; it was obvious they had found something, and I thought I’d better come over and see what it was. It could have been an injured animal or something like that,” he pointed out, trying to justify himself. “But when I got here, I could see them picking up the bones and fighting over them. When I saw the skull… well…” He shrugged.
That was when he had called 9-1-1, and they had routed the inquiry to Calgary Parks and sent a couple of patrol officers around to be on hand if needed to control the scene.
“Okay, you can come back to the car with us to answer some questions,” Cruz told the witness. “We will need to get some crime scene tape up and make sure that no one else can walk through here. We don’t know how far the scavengers might have scattered them. We’ll need to call an archaeologist to come out and take a look, tell us what we’ve got here, and how long they might have been exposed. And we were told that the Tsuu T’ina would need to be involved?” his tone went up in a question as he looked at Laurel.
“Yes, it is Tsuu T’ina land just across the river there,” she pointed. “They will probably want verification of whether it is an Indigenous person, and want input on how the bones are handled and where they eventually go.”
“We’ll give them a call too. Maybe Detective Pat would like to be the point person there.”
“Sure,” Margie agreed. Since that was why she was there to begin with. “Does anyone have a contact and number, or do I need to track something down?”
“We have a contact,” Laurel offered. “Hang on…” She got out her phone and scrolled through numbers. “Okay, here it is. Trevor Eagle Feather.” She read the phone number off to Margie.
Margie tapped the number into her phone and looked at Cruz. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the difficult task. She had done enough death notifications that it shouldn’t be a problem. But in this case, she didn’t know who was dead, if they were related or an ancestor, or how or when they had died. It was a little more challenging. At least she had the number of someone to call and didn’t have to go through a web directory looking for the right person to call to notify the band of a death.
Cruz gave her a nod and pulled out his own phone. He had people to call or update as well.
Margie hit the green call button on her phone and waited.
I hope you enjoyed this sample of
Bones of the Elbow
By P.D. Workman
