I pulled off a glove and clicked on. Ryan and Okeke continued staring at the scrap.

“Where are you?” Ollie asked me.

“Still with Okeke.”

“Bones tell you anything?”

“Ruben found motherhood inconvenient. What’s up?”

“After depositing Devereaux at WIN House, a delight I hope never to repeat, I dropped in at headquarters to see if anything had popped. Had a message from a Constable Flunky.”

“Seriously?”

“You want to hear this?”

“I’m putting you on speaker. Ryan’s with me.” I hit the button and, stupidly, fixed my eyes on the phone.

“—big guy to miss anything. Anyway, I broadcast Ruben’s pic, asked our officers to show it around on the street. Flunky actually did.”

Reception was lousy, and Ollie kept growing loud then fading. I looked up to see if Ryan was paying attention. He was punching buttons on his own iPhone.

“An agent at the Greyhound station remembered a woman who looked like Ruben tried to buy a ride to Hay River.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where’s Hay River?”

“The south shore of Great Slave Lake.”

“In the Northwest Territories.”

“Gold star for geography.”

“Was the agent sure it was Ruben?”

“No. But get this. At first he refused to sell her a ticket because of the pooch.”

“The woman had a dog?” I felt my heart skip a beat.

“Yeah. Greyhound has a no-pet policy. The only exception is a service animal.”

“So she didn’t get on?”

“The guy finally took pity and let her ride.”

I thought a minute. It made sense. The NWT has a large Dene population. I was about to say that when Ryan surprised me.

“I know where Ruben’s gone.”

Chapter 16

OKEKE AND I BOTH EYED RYAN SKEPTICALLY.

“She’s trying to get to Yellowknife.”

“What’s he saying?”

Ignoring Ollie, I gestured with my free hand for Ryan to explain.

“The last string of letters forms a complete word.”

I reconsidered the scrap.

“Monfwi is an electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.”

“And you know this because?” Without looking up.

“Two years ago I busted a kid from Monfwi for dealing crack out of the Guy-Concordia metro station in Montreal. Turned out the little twerp had juice. Twenty minutes after I let him phone Daddy, I got a call from his MLA.” Ryan used the abbreviation for Member of Legislative Assembly.

“What’s he saying?”

Ignoring the sputtering coming from my mobile, Ryan read from the screen of his iPhone. “‘The Monfwi district consists of Behchoko, Gamèti, Wekwèeti, and Whatì.’”

“Dene communities.”

“The Tlicho people, to be exact. There are five main Dene groups. The Chipewyan, living east of Great Slave Lake; the Yellowknives to the north; the Slavey along the Mackenzie River to the southwest; the Tlicho between Great Slave and Great Bear lakes; and the Sahtu living in the central part of the NWT.”

“Gold star for ethnography.” Stealing a line from Ollie.