by Dave Butler
Willson twirled a pen across her fingers. “As we continue our investigation, can we call you again?”
Castro’s laughter was a deep rumble over the phone’s speaker. “Please do,” he said. “It seems that the three of us are chasing the same elusive man. As we say in Spanish, Dos cabezas son mejores que uno. Two heads are better than one. In this situation, we now have three.”
“I agree,” said Willson. With Fortier, Berland, and now Mauricio Castro working with her, she had an investigative quartet, a foursome with enough diverse talent to peel back more layers on the onion, and faster than usual. She’d never been a true team player, preferring to work on her own, and the way the quartet had come together was not something you’d find in any investigations manual. But in this case, four heads were better than one. “Based on what you know of Mr. Austin, Mauricio, do you believe that the ski area here in Canada is legitimate? Or is Austin up to his old tricks in a new location?”
“I can’t say. But in my experience, jaguars don’t change their spots, Miss Willson. I would bet that your concerns about his project are well founded. Assuming he’s not using his own money for it, if I were one of his investors, I’d be extremely nervous about ever seeing my money again.”
CHAPTER 23
APRIL 5
The next morning, Willson sat at her kitchen table, a steaming cup of Kick Ass in hand and files piled to her left, waiting for Berland to get out of bed. They’d talked late into the night, about Austin and what they’d learned from his ex-wife and Mauricio Castro. After a third Scotch, their discussion had veered off the case and into their own backgrounds, families, and past loves. Both, it seemed, had had experiences that were equally pathetic. Willson had tossed and turned all night, wondering if she’d been too open with Berland, professionally and personally. And then there had been that long hug as they headed to separate bedrooms at the end of the evening.…
Now, in the light of morning, she was embarrassed about what she might have said, embarrassed that she couldn’t remember all of it, and embarrassed that she’d let the man get behind her defences, with his probing questions and apparent interest in everything she said. Damn him. Did he honestly want to know what she thought, she wondered, or was it nothing more than a skilled reporter building background for stories to come?
Willson’s cellphone buzzed with an incoming text. It was from Fortier. Be ready in 10 min. I’ll pick you up. Need to reinterview Sara Ilsley. She has more info for us.
Willson looked across the room at the closed bedroom door. She could hear Berland’s snores. Wake him or leave him? Because she hadn’t yet told Fortier about the reporter’s presence in town or about their phone calls from the day before, the decision was an easy one. The trip to Ilsley’s house would give her a chance to fill Fortier in on what she’d learned and what she was working on. And it would give her time to persuade him that having Berland, and perhaps even Castro, involved in the investigation, at least on the periphery, would be a good thing. At least, that was her intent.
After finishing her coffee, brushing her teeth, and running a brush through her hair, Willson scribbled a note to Berland and dropped it on the table. Gone to do an interview w/ RCMP. Help yourself to coffee and breakfast. Be back in a few hours. J.
She pulled the front door closed behind her and stood on the front porch. Nothing but clear skies over the peaks on both sides of the Rocky Mountain Trench. Much of the snow in town had melted, but the deep and brilliant white of the mountains was a dramatic counterpoint to the rich blue backdrop. She knew it would be a classic late-season ski day at Kicking Horse Mountain; she could see the gondolas crawling up the slope like a chain of ants, taking staff to their jobs and releasing early rising powder-hounds to their secret stashes.
An RCMP cruiser turned onto her street. She was there to meet it when it stopped in front of her driveway.
“Good morning, Ben,” she said, climbing into the passenger seat and quietly closing the door. She grimaced when her knee banged the mid-dash computer console.
“Sorry,” he said, waiting while she put on her seat belt. “Most people ride in the back.” As he pulled away he asked, “Who’s your visitor from Idaho?” He must have seen Berland’s vehicle in her driveway.
“I’ve got lots to tell you. His name is Mike Berland, and he’s from Boise. You remember I told you that I’d met a reporter from the Idaho Statesman when my mum and I were down there? This is the guy. Mike’s interested in Austin and the ski hill, and he decided to come up here to do some digging for himself.”
“Huh. And he’s staying with you? Do you think that’s a good idea?”
Willson looked over at Fortier before answering. The Mountie kept his eyes firmly on the road, his face blank. Was his concern professional or personal? What was with these men and their damn questions?
“He’s staying in my spare room, if that’s what you mean. And if that’s not what you mean, then I think sharing information with him — some, but not all — about my investigation into Austin may help me … help us find the truth. He can do things I can’t do, and poke into places I can’t poke without raising red flags with Austin or with my employers. But rest assured, I haven’t told him anything about the criminal investigations. And I won’t unless you agree. Happy?”
“For now. We’re taught to never fully trust reporters, so I’m uncomfortable. As long as he stays the hell out of our investigations, then I can live with it. But don’t expect me to get warm and fuzzy with him.”
“Fair enough. And just so you know, my bosses don’t know he’s here or that I’m working with him. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“You like to take chances, don’t you, Jenny?”
“I find I make better progress that way.”
“Well, I won’t say anything … but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Willson nodded. “Now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you about two phone calls Mike and I made yesterday. There’s no doubt in my mind that this all links together. We just have to figure out how.” As they drove south of Golden toward the McMurdo Benches, the winter tires hummed noisily on the paved highway, and Fortier pulled the visor down after the sun rose over Mount Seven. Willson gave him a summary of the conversations with Austin’s ex-wife and with Mauricio Castro.
Five minutes later, Fortier turned off the highway onto Horse Creek Road and pulled over onto the gravel shoulder. “That matches with the fraud charges I found in the system,” he said, turning in his seat to stare at Willson, “and it indicates that this isn’t Austin’s first rodeo.”
“Exactly,” said Willson, smiling. “Based on what we heard yesterday, I’m even surer that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I just don’t have the proof yet.”
“Geez, I’ve got to get our commercial crime guys in on this.”
“Any chance you can delay that? Let me do a bit more digging with Mike? We’re going to pursue a few new leads based on what we heard yesterday.”
Fortier nodded. “I’m not sure how much help I’ll get from our B.C. headquarters anyway, so you’ve probably got some time. But if we find any evidence of a link between Austin’s business and prior criminal activities, I’m going to push hard to get our guys involved.” A vehicle came down the hill toward them. The female driver slowed and stared at the idling police car as she went by. Fortier gave the driver a quick Nothing to see here wave and then turned back to Willson. “What I’m wondering is whether Austin is serious enough about what he’s doing to murder someone, or to nearly get himself shot simply to shift our attention from him to someone else. Or whether he’s just an innocent businessman trying to make an honest buck.”
“The more I hear, the less inclined I am to use the words innocent or honest to describe that man.”
“Agreed,” said Fortier, as he put the police car back into drive and followed the winding route of Horse Creek Road uphill to Sara Ilsley’s house on the upper bench.
Ilsley was standing
on the front porch when they pulled up. Wrapped in a large blue flannel jacket, she leaned over the wooden railing, her greying hair in a tight braid that hung down her left shoulder. She looked as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. She didn’t move as they walked across the yard toward her. When they reached the stairs to the porch, she straightened and headed for her front door. “Come in,” she said over her shoulder, with a resigned sigh. “I’ve got the coffee on.”
Once they had mugs of coffee in hand, Willson and Fortier sat across from Ilsley, two uniformed bookends on an overstuffed leather couch.
Against her own nature, Willson let Fortier take the lead. “You said on the phone that you had something you wanted to discuss with us,” he said. “We’re all ears, Sara.”
“Well … when you two were here a few weeks ago,” she said hesitantly, staring down at the coffee table, which was covered in magazines, “I didn’t tell you the whole story.”
Willson and Fortier waited.
“I didn’t tell you about Leo Springer.”
Willson was less patient than Fortier. “Who’s Leo Springer?”
“He’s a young man from Nicholson who came to one of our Society’s first planning meetings after we found out about the ski area. At that point, we hadn’t yet decided how we were going to fight the thing, what our campaign was going to look like.”
“And?” said Willson, her pen poised over her notebook, her eyebrows raised.
“And he asked how far we could go in opposing the project.”
“What’s wrong with a question like that?”
“In itself, nothing. But he went on to suggest that if we played by the rules — rules which were designed to benefit the proponent — then we’d get run over by the process. It was then that he said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that our only option was to ‘put sugar in the gas tank’ of the process. Or, and I believe these were his exact words, ‘blow the fucker up.’”
Willson saw Fortier’s head come up. “And when he said that, what did you think he meant?”
“I was spooked by the comment,” said Ilsley, twisting her hands around her coffee mug as if trying to strangle it, “so I didn’t know what to think. But the more I’ve thought about it since, the more concerned I am in light of what’s happened. The violence.”
“Do you think he’s violent?”
“I have no idea. But he sure as hell frightened me that night, and I could tell that others felt the same.”
“And what did you say to him in response?”
“I reminded everyone in the room about the Society’s bylaws, what they say about not breaking the law. And then I went into a bit of a rant about civil disobedience and violence not being part of that.”
“How did he react?”
“He told me to ‘chill,’ but then said nothing more. I adjourned the meeting soon after because I was so alarmed.”
“And why did you wait so long to tell us?”
“I guess because I hoped it wasn’t him who shot at Austin and Myers, or who broke the window in downtown Golden, or burned down Stoffel’s office in a dangerous attempt to point fingers at Austin. And because I was worried that, if he had done something illegal, the Society would be drawn into a controversy that would deflect our time and energy from fighting the proposal. That we’d be distracted from the campaign, or even worse, that our credibility would be shot. I also feared he might come after us.”
“Why tell us now?” Fortier asked.
“Because,” said Ilsley, looking at him with fear in her eyes, “I got home from town late last night after a movie and he was parked at the end of my driveway, sitting there in his pickup truck. My headlights lit up his face when I turned in, so I know it was him.”
“Did he do or say anything?”
“He just stared at me. Whether or not he meant to, he scared the crap out of me.” Ilsley stood and began pacing around the room. She ran her fingers down the spines of books on a massive bookshelf, as if checking for dust, then shifted a wooden bowl a few millimetres before turning back to them.
Willson could tell Ilsley was genuinely frightened. “What make of truck was it? And what colour?” she asked.
“No idea,” said Ilsley, shrugging her shoulders. “I’m not good with vehicles. It was a dark pickup, that’s all I know. And I’ve asked around and everyone has the same opinion of him. He seems to be a quiet loner who no one really knows. He works as a labourer at the plywood and veneer mill in town.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“His contact info is in the membership list I gave you. I looked at it again before you got here, and all we have is a PO Box in Nicholson and a cellphone number. That’s it. So, no, I can’t tell you where he lives.”
“I’ll find him,” said Fortier. “And then Jenny and I will have a chat with him.”
“Please don’t tell him you got his name from me. That guy gives me the creeps. I live here all alone, and he knows that.”
“No problem. We’re talking to everyone on the Society’s membership list anyway. His name just came up on our radar more quickly than originally planned.”
Ilsley sat down again. “I hope I’m wrong about Springer. I really do. And I hope like hell this doesn’t affect our battle against the ski hill and that arrogant prick Austin.”
At the mention of Austin, Willson again took the lead in the conversation. She saw Fortier lean back in the leather couch, apparently content to watch and listen. “Now that you mention him,” said Willson, “let’s talk about Stafford Austin while we’re here.”
“Don’t get me started …” said Ilsley, her disgust clear from her tone of voice.
“From what your group has learned so far, do you believe this to be a bona fide business proposal, Sara? Is Austin serious about this project?” Willson watched Ilsley’s eyes rise in response to the question, slowly, as if realizing that the question was like an iceberg, with much more to it than what showed above the surface.
“Don’t you?”
“At this point, we don’t know. Let’s say that there are people digging into his financial and personal history.”
“I assume you’re involved in the review process, too. The government seems to be taking the project seriously, aren’t they?”
Willson couldn’t tell Ilsley what role she was playing in the process, or what was going on behind the scenes. At the same time, she knew there was value in planting the right questions amongst those fighting the project. People like Sara Ilsley. One of those seeds might eventually grow into something substantial. “I’m somewhat on the periphery of the formal part of the process,” she said, “but I’m always interested in learning more from folks on all sides of the issue.”
Ilsley’s eyes were bright as they bored into Willson, as though she’d stumbled onto something that might shed light on a problem that had seemed insurmountable. “And what have you learned?”
Willson paused, trying to decide what to say. She looked to Fortier but his face was like a stone, expressionless. She turned back to Ilsley. “You’ve heard, I’m sure, about the recent connection made between the ski area and a highway through Howse Pass?”
“That’s not true, is it? We’ve heard some talk, but assumed it was nothing more than a rumour.”
“It’s real all right. It’s a serious discussion. And then … there’s the pipeline question.”
“Pipeline?”
“There’s talk about that same highway corridor through the park also being used as an alternate route for an oil or gas pipeline between Alberta and B.C.”
“What?” The handle of Ilsley’s mug broke off with a crack. She looked at her hands, mug in one, handle in the other. Her face showed confusion and horror, as if she’d realized that she was holding a grenade without a pin.
“At this point,” said Willson, “there seems to be some truth to it. I’ve been told that it’s being discussed at very high levels of the federal government. Way above my pay grade. An
d you didn’t get this from me, but Austin appears to be in the middle of it.”
“That changes everything,” said Ilsley.
CHAPTER 24
APRIL 6
Stafford Austin gazed out the picture window of his rental home in the Blaeberry Valley. Outside, the peaks of the Rocky Mountains were bright and white in the morning sun. Fresh air flowed in from an open screen.
A sudden bang made him jump. He was still nervous after the shooting and only felt comfortable standing near the window during the day. Each night, before darkness descended over the valley, he would pull the thick drapes across the expanse of glass in case his assailant returned to finish the job.
Looking cautiously to his left, toward the source of the sound, he saw a pickup truck careening down the gravel driveway. In the dust behind the truck, held in place only by barbed wire linking it to adjacent posts, a fencepost swayed drunkenly. Austin watched as the truck slid to a stop in the yard and Sandy Trueman jumped out of the driver’s seat, her arms gesticulating wildly. She was at the front steps before her passenger had time to undo his seatbelt.
“Jesus,” yelled John Theroux through the open truck window. “You trying to kill us?”
Through the screen, Austin could hear Trueman’s strident voice as she pounded up the front stairs. “We have to tell Stafford what’s going on. That those goddamn enviros are sticking their noses into places where they don’t belong and putting everything at risk.”
Theroux followed Trueman up the wide wood steps to the front porch, where she’d already started banging on the front door. “We couldn’t have told him anything if we’d ended up dead in a ditch,” he said.
Hank Myers opened the door. “Come in.”
Trueman pushed past him. “Where’s Stafford?”
Austin sighed. “In here,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on,” said Trueman, stomping into the room, “is that the Columbia Valley Environmental Society knows about the highway and the pipeline. They’re going to raise a major media stink about it!”