by Dave Butler
“When was this?” asked Willson.
“He told me yesterday.”
“No, sorry,” said Willson. “I mean, when did he shoot the sheep up here?”
“I have no idea. It must’ve been recently, though, because the photo of it wasn’t in his office the last time I was there. He loves to boast about his hunts.”
“Tell me something,” said Willson. “How do you know about this guarantee that the outfitter offers?”
The inspector looked over his shoulder toward his office door, just to be sure that Castillo wasn’t standing there listening to him. He wouldn’t put it past the sneaky fucker. His anger drove him forward again.
“I … I was with the guy from here when he shot a huge black bear in Glacier National Park in Montana a year or so ago,” he said. “He told me then about a guide he’d discovered in the Kootenays who’d started offering the guarantee. He loved the idea. At that point, I don’t think he’d hunted with the guy yet and he didn’t tell me his name. But as I said, the guy from here doesn’t care about breaking the law.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Willson.
The inspector didn’t hesitate. “Two reasons. First, because the guy is an arrogant prick who thinks he’s better than everyone else and because he’s trying to screw me over. I’d love to see him take a serious fall to burst his huge goddamn ego. But I don’t want to get directly involved because he scares the crap out of me.”
He paused again. “And second, I was with him down here when he shot animals at times and places he wasn’t supposed to. I don’t want to go down with him. I want immunity from charges if I help you guys.”
“It’s a bit early to talk about that, Sprague,” Willson said, her voice composed. “And you’re not willing to give me his name?”
“Nope, not yet. Not until I’m way more comfortable with you and what you’re going to do with my information. That’s all I’m going to say for now.”
“Can you at least confirm for me that he’s an American?”
Shit. This woman was good. “Why do you think he’s American?”
“Aside from the fact that your accent is different from mine,” Willson said, chuckling, “you’ve said ‘down here’ a few times and you mentioned Glacier National Park. Based on that, I’ve got to assume that he is, like you, an American.”
The inspector recognized that he’d said more than he’d meant to. And that the warden he was dealing with was no dummy.
“That’s enough for now,” he said. “Maybe I’ll call you back again … if and when I know more.”
“Wait!” said Willson in an urgent tone.
The man waited, not saying anything but not disconnecting.
“Let me give you my cell number,” she said, “so you can reach me whenever you want to call again.” She gave him the number.
He wrote it down on a pad of paper and then clicked the phone shut, ending the call before the woman could ask more questions. He again looked over his shoulder. With no Castillo in sight, he breathed out loudly and then smiled, a nervous, lopsided smile. He should be feeling good about this. So why, he wondered, were his guts churning like a stormy ocean?
Chapter 16
May 15
Through an east-facing office window in the red-brick RCMP detachment in Cranbrook, Jenny Willson watched two men sitting in a black Lexus on the street below. Outside the two-storey building, the Canadian flag hung loosely against a tall aluminum pole, signalling another calm and sunny East Kootenay day. It had been a week since Willson had taken the startling call from the anonymous Sprague, a call that confirmed the existence of a third suspect and narrowed the list to 140 million American males.
She could see Charlie Clark in the passenger seat of the car, and he appeared to be rolling and unrolling a stack of documents in his hand, no doubt anxious about what was to come.
In the driver’s seat, Willson could see only the lower half of the man she assumed was his lawyer. The man was waving his arms as though making emphatic points to his client. Clark nodded from time to time, showing that he was hearing, if not agreeing with, what his lawyer was saying. Willson imagined the lawyer giving Clark the same speech that every client got before talking to law enforcement.
“Remember, Charlie,” he’d be saying, “you do the listening and I’ll do the talking. These guys called you, so it’s up to them to tell us what they want. You volunteered to come in today, so all you have to do is listen.”
Willson watched the two men get out of the car. They ignored the expired parking meter beside them and climbed the front steps of the detachment. When they were inside, Willson turned to watch the closed-circuit TV on the monitor beside her. The lawyer stepped up to a circular, wall-mounted intercom in the waiting area, while Clark hung back behind him.
“I’m Samuel J. Lindsay, lawyer, and I’m here with my client for an interview,” the man said into the microphone.
Willson knew about Lindsay. He was an elderly gentleman, well past his legal prime, infamous for being scattered and disorganized. As a result, he was affordable, which may have been Clark’s only criterion for choosing him.
“Who are you here to see?” asked a receptionist, her voice metallic in the tiny speaker.
“What?” said the lawyer, his hearing clearly not as good as it used to be.
Willson saw Clark close his eyes and lower his head.
The receptionist repeated herself slowly, louder. “Who … are … you … here … to … see?”
“Oh,” the lawyer said, apparently understanding the question. “We were called by Jenny Willson. I understand she’s a park warden? She asked me to bring my client in for an interview this morning.”
“Please wait there. Someone will be with you shortly,” she said.
“What?” asked the lawyer again.
“Stay there, someone will be right with you,” the receptionist shouted.
Jenny Willson waited ten minutes before opening the door to the waiting area. She wanted Clark to be as nervous, uncomfortable, and on edge as possible. From experience, she knew that staring at Wanted posters often did that. She shook hands with both men and introduced herself, twice, to the lawyer.
“Good to see you again, Charlie,” she said as she walked them down the hall to an interview room.
“Sorry I don’t feel the same,” said Clark.
Already seated in the interview room were the RCMP sergeant in charge of the local drug squad and the federal prosecutor, an imposing woman in a dark pantsuit, her red hair perfectly styled. Pens, pads of lined paper, and two bulging file folders, both closed, lay on the table in front of them. As part of her strategy to put Clark on edge, Willson had printed his full name in bold letters on the outside of each file. Most of their imposing thickness came from the many pages of blank paper added that morning. But Clark didn’t need to know that. By design, neither the RCMP sergeant nor the prosecutor stood up when Clark and his lawyer entered the room.
Willson waited while Clark seated himself in the small metal chair offered to him, his lawyer beside him. She saw Clark’s eyes widen when he saw the files. Then she watched him glance nervously around the room, like a wild animal in a cage.
Formally starting the interview, Willson turned on a digital video recorder mounted on a tripod in the corner of the room. “It’s May 15, 2014, 9:20 in the morning, at the RCMP Detachment in Cranbrook, B.C. I’m Banff National Park Warden Jenny Willson. With me today are RCMP Sergeant Stan Millen and Susan Blake, federal Crown counsel. The purpose of this meeting is an interview with Charles Clark. Accompanying Mr. Clark is his lawyer, Samuel J. Lindsay.”
“Thanks for coming in to see us, Charlie,” said Willson, sitting directly across the table from Clark. She purposefully used his first name, as though she was his only friend in the room.
Clark grunted in response.
“You’ll remember when we visited your place a month ago. As a result of the events that night, you’ve been formally charged with one count of obstruction of a lawful search, one count of assault of a peace officer, and two counts of possession of narcotics for the purposes of trafficking.” Willson followed a script created with her colleagues during a tactical session the day before. “These are serious charges. If you are convicted, you’re facing serious jail time. You understand that, right?”
She looked at Clark. The man stared back at her, his eyes blinking uncontrollably.
“So, Charlie, what can you tell me about Bernie Eastman,” asked Willson, “and his offer of guaranteed hunts in his guide territory in the Purcells?” She saw Clark’s eyes snap open in surprise.
Already ignoring his lawyer’s advice on the first question in the interview, Clark responded immediately: “I had nothin’ to do with —”
Clark’s lawyer cut him off before he could say more. “What’s going on here?” said the lawyer, looking confused while shuffling papers in front of him. “Why are you asking my client about hunting … and what has that got to do with the alleged crime for which he’s charged?”
“Fair question,” said Willson. “Our ongoing investigation has uncovered information that suggests to us that Charlie may be involved in other illegal activities beyond those for which he is charged. We’d like to know more about those. Your client may not have told you, Mr. Lindsay, that we asked him questions the night of the search and his subsequent arrest. Don’t worry, he didn’t answer them. But I’m sure it became clear to Charlie then why we were there and what we were looking for. We want to give him the opportunity to explain himself. He didn’t seem inclined to talk to us that night at his residence.”
The elderly lawyer looked at Clark, his continued confusion obvious to everyone in the room. He turned back to the officials. “I … I …” he stuttered. “My client and I need time to confer.”
With a nod, Willson turned off the video recorder after stating for the record that the interview was paused at 9:35 a.m. She and her colleagues left the room, using the opportunity to pour themselves cups of coffee in the detachment’s lunch room. The coffee was hours old and bitter.
“Great start, Jenny,” said the prosecutor. “Now they’re off balance.” She grimaced as she sipped the thick brew. “Jesus. What is this shit we’re drinking?”
Twenty minutes later, Willson, Millen, and Blake re-entered the interview room at the request of Clark’s lawyer. Willson re-started the recorder and continued the discussion.
“So, Charlie, what can you tell us about Bernie and his guaranteed hunts?” she asked.
“Look,” said the lawyer, “you’re asking my client to talk about something that’s obviously of significant interest to you. I don’t see how it’s relevant to the charges he’s facing. I can tell you that he may or may not be prepared to give you information. But you know, and I know, that you need to make it worth his while to talk to you. I have not heard you offer him anything in return for such information. So before my client says a word, we need to know what else, if anything, he might be charged with and what’s on the table this morning.”
At this point, Willson let the prosecutor take the lead. “As you said, Mr. Lindsay, your client is in possession of information that’s of interest to the Crown.” Susan Blake clicked her pen as she spoke, like a metronome of impending doom. “As Warden Willson stated earlier, your client has been charged with obstruction of a lawful search under the Criminal Code of Canada, assault of a peace officer, also under the Criminal Code of Canada, and two counts of possession of a controlled substance for the purposes of trafficking, under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.” Her repetition of the charges was purposeful. Each charge punctuated by the clicking pen.
Blake paused and looked directly at Clark. “I’m sure your client understands that if he’s convicted of those charges in a court of law, he will do time in a federal penitentiary. This is not insignificant.”
Clark’s throat bobbed up and down like a puppet on a string.
Blake continued. “Your client is in an interesting and rather fortunate position this morning. We want to offer him an opportunity to come clean, to get things off his chest, to assist these officers and himself, all at the same time. It’s an incredible opportunity for him. There may be other charges laid, but I’m not at liberty to say anything about those at this time.”
“That was an excellent speech, Ms. Blake,” said Clark’s lawyer when she was finished. “Bravo. But I still don’t hear anything from you that would be of interest to my client, other than the chance to be a helpful citizen on a matter that I don’t yet fully understand.”
“Fair enough,” said Blake. “I need your client to do a number of things for me. First, I need a written statement giving us all details about Bernie Eastman’s offers of guaranteed hunts. We need to know about any and all hunts outside of Eastman’s guide territory that Mr. Clark was involved in, or about which he has direct knowledge. As part of that, I need the full names of any and all clients involved in those hunts and anything that Mr. Clark knows about those clients.”
At this point, Clark’s limbs began to tremble as though he was experiencing a minor seizure.
“In addition,” Blake continued, “I need Mr. Clark to tell us from whom he received the marijuana that was seized in his shed. As you’ve seen from the documents we shared with you, it was, in our minds, a significant amount — clearly not for personal use.”
Everyone in the room jumped when Clark shot up from his chair, knocking it onto the floor behind him. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” he yelled, his face a strange shade of purple.
Lindsay put a calming, heavily veined hand on his client’s arm. “You realize, I’m sure, how much you are asking of my client,” he said. “I assume you have a very generous offer to make to him.”
“What I am prepared to do in exchange for all that,” said Blake, “is reduce the two trafficking charges to a single, simple charge of possession. I can’t drop the obstruction charge, but I’m prepared to drop the charge of assault of a peace officer. I will also offer your client immunity against all charges under the National Parks Act relating to any poaching incidents in which he might have been involved with Eastman while in any of our national parks.”
Clark sat with his head in his hands while the two lawyers spent the next half hour negotiating his future. While the lawyers talked, Willson watched Clark. It was clear that he was trying to figure out how to get himself out of the mess he was in, but she knew it was a classic no-win situation. What a pathetic life he must lead, Willson thought. Here was a poor, downtrodden shmuck, obviously not in the best of health, not smart enough or strong enough to keep himself out of these situations. And he must go through life dealing with piles of crap of his own creation.
Finally, Clark sat up straight and said, “Okay, I’ll do all of that, ’cept I won’t name the guy Bernie took into the parks and I won’t tell you where we got the dope.”
Clark’s lawyer immediately jumped in. “Wait, Charlie. We should talk about this first.”
“Nope,” said Clark, “I’ve had enough of this legal bullshit. I hate cops, I hate lawyers, and I want to get the hell out of here.”
Willson saw an opening and could no longer stay silent. “Charlie, we already know that Bernie’s client, the one who shot the animals in the parks when you were with them, is an American.”
Clark turned a paler shade of pale, staring at Willson in disbelief. “How the hell do you know that?” he asked. “I never told you where he came from. You … you can’t tell anyone that came from me.”
Willson smiled, but it was a grim smile. Clark had confirmed for her what she’d learned from the anonymous caller, the man who called himself Sprague. But at the same time, the confirmation was potentially devastating to her investigation. It meant that the main p
iece of evidence in her case — the elk rack — had probably gone across the border into the United States. The bighorn sheep head had probably followed it. Now, more than ever, she desperately needed the name of the American hunter who was taking advantage of Eastman’s guarantee. That was the missing piece in the puzzle.
Willson opened one of the file folders and slid a list of names across the metal table toward Clark. It was a list that Bill Forsyth had created by working with Brad Jenkins, a list of all of Eastman’s American clients from his post-hunt guide-declaration forms during the most recent fall hunting season. Unfortunately, it was a list of twenty-seven names.
“Is one of these names the hunter you saw illegally shooting the animals in the parks, Charlie?” asked Willson, pointing to the list.
All eyes were on Clark as he peered at the names. His reluctance and fear were a palpable presence in the small interview room. Willson watched him run his thin finger down the list, hopeful that she could pick up a pause, a sudden intake of breath, some subtle hint of recognition that one was their third suspect, the man who’d left the third set of footprints in the snowy meadow in Banff. But Clark gave her nothing.
Head up again, Clark stared at Willson, at his lawyer, and back at Willson. He slid the list at her as though trying to distance himself from it. “Shit,” he finally said, “I can’t do this. I can’t tell you if he’s on there or not.”
Willson was not going to back down. “Are you sure about that, Charlie? Can’t or won’t? This is your chance to get this off your chest. Your chance to do the right thing.”
“Nope,” said Clark. “I’m not doin’ it. I can’t. Bernie or the guy you’re lookin’ for, or both, will kick my ass somethin’ serious if I rat him out. I might as well buy myself a plot in the cemetery.”
Willson watched Clark fold his arms over his chest. He was obviously shutting down, the fear of Eastman and the American freezing both his brain and his vocal cords.