The Cardinal Divide

by Stephen Legault

Perry opened the doors. The noise grew oppressive. Cole flipped his ear protection down. This dampened the roar of the mill, but blocked out Perry’s voice.

  The room was vast. Large loading bay doors at one end allowed massive trucks to enter and exit with equipment and machinery. An overhead conveyor belt came into the room twenty feet off the ground and ended in a huge machine that Cole guessed separated ore from the overburden of limestone. From there the coal was fed into the coking ovens, and waste rock was crushed for tailings, or to be used for other purposes. The coking ovens occupied more than half the space, and from fifty metres away Cole could tell that they where white hot.

  Light spilled through the giant bay doors and through widows high above the floor, letting long, slanting rays into the otherwise dim room. The white light caught on the backs of a million dust motes, giving the air and the light the appearance of water, shifting and moving through the room. The space was utterly devoid of colour in the muted light.

  Inside the door were randomly arranged skids of bits and drill steel. A uniformed RCMP officer in a hard hat with ear protection wore a scowl. A taped-off area twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide encompassed some of the skids of drill bits stacked three or four high on the pallets. Cole didn’t notice them at first, given the scale of the room. It was only after he stubbed his toe on one that he looked down and noticed them. A wide path lead between the pallets. On the floor inside the tape lay a few drill bits the size of a man’s head, and a pallet that had been knocked to the ground.

  Cole bent down to examine the area inside the tape.

  The concrete floor wore oil stains and dust. Where the dust had been recently disturbed, he could see the ghostly outline of what he knew to be Mike Barnes body. It wasn’t as obvious as a chalk outline, but it was clear enough. Mike Barnes had met his untimely demise here. The place was a few feet inside the doors from the outer room, in a straight walking line into the mill. Cole examined the floor. He felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to see the RCMP officer standing there. He stood.

  The officer leaned close and Cole removed the ear protection from his left ear.

  “Don’t touch the floor inside the tape, please,” the constable yelled over the din of the room.

  Cole gave the thumbs up and squatted back down to look at the floor. It told a jumbled story at best. Perry Gilbert squatted beside Cole. He pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and shone the beam onto the floor. It was light enough to see, but the flashlight allowed Gilbert to direct Cole’s gaze.

  Seven oversized drill bits lay on the floor. It looked like they had been knocked off the pallet that leaned at a forty-five degree angle against a neighbouring stack of bits. From where Cole and Perry squatted, they could not see any sign of blood on them, but Cole assumed that those that had blood had been sent to Edmonton for forensics testing.

  The bits were randomly scattered in a wide half circle. Inside that circle was an area that had recently been disturbed. This area was off to the side of the clear area that provided passage between the outer room and the mill itself. Perry moved the light into that disturbed area, that place where Mike Barnes body had been found, to examine it more closely. There was blood, but not much. Droplets, really, and in one place a small dark stain, maybe where Barnes’ head hit the floor after he had been clubbed.

  There were no obvious footprints in this area. There was too much traffic. Cole examined the floor around the taped off area. There he saw many footprints and tire tracks too. Cole saw a forklift at work in the mill and assumed it was used to move these pallets of bits and steel out into the yard for use in the mine. How were the pallets removed from the smaller room, Cole wondered? Was there some kind of power-assist lifter around? He looked but could not see anything.

  Perry shone the light across the other pallets of drill bits, getting as close as he could to them, and examined them carefully. He pointed to a few bits where tiny red dots of blood were visible.

  Perry stood stiffly. He turned his back on the mill and put the taped off area between him and the double doors that led to the outer room. Cole stood, body creaking, and moved beside him. Wordlessly, using the flashlight as a pointer, Perry retraced the last seconds of Mike Barnes. He waved the light at the double doors, then swept it down along the floor, bouncing the light to indicate footfalls. And then the attack: Perry jigged the beam to indicate the violent act, and then shone it on the floor to show where Mike Barnes had died.

  Cole watched. His eyes swept across the scene. He had never investigated anything more felonious than falsified pollution reports by an oil and gas company. But something wasn’t right. Did Gilbert see it too?

  Cole tugged on his sleeve, and motioned with his head toward the doors. Perry nodded and the two men made their way between the pallets of drill bits toward the outer room. The doors closed behind them, the sound dulled, and both men gratefully took off their ear protection.

  “Let’s go outside to talk,” shouted Perry and Cole gave him the thumbs up.

  They stepped into the late afternoon sunshine like breathless men breaking the surface of a lake.

  Cole took off his hard hat and leaned back against the wall, grabbing his ear lobes, first the right and then the left, and tugging at them to stop the ringing in his ears. “Can you imagine that, every single day?”

  Perry rubbed his eyes and leaned against the front of his van. “No way. I’d go crazy.”

  “How could a man hear himself think in there?” asked Cole.

  “I don’t think thinking is high up on the job description,” said Perry. “It’s pretty mindless work, loading coal onto conveyor belts all day.”

  “So tell me how the RCMP figure it again.”

  Perry shifted his weight from his right leg to his left and rubbed his hand over his face. “They think that Dale must have made an appointment with Mike Barnes sometime early in the day, right after the Red Deer Advocate story ran. They figure he drove out to the mine after five, possibly aware that he could get through the gatehouse unseen after hours. They think he might have cased the joint to see if the security guard came and went at regular hours.”

  “Does he?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t know. We’ll have to find out. Anyway, they figure that he got onto the property unseen and went up to Barnes’ office around eight or so. What happened then is a mystery. But sometime after ten and before midnight, Mike Barnes left his office and for some reason went across the yard to the mill.”

  Cole looked across the dusty yard to the three-story brick building that was the mine’s office. It was a hundred yards or so, the length of a football field. “Why?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe Barnes saw someone who didn’t belong. Remember, the mill only operates on a day shift right now. Anybody wandering around here after six or so would seem suspicious. I’m told the mill shift ends around then.”

  Cole stared across the yard.

  “So let’s just say that he met with someone that evening,” said Cole, “and he came out after the meeting and saw this person prowling around the mill. He walks across the yard thinking he’ll deal with it faster than trying to find the security guard. Maybe he followed the murderer into the room full of drill steel and what have you. Maybe he thought the prowler was there to do damage to the mill. He wanted to catch him red-handed. So he followed him through the big double doors into the mill.”

  “And whappo.”

  “Right, whappo. Someone clubs him on the head with a twenty-pound drill bit, and it’s lights out.”

  “Lights out.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Cole still stared across the yard. “Let’s walk.”

  Perry shrugged. “OK.”

  They set off across the dusty yard toward the mine offices.

  “You said lights out,” said Cole.

  “So?”

  “Made me wonder if they turn the lights out in the mill at night is all.”

  “What difference does it make?”
>
  “Maybe none, but maybe a lot.”

  “What’s eating you?”

  “It just doesn’t make sense to me,” said Cole. They walked up the steps of the mine office and turned around. The mill loomed across the yard. It was five stories tall at least, with windows halfway up, and several sets of massive doors to allow for the transfer of ore or machinery. The door beside which their vehicles were parked seemed very small and very far away.

  “Where did Mike Barnes park, I wonder?” asked Cole.

  “Right here, I imagine,” said Gilbert, pointing to the stall labelled “Mine Manager” in front of the building. “Whose truck is that parked there now?”

  “That’s Hank Henderson’s.” Cole remembered seeing Henderson climb into it after their meeting on these very steps the night he had visited Barnes. The night Barnes had been killed.

  “Hasn’t wasted any time taking over, has he?”

  “I’m told he feels he’s been passed over for the job on a couple of occasions.”

  “Wonder how strongly he felt about it?” asked Gilbert, looking around.

  “You should ask him,” said Cole. “He’s very friendly.”

  “So do you think that Mike Barnes could have seen someone at that door at ten o’clock?”

  “I don’t think I could see anybody there now,” said Cole, squinting. “At ten it’s nearly full dark. I can’t see how.”

  Both men were silent.

  “I don’t think Mike Barnes was killed in the mill,” Cole said finally. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “If not in the mill, then where?”

  “I don’t know. But even if someone did lure Barnes to the mill with lights or something, I can’t see how he could have been surprised by that person when he came through those double doors.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s nothing to hide behind. The bits only come up to my thigh. Unless the place was pitch black, it would be hard for someone to get the drop on him, don’t you think?”

  “What if the assailant was standing on top of the pallet?”

  “You’d have to be a gymnast to balance like that. Those bits roll all over the place.”

  They walked down the steps and started back across the yard.

  “So how did the body end up in the mill then?” asked Perry.

  Cole was silent. He looked at the building, and turned around as he walked, scanning the yard, the office, and the other buildings. “I have no idea. But whoever killed Mike Barnes likely dragged his body to the mill from somewhere else, intending to dispose of it here. I think he probably went in through this door,” said Cole, and pointed to the door in front of them. “And when he dragged the body into the mill itself, knocked over some of the drill bits.”

  “But why leave the body? If you were hoping to get rid of him and go through all the trouble of dragging it from wherever you clubbed him, why dump it at the last minute?”

  Cole shook his head. “I don’t know. Got spooked by something or someone?”

  Perry shrugged again. “Maybe.” Then he said, “Do you want to have another look?”

  Cole grimaced. “Not really, but I guess we should.”

  They donned the hard hats, flipped down the ear protection, and went through the door into the outer room. They retraced the last steps of Mike Barnes according to the RCMP, through the maze of drill steel to the big double doors. They paid careful attention to how it might feel to step through them and be surprised by an assailant. Cole looked left and right as he walked through the doors, wondering if a man might conceal himself there. He doubted it. The path was too wide, and the pallets of bits too low, and the bits themselves gave no place for a man to crouch and strike with any stability. Cole was shaking his head. It was all wrong.

  They finally finished after six o’clock. Cole was exhausted. When he and Perry Gilbert parted ways outside the mill, Cole was determined to drive directly back to Oracle, find a quick dinner, and retreat to Peggy McSorlie’s farm for the night. Then he would reward himself with a drink.

  But the long rays of spring sun slanted through the mine property and reminded him that the day was far from over.

  He sat in the cab of the Toyota a long time before putting the key in the ignition.

  So what if Mike Barnes was killed somewhere else on the property and not in the mill? What did that change? Was it was plausible that Dale van Stempvort had been waiting for Barnes by his car, or even in his car? Surely the RCMP would have scoured it for signs of a struggle. Maybe the killing had taken place in Barnes’ office? Cole decided that he needed to have another look around there.

  There was also the need to find Mike Barnes’ appointment book. Without that, it would be hard to follow through on the numerous leads that this inquiry was generating. It was possible that the killer’s name was written there in black and white!

  And what about Cole’s other suspects? Could George Cody have driven out to the mine that night and clubbed Mike Barnes out of revenge? It seemed like a risky move for Barnes to make, thought Cole. Why would he meet a man whose wife he’d been screwing in a quiet office on a nearly deserted mine site so late in the evening? Unless Mike Barnes had wanted no one to witness the meeting, that is. So George arrived at the mine and the men met, and in a rage George clubbed Barnes right there in the office. What did he use? Surely Mike Barnes’ secretary would have noticed if anything was missing. And the RCMP would have scoured the office for blood and signs of a struggle. George would have killed Mike Barnes somewhere else. But where? Cole shook his head, which pulsed a little, and he touched the bump on the back of his skull, still tender.

  What about Deborah? Many of the same questions applied: where? With what?

  Was Deborah strong enough to kill Mike Barnes? He figured she was, especially if she took him by surprise. What would have convinced Mike Barnes to see her again after writing her a note that Cole could only assume terminated their affair?

  Maybe Deborah made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Maybe she had threatened to go public with the story herself, an act of self-destructive vengeance that would surely ruin his career and marriage and cause more harm to him than to her. Maybe she felt she had nothing left to lose? Maybe she was bribing him?

  Or maybe she had come to the mine hoping to seduce him one last time. Maybe when he rejected her she flew into a rage and killed him.

  But Mike Barnes was a big man, weighing what, 180, 190 pounds? Light heavyweight to cruiserweight class, Cole guessed. As if Mike Barnes would ever tape up his hands. Cole pegged her at welterweight, around 140 pounds. But he doubted that Deborah could carry him from his office to the mill. It was just too far. She would have had to load him in her car and drive him, or drag him. Or find some other way to move the body. He made a note to look for blood in her car.

  He stepped out of the Toyota and walked around the yard, looking in the sand and gravel for drag marks. He walked in little circles and then big circles, but found nothing.

  He got back in the truck, turned the ignition over, and decided to drive back to Oracle before he grew too weary. He started the truck, turned it around, and drove toward the gatehouse. He signed out, and drove up Route 40 toward Cadomin.

  Who else? Who else? Faces and names flowed through his head. If in fact George and/or Deborah Cody killed Barnes, what was their connection to the mole inside the Eastern Slopes Conservation Group? And was there any link with Jim Jones’ information that the company never really intended to dig the mine, but merely push the rail line and road into the wilderness in order to keep investors and shareholders happy? He could see no possible connection there. It was possible that these were all unrelated threads, but Cole Blackwater somehow doubted it. It seemed too neat and tidy to be coincidence.

  He drove the winding gravel road, snaked through the hills, and followed the path of tiny creeks and streams as they wove their way through the sculpted foothills.

  Who else might want Mike Barnes dead? Nearly every
body in town, had they known what he was up to, thought Cole. Who else knew?

  He nearly swerved off the road when it occurred to him. College boy. Hank Henderson knew. He was the assistant mine manager; he had to know.

  The disdain Hank Henderson felt for the mine manager was palpable. Cole could remember very little of the conversation they’d had, but he knew that Henderson had been twice passed over for promotion to the mine manager’s job after working at the mine for most of his adult life. And had he learned that Barnes meant to shut down the mine, it would have been easy for Henderson to snap under those circumstances. It would have been easy for him to confront Mike Barnes, and in a fit of rage take his life. It would have been easy for him to dispose of the body, too, thought Cole. He knew the mine inside and out, and wouldn’t have had a problem coming up with the best solution for an unwanted corpse. Dump it into one of the giant conveyor belts that carried the coal. Gone. To become part of a Toyota or Hyundai or Mitsubishi. Cole allowed himself a slight grin at the morbid thought. Might impact the structural stability of a vehicle to be made from the pulp of an MBA, he mused.

  Now what? Here was a new path to follow among many. He was nearing Oracle when his cellphone rang. He snatched it from the detritus on the passenger seat.

  “Blackwater.”

  “Webber.”

  “Hi, Nancy.”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “Driving into Oracle.”

  “I’ve got some news.”

  “Me too.”

  “Hold your horses, I go first.” The cellphone crackled.

  “You’re breaking up, Nancy. Can we do this in person?”

  More static, then silence.

  “You still there, Nancy?”

  “Come by the hotel. Room 245.” The line went dead.

  “That woman can be such a ...” he said aloud, and bit his tongue.

  It was nearly eight o’clock when he arrived at the hotel.

  He found his way to her room. Nancy answered the door and let him in. The room smelled like her. It was neat and clean, everything in its place. On the small desk she had set up an orderly work station with laptop and keyboard arranged just as they would be on her desk at the Edmonton Journal. Clothes were hung neatly in the open closet. Cole assumed that the drawers of the dresser were likewise tidy. The bed was made. On the small round table Cole saw that Nancy had eaten pizza for dinner. The smell of the pizza mixed with her perfume made him a little dizzy with various hungers.