Run, Girl, Run: A Thriller

by Alex C. Franklin

  Young chortled. Quinn was a business genius, he thought. He was glad to be following him.

  Tremblay eased into a parking spot, then he and his companion got out of the truck and walked to a photography store.

  “That’s more like it,” Quinn said. “Knew he couldn’t resist plonking down on some flashy, big-ticket junk.”

  The three cruised behind Tremblay for the next half hour as he drove across the city, heading east. He entered a leafy compound with signs that said “La Cité” and let off the young man. The two shook hands through the window of the pickup. Then the red Dodge reversed course, got onto the Trans-Canada Highway, skirted downtown Ottawa, and then barrelled on, westward.

  When they entered the suburbs, Quinn pulled over into a side street. He hopped out with the engine still running.

  “Looks like he’s headed home now,” Quinn said. “You boys follow him and make sure he doesn’t do anything crazy. Tail him right to his house. Then get a couple rooms in Sudbury. We’ll use there as a base. I’ll find me some nice wheels and catch up with you guys tomorrow.”

  “And where are you going?” Young slid across to the driver’s seat.

  “I’ve got to call the boss. And I’ll pick up some new equipment. We won’t have another chance to plant a bug on him. I know where I can get something that’ll work much better.”

  Chapter 27

  I didn’t leave the house for five days straight. Ever since Osgood had filled my head with notions of going for the mining company’s jugular, I’d sat at my computer day and night, researching.

  When sheer fatigue sent me crawling into bed, I could spend no more than three or four hours, tossing and turning under the sheets as the news stories and court judgments of previous class action lawsuits scrolled across my mind.

  I thought of Adam Levy and wondered if he had ever heard of class action lawsuits. He’d never mentioned them. But, to me, they seemed the best leash to restrain those rampaging corporate predators.

  Class action procedures had been introduced only about two decades earlier in Ontario. They allowed one person to sue a corporation or even the government on behalf of every other person with the same complaint.

  Ordinary, everyday folk had gained the power to take on the giants. The numbers were astounding. Corporations and the government had been ordered by the courts to pay $20 million, $100 million, and over a billion, in one case, to the “little guys” they had wronged.

  And there it was, the source of the power of class action lawsuits — money. As Osgood had rightly pointed out, it was the language corporations understood. Hitting their coffers was the surest way to get their attention.

  I stared out the bay window at the few remaining maple leaves that were being whipped by the wind. Every cell in my body felt just like that — agitated.

  We can do this here in Syron Lake, I thought. That company won’t be able to ride roughshod over us anymore.

  I can do this, I thought. I could lead the charge.

  My grandfather’s saying about there being a reason for everything came back to me and things were beginning to make sense. My whole past struck me as having been an apprenticeship for this moment: my journalism training; the fire Adam Levy had sparked in me to boldly take on corporate predators; all those hours I’d spent researching how corporations were harming the salmon habitat; the strange, new sense of power and possibility that being part of protest rallies had given the meek creature that I’d always been….

  Now, it made sense that I’d got lost that fateful night and had witnessed the breaching of the tailings pond. It wasn’t that I’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time; just the opposite — I was the right person, in the right place, at the right time.

  Even the whole, sorry mess with Peter was beginning to make sense. If I hadn’t met him, I wouldn’t have heard of Syron Lake. If he hadn’t spoken about needing space in our relationship, I wouldn’t have ended up in this town. That didn’t make things hurt any less, though.

  Bang!

  The sudden noise at the front door made me jump off the chair, clutching my heart. The momentary panic evaporated when I saw the paperboy pedaling his bicycle further up the road. I made a mental note to tell him to ride into my driveway and deliver the paper in a civilized manner from now on.

  I unfurled the tightly rolled copy of the Syron Lake Beacon. The front page was all about the municipal elections that were set for the following Monday. Nothing on page three, four or five about the spill. It was only on page six — a lower visibility, left-hand page — that anything appeared.

  The story, shorter than five hundred words, filled a thin ribbon of space down the side of a large ad about surplus city land for sale. Most of it quoted the Syron Lake Resources press release that downplayed the incident. It ended with a quote from Mayor Demetriou stating that the city expected the company to comply with all regulations.

  The shabby reporting made me even more grateful, now, that Osgood had shown me how we could fight back through a class action lawsuit.

  Ah, Osgood. Did I really see his picture in the paper?

  I flipped back through the pages. There he was, on the front, in the bank of photos of the three candidates for mayor and the fourteen people fighting for eight council seats.

  It was a three-quarter profile of him, with his wild hair hiding much of his unsmiling face; not the most confidence-inducing shot.

  “Last chance to see and hear the candidates,” the headline read.

  The event at the Moose Lodge was sponsored by a new seniors’ action group. The meeting was scheduled for that afternoon and was set to start in about an hour. I figured that if I arrived early, I might be able to catch Osgood again.

  I had checked the maps and it looked like the Garter Lake First Nation might be even more severely affected than our town by the spill. I knew nothing about the reservation. Perhaps Osgood could help get the tribal band involved in the class action.

  The parking lot at the Moose Lodge was packed. Inside, I had to elbow my way though the corridors and into the main hall. Where had all these people been hiding?

  Most of the heads were gray, and the waists wide and fleshy; I had come to expect that. But here, too, were dozens and dozens of younger people — mothers struggling to control prancing children; men who looked to be in their thirties, with gold bands on their left ring fingers; other men with no rings, but territorially resting their hands on women’s shoulders or lower backs.

  I sighed. My single-woman’s scan of the room had turned up no prospects.

  A commotion erupted over in one corner, and the crowd backed away from a side door.

  Above gasps and shrieks, a voice growled, “Get out of here, you old drunk.”

  After more shifting of bodies, the side door briefly opened and then slammed shut.

  “What was that all about?” a woman standing near me said to someone who came from where the disturbance had happened.

  “Just old Redmill, drunk as a skunk and misbehaving.”

  “Again?” The woman who’d asked the question rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  Old Redmill?

  I’d seen only one “Redmill” in the local phone book. Peter’s last name was Redmill. So his father was the town drunk? No wonder he’d never been back to visit. And, perhaps, nothing could induce him to return.

  But what was that to me? He was history. Past tense. Never to be remembered.

  I pushed my way deeper into the hall. Osgood, unmissable in his blue lumber jacket, stood in front of the raised stage, not far from a group of people whose faces I recognized from the front page. A crowd hovered around each of the candidates and there was a great deal of
handshaking and photo-taking in the area.

  I walked toward Osgood, but two men reached him before me. The one who shook his hand seemed familiar. Ah, yes, it was the bearded cop from the other night.

  He looked less intimidating in khakis and a white, long-sleeved shirt. Still, I didn’t care to see or be seen by any cop. I waited until they left.

  “So you’re up on the big stage tonight,” I said when I finally had Osgood to myself.

  “Damn rubbish, all this.” He shook his head. “Who needs all this show business nonsense?”

  “People seem interested. I’ve never seen so many people in one place since I moved here.”

  “This is no way to campaign. I bet the mayor’s behind this.”

  “I read it was a new seniors group.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me that he put people up to form a new group out of the blue to organize this. And why? Because it suits a snake-oil salesman type like him. Just because a man can stand in front of a crowd and wag a silver tongue about doesn’t mean that he knows what’s best for this town.”

  He crossed his arms and stuck his hands under his armpits. His chest rapidly heaved and fell with every shallow breath.

  I lay a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll do fine, Osgood.”

  His eyes were wilder than usual and he didn’t seem to notice my gesture. “There’s no need for all this, I say. Just walk the street, knock on doors. If people are on your side or at least open to your ideas, they’ll invite you in. If not, fine, talk at the door for as long as they’ll hear you out, but remain respectful if they disagree with you. Thank them, move on to the next house. That’s campaigning. This is show-business.”

  At the corner of my eye, I noticed someone standing close, waiting to speak with Osgood, the candidate.

  “Before the speeches start, I had a quick question about the class action,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “Garter River runs from Syron Lake and passes through the reservation, then feeds into Garter Lake. I think the Garter Lake First Nation should be involved in something like this. What do you think?”

  “They should. Absolutely. No two ways about that. And you can try asking them. But I’m not sure how far you’ll get, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Spot of trouble over there these days. Nasty business. All kinds of accusations flying around about improper spending. But you can still try talking to them.”

  Someone shoved an arm right in front of me and closed in on Osgood. Now, two others swooped in, blocking my view.

  “Thanks, Osgood,” I said, and retreated to the back of the room.

  The stage was occupied by three rows of metal folding chairs bearing name tags for the candidates. When the master of ceremonies announced the meeting was about to start, the electoral hopefuls climbed the stairs and took their places.

  The would-be councilors were trotted out to each deliver a three-minute spiel. Saved for last, the main attraction, the three mayoral candidates, sat among the empty chairs. The candidate, whom I didn’t know, wore jeans and a checkered short-sleeved shirt. Mayor Demetriou was the only one in the entire room wearing a suit and tie.

  The microphone screeched as the MC adjusted it to Osgood’s height.

  People whistled and hooted. Others clapped, or snickered, and laughed.

  “Osgood’s the man!” someone shouted.

  The crowd roared with laughter.

  Osgood stared out. His wild eyes seemed more spooked than encouraged by the audience’s reaction.

  “Shhh!” someone said from the back of the hall. The sound was repeated row after row, until the room fell silent.

  “I’m no fancy speaker,” Osgood said. He cleared his throat. “But I care about this town. Been here damn near all my life. Was brought here as a baby by my parents and grandfather, who’d been a coal miner in England. Buried all three of them in this town’s cemete—”

  “We didn’t come for a history lesson!” a heckler cried. “Politics! Let’s hear about politics!”

  Some in the crowd giggled. Mayor Demetriou gave the audience a disapproving frown, even as a faint smile spread across his lips.

  The wave of shushing rose again.

  Osgood folded his arms and shoved his hands under his armpits.

  “As for politics, as mayor of this town, I won’t play politics. Not with people’s lives at stake. We’ve had too much of that already over the last dozen years. When you see people with a business, but that business is growing much bigger and faster than there’s customers to cause that kind of growth, that’s politics. When you see companies easily getting planning permission to do all kinds of things that should first undergo studies and assessments, you know some kind of politics is happening behind the scenes.”

  The smile was now completely gone from Demetriou’s face.

  “I’ll tell you about politics,” Osgood boomed. “This dumping of millions of tons of radioactive waste that happened up at Syron Lake, last week. The mayor knew of it the very morning after. He had a first-hand account.”

  I bent my head and stared at the floor. This could not be happening. Please don’t let him talk about my trespassing.

  “First thing in the morning last Friday, he knew everything about that radioactive leak,” Osgood said. “And what did he do for this town? Squat! There was no warning for you or me. And we are the ones who have to drink this town’s water and breathe this air. Which could have been dangerously polluted, mind you. We don’t know. All we hear is what the company tells us. And they’re not likely to jump up and admit they did anything wrong are they?

  “This mayor said not a word to you or me, last Friday. But I will bet you my bottom dollar that after he heard about the leak, he was on the phone to the company.

  “And why? Money talks. That’s what politics is about. He who pays the piper calls the tunes. This didn’t start in this town yesterday. Or last week. It’s been going on for years. You all know that.”

  “Tell it like it is, Osgood!” someone shouted.

  Mayor Demetriou folded his arms. His cheeks burned red.

  “The current, so-called mayor has done nothing for this town concerning this spill. Well, I may have worked for one of the mining companies when I was younger, but I can tell you, I sure as hell have never pocketed anything under the table from them. As mayor of this town, I wouldn’t be beholden to any company. You can bet your life I’d go after them for polluting our environment. And I wouldn’t stop fighting for this town until I got some damn good results.”

  “Give ’em fire, Osgood!” a voice cried.

  Osgood’s eyes seemed to search the crowd, then they went blank, as if he’d lost his train of thought.

  “That’s all I have to say,” he mumbled.

  He bent his head in a stiff, unsure bow. He slouched off the stage, almost as if in a daze, and was lost in the crowd.

  Amidst uncertain applause, a few whistles, and the rising din of chatter, the MC called the second contender to the microphone.

  The mayor stared blankly at the man’s back. By the time he, himself, was on his feet to address the audience, his cheeks had regained their normal color.

  “First of all, I want to say that our democracy is such a great thing that it allows anybody a chance to offer themselves to serve in offices like councilor or mayor,” Demetriou said. “Unfortunately, that includes people who don’t understand anything about running a city. And people who would abuse public platforms like this to descend into defamation.”

  The mayor nodded as murmurs arose.

  “People may say, if th
ere’s no truth to a defamatory statement, then the person being slandered would sue,” Demetriou said. “Well, my friends, there’s a simple reason some people are not sued, even if they are guilty of slander. And the reason is that even if you were to take them to court and win, and they’re ordered to pay damages, all they could offer as payment would be, maybe, two pairs of sweaty socks and a beaten up, fluorescent bicycle from the 1970s.”

  The crowd erupted in laughter.

  Fed by the microphone into the speaker boxes, the mayor’s guffaw was the loudest of them all.

  Chapter 28

  After I had voted on the Monday, I rented a car and drove down to Garter Lake First Nation. The band office was deserted except for one secretary who said the chief was away on business. I could leave my name and a message and the chief would call back if he was interested. No, there was no other official that I could see. It was the chief’s instructions; all inquiries were to be directed to him and him alone.

  On my way back, I stopped at the Garter Lake trading post near the highway. Three women, who sat on the porch embroidering porcupine quills into birch barks, listened to my story about the radioactive spill. They confirmed that children played in the Garter River, and four or five people still went fishing along its banks, even though nobody had heard of anyone reeling in a catch for decades.

  The women nodded and agreed something should be done about the mining company polluting the land. But that would have to wait for later, they said. The priority now was for the band to restore peace and harmony. Two factions on the tribal council were fighting; neither would speak to the other, and neither had sufficient numbers to form a quorum, so everything was at a standstill.

  Tuesday afternoon, resigned to the reality that I would have to start this battle on my own, I sat where I could be found almost every waking hour; in front of my computer.