The Glacier Gallows

by Stephen Legault

  They were silent for a moment, then Talbot asked, “You think Blake killed Brian and then tried to run?”

  “It’s possible. Or maybe Blake helped kill Brian and whoever he worked with tracked him down and killed him. I doubt he could have done this alone.” Cole was tapping his can of beer with his fingers.

  “What do you mean?” asked Talbot.

  “I think that if Foreman was the one, he likely had some external motivation. I mean, this guy didn’t know Brian. Not unless Brian was keeping their relationship a secret from everybody.”

  “You think someone hired Blake Foreman to kill Brian?” asked Talbot.

  “I think that if Foreman did have something to do with it, he likely paid for it with his own life.”

  “Right now, anything is possible,” said Winters.

  “Have any of you heard if the FBI found a gun?” asked Cole.

  “Brian was shot?” asked Winters.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw him. And my brother was there, remember? I overheard him say something on his radio. I think he was shot and then pushed over the edge to make it look like an accident.”

  “I can tell you one thing,” said Talbot. “They were pretty interested in you.” He looked at Cole.

  “I know. Maybe it’s because I knew Brian for so long.”

  “That plus they were pretty interested in the discussion you and Brian had yesterday at lunch.”

  “They called it a fight,” said Winters.

  “We had a disagreement!”

  “They asked if you had quarreled a lot,” said Joe. “They told me you had a history.”

  “We haven’t always seen eye to eye.”

  “Well, they think you have—what did they call it?” Joe looked at the ceiling, searching his mind for the word.

  “Motive.” Peter Talbot finished the statement.

  THE NEXT MORNING Cole was brought to the federal building in Browning. The FBI had taken over the offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and converted several rooms into makeshift interrogation suites. Special Agent McCallum and RCMP Inspector Reimer met him at security. “Nice to see international cooperation works so well,” quipped Cole.

  McCallum asked if he wanted coffee and he declined. “Am I under arrest?” Cole asked.

  “Should you be?” asked McCallum.

  “No.”

  “Then you’re not.”

  McCallum started by asking if Cole knew what Brian had been working on before he died.

  “Brian told me he was into something heavy. He was working on a couple of files, tar sands in Alberta, fracking down here on the reservation. He said he was following the money, and that he had found something really damning.”

  “Did he say who the damning information was about?” asked Agent McCallum.

  “No.”

  “Did he have any evidence?”

  “Yes. He said that he had put it on ice. I take that to mean that he had it safe.”

  “We’ve been through his house and office,” said Reimer. “We haven’t found anything. We’ve got a tech going through his computer.”

  “Let’s talk about your relationship with the deceased,” said McCallum.

  “You seem to think that because Brian and I didn’t get along all the time, I somehow had motive to want him dead. If that were the case, I’d have a motive to kill a lot of people, Special Agent.” Cole regretted saying it even as the words escaped his mouth.

  “You and Mr. Marriott argued the day before he was murdered, Mr. Blackwater. You have a well-publicized history of disputes with Mr. Marriott and you have a history of violence.”

  “What are you talking about, a history of violence?”

  “There are mentions of half a dozen altercations on your record, including one between you and two police officers in Vancouver last year.”

  Cole sat in the metal chair and felt his heartbeat in his throat. His stomach felt nauseous. “I’ve never been charged with anything.”

  “That’s true,” said Reimer. “The fact remains that you solve your problems with your fists.” She flipped through a file on the table. Cole could see it was his police record. “You have a problem, Mr. Blackwater, with violent behavior.”

  “I’ve seen someone about it. A doctor named Grady. In Vancouver. You can call him.”

  “We may do that, Cole. Right now, we have a few more questions for you.”

  “I should have a lawyer.”

  “That’s your prerogative. We can assign one to you, or you can call one of your choosing.”

  Cole tried to think if he knew a lawyer other than his best friend, Denman Scott. The only person he knew was Perry Gilbert, who had represented Dale van Stempvort in the Mike Barnes affair in Oracle more than two years ago. He didn’t even know if Gilbert was still practicing. He knew it was a mistake, but he said it anyway. “Ask your questions. I just want to get home.”

  “Yesterday morning, what time did you get up?” asked McCallum.

  “I answered this same question yesterday, Agent McCallum. About 5:00 AM.”

  “Was this your usual habit?”

  “When I’m in the backcountry. I sleep better these days. I usually get up around six or six thirty at home.” Cole watched McCallum jot some notes.

  “And when you got up, was there anybody else awake?”

  “Not that I could see.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I made coffee … Look, I told you all of this yesterday.”

  “Tell us again, Mr. Blackwater.”

  “I made coffee. I went for a walk. I watched the sun come up.”

  “Where did you walk?”

  “East. There’s a height of land that overlooks the prairies. I could see Chief Mountain. Listen, Agent McCallum—”

  “It’s Special Agent.”

  “Listen, Agent McCallum: I didn’t kill Brian Marriott. When I got back from my walk, I had breakfast with the others, and that’s when we began to wonder where Brian was. I went to wake him up and he wasn’t there.”

  “So you were the one who checked Mr. Marriott’s tent when he didn’t show up for breakfast?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Nothing. He wasn’t there.”

  “Did you happen to notice anything unusual about his tent?”

  “Like what? A confession note from the killer?”

  Reimer broke in. “Cole, I don’t think you understand the gravity of this situation. Brian Marriott has been murdered. Blake Foreman is also dead, and the circumstances that surround his demise are suspicious—”

  “Don’t tell me when I’m not taking something seriously, Inspector. Besides Rick Turcotte, I was the only person in this group who could count Brian Marriott as a friend.”

  “And you were the only one who could count him as an enemy,” said McCallum.

  “Disagreeing about something doesn’t make that person an enemy, Special Agent.”

  “A strong enough disagreement can provide a motive for murder.”

  Cole shook his head.

  “Who found the body?” asked Reimer.

  “One of the other guides. Tad. I don’t think I ever got his last name.”

  “Tad is short for Thaddeus. Thaddeus Jamison Thomas.” McCallum read his notes. “And after the body was found, you accompanied Derek McGrath down the cliff to look at the body?”

  “I did. And we met my brother, Walter, there.”

  “Did you touch Mr. Marriott?”

  “No.”

  “What did you observe?”

  “He was a mess. The back of his head was crushed. There was a lot of blood, and some … brains.”

  “Any other physical trauma?”

  “The front of his head had a hole about this big.” Cole held his forefinger and thumb about three inches apart. “It was obvious that he was dead.”

  “What time would you say you returned from your walk that
morning?” Reimer changed direction.

  Cole figured they were trying to trip him up. “Just before seven.”

  “The medical examiner’s preliminary assessment puts time of death between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM,” Reimer said. “The cold at night at that elevation makes it tough to pinpoint.”

  “I didn’t see him when I left the camp at five.”

  “You didn’t wake him up and ask him to go for a walk?” asked Reimer.

  “No.”

  “What do you know about Blake Foreman?” McCallum asked.

  “Very little. He seemed like a good guy, got on well with the other two guides. They didn’t really mix with the guests much, except over meals, and then still not much.”

  “What do you think happened to him?” asked Reimer.

  “I was told that he fell,” answered Cole.

  “That’s what it looks like.” McCallum regarded Cole coolly. “The ME tells us that his death is consistent with an accident.”

  “Consistent with an accident? When he was found, what sort of shape was he in?”

  “We can’t tell you the details, but it would appear as though he fell from a small ledge of rock and crushed his head.”

  “Front or back?”

  McCallum looked at Reimer and then said, “Back. We’ve recovered his pack. Do you know what he had in it?”

  “Yeah, more or less. I was there when he, Tad, and Derek packed their bags for the search. He had a big first-aid kit, binoculars, and his Nikon camera tucked down along the outside of the back.”

  McCallum said, “We’ve looked at the photos on the camera—there’s nothing that helps.”

  “Where is his stuff?” asked Cole.

  “It’s in evidence until this situation is cleared up. We’ll likely take it to our offices in Shelby.” McCallum folded his hands in front of him and changed tack again. “When you first saw Mr. Marriott, what did you think?”

  Cole watched the man’s eyes carefully. “I thought that it was a fucking waste.”

  “You didn’t feel relief?”

  Cole stood up. “You people are really something. A man is dead, a man who was my friend. No, not my best friend, but someone I’ve known for a decade and worked with for the last half year, and you have the balls to ask me if I felt relief. You are really something.”

  “We have more questions, Mr. Blackwater.”

  “Great. If you want to ask them, then you’re going to have to wait for me to get a lawyer. This bullshit interrogation is over.”

  THIRTEEN

  OTTAWA, ONTARIO. FEBRUARY 17.

  IT TOOK FOUR DAYS TO put together a response to the announcement by the minister. On Monday at 11:00 AM, a group of environmentalists hosted their own press conference at the Château Laurier hotel. Brian Marriott was among them. It was something he could not have imagined doing just a few years earlier.

  “We’re here to outline what we expect from a national energy strategy,” said Jessica Winters, dressed in a neat business suit and stylish glasses. The press conference continued and Brian was asked to speak. “We have a bold proposal to make today. In Alberta’s tar sands, we use four units of energy, such as natural gas, to extract five units of bitumen energy from the ground. The end product is the dirtiest oil on Earth. It contributes greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and poisons people downstream. We can do better.” Brian laid out a four-point plan for using renewable energy to fuel future tar-sands development and to funnel some of the profits into renewable-energy development.

  The inevitable question came from Tara Sinclair from the Globe and Mail: “How does this proposed strategy sit with the rest of the environmental community? This seems at odds with those who want the tar sands shut down.”

  Brian looked at the others and then cleared his throat. “Shutting down the tar sands isn’t going to happen. We need a strategy that acknowledges that the tar sands are both the source of huge amounts of pollution and an economic driver for this country. We can’t ignore that. Instead, let’s use this reality to fuel a transition to renewable energy. Let’s use genuine alternatives like wind and solar to clean up the refining process. If some of our colleagues don’t like it, that’s their prerogative. We consider this proposal reasonable, economically practical, and pragmatic.”

  CHARLES WENDELL LEFT the news conference and stepped into a circle of cameras outside the meeting room. His hair was combed and he wore what looked like his father’s sports coat and a pair of clean jeans for the occasion.

  “Mr. Wendell, what do you think of your colleagues’ proposals?”

  “I think it’s fair to say that while I respect them, they don’t speak for the entirety of Canada’s environmental movement. The world is nearing a tipping point when it comes to climate change. Giving the tar sands a ticket to emit even more carbon into the atmosphere isn’t going to save us. It’s going to make life on Earth even harder.”

  “Have your colleagues lost their way?”

  “Sadly, I think that the current government has put them in a box and they are struggling to find a solution that is politically expedient.”

  “It sounds to me like there is a split in the environmental movement,” said one reporter.

  “I think the environmental movement has a Judas in its midst,” said Charles. “I just hope that he is stopped before too many others are persuaded to become advocates for dirty oil.”

  “ARE YOU CALLING to threaten me too?” Brian Marriott asked. He was in his office. It was 6:00 PM on Friday night, and he hadn’t stopped giving interviews and responding to angry accusations since he left the Château Laurier at noon.

  “You’re getting the gears, are you?” asked Cole.

  “You could say that. Three of the four other groups at today’s presser are already starting to walk back from our strategy.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. Keep talking with them, I guess.”

  “I saw Charles Wendell on Power and Politics. I never thought that guy would look reasonable. Somehow, you’ve accomplished the impossible.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Made the lunatic fringe of the environmental movement look mainstream.”

  “Cole, did you call just to stomp on me or do you have a suggestion?”

  “You’re just going to have to ride this out, Brian. That’s all you can do. Try and convince the others to stick with it, and keep finding ways to make your point heard. Don’t make it personal. Wendell is an egomaniac. I know. I used to be one too.”

  “I simply can’t believe that Cole Blackwater is giving me advice on how to handle a hostile media. Oh, how times have changed.”

  “I don’t know. To listen to Wendell, times haven’t. You’ve just infiltrated the environmental movement like some kind of Trojan horse.” Brian was silent. “Come on, Marriott, I’m just ribbing you. Lighten up. This will all blow over in a couple of days, or a week, and people will see that you’re talking sense. Nobody really believes that we can shut down a multibillion-dollar industry like the tar sands overnight. There has to be someone offering a long-term solution amid all the emotional rhetoric.”

  “Now I know things really have changed. Cole Blackwater says I’m the one to offer a solution to the rhetoric. I don’t know if this is going to blow over. I guess we’ll wait and see.”

  “Have a good weekend. Go skiing in the Gatineaus. Unplug. I’m heading to the Cambie to have a beer with my cronies. You should do the same.”

  “Not sure if I have any cronies left, but it’s good advice.”

  They hung up, and Brian checked his email. There were dozens of angry messages and a few supportive notes from his colleagues inside and outside the environmental community. One message with an exclamation mark caught his eye. The email address was a numeric Gmail account. The message read: You know what happened to Judas, don’t you?

  FOURTEEN

  BROWNING, MONTANA. JULY 12.

  TO COLE’S SURPRISE, SPECIA
L AGENT McCallum called him the next morning to tell him that he was free to return to Canada. He could pick his passport up at the Bureau of Indian Affairs office after 10:00 AM and there was a bus scheduled to run between Browning, Montana, and Lethbridge, Alberta, at noon. McCallum’s instructions were very clear. Cole was to report to the RCMP any movements that he made and he was not to leave Alberta. Cole’s pointing out that he lived in British Columbia fell on deaf ears. “You’re a material witness in an open murder investigation. It’s either Alberta or Montana. You choose.”

  “What about my gear?”

  “When the investigation is over, it will be returned to you.”

  THE LONG RIDE from Browning to Lethbridge gave Cole plenty of time to think. As Cole watched the landscape of the Great Plains slip by, the uplands rising and falling, his fellow passengers argued, drank from liquor bottles thinly concealed by paper bags, or snored. The intensity of the last two days seemed to wash off as the bus made its way north. It was true that Cole’s relationship with Brian had been rocky, but in the last year Cole had come to respect Brian’s courage. Brian appeared to have turned his back on a lucrative job as a lobbyist for the petroleum industry and in doing so made many enemies.

  Now Cole wondered if one of those enemies had followed him to Glacier National Park. Cole also considered which of Brian’s adversaries might have dispatched someone—maybe Blake Foreman—to kill him.

  The bus crossed the border and there was only a minor delay as Cole submitted himself for questioning. The FBI and RCMP notations on his file raised eyebrows from the Canada Border Services agent, but soon they were speeding toward Lethbridge.

  Cole thought about Blake Foreman. Surely the FBI would investigate who this person was. It seemed strange that Foreman had suddenly appeared to fill a position as a guide on the fateful trip just days before the expedition began. Cole shook his head, agitated by and frustrated with the entire episode. He wanted it to be over. He wanted to go home to his daughter and see Nancy and bury once more the anger and the fear that these last few days had dredged to the surface.

  COLE CAUGHT A backpackers’ shuttle from Lethbridge to Waterton Lakes National Park. He craned his neck as they entered the park to try and see the far end of Waterton Lake itself and the high plateau where his group had been camped. When the shuttle dropped him off in the center of the small rustic town, he walked the short distance to the shoreline and sat on a bench. He watched whitecaps form on the long body of water that extended from the United States into Canada. He closed his eyes and felt a deep sadness well up inside him. How could he be doing this again?