The Fundy Vault

by Linda Moore

  “Why isn’t he there by now?” I said, bringing the steaming Bodum and two coffee mugs to the table in the porch. “Maybe he couldn’t get a ride, or maybe they caught up with him on the highway.”

  “Relax, Roz. It’s an hour earlier in Boston. The day has just begun.”

  “It’s not only Jacob’s situation that’s bothering me, Harvie. I’m distressed and angry about everything—his abduction, the murder of Aurelia Strange, the violence against McBride—all with impunity! They’ve pulled up stakes at Jasper Creek now and that’s a kind of a victory, I guess. But it doesn’t change what they did and their brazen disregard for the law. Not to mention that they were probably conducting a horrible crime against the environment every single day. There has to be something we can do, Harvie! Would you consider meeting with Arbuckle when you’re in Halifax—see if the two of you can figure out some legal action here? And can’t we find out once and for all whether this regional superintendent was on the take—or did he just turn a blind eye? Either way, it’s not right!”

  “Whoa, Roz—look at you go! You haven’t even had your coffee yet.”

  “Well, we’ve been through something horrible and everybody’s just so relieved they’re gone. But that’s not good enough.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’ll meet with Arbuckle. It’s a great idea. I’ll call him and arrange to see him tomorrow morning before I fly out. And I’ll think about who in the public prosecutor’s office might be best to take this on. I mean, it’s complicated and we need someone with international experience.”

  “Right on, Harvie! Now you’re talking!”

  After our lunch in the botanical gardens in Wolfville, I stood on the sidewalk and watched Harvie’s car get smaller and smaller until he reached the bottom of the hill, turned onto Main Street, and disappeared. Then I went over to the parking area, fed the meter, and grabbed my bag full of Beckett books from the back seat of Old Solid. I got a cup of chai in the environment centre, and wandered into the enormous lounge. Right by an arched window was the perfect table for me. I plunked down my books, made myself comfortable, and proceeded to stare out the window for far too long. Finally I took out my phone and called Mark. It went to message.

  “Hey, Mark. When are you all arriving? I’m in Wolfville working on our stuff—wondered if you’d prefer to have dinner in town here before we head to the cottage? Or, I don’t know. Call me when you get this.” I set my phone to silent and put it on the table.

  I randomly opened a collection of Beckett’s shorter plays and found myself reading Come and Go—a “dramatacule” for three actresses. It was brief, maybe five minutes tops, but a perfect jewel. Beckett was a true minimalist.

  “We could start with this,” I said out loud. I opened my Beckett notebook.

  When in doubt, make a list.

  “Hello, Roz!” I looked up. It was Frida from the library, apparently just leaving the lounge. She was accompanied by another woman. “This is my co-worker, Genevieve,” Frida said. “She’s back.”

  “We finally meet!” I said, extending my hand.

  “I was just telling her about the Beckett project you mentioned. I see you’ve got all your books there.”

  “Yes, we start tomorrow. So my plan is to have a reading Friday night at seven. But this is timely,” I said. “Do you have a minute, Genevieve?”

  “I’ll go back and hold the fort,” Frida said. “I know you want to ask her about the young journalist.

  “Thanks, Frida,” I said. Genevieve sat down, and I asked her about her work with Aurelia.

  “At first I was just helping her research her ancestors” she began. “She has roots in the New England Planters who migrated to Nova Scotia from the United States around 1760. Aurelia’s mother came down through the DeWolf line—as in the DeWolfs of Wolfville—that’s where the name Strange comes in.”

  “So it’s a nom de plume,” I said, getting out a notebook.

  “That’s right, Aurelia chose it for her journalism work, based on her ancestor from the 1800s, T. A. Strange DeWolf. She has a genuine connection to this area. That’s partly why she was so intent on finishing that article about the Bay of Fundy.”

  “What exactly was that article about?” I asked.

  “She had discovered something illegal going on up there. She told me she was one interview away from getting confirmation of her suspicions. But she wouldn’t talk about it because she was nervous that if it got around she might be in serious danger, and like all ambitious journalists, she wanted to be the one to break the story. I was supposed to meet her before I went on vacation, but she didn’t show up. I was a little annoyed at the time, but now I’m just worried.”

  I nodded.

  “After she told me about her article, I mentioned I had editing experience and she asked me if I would help her. She offered to pay me, but I said I’d be happy to look it over as a favour. So, she sent me her unedited draft. She didn’t want me to read it or start working on it until she got the interview information to me. So I haven’t read it myself, and I still haven’t heard back.”

  I could hardly breathe. “Genevieve, could I see it? If I can get to the bottom of what she was investigating, we might be able to get some justice. I believe she didn’t show up at your meeting because something happened to her. There may be valuable evidence right there in her material.”

  “Oh my God! I can forward it to you right now—do you have a smart phone?”

  “BlackBerry,” I said picking my phone up from the table. I gave her my address and just like magic she sent it through.

  “Aurelia was intelligent and funny and deeply committed to the environment and the future of the planet,” Genevieve said. “I read her article on bees and pesticides—what an indictment…very powerful. I’m relieved you’re looking for her, Roz. I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  With that, she gathered her things and rushed away.

  I looked at my inbox. There it was, “Strange: Unabridged.”

  “I can’t go on. I’ll go on….” I said, quoting Beckett. I dove into the “Strange” file.

  “You Wouldn’t Want to Drink It” by A. Strange

  It was a dark day when I learned my friend was dating a man who broke the law twice a week, every week. The crime involved my favorite place in the world—the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. If you haven’t seen it, you should plan to go there immediately. It’s not a tourist trap; much of it is isolated—it’s just you and the highest tides in the world.

  We’ve gotten into a serious mess here in the northeastern U.S. Much of our prime arable land is scarred with fracking wells. Hydraulic Fracturing: releasing gas from shale rock. Often the shale rock is deep underground. Vital to the fracking process is fresh potable water with added chemicals: benzene, methanol, formaldehyde, toluene, xylene, monoethanolamine, and ammonium bi-sulphite to name a few of the 22 commonly used. These chemicals are carcinogens, mutagens, neurotoxins, and endocrine disruptors. Each fracking wellhead requires 3.5 million gallons of water per frack.

  The chemically infused water is pumped into the wells until the pressure breaks up the shale and releases the gas. There are so many wells that America now has more gas than it needs. Once those millions of gallons of chemically enhanced potable water crack open that shale, the water returns to the surface as ‘Fracking Wastewater’ or ‘Flowback’ as the industry calls it. When it comes back up, it’s laden with even more poisons from the gas itself.

  And what can be done with all this poisoned water? Surface evaporating ponds take up acres and acres of land. The ponds often breach the barriers and contaminated fluid pours out, poisons the land, and leaks into the groundwater. The contamination is so serious, some farmers in Pennsylvania can set their tap water on fire. Some of this wastewater is being stored in deep well injection sites in Ohio. But, it’s an expensive
process, and many sites are now full to bursting. The path of least resistance is to wait until dark, and dump it into a stream or a river. If caught, pay the fines! And chalk it up to the cost of doing business—it’s cheaper than any other solution.

  One recent summer, a gas company’s head honcho was vacationing in eastern Canada. He became intrigued by the natural openings that lead into large caverns inside the basaltic rock that formed Nova Scotia’s North Mountain on the Bay of Fundy 200 million years ago.

  Those caverns are called ‘vaults.’ They often reach from just under the surface to deep down below sea level and extend out into the Bay of Fundy, finally opening into the ocean far from shore.

  A telecom company had built and then abandoned an industrial bridge and a road that led up to a ridge where one of the natural vaults happened to be. It was marked on the map “Jasper Creek Vault.” The telecom company welcomed the money it was offered for use of the bridge and the road.

  The gas company’s head honcho was never just on vacation; he always had his thinking cap on, and he could envision hundreds of tankers delivering that flowback water up to that forested ridge and releasing it neatly into the vault. Through the vault, the water would find its way into the Bay of Fundy. These are the highest tides in the world, and every day, twice a day, that wastewater would be carried away on the tides and be so diluted, it would be as though it never happened.

  The following summer he conducted a secret test with two tankers full of wastewater. He arranged for them to drive up to the vault and release 20,000 gallons of toxic water. It completely disappeared—his experiment worked! Next, he custom-made hardware to protect the vault surface and to efficiently attach the tankers’ hoses to a receiving pipe he placed in the vault’s opening.

  He had ancestral roots in Nova Scotia and over the years he’d made good friends. So once he decided to go forward, he set about making quiet arrangements in this isolated part of the province.

  Back home in America, he hired lots of eager out-of-work truckers and organized a secret route so they could cross the border from a farm in Maine to New Brunswick, and enter Canada with no fuss or muss. He had really authentic-looking Nova Scotia license plates made and when everything was in place, he travelled through the northeastern United States and organized the pick-up of thousands of gallons of dirty flowback water that was being kept in evaporation ponds or sitting in holding tanks on the countless shale gas fields.

  Gas producers were relieved to pay him well to eliminate that wastewater problem. It remedied a big headache—and they didn’t ask any questions. It was like a secret adventure, and everyone involved felt like they were helping to clean up America. The truckers were making a good living and there was no end to it—there was always more and more fracking wastewater. The CEO became a kind of hero.

  It’s a fluke that I learned about this secret activity, starting with my friend’s boyfriend who was hired as a trucker. But I did learn it, and now that I’m carrying the burden of knowledge it feels like the heaviest thing in the world, so it’s time to crack it open for everyone to see. I hear the siren call of the mermaids and I’m on the side of the Bay of Fundy.

  I won’t name the truckers until last. I’m starting with the executive and his company, and then I’m going to track down the names of all the “on the take” people on both sides of the border: the gas companies in America who are participating, and the bureaucrats and others who are in the know in Kings County and getting a little something for their silence.

  Here comes the first name. I’m just about to have an interview with the head honcho himself, Steven Wynne Ratchford of Harness Energy, a Pennsylvania-registered company. Ironically, he and I are related. We share an ancestor, Hannah, a Ratchford who married into the DeWolfs back in 1800. I told him this and he said since we’re long-lost cousins, the interview should take place over dinner.

  We’re eating at The Tempest, and I’m hoping for the Catch of the Day!

  I called Riley immediately and filled her in on the Jacob situation. “So now we’re waiting,” I said, “and Riley, there’s something else I’ve just learned.”

  “Where are you, Roz?”

  “I’m in Wolfville—at the Irving Centre.”

  Five minutes later, I was on my way down Main Street to the detachment.

  I sat down across from Riley. “I just got a draft of Aurelia’s very informative article from a librarian she was confiding in,” I said, forwarding it to her. “You should have it now.”

  Riley’s phone rang. “It’s your friend Arbuckle,” she said. “Hello, Detective Arbuckle. Roz has just arrived at my office. Shall I put you on speakerphone?” She nodded at me. “Here we go,” she said.

  “Hi, Roz,” he said. “Listen—I had a little chat with Harvie today and things are moving along in Boston with that boy, Jacob.”

  “What’s happening?” I said.

  “Well, the consulate needs an envoy to come down there, vouch for him, and accompany him back to Canada. It’s got to be someone official, so it can’t be you, or a family member. I was thinking you could do that, Corporal Monaghan.”

  “Riley’s a perfect choice, Donald,” I said jumping in. “She knows Jacob and she’s up to speed with the latest developments in this Jasper Creek situation too. But Donald, would this decision involve Superintendant Dudgeon?”

  “I can set this up on this end as an official secondment. What do you think, Corporal Monaghan?”

  “If you arrange it, I can go immediately,” Riley said.

  “So, he’s okay then—Jacob?” I said.

  “Apparently he was rattled and hungry when he finally arrived there, but they’re putting him up inside the consulate while we sort this out, so he’s safe. It was lucky that Harvie gave them the head’s up, or who knows, he might have been turned away. I mean, let’s face it, it’s a pretty wild story.”

  “It’s a pretty wild state of affairs,” I said. “I know much more now. I’ve come to Riley’s office to bring her an article that Aurelia drafted just before she met her demise. She describes in detail the activity that was going on up at Jasper Creek, and names the American CEO who set it up. She talks about how she was planning to interview him over a meal in Wolfville. Shall I send it to you?”

  “Absolutely. Send it now. This is very timely. Harvie and I are planning to meet tomorrow morning before he leaves.”

  “I’d like to be there too, but I’ll be busy falling down a deep well.”

  “What well is that?”

  “The Samuel Beckett well, with a group of wacky, brilliant performers who are coming up to Kingsport tonight.”

  “That’s right—your other life,” Arbuckle said. “Corporal Monaghan, I’ll be back to you with your travel itinerary. I’ll work on getting this organized ASAP.”

  I left the detachment and headed back to the environmental centre to continue the Beckett prep. My phone buzzed. It was Mark.

  “Hey, Roz. Everything as planned except Regan can’t join us until tomorrow morning—she’s finishing a grant application.”

  “Of course she is.”

  “Yup—another one. Deadline’s midnight tonight. Otherwise, we’re all good. Oh, except Cym finally broke up with her girlfriend.”

  “You mean today?”

  “Well, it’s been coming for a while…but, yeah, today.”

  “Is she okay…I mean is she focused?”

  “Oh, she’ll be fine. This will be good for her, throwing herself into the work. So anyway, Ellie, Cym, and I could meet you at a restaurant, or we can just come out to the cottage and make something there—whatever you like.”

  “You know what, I’m probably only good for a couple more hours of reading. My life has been a tad too crazy. So why don’t you come straight to the cottage.”

  “Don’t worry about dinner—we’ll pick something up.”

 
“Mark! That’s two meals in a row for me!”

  “So life is good?”

  “Yeah, except for all the bad stuff.”

  “You’re funny. See you soon—probably no later than seven. We’re all really grooving on Beckett, Roz—all Beckett all the time.”

  By the time I left to go back to Kingsport, I had actually managed to draft a plan of which pieces I thought would feature their skills and make a compelling presentation, including which order might work best, considering casting, bits of costume, and how the overall reading would build emotionally. At least I’m prepared to start the work tomorrow, I thought. Who knows where we’ll end up?

  “Company’s coming,” I said to the cat as I hastily tidied up the place and checked that there were enough beds made up to accommodate everyone.

  I glanced out the window. Speak of the little devils! The actors’ van was rolling down Longspell Road towards the cottage. I dashed out through the porch and along the driveway to greet them as they pulled in.

  “Now what would Beckett say?” I called, as they climbed out of the van.

  Cym turned in a circle looking around. “Beckett would say, ‘A country road. A tree. Evening.’” I recognized it as the opening setting from Waiting for Godot.

  Mark jumped in. “He would say, ‘All the dead voices. They make a noise like wings.’”

  Ellie continued, “‘They make a noise like feathers.’”

  And Cym, “‘Like leaves.’”

  And finally all of us together: “‘Like ashes.’”

  “Good on ya,” I said, trying to hug them all at the same time. “You are in the groove!”

  “I was just reading that section out loud in the car,” Ellie said. “It’s so ghosty.”

  “I know,” I said. “Wait until we look at Footfalls—I finally figured that one out today. It’s really ghosty. We can work on it in the morning!”