by Ron Corbett
Yes, I will kill him for you.
The men had given similar motives for the killing and this amused Cambino. The man they wanted dead did not deserve the spoils of the crime they were plotting. It would be like tossing pearls before swine. It was the argument of many a thief with a back-end scheme, and the betrayal did not offend Cambino. He believed if you were not strong enough to protect what you had stolen, you should not have become a thief.
He would need to decide soon. To which man had he lied? He needed a test, some way of knowing which man was unworthy, which man the planet no longer needed. A test for courage, or devotion, or beauty would be futile with these men. They did not possess such things. Cambino needed to see them for what they were. And devise his test accordingly.
. . .
Later that morning, Cambino pulled into a Chevron station near Charleston, Missouri, and filled the dual tanks of the Falcon. The sun sat at a sixty-degree angle on the eastern horizon, and the awning over the pumps offered no shade. He went inside and paid in American cash. A Texas A&M ball cap pulled low on his face. He never spoke to the clerk at the register, only shook his head no when the teenager asked if he wanted a receipt.
As he was walking back to the camper, another teenage boy, pumping gas into an old Camaro, yelled at him, “Hey, is that a Falcon camper?”
Cambino nodded and kept walking.
“Shit, it looks brand new. I thought they stopped making those back in the ’90s.”
He stopped. To say nothing would seem suspicious.
“Nineteen ninety-six,” he yelled at the boy. “Mine is from the last production run.”
“Cool-looking van. It looks brand new. I’ve never seen one with tinted windows. How much did that cost you?”
“Not much. I have astigmatism. Bright light hurts my eyes.”
“Shit, that explains it. I didn’t think it was even legal to tint them that dark. I tried to have my car done, but the DMV wouldn’t allow it. Fuckin’ jerks.”
Cambino wasn’t sure if he was supposed to reply. People spoke so freely in this country. Making comments at a gas pump that would get them thrown in jail in Heroica. He nodded and resumed walking, deciding nothing needed to be said. But as he unlocked the van with an electronic fob the boy yelled, “Whoa, keyless entry? That’s not stock. What all have you had done to that thing?”
“Just the keyless entry,” Cambino said, working to keep the frustration out of his voice. “You can get it done at Walmart.”
“Sweet. You know, my dad used to own one of those campers. Would you mind if I had a quick look inside?”
Cambino hesitated before opening his door. Briefly considered it. But could not come up with a workable plan that also had the Camaro disappearing from the gas station and so he said, “I’m in a bit of a hurry, son. Maybe another time.”
Chapter Twenty-One
As he drove back from Fergus Glen, Yakabuski took a closer look at the Springfield River than he had that morning, when he was rushing to meet Terry Maguire. The water sat unmoving. No current. No wind. Low and black at a time of year when it should have been frozen, should have been a ribbon of white with ice fishing huts out on the middle channel. The willows that leaned over the water had mouldy yellow strands that looked diseased in some way. There were no bright colours anywhere that Yakabuski looked.
As he drove, Yakabuski thought of what Terry Maguire had told him, after saying Sean Morrissey’s mother was the key to learning the identity of Augustus’s murderer. When Yakabuski had asked her age, the old man did the math in his head and said sixty-four. Maybe sixty-five. Somewhere around there. When he asked what part of Springfield he should start looking in, Maguire had said only that she was “nearby.” To every other question, he shook his head and said that was all Yakabuski was going to get. They didn’t bother shaking hands when he left.
When he reached the detachment, Yakbuski went looking for Donna Griffin. He found her at a general pool desk in Major Crimes, staring intently at an Excel spreadsheet she had on her computer screen. She was still wearing her patrol uniform. The only one in uniform in the general pool area.
“Any more luck?” asked Yakabuski, pulling a chair from a nearby desk and sitting beside her.
“Nothing, I’m afraid. This is a list of timber rights that have been granted around Cape Diamond. Nearly every company is numbered. I’m working my way through the list.”
“Take a break from that. I need you to track someone down. Her name is Katherine Morrissey, mid-sixties, she lives in Springfield, or somewhere nearby.”
“Who is she?”
“Sean Morrissey’s mother.”
“Really? I’ve been reading up on Augustus, but I haven’t read anything about a wife.”
“I never knew he had one,” said Yakabuski. “It must go back a few years. I don’t know if anyone should be surprised by that, given everything else we’re looking at in this case.”
“There are a lot of things about this case that are old, aren’t there,” said Griffin, turning away from the computer screen and looking at Yakabuski. “The North Shore Travellers, Terry Maguire. Even the name Gabriel Dumont, it’s right out of the history books. Do you think it means anything?”
“Of course it does. Means there’s nothing young around here anymore,” said Yakabuski, and when Griffin looked as if she was about to seriously ponder his answer, he laughed and stood up. “Katherine Morrissey. Call me if you find anything.”
. . .
Earlier that day, Yakabuski had called up Tete Fontaine’s police record. The first entry in it was when Fontaine was twelve years old, arrested for beating up two other boys in Filion’s Field. At twenty-two he was sentenced to five years in Kingston Pen for manslaughter after beating to death a man who had stolen food from the brasserie. The most interesting item, though, was a non-arrest from five years ago. Fontaine had badly injured two Popeyes when the bikers showed up one night at the brasserie, looking for off-sales, and Fontaine refused to sell them any beer. Refused to sell them any because — and here the police report had four eyewitnesses quoted — the bikers stank. And they had ruined perfectly good leather jackets by cutting out the arms “like fuckin’ Cocos.” When the bikers objected to the lack of service by putting their fists through Fontaine’s wooden walk-in beer cooler, he cut them from belly to sternum with a twelve-inch Bowie knife he kept behind the service bar. He left them bleeding and moaning on the floor of the brasserie, then hectored the paramedics when they arrived for taking so long “takin’ out ta fuckin’ garbage.” A man protecting his property. No charges laid.
Yakabuski figured Fontaine dressed in silk shirts because he wanted people to know he could do a thing like that. Dress in flower-patterned silk shirts on the North Shore and no one would bother him. It was like pissing your way down the street. But he was no dandy, and it would be an unlucky man who mistook him for one. As those two Popeyes found out.
When Yakabuski entered the brasserie, Fontaine was again standing behind the service bar. He was wearing pressed jeans this day, and a black shirt with a western motif on the shoulders, antlers and knotted rope. Cigarette smoke hung heavy around his head, and he did not move in any noticeable way as Yakabuski approached.
“I’m heading up to Cape Diamond today. I hear your cousin lives around there,” said Yakabuski, when he was standing in front of the bar.
“Gabriel live many places. I doin’ all I can to find ’im, mon ami.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
Yakabuski sat on one of the stools at the lunch bar, a heavy chrome swivel chair with a roun,d padded seat the colour of cherry. It had metallic flakes in it. A hard poly-plastic veneer that had cracked and formed topo maps during the half-century the chair had been in use at the back of Fontaine’s brasserie, but it had never torn. Never broken. A half-century of worn-down comfort in that chair.
His father used to take
him to brasseries like this in High River, where the beer was stored in walk-in coolers, kept cold by squares of ice and dark-wood framing; where there was sawdust spread on the pine floors by the cash and the front door to absorb the melting ice. Any time his father took him, there was the aroma of vegetable soup and malt vinegar and wood burning in an airtight stove in a corner somewhere. If they visited on a Saturday afternoon, there would be men sitting around the airtight, playing cards and talking. Later in the afternoon they would start to play music. Fiddles. Spoons. Washboards. Yakabuski shifted his weight on the stool. There was not a position that seemed uncomfortable to him.
“Are your sur long sandwiches any good?”
Fontaine spread his arms wide. “Mon ami, you insult me agin’. Ma sur long sandwich keep honest men workin’ all day.”
“And dishonest men?”
“In your wife bed all night.”
“I’ll take one to go.”
“I t’ink you need two.”
Fontaine turned to start working the griddle. He poured some oil from a bottle on the counter, then dipped his spatula into a bowl of congealed bacon fat and started working the spatula across the griddle, working the fat in with the oil, letting it melt together as he stroked the griddle, moving square by square, as methodical as a field retriever, as precise in his hand movements as a string-instrument musician. The muscles in his back could be seen rippling beneath his shirt as he worked. As tight and sinewy as the ropes on his shoulder piping. Yakabuski knew muscles like that didn’t just happen. Muscles like that almost never happened.
“The wake for Augustus is this afternoon,” said Yakabuski. “Funeral is tomorrow. There are a lot of people coming into town for it. Might be a smart idea to keep a low profile the next couple of days.”
“You t’ink I scared of a fuckin’ Shiner?”
“No. Still might be a smart idea.”
Fontaine laughed and threw strips of pork on the grill, some onions and tomatoes. Flipped the pork a few times and then slid his spatula under the grilled meat and vegetables, slid everything into a cut-open baguette, sliced the whole thing in half, and carefully wrapped the two sandwiches in sheets of waxed paper. He put them in a brown paper bag and put the bag in front of Yakabuski. He wiped his hands and lit a cigarette.
“How much?”
“On t’e house.”
Yakabuski took a twenty from his wallet and put it on the counter. “Your cousin has a land claim for all of Cape Diamond. You ever been up there?”
“Many time. Good fishin’ in t’at stretch of river.”
“Just go for the fishing?”
“What else t’ey got up t’ere?”
“Quite a few diamonds. Like the one we found shoved down Augustus Morrissey’s throat.”
“I hear ’bout t’at. Maybe some kind boy do it to make sure his stinkin’ body get pick’d up.”
Yakabuski stared at Fontaine through the curling smoke. He seemed a happy man. As he walked away, Fontaine picked up the bill Yakabuski had left on the bar and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The plane circled Cape Diamond before landing. A full, 360-degree bank that let Yakabuski see the entire mining operation. There were corrugated metal hangars and heavy trucks travelling over the tundra, what looked like a large silo, likely the entrance to the mine. He counted fourteen bunkhouses and two cookhouses, judging by the steam rising from them. A row of ten metal trailers he thought would be offices. What might have been a hockey arena. What might have been a church.
Diamonds were found twenty years ago on this peninsula, thirty miles north of the Kesagami Reserve. A geologist working for De Kirk made the find. He was taking soil samples on the Upper Divide when he heard stories on the reserve about a peninsula that jutted far out on the Francis River, one you could see some nights because of gemstones twinkling in the dark. The first diamond to be taken out by De Kirk was mined with the geologist’s camp spade. Forty-four carats. When it reached New York, the clarity was rated “flawless.”
De Kirk sent a full advance team to the Northern Divide within days, to secure mining rights for the area. The company had its headquarters in Johannesburg and had been mining diamonds a long time. It knew a strike the size of the one on the Francis River meant more money than the company could discreetly move around and keep secret from the various state revenue agencies with which it dealt. More money than any member of the corporate board could spend in one lifetime.
Dynastic wealth. That’s what had been discovered on Cape Diamond, and so De Kirk spent money freely when it arrived on the Divide, knowing they would lose more money each day they were not allowed to mine than they could ever spend in bribes.
The provincial government was shown projected tax revenue that exceeded the taxation base of every forestry company on the Divide. De Kirk offered to pay the tax in quarterly instalments, first instalment to be paid the day the mine opened. There was no need for actual cash flow, the company’s financial people explained to the surprised government bureaucrats who had come to Johannesburg to negotiate terms. They were confident of their numbers.
As for the Cree and Métis in the area, they were offered most of the jobs in the new mine. The Kesagami Band Council was also given five percent of the net revenue, paid out quarterly, with an annual guarantee of forty million dollars. The Cree did not have clear title to the peninsula, but they had a land claim, and De Kirk entered the annual payment as an advance against future revenue. In truth, the company did not care if the land claim was ever settled. Five percent of net was a workable expense. Whether it be called an advance against future revenue or a payoff.
Nine months after that first diamond had been dug up, De Kirk was pouring the foundation walls for the mine shaft. The provincial premier, the minister of northern affairs, and the entire Kesagami Band Council turned out for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
. . .
The plane landed and taxied to a metal hangar, where a thin, middle-aged man dressed in white coveralls and a hard hat was standing there waiting for them with a clipboard in his hands. A ramp was wheeled to the plane and the door opened. When Yakabuski was on the tarmac the man with the clipboard walked over to him.
Once there, the man tipped his hard hat to the back of his head and said, “John Merkel. You’ve just the one bag?”
“Just the one.”
“No one else on board?”
“Just the pilot.”
“Very well. Let’s go. Did you bring the report?”
Yakabuski slid his packsack off his back, opened the top pouch, and took out a manila envelope. He gave it to Merkel. The man ripped it open and took out an 8 x 10 black-and- white photo of the diamond. He examined it carefully. Took a pocket magnifying glass from the breast pocket of his overalls and examined it again. He was walking at a brisk pace. When they were in front of the metal silo he stopped walking and slid the photo back into the envelope.
“It looks like one of ours,” he said.
“Glad we won’t be wasting a lot of time arguing about that.”
“Still doesn’t mean we’ve been robbed.”
“It’s an uncut diamond.”
“Everything we ship is uncut. Perhaps it was stolen after we shipped it.”
“And it turns up in Springfield? Someone steals it in New York and ships it back to Springfield? Does that make sense to you?”
“It’s strange, I’ll grant you that, Detective Yakabuski. But it still doesn’t mean we’ve been robbed. Here, I’ll show you how impossible your theory is. Your timing is good, by the way. There’s a shift coming up top in ten minutes.”
Merkel swiped an access card and opened a large metal door. Inside they walked down a hallway with a metal floor that reminded Yakabuski of navy ships. Administrative offices, it looked like, ran down both sides of the hallway. They rounded two co
rners and came to another metal door that needed Merkel’s access card to enter. Inside there was the roar of heavy machinery, and men wearing white overalls just like Merkel’s were moving quickly up and down catwalks that either disappeared into the earth or rose high into the frame of the silo.
Merkel leaned his head toward Yakabuski and shouted, “This is the main power station for the mine.”
Then he turned away and kept walking. Yakabuski considered himself a fast walker, but it was only his larger stride that was letting him keep up with Merkel. At the end of the power room, there was another large metal door. This door required not only Merkel’s access card but also a retina scan. Inside this room there was no roar of heavy machinery. No engineers in white overalls. The layout of the room was so familiar it startled Yakabuski. A long, rectangular room with what looked like a glass window running down one of the longer sides. Only it wasn’t a glass window. It was a two-way mirror. It looked like a room where you brought people to look at a police lineup. In the room were six beefy looking men in security uniforms, each sitting at a desk positioned in front of the mirror. There were laptops on every desk.
“Detective Yakabuski, I’d like you to meet Johanne Kurtz, our head of security.” The beefiest of the six beefy men stood up and shook Yakabuski’s hand.
With no discernable sign of joy he said, “Pleasure to meet you.” Then he sat back down.
“Forgive him, we’re just about to start,” said Merkel, and just then a door opened in the room on the other side of the mirror. A man dressed in the same sort of overalls as Merkel, only dark orange with no insignia on the chest pocket, walked into the room. He was followed by nine other men wearing the same orange overalls, all with soot stains on their faces and hard hats under their arms. Each man was Cree or Métis, it looked to Yakabuski.
