by Dave Butler
“Is there anything more you can tell us about the American hunter, Charlie?” she asked.
“What I can tell you is he thinks his own shit don’t stink … and that he looks down on people like me. I hate that fucker. He uses fancy words, but he’s, like, Mexican or somethin’. And he’s scary as hell, with those dark eyes that never seem to blink when he’s lookin’ at ya.” Clark shook his head as if to erase the memory. “I can also tell you I was there when he shot the elk and when he shot the goat. But I wasn’t there when he shot the ram. You can’t pin that one on me.”
Willson paused, realizing that Clark had given her something new. What goat? She tried to hide her surprise with an innocuous question. “Tell me more about the goat, Charlie. That’s the one we know the least about.”
“We were in Kootenay Park, near Mount Wardle. He shot a huge mountain goat billy. We took the head and cape and left the rest there.”
“When did this occur?”
Clark vigorously scratched his head. “Dunno for sure. It was around Easter, maybe just after.”
“So it was you and Eastman there with the American, and it was the American who shot the goat?”
“Yup, saw it with my own eyes. It was a nice one.”
“And what happened after he shot it?”
“I carved it up,” said Clark, with a note of pride in his voice, his thumb pointing to his chest. “I done a good job. And then we hiked down to the truck and got the hell outta there.” He told them about missing the truck and walking along the highway. “The client was pissed off at Bernie about that.”
“Do you know if anyone saw you?” asked Willson, hoping for a witness.
“Some guy in a truck was behind us for a while, so Bernie was drivin’ extra fast. But then the guy disappeared. I don’t know if he gave up, or what.”
“So you guys didn’t stop to talk to this guy who was following you?”
“No way. Bernie slammed the brakes to get him to back off. That’s when he disappeared. We just kept goin’.”
“And where’s the rifle that the American used to shoot the goat?”
“Dunno,” said Clark. “Bernie took it and the goat. Like he always does. The American guy brought his own rifle … but he didn’t use that one. He used Bernie’s, like always.”
“What kind of gun was it?
“It was Bernie’s .308. The guy likes it.”
Another link made, thought Willson. She could now tie Eastman and the American to a .308, but was it the same .308 that was used on the elk? She had to find the rifle to know for sure.
“Where does Bernie keep the gun, Charlie? The .308.”
“Probably in the gun cabinet in his garage,” said Clark. “That’s where he keeps all his good rifles.”
Shit, thought Willson. Neither of the guns they’d seized from the garage matched the bullet dug out of the elk. There must be another gun somewhere and Forsyth had missed it. “Are you sure about that, Charlie? We seized two rifles from Bernie but neither matches.”
“What can I say? Anytime Bernie asked me to get guns for a hunt, he always gave me the key to that cabinet.”
Time to take the questions in a different direction. “So let’s go back to the guarantee, Charlie,” she said. “What can you tell me about that? How does it work?”
“It’s not complicated, far as I know. Bernie guarantees ’em a trophy animal in their ten-day hunt. If he gets it in the territory, great. But if they don’t by the fifth day, he goes into one of them parks. He makes ’em pay extra for it, that’s for sure.”
“How long has he been doing this?”
“Maybe a year? I dunno for sure.”
“How many hunters have taken him up on it?”
“There was one other guy when he first started — that’s all I know about. But I think they just went into a park once. The American is the only one who took it serious and has been with Bernie a few times. But I guess you already know that. The last few times, they never bothered to go in the territory. They just headed straight for the national parks.”
“How many times has the American been with Bernie doing this?”
Clark again scratched his head, like he had lice or bedbugs or something worse. “Maybe four or five? There were the times you already know about, and I think they went to Banff at least once where the guy didn’t get anything. Bernie was really pissed off because he had to give the guy his money back.”
“So why’s Bernie doing this, Charlie? He’s got a perfectly good territory in the Purcells, full of animals. Why’s he risking that?”
“Same reason we all do things we ain’t supposed to. Money.”
Willson knew she was circling in on an important part of the investigation. Motive. “So why does Bernie need the extra money, Charlie? He already gets good money for the hunts in his territory.”
For the first time in the interview, Clark smiled. But it was a crooked, cynical smile. “Same reason we all need extra money. Wives.”
This brought a laugh from everyone in the room, everyone except the prosecutor. Willson glanced at her designer clothes and the huge ring on her finger, and was willing to bet that her husband, whatever he did for a living, would agree with Clark’s analysis. But perhaps not in front of his wife.
“Tell me more, Charlie.”
“All I know is what Bernie tells me. He says that the woman has a serious online problem — she plays poker on the computer and buys stuff from all sortsa websites. Bernie’s up to his eyeballs tryin’ to pay off the credit cards. But it was the wife’s money, some kinda inheritance, that allowed Bernie to buy the territory. So she’s got him by the short and curlies.”
“So it’s all about money.”
“It is,” said Clark. “When I first got hired by Bernie, he was pretty strict about followin’ the rules. He made sure we all did that. But once he got into money troubles, he didn’t seem to worry as much about the rules anymore.”
There it is, thought Willson. There’s the reason Eastman’s doing what he’s doing. It went right back to her first days in law enforcement school. Serious crimes were always committed for one of three reasons: money, sex, or power. Now she knew what was likely driving Eastman. What she didn’t know was why the American was taking him up on his guarantee. To understand that, she first had to figure out who the hell he was.
And then a small light bulb went on. “Charlie, you said Bernie was with the American four or five times,” she said. “Would he have to submit any records of those hunts to the B.C. authorities?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that — you’re askin’ the wrong guy. If Bernie wanted to make it look legal, he’d probably do the guide declarations for the government and report that the animals came from his territory. But I’d be surprised if he reported anythin’ at all, because some of the animals he took — like the sheep — don’t even live in his territory. And he’d have to name the hunter. I know he ain’t gonna do that unless he’s got no choice.”
Willson’s mind was flip-flopping with possibilities, with new avenues for questions. “Thanks for clearing that up for me, Charlie. Good point. So, let’s go back to the elk and the bighorn sheep again. First, tell me about the elk. What happened there?”
Clark led them through the shooting of the elk, how he and Eastman had scouted the secondary park highway the night before, how they’d picked up the American at the Calgary airport the next day, and then, after they’d gotten the elk, how they’d driven him to Cranbrook where he was getting a ride home to the United States.
“And he didn’t have the rifle or the elk rack with him?”
“Nope. Bernie dropped them off at his place before we took the guy into Cranbrook.”
“Did you see who picked him up?”
“We didn’t. We dropped him off at Denny’s restaurant on the main highway through town. He said
some other guy was gonna to pick him up there.”
“Okay … so tell me about the sheep in Jasper, Charlie.”
“Bernie and I scouted out those sheep in that place near the icefields,” said Clark. “I forget what it’s called. He told me that … uh … the American was comin’ up the next day. But I wasn’t there for that one. I’m pretty sure it was the client who shot the ram, but I wasn’t there, so I didn’t see him do it. I swear.”
“So you weren’t there when the sheep was taken?”
“Right.” Clark looked almost relieved. “I wasn’t there that day. Bernie said they didn’t need me.”
“Do you know what kind of gun they used?”
Clark shook his head. “Like I said, I wasn’t there.”
Willson decided to try again, this time with more emotion. She slammed her open hand on the table to make her point. “Charlie, it’s time to quit screwing around with me! I’m losing my patience with you. I need you to tell me the name of the American hunter. If you do, then I can find ways to protect you as a source. But if you don’t, and I find him — and I will find him — then I can’t help you if Bernie ends up thinking it was you who told me.”
She watched Clark pause. He looked right at her, his eyes again wide. Her hopes took a jump when his mouth started to open. Maybe he was changing his mind. But then his gaze dropped to the table and he again crossed his arms over his chest.
“Nope,” said Clark, “ain’t doin’ it. You can threaten me all you want, but you’re not gonna get the name from me.”
Willson knew then that she had all she would get from Clark, at least for now. She turned and nodded to the prosecutor, who rejoined the conversation.
“Mr. Clark,” Blake said, “we’re willing to make a deal with you. But I’m concerned that you’re not being co-operative, that you’re not taking advantage of the opportunity in front of you. If you tell my colleague what she wants to know, we’ll do all we can to protect you. But you’re already into this up to your eyeballs and there’s only so much we can do. This isn’t TV; it’s real life. As you can see, we’ve got enough evidence on your friend Bernie and the American to charge them both with a number of serious poaching offences.”
Clark, looking deflated and beaten, yet at the same time defiant, turned to his lawyer in search of advice.
“I think my client has told you all he’s willing to tell you today,” said Lindsay, “despite your offer to drop or reduce some of the charges. You’ve heard that his involvement in the three poaching incidents is secondary at best. I’m sure that a judge will look at it that way, too, and as a result my client might face a small fine at most. He seems to be okay with that. I’m not going to advise him otherwise.”
“As we both know,” the prosecutor said to him, “that’s what the courts are for. But let’s shift back to the drug charges for a moment. If we can agree that your client will give up the name of his dope supplier in exchange for a reduction in the trafficking charge, we’re probably done here for today. Perhaps that’s easier for him to do than name the American hunter. Officers Willson and Millen will sit with you and your client to get his statement. He can then be on his way.”
“He can then be paid?” asked the lawyer, his head tilted like a dog hearing a strange noise.
“I said he can then be on his way.”
“Ah. Well, I don’t think we’re there yet on the drug charges, Ms. Blake,” said Lindsay, his client shaking his head beside him. “I want to talk more to my client. We will get back to you on your offer.”
“Okay, but I will only keep that offer open for seventy-two hours,” said the prosecutor, looking back at Clark.
Willson jumped in again. “Oh, and Charlie. If you want to ensure that you have no further trouble from us, that you don’t dig yourself in any deeper, we need you to keep us informed about what Bernie is up to from today forward. In particular, we want to know the details, well before they happen, of any hunts planned, inside or outside his territory. We want to know everything about hunts that are booked, or even hunts that are only being talked about. And we want you to tell us as soon as you hear about them.”
Clark was again incensed. “What? You’re asking me to snitch on these guys for what they already did … and then keep rattin’ them out on things that might happen in future?”
“Your life will get a whole lot easier if you do that for us, Charlie,” said Willson. “That’s my guarantee to you.”
Two hours later, after Willson and Millen had again taken Clark through his story, step by step, writing everything down for him, Clark’s signed statement, many pages long, sat on top of the same file folders he’d seen that morning. During that time, Clark’s lawyer had nodded off twice, at one point startling himself awake with a jerk and a snort.
Through the same office window, Willson watched Clark and his lawyer walk out of the Cranbrook detachment into the afternoon sun. Clark shuffled the shuffle of a hungry, empty, and broken man. And perhaps a sick man. She’d thought about asking him if he was suffering from something, but decided that the interview wasn’t the time or the place to do that.
While Clark had not given her all she wanted, Willson now understood what had transpired with the elk and the sheep. And in the process, she’d learned about a mountain goat taken in Kootenay Park, a goat that her agency didn’t know anything about. So that was something. She now had the when, where, what, and how … but not the who or the why. But she had looked across the table at a man who was the key to the entire investigation, a nervous and frightened man who, given the right line of questioning and some comfort about whether or not he could be seen as a snitch, might be persuaded to give up the name of the American hunter. He wasn’t there yet, but maybe a few days to stew about his troubles would help him change his mind. She had to talk to him again, face to face, with no lawyers. Just the two of them. Maybe, she thought, that would be the time to ask him if he was sick. Maybe she could play the sympathy card to get him to open up to her.
She watched the two men approach the parked car. The lawyer struggled to open the door, at one point staring at his keys as if they belonged to someone else. She saw Clark look up at her, as though looking for relief from the mess he’d got himself into, as though she could release him from a life of mistakes and predicaments that kept piling on him like a slow-moving avalanche.
She nodded her head. A signal to him. “You and I will talk again soon, Charlie,” she said into the silence of the empty office, then turned away from the window.
Chapter 17
May 17
Jenny Willson sat at the kitchen table in her house, a copy of Charlie Clark’s file open in front of her on the pitted wood surface. As she pushed down the plunger of her French press coffee maker, she looked out the single-pane window to see the branches of an aspen showing the first sign of green buds. It was a long-overdue day off for Willson, so she was taking advantage of the quiet time to figure out her next moves in the investigation. A long bike ride was on the schedule for the afternoon. In the background, tunes from Spirit of the West, Blue Rodeo, and the Tragically Hip shuffled and soared from her Bose sound system. The ancient wood walls and floors seemed to come to life with the sounds of the music. She knew that, along with her clothing and her bikes, the sound system was the only thing she would take with her if she ever had to move. But she had no plans to do that.
Willson poured coffee into an old ceramic mug, grabbed it with both hands, took her first sip, and then focused on the file. When Clark had left the RCMP detachment two days earlier, moving like a zombie down the front steps, Willson had found herself almost feeling sorry for him. Almost. Clark’s life wouldn’t be the same after his interrogation, but she knew he was his own worst enemy. Her compassion for the man and her determination to solve the case fought a battle in her mind, a battle that was unfamiliar to her.
She thought about how to approach him next, wh
at strategy to use to get the name of the American hunter. In the long interview, Willson had listened to Clark describing what it was like to work for Bernie Eastman. The big man was a bully, and it was clear that agreeing to assist him was one of the many bad decisions Clark had made in his rough life.
Brad Jenkins confirmed that in a phone call after the interview. “Whenever we deal with Eastman,” he’d said, “no matter if it’s at his camp or in our office, he’s always an asshole. We’ve had all sorts of complaints against him. Clients have complained, other guide-outfitters have complained, regular hunters and hikers and fishermen have complained. Intimidation is his modus operandi. If we talk to him, we always go with at least two of us.”
In her time as a warden, Willson had dealt with many tourism businesses, from hotels and restaurants to tour operators and mountain guides. Most of them understood that treating their guests well increased the chances of a return visit and a successful business. She couldn’t help but wonder if Eastman had ever had clients hunt with him more than once. Probably not. But then she thought about the American, and even though she’d never met the man, she assumed from what Clark had said that he was as much a bully as Eastman.
Willson flipped back and forth through the pages of Clark’s statement, hearing the man’s voice, tired and beaten, as he described the events of the last few months. She had to find a way to offer Clark a release from the mess he was in, to free him from the bullies making his life miserable.
In that one interview, she’d gathered a significant amount of new information. But there were still big holes in the case. After rereading Clark’s account of the mountain goat poaching in Kootenay National Park, she decided that her first move was to phone the Kootenay Warden Office to let them know what she’d discovered. And then she had to persuade her bosses to continue to let her run with the investigation and, perhaps, to get her some additional help. She had to have that support before having another go at Clark.
Willson used her cellphone to dial the direct line for Peter MacDonald, a Kootenay warden she’d first met on a bear-handling course early in her career. MacDonald’s office was in a fenced compound a few kilometres up the highway from the hot springs in Sinclair Canyon, near Radium Hot Springs. Willson had passed it on her way back to Banff after the interview with Clark, but by then, it was well after normal business hours.
