by Dave Butler
The man chuckled. “I don’t think so,” he said. “With that fucker behind bars now and none of our transactions coming to light so far, there’s no reason for me to come out of the shadows.”
“Are you sure?” asked Willson. “I’d like to meet you, tie up some loose ends, thank you in person …” While she still didn’t know the man’s name, she guessed that he might yet get a visit from the authorities if his name was in the material the U.S. feds had seized from Castillo’s downtown office. She ignored the urge to ruin his day.
“Nothing personal, Warden, but no thanks. You saved my ass. Now we’re done.”
Willson heard a dial tone, stared at the phone for a moment, and then dropped it on the bench seat beside her. She turned and looked at the prison as though she could, through the thick concrete walls, give Castillo one final message. “I got you, you bastard. You tangled with a Willson — and you lost big time.”
She steered her car out of the parking lot, headed south into Walla Walla, and then turned right onto Highway 12. It would be a long drive back to Banff via Spokane. But she’d enjoy every moment of it.
Chapter 37
September 22
She was late. Willson ran down the hallway, nearly colliding with a janitor as she rounded a corner. Her nervous eyes shifted from door to door, searching for room 208. After getting lost in downtown Calgary and then struggling to find parking, she was sweating and fifteen minutes behind schedule.
When Willson reached the conference room on the second floor of the Harry Hays Building, she saw Brad Jenkins and Peter MacDonald waiting outside the door. They were in full dress uniform and smiling at her. Bill Forsyth stood beside them in an ill-fitting suit.
“Glad you could join us, Jenny,” said MacDonald. “They’re a half-hour behind so you can relax.”
“Excellent,” said Willson. “I’m a friggin’ sweaty mess. Did I tell you I hate big cities?”
“Love the traffic, eh?” Jenkins said with a grin. “There’s a washroom to your left. Take a few moments to clean up.”
She walked down the hall, pushed open the door, and then washed her face and neck with paper towels soaked in cold water. Peering at herself in the grimy mirror, she straightened the tie on her dress uniform. “Good enough for the guys I go out with,” she said to herself.
When Willson found her way back to her three colleagues, she saw they’d been joined by a severe-looking woman who introduced herself as the administrative assistant for Parks Canada’s western regional director. “We’re ready for you,” she said. “Please come in.”
As the door opened, Willson was surprised by the scene in front of her. On one side, a bank of tripod-mounted TV cameras pointed across rows of metal chairs, toward a raised stage with a podium at its centre. The chairs were filled with people she didn’t recognize, while a row of smiling dignitaries sat on the stage. Willson saw Chief Park Warden Frank Speer there, along with the regional director, three members of Parliament, and the federal deputy environment minister. The four officers were led to empty chairs in the front row.
Over the next forty minutes, Willson listened to a chain of speeches from the dignitaries, each more passionate and self-congratulatory than the one before. And each equally as nauseating. Repeatedly, she heard a message that must have come direct from the communications staff in the prime minister’s office: “This government continues to be committed to the sanctity of our national parks …” In one windy ramble, she heard the regional director take credit for encouraging the investigation and for pushing the officers to keep digging. When he finally wound down, Willson turned to Jenkins.
“Jesus Christ, I’m going to vomit,” she whispered in his ear. “I’d rather be at the fucking dentist getting drilled than listen to this shit.”
“Grin and bear it, Jenny,” said Jenkins. “It’ll be over soon.”
It was then that the regional director asked the four enforcement officers to join him on stage. Willson, Jenkins, Forsyth, and MacDonald stepped up and stood in a line, Jenkins’s black CO uniform a dramatic contrast to the green-and-brown warden uniforms of Willson and MacDonald. Forsyth’s suit was like an awkward punctuation at the end of a sentence. One at a time, the director presented each of them with a framed certificate of appreciation. As he did so, he shook hands, smiled, and then turned robotically toward the official Parks Canada photographer, who captured the moment. The four officers then ran the gauntlet of handshaking dignitaries.
Unbeknownst to anyone, Willson had prepared a short speech for the occasion. After she had her certificate in hand, she moved toward the microphone on the podium, pulling a sweaty piece of paper from her breast pocket. She felt a firm hand on her elbow. It was the regional director, urging her back to her seat with a subtle shake of his head. “I don’t think so,” he whispered.
Just as well, Willson thought with a smile. She knew it would’ve been her last day as a warden and she would have missed the opportunity to tranquilize someone in the ass — although the desire was now greater than ever.
When the ceremony and the carefully managed media interviews were over, and when they’d shaken all the hands there were to shake and had their pictures taken with every dignitary and wannabe in the room, Willson sidled up beside the official government photographer.
“Would you take a special picture for me?” she asked the woman.
“Sure,” said the photographer. “It’s your day.”
Willson led her across the room toward the little bureaucrat with whom she’d tangled in the Banff boardroom, more than a year earlier. She’d noticed him when she was on stage. His head was down, focused on his BlackBerry. Jesus, she thought, does he read that goddamn thing when he’s sitting on the can?
With her certificate in her right hand, proudly in front of her, Willson quickly grabbed the man’s left shoulder with her free hand and gave it a vigorous squeeze. The camera flash illuminated the two of them in that pose. The resulting picture would always act as a reminder for Willson, not only of that moment but of the entire challenging investigation: Willson with a grin on her face, the little bureaucrat with a look of surprise and pain on his.
“Thanks for your help,” said Willson. “I appreciated it.” She walked away from the bureaucrat, not looking back and not waiting for a reply. She saw Frank Speer smirk and give her a thumb’s-up from across the room.
When Willson and her colleagues reached the hallway outside the large conference room, they burst out laughing.
“That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” said Jenkins, his arm across Willson’s shoulders. “That made listening to the crap from the podium worth the price of admission. You deserve a drink, Jenny.”
“Yes, I do,” said Willson, “that made me feel exceptionally good.”
An hour later, the four sat at a table near the back of the Anejo Restaurant, on the southern edge of downtown Calgary. They were into their second mojitos when the restaurant’s skull-emblazoned door flew open. They saw Jim Canon, Sue Browning, and Jenkins’s fiancée, Kim Davidson, come through the door in a boisterous bunch. Making their way to the table, their friends noisily pulled chairs from adjacent tables and asked the waitress to bring a fresh pitcher of mojitos and three more glasses.
When the sweating pitcher of drinks arrived and all were served, Brad Jenkins took the lead, raising his glass in the air, pointing it toward Willson.
“A toast and a gift,” he said. “Here’s to the best investigator in Western Canada!” Glasses were raised and clinked around the table.
Jenkins then handed Willson a gift-wrapped cylinder. She opened it and lifted up a grey T-shirt. Emblazoned across the chest were the words Where there’s a Willson, there’s a way! The group broke into raucous applause.
“Hey, you guys, this means a lot to me,” said Willson, a grin on her face, the T-shirt held against her chest. “I thought we should meet i
n one of Calgary’s best Mexican restaurants to celebrate the fact that Luis Castillo will be in jail for a long time.”
“Salud!” everyone in the group toasted, as glasses were raised again.
Willson grinned and said, “Most of you played a part in this, so my sincere thanks. I know we’re all pleased that Castillo got what he deserved. Believe it or not, dinner is on me!”
This time, the responding toast was even more enthusiastic. The dark-haired waitress waited for the toasts to finish and then took their dinner orders. The celebration was on. Plates filled with tacos, chili rellennos, and red mole chicken were shared amongst the friends, washed down with sweet mojitos.
When they had finished the meal, Canon couldn’t hold his curiosity any longer. “You’ve been keeping secrets, Jenny. It’s finally time you told us how everything ended up in court!” he declared.
Willson, her cheeks glowing with the warmth of success, friends, and alcohol, laid out the story. “We got convictions in federal court against Eastman for the park hunts,” she said. “We got him for the Banff elk, the Jasper sheep, and the Kootenay goat. The rifle we seized at his residence in the second search,” she said, looking at Forsyth, “matched the elk and the goat.”
“Did he get jail time?” asked Canon.
“Oh, yeah,” said Willson, “the judge wasn’t impressed with him. Eastman got fifteen years in federal prison, five for each of the three offences in the parks. And then there’s the $500,000 fine. I understand he’s had to sell his Ta Ta Creek property to pay that.”
“Well,” said Canon, “I don’t feel sorry for the guy. He got what he deserved.”
“And it was your picture of the sheep that finally tied up some of the loose ends, Jim,” Willson said, raising her nearly empty glass. “So here’s to the best wildlife photographer in all of Western Canada.”
“Hey, why only Western Canada?” asked Canon with a smile. “But enough about me. What about on the B.C. side?”
“I’ll let Brad tell you about that,” said Willson.
“After he was thrashed by the feds,” began Jenkins, “we almost felt sorry for Eastman. But not so sorry that we didn’t throw the book at him, too.” Jenkins explained that after plea bargaining, the guide ended up with an additional $100,000 fine and a ban from hunting in B.C. for ten years. He also lost his guiding territory. “And that’s only after he gave us detailed statements outlining every hunt he was on with Castillo,” Jenkins added.
He paused for dramatic effect. “Oh … and remember that massive grow op we found in the basement of Eastman’s garage when our guys went back a second time?”
“Yeah,” said Canon, “you told us about that.”
“That was a surprise for all of us,” said Willson, jumping in. “We had no idea Eastman was in that business, and then to find the rifle down there was icing on the cake.” She paused to finish a mojito. “But that’s another part of the story with Castillo. Turns out that Eastman was sending his pot south via the American’s trucking company. Eastman finally admitted that was how they moved the elk and sheep trophies across the border. The drug charges against Eastman are working their way through the courts. But after all that, after all the crimes we’ve solved, we still don’t know how they got the caribou head across the border.”
“You guys are killing me here!” said Canon. “Do I have to drag it out of you, one bad guy at a time? What about the reason we’re here tonight? Señor Castillo …?”
By this time, Willson had enough alcohol in her bloodstream that parts of the restaurant began to shimmy. “All I can shay … say,” said Willson, “is that he’s been charged or convicted of so many things that I’ve lost track. Illegal hunting, illegal transport of wildlife, illegal importing of wildlife into the U.S., drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal transport of firearms and counterfeit money, conspiracy.… The guy is screwed. And oh, yeah, money laundering. Or did I already say that? Whatever. We’ll never see him up here again to face our charges. But who cares? I hope he rots in some hellhole of a U.S. prison.”
“Did you figure out what happened to Charlie Clark?” asked Canon.
“That poor son of a bitch,” Willson said. “I interviewed Eastman and Castillo a few times, and once they realized how much we had on them, the rats jumped from the sinking ship. Castillo told me that it was Eastman’s nephew, a young guy named Steve Barber, who killed Charlie Clark. I assume he was the same guy who assaulted me that same day. Once they had the name, the RCMP matched some DNA found at Clark’s trailer to the nephew, so he’ll probably go to prison for that murder. And Castillo told me it was Eastman himself who killed Wendy Clark. Using cadaver dogs, police found her body buried on Eastman’s property. Not smart at all. And in turn, Eastman told us that it was Castillo who ordered a hit on nine guys in a competing drug gang. The RCMP homicide investigators are still trying to sort that one out; they may request rendition. I mean extradition. So both Eastman and Castillo will likely be charged with murder, as if killing animals wasn’t enough fucking fun for them.”
Kim Davidson placed her arm around Willson’s increasingly slumped form. “Celebration is over, princess,” she said. “Time for bed. I’ll call you a taxi.”
Chapter 38
October 8
Two weeks later, Jenny Willson cycled along the paved road on the west side of Lake Minnewanka. Despite the burning in her thighs from the aggressive climb up from Banff on the Minnewanka Loop Road, her mind still wandered, as it did every day, to the poaching case and to Eastman, Castillo, and the Clarks. When her cellphone rang, she pulled off the road to answer the call.
“Willson here.”
“Jenny, it’s Tracy Brown from Spokane. You’re breathing hard. Did I catch you in the middle of someone?”
Willson laughed. “I wish. No, I’m on a bike ride. Had to get off my ass and out of the office for a while.”
“I know what you mean. How’s everything?”
“Good,” said Willson, “although it’s boring now that our case’s done. What about you?”
“We went from that case to another so I’ve had no time to take that holiday you and I talked about. It’ll happen. But hey, I wanted to call you with two pieces of news.”
“What’s up?” asked Willson.
“First,” said Brown, “I found an opportunity for us. Do you want to go to Namibia?”
“Namibia?” said Willson. “What’s in Namibia?”
“The Namibian government is looking for two wildlife officers from North America to train their anti-poaching squads on investigative techniques. It would be a temporary assignment, about six months. They’re losing rhinos and elephants and other animals, and they don’t have the capacity to successfully investigate after the fact. They’re willing to pay the whole shot for us to come over. I thought about you and me right away. Interested?”
“Hell, yeah,” said Willson. “Count me in. What do we need to do?”
“Well, it’s a long application process and we have to get our bosses’ support. I’ll send you the details. But I wanted to first see if you were interested. We would have fun working together. I’ll let them know that we’ll get back to them.”
“Thanks, Tracy,” said Willson, smiling, “that would be great! I’ve always wanted to go to Africa, and what a way to do it. So what’s the other piece of news?”
“Well, I also phoned to tell you that your friend Luis Castillo won’t be spending any more time in prison.”
“What! Did he make bail … or did he escape?”
“Neither,” answered Brown. “He was killed yesterday. Whoever did it tried to make it look like a suicide.”
“Wow.” Willson was stunned. “So what happened?”
“In the midst of a disturbance in the cellblock, they found him hanging from a second-floor railing, a bedsheet around his neck. The guards are saying they tried to revive him but
he was already gone. From the reports I’ve seen, there’s no way in hell he could’ve done it himself.”
“Holy shit,” said Willson, “That’s a friggin’ surprise. Do they know who did it?”
“They don’t yet,” Brown said. “But he pissed off so many people that it could’ve been anyone. Whoever’s responsible likely didn’t want him spilling his guts during a trial, and now they’ve got their wish.”
“Wow,” said Willson again, pulling her helmet off her head to run her fingers through her sweat-dampened hair. “I don’t know how to feel about this. On the one hand, it’s almost a shame he was killed. Once I saw him in prison, saw how out of place and defeated and completely bewildered he was, I loved the fact that he’d have to spend the rest of his sad life in there. But on the other, maybe the arrogant prick got what was coming to him. Thanks, Tracy.”
“No problem,” said Brown, “I thought you should know. We’ll talk soon.” She disconnected the call.
Willson stood astride her bike, her helmet looped over the handlebar, the news of Castillo’s murder bouncing in her brain. The American had been at the centre of her waking hours, of her dreams, for nearly two years. Now he was gone. There was a long list of things she’d hated about him. His arrogance, his disrespect for the law and for protected areas, his contempt for her and her colleagues, his belief that wild animals were nothing but trophies, his involvement in businesses on the wrong side of the law. She’d despised the man and everything he represented and she’d wanted him to spend his life rotting in a tiny cell.
She remembered her first view of the animal heads in his trophy room in Spokane — the elk, the sheep, the mountain goat, and others, their glassy, lifeless eyes staring at nothing. And then she thought of Castillo, hanging in the prison, on graphic display. A trophy of the worst kind. Disgraced. Humiliated on his last day on earth. For a fleeting moment, Willson toyed with an image of Castillo’s head, prepared by a taxidermist, on the wall of the Banff warden office. A cautionary symbol, a warning to future park poachers. Nope, she thought, there’s probably some friggin’ rule somewhere against that kind of thing. Too bad. It would send a hell of a message.
