Forever Dead

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  “Suppose he did lose the flare gun? Would he have resorted to using his tranquilizer gun in an emergency?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, sure, if he had time to load it and all, but it’s not something you can do quickly, and besides, he didn’t have his trank gun with him this last trip.”

  I looked at her in surprise.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s in my car. He forgot it there when I drove him to work the day he went into the bush. I didn’t notice it until last week.”

  I tried to swallow the implications of this new revelation. If Jake hadn’t taken out the tranquilizer gun, then whose dart had hit him?

  “Could he have picked up another one at his office?”

  “It wouldn’t have occurred to him. He’d already packed it, you see, but he needed something from the pack and we were in such a hurry and he asked me if I could find it, and, well, I guess in my haste the tranquilizer gun case got left behind.”

  So where did the dart come from that was found in Jake’s body, I wondered. Someone must have been with him when he died, but who? Shannon got up and dumped a green garbage bag full of stuff by the sofa and then handed me another bag.

  “I know it’s crazy,” she said. “He was killed by a bear, but somehow I still can’t believe that.” She was looking like she was going to crumple again, so I quickly changed the subject.

  “Were there any disks stolen?”

  “You mean like yours? I don’t know. As I said he didn’t keep any disks here except … Yeah, hang on a moment. This might help you.” She got up, picked up her purse, and rummaged in it until she finally surfaced with a disk.

  “He gave me this just before he went into the bush. Asked me to take it to a printer and print out the injunction stuff on it for him and keep it in my purse until he got back. He was afraid the loggers might get hold of it and learn his game plans, I guess. He’d have done anything to stop the logging up there. He loved that place. And how he envied those guys on the west coast — you know, the ones who saved the forest because of a rare owl that lived there? He and his family used to camp up in Dumoine when he was a kid. Anyway, I printed out the injunction stuff for him — it’s still at work. You’re welcome to the disk, though. It’s no good to me anymore.”

  She handed me the disk. I placed it in my inside jacket pocket and then stood up to go. Shannon accompanied me to the door, grabbing onto the doorknob once again.

  I turned on the threshold and said, “Jake Diamond’s wife came to see me last week.”

  Shannon tensed every muscle and clenched her fists around the knob, but she said nothing.

  “She wanted to know about a black diary of hers that she says Diamond mistakenly took. She thought maybe I’d seen it when I first found Diamond as it hadn’t shown up in the police report and wasn’t among his effects. Do you know anything about it and why she’d think he had it?”

  Shannon ground her teeth and went pale and trembly. The doorknob rattled in her hand.

  “You’d think she’d be happy with the insurance policy she had on his life. A million bucks is nothing to sneer at. I know it made Diamond horribly nervous. People kill for less than that. She wants everything of Diamond’s right down to his camera and all the beautiful pictures he took of his lynx and bobcats. His stuff’s not worth much, God knows, but it means a lot to me to have those things, and I know she just wants them to shut me out. Diamond said he would leave all his things to me. He wrote another will in his black diary, and we got two acquaintances to witness it. He wanted me to have those pictures, to have all his things, not that bitch. She really told you that black book was hers?”

  “The black book isn’t hers?” I asked innocently.

  “No, of course it isn’t. I don’t know or really care what she told you. The truth is that he wrote another will.”

  “Isn’t that a little odd, not going through a lawyer?”

  “Not really. Jake said it’s perfectly legal as long as it’s witnessed and it’s handwritten. It all happened because the night before he was due to go into the bush he read an article in the paper about separated couples, and what to do to make sure you don’t get screwed financially. Well, it said the first thing to do is to change your will because if you die all your stuff goes to the wife, not to me. So he scribbled it all down in his black book and we got it witnessed by his friends. He was going to put it in the safe deposit box but he didn’t. I checked. It isn’t there.”

  “And you have no idea where it is?”

  “It must have gone into the bush with him. I haven’t seen it, but my brother, he’s a lawyer, he told Lianna’s lawyer about it. Her lawyer then confirmed its existence with the witnesses, and told me that unless I can find the will, the will favouring Lianna stands.”

  Suddenly her green eyes widened and she looked right through me. “Holy God. The bloody bitch. Do you think that’s why my place was ransacked?”

  chapter thirteen

  When I got into work the next day I met Martha in the hall staggering under a pile of books as she tried to open the office door with no free hands. I didn’t make it in time to catch the pile as it toppled over. I leafed through Jemima Puddle-duck as Martha picked up Winnie the Pooh and Brer Rabbit. Martha was not married and she’d never talked of any children.

  “Martha, what are you doing with these?” I asked.

  “The local daycare needs some more books, so I scrounged up some of these from the students here,” she said with a shrug.

  We walked into her outer office and I dumped the books on Martha’s desk and let out a big sigh. Martha cannot stand big sighs followed by silence, so I knew I had her attention.

  “This thing’s getting stranger and stranger, Martha. I can’t figure it out. Nothing fits.” I quickly filled her in on my conversation with Shannon.

  When I was through Martha chortled and said, “When I was a kid I used to do those big thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles.”

  I looked at Martha in exasperation. What the hell was she going on about?

  “It was a wonderful feeling getting those last few pieces, but one day my kid sister put one puzzle in the wrong box. One was a mountain scene with a stream and the other was a mountain scene with a stream but all different — same colours. I couldn’t get the puzzle. It didn’t make sense because I didn’t know what the final picture looked like. When I finally realized what had happened I was able to fit the pieces together.” Martha’s eyes were twinkling like a gurgling mountain stream. “You have to figure out what the problem is before you can start fitting the pieces together,” she said triumphantly as she plunked herself down in her chair. I pulled up a stool and straddled it.

  “Okay. You find a dead body. Killed by a bear. Someone moves that body from the death scene. There’s no forensic entomologist at the scene — except you — so the cops don’t collect proof that the body’s been moved. You do. Then your life is threatened, your lab is fumigated, and all the insects taken from Diamond are stolen. Coincidence? Unlikely. Someone went to a lot of trouble to prevent you from finding out the body had been moved. That is your first question. Why was the body moved?”

  I remained silent, wondering what she would come up with.

  “Okay. We know, or at least we’re pretty sure because of the tranquilizer gun, that someone was with Diamond when he died. It wasn’t his trank gun, and Shannon told you he wouldn’t have had a chance to get another. Suppose whoever it was got scared, tried to save Diamond, but accidentally shot him with the trank gun. Then panicked and fled.”

  “Who moved the body then?”

  “They came back and moved the body because the place he died would identify them somehow.”

  “Why go to all that trouble? Why not just go to the cops with the whole story and muscle it out? It’s not a criminal offence to try and help someone.”

  “Maybe they were too ashamed.”

  “Yeah, right. It’s got to be something more,” I said.

  “Maybe
he was in partnership with someone and they’d discovered something worth a lot of money, a gold mine or something. When the bear attacked them, his partner, after failing to save Diamond, moved the body so that no one would come snooping and find the gold. Then they snatched your disks to cover their tracks.”

  I was musing on the merits of Martha’s theories, particularly the last one, when the phone rang. Martha answered and handed it over to me.

  Duncan’s voice came booming over the line. “Did you know they found the bear about a day after the body was found?”

  “How do you know? I don’t remember seeing it in the papers.”

  “Apparently before they could get a team together to go and comb the area, one of the loggers phoned and said they’d shot a bear near Diamond’s permanent camp. The wildlife people went up to take a look but the loggers apparently burned the body to keep other wild animals away. Can you believe it? The wildlife guys were furious and thought maybe it was just an attempt to hide a bear-poaching job, but the loggers’ story held and they didn’t find a pelt. Apparently one of the loggers had recently been raked by the bear and his friends had saved him. He had the scars to prove it. Of course, it was too late to be able to prove it was the bear that got Diamond, but the wildlife guys were convinced by the scars. Two rogue bears in one area is hard to stomach.”

  When I didn’t say anything to this piece of news Duncan asked, “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, sorry, I was just thinking about something else. Was there a flare gun among Diamond’s belongings?”

  “Hang on a sec.” I could hear a file cabinet opening and the rustling of papers and then he was back on the line.

  “Let’s see … No, no flare gun. Should there have been?”

  “Apparently, yes. When I talked to his girlfriend she said he never went into the bush without his flare gun.”

  “Nope. There was no flare gun found, but there was something else you didn’t see which might convince you that perhaps you’re blowing things way out of proportion.”

  At least he’d softened it with the word perhaps, I thought as he continued.

  “Seems Diamond was quite careless. One of my report pages was with my secretary the day you came. Diamond’s trousers were drenched in fish oil — not the kind found with fresh fish. This was an oil, like sardines, which would fit with what you said about sardine cans being found there.”

  My mind raced back to that lonely and deserted campsite, and I said in puzzlement, “Yes, but why would a man who hauls up his food pack, complete with toothpaste, wear trousers saturated with fish oil that is bound to be a dinner gong for any bear in the area?”

  “So he ate sardines for dinner and spilled it. Do it all the time myself. Those tins are such a bitch to open.”

  I shook my head at the phone. “Doesn’t make sense.

  He comes across as an experienced camper. He knew the dangers. Why didn’t he wash his pants?”

  “Maybe he didn’t have another pair.” When I snorted, Duncan changed tack.

  “There’s no accounting for people’s lapses. Haven’t you ever forgotten to look both ways before crossing the street and narrowly missed getting flattened? Awful yeasty feeling in your mouth when it happens.”

  After we disconnected I stood in my office staring at the wall thinking about Diamond, then roused myself, said goodbye to Martha, and headed off to the library. I didn’t get away from work until prime rush hour. I sat stuck on the bridge over the Ottawa River and watched four kayaks darting in and out of the rapids while I thought about forensic entomology, which, of course, directed my thoughts toward Jake Diamond and my disks.

  What had really happened to him up there in the woods? Had there really been someone with him that day? Had they shot the dart at the bear to try to save Diamond and jabbed him instead? Were they partners in some illegal scheme that forced the partner to move the body? Was there an illegal still up there in the woods, or were they poaching and didn’t want the police to find the evidence? Was that why the body was moved? And if so, how was this going to help me find my disks? I had to find out if there had been someone with Diamond when he died. If there was, I prayed they’d be able to lead me to my disks, if I played my cards well enough. Problem was, I wasn’t sure if I held any cards at all.

  Clouds were rolling in from the west and it had started to rain as I pulled my car up in front of the barn and jumped out. Ryan’s motorbike was parked outside his studio, and the red light wasn’t on — he wasn’t in the darkroom. Great. I could try to get him to help me with the disk Shannon had given me. I took the metal stairs two at a time and rapped on the door before barging in.

  Ryan gingerly took the disk from me and turned it over in his hands as if it was contaminated.

  “Cordi, who else has this disk been conversing with?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ryan, how would I know? You have a virus detector, don’t you? Besides, it’s a Mac.”

  He grunted, and reluctantly pushed the disk into his hard drive. The computer hummed and hawed but no bells and whistles came up alerting us to some nasty infection being transported by the disk. When the disk’s icon, labelled “Stuff,” had mounted on the computer Ryan double-clicked on it. There was one folder on the disk, named “Logging.”

  Ryan opened the folder. It contained files of all Diamond’s logging information, briefs, letters, and records of all logging events up in the Dumoine area for the past forty years. There was also a file that turned out to contain his calendar of events for the past year, some articles on data falsification, and some letters to colleagues.

  “Let’s check his calendar,” I said, hoping something would jump out and make everything right again, but knowing it wouldn’t. Why couldn’t I be an optimist like Martha?

  Diamond had been meticulous at keeping track of all his appointments, times and dates. Ryan went back to March and started scrolling from there.

  “Ryan, stop!”

  I took the mouse from him and scrolled back and forth, highlighting two separate entries a month apart. The first said, “Speak with Don re: paper. Is Roberta involved?” The second, a month later, said, “Clear day for Don and the Dean re: ethics, paper.” The second entry was scheduled for five days after Diamond died.

  “What do you suppose that means?” said Ryan.

  “Don Allenby and Diamond were collaborating on a paper together. Roberta told me Diamond had asked Don to postpone publication. He was very disappointed and so was Roberta because she will be one of the authors — quite a plum for a master’s student.”

  “You think there was something wrong with the paper? Diamond’s got a folder here on data falsification and other illegal activities. Holy shit, that’d ruin Allenby’s career if he made up his data. Maybe it’s the student?”

  Ryan clicked open the essay, which talked about how the public trust had been undermined by scientists faking their data, but that it was essential to be sure before accusing someone because their careers could be ruined.

  “Jesus, Cor, if one of his students falsified data, no one would touch them again. That breast cancer study in Montreal by some guy — I can’t remember his name now. Remember how it played in the media? Data falsification is career-ending. If this guy’s student was doing something shady and Diamond found out, then his death has been very beneficial for her. Fake data. You’d be dead in the water.”

  I took the mouse from Ryan’s hand and scrolled through the documents.

  “He’s got stuff here on that fish in the Mediterranean,” I said. “The one they said was extinct, until some fisherman landed a live, breathing specimen.”

  I continued searching the files.

  “He’s got a whole folder on all his old papers. Jesus, he was prolific. Look: artificial insemination of captive cats, predator-prey relations, pregnancy in lynx, an overview paper on extinct and endangered species … Hey, here’s something on the Puerto Rican crested toad. They thought it was extinct, too, until a toad hopped out o
f a crevice one day. Remember that?”

  I idly wondered how many more species, thought to be gone forever, would prove us wrong, just like the toad and the fish. I clicked on a file labelled “Lynx,” but the computer beeped and prompted us for a password.

  “Wonder what’s so special about that one?”

  Ryan shrugged, and I went back to Diamond’s calendar and began scanning all the months before his death.

  “Take a look at this.”

  I pointed at the screen.

  “He had regular meetings with a guy named Jeff. Look at that — three, four times a month, but the entries end in May.”

  “I thought you said his helper’s a guy by the name of Patrick, not Jeff.”

  I reached for Ryan’s phone in my growing excitement, forgetting any fears I might have had about a cold call, and called Patrick, but I got no answer, so, since I was on a roll, I tried Shannon. She answered on the sixth ring.

  I went straight to the point.

  “Diamond was apparently going to meet with the Dean. He had an appointment five days after he died. It looks as though it had something to do with one of Don’s students. Do you know anything about it?”

  “Um, I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure. Jake was really upset about something — maybe it was Dr. Allenby. I don’t know, but whatever it was, I don’t think it was really great, you know what I mean? He wouldn’t eat my lemon meringue pie one night — can you believe it? He always loved it, but he said he was so angry about a paper he couldn’t touch anything.”

  “Do you know what paper it was?”

  “Paper? What? Oh. Oh, I see. He never told me much. Could have been any paper. He marked lots, and he wrote some stuff himself that got published in those magazines no one reads but the scientists. God, they’re really boring, but you see, I didn’t find his work really interesting, so I don’t really know.” She paused and then added sadly, “I guess I should have taken more interest.”