Cole Blackwater opened his eyes, awakened by the invigorating smells and sounds of bacon frying, bread toasting, eggs sizzling, and coffee perking. He looked at his cell-phone for the time, and groaned. It was 6:10 AM. That’s life on a ranch. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, pulled his jeans on, and buttoned his shirt.
Gord McSorlie sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and drinking coffee. Peggy McSorlie stood at the stove. She offered Cole coffee, for which he was deeply grateful.
“How’d you sleep?” Peggy asked.
“Like a baby.”
She smiled. “I’m sorry to hear that. You were up every two hours?”
“I didn’t hear any crying,” said Gord between sips of coffee. His eyes didn’t move from the paper in front of him.
“It is a stupid saying, isn’t it?” said Cole, adding cream to his cup. “But I sure did need that good sleep.”
“It’s the country air,” said Peggy, and handed her husband a plate of food.
“This looks great,” Gord said, and kissed her on the cheek as she served him.
“Are you hungry, Cole?”
“I’ll start with coffee and work my way up,” he said, and raised his cup in a toast to Peggy.
A few minutes later the McSorlie boys appeared and in a whirlwind downed their breakfast, kissed their mother and headed out the door with backpacks across their shoulders, walked to the end of the drive to await a ride that would take them to a basketball tournament in Red Deer. Cole watched them go, and thought about Sarah.
Breakfast finished and the dishes cleared, Gord headed to the barn to begin his day’s work. Peggy and Cole sat across the long, wooden table in the large, open kitchen and lingered over another cup of coffee.
Fully caffeinated, Cole said, “So, now what?”
“I guess we get back to work,” said Peggy. “Where do we start?”
“Let’s review what we know.”
“About the mine, or about the murder?” she asked, and took a sharp breath when she said “murder.”
“Both,” said Cole. “One is so mixed up with the other that I don’t think we can untangle them.”
“You first, Cole.”
Cole started. He told her everything he knew. Peggy alternately looked down at her coffee or straight at Cole as he dumped the information out in a tangled mess for them to sort through. George and Deborah Cody, her affair with Barnes, his absence, and her bruises. He recounted his conversation with Perry Gilbert and his theory that the mole inside ESCoG might have set Dale up, or worked with someone who did. He told her what Jim Jones uncovered in his review of the yet unseen draft of the Environmental Assessment.
He told her everything, except, of course, about Nancy. Peggy didn’t need to know about her. Not yet.
“I still can’t believe that someone is spying on us,” she said when he was done.
“What else could account for the call Dale got from a reporter that night after our meeting?”
Peggy shook her head, more in disappointment than in disbelief. “Who could it be?”
“Is there a new person in the group? Or someone who is overly enthusiastic or just plain suspicious?”
Peggy thought for a moment. “I don’t know, Cole. I’ll have to give that some consideration. It would be too easy to blurt out names. That’s what got Dale into this trouble.”
Cole nodded in agreement.
“Is there someone in the community who could be behind this?” Cole asked.
“Are you asking me to say who I think wanted Mike Barnes dead, or who I think wanted to make our group look like crazies?”
“I don’t know. Both.”
“Mike Barnes seemed like a nice enough man. None of us had a lot of affection for him, but nobody I know, including Dale, wanted the man dead. Maybe on the first plane back to Toronto, but not in a coffin,” Peggy grimaced at the thought. “Who would want to make us look foolish? Well, that list is pretty long, Cole.”
“Can we come up with a short list?”
“Any number of business owners, including George and Deborah Cody. Their business caters mostly to people in town who work for the mine as contractors or short-term workers, though I bet they’d do as well if tourism took off and Oracle became a gateway to Jasper, as we propose. Most of the businesses on Main Street are for the mine and against our efforts. The Chamber of Commerce. The local union. The Downtown Improvement Association. You name it, Cole. We’re up against serious odds.”
Cole jotted notes in a pocket notebook, hoping to keep it all straight.
“What about people at the mine itself?”
“Well, Mike Barnes didn’t wish us any luck, but he was always cordial. Which is more than I can say for others there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mike Barnes sat beside me at a public meeting once. We disagreed on most things, but we did so with respect. Other people in the room jeered and cat-called during our presentation. As I recall the assistant mine manager was there too. Hank Henderson. Not the friendliest apple in the barrel. He scowled at us through the whole meeting. Scowled at Mike Barnes, too.”
“College boy!” That’s where he’d heard it.
Peggy raised her eyebrows. “Not our man, Hank. He’s strictly a learn-on-the-job type.”
Cole frowned. “I met Henderson the other day. Wednesday, I guess. He was upset about Mike Barnes, called him ‘college boy’ like it was the worst name he could think of. Not the sort of thing you’d expect from a man in a position of authority, talking about his own boss to a complete stranger. He really spit those words out, made it sound as if going to college was a detriment to the job of managing a mine.”
“In this town that might be the case,” sighed Peggy.
“Well, whatever the case may be, I’d say that Mike Barnes was not Hank Henderson’s favourite person. What do you know about him?”
“He’s lived in Oracle all of his life, started working in the mill down in the valley, made his way up from the floor to the offices where he became a production manager. About fifteen years ago he was hired by the mine to be the mill foreman. I can’t remember when he became assistant mine manager. Before Barnes was hired he acted as mine manager for a year or so. The rumour is that he was pretty busted up when the top job didn’t go to him.”
“Is he the acting manager now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stands to reason.”
“They’d want someone with experience in that post while this whole mess gets sorted out.”
Cole was silent for a moment.
“What are you thinking, Cole?”
“Was Hank Henderson angry enough to kill Mike Barnes?”
Peggy shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “I can’t believe we’re drawing up a list of murder suspects.”
“Still, Hank Henderson could have planted our snitch. And he could have engineered it to frame Dale, don’t you think?”
“Hank could have done it. He knows just about everybody in town.”
“Henderson asked if I was ‘that reporter’ when I met him at the mine the other day,” said Cole, recollecting. I felt stupid enough about that cover, and when he said it, I got the distinct feeling that he knew it was a hoax. I wonder....”
“What?”
“Did Henderson know who I was?” Cole smiled and shook his head. “I’m beginning to think my cover was blown pretty early.”
“What if he did?”
“Well, he might have sent those goons to The Quarry to teach me a lesson.”
Peggy’s face fell. “My goodness, this is a rough piece of business,” she said.
“It certainly is,” said Cole, and felt the gash on his cheek. The swelling was down and it had started to heal.
Cole changed tracks. “What do you think about Perry Gilbert’s idea that van Stempvort was called out to the mine for a meeting in order to place him at the scene of the crime?”
“Can we ask Dale?”
“We sho
uld probably get Gilbert to do it.”
Peggy rose and refilled their coffee cups. “Thanks,” Cole said, and added cream. “I don’t know about you, but my head hurts.”
“Mine too.”
Cole looked at his notes. “The first thing we do is identify the mole.”
Peggy sighed.
“We’ve got to do it, Peggy. That person might lead us to Mike Barnes’ killer.”
“I know we have to do it. It just makes me so sad.”
“It pisses me off,” said Cole. “Which is why I want to find this person.” He took a sharp breath. “Can you draw up a list of people we should talk to?”
“You mean interrogate?”
“I’ll be gentle.”
“I have a hard time believing that,” Peggy said with a wink. Cole let that slide off. Sure he looked rough, but he could go easy when he had to, couldn’t he?
“What are we looking for?” asked Peggy.
“Someone who joined the group in the last six months. Someone fairly knowledgeable about the mine and its operations. Someone who’s enthusiastic.”
“Why enthusiastic?”
“To cover their deception with an excess of exuberance.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“There’s one more thing that bugs me,” said Cole, and stared out the window into the woods.
“What’s that?”
“Before I left, Mike Barnes told me he had another appointment after me, something that came up late in the day. He pointed to his Day-Timer, which tells me that he wrote that appointment in his book. But the Mounties didn’t mention anything about that, did they?”
Peggy shrugged. “Not that I’ve heard.”
“No, me neither. I wonder if Dale’s name is in that book.”
“How are we going to find out?”
“Ask him, I guess.”
Cole got a sense of progress from totting up a to-do list, and for a few hours that morning he felt positive about the whole mess. Peggy agreed to pay him to continue to work on a strategy to stop the mine, and later that morning he spent a couple of hours writing out revised goals and objectives. He downloaded his email on a sluggish dial-up connection, checked the news sites to learn what was being said about the Barnes murder, and even called Sarah, it being Saturday morning.
While he was on the phone with his daughter, Perry Gilbert left a message and invited Cole to call him back. Cole did.
“Can you come to a meeting today, Cole?” Perry Gilbert sounded even younger on the phone than he did in person.
“Sure, who with?”
“Dale van Stempvort.”
“How are you going to swing that?”
“I’m his lawyer. I’m inviting you to join me to assist with my research on this case.”
“Is that kosher?”
“Depends on who you ask. I’ve cleared it with the RCMP. They will have an officer in the room with us.”
“I’ll be there. What time?”
“One. Let’s meet at twelve-thirty for a coffee and chat before we go in.”
The arrangements made, Cole let Peggy know of this next step and they agreed to share information later that night. Then Cole packed his things and headed back along the winding dusty road to Oracle.
Perry Gilbert was waiting for him when Cole arrived at the bagel shop on Main Street. “Did you know that the family is in town?” Gilbert asked Cole when they sat down with coffees.
“I had no idea.”
“They arrived yesterday to take the body back to Toronto.”
“Sweet Mother of Theresa.”
“You said it,” Gilbert sighed. “Wife and two young kids.”
Cole shook his head. “The guy was cheating on them, you know.”
“You told me.”
“Not just a one night thing, but an affair.”
“It tears families apart.”
“Don’t I know it,” mumbled Cole.
“I want to ask Dale if he had an appointment with Barnes that night,” Cole said.
“I don’t know if that’s such a hot idea. If he says that he had an appointment, then it establishes him at the scene.”
“The RCMP already have him on the scene. They say they have his truck there that night.”
“Yeah, but that likely won’t stand up in court.”
“No?”
“Too many S10s in this area. I looked it up. There are almost a dozen in and around Oracle. Without a licence plate that won’t stick.”
Cole was impressed. “But Barnes had an appointment after me. He wrote it down in his book.”
“Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. The RCMP told me that the calendar for the day was empty. Even you weren’t on it.”
“I was on it. I saw my name written down.”
“Well, it wasn’t on his secretary’s computer. The calendar was blank.”
“That’s because he used an old fashioned Day-Timer. An appointment book, with pages made of paper, you know? Didn’t Tracey tell them?”
Gilbert scratched his head. “You’re kidding. Paper? Wow. I wonder if they even asked.”
“I kid you not. They guy said it was cause his father used to give him his old Day-Timers.”
Gilbert looked at him. “You guys became quite good buds, didn’t you?” He smiled and said, “The Mounties haven’t said anything about it. I don’t think they’ve found a handwritten Day-Timer.”
Now it was Cole’s turn to say, “You’re kidding me.”
Perry smiled. “I kid you not.”
They walked to the RCMP station and arrived just before 1 PM. Sergeant Reimer met them in the waiting area.
“I want to establish the ground rules for this meeting, Mr. Black-water. You are here as an invited guest of the defence council. You are also an important witness in this investigation. I caution you not to interfere with the proceedings here. Do I make myself clear?”
Cole nodded. “Clear.”
“Let’s go. Mr. van Stempvort is waiting for us.”
They followed her into a room with a long metal table at its centre and straight-backed chairs arranged around it. Dale van Stempvort sat with his back to the door. He didn’t turn his head when they entered. Constable Paulson stood against the wall opposite Dale, and left after Sergeant Reimer entered the room.
Reimer sat at one end of the table. Cole and Perry Gilbert sat across from van Stempvort. Dale was pale and wore a couple of days’ growth of beard. His eyes lacked the fire that had troubled Cole. He appeared to be puzzled to see Cole. His brow wrinkled, and then he looked angry.
“You know Mr. Blackwater,” said Perry Gilbert.
“What’s he doing here?” asked van Stempvort, cutting to the chase.
“I’ve asked him to join us, Dale, because I think he might be able to help us clear your name.”
Dale regarded Cole coldly. Finally Dale said, “Have you changed your mind about me, Blackwater?”
“I don’t think you killed Mike Barnes, if that’s what you mean.”
“And what about everything else? The gas wells, and the tree spiking?”
“Right now that doesn’t seem so important.”
“It matters to me.”
“Well you’re just going to have to live with it, aren’t you?” said Cole, raising his voice.
Perry interrupted them: “Gentlemen, let’s play nice, if only for the sake of the good sergeant. Cole here was likely the last person to meet with Mike Barnes before the murder. He wants to get to the bottom of this to help stop the mine,” said Gilbert. “Surely that is in both of your interests?”
“His only interest is protecting his reputation,” said Dale sourly.
Cole laughed. “If I had one to protect.”
Sergeant Reimer spoke. “It doesn’t appear as if Mr. van Stempvort wants your help, Mr. Blackwater. I think it’s time for you to leave.”
Cole shook his head. “You are such a stubborn prick,” he said. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”
&
nbsp; “Wait!” Dale called. “Wait,” he said more quietly. “Let him stay for this meeting. I guess it can’t hurt.”
“Nice to be wanted,” said Cole, sitting back down.
“Let’s review some things, shall we?” said Gilbert, opening his notebook.
Dale answered Gilbert’s questions in a calm, flat voice.
“Nobody but the cows saw me on Tuesday night, I’m afraid,” he repeated.
“You didn’t leave your ranch that evening?” questioned Perry.
“No.”
“Didn’t travel to the mine for a meeting?”
“No. I was home all evening.”
“Did you make any telephone calls?”
Dale glanced at Cole. “No. No calls. Not even to a reporter.”
“OK, Mr. van Stempvort. Let’s talk about what the Crown calls your motive. You’re on record as saying that you would do anything to stop the mine. The Crown seems to think that this includes killing Mr. Barnes. Can you tell me what you meant by that statement?”
“Only that I would do anything legal to stop the mine.”
“But you understand how that sort of statement must sound coming on the eve of a man’s murder. The murder of a man who was controlling the development of this new mine.”
“It’s a turn of phrase and nothing more. Just a saying. Like ‘happy as a clam’ or ‘easy as pie.’”
Cole shook his head, “Come on, Dale. You knew that sort of phrase was incendiary in a place like Oracle and that’s why you said it.”
“Sure, but that doesn’t make me guilty of murder.”
“The Crown seems to think it does,” said Perry, and cast a sideways glance at Sergeant Reimer.
“I may not want that mine to be built, but I didn’t kill Mike Barnes. That would be stupid. He was a company hack. There’s an endless supply of MBAs to replace him. The company will just send in another guy to see this project to completion.” Dale’s face went red and he spoke through clenched teeth.
“What if Mike Barnes’ job wasn’t to build the mine, but to kill it?” Cole’s question hung in the room.
No one spoke. Through the single window set high on the wall, the sun caught dust motes as they drifted through the room. Traffic on Main Street could be heard. Through the closed, barred window Cole could make out the song of a red-winged blackbird.
“What are you talking about?” Dale van Stempvort asked finally. Even Sergeant Reimer became more attentive.
The Cardinal Divide Page 21
