Rain continued to fall as he drove north. When the clouds parted, he saw snow dusting the crowns of the hills above. The long sweeping expanse of Cardinal Divide would be covered too. The grizzly bear family would be holed up in a day bed, in the hollow of a tree or maybe tucked under a ledge of stone, huddled together for warmth.
At that moment Cole Blackwater wanted very much to huddle together with someone for warmth. With his daughter. With Nancy Webber. With anybody. He brushed away a tear of self-pity.
The going was slow. It hurt his sprained ankle to work the clutch and shift gears, so he stayed in fourth gear, in four-wheel drive, as much as possible. He lost power on the corners and nearly stalled a couple of times, but continued north, past Cadomin Mines and up through the hills cloaked with fir and spruce, their tops tipped with snow. If this keeps up, thought Cole, I’ll be fighting a blizzard by the time I reach town. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the Eastern Slopes were snowed under in May. Happened nearly every year when he was a kid.
He was half an hour outside Oracle when he heard his cellphone jingle. It wasn’t an incoming call; it was the little ditty it played when there were messages waiting for him.
He pushed some papers on the passenger seat aside, flipped the cellphone open, and hit the keys to dial his message service. He drove with his injured left arm while he held the phone to his right ear.
“Cole, it’s Perry Gilbert. I just got out of my session with the RCMP. Holy shit, buddy, you’re not going to believe this, but they are about this close to being convinced that Dale is innocent. They’re getting heat from the Crown Prosecutor in Edmonton to reopen. They’re not one hundred percent, but they are getting there. I talked with Reimer for more than two hours this afternoon. They have a positive on the blood in the bathroom, and that’s not all.
“Listen, the autopsy shows that Mike Barnes was killed by the blow to the back of his head. The injury to the front on his head was caused later, likely when he was dropped on the floor of the mill. The forensics showed traces of orange paint in the wound to the rear of his head. The wounds to the front of his head showed traces of the oil used to lubricate drill bits. The forensics also showed that several of the bits found on the floor had Mike’s hair and blood on them. So the RCMP are pretty convinced that he was hit from behind in the bathroom and transported to the mill. I’ve given them everything we have on Hank Henderson, George Cody, and David Smith. They’re going to follow up. Good work, Cole. Call me when you get back into town, we’ll have a drink.”
The message ended. Cole felt a wave of elation. Finally, progress!
The next message began. He shifted the phone to his left hand so he could steer better on the slick roads. The truck slid awkwardly back and forth with its misaligned tires.
“Cole, it’s Nancy. You’re are never going to believe this. I got a call from David Smith today. Your buddy. He was all friendly on the phone, asked me to come and see him, so I arranged to meet at his office. Guess what he handed me?”
Cole guessed frantically.
“He told me that he learned ESCoG planned to give up on the fight to stop the mine. That’s one of your stories!”
That was the story that Cole and Peggy had given suspected mole number three, Anne Stanton.
“You were right, Cole. It worked. So I called Peggy and got the name of the source, and I’m heading over to interview her now. Peggy told me I could. I’ll call you when I’ve talked to her. She doesn’t know I’m coming, so this should be interesting.”
Cole’s mind raced. Anne was the mole. She was connected to David Smith. After Peggy and he had been at her apartment, she had called David with the good news that the ESCoG was giving up on the Cardinal Divide. David waited a day, and then called the highest profile reporter in town, Nancy Webber. Nancy called Peggy, who gave up the mole, and Nancy was going to brace her.
Suddenly Cole realized what had been bothering him since the day that he and Peggy had interviewed the three possible moles. In Anne’s apartment, rented from a friend of the family, were sports memorabilia, including a fair number of trap-shooting trophies. He hadn’t looked closely enough at them to register the names on the engravings, but Cole guessed that they had been awarded to David Smith, a marksman, whose office was also adorned by trap-shooting awards. Anne and David were family friends. Or closer.
The message ended and Cole strained to hear the next message over static in the reception. His left arm ached and he stretched it to find some relief. As he was doing that he had to gear down, and he winced as he pressed in on the clutch.
When he got the phone back to his ear, the next message was already playing.
“...Cole, call me as soon as you get this message. It’s David Smith! He’s the one! He killed Mike Barnes!” The line went dead. Cole’s heart jumped into his throat. He snapped the phone shut and guided the Toyota to the side of the road. He was breathing so hard that he had a hard time controlling the vehicle. Frantically, he dialled Nancy’s number.
“Webber,” she answered.
“Thank God you’re OK.”
“Cole, it’s David! David Smith is the murderer!”
“How do you know?”
“I found Mike Barnes’ agenda.”
“Where? Where did you find it?”
“At Anne’s place. You’ll never believe where it was.”
“Nancy, I don’t have time for guessing games.”
“It was in her recycling.”
Cole coughed a laugh. “That is pretty ironic. What have you done with it?”
“I just found it half an hour ago. I spent the next twenty minutes putting the thumb screws to Anne. She told all. I’m on my way to the RCMP detachment right now.”
Cole’s mind was on a roller coaster ride. “It all makes perfect sense now that the missing piece has been found, Nancy. My God, this is good news.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m about thirty minutes south of Oracle, on my way back into town.”
“OK, well, come by the RCMP detachment when you get back. They will no doubt want to talk with you.”
“Listen, Nancy, I’ve had a bit of an accident. I sort of fell out of a window.”
“Christ, Cole, are you OK?”
“I can drive, but it’s slow going.”
“Do you want me to send some help?”
“No, but let Reimer know where I am, and that I’m on my way back.”
“OK, Cole.”
“And Nancy, steer clear of David Smith. You’ll get your story without confronting him.”
“I’m not an idiot, Cole,” she said roughly, but then added, “Thanks for caring.”
“Hold on,” Cole said, “I’m parked at the side of the road and there’s a truck slowing to see if I’m OK. I’m going to wave them off and then we’ll finish this up.”
Cole rolled down his window. Rain pelted the truck and splashed his face. He held the phone in his right hand while he leaned on the windowsill and watched the white Dodge Ram roll to a stop and saw the tinted driver-side window roll down. It was more than halfway down when Cole realized what was happening. He dropped the phone and grabbed at the gear shift, jammed it into reverse, and stepped on the accelerator as hard as he could, nearly popping the clutch with his injured left foot in the process. The Toyota jerked backward, and that’s what saved him. The shotgun blast sprayed a tight pellet pattern across his windshield, cracked it in a dozen places, and punctured the hood in a dozen more. The shrubs at the side of the road suffered shredding by hundreds of pellets.
The Toyota’s engine roared and the tachometer pushed into the red as he raced backward in reverse. A second blast from the shotgun missed the truck entirely, and Cole yanked on the wheel to turn the truck sideways in the road, jammed it into first gear and worked the clutch while howling in pain from the sprained ankle. He was in second gear before the third blast hit the back of the Toyota, shattering the taillights and breaking the glass on the back window of the canopy.
He was doing sixty kilometres an hour before the white Dodge Ram took off after him. He fumbled for the phone on the floor, hoping that the connection hadn’t been severed. He reached down, held the wheel with his injured left arm, and grabbed the phone.
“Nancy!”
“Cole, what the fuck was that!”
“It’s David Smith,” he said as calmly as he could. “He’s shooting at me.”
22
“Call the RCMP,” Cole said. He held the phone with his left hand and shifted with his right, putting the truck into fourth gear. Behind him, David Smith gained quickly; the throaty roar of the Ram’s V8 engine could be heard coming on fast.
“Cole!”
“Call Reimer. I’m heading south!”
The Ram collided with the Toyota and Cole lurched forward. His injured left arm jerked wildly, the left hand hit the front of the passenger door window, and the cellphone clattered away into the rain to smash on the road.
“Fuck!” Cole grimaced and put both hands on the wheel to steer his truck into the road. The Ram was more powerful by far and pressed on his bumper, guiding him toward the shoulder. Cole geared down into third, groaning, and stepped on the accelerator. The Toyota lurched wildly forward. He power shifted into fourth again and pulled ahead of the larger truck.
The rain fell in torrents now, was turning to sleet and sticking to the windshield. He pressed the Toyota, stayed just ahead of Smith, and raced along the gravel road at a hundred kilometres per hour. He checked the rear-view mirror, saw the Dodge Ram a few metres back, but could not see David Smith through the tinted windshield.
He had turned his radio on while driving back from the mine, and the music still blared. For the rest of his life he would think of this day when he listened to Ian Tyson. That is, he thought, if I live for the rest of my life.
The road straightened and he shifted into fifth gear, pushing the Toyota too hard for four-wheel drive. But it was the four-wheel drive that kept him on the road, which was slick with sleet and dotted with puddles that made his light truck hydroplane. He steered into some of the smaller puddles, hoping to kick up some spray to obscure Smith’s vision, but he only managed to slow himself down.
He rolled the driver-side window up halfway and Smith rammed him again. Cole looked in the rear-view mirror and saw nothing but the behemoth’s grill behind him. If he lived through this, he would start a campaign to outlaw V8 gas-guzzling redneck trucks like the Dodge Ram 2500. If he lived through this.
Cole jerked the wheel to the right and suddenly the Dodge was alongside of him. Before David Smith could do it, Cole jerked the wheel violently to the left and the two trucks collided. Cole snapped against the seatbelt, his left arm crushed between himself and the door. But the force of the impact was enough to send the Ram onto the shoulder, and in a second Cole was more than a hundred metres ahead of Smith.
He pressed the accelerator down and raced along the gravel road. In a few minutes he would pass through Cadomin, and he wondered if he might stop and find a refuge in one of the homes there. But before he could consider it, the Ram was behind him again, pressing him. “Christ, that truck has guts,” spat Cole, and floored the Toyota’s accelerator. They raced through Cadomin doing over 120 kilometres per hour, the Toyota’s engine whining.
Cole now aimed for the mine. He figured he had about five minutes to get into a position where he could make the sharp right-hand turn off the gravel road into the mine site. He would shoot for the admin building, use the keys in his pocket to let himself in, find a phone, and call for help. It was a faint hope, Cole knew, but he had no other.
Trees whizzed past in a foggy, green-grey blur. David Smith drove out to meet Mike Barnes late the same night that Cole met with the mine manager. Smith must have read the environmental assessment, put two and two together, and called Barnes for a meeting. Barnes, never imagining that David Smith’s ambition made him so dangerous, invited the Chamber of Commerce president to his office for a chat. Smith drove to the mine and parked at the admin building. Murder had not been on his mind then. Only forceful persuasion. But something went wrong during their conversation. Maybe Barnes got under David Smith’s skin the same way he got under Hank Henderson’s. Whatever transpired between the two men set David Smith on a homicidal path. He found something sufficiently heavy to bludgeon Mike Barnes with, waited for the man to leave his office, followed him into the bathroom, and bashed the back of his head in. The body hit the ground like a tonne of bricks and sprayed blood around the room. Smith cleaned up the blood as best as he could, hoping to create the impression that Barnes had disappeared rather than been killed.
But he made two mistakes. He hadn’t cleaned under the counter, and he plugged the toilet when he flushed too many blood-soaked paper towels down at once.
He then carried Barnes’ body out the admin building and, rather than risk having his truck seen across the yard at the mill, he retrieved a wheelbarrow from the maintenance building, maybe using Barnes’ own keys to do so. He wheeled Barnes’ corpse across the wide yard, the head hanging over the front of the wheelbarrow and dripping blood on the hub of the wheel, and entered the mill through the side entrance. Cole remembered that David Smith had worked in the mill years ago, and was familiar with its layout. But some things had changed, and as he left the side storage room for the main mill itself, he crashed the wheelbarrow into a pallet of bits. He spilled Barnes’ carcass onto the floor and knocked some of the head-sized bits down with him. That’s when JP had opened the far door to the mill.
Cole imagined David Smith saw the giant door opening. Carefully he backtracked the wheelbarrow through the double doors into the storage area and patiently waited for the security guard to leave.
He might have waited on the other side of the door to club JP if the watchman had come prowling around the storage area. Luck, prudence, or divine intervention saved the man’s life that night, and prevented the disappearance of Mike Barnes’ body.
Once JP left to call the RCMP, Smith quickly returned the wheel-barrow and drove his truck through the side gate. Maybe he used a key kept from his stint at the mine. After all, half the town had a copy of that key, Tracey said.
Cole steered the truck in a straight line, the Ram pressing him from behind.
Soon the mine would come into view. Cole knew he must slow down to make the turn through the mine gate and avoid side swiping the tiny entrance booth. With luck, JP or the other night watchman would see the chase and call the RCMP. With luck.
He rounded a tight bend in the road, moaning in pain as he geared down into fourth grinding the gears, and the Dodge Ram pulled alongside him. Again Cole swung the wheel wildly; the box of his truck hit the front wheel cover of Smith’s truck. The force of the blow and the momentum of Smith’s vehicle twisted Cole’s smaller Toyota, and for a moment, he slipped side-on to Smith. He jerked the wheel back, geared down again and gunned the engine, lurching violently forward.
He remembered a few years back when he had been stuck in the mud along a logging road in the Chilcotin Mountains north of Vancouver. A logging crew had stopped to give him a hand. When Cole was unable to drive the truck out of the gumbo that entombed it, one of the loggers attached a winch and the other guy slipped in behind the wheel. While the winch pulled, the fellow deftly guided the truck in compound low out of the goo. “You just got to drive it like they do in the commercials!” the man laughed, and popped the truck out onto the road.
If they could see him now. He raced ahead of David Smith, hugged the right side of the road, and tried to prevent the Dodge Ram from cutting off his possible escape into the mine yard.
Cole looked in the mirror. The Ram was right on his tail. He looked again and it was gone. Suddenly it was on his left side. It raced up beside him. He pounded his foot into the floor and the Toyota evened out with the Ram. Then Smith’s truck was against his, pushing the Toyota toward the rough shoulder of the road. Cole pushed back but the Dodge was much larger than his own vehicle, and his wobbl
y alignment made the manoeuvre more difficult. His vehicle started to slide to the right as his wheels grabbed at the loose rock along the ditch. If he hit that ditch at this speed he’d be done for.
The mine came into view. He was driving much too fast. He hit the brake and the clutch at the same time and pain shot up his left leg and made him roar. As the Dodge flew out in front of him, he steered to the left to regain the centre of the road. The Dodge veered wildly to the right.
The Dodge Ram smashed through the chain link fence at eighty kilometres per hour, Smith steering madly to avoid the tiny gate-house. He spun out to the left, compensating for the turn to keep his vehicle from rolling, and kicked up a plume of gravel and sand and muddy water as he did so. Cole pressed harder on the brakes and turned the wheel so that the Toyota came to rest twenty metres past the gatehouse, parked across the road. He pushed in the clutch to keep the truck from stalling. The Dodge was between him and the mine yard. He looked at the fence. Between him and the fence was a ditch deep enough, Cole figured, that he would bottom out in it. He’d be a sitting duck for David Smith. He looked north along the road that he and Smith had raced over. He guessed that if he drove in that direction, Smith could T-bone him before he made it past the mine.
There was only one choice. He put the truck into first gear, spun the tires in the loose gravel, and drove south, the sleet pelting his windshield. The big white Ram roared after him.
This stretch of road was largely unknown to him. He’d driven it once during the day, the afternoon that he had visited Mike Barnes at the mine. But its twists and turns came much more quickly than along the road between the mine and the town. The shoulders were narrower and the trees leaned much closer to the road. He found third gear and fourth, and pressed the Toyota to negotiate the narrow turns, kicking up gravel and bits of snow as he climbed higher toward Cardinal Divide.
The Cardinal Divide Page 34
