The Fourth Betrayal

by Bruce Burrows

  “I don’t know everyone. You heard them. Mostly it was Ernhardt and Gerry Steadman.”

  I felt faint. “Thanks, Phil.”

  “That’s only two questions.”

  “Game called on account of stupidity.” I hung up.

  Gerry Steadman was Dougie! I knew Dougie had been playing some sort of role, but it had never occurred to me that the role was Gerry Steadman. Now I understood the string ties we’d found when Alex and I looked through Dougie’s clothes: just part of the costume if you’re supposed to be an Albertan. As I continued to think it through, I could see that I needed to change a lot of my assumptions. It meant that Dougie had not disappeared on Canoe Lake or even been made to disappear on Canoe Lake. He had been shot to death in a suite of the Château Laurier sometime on the night of July 3. It took a long time for that to sink in. I had completely accepted the idea of him being drowned, accidentally or otherwise. Being shot to death seemed like a different movie altogether.

  The question now became was Dougie shot as Dougie or as Gerry Steadman? If the shooter had knowingly shot Dougie Tarkenen, it was probably because his cover had been broken. My bet was on that scenario, but it was possible the shooter had thought he was shooting Gerry Steadman, because Steadman had somehow come to pose a threat to him. In any case, it was obvious that I would have to have another talk with Staff Sergeant Carl Stala.

  But Jesus, there were pitfalls there. Stala would want the tapes. Could I give them to him? There was nothing on the tapes that Stala shouldn’t know except that a lowly reporter had been handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was part of an act, but the money was real, and it might come out that the total amount was a million dollars. I might have to lose tape five. Or could I hint to Stala that Dougie had once run a grow-op?

  I phoned home. Cousin Danny first, because I wanted to talk to Oshie later, when the kids were in bed. “Hey, cuz.”

  “Ollie! How’s it going? Any news?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you could say there’s some news.” I paused to collect my thoughts, or maybe out of sheer reluctance to say the words “Dougie was shot.” Finally, I had to speak. “I know you still follow Ottawa events. Did you hear about the murder of Gerry Steadman?”

  “Yeah, some big-time wheeler-dealer from Alberta. Shot in his suite at the Château Laurier.”

  “It was Dougie. Gerry Steadman was Dougie.”

  Silence. Then, “But Steadman moved in rarefied air. Reliable people tell me he was making major payoffs. Where did Dougie get all that money?”

  “Cuz, when Dougie and I were young and foolish, we did something that was, strictly speaking, against the law.”

  It didn’t take Danny long. “The cash-buyer heist. West-Coast herring fleet, 1990. You little fuckers. I knew it had to be fishermen that pulled it off. And now that I think about it, you and Tarkenen were crazy enough to think of it and smart enough to pull it off. So Dougie used his cut to get access to people he hoped would provide him with a major exposé. What did you do with yours?”

  “I’ve still got most of it. But I think I might need to spend it on a conviction. Not one of my convictions. Someone else’s conviction.”

  Danny said, “You know what, cuz? I think you need to come home now. Give what you’ve got to the local cops and come home. Oshie won’t say anything, but this is going to scare the hell out of her. It scares the hell out of me.”

  “I’m going to talk to Staff Sergeant Stala first thing tomorrow. I might have to hang around for a few days just to liaise with him. But I won’t be running around out in the open.”

  Danny exhaled loudly and I knew he was getting irritated. “Ollie, don’t make me come back there and get you.”

  “Relax. There’s just a few loose ends to tie up and then I’ll be home.”

  I hung up and phoned Staff Sergeant Stala. I got his voicemail. “Hello, Staff Sergeant. It’s Ollie Swanson. I’ve got some information regarding the Steadman killing. I’d like to meet with you tomorrow. Give me a call and let me know when would be convenient.”

  Then I started thinking about which tapes I could give him. Definitely not number five. It would be too difficult to explain how Dougie had come to possess all the money he was throwing around. But the tapes were all numbered. If I just took out number five, Stala, being a detective, would notice there was one missing. I would have to relabel them. But I couldn’t just stick new labels over the old ones. Stala would probably pick up on that. I’d have to make a new set of tapes, excluding number five, and number them one to ten. So I gathered up the tapes and set out for one of those instant offices where they do copies and faxes and let you use their computers. When I found one, they were happy to copy the ten tapes I gave them.

  When I got back to my hotel room, the message light on the phone was flashing red. Stala had called and said he’d meet me at eleven. I lay on my bed and thought things over. I was interrupted by a call from Phil Trimmer.

  “Ernhardt had me follow you after you left the meeting.”

  “And did you?”

  “Why bother? I know where you stay.”

  “Good point. Save energy. Just so you know, Jimmie Johnson is in room 427. Coincidentally, in this very same hotel.”

  Phil grunted and hung up. His phone manners were deplorable. I resumed thinking. Soon it was suppertime, and I thought all the way down to the lobby and into the restaurant. Of course, I had to stop thinking while I ate—New York steak, baked potato, Greek salad—but I thought all the way back to my room and right up to nine o’clock, when I phoned Oshie.

  By now she recognized the number on call display. “Ollie, I was hoping you’d call. How are you, sweetie?”

  At the sound of her voice, my personal gravitational field suddenly decreased by half. I hadn’t realized the weight I’d been carrying. “Hi, honey. How are you and the kids?” This was banal beyond belief, but to me it was important beyond belief.

  “Oh, we’re fine. The kids got their report cards today. Ollie, they’re doing so well. They’re scholars. Just like their dad.” When I stopped laughing, she continued, “And how are you, Ollie? Are you any closer to Dougie’s story?”

  “Well, no, actually. But I have found out some pretty important stuff.” So I told her.

  Her response was immediate concern for me. “I know that was an awful shock for you. But Ollie, you’ve already grieved once. You don’t have to go through it again. Dougie would most certainly not have wanted that.”

  “I know, honey. But it was a shock. The only thing I’m feeling right now is anger. I have to make sure Dougie’s killer is caught.”

  Her voice lightened a bit. “I know you do, Ollie. But you know what? Maybe you should take a bit of a break. You’ve been gone almost two weeks now and the kids miss you. Why don’t you come home for a bit? If the police can’t catch the killer without your help, you can always go back.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Oshie. I’m meeting with the police tomorrow. After that I’ll have a better idea where things stand. I’ll call you tomorrow night.” I hung up and tried to think some more, but I was all thought out. I brushed my teeth and went to bed.

  As usual, I didn’t get to choose my dreams. I was in the mood for a romantic comedy, but what I got was sort of a film noir horror show. I found myself in a miniature casino, watching two hooded figures throw dice. It was cold. I felt sick with apprehension, though I didn’t know why. The gamblers were intent on their game, oblivious to the patients who crowded the hospital room where we now were. One of the patients began choking, and I knew she was dying. I asked the dice thrower to call a doctor, but he ignored me. Then a child reached out to me, eyes pleading for help. We needed a doctor, and I shook the shoulder of the dice thrower. He turned to me and I was shocked to see it was Dougie. He screamed at me to go away. “This is too important. I have to win this bet!” I wondered what they were playing for. In a rush, a scene passed before me that stretched from the sand beaches of Tofino to the barren cliffs of Labrador, wi
th people working and playing and reading stories to their children. I startled to realize what the players were gambling for. I never found out who won.

  Or even what the evening sky was doing.

  Thirteen

  ABOUT NINE THE NEXT MORNING I let myself into Jimmie Johnson’s hotel room and phoned the secure number Ernhardt had given me. When he answered, I said, “I’m supposed to see Stala this morning. I’m prepared to tell him what we discussed, but I need assurances that you won’t stiff me.”

  Ernhardt sounded eager. “What can I offer you?”

  “Give me the name of the person you’ve been dealing with on the pipeline side of things.”

  Now he sounded nervous. “Why do you want to know that?”

  “Because if you stiff me, I’ll go to the guy and tell him you’re a fucking welsher and can’t be trusted. You want me to talk to Stala or not?”

  “All right. But you’ve got to promise me that if you ever approach the guy to make some kind of deal, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but if you do, you’ve got to give me a heads-up first. Okay?”

  I grunted.

  “The guy’s name is Tap Dickens of Crude Operations Inc. He’s a hard-ass pipeline guy and he’s liquid as hell.”

  “Okay, Ernhardt. We’ve got a deal. Don’t forget your end.” I hung up.

  I was at the police station on the dot of eleven o’clock. I asked for Staff Sergeant Stala and was led into his office. Stala shook my hand while pretending he was glad to see me and then came right to the point.

  “So Mr. Swanson, what have you got for me?”

  “Two things. I recovered the tapes.” I placed the copies on his desk. “And I can ID your body.”

  Stala’s frown deepened. “We know who the body is. It’s Gerry Steadman.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Any chance I could view the body?”

  “Sure, but is an urn of ashes going to be much help?”

  I was shocked. “You cremated the body?”

  “The body had been identified by hotel staff as Gerry Steadman. We’d done the autopsy and all the toxicology. We can’t keep bodies in the morgue forever. Although we kept one small square of tissue for DNA analysis.”

  I told myself that ignorance was no reason for embarrassment, so I pressed on. “That was stupid, I guess. I don’t know much about police procedures. Let’s try this. Did the body have any tattoos?”

  “Yes. Adolf Hitler, for one. We think he may have had some association with one of those Albertan white supremacist groups.”

  “It wasn’t Adolf Hitler. It was George Orwell. And printed under the picture were the words, ‘All art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art.’”

  His eyes widened just a bit and he hesitated before reluctantly accepting what I had been even more reluctant to accept.

  “Okay,” he said, “who was it?”

  “My friend Dougie Tarkenen, the reporter for the Ottawa Times. He posed as Gerry Steadman, sort of a bagman-slash-lobbyist, so he could get some dirt on the gang that runs this town.”

  “And did he find any?”

  “Some of it’s on those tapes. The bulk of it must be contained in the story he was writing, which I haven’t managed to find yet. I think someone found out that Gerry Steadman was really a newspaper reporter who was on the verge of writing a really damning story, and they killed him, Dougie, because of it.”

  Stala nodded. “That’s certainly plausible.”

  “There’s one other possibility,” I continued. “The killer didn’t know Steadman was a false personality and killed him as Gerry Steadman. But I think that’s unlikely.”

  “Okay, Mr. Swanson,” Stala said, “you’ve raised some very interesting possibilities. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to be positive that you’re right about the identity of the body. Is there a next of kin who could ID the body from our autopsy photos?”

  I shuddered. “His only living relative is his aunt Helga, but I wouldn’t want to put her through that. If you don’t trust me to make the ID, what about dental records? I could put you in touch with his dentist back home, but Dougie lived in Ottawa for six years. You should be able to track down his dentist here.”

  “We’ll do our best, Mr. Swanson. Anything else?”

  “Yes. There are at least two new avenues to pursue. First, I understand you have some material that Dougie left that implicates Ernhardt. If I could look at that material, I might be able to shed some new light on it, just because I knew Dougie so well.”

  Stala shook his head. “We’ve managed to keep that stuff out of the public eye up until now. That’s important if we ever go to trial. I can’t risk that evidence leaking to the press and becoming worthless at trial.”

  “Why would I do anything to jeopardize the case? Plus, I’ve just brought you your best lead so far. You were at a dead end, for Christ’s sake.”

  He pondered this for a minute. “All right, you can see everything we’ve got. But God help you if there’s a leak. What’s the second thing?”

  I knew this was going to be a tough sell, and I didn’t really have an inner salesman I could call on. So I called on my inner fisherman and baited the hook. “Right now Ernhardt is the prime suspect. But there’s fourteen of his close associates who also would feel a lot safer with Dougie dead. I don’t know their names, but they call themselves the Committee. Ernhardt has offered to introduce me to them, but only if I deliver on something for him.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “Well, Ernhardt thinks I’m someone else, a guy called Jimmie Johnson. I contacted him as Jimmie Johnson and managed to convince him that I was an old friend of Steadman’s and that Steadman had told me a lot of the stuff that he and Ernhardt had been talking about. And from listening to the tapes, I knew enough stuff to make myself convincing.”

  Stala looked at me like you would a strange and wonderful animal. “Man, you West-Coast boys are really something. You’re like a race of natural-born con men.”

  I flushed. “I’m a fisherman, for Christ’s sake. But you do what you have to do. And by doing what I’ve been doing, I’m giving you a chance to solve this case. A murder case. Plus political corruption on a huge scale.”

  “To tell you the truth, corruption cases don’t interest me much. Hardly anyone ever goes to jail. At least with a murder case, if you nail the guy, you get to slam the door on him for a few years. But I can tell you want something from me. Spit it out.”

  “When I was stringing Ernhardt along, I told him I’d been having drinks with my old friend Steadman on the night of the murder. I was with him most of the night and Ernhardt was nowhere around. I said I’d tell you that, which would put Ernhardt in the clear, and in return he’d introduce me to the Committee.”

  “Let me guess. And so you want me to tell Ernhardt that this Jimmie Johnson came in and talked to me and put Ernhardt in the clear?”

  “Why not? There’s no law against a cop lying to a suspect. And who’s to say you’re lying? This guy Jimmie Johnson came in and told you something, and then you phone Ernhardt and tell him what Jimmie Johnson told you, and then Jimmie Johnson disappears.” I spread my hands. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  Stala rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Man, you West-Coast boys are deep, I mean deeeep. I gotta get out there and drink some of that water.” He reached for his phone.

  “Wait! Are you going to phone him?” Stala nodded. “Okay, give me half an hour. Ernhardt’s going to phone me right after you talk to him, and I have to be in the right place to take the call. Thanks, Staff Sergeant.” I left quickly.

  I got a cab back to the hotel and let myself into room 427, the room I’d rented for Jimmie Johnson. I paced around for about fifteen minutes until the phone rang. I picked it up. “Hello.”

  “You did a good job, Jimmie. I just talked to Stala. He’s off my case.”

  “How did you find me here?”

  “This is my town, Jimmie. If a sparr
ow falleth, I knoweth. Or something like that.”

  “So wheneth do I meet the Committee?”

  “Every second Friday evening we meet at my place for updates and general discussions. The business is usually over by nine, and then we have a few cocktails. That would be a good time to drop in. Coincidentally, Tap Dickens is in town and he’ll be there as well. And Jimmie, the Chairman is very old-school, very formal. You know what I mean?”

  I knew what it meant: another visit to Harry Rosen. “I hear you, Cliff. See you then.”

  It was two o’clock Thursday afternoon. I figured what the hell, I might as well get the shopping out of the way. I got the same clerk at Harry Rosen I’d had before, and we had a jolly old time discussing appropriate evening wear. This wasn’t England, so I assumed evening wear didn’t mean tails. We decided that a dark business suit would fit the occasion. And what exactly was the occasion anyway? Initiation into a secret society or interview for a fraternity or prelude to a gang bang? The last thought worried me because I knew I wasn’t part of the gang.

  I picked out a dark blue suit and was measured extensively for the alterations. The measurer asked me if I “dressed right” and I said, “Of course I do.” The ensemble was completed with a snow-white silk shirt, a maroon tie with beige stripes, and black brogues. They said the suit would be ready in a couple of hours, so I went for a walk, had a spicy hot dog from a sidewalk vendor and stopped at a newsstand to read the headlines in the scandal mags. My favorite was, Chocoholic mom gives birth to sugar-covered baby! I hoped she wouldn’t lick it to death.

  I went back to Harry Rosen and tried on my suit. It might be an overstatement to say I looked svelte, but I looked pretty damn good: like Mats Sundin on NHL awards night, only with more hair. They hung the suit in a bag for me, and I walked back to the hotel while I pondered my next move. I decided it was time to have a little talk with Dougie’s editor, Lou Bernier. After I dropped off the suit at my room, I took a cab over to the Ottawa Times building.

  While I was waiting to see Bernier, Alex Porter walked in. “Ollie, where’ve you been the last few days? I’ve been expecting you to call. Have you found any new leads?”