The Glacier Gallows

by Stephen Legault

  “But—” Nancy began.

  “I didn’t kill him. I certainly wouldn’t have used a gun. The last time I fired a gun I was sixteen. I wouldn’t even know how to get a gun.”

  They drove into Claresholm and parked in front of Roy’s Place, a family-style restaurant. Walter extracted himself and stretched while Cole and Nancy sat in the truck. “What can I do?” asked Nancy.

  “You’re here. That’s enough.”

  “Of course I’m here.”

  “You didn’t have to be. I know it’s probably a pain in the ass.”

  “When I was in jail last year, you came to get me.”

  “You were in the cop shop for two hours. I only came because it plays into one of my fantasies.” She punched him in the arm. “Seriously, Nancy. Thank you.”

  “Whatever happens, I got your back, Blackwater.”

  Perry Gilbert was in the restaurant when they went inside. He was drinking coffee, and he stood when Cole entered. He extended his hand and Cole shook it. “It’s good to see you again, Cole, though I wish the circumstances were different.”

  After the others had ordered coffee, Perry took out a legal pad. “What are we up against?” Cole told him the whole story again. It took half an hour, and Perry didn’t interrupt once. He filled two dozen pages with notes, and when Cole was finished he went through them to find the places where he’d made a question mark and asked for clarification.

  “What do you make of it?” asked Cole.

  “I’d say you’re in a tight spot. I’ll wait to see what they present this morning, but I’d say they are prepared to recommend a charge be laid by the district attorney for Montana. To do so, however, they need to file for extradition first. They can establish motive from your past with Mr. Marriott. They can establish opportunity by placing you at the scene of the crime. We’ll see if they have a medical examiner’s report this morning to establish time of death, but I don’t think that will be hard for them to prove. Anybody could have gotten up sometime before dawn to lure Mr. Marriott out of his tent. The only thing missing is means. The fact that he was shot will be our ace: you’ve never owned a gun and didn’t have access to one. We’ll see if they have recovered a weapon.”

  “I had nothing to do with Brian Marriott’s death,” repeated Cole.

  “That won’t matter right now.”

  THE FOUR OF them walked into the RCMP detachment at 11:00 AM sharp. Cole didn’t notice anything unusual outside the squat brick building. They were greeted by a congenial constable at the reporting desk.

  “My name is Perry Gilbert, and this is Cole Blackwater.”

  “I’ll let Inspector Reimer know you’re here.” The constable picked up the phone.

  A moment later, Reimer appeared at the door behind the reporting desk. “Mr. Blackwater, thank you for coming.”

  “Always looking for an excuse to have a town day,” he said. Introductions were made. Nancy held Inspector Reimer’s eyes for a moment and then looked away. Nancy had met with Inspector Reimer the year before to discuss the death of Henry Blackwater—Cole’s father—and Nancy’s concerns about Cole’s deteriorating mental health. Reimer had helped Nancy sort through a plethora of police reports about Henry’s violent behavior. Nancy had never told Cole that the two had met.

  “We’ll ask that your brother and Ms. Webber wait here,” said Reimer. Cole looked at Nancy and Walter. He felt his face flush and his stomach turn. Walter shook his hand, and Cole pulled him into an awkward embrace. Nancy kissed him on the cheek.

  The interview room was clean and bright and had a metal table surrounded by four chairs. Cole and Perry sat down. Perry placed his file on the table. A moment later Inspector Reimer entered, followed closely by FBI Special Agent Steven McCallum. Cole felt a lump forming in his throat.

  More introductions were made, and all four settled into chairs.

  “Am I under arrest?” asked Cole. Perry Gilbert looked uncomfortable but turned to the FBI agent and RCMP inspector.

  “We want to ask you a few more questions,” said McCallum.

  “My client is here of his own free will.” Gilbert tapped his pen on his pad. “If you intend to file for extradition or to lay charges, we have the right to know.”

  McCallum looked at Reimer. He opened a thick file folder and pulled out a sheath of papers that were clasped with a heavy paper clip. He handed them to Gilbert. “These are copies of email correspondence between your client and Mr. Marriott that date back seven years. The most recent correspondence is on top. You’ll see it was written just a few days before the start of the hike into Glacier National Park.”

  Perry read it quickly. Cole read over his shoulder. Cole sat back and sighed when he was done.

  “These”—McCallum pushed more paper toward Gilbert—“are signed statements from four of Mr. Blackwater’s fellow hikers. You’ll note that they all say about the same thing.”

  Cole didn’t need to read them. He knew what they said. The periodic antagonism between Brian and Cole had been hard to conceal.

  “And this,” said McCallum, “is a record of transactions made on Mr. Blackwater’s credit card the week before the hike. I’ll point out the highlighted entries. For three days Mr. Blackwater charged fuel and food to his credit card in East Glacier. There is also a charge for three nights at a place called the Dancing Bears Inn in East Glacier. Mr. Blackwater arrived early for the hike and spent a lot of time driving around.”

  “I was exploring.” Cole sounded defensive.

  Perry held up his hand to silence his client. “Nothing that you’ve presented adds up to anything.”

  McCallum took another set of documents from the file and handed them to Gilbert. Cole detected a hint of a smile on the agent’s face. Perry read them. Cole looked at them, his face twisted.

  “These are the results of our investigation at the scene. These are the forensic test results for the contents of Mr. Blackwater’s tent. You’ll note that highlighted in yellow are three items that contained traces of gunshot residue: the zipper of Mr. Blackwater’s tent, the cuff of his sleeping bag, and the right arm of a shirt found in Mr. Blackwater’s backpack.

  “Mr. Blackwater, you’re in a lot of trouble,” said McCallum. “If we were in the United States right now, I would be placing you under arrest. But we’re not. So here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to agree to stay on your family’s ranch. The RCMP will be monitoring your movements. You’re not to get on a plane or take any other sort of trip. I will be initiating an extradition request between our two federal governments.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding—” started Cole.

  Perry cut him off. “What if we don’t agree to this voluntary house arrest?”

  “I can arrange for a provisional arrest immediately,” said Reimer. “Instead of staying on your ranch while the extradition hearing is arranged, you’ll spend your time in the Calgary Remand Centre. It’s your choice.”

  SEVENTEEN

  OTTAWA, ONTARIO. APRIL 15.

  WHEN BRIAN MARRIOTT HAD BEEN a lobbyist for the petroleum industry on Parliament Hill, his stock and trade had been to hold the right information close to his chest until it was needed to win an argument. Now that he found himself on the opposite side of the information wall, he needed to learn a new skill: prying information loose from those who held it tightly.

  He hadn’t been able to link High Country Energy to the Minister of Natural Resources’ plans to green-light nuclear power generation to fuel the tar-sands expansion.

  He would try another tactic. It had been a long winter, and spring was most welcome. He reached D’Arcy McGee’s and stepped inside. The room was raucous, as political staffers and political tourists crowded tables and the bar. It didn’t take long for Brian to find who he was looking for. Despite being a junior minister in Cabinet, Rick Turcotte hadn’t given up his propensity for a pint at the end of the work week. He was surrounded by old friends from the oil patch.

  “Here comes trouble,”
said Rick when Brian approached the table.

  “Quick, hide your Blackberries,” said one of the men.

  “Let’s search him to make sure he’s not wearing a wire,” said another.

  Brian shook his head and motioned to a server. He ordered a pint and shook a few hands.

  “We were just talking about the Senators,” said Gerry Derganc. “The hockey team.” He grinned.

  “Sure you were. It’s hard to believe that the Canadian public thinks this government is too cozy with the oil and gas industry. I can’t imagine where they get that impression.”

  “Nothing wrong with having a drink with friends at the end of a busy week,” said Rick.

  “Brian wants you to have a drink with the fish kissers, Rick,” said one of the men. Brian shrugged and took a sip from his beer.

  “As long as we’re talking shop,” he said, “tell me this: what do you fellas know about High Country Energy?”

  “Not this again,” said one of the men. He shook his head.

  “Yes, this again. You see, I’ve been pretty forthright about my organization’s efforts to bring wind energy to the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. HCE keeps trying to shut us down. As long as we’re being so open about things, I thought you gentlemen might do the same?” He was met with blank faces. “Nobody knows these guys? They’ve been here. Rick, you must have met with them.”

  “I think they met with some folks in the department.”

  “Really? A former senator comes all the way to Ottawa to sit with a bunch of stuffed shirts?”

  “Hey!” protested a man who had skipped back and forth between the industry and Natural Resources Canada half a dozen times.

  “No offense,” said Brian. “I know when I’m trying to get blood from a stone.”

  “Or drilling a dry hole, as the case may be,” chided Rick.

  “I guess I really am on the outside,” said Brian, fishing a ten from his pocket. He flipped it on the table. “And I’ve got to tell you, gentlemen, I’m a hell of a lot happier to be on the outside looking in. It makes it easier to see through your bullshit.”

  He left the men startled and amused. Brian stepped out of the bar and onto Elgin and drew a deep breath. There was still plenty of daylight as he walked past the War Memorial and over the Rideau Canal. Brian stopped to watch the dark water far below.

  He needed to do something that would build the integrity of the Alternative Energy Group as an arbitrator of solutions on climate change. It might help earn him a little respect on both sides of the energy equation. If he could get people outside of their power bubbles and into a place where they could see the impacts of climate change firsthand, then he might be able to get people to think long-term. He’d take them on a hike. Cole had recently told him that Glacier National Park, near where Blackwater grew up, had lost most of its namesake ice caps in the last few decades due to climate change. What better place to make his point?

  He smiled at the idea and then heard his name being called. He looked up and saw one of the men from D’Arcy McGee’s walking toward him. “Hi, Gerry. Come to twist the knife?” Brian was still smiling when he said it.

  “Boys can be pretty rough on those they think are turncoats.”

  “I don’t really care anymore. Dinosaurs, just like the tar that they pull from the ground.”

  “Don’t turn your back on them, Brian.”

  “I don’t need them anymore, Gerry.”

  “That’s not what I mean. The company I worked for before I took your old gig did some work with HCE. We were looking at a fracking play down in the Green River Basin in Wyoming. We did the geotechnical work. There was a lot of opposition. HCE went in and bought the support of the local town council. They muscled the state and federal regulators. I won’t even tell you what they did to the environmental community. Let’s just say that the opposition crumbled.”

  “Strong-arm tactics aren’t new, Gerry.”

  “One of the local environmentalists out of Jackson Hole had his house burned down in the middle of the fight. Nobody was ever able to pin anything on anybody, but everybody knew what happened. You don’t cross these guys. You don’t cross Lester Thompson. He’s crazy. HCE is the most ambitious, driven, myopic company I’ve ever seen. People say that during his six terms in the Senate, Thompson was merely sowing the seeds for this undertaking, pork-barreling his way across Wyoming and the rest of the states, greasing the palms of governments in China, Brazil, India, and all over Europe.”

  “You got proof?”

  Gerry laughed. “I got shit. I’m just telling you that going up against these guys on the Blackfeet Reservation, or in the tar sands, is a no-win situation. Pick your fight somewhere else.”

  EIGHTEEN

  PORCUPINE HILLS, ALBERTA. JULY 18.

  PERRY GILBERT SAT DOWN AT the kitchen table across from Cole and Nancy.

  “What are we up against?” asked Cole.

  “There is going to be an extradition hearing in a few weeks, maybe a month. I won’t have the exact date for another few days.”

  “When do we get to tell them that I had nothing to do with this bullshit?”

  “Not for a while. We’re going to have to fight the extradition warrant first. An assistant US district attorney for the District of Montana will appear in court with a warrant for your arrest at the same time as they argue for extradition. We’ll have to argue that you should be tried in Canada and not the United States. They have enough evidence to warrant a trial. Now, we can move to dismiss some of that evidence given the uncontrolled nature of the crime scene, but the judge in this case is really only going to decide if the crime was committed in Canada or the United States. I think we can all agree that while Mr. Marriott’s body was discovered in Canada, the crime took place on American soil.”

  “Are you saying I’m going to be extradited?”

  “Not so fast. We’ve got two weeks, give or take, and we can spend a lot of that time digging, trying to develop a rebuttal to the evidence they are going to present. Obviously, we’re pleading not guilty if they intend to lay a charge. But we’re going to have to be prepared to fight the prosecution on all of its points.” Perry placed a file on the table. “This is part of the Crown and the federal district attorney’s case. I just received it this morning. They have evidence that while you were in East Glacier before the hike, you went to Browning and bought a gun.”

  Cole looked over the file and then handed it to Nancy. He said, rubbing his face, “Well, this ought to make things more interesting.”

  Nancy had been silent for a long time. She fidgeted with her pen. “What is it, Nancy?” Cole asked.

  “I don’t know if I should bring this up. I’m not sure if it’s helpful.”

  “Go ahead. Let’s hear it,” said Perry.

  “Well, the state of Montana still has the death penalty for murder.”

  “You’re right,” said Cole. “That’s not very helpful.”

  NINETEEN

  OTTAWA, ONTARIO. MAY 3.

  BRIAN MARRIOTT THUMBED THROUGH THE thick sheath of paper, looking for the name of Senator Thompson, CEO of High Country Energy. Each day the House of Commons received hundreds, sometimes thousands, of visitors. If Thompson’s visit had been official, his name would be in the records Marriott had received through his Freedom of Information request. After spending much of his morning poring over the paperwork, he couldn’t find any trace of Thompson’s visit or of any other high-ranking officers of HCE.

  Marriott picked up the phone. He checked his watch. It was 9:00 AM Pacific time, noon in Ottawa. He dialed.

  “Blackwater Strategies.”

  “Cole. Brian.”

  “Hi, Brian. What’s up this morning?”

  “Listen, if I was going to try and find out who was meeting with the Minister of Natural Resources, and it wasn’t recorded in the official visitor log, how would I go about doing it?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’d rather not say just yet.”r />
  “Easier to help you if I know what you’re up to.”

  “Yeah, but I need to answer a few questions before I call in the cavalry.”

  “That would be me?”

  “You’re more like the artillery, if memory serves me correctly.”

  “Did you check the lobbyist register?”

  “Yes. There’s nothing. The guy I’m looking for is American.”

  “What makes you think that he was in Ottawa at all?”

  “There was a story in a trade publication.”

  “Did you call the magazine?”

  “Good idea. You think they’ll tell me?”

  “Likely not Brian Marriott, snooping environ-meddler, but maybe Brian Marriott, reporter for the Ottawa Citizen.”

  HE CONSIDERED THAT for fifteen minutes before he made the call. “We’re doing a feature for the business section on movers and shakers. We’re profiling a few of your members,” he told the editor of the trade magazine when he got him on the phone. “I just wanted to check your source on the story. Did Senator Thompson tell you who he met with while he was in Ottawa?”

  There was a long pause on the phone. “It’s been awhile since we did that bit,” the editor said with a Texas drawl. “I’ll have to get back to you on that. Mind if I check and call you back?”

  “That would be fine. I’m working from my home office today,” Brian lied. “Here’s the number.”

  An hour passed and Brian felt as if his gambit had failed, and then the editor called. “I checked and it looks as if the senator was there meeting with an old friend—a fella named Canning. They went fishing or some such thing.”

  “Thanks, that’s helpful.”

  “No trouble. You all stay warm up there.”

  Marriott hung up the phone. He didn’t have the heart to tell the Texan that in the summer it was eighty degrees and that he didn’t live in an igloo. Senator Thompson, now the CEO of High Country Oil, and David Canning, the Minister of Natural Resources, were old friends. They went fishing together. He wondered what they talked about.