In the Barren Ground

by Loreth Anne White

  Outside, the storm howled as it intensified. Wind gusted down the chimney, and the flames darted while candles shivered.

  “It’s no wonder we are all drawn to murder in so many ways,” said Spatt. “It throws under a spotlight the pathologies of our communities. It forces us to examine elements of our society, and in ourselves, that we try to ignore: deviance, violence, anger, hatred, frustration, malevolence, greed, mental illness, cruelty. It’s why we write about it, I think. We create fictional monsters, so that we can examine these abhorrences as something quite apart from ourselves. Because if we didn’t have this outlet, we’d be forced to look into the mirror, and see the eyes of a beast looking back.”

  Tana glanced at Crash. He was staring hard at Spatt. Her mind returned to the photographs of Spatt on the mantel in the library. Like so many outdoor enthusiasts in the north, he’d been wearing Baffin-Arctic boots in those photos. She’d judged his feet to be around a size nine. When she and Crash had arrived at the lodge, the butler had taken their wet gear into a mudroom off the entrance hall. Perhaps Spatt’s boots were drying in the mudroom with the others.

  Plates were removed and main courses were arranged in front of them. More drinks were poured. Tana declined the wine each time, but exhaustion was beginning to weigh a heavy mantle over her nevertheless. She needed to persevere for one more course, and then she could respectably excuse herself and head for her room, possibly via the mudroom to check out Spatt’s boot soles. And she wanted to read more of his novel, and think about the implications of what she’d seen in his wallet photo. Plus they had a very early start planned for tomorrow, and a challenging ride ahead into the badlands.

  “And the way we police our crimes,” Spatt was saying, “reveals the true authority of a government. It demonstrates the ultimate power it holds over the lives of its citizens. It’s why the early Canadian governments sent mounted police proudly riding into the wild, wild west—to stake a sense of ownership and control over the untamed land, and subdue the natives.”

  Tana’s mind went to Crow TwoDove, and his hatred for cops. Her gran had once told her that the old Dene word for police meant “the takers away of people.” She made a personal vow. She was going to change that deep-seated cultural view in her own small way, right there in Twin Rivers. Cooperative policing. Communication. She’d already started by convincing Viktor Baroshkov to work with Jamie TwoDove on reparation for the damage at the Red Moose. And she’d broached Chief Dupp Peters on the subject of auxiliaries. She knew this philosophy was already well touted by her federal force. But whether she’d personally get cooperation from brass at a micro level was another matter.

  “Why a wendigo creature in your book?” Crash said suddenly.

  “Hah!” said Spatt. “Because it cuts to the true ‘heart of darkness’ trope—the idea that if a traveler ventures into wilderness, and if he goes too deep, too dark, for too long, he will be touched by that which is uncivilized, untamable. And he will return a profoundly changed man with some of the wild inside him. He has, in effect, become ‘The Beast’ himself. It’s a common enough metaphor that is retold in many ways. You even see echoes of it in vampire lore. The creature bites you, and you become a vampire. The zombie infects you, and you become a zombie. It’s essentially a trip down into the wild Jungian basement of the human soul, for down there is where the dark jungle really thrives, and where your own monsters are buried.”

  Tana set her glass down, thinking of Crash, how he’d ventured undercover into the dark world of organized crime and returned a changed man, with perhaps a touch of the underworld beast himself. “It’s been a fascinating conversation, and delicious meal, thank you,” she said as she folded her napkin and laid it beside her plate. “If you don’t mind, I need to call it a day.” She got to her feet, feeling dizzy suddenly, and she braced for balance on the back of her chair.

  Sturmann-Taylor came instantly to his feet. “And thank you for the company, Constable. My butler will show you to your room.” He eyed Crash. “I’ve placed you two side by side.”

  Crash met Sturmann-Taylor’s gaze coolly. He was being tested. He simply nodded.

  Nerves and a tentacle of tension followed Tana out of the room and down the corridor. The butler led the way, a silent shadow through the stone-tiled halls. She wasn’t going to get a chance to slip into the mudroom without him.

  If she wanted to see Spatt’s boots, she was going to have to ask Spatt directly.

  CHAPTER 35

  It was just after 2:00 a.m. when Crash entered his room, his head slightly fuzzy from drink. He closed the door behind him, clicked on the light, and jumped to see Tana standing there in socked feet, long johns, her down jacket over top. Her hair hung glossy to her shoulders and her face was ghost white.

  “What in the—”

  “You look remarkably sober for someone who’s been drinking all night with the boys,” she said.

  He shucked off his flannel shirt, tossed it over a chair. “Want to tell me what’s eating you? What did you see in that photo from Spatt’s wallet?” He sat on the bed, started removing his boots. He was beat. He’d had to work hard to keep appearances with Sturmann-Taylor, matching him drink for drink.

  She sidestepped the question. “I skimmed Spatt’s novel, entire thing. Someone is reenacting the murders in his story. Everything. Talon marks, the ripped-out heart. Eyes. Torn-off head. Someone has been doing this for at least four years. And it might be Spatt himself. He was wearing Baffin Arctics in that one photo. I need to see his soles, what size he wears.”

  “He looks a nine to me. What did Charlie say?”

  She hesitated. “He said it wasn’t wild animals that killed Apodaca, Sanjit, Smithers, and Novak.”

  Crash glanced up.

  “He reckoned the animals came afterward. He said ‘something’ else was there before them.”

  “Some thing?”

  She dragged her hand over her hair. “He’s inclined to believe there’s a real spirit-beast-monster thing out there. He’s angry that Spatt stole an indigenous oral story and put it into print.”

  Crash dumped his boots on the floor. “You think Charlie could be capable of murder?”

  “I have no idea. He’s an enigma.”

  “You think Spatt has it in him?” he said.

  “I’ve never dealt with anything like this before, so I’ve got nothing to go by. He’s odd. He gets excited by violence, by the idea that I am looking at his novel in connection with a possible homicide—it might be exactly what he wants. Attention. A thrill. To relive the excitement of that bestseller. He had opportunity in each case. You saw the way he practically ejaculated when he heard that we—I—might be looking into a murder.”

  He put his finger to his lips, reminding her to be quiet. To not be heard in his room with him.

  She heaved a sigh of exasperation.

  “Come sit here,” he said quietly, patting the bed beside him. She hesitated.

  “Hey, I’m not going to bite, I just—”

  “Want to keep it down. I know.” She acquiesced, seating herself close to him, and he caught the scent of her shampoo. She smelled good. He glanced at her legs—the shape of them revealed by her slim-fitting long johns. Her jacket hung open and he could see the swell of her belly. Heat washed into his chest, and his pulse quickened. He’d had a bit too much to drink and it had edged the lid off his control, and his need for her right now was sudden and basic. He avoided her eyes for a moment, getting a grip on himself. Then he said, quietly, “Spatt has access to taxidermy tools here at the lodge, given what Sturmann-Taylor said about the new workshop, and he was in town with Van Bleek, in the diner, the night your dogs were poisoned, and when that eyeball was pinned to your door, and the satcom system sabotaged. But there’s something else that’s worrying you, Tana. You saw something in that wallet photo of his. You went sheet white. Your voice changed. What was it?”

  She stared at her hands for a moment, debating what to tell him.

 
Inhaling deeply, she said, “The father of my baby. He was in one of the photos taken in the Nehako Valley with Sturmann-Taylor, Spatt, Van Bleek, Blundt, and MacAllistair.”

  Surprise washed through Crash. He studied her profile because she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Who is he, Tana?”

  She glanced up, and his heart crunched at the conflict, the confusion he saw in her face. “Cutter,” she said. “Staff Sergeant Garth Cutter.”

  Crash stared at her. “Christ,” he said. “Your staff sergeant? You sure know how to pick ’em, girl.”

  She lurched off the bed and paced to the other end of the room.

  “Tana, I didn’t mean—”

  She spun around. “What did you mean?”

  “He … I know the name, that’s all. And he’s high up in G-Division.” Crash could see it all now—why she’d needed to get out of Yellowknife. Why she was worried about her job. Why she figured people might be trying to make her just “go away.” She and her growing belly were a time bomb for a married, respected, and ambitious staff sergeant like Cutter. Crash knew of the man because he’d made it his business to watch what was going on in Yellowknife, the diamond business, the associated crime. Cutter had been instrumental in creating an arm of the RCMP to specifically police the diamond trade in the territories. He was also a political animal with his sights set on a commissioned post. His blood suddenly cooled as it hit him—Staff Sergeant Garth Cutter, with a diamond background, was in some way connected to Sturmann-Taylor. And the WestMin guys.

  He sat forward. “Tana,” he said slowly, quietly. “You might just have found the missing piece.”

  “What?”

  “Remember what I told you? About the Devil’s Angels guy who said the next most valuable thing to the Angels after clean diamonds was a turned cop, the higher the better?”

  She stared at him.

  Silence swelled.

  He could hear the storm outside, sense the snow piling thick against the lodge windows, smothering them in.

  “What? You think it’s Cutter?”

  He got up, and went over to her. He took her face in his hands. “I think you just gave me a key, Tana. I think the other puzzle pieces might all start to fit now.”

  “If Sturmann-Taylor is who you think he is, and if Cutter is connected to this illegal enterprise, why would he go posing for a photo with him?”

  “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe it was snapped in the moment by someone, and Spatt just happened to end up carrying around a copy of that particular image in his wallet—I mean, Cutter wasn’t in the one on display in the library, was he?”

  She blew out a heavy breath.

  “Think about it, Tana. If someone with Cutter’s profile was dirty, and became aware that a UC sting was going down in Vancouver, and if he felt that those chemically marked blood stones entering the laundering chain might lead Project Protea back to him, who better to leak word of the deal and scuttle it in order to save his own ass?” Crash’s blood began to heat as he spoke. “He—Cutter—could be responsible for the bust that went sideways, for me getting shot in the head.”

  “Tell me one thing,” she said. “If Sturmann-Taylor is behind this blood diamond syndicate, why doesn’t he recognize you as the UC cop?”

  “Like I told you, everything in this syndicate is removed from operations on the ground. It’s all managed in tightly controlled cells, on a need-to-know basis only, for everyone’s protection. Sturmann-Taylor might have learned through Cutter that a UC operation was going to go down in Vancouver, but not which cops were undercover. I was deep under. Many years. I was a Devil’s Angels gang member for all intents and purposes. Not even Cutter would have known my identity. Only my immediate handlers had that information. And so far as anyone else knows, Sten Bauer is now either dead, or a vegetable in some institution somewhere.”

  “This isn’t proof that he’s the bad link.”

  “Face it, it’s a very solid lead. If Sturmann-Taylor heads the illegal diamond syndicate, his personal friendship with a top diamond cop from Yellowknife is potentially explosive.”

  She plopped herself back down onto the bed and rubbed her hands hard over her face.

  “If we hadn’t started working together, Tana, I might never have found that link.”

  She looked up, and her eyes gleamed. “He’s the fucking father of my baby, Crash.”

  He sat beside her, took her hands in his. “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say, what to think. Other than I don’t care if you nail his ass to the wall, but … but what’s eating at me now, is why I was sent out here.” She met his eyes.

  “There’s the father of my child standing next to Van Bleek, who you claim is a hit man—a merc who managed small armies in Africa. And with them is Sturmann-Taylor, possible head of a huge, secretive international syndicate running blood stones through Northwest Territory mines, and Blundt who is about to open one of the biggest mines in the territories, and there’s Spatt, a potentially psychotic author who could be a thrill killer. Maybe Cutter wanted me posted out here because he thinks I’ll either never sniff out what WestMin and Sturmann-Taylor might be up to. Or … I might be heading for a planned little accident out here in the wilderness before my baby is born—because, in all honesty, how can Cutter trust that I’m never going to use this against him one day? He’s politically minded. Ambitious. He wants to go places where the revelation of an affair with a subordinate employee, and an illegitimate child, are going to hurt him. I could be fatal to his career. His family.”

  She extracted her hands from his hold. “It sure would explain why they’re not in a rush to send me some backup right now. They’d more likely prefer to see me and my baby dead. Maybe they’ll get Van Bleek to do it.”

  The implications of her words, cold and sinister, leaked down into him. And now he’d brought her here, where Sturmann-Taylor had witnessed her reaction to seeing Cutter, to seeing the link between a top cop and himself. Fuck. He really had brought her into the beast’s den.

  He needed to get her out. They had to get on top of this before it got on top of them. These men were more than dangerous.

  His eyes went to her belly. “You okay?”

  She gave a half laugh, the rest of which sounded like an odd sob. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “You are fine, Tana.”

  She glanced at him. Her gaze went to his mouth, and his cock stirred. She swallowed at something she saw in his face, and got up.

  “I need to sleep,” she said crisply.

  He nodded. He didn’t trust his voice right now. He watched her ass in those long johns as she made for the door. She reached for the handle, and just before she opened the door, he managed to say, “I’ve arranged with Sturmann-Taylor’s butler for us to leave by 5:00 a.m.”

  She paused, turned slowly, and the dark look in her eyes was a sexual punch to his gut. He cleared his throat. “We must be gone before Sturmann-Taylor and everyone else wakes up.”

  “I wanted to look at Spatt’s boots,” she said.

  “I already asked the butler which boots in the mudroom were Spatt’s. He told me Spatt just started wearing a new pair of Exterras.”

  “Where are the old ones?”

  Crash shrugged. Her gaze held his. There was defiance, stubbornness in her posture.

  “Tana, it’s best we clear out of here. Soon. Let’s go see what we can get out of Novak,” he said. “Then if you need to, if you have enough, you can always come back here with a warrant. And a team.”

  She snorted softly, and left, shutting the door behind her. He put his head back and swore.

  For the rest of that night Crash lay staring at the ceiling, listening to the wind, knowing that the drifts were piling higher and higher. His hand rested on his hard groin. The ache in his belly was hot and sweet. He wanted her. He liked her. Too much, on too many levels. She’d been burned by men like him. Sex was something off the cards for him and Tana. At least at this point.
Forging a relationship with her would require going very slow on that front.

  Besides, he was too old for her.

  She was too young for him. She was going to be a mother and that wasn’t even in the realm of his future plans right now. Her life lay ahead of her yet—her career, trying to build a family. She’d make it, if he helped get her over this big hump. He believed in her. She possessed a formidable strength in character, and she just had to learn to recognize it, to find pride—see her self-worth—shuck the shame of her past. Yeah, fine thoughts coming from him.

  He’d burned all those bridges long ago. Would he even want to try, start over?

  How in the hell would he then justify his previous marriage, the estrangement of his daughter? The loss of Lara and his baby?

  Irritable, hot, he rolled over and punched his pillow into shape. You’re wrong for her, O’Halloran. And she’s wrong for you. All fucking wrong, on every count. Best you can do for her, if you really feel something, is keep her safe. Get her through this next haul, escort her safely into the badlands—into the heart of darkness, as Spatt had called it—and when you get back, you’re going to find a way to nail Sturmann-Taylor and Garth Cutter.

  His gut told him he was on to something. And he needed to take them down before they took her down, especially now that he’d gone and put Tana Larsson squarely in their sights.

  He wasn’t going to do the lone ranger thing, either, not any more. This had changed. He’d take all the information he’d gathered over the years, and he’d go see his old contact in the FBI, out of country, where things were less likely to leak out and come back and bite Tana when the shit started hitting the fan.

  CHAPTER 36

  Friday, November 9. Day length: 7:29:16 hours.

  The ride into the badlands had taken longer than anticipated due to driving snow, deep drifts, several detours. After nearly getting their heads shot off by Novak, who’d been watching their approach from a lookout up on the cliff above his camp, Tana and Crash managed to talk him down, explain why they’d come, and secure an invite into his primitive home.