Whiskey Creek

by Dave Hugelschaffer

  The engines are cut and the boat settles, rocking gently. Simon leaves the cabin, joins me at the rail. Vivid light plays across the water as the sun clears the fog bank. It would be a great day to be fishing, which I mention to Simon.

  “Yeah?” he says, looking around. “But we ain’t here to fish.”

  “That’s a shame,” I say, slipping on my sunglasses.

  “Maybe for you. I can go out anytime.”

  “I know,” I say, using this as a lead-in for the first part of the script. “You’ve got the big boat. That’s part of the problem. Flashing this thing around like a dick in a whorehouse. Didn’t it ever occur to you that it might not be a good idea? That people might wonder where you got the money?”

  The idea is to get Simon to repeat his story about the lottery win, so it can be recorded and admitted into court, but Simon doesn’t bite.

  “Fuck that,” he says. “It’s my money.”

  “It was payment for a job you haven’t completed.”

  “What?” He frowns, steps toward me, his long dark braids swinging. “I did my part. I started the fires. I got the Cree Band suspicious of everyone else. That was my band,” he says, poking himself in the chest. “You got no call to tell me I didn’t do what I was supposed to.”

  Bingo. This is easier than I thought it would be.

  “You having second thoughts about your band?”

  “Screw that. My band will do just fine on its own.”

  “You can stop campaigning. I’m not voting for you.”

  Simon Cardinal glares at me. A big hunting knife hangs from his belt and he may have a gun on board. I’m armed with a pair of sunglasses and an orange baseball cap. A glance past him over the light chop of the water isn’t reassuring. If there’s a boat waiting to back me up, it’s nowhere in sight. It occurs to me, with the patches of fog, they might not even know where I am. Things are going well though — he’s already admitted to starting the fires. I just have to keep him talking and direct the conversation.

  “But you’re not done.”

  “Bullshit,” he says. “That’s all I had to do.”

  “I didn’t think I had to explain this to you, Simon, but part of any operation is discretion. Making it look natural. Something you’re not so good at.”

  “It’s my goddamn money,” he says, stepping closer. “Don’t tell me how to spend it.”

  “The election isn’t over yet,” I say quietly.

  This seems to catch him off guard and he frowns for a minute as the boat rocks gently beneath us. I look at the cabin of the boat, wonder where they stashed the microphone, and if they included video. They warned me not to look for surveillance because the suspect can pick up on that, and I look over the water, then back at Simon.

  “You guys still need me,” he says, smiling to himself.

  “Don’t count on it. You can be replaced.”

  “Like hell. I’m in the perfect spot. My Band. My election. I know the people. You’ve got no one. So what about it?”

  “What about what?”

  “The other two hundred grand,” he says.

  “Here’s the thing, Simon. The cops are involved. I can’t control the entire investigation anymore.” I hesitate before dropping the big lure. “And that business with the trapper who was killed has them really spooked.”

  For a few seconds Simon Cardinal just stares at me, then he moves, far quicker than I had expected, charging straight at me. Standing in front of the rail I don’t have a chance. He drives his shoulder into my chest and I go over like a kid tricked in a playground. Head first, the water swallows me, breathtakingly cold, and I see the white hull of the boat. Shafts of sunlight radiate through bluish-green water. The surface appears, silvery and undulating above me and I kick, break through, sputtering and gasping.

  “Christ! Are you nuts?”

  Simon Cardinal peers down at me from the rail. “Now we talk.” “Bullshit. Throw me a rope.”

  He grins as I tread water. “How long can you do that?”

  I glare at him. I’ve lost my sunglasses and the orange baseball cap I had tucked in the back pocket of my jeans. It occurs to me that the RCMP may wait to see what develops. They had warned me that often a suspect will feel the need to exert control before resuming with the business at hand, in which case they do not want to interfere prematurely and risk blowing the operation. I hope that’s all that’s going on here, because I have yet to see the hint of another boat. It occurs to me that I may be on my own.

  “Okay,” I say breathlessly, “what do you want to talk about?”

  “Nothing much,” he says casually, running a hand along the rail above me, beyond reach. He disappears from view and for a few minutes I tread water, hoping not to hear the sound of an engine starting. I have no life jacket and am not a great swimmer. It’s hard to see a body from any distance at water level. But Cardinal returns, grinning, with a fishing rod.

  “I’ve reconsidered your suggestion,” he says, unhooking the line.

  “Cut the crap,” I holler at him.

  “Crap?” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “What crap? I’m just fishing.”

  The cold is taking my breath away. I’m beginning to go numb.

  “Six to ten minutes,” he says, casting out leisurely. “They say that’s all a person can take, this early in the year. After that, the cold water begins to shut you down.”

  The lure plops into the water some distance away.

  “Heart failure is usually what does it,” he says, reeling in.

  “Jesus Christ!” I say, teeth chattering. “You want to talk — let’s talk.”

  “Okay,” he says, as though the thought just occurred to him. “You first.”

  “They’re really worried … about the dead trapper.”

  “Wasn’t me.” Another cast.

  “Well, they’re worried,” I say, looking around, hoping to see an approaching boat. With my eyes right at water level I can’t see anything more than a few yards away in the chop. “So they’re cutting you loose.”

  “What?” he says, his reeling paused, braids dangling as he looks down at me.

  “You’re too risky,” I say, following the script. It’s meant both to worry him enough he’ll contact his employer, which will be recorded, and to tease out any possible involvement he might have with the Hallendry fire. Aggravating him at the moment may not be in my best interest, but my head aches and it’s becoming hard to focus, so I stick with what I can remember.

  “So they’re just dumping me?” he says, angry, gripping the rail. I nod, bob under, struggle to the surface, spitting water.

  “Billions of goddamn oil dollars and they’re just cutting me loose?” he shouts.

  “Maybe … maybe I can to talk to them.”

  Simon Cardinal crosses his arms, regards me coldly from the rail.

  “Maybe I should just cut you loose, Fire Guy.”

  I bob under again. Cardinal is a dark blurry shape looming above me. I don’t have much time left. I struggle for the surface, clothes clinging, binding, trying to pull me down. I gag on icy water, break the surface, cough it out.

  “I know the investigation. I could talk to them.”

  Cardinal thinks about this for an agonizing moment, then shrugs.

  “Okay, Fire Guy.” He tosses a knotted rope. “But the price has gone up.”

  I barely hear him as he hauls me up, over the rail. I flop like a dead fish onto the deck.

  He nudges me with the tip of his boot. “You still alive?”

  I nod. “Motherfucker.”

  “Half a million,” he says, grinning.

  IT’S NOT A great ride back to town. Even in the cabin of the boat, sheltered mostly from the wind, I shiver uncontrollably. When I grew up on the farm, we’d had a dog fall through the ice. It took a long time to get him out and I remember how small and frail and miserable that poor soaked dog looked as it quivered and shook. Today, I am the dog. Simon Cardinal, on the other hand, looks quite
comfortable in his dry jeans and heavy buckskin coat. He ignores me on the ride back to town. At the dock I climb off his boat, boots squishing, without further conversation.

  In my truck, I turn the heater to max, rev the engine impatiently to warm it up. The RCMP instructed me to go about what would seem normal business until after lunch, then to meet them at the cabin along the lakeshore. I head to the ia base, where I peel off cold clinging clothes and stand in a hot shower until I’m bloated and groggy with heat. I dress in dry clothes and lie on my bunk, exhausted, eyes closed, let the world drift away.

  It doesn’t get to drift far. Boots in the hallway. A knock on my door. Joe, from Special “O,” peers in.

  “We need to talk, Porter.”

  “Go away,” I mumble. “I’m not so happy to see you right now.”

  He closes the door, takes a seat across from my bed.

  “How you doing?”

  “Pissed.” I push myself up to sitting. “Where the hell were you guys?”

  “We were watching. You seemed to have it handled.”

  I have a strong urge to reach out and touch him. With my boot.

  “If you call nearly drowning handling it. That asshole almost killed me. I’m curious, just speaking hypothetically, but at what point would you have intervened?”

  “We were waiting for your signal.”

  “That would be when I stopped coming up for air.”

  “Yeah — we were a bit worried there for a minute.”

  “Just a bit? Was this some sort of payback?”

  He ignores the question. “We lost you in the fog. We did have a scope on you when he pushed you into the water, but we decided to hold when he didn’t leave immediately. I appreciate you being a bit pissed at the moment but I gotta tell you, on a professional level, I think you did a hell of a job, hanging in there.”

  “Wonderful. I hope you got what you needed.”

  “Well.” He hesitates. “There was a problem.”

  “What sort of problem?”

  “The mics crapped out. We need you to do it again.”

  “You can’t be serious. What happened?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” he says, rubbing his forehead as though giving it deep thought. “We’ll need to look at the units tonight, check the installation. Bottom line — we got nothing from the boat. It happens, unfortunately.”

  “What about the sunglasses?”

  “Partial, before they went swimming.”

  I squeeze shut my eyes, massage them. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “It’ll be different next time,” Joe assures me. “We’ll set it up on land.”

  I can’t help laughing. Sometimes it’s the only thing left to do.

  Joe fixes me with a look. “You still in, Porter?”

  I think of Simon Cardinal, watching me sink while he fishes.

  “Hell yeah.”

  I SPEND SOME quality time at the cabin along the lake with the cops of operation Kitten, going over in detail what Simon told me on the boat. It’s clear that he was paid to create tension among the bands and disrupt the Cree election. It seems most likely this was aimed at undermining the plans of Sammy Cardinal to unite the bands in a common voice. It’s less clear who paid Simon Cardinal to do this but it sounds ominously like it’s connected to the huge oil sands interests up river, who’s effluent inevitably arrives in the water supply of Fort Chipewyan.

  “This is huge,” says Waldren, cracking his knuckles.

  “Colossal,” says Markham. “Imagine this in the papers.”

  “No doubt,” says Waldren. “The oil sands drive the economy of the province.”

  “Try the country,” says Markham. “Then there’s the States — our oil sands are the only large oil reserve in a nearby friendly country. Start monkey-wrenching with that and it becomes a matter of national security. Those boys are pretty heavy about that stuff. Next thing you know, we got the CIA up here.”

  “Just hold on,” says MacFarlane. “You’re working yourselves into a lather.”

  We’re sitting on an ancient couch and odd assortment of chairs in the living room of the small cabin. The Mounties are all in rural camouflage — jeans and plaid shirts. It looks like a lumberjack union meeting.

  “This is just a theory right now. We need some serious evidence.”

  “What’s the next step?” I ask.

  “Well,” says MacFarlane, “like Joe told you, we need you to meet again with Simon. We won’t rush it this time though. Give him some space to stew about it, maybe call his contact personally. If he does, we have his phone tapped and we have eyes on him steady. If he doesn’t in the next few days, we’ll have you make contact again.”

  “What do I do until then?”

  “Just act natural, as though you’re working for the Forest Service.”

  The meeting breaks up and I go to the ranger station, act natural, spend the next few hours doing paperwork. Luke wanders in, surprised to see me, tells me he’s got the dog squared away with his dad. Scorch is penned behind the garage out back of the station, if I want to visit him. I thank Luke, tell him I’ll be sure to do that later.

  “Did you hear about Bernice Whiteknife’s uncle?” says Luke.

  I stiffen. “No. What’s going on?”

  “There’s two RCMP trucks at his place. I heard he had a heart attack.”

  LUKE TAGS ALONG as I head over to Cork’s house. Two RCMP Suburbans and an ambulance are parked along the edge of the street out front. Two Natives sit in the ambulance, waiting, the need for their services clearly not urgent. The burgundy truck with the dented front panel is in the driveway. Several other vehicles are parked on both sides of the street and a small group of locals have collected in the front yard. Several I recognize from the sweat lodge. Helen Mercredi is hugging Sammy Cardinal. Tuber is sitting on the big stump, looking lost. I walk over, followed hesitantly by Luke. Sammy Cardinal whispers something to Helen Mercredi, who nods, releases him and turns to me.

  “Porter,” she says hoarsely. “So much sadness lately.”

  “What happened? Have you been inside?”

  “I found him,” she says, biting her lip. “Just come over to talk to him, you know, and he’s dead. Sitting at the table. Flopped over, his face in a bowl of mashed potatoes. I tap him on the shoulder but he doesn’t move.”

  “When was this?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  I give her shoulder a squeeze, walk to the house, my mind working. I wonder what she went to talk to him about. I hesitate at the door, look around. Luke has remained with the crowd on the lawn. They’re engaged in muted discussion. I knock on the door. Markham answers, now in uniform.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Just a minute.”

  He closes the door, returns quickly, ushers me inside. Rodney Whiteknife has been laid face up on the linoleum floor of the kitchen. He’s pale, eyes vacant, bits of white mashed potato clinging to his face. Waldren and MacFarlane stand away from the body, talking with Dr. Cho, who glares, then continues a quiet discussion.

  “You’re sure it’s a heart attack?” says MacFarlane.

  “Signs all indicate infarction,” he tells the cops.

  “Can we package him up?” says Waldren.

  Dr. Cho nods, signs something on a clipboard. While he’s doing this I look around the small kitchen. The house smells of gasoline and cooking. The scatter of mechanical parts on the table have been pushed to one side to make way for a plate, a bowl of mashed potatoes, and a fry pan filled with greasy sausages. A cup of coffee has been knocked over on the table, a puddle of dark liquid drying on the floor. There are no signs of a confrontation. Markham waves in the ambulance people, who bring a gurney and body bag. When we make room for them to work, MacFarlane motions me over, down the hall.

  “I can’t believe he just had a heart attack,” I say.

  “It happens,” says MacFarlane. “Doctor checked him over.”

  “Doesn’t the Medical Examine
r need to do that?”

  “Up here, he is the me. There’ll be an autopsy later, down south.”

  I nod, thinking. “You had eyes on Whiteknife. What did he do today?”

  MacFarlane shrugs. “Went to the doctor, who says he reported feeling poorly, then went shopping, came home, made supper, and keeled over.”

  “What about Collette Whiteknife?”

  “We’re still looking for her. No luck so far.”

  The EMTs are zipping the body into a black bag.

  “What if he did something to her?” I say. “Stashed her somewhere?”

  MacFarlane sighs. “Then we’ve got a real problem.”

  “Did you ever get that search warrant?”

  “No, but we’re here now. Show me that bag.”

  We go around a corner to the small broom closet. The bag is still there, stuffed behind the old vacuum cleaner. MacFarlane snaps on white latex gloves, reaches in, pulls out the bag. We kneel on the floor as he zips it open, looks at the contents.

  “This is interesting, Cassel. Very interesting.”

  “What now?”

  “We call ident. Process the house. See what else we can find.”

  13

  •

  I LEAVE RODNEY Whiteknife’s house carrying with me a deep sense of unease. Collette Whiteknife has not been seen for several days and is officially listed as missing. Despite an organized search by the RCMP and community members, there is no trace of her. In the yard, I ask Sammy Cardinal if there’s anything I can do to help with the search and he nods, tells me everyone is working together now. The bands are united. I can join one of the boats searching the river and local lakeshore. He doesn’t specifically say he’s looking for a body, but it’s pretty obvious what is going through everyone’s mind, after the drowning of Bernice Mercredi.