“Great…”
He lifted his legs off the thwart and tucked them underneath as he shuffled to the back and pushed himself up onto the seat. The sculling paddle grated over a layer of sand as PJ slid it from underneath the seat and set it on his lap, slipping his arm into the brace. Silently dipping the blade into the water, he eased the canoe towards a hazy suggestion of sunlight, his attention split between the shifting fog and the empty film canister—centered perfectly on the front seat. Each glance at the small, black cylinder drew a thoughtful pursing of his lips.
The canoe shuddered to a halt and PJ lurched forward, his free hand gripping the gunnel as the canister tipped and then wobbled back to attention. PJ squinted at the dim outline of Butch’s pier. Sweeping the paddle in a figure eight, he turned the canoe parallel and climbed out. He dragged the boat ashore as he stepped from the pier, sending the empty film canister clattering to the floor. It rocked slowly to a halt as PJ walked into the murk and up to the house.
The slam of a car door across the lake stopped him short at the back door and he turned, leaning against the stoop railing, listening and scanning the fog. A fish jumped and slapped the surface, breaking an eerie calm. The start of a car engine. Tires crunching over gravel and then a slow acceleration around the far shore. PJ followed the car with a blind gaze until its low rumble faded into the woods at the end of the lake. He went inside.
The fog had worked its way through the open windows, coating the dim quiet of the house with a thin haze. He checked the phone. During his fitful night on the bottom of a canoe in the middle of Long Lake, he had missed a call from someone named Anna Simons. He redialed her number and after four rings, a drowsy reply.
“Hello?”
“Is this Anna?”
“Mmm…yeah.”
“My name is Paul Marshall. I’m Butch Marshall’s son. How do you know my father?”
“I…we’re working on a project together. Why, what’s going on?”
“What kind of project?”
“What’s going on? Is Butch all right?”
“I don’t know. He’s missing. What’s this project?”
“It’s—oh my god.”
Silence.
“Anna?”
“Uh, yeah…it’s a study of the Wind River glaciers. He’s really missing?”
“Yeah. Do you know anything about the Tim-Oil project?”
“No. No, I don’t know what that is.”
“He’s never mentioned it to you?”
“No. I don’t—when’s the last time you heard from him?”
“He called me Friday night. What about you?”
There was a pause in the conversation, and PJ checked his watch. Anna sighed.
“It was early last week. I’d say Tuesday or Wednesday. Are the police on this?”
“Yeah. Did he ever mention Consolidated Timber, Jackson Timber, Maverick Oil, or Western Petroleum?”
“No. I know who they are, but no.”
“He ever mention someone being pissed off at him, or trying to get him in trouble?”
“No. Oh my god. I haven’t known him that long.”
PJ slumped in the desk chair, shaking his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut.
“So…this glacier project is all you’re working on with him?”
“Yeah, that’s it. But it’s nothing—I mean, I can’t imagine anyone getting worked up about it. It’s one of the most benign projects we’ve ever taken on.”
“Who’s we?”
“Sorry. I work for Earth Guardians in D.C. We’re a nonprofit—”
“Yeah, okay. I know who you are.” PJ opened a desk drawer and shuffled its contents. “And whether someone gets worked up or not kind of depends on them, doesn’t it?”
Anna sighed.
“Yeah. I guess.”
He slammed the drawer.
“So, he never said anything to you about going somewhere or meeting someone?”
“No, nothing. What about those companies you were asking about? Are the police looking at them?”
“Yeah,” PJ said, taking Porter’s card from his back pocket. “You need to call the detective working this. I’m going to give you his number.”
A pause, punctuated with the shuffle and clatter of a search on Anna’s end of the line.
“Okay.”
PJ gave her the number as he ransacked another drawer.
“I’ll call him right now,” Anna said. “And please, let me know if there’s something I can do.”
“Just tell Porter anything that might help.”
“Of course. Take care, Paul. Or…is it PJ?”
PJ exhaled with a long, exhausted sigh.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Quitting his search of the desk, PJ again walked the house, pausing to open a drawer or check a stack of papers he may have forgotten. With the daylight growing, he paused at the book case and sat on the arm of the couch, staring at the Gannett Peak photograph, his father’s wide, toothy grin drawing an agonizing lump into his throat. He looked away. Getting to his feet, he reached behind the case.
“Sorry, dad.”
He slid the corner of the unit away from the wall, exposing the access panel to the crawlspace in the floor. It was screwed down once along each side, making PJ chuckle.
“I know. You’re right.”
As he pushed the case back against the wall, a screwdriver rolled off the top shelf and PJ froze, watching it clatter and roll to a stop on the floor panel. On his knees, PJ removed the screws and lifted the door, flinching as a trouble light swung on its hook and banged against the door’s back side. He tipped the panel against the wall and plugged in the light. With a deep breath, he swung his legs into the hole and lowered himself through.
In a crouch, he went to the far end of the crawlspace, probing its empty corners with the light and raising dust that swirled and hung in his wake. He stopped at the oak support beam and knelt on the cool concrete, holding the light high to read the graffiti carved into the wood, tracing it with his fingers.
‘Fuck you all.’
A second, larger message was underneath, the carving unsteady.
‘I’m sorry.’
His hand shaking, PJ reached up and passed it over the top of the beam, sweeping a cloud of dust into the light, his breathing shallow. He knocked a film canister to the floor and it bounced and rolled to a stop between his knees. Sitting back on his heels, PJ picked it up and shook it by his ear, rattling its contents. He removed the cover and poured an assortment of pills into his hand, grimly sorting through them with his finger. PJ’s little helpers. Multicolored reminders of his mother’s descent into madness and the grave and his father’s futile attempts to help them both. He dumped them back into the canister and replaced the cover.
The trouble light swung from a nail driven into the beam as PJ sat on the floor against the outside wall, turning the canister in his hand, clearing the dust from its lid with his thumb. The shadow of the support post swung in soft, repetitive arcs, stabbing the subfloor as PJ tipped his head back against the wall, watching his writing on the beam come in and out of illumination.
At the outer reaches of the light, a shadow stirred to the rhythm of the lamp’s swing and PJ leaned forward, squinting. He rose into a squat and drew closer, repeatedly prying the lid of the canister open with his thumb and snapping it shut. With a gasp, he stopped short.
Perched atop the beam was his father’s safe—its distinctive, rectangular form casting a rolling shadow on the floor above. PJ set the trouble light on the concrete, flooding the skeleton of the house above in a swirling cone of dust and light. With a grunt, he slid the safe off the beam and set it on the floor, his fingers running over the latch, testing it. Locked.
He picked up the safe and hobbled to the access door, the heavily armored box playing with his balance. Rising through the open hatch, he hoisted it onto the floor above and lifted himself out. He unplugged the trouble light and
retrieved a set of keys from the desk drawer, squinting in the sunshine slanting through the front window. PJ sat, his feet dangling into the crawlspace as he tried each key in the lock. The pop of the latch startled him, and he raised the lid, gazing inside.
He took out a small stack of file folders and examined his father’s financial statements and insurance policies, slipping his will—unread—to the bottom of the pile. Setting the files on the floor, PJ removed his college diploma from the safe. He laid the hardbound document on his lap and studied the gold embossing on its cover, shaking his head.
He opened it, revealing a computer disc tucked into the diploma’s plastic cover. Holding a shallow breath, PJ read the words written on the disc.
‘Tim-Oil.’
***
PJ lifted his head from the desk in a haze, peeling a sheet of paper from the drool on his cheek. Checking his watch under the fading window light, he answered the phone with a yawn.
“Hello?”
“Hi PJ, it’s Anna.”
“Huh?”
“You left me a message.”
Straightening in his chair, PJ rubbed his eyes.
“Right. Sorry, I was just—”
“Getting some sleep. Good. So, Butch never said anything to me about going to Chicago. You think that might be related to this Tim-Oil thing?”
PJ flipped on the desk lamp, squinting at a drool soaked document.
“Yeah. Hansen Timber and Bighorn Oil both have satellite offices there.”
“Wow. Those are some big fish. What’s he up to?”
A flash of light through the window caught PJ’s eye, and he looked up from his stack of printouts. Sandy Johnson’s porch light had been turned on, and he watched her front door across the side yards.
“Sounds like you might already know,” he said.
“Well, it could be a lot of things. What’d you find?” Oblivious, PJ’s silent gaze remained fixed on the Johnson house. “PJ?”
Reaching across the desk, PJ turned off the lamp.
“It’s the presentation he’s giving to Congress.”
PJ stood and went to the window.
“Congress? Holy crap,” Anna said, her voice rising with excitement. “Let me guess. It’s about how they spit on the law and buy themselves out of trouble every time. I hope he’s got some good dirt, because it’ll be hard to stick.”
A uniformed officer exited the Johnson house and turned to continue a conversation with someone inside. Holding the screen door open with one hand, he gestured to Butch’s darkened house with the other.
“And with the resource bill on deck? God, it’ll—”
“Anna, hang on a second.”
PJ went to the window and set the phone on the sill. Raising the sash, he crouched against the wall, his ear pressed to the screen. The buzz of crickets drowned the muffled exchange from next door, and PJ glanced at the empty squad car parked in Sandy’s drive. Anna’s voice echoed off the sill with a low hum, and PJ picked up.
“PJ? What’s going on?”
“The police are next door.”
“Well, that’s good.”
His legs began to shake, and PJ dropped to his knees, leaning his head against the jamb.
“I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“About what?”
The officer moved to the outside of the door and pulled it wide as his partner emerged from the house, cradling Sandy Johnson’s computer in his arms. PJ watched in grim acceptance as the officer set the computer in the trunk of their car.
“About…the way Porter is taking this.”
A hand reached out through the doorway, and the officer shook it before turning to rejoin his partner at the car. The screen door slammed shut, silencing the crickets and making PJ jump. He rose and went to the front window.
“I got the same feeling when I talked to him,” Anna said.
Pulling aside the curtain, PJ watched the officers depart.
“What did he say?”
Anna hesitated in her reply.
“He wanted to know why I would associate with two hardened criminals.”
PJ returned to the desk and turned on the lamp. He flipped through the stack of printouts.
“Good question. What did you say?”
“I told him I’m kind of a badass myself.”
PJ looked up from the desk with a smirk, his attention drawn by the quenching of Sandy’s porch light.
“Well,” he said, returning to the printouts. “After they check the neighbor’s computer, I might officially be a criminal. Or at least a suspect.”
“Oh my god, is that what they’re doing over there?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would she—Mrs. Johnson—?”
“Probably still holding a grudge.”
A pause.
“For what?”
PJ began sorting the documents into two piles.
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m sure it is. You didn’t save anything on it, did you?”
“I’m a criminal, not an idiot.”
“Did you go online?”
“Yeah.”
I’m screwed.
With the files organized in front of him, PJ slid the lamp closer as the crickets took up their song once again. He got up and shut the window and then checked the easement out front before returning to the desk.
“So, it looks like they started investigating Hansen about a year ago.”
“Jim was helping him?”
“Yeah. Apparently, their clear cuts along the national park border are too big and too close to the Bald River. They’ve got photos and measurements, water quality data. There’s also a list of complaints and judgments made against them.”
Anna sputtered.
“Nothing came of it, right?”
“No. Whenever things got heavy, the rules would change.”
“Imagine that.”
“And check this out,” PJ said, picking up another document. “There’s an audio file named ‘John Olson’, dated June twelfth. There were two guys talking, and one of them had to be from Hansen. He knew a lot about the company and he kept calling the other guy ‘John’. They were talking about that resource bill.”
Anna’s shallow breathing buzzed in the receiver.
“Holy shit, PJ. Do you—John Olson is Senator Howard’s chief of staff. This is huge.”
“Senator Howard?”
“Chairman of the resource appropriations committee.”
PJ looked out the window at Sandy Johnson’s house. Its windows were dark.
“Holy shit.”
“I know. What did they say?”
“They were making a deal. John’s boss was going to attach a rider to the bill opening part of the national park to logging.”
“Unbelievable,” Anna said, her voice shaking. “How much is Howard getting for that little favor?”
“They didn’t say.”
“How do you think your dad got the recording?”
PJ leaned back and stared at the assortment of printouts, heaving a sigh.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“Jim?”
“Yeah.”
Anna cleared her throat.
“You don’t think there’s anything to this warrant, do you?”
“No, I don’t. He’s not blackmailing anybody. Somebody must have found out about this, and now they’re trying to mess with him. Frame him or something.”
“But…Porter isn’t going that way.”
“No. And I’m getting nothing from those a-holes in Houston. They bounce me around on the phone until I get pissed and give up. This is all some kind of screw job.”
Silence. PJ leaned over the desk, his knees bouncing, studying Tim-Oil. He pursed his lips and glanced at the film canister on the lamp base. Anna sighed.
“I…don’t know what to say, PJ. How does Bighorn figure into this?”
“There’
s not as much on them, but they’ve had trouble over some of their wells in Wyoming.”
“Probably the ones drilled into the Indian Reservation next door.”
“Yeah. It’s been in the courts for a while. Bighorn calls it a ‘boundary dispute’.”
“Clever.”
PJ slid the disc from his back pocket and set it over his finger, spinning it with his thumb to set the words ‘Tim-Oil’ horizontal. Heavy and angular, Butch’s handwriting contrasted against the silvery glow and the ‘T’ had been written twice—a darker version atop a lighter one—probably by a dry marker. He glanced at the printouts and then returned to the disc, visually tracing his father’s pen strokes. His hand began to shake, and he set down the disc, covering his face.
“PJ?”
Slumping forward onto the desk, PJ buried his head in his arm, his body trembling. A whimper echoed from the surface of the desk as the phone, still clutched to his ear, rattled against the lamp. In time, Anna’s voice rang out.
“PJ! Talk to me.”
PJ lifted his head, sniffling. He dried his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“What did he do? Where the fuck is he?”
“I don’t know, PJ. But we’ll figure this out. Are you okay?”
Throwing a sheepish glance out the side window, he went to the kitchen, setting the film canister on the counter next to his bottle of pain medication. The background throb in his ankle all but gone, the fresh refill had been virtually untouched since their return from the mountains, and PJ studied the containers with solemn fascination.
“PJ?”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
PJ combined the pills from both containers in the film canister and put it in his shirt pocket.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“What are we going to do? You think we should tell Porter about this?”
PJ took a beer from the refrigerator and tossed the cap on the counter. He leaned back against the sink and pulled from the bottle, staring across the darkened room at the files—glowing under the desk lamp’s watchful eye.
The Ascent of PJ Marshall Page 12
