“Ah, Mr. Paine.”
“He’s been in?”
“Yes, smell like horses. Not so bad.”
“So he’s been in since Mr. Penner was killed.”
“He was in to bring laundry yesterday.”
“What did he bring in?”
Mr. Kim looked over at his son on the washboard. “That his coat right there!” he said, pointing as the young man scrubbed the heavy riding coat down with his gloved hands.
• • •
Only Devon Paine, who managed the stables and who had been at the card game, had taken a coat to the laundry over the last few days. Durrant aimed to find out who might have a coat with blood on it from the grisly murder. After visiting the laundry, Durrant had collected Charlie to help with the unpleasant task of rummaging through the trash from the camp’s four-month stay at the end of steel. A mound higher than their heads and twenty feet across occupied a clearing in the woods a stone’s throw from the Pipestone River, and just south of the mess for the camp.
“It ain’t too bad,” said Durrant. The boy was using a long stick to dig through the trash. He looked up at the Mountie standing on the periphery of the garbage heap.
“Okay, so from where you’re standing maybe it’s a little worse.” The man and the boy poked through the rubbish. There was a barrel on the edge of the garbage heap and Durrant limped to it, trying not to trip on the irregular ground.
“Come have a look here, lad,” he said, one gloved hand resting on the barrel. It was full of ashes. “See if you can’t stir up the contents of this here barrel and discover something of use.”
Charlie inserted his stick and began to stir. A great plume of ashes rose from the barrel, and Durrant coughed and stepped back. “Blue Jesus, lad . . .”
Charlie continued to stir and then reached in with his bare hand and grabbed something. He held it up. Durrant took it from his hand. It was a blackened buckle from a heavy coat.
• • •
It was late in the afternoon before he realized how hungry he was. Charlie had long since returned to his bunk, and Durrant had continued searching the trash barrel on his own but found nothing more of the coat. He could not even be certain that it had been a coat, no less one worn by Deek Penner’s killer. He would have to search each witness’s possessions for a possible garment with blood on it. It was the only way he thought he might find actual physical evidence of the crime.
Durrant made his way from the garbage dump up the icy road and through the tunnels of snow towards the NWMP bunk. When he opened the door to the bunk house, he was greeted by both a blast of warmth and the rich aroma of fresh baking. He stepped in and stood for a moment while his eyes adjusted. Charlie was moving Durant’s footlocker to the toe of the Mountie’s bed. He stood up when Durrant entered. “What the hell is going on here?”
The boy’s pleasant smile faded. He looked around self-consciously. There was a broom near the door. The desk had been adorned with paper and a quill. A bottle of ink sat near the stove where it wouldn’t freeze. The beds were neatly made. The oil lamp had been cleaned so its globe was no longer soiled with dark soot. The map that Durrant had borrowed from the stationmaster in Fort Calgary of the CPR’s route through the mountains was tacked above the desk.
Durrant stared at the boy, who now simply looked down at his feet. “My God, son, when I said make the quarters passable, I didn’t mean for the King himself!” Charlie smiled in relief.
“I need to have a rest before what promises to be a big night. What I have to do, son, is find whatever it was that Deek Penner got his face mashed in with. You saw where they found the body, didn’t you? The murder weapon’s got to be something big and heavy. Like a sledge or the back of a maul. Christianson says that whoever he seen running from the body that night didn’t have anything in his hands. I think maybe the killer saw Christianson coming, and threw the killing tool. It could be out in the snow somewhere. While it’s still a little light, have a look around some. If you find anything, leave it and come and fetch me. If anybody bothers you, let me know straight away. I’ll handle them.”
Charlie was already pulling on his heavy coat. “One more thing, come back and get me up in time for supper, would you? Be careful, son,” said Durrant as the boy opened the door. Charlie cast a quick glance back, smiled and was gone.
Durrant sat on the bed awhile, then slowly loosened and slipped off his coat. He checked the pockets and found the sack containing the contents of Penner’s pockets. A few currency notes, a set of heavy Yale keys, caps and fuses, and the coded note. Durrant looked at it. The code could be cracked, but he would need a few more examples before he could get to work with it. He would need to question Christianson about further correspondence, and see if he could ascertain the address of the recipient to speed the investigation. Durrant lay back on the bed, pulling some of the neatly folded blankets over him in a haphazard fashion, and fell into a fitful sleep.
• • •
It was half past eight when Durrant and Wilcox approached the bunk of Frank Dodds. Wilcox carried a lantern. “You know what you’re doing?” asked Wilcox as they neared the cabin. In the darkness his tone betrayed both scepticism and a co-conspiratorial notion that the general manager and the Mountie shared the same purpose.
Durrant said nothing and instead knocked on the door. The cabin was of a more solid construction than most in the camp, framed with square timbers with a roof of boards hewn straight and flat; the cabin of a sawyer, of a man who works in the woods, thought Durrant.
“Come!” responded a harsh voice from within, and Durrant pried open the door and stepped inside. Wilcox followed him.
“’Bout goddamned time,” barked a large man sitting on the far side of a round table.
Durrant stepped into the room. It was warm and close and he could smell the nervous sweat coming from the six men seated there. The dim cabin bore a fusty odour, as if a rotting burlap sack had been discarded there when the construction season ended and had never been removed. “You’re Frank Dodds,” said Durrant, moving away from the door so that Wilcox could push it shut behind them.
Dodds didn’t rise when the two men entered the room. He didn’t offer his hand. He just nodded and said, “I am. And you’re the Red Coat here to investigate Deek Penner’s murder?”
“I am. My name is Sergeant Durrant Wallace. You may refer to me as Sergeant.” Durrant looked around him, imagining these six sitting then, as they were now, but with Penner among them. The card table occupied the centre of the room, with a single bunk pushed against the far wall, and an over-sized stove taking up the corner farthest from the door. The table was crowded with the morose group of men, but there were two empty chairs. Durrant noted Christianson sitting opposite Dodds, his hands folded in front of him, his glasses reflecting the light of the lamp. Durrant stumped to one of the two empty chairs.
“Which one of these was Mr. Penner sitting at?” he asked.
Christianson said helpfully, “He was in this one here.”
Durrant leaned his crutch on the table and took off his bison coat. He deftly slipped into the seat, but not before ensuring that every man in the room could see the Enfield pistol strapped to his left side, a belt of cartridges adorning his waist as if he were a law man from south of the Medicine Line.
“If I were a betting man,” he said once he was seated, “I’d say that whoever killed Deek Penner is sitting in this room right now.”
“Just a goddamned . . .” bawled Dodds.
“Be quiet, Mr. Dodds!” Durrant said evenly but forcefully. Dodds looked as if he had been struck. “You will speak after I ask you a question,” Durrant said, “not a goddamned minute before.” The men stirred in their seats, and Wilcox, standing near the door, shuffled awkwardly.
“There’s always a chance that the killer has left Holt City. He might be frozen in the snow at the Kicking Horse Pass, or along the tracks toward Banff Station. A man in this camp held a grudge against Deek Penner, or owed him mo
ney, or Mr. Penner may have known something about some man’s business that he shouldn’t have, and it got him killed.” Durrant rested his left hand on the table, his game right hand on his lap. He slowly looked from one man to the next. “My bet is that one of you men holds the secret to Mr. Penner’s untimely demise, and it’s my job to find out which one it is. You could save me a lot of time, and yourselves a lot of aggravation, if the killer would simply say so right now.”
Durrant looked around the room at the men. Dodds’ eyes burned into him, and he held his gaze a moment before he let it drift over the others. Christianson remained with his face downcast. Pete Mahoney had his eyes on Dodds; his older brother Ralph looked at Durrant from beneath a heavy brow. Grant McPherson shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Devon Paine watched the Mountie with expectation.
“I thought not,” said Durrant, feigning disappointment.
It was Wilcox who spoke first. “Sergeant Wallace has asked to speak with each of you in turn,” he said.
Durrant turned and fixed the man with a stern gaze. “My request extends to you, too, Mr. Wilcox.”
He turned back to the table. “The facts of the matter are becoming clear to me already. There is whiskey in this camp. Somebody is making it and distributing it, and come the spring, it stands to disrupt the work of the railway. It may come to pass that Mr. Penner’s murder is somehow tied to this. I can’t say for certain as yet. But the law is the law, and as a representative of the Dominion Government, I aim to uphold it. Mr. Wilcox has assured me every co-operation, and I expect nothing less of each of you. The fact is, whiskey is being made here. Mr. Wilcox must have his suspicions and has done nothing to act on them, and so is at best negligent in his duties here.”
Wilcox drew a deep breath and held it.
“My primary duty will be to discover Mr. Penner’s killer, but in the course of that investigation, should I reveal anything about the moonshining going on at Holt City, you can rest assured I will shut it down.” He looked around the room again. Dodds glared at Durrant. He could also see that Wilcox bore the expression of a man scorned, and what was worse, in front of a room of his subordinates.
This was exactly where Durrant wanted these men: angry, and off-balance. “Does any man here have anything he wants to say?”
“I take it that’s an invitation to speak?” said Dodds in a tone that was low and menacing, like the sound a dog makes when you cross it.
Durrant nodded.
“You come to the wrong place, Sergeant, if you’re looking for confessions. Deek Penner must have stuck his nose into somebody’s business where it weren’t welcome, and it got him killed, but not by anybody sitting in this room.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Deek and I weren’t no friends is for sure; maybe I was the only one who was big enough to stand up to him, but I know for a fact I didn’t kill him. The rest of these boys ain’t got it in ’im. You think little old John there, or that poor boy Paine might have killed a big fellow like Penner? And these boys here,” he nodded at the Mahoney brothers, “they work for me.”
“And that absolves them?”
“They ain’t going to do anything I don’t tell them to do.”
“This has been very useful commentary, Mr. Dodds. I suppose I shall have to carry out my investigation anyway. I understand there was a card game here the night that Mr. Penner was killed. That correct?” Dodds nodded. “And it was you six, and Mr. Penner playing?” Again, Dodds nodded. “Who was missing from the game?”
“I don’t take your meaning.” said Dodds.
“Who was missing? There was an empty chair?”
“Nobody was missing.”
“Doesn’t seem right that a chair should sit unfilled at a game such as the one you hosted.”
“Sometimes others will join in. Bob Pen sometimes sits a hand. And my man Griffin will play now and again.”
“Mr. Pen I’ve met. What about this other man?”
“Thompson Griffin,” said Frank Dodds. “He’s my number two up on the hill. He weren’t about that night, must have had other business to attend to.”
Durrant made a mental note to track down this man and question him on his whereabouts. “Anything happen that night that might lead one of you to want to kill Mr. Penner?”
“Deek was winning as usual,” said Christianson, earning a sharp glance from Dodds.
“He often won?”
“Yes, he was a good player. He’d throw hands to make sure the rest of us didn’t get too cross.”
“That night, did anybody get cross?”
Christianson looked around the room. His gaze came to rest on Devon Paine, and then Christianson looked down at his hands.
“How’d you get your face all bloodied?” Durrant turned to Paine. Paine looked up. The Mountie held his gaze. “Those bruises and that split lip look to be about three days old to me.” Devon looked around the room. Durrant took note that the man wasn’t wearing the coat that he had seen in the laundry that afternoon. He had on an old, worn mackinaw that was grey and soiled. “You going to tell me, Mr. Paine?”
“I work with horses,” he finally said.
“What of it?”
“I got kicked.”
“You crawling across the floor when it happened?”
Christianson snickered, but was silenced by a hard look from Paine. “I was picking ice out from a mare’s shoe. She gave me a tap. It’s all it takes with those ice shoes the horses wear for the Tote Road.”
“When did this occur?”
Paine hesitated; he seemed to be doing a calculation in his head. “Two days now.”
“You must have bled a lot,” said the Mountie. Paine seemed not to understand the question. “When you got kicked. You must have bled a great deal.”
“Some.”
“Is that the coat you were wearing when it happened?”
“I can’t recall,” said Paine, his face perplexed.
Durrant nodded. “So the card game was a peaceful event.” The men nodded. “And who left first?”
“I believe it was Deek,” said Christianson.
“After that?”
The men were silent.
“It was Paine, weren’t it?” asked Dodds.
“Yeah, I believe that’s true,” said Ralph Mahoney, speaking for the first time.
“Is that right, Mr. Paine?” Durrant asked.
“It must be,” he said, looking down.
“But you can’t recall?”
“I think that’s right.”
“Then John, then Grant, I believe,” continued Dodds.
“And then Pete and me,” said Ralph Mahoney helpfully. His brother nodded.
“Besides Mr. Christianson here, did any of you see Mr. Penner after he left that night?”
The men shook their head.
“And you, Mr. Wilcox?”
“I did not,” said the general manager, his arms folded.
Durrant shifted in his chair, easing the pressure on his prosthetic leg. “So none of you had words with Deek Penner that night, and none but John here saw him after he took his leave. Is that correct?” The room was silent. “Well, I don’t believe that for a moment.” Dodds was about to speak, but Durrant hushed him with a hard look.
“Who else, gentlemen, in this camp might have wanted to see Deek Penner dead?”
“Deek was pretty well liked,” acknowledged Christianson quietly.
“That doesn’t help your cause Mr. Christianson,” said Durrant.
“Blue Jesus, John, would you shut your mouth!” bawled Dodds harshly.
Durrant smiled.
“What about that Grand Trunk man?” asked Dodds.
“That’s just a rumour,” said Wilcox.
“And what might that rumour be?” questioned Durrant.
Wilcox shrugged. “It’s a delicate matter.”
Durrant shifted and looked at Wilcox.
“We’ve suspected a man in the camp has been spying on behalf of
the Grand Trunk Railway.”
“Deek knew?”
Wilcox looked around the room. “Deek may have found out.”
“Do we know this spy’s identity?”
“Not as of yet,” said Wilcox.
“We shall have to find out,” said Durrant. He thought he noted a glimmer of interest in Wilcox’s eye. He shifted again and regarded the room full of men watching him.
“Gentlemen, get some rest,” he said at long last. “Expect to see me tomorrow.” With that, Durrant rose, slipped his bison coat on, and taking his crutch went to the door and vanished out into the frozen night, leaving the rest of the men in silence.
SEVEN
INQUISITION
DURRANT WOKE BELIEVING THAT HE had Frank Dodds exactly where he wanted him: backed into a corner, with nowhere to turn. He lay a moment under the heap of blankets piled high against the cold and went over the confrontation of the night before. Reckless, Sub-Inspector Dewalt would have said; Diplomacy, he would recite. Durrant believed that the ragtag complement of men who had been snowbound since December would only respect his authority as the law if he was uncompromising in the execution of it.
“You there, Charlie?” Durrant spoke into the pre-dawn morning. He didn’t expect an answer but also heard no sound from the small room. He pushed the blankets off and realized that he was in fact sweating beneath the heavy mound of wool. Durrant affixed his prosthetic and dressed and was about to step to the door when there was a knock. Puzzled, he put one hand on the hilt of his pistol and said, “Come in . . .”
Charlie pushed the door open, a dented tin coffee pot in his hand. Durrant smiled at his modesty and relaxed his grip on the Enfield. The boy entered and poured the Sergeant a cup of thick black coffee and then one for himself. Durrant took the mug in his hand and held it appreciatively, absorbing the warmth. He took a sip. “It’s warmer out today, ain’t it?” asked Durrant.
The boy nodded, and took the writing tablet from the desk and scribbled something on it. Charlie turned it around for Durrant to see. “Cloudy. Maybe chinook on its way,” he read. “I see. Well, that would explain it. We’re only a few days from the spring equinox,” Durrant added, holding the coffee close to his lips. “It’s got to warm up in this God-forsaken country sooner or later.” Durrant finished his coffee and put the cup down on the desk.
The End of the Line Page 9
