Stung

by William Deverell

  Police believe the perpetrator did not act alone — a great many files were stolen from the testing lab at the Sarnia plant.

  Then, on Wednesday, a torrent of Chemican testing results for Vigor-Gro inundated the media, along with internal memos suggesting that much of the company’s science was at best careless, at worst deceitful. Tests done on bee populations — some showing significant die-offs from Vigor-Gro — appeared to have been altered or, in some cases, buried. Other test results had somehow disappeared.

  Chemican-International has been ducking and dodging, declining to respond to the media while police pursue their criminal investigation, yet making vague claims about being victimized by lies, fraud, and conspiracy. They insist the raid cost them multiple millions of dollars in product and cleanup costs.

  That’s all Arthur knows, but clearly Selwyn knows much more. There’s no mystery now about the boon Selwyn seeks from the master of the criminal side.

  “They call themselves the Earth Survival Rebellion, which is allied with a deep underground network, Europe-based, Résistance Planétaire. I confess, in entire confidence, that I am privy to a project called Operation Beekeeper. The participants may not elude detection forever. They could face serious charges. Ten years maximum for conspiracy, breaking and entering, theft, and wilful damage, or worse if sentences are consecutive. There also may be an issue over that fellow in a coma.”

  Arthur sips his tea. He sighs. “The rust has set in, Selwyn. I haven’t done criminal work for three years.”

  “You’re a member of the Ontario bar. You did some celebrated cases there.”

  “Many years ago.”

  “These are good people, Arthur. Bright, caring people. Committed to the preservation of our planet. A little impetuous, a little crazy, and very brave. The damage is regrettable, as is the fact that a guard may have injured himself. But they have pulled off a great feat. They deserve our undying gratitude, not imprisonment.”

  Arthur wants to say he has lost confidence in his courtroom skills. He wants to explain that he is over the hill and accelerating down it. He wants to tell Selwyn there are others more able, more nimble of mind. Ontario lawyers, familiar with the terrain, with the courts, the judges. He has a farm to run, and would miss Ulysses unbearably.

  But he can’t bring himself to bluntly reject Selwyn’s petition — he would seem an ingrate. He’ll stall for time before letting him down gently. Meanwhile, he’ll seek advice from Toronto’s Nancy Faulk, a friend, a top criminal counsel, a warrior.

  “No arrests have been made,” he says, “and hopefully none will be. I’ll ask Margaret for her thoughts, of course.”

  “Good. Talk to Margaret.”

  * * *

  After the picnic, Arthur and Selwyn roost on the beach logs, enjoying the sun, talking about law and life and poetry, while Solara gathers the leavings, listening, fascinated by their handsome, erudite guest.

  Stefan has wandered off to the wooden dock, is crouching there, tuning his guitar, staring into the water, possibly talking to a seal or a porpoise. With Ulysses at his side, maybe translating.

  Suddenly, a flurry of fleeing herring breaks the water, followed by Blunder Bay’s resident seal, which snaffles two of them, an agile catch. Stefan rises to applaud. It almost seems he was waiting for the moment, that it was somehow orchestrated by him.

  Arthur senses Selwyn imagining the scene as he describes it. “How beautiful,” he says.

  Sightless since his early teens, this man is still capable of constructing visions of beauty unseen — Arthur is in awe of that. In past years, Selwyn suffered from a depressive disorder, but that seems gone as he compensates ever more fully for his loss of sight. He makes approving sounds as they listen to Stefan strum his guitar: something classical and languorous.

  Stefan will be moving on once his landed immigrant status is approved. He’s been offered work at a wildlife refuge in the rainforest on north Vancouver Island. Arthur is torn by that prospect — he’ll miss this mystical young man who shoots the breeze with animals. Yet another reason not to go to Ontario — Solara can’t be expected to carry the load by herself.

  3

  Monday, September 17

  A movement in the forest causes Arthur a visual warping, a hazy snapshot of a lanky form raising a jug to his lips: another perplexing Jeremiah mirage. But it’s a black-tailed doe popping up from the salal, her ears perked, and now she’s bounding off, with Ulysses in pursuit. When the deer clears a dense thicket of bracken, Ulysses screeches to a halt, remembering the blackberries, not taking any chances.

  By the time Ulysses gets his gears going again, the deer has disappeared into the forest. The pup soon returns, panting, defeated but unbowed, and gets back to his task of digging around the exposed stones of Jeremiah’s well. Arthur shares this labour, working with a trowel. They have already unearthed a complete circle of rocks, two deep, and cemented around a slight depression. The well’s innards are clogged with soil from 125 years of runoff from the surrounding hills.

  It’s close to eleven, another fair day, and Arthur has been at the well for an hour, waiting for the CEO of Island Landscraping, Robert Stonewell, who has been tasked to excavate the site. Arthur has reached out to the Garibaldi Historical Society, which has agreed to erect a monument here, with a covered display case for Arthur’s small collection of found artifacts.

  Stoney has either slept in, which is distinctly possible, or forgotten about the planned rendezvous, which is just as likely. He is nicknamed Stoney for good reason.

  Arthur is confounded by his latest Jeremiah sighting — more proof that his senses are distorted by stress. The rational part of his mind strives to reject the notion of Jeremiah’s ghost taking on the form of a deer. Yet it also seems a paranormal message, a plea from the beyond to set matters right, expunge the indignity of having been written off by history as a drunken, stumbling fool.

  Maybe in the course of his archaeological dig Arthur will find some answers to the mystery of Jeremiah Blunder. He feels an obligation to him. It’s his AA training kicking in, his sense of brotherly feelings toward a fellow addict.

  What is his ghost trying to tell Arthur? That the accepted theory of a drunken fall was grossly false? There are island tales, doubtless skewed by many tongues over many decades, of fierce rivalries between the early settlers, over land claims and horse thievery.

  “Were you murdered, Jeremiah?” Arthur asks the unreadable rocks. “Is that why you can’t sleep?”

  Arthur’s sleep has been almost as patchy, with much tossing in bed, rising at night for tea or a read or a moonlit stroll. Much of his tension stems from anxiety over Selwyn Loo’s forthcoming duel against the crack team of counsel for TexAmerica. He’s also oppressed by a sense of guilt over his inability to level with Selwyn, to admit to his qualms about taking on an explosive, taxing defence of a group of headstrong eco-mavericks who deliberately broke the law. “A little crazy,” Selwyn called them.

  Arthur rests his rear on a mound of excavated dirt and rubble, and Ulysses sits beside him, gazing at him consolingly — he can sense his master’s anxiety.

  “We’re a team, pal. They’re not going to separate us.”

  In confirmation, Ulysses awards him a sloppy kiss.

  * * *

  An approaching growl of machinery. Ulysses races off to investigate and returns romping alongside his quarry, a lumbering backhoe. Stoney is at the controls, a scrawny, unshaven fellow with long, lank hair. Sitting perilously in the raised scoop, cradling a heavy-duty chainsaw, is his loyal retainer, Dog, a squat little man about as tall as his saw is long.

  Stoney’s navigational skills seem compromised by the effects of the joint he’s smoking, because the backhoe veers off the trail and stops in a tangle of willows. He remembers to cut the engine; then, abandoning Dog to alight as best he can, gives Ulysses a rub and follows him to the well site.

&n
bsp; “And where, good sire, is this here grave you want dug up?”

  “It’s a well, Stoney. Jeremiah Blunder’s old stone well.”

  Stoney pinches his joint and flicks it, finally noticing the circle of cemented rocks. “Oh, yeah. It’s coming back.”

  Arthur isn’t pleased that Stoney has managed to get so high so early in the day. It’s mid-September, cannabis harvest time, and he’s likely been sampling from the grow he keeps on his small acreage, amid the rusting hulks of the many old vehicles he collects, an eyesore so infamous that no one ventures near.

  “Stoney, this dig must be done with utter care and precision. No drugs will be allowed on site. No booze, no pot.”

  Stoney tries to look shocked. “I deny the inference that I am under the inference . . . the influence.”

  “You reek of pot.”

  “Yeah, he’s guilty, Mr. Beauchamp,” says Dog, who has joined them and is having a friendly wrestle with Ulysses. Dog, at least, seems bright-eyed, unimpaired.

  “I only took a little hit to enhance my creative powers,” Stoney says. “Helps me see the big picture.” He looks about, as if visualizing that picture. “Okay, I got it, I got the logistics figured out, it’s chicken soup, man. This baby probably goes down seven, eight feet. Couple of tons of dirt to move, and so we don’t have a problem with the walls collapsing we’ll buttress them with timbers.”

  Arthur sees merit in this plan. Maybe marijuana does somehow tweak the brain.

  Stoney continues: “The rest will have to be hand shovelling. That’s where Dog’s expertise comes into play.” Stoney puts a brotherly arm around his shoulders. “But first, all them alder must fall to the mighty slices of his chainsaw — right, Dog?”

  “No problem.”

  “And how long will the entire operation take?” Arthur asks.

  A dismissive wave of Stoney’s hand. “A week, seven days, no more. We’ll want to get to it while the good weather holds.”

  “And when can you get started?”

  “I got to tend to my garden, just a day or two, but Dog can get going right now. We can fast-track this sucker, eh, Dog?”

  “No problem.”

  “How much, Stoney?”

  He ponders, finally comes up with the preposterous figure of ten thousand dollars.

  Arthur shows shock and dismay — faked, but he has bargained too many times with Stoney to be played the sucker. He points out that the Garibaldi Historical Society is sponsoring the project. “A charitable society, doing good works for the community. Our budget is four thousand dollars.”

  Stoney goes down to $7,500. Arthur informs him that, sadly, he must seek a second bid from Island Excavating. Stoney counters by wishing him good luck. “They’ll send a whole crew, one Dog is worth seven of them lazy goofs.”

  A further flurry of counter-offers concludes with an agreement for $5,500 with a cash advance for what Stoney calls start-up costs. A good deal — Arthur is proud of himself, though a bit ashamed at taking advantage of his contractor’s stoned condition.

  Stoney checks his watch. “Meanwhile, I see it’s past noon, time to take a break. I’ll leave my rig here, and maybe you can lift me home. I’ll be back soon as I get my crop in.”

  Arthur leads him off, Ulysses galloping ahead while Dog revs up his saw. Soon, distantly, come the welcome sounds of next year’s firewood being felled. Arthur’s mood has lightened with this brief, rewarding respite from his low spirits.

  Chapter 8: Maguire

  1

  Monday, September 17

  Jake Maguire can’t find much to do this morning but exercise his flat feet, even though there’s not much pacing space in a squad room the size of a walk-in closet. Occasionally he pauses to look over shoulders hunkered above computers. Most of the vigour of Operation Vigorish is spent Googling or whatever they do, a task at which Jake Maguire is not adept. He’d rather be working stakeouts or phone taps, casing stiffs, building a collar, stuff he knows upside down. But he can’t find anyone to stake out or wire into. They still haven’t got any IDs.

  Maguire was kind of hoping Howie Griffin was involved, an inside job. But he was polygraphed and cleared — the needles didn’t jump when he kept saying, “I don’t remember,” referring to the night he got it on with Becky. Or didn’t. How is it the dork doesn’t recall banging her when he woke up and found his sheets soaked in semen?

  Becky had left him a morning-after note, which he couldn’t find until he retrieved it from a pair of exercise pants in a locker at Molloy’s Gym: Sweet dreams. Had a lovely time. Becky. A handwriting expert will be called in if they can find a comparable.

  Griffin walked out of his last interview, when Maguire sweated him too hard about the night in question. He claimed he needed a break, a holiday. Still, it’s hard not to feel sorry for the patsy — his bosses decided he was not making a positive contribution and pink-slipped him. You don’t sleep with the enemy, and you don’t go bonkers over them. Cold-hauled, doped up, snoring off to la-la land while his playmate cheerfully strolls into his office with his jism on her feet.

  She wore gloves but not socks. A little slip-up there, doll. The prints came out good, all Maguire needed now was a foot.

  You can’t call it a breakthrough, but they’re inching close to Becky McLean. Surprise, surprise, she didn’t show up for the Red Sox game yesterday. Maguire confirmed that because he was in the stands — a terrific seat, over third base, several rows back of Howie and the empty seat beside him. Hell of a game, Jays pulling it out in extra innings with a pair of doubles.

  Maguire observed how the network cameras followed several fouls hooking into the stands near him. He figured what the hell, a shot in the dark but maybe Howie and his foxy little lady were caught on film at the Rangers game. So he and Gaylene spent last evening viewing a tape of that August 13 game, courtesy of the Sports Network.

  Bingo. Bottom of the eighth, there was Howie jumping for one screaming over his head. Pause, rewind, copy, Exhibit One. Beside Howie, looking up at the arc of the ball, was a dark-eyed cutie in cut-offs, didn’t look much over twenty. No one in his right mind would imagine this doll being hot for Howie Griffin. Except maybe Howie Griffin.

  One of the constables, Lorne Ling — Long Ling, they call him, because he’s short and stubby — has a blow-up in front of his screen of Becky looking up at the foul. It was somebody’s idea — Gaylene’s in fact — that Howie’s little popsy might have attended a rally for a cause close to her heart. Ontario Place, a week ago Saturday, a Bee-In, they called it, to help out Brazil’s farmers. Big-name bands, speeches dissing Chemican and Vigor-Gro.

  Most cops of Chinese heritage, at least those Maguire has worked with, demonstrate infinite patience, though he wouldn’t say that publicly because he’s not sure if it’s somehow racist. Anyway, Long Ling gets top marks for his doggedness. He is reviewing YouTube videos taken at the Bee-In, trying to spot Becky among the New Age fluffy bunnies gathered there. He’s found hundreds of the little vids, from thirty seconds long to three hours. He’s in headphones, tapping his foot to the music.

  Ling makes room for Maguire to lean in for a view: on the outdoor stage, a rock and roll band, a gyrating girl whose thin, bare legs straddle a floor mike like a penis. Long Ling pretends he’s not interested, fast-forwards to the end, goes on to the next clip: the stage again, Dr. Suzuki at the mike. Ling listens awhile, takes off his muffs.

  “I got nothing, except I’m learning about colony collapse. The general theme is if the bees perish, we go down with them.”

  “Doom and gloom, pal. There’s two sides to every story. I read the bees are getting hit by some kind of mites that lay their eggs in the beehives. Plus we had a hard winter.”

  “Yeah, but their studies—”

  “It ain’t our job to save the world, Long Ling. That’s what we got politicians for. Our job is to clean up the mess.”
>
  Maguire has been getting pressure from some in government to call this a terrorist attack. Chemican’s people are begging him not to, because a terrorist attack voids their insurance. Nobody seems to give a shit about Archie Gooch, who’s been in a coma for a week.

  Gaylene beckons Maguire over to her computer, whose search window reads, “Bees neonicotinoid protest.” She clicks on a photo of a scholarly-looking gentleman behind a desk.

  “This pissed-off brainiac keeps cropping up. Papers, lectures, interviews, stats and graphs and equations. Field tests with neonics. Six-syllable words. I got at least thirty hits on him.”

  “Who is this genius?”

  “Dr. Helmut Knutsen, a biochemist.”

  “So what about him?”

  “He kind of disappeared off the academic map a couple of years ago. Born Stockholm, three years at the Sorbonne, Ph.D. from McGill, taught there, went on to UC San Diego, got into a flap over his activism, for making noise about grants from Bayer and Monsanto. He was demoted from department head, quit teaching, returned to Canada. But not a peep from him since.”

  “Doesn’t look like a break-in artist.” Mussed grey hair, a penetrating gaze through wire-rim specs. About fifty, though the picture could be old.

  “I’ll make some phone calls,” Gaylene says.

  * * *

  The coffee in the OPP lounge is predictably blah, so on returning from lunch Maguire grabs a takeout grande at a corner Starbucks. Nicotine junkies cluster outside the OPP building’s no-smoke perimeter, some in uniform. Maguire can’t help sermonizing: “Save your lungs, gentlemen. Try sucking a dick instead, they’re not carcinogenic.” He gets hoots and raised middle fingers.

  Inside, he can’t resist stopping at the dispenser for an Oh Henry! He munches half of it, furtively, out of habit, hiding the rest in a deep pocket before he enters the squad room. One chocolate bar won’t show up on the scales, especially with all the exercise he gets from pacing.