Mortal Fall (22 page)

“I haven’t seen or heard of it in a while. Lots of black bear and grizzly poaching going on lately. Just made an arrest with some couple who had taken a minimum of fourteen black bears illegally and killed at least three grizzlies last month.”

“I heard about that. Congratulations on breaking that one,” I offered.

“Yeah, thanks. I worked it for some time. It was a good bust. They were total lowlifes.”

“So what were the rumors you heard?”

“ ’Bout that Sedgewick guy?”

“Yeah.”

“I just heard from someone in Hungry Horse one day that there’d been an altercation between the wolverine researcher and a guy named Martin Dorian—someone I like to keep my eye on. We’ve fined him numerous times in the past for poaching elk on the off-season. There’s some other things about him and his clan that I’m looking into. I was surprised that he would have anything to do with wolverines, but I know he has a temper and would throw a fist at pretty much anyone who crossed him the wrong way.”

Martin Dorian was one of the men on Rowdy’s list. I put a star by his name and jotted “altercation” in the margin. “What kind of other things?”

“Well, I don’t have enough evidence yet, but I’ve got a source that says he and his boys have been stockpiling weapons and some illegal explosives as well. They’re definitely part of a neo-Nazi group and are members of a social network hate group called Whitesquad. It’s like a dating site for supremacists.”

“Lovely,” I said. I had heard about the site and knew that the members had issues with many different groups of people, complaining about crimes committed by blacks against whites, about the influx of Latin Americans, about gays and feminists living unholy lives, and about Jewish people, who they feel are controlling our government. “You hear any specifics about the disagreement with Sedgewick?”

“Not really. Just that they got into it over at the Outlaw’s in Hungry Horse. I don’t think it got physical. Just some yelling and name-calling. I have no idea what about, but I could do some checking around for you.”

“That’s okay,” I said. I didn’t want anyone scaring these guys before I had a chance to look into matters, and I figured some Glacier Park Police guy outside their area of interest was a lot less threatening to them than a game warden, at least at this point. “Hold off on that for now. I’ll let you know if I need you. Just keep me posted if you hear of anything on the wolverine front, will ya?”

“Definitely, I will,” Shane said.

After hanging up, I called US Fish and Wildlife Services and the national office of Rocky Mountain Research Station, with the USDA, in Fort Collins, Colorado, to ask if one of their grantee partner-program managers, specifically Paul Sedgewick or Sam Ward from the Glacier Park wolverine study, had made a complaint to them about the tampering of traps made from federal grant money. They had no complaints on record either.

Then I called the county and ordered a printout of all and any criminal activity associated with any names with the nickname Rowdy attached to them as well as anything on Martin Dorian. All I found on Dorian was a DUI five years before. Rowdy, a Mr. Louis Rowland, was busted for possession of cocaine in the early nineties and suspected of, but not charged, with possessing methamphetamines in 2007. He did pass his bar examination in 1988, and later filed Chapter 11 in 2001.

24

O
N MY WAY
into Glacier, I decided to stop and speak to Sam Ward, Wolfie’s coworker and friend of the family. I thought again about how I had briefly suspected him of cozying up to Cathy, letting the idea trickle back in for no good reason other than I felt it was my duty to keep considering all possibilities whether they went against my intuition or not.

I found him in the small extension office set up, in part, by RMRS, one of the funding partners—among others—for the wolverine project. It was only around the corner from headquarters and not far from my own dorm. He brought me into his tiny office and I took a seat among stacks of files against the wall.

“How’s it going, Monty?” Sam sat down and looked at me, his eyes big and brimming with hope as if I might have brought Wolfie back from the dead or at the very least, had all the answers for why such a thing had occurred.

“I’ve got a lot of irons in a lot of fires,” I admitted, trying to make it sound like a good thing and not a complicated mess.

“And?”

“Well, I wanted to ask you if Sedgewick had said anything to you about the traps in the South Fork. If he knew who was sabotaging them?”

“Oh.” Sam held up a finger. “Oh my God. Yes. I never even thought of that. But, yes, of course you’d investigate that. Why didn’t I think of that.” He bonked his head with the palm of his hand in a “I should’ve
had a V-8” motion. “Yeah, he had some ideas. Some guy named Dorian and his crew.”

“I’ve got that figured out. What I don’t understand is why Wolfie or even you—your office—didn’t report the tampering to the state or even your federal office?”

Sam looked at me, his head tilted, and bit his lower lip, considering my question.

“I mean, the traps were the property of the US government, were they not?”

“Yes and no. But mostly yes. We’re certainly funded by RMRS and other grants, but we also get private donations and funding through the park for the work in the park. But, yes, we thought long and hard about whether to report it.”

“Why? Wasn’t it a no-brainer?”

“Again, yes and no. On the one hand, it felt like our duty to report it. On the other, you can see how alerting the state wardens or worse, the feds, and having them looking into it would inflame an already tense situation in the area.”

“But why would you care?”

“You know the locals have their own way of dealing with things sometimes. Plus Wolfie didn’t want the US Forest Service sticking their noses into the situation either.”

“Because?” I canted forward, listening with my arms resting on my knees.

“Because in the past, some administrations have not been so kind about our research. Believe it or not, we got a call from the secretary of the interior—Steven Garcia. He had the nerve to tell us that we needed to put some very careful thought into what we put into our reports about the wolverines and their habitat. Look, I know you work for the park, but I don’t know how much you know about RMRS.” Sam leaned into his desk toward me. “As a branch of the US Forest Service, we’re the leading force in midsize forest carnivore studies, but generally, wildlife research is not high on the Forest Service’s list. Priorities lie with foresters
and engineers focusing on timber harvesting and road building. With RMRS, we were designed to remain independent of political pressures. It was supposed to be a beautiful thing.” He nodded. “So when conservationists started pressuring federal agencies to figure out the wolverine, we became passionate about our assignment because wolverines are one of the rarest and least known carnivores in the American West, you know, because of their low numbers and inaccessible habitat. They’re very difficult to study, like studying phantoms, but one of the coolest animals you’ll ever see if you begin to understand them.

“Up until the past decade, just a few field studies have been done. Compared to other carnivores like grizzly bears and wolves, we know so little about gulo gulo. Uh, that’s the Latin name for wolverine, but you know that, right? Means glutton.”

I nodded that I did. Most who worked more than seasonally in the park knew that. Wolverines were also sometimes referred to as skunk bears since they belonged to the mustelid family, which people originally thought skunks also belonged to, but later discovered through DNA analysis that they didn’t. Weasels, otters, badgers, ferrets, mink, martens, and the like belonged to the mustelids. Hang around the park enough and you begin to learn these things whether you’re into biology or not.

“But Wolfie and I,” Sam continued. “We’ve been hell-bent, obsessed you could say, on changing this because the more we know about them, the better we’ll be at making decisions on how to sustain them into the future. And it’s not just them; it’s the whole ecosystem—all living systems. If the areas we do protect aren’t big enough and interconnected, then we aren’t really protecting them. They’re just islands unto themselves. Like Glacier. With only islands, the species interbreeds, becomes weaker. They need access to other animals in other protected areas that are connected to stay strong as a species. We’ve seen it with the grizzlies. Their numbers may look better in Glacier, but as they continue to interbreed, the species weakens. Just like people if they are forced to interbreed.”

“And what does this have to do with not informing the feds about the tampering of the traps?”

“Adding to our urgency is the current rate of climate change and some administrations—in fact, almost all of them these days—find it conducive to conceal or conveniently ignore relevant research, and this wouldn’t be the first time the DOI has meddled into designation of imperiled species and habitats. Several years ago, a senior appointee resigned under pressure after some investigators discovered that he’d altered scientific evidence and basically removed species and habitats from the endangered species list.”

“I remember that,” I said.

“So it turns out, even though RMRS is supposed to be a unit unto itself, it can’t be. Not entirely, because funding still comes from the Forest Service, which walks a very fine line to appease Congress. It just simply can’t come across as championing any particular species. Wolfie”—Sam frowned—“well, he didn’t want anyone knowing he might need extra resources on our studies, especially investigative law enforcement, since funding is dwindling as it is, as well as possible stonewalling from our own administration.”

I nodded that I understood and remembered the note I found in Wolfie’s reports about receiving a call from a high-ranking official. “It seems that Wolfie and this Dorian got into a fight in Hungry Horse, outside the Outlaw’s. Did he mention it to you?”

Sam shook his head. “No, he didn’t. But I would have thought he would have.”

“Why do you think he didn’t?”

Sam shrugged, then looked down. “We didn’t always have time to discuss everything.”

“Sam, were you and Wolfie getting along before he fell?”

“Yes, of course. Why?”

“Just seems like something he would have shared with you.”

“Like I said, we didn’t share everything.
Most
things about our work, but not every detail.”

“Okay then.” I looked at him seriously and he looked back at me. There seemed to be something perceptible hanging in the air, a tension I could sense, but perhaps it was just Sam’s grief and the burden of the project now falling entirely on his shoulders.

“Wolfie got most of the traps out of the South Fork when he saw how many wolverines were getting killed in them.” He sighed loudly as if my waiting had made him surrender a pent-up breath he’d been holding. “The South Fork was his idea. He didn’t run it through the proper channels. I refused to be a part of the studies in that region and continued with the Glacier end of things. He may have not told me because of that. I approved of the studies there. I just didn’t entirely approve of foregoing the correct channels because once a biologist quits playing by administrative rules, it can be the kiss of death to their credibility. But that needs to stay between us, okay? Cathy and the kids.” He frowned. “They’ve been through enough here. They don’t need to think Wolfie was doing anything wrong. And he wasn’t really. There are no laws saying he can’t run a study up that drainage. Ultimately, it’s volunteer work on his part, but like I said, he just didn’t run it by RMRS in the same way we have with other studies.”

“Because he didn’t want the politics?”

“Precisely.”

“But that research,” I said, “having not gone through the proper channels, would have no credibility. So what good would come of it?”

“Exactly.” Sam nodded sadly. “No good in terms of documentation, papers, and ultimately where land legislation is concerned. The only good was that Wolfie himself would understand the animal more. And for Wolfie, that’s what the quest had become—an intense mission. He was beginning to quit caring what others thought. He just wanted to understand the animal, whether the research could be used or not. And who’s to say that if he understood something from the South Fork area, that that information couldn’t be slid into the legitimate Glacier studies? It’s all closely connected, and the same wolverines from Glacier cover the South Fork.”

“But that’s not good science—to use studies from a different area and pretend they apply to another.”

“No, no, it’s not. So now you understand where our disagreement came from.”

“So”—I lightly tapped my pen on my notepad—“avoiding the politics from your own agencies, that’s the reason you didn’t report the tampering?”

“Yes, along with the other stuff I told you. Again, he wasn’t doing anything illegal, just not exactly as the organization would have expected.”

I took it all in for a moment. Sam’s face sagged and he looked deflated. Eventually, I thanked him for his help and told him that if he remembered or heard of anything else relating to the South Fork situation or Wolfie’s death to please call me. Then after I got in my car, I pulled out my notebook again and put a star by Sam’s name with a note saying, “
maybe he and Wolfie not getting along as well as we all think. Claims to not know of altercation with Dorian.”

25

G
RETCHEN CALLED ME
twenty minutes after I left Sam Ward’s office to tell me that the lab results were in. I was heading into town to help Lara with the grill when she called. She was somewhere noisy—a café or coffee shop—because I could hear bustling and many high-pitched voices in the background.

“Wilson faxed me the results on both victims,” she said. “Said he got the lab to rush ’em in spite of being backed up for about four weeks.”

“Awesome,” I said. “I’ll have to call him to thank him.”

“Or maybe just send him some milk and cookies,” she said jokingly. Most of us who’d met Wilson knew that he looked more like a young college student than an accomplished, highly acclaimed forensic pathologist with his faux hawk and untied sneakers. “But I’m sure he’d appreciate either.” Her voice sounded distant and muffled.