The Cardinal Divide (31 page)

Cole shook his head. “I don't know. Got spooked by something or someone?”

Perry shrugged again. “Maybe.” Then he said, “Do you want to have another look?”

Cole grimaced. “Not really, but I guess we should.”

They donned the hard hats, flipped down the ear protection, and went through the door into the outer room. They retraced the last steps of Mike Barnes according to the
RCMP
, through the maze of drill steel to the big double doors. They paid careful attention to how it might feel to step through them and be surprised by an assailant. Cole looked left and right as he walked through the doors, wondering if a man might conceal himself there. He doubted it. The path was too wide, and the pallets of bits too low, and the bits themselves gave no place for a man to crouch and strike with any stability. Cole was shaking his head. It was all wrong.

They finally finished after six o'clock. Cole was exhausted. When he and Perry Gilbert parted ways outside the mill, Cole was determined to drive directly back to Oracle, find a quick dinner, and retreat to Peggy McSorlie's farm for the night. Then he would reward himself with a drink.

But the long rays of spring sun slanted through the mine property and reminded him that the day was far from over.

He sat in the cab of the Toyota a long time before putting the key in the ignition.

So what if Mike Barnes was killed somewhere else on the property and not in the mill? What did that change? Was it was plausible that Dale van Stempvort had been waiting for Barnes by his car, or even in his car? Surely the
RCMP
would have scoured it for signs of a struggle. Maybe the killing had taken place in Barnes' office? Cole decided that he needed to have another look around there.

There was also the need to find Mike Barnes' appointment book. Without that, it would be hard to follow through on the numerous leads that this inquiry was generating. It was possible that the killer's name was written there in black and white!

And what about Cole's other suspects? Could George Cody have driven out to the mine that night and clubbed Mike Barnes out of revenge? It seemed like a risky move for Barnes to make, thought Cole. Why would he meet a man whose wife he'd been screwing in a quiet office on a nearly deserted mine site so late in the evening? Unless Mike Barnes had wanted no one to witness the meeting, that is. So George arrived at the mine and the men met, and in a rage George clubbed Barnes right there in the office. What did he use? Surely Mike Barnes' secretary would have noticed if anything was missing. And the
RCMP
would have scoured the office for blood and signs of a struggle. George would have killed Mike Barnes somewhere else. But where? Cole shook his head, which pulsed a little, and he touched the bump on the back of his skull, still tender.

What about Deborah? Many of the same questions applied: where? With what?

Was Deborah strong enough to kill Mike Barnes? He figured she was, especially if she took him by surprise. What would have convinced Mike Barnes to see her again after writing her a note that Cole could only assume terminated their affair?

Maybe Deborah made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Maybe she had threatened to go public with the story herself, an act of self-destructive vengeance that would surely ruin his career and marriage and cause more harm to him than to her. Maybe she felt she had nothing left to lose? Maybe she was bribing him?

Or maybe she had come to the mine hoping to seduce him one last time. Maybe when he rejected her she flew into a rage and killed him.

But Mike Barnes was a big man, weighing what, 180, 190 pounds? Light heavyweight to cruiserweight class, Cole guessed. As if Mike Barnes would ever tape up his hands. Cole pegged her at welterweight, around 140 pounds. But he doubted that Deborah could carry him from his office to the mill. It was just too far. She would have had to load him in her car and drive him, or drag him. Or find some other way to move the body. He made a note to look for blood in her car.

He stepped out of the Toyota and walked around the yard, looking in the sand and gravel for drag marks. He walked in little circles and then big circles, but found nothing.

He got back in the truck, turned the ignition over, and decided to drive back to Oracle before he grew too weary. He started the truck, turned it around, and drove toward the gatehouse. He signed out, and drove up Route 40 toward Cadomin.

Who else? Who else? Faces and names flowed through his head. If in fact George and/or Deborah Cody killed Barnes, what was their connection to the mole inside the Eastern Slopes Conservation Group? And was there any link with Jim Jones' information that the company never really intended to dig the mine, but merely push the rail line and road into the wilderness in order to keep investors and shareholders happy? He could see no possible connection there. It was possible that these were all unrelated threads, but Cole Blackwater somehow doubted it. It seemed too neat and tidy to be coincidence.

He drove the winding gravel road, snaked through the hills, and followed the path of tiny creeks and streams as they wove their way through the sculpted foothills.

Who else might want Mike Barnes dead? Nearly everybody in town, had they known what he was up to, thought Cole. Who else knew?

He nearly swerved off the road when it occurred to him. College boy. Hank Henderson knew. He was the assistant mine manager; he
had
to know.

The disdain Hank Henderson felt for the mine manager was palpable. Cole could remember very little of the conversation they'd had, but he knew that Henderson had been twice passed over for promotion to the mine manager's job after working at the mine for most of his adult life. And had he learned that Barnes
meant to shut down the mine, it would have been easy for Henderson to snap under those circumstances. It would have been easy for him to confront Mike Barnes, and in a fit of rage take his life. It would have been easy for him to dispose of the body, too, thought Cole. He knew the mine inside and out, and wouldn't have had a problem coming up with the best solution for an unwanted corpse. Dump it into one of the giant conveyor belts that carried the coal. Gone. To become part of a Toyota or Hyundai or Mitsubishi. Cole allowed himself a slight grin at the morbid thought. Might impact the structural stability of a vehicle to be made from the pulp of an
MBA
, he mused.

Now what? Here was a new path to follow among many. He was nearing Oracle when his cellphone rang. He snatched it from the detritus on the passenger seat.

“Blackwater.”

“Webber.”

“Hi, Nancy.”

“Where are you right now?”

“Driving into Oracle.”

“I've got some news.”

“Me too.”

“Hold your horses, I go first.” The cellphone crackled.

“You're breaking up, Nancy. Can we do this in person?”

More static, then silence.

“You still there, Nancy?”

“Come by the hotel. Room 245.” The line went dead.

“That woman can be such a ...” he said aloud, and bit his tongue.

It was nearly eight o'clock when he arrived at the hotel.

He found his way to her room. Nancy answered the door and let him in. The room smelled like her. It was neat and clean, everything in its place. On the small desk she had set up an orderly work station with laptop and keyboard arranged just as they would be on her desk at the
Edmonton Journal
. Clothes were hung neatly in the open closet. Cole assumed that the drawers of the dresser were likewise tidy. The bed was made. On the small round table Cole saw that Nancy had eaten pizza for dinner. The smell of the pizza mixed with her perfume made him a little dizzy with various hungers.

“What have you got to tell me, Cole? This isn't a social visit.”

“I thought we were working on this together, Nancy.”

“We are not working on anything together Cole. You're a source. I'm a reporter. What have you got?”

“I'm hungry,” he said. “I'm going to eat some of your dinner.” He walked over to the table and flipped open the box. Half a vegetarian pizza was left. He picked up a slice. A couple of mushrooms dropped to the floor. He began to eat.

He could tell that this infuriated Nancy. The mushrooms and the delay.

He sat down in one of the chairs, stretched out his legs, and chewed. “What have
you
got?”

“Christ, you can be difficult, Cole.”

“You're no walk in the park yourself, Nancy.”

She sat down at the little desk across the room from him. She ran her fingers through her long dark hair and sighed. It was so familiar. The long hair cascading down across her shoulders. The way she tilted her head slightly to the left when she spoke. The way her eyes looked in the half-light of a darkened room. He was beginning to remember her the way she was before the disaster. Before the disaster called Cole Blackwater.

“So Mike Barnes has a history. It's not a long one, but it's colourful,” she said. “Before he worked in mining, he spent some time in the forestry sector. This was before doing his
MBA
, and before marrying into the mining industry. He worked for a medium-sized logging company in northern Ontario and Manitoba called East Woods. They specialized in salvage operations and in taking over timber licences that had been abandoned by smaller operators. They would buy up the licences of operators that were going out of business one way or another, assume the operation, sometimes even with the outgoing company's crew and equipment, and after cutting everything that they could, wind down operations quickly and efficiently. I guess that's where Barnes got his skill as a hatchet man.”

Cole listened. He ate a second piece of pizza.

“Interesting enough on its own, but I did some digging with a few contacts in one of the communities he worked in. A few years ago, after you ruined my journalism career, I was covering a flood in Manitoba and got to know a few local reporters in the
area. Anyway, I called in a favour, and I'm told that Mike Barnes has a history of fooling around. No big deal, I guess, but it's led to trouble. About ten years ago, in one of his very first jobs, he slept with one of the forestry mill workers' wives, and the worker found out and tried to kill him.”

“You're kidding me,” said Cole. He held a third piece of pizza in his hand.

“I guess Barnes scheduled the man on night shift so he could come over and bone the wife. The worker got suspicious – you know, little things that the wife would say or do. He came home one night during his meal break and found Barnes in the sack with the chick. He flew into a rage and tried to strangle Barnes with a belt.”

Cole shook his head. “How did that end?”

“The wife conked her husband on the head with a lamp and knocked him out. Barnes got the hell out of town. No charges were ever laid.”

“Guy hasn't learned his lesson.”

“Looks like it might finally have killed him,” said Nancy.

“Not so fast, Sherlock,” said Cole, getting up to go to the bathroom. He spotted a half-full bottle of wine (when it came to booze, the bottle was
always
half full in Cole's view) on Nancy's night stand, and he retrieved one of the plastic-wrapped cups from the bathroom and poured himself a full glass.

“Like some wine?” Nancy rolled her eyes.

“Don't mind if I do. So you think that George Cody is our man?”

“Makes sense, given what we know.”

“Because someone else tried to kill him for boffing his wife, you figure this time George Cody was successful?”

“Why not?”

“I'm not saying it's not possible, but I don't see how an incident ten years ago could catch up with Barnes in Oracle. I doubt George Cody found out about Barnes' past and decided, on behalf of men everywhere, to put an end to his philandering ways.”

“It was easy enough to find out,” said Nancy. “A couple of phone calls.”

“Yeah, but you're a sophisticated reporter with a major newspaper. George is a bartender with a baseball bat.”

“
Was
a sophisticated reporter with a major newspaper. Then I met you, shithead.”

“Whatever. My point is, it doesn't seem possible that George would have known about Barnes' past.”

“Nevertheless, it could be that Barnes' past finally caught up with him.”

“Or that at least his bad habits did,” added Cole. He took a slug of wine and drained his glass. He was feeling more relaxed, thanks to the food and the wine. “I was thinking along these same lines this afternoon. I was out at the mine looking at the crime scene with the lawyer from Legal Aid.”

Nancy raised her left eyebrow. “Really? What did you learn?”

“I don't think that Mike Barnes was killed where the
RCMP
think he was killed.” He told her about the crime scene and his belief that whoever killed Mike Barnes likely hadn't been hiding among the drill bits and steel.

“Then where?”

“I don't know yet. We need to check a few things out.”

“We?”

“Yes, we, as in you and me. I need you to check and see if there is any blood in either George or Deborah Cody's car. If either of them – ”

“Or both of them,” interjected Nancy.

“Yes, if either or both of them killed Barnes somewhere else on the mine site, they might have used a vehicle to get the body from the site of the murder to the mill. It's a big place, and Barnes was a big enough man that Deborah, and maybe even George, would have needed some assistance in getting Barnes to the mill for disposal.”

“Why would they choose the mill as a place for disposal?”

Cole cocked his head to one side to indicate he wasn't following.

“Why choose the mill? Why would George or Deborah gather that the mill was the best place for disposal?”