The Cardinal Divide (44 page)

He looked in the other direction. Same situation. Half a dozen windows and corresponding ledges, and a drain spout at the corner.

He sighed and closed his eyes briefly to quell his fear.

What if he waited for Hank to leave? He looked at his watch. It was about two-thirty. He knew from Emma Henderson that Hank left for Oracle by five-thirty or quarter to six each night to make it home by six-thirty. Could Cole balance on this ledge for three hours or more? He doubted he could balance there for fifteen minutes. He looked at the gap between him and the next window. What if someone in one of the offices saw him as he shimmied along? Then the jig would be up, wouldn't it?

He looked at the maintenance shed. He guessed it was about a ten to fifteen-foot gap between the older admin building and the newer maintenance building. And about a fifteen-foot drop. He tried to do the math. Could he make that jump? He might be able to make ten feet. Any more, probably not.

His knees started to knock. He wanted to relieve the pressure on them, but there was no room to squat on the ledge. He had to choose. He decided to try and reach the drain spout.

He inched along the window ledge and when he got to the end of it, pressed a palm up against the brick above the window, and using that force, pivoted around on his right foot, swung his left foot around, and placed it on the sill. He pressed a second palm above him to steady himself. He took a calming breath. So far, so good. He was facing in now. Inching his right hand close to the end of the window opening, pressing hard on the brick, he began to reach his left foot out around the wall to the next windowsill.

Three feet is a long way. Even for a man as tall as Cole, three feet is a long way to reach with your foot when there is nothing but open space beneath you. He reached, tapped his toe along the wall, pressed harder and harder with his right hand, balanced the left hand on the brick wall, and searched for a gap in the bricks. After what seemed like a lifetime, but was more like five or ten seconds, Cole's left foot found the ledge. He settled it there, awkwardly, and pushed his left hand toward the next hold. He planned to grab the side of the window opening with his left hand, and with his right, do the same on the window opening he faced now, and use equal and opposite pressure to hold on as he transferred his weight. He risked a look at where he was going. He couldn't tell if the blinds were up or down. His eyes strayed and he saw the ground below.

He shifted his weight, breathing as slowly and consciously as he could.

He hadn't counted on the ledge being wet and he felt his left foot start to slip. He tried to press it more tightly to the concrete surface, but it continued to slide. He was going to fall. In the moment before he lost control he lunged, bending his right knee as deeply as he could, and pushed away from the wall with every ounce of strength in his body.

The gap between the administration building and the maintenance building was much closer to fifteen feet than ten. Even if it had been ten, Cole Blackwater, falling backward, could not have hoped to land on the roof of the shed. The only thought in his mind as he fell was that he didn't want to land on the tools by the door.

He hit the ground with a thud, his left foot first, then his left arm, and his back. He grunted loudly as he hit the ground, rolled backward in the mud, and collided with the wheelbarrow, which fell on top of him. He blacked out momentarily, the air forced from his lungs by the fall, and a sharp pain shot up his left leg. God, I've broken my leg, he thought as he lay in the mud by the door to the shed.

He lay there for a minute in a puddle of mud. Rain fell on him, getting in his eyes and nose and ears. The pain in his leg dulled. Maybe it wasn't broken. He moved his arms. His left elbow was very sore, but it worked. He tried his legs. The right leg was
OK
.
He moved the left. Some pain there, but bearable. He pushed the wheelbarrow off and it clattered to the ground. He tried to stand. As he put weight on his left leg a spasm of pain shot up his left side. He scanned the windows to see if he had been observed. He couldn't tell in the rain if anybody peered out at him.

He grabbed for the door handle to steady himself. He had to get off the mine property. How was he going to get back to his truck? He couldn't climb the fence.

Then he remembered that he still had the keys. Tracey would understand. She had, after all, bought him valuable seconds when he was in Henderson's office. He patted his pockets and felt the keys' reassuring weight.

The he bent down to pick up the wheelbarrow.

He stopped. He looked up from where he had fallen.

Mike Barnes was a heavy man.

It was a solid wheelbarrow.

If the murderer had known about a wheelbarrow behind the admin building, he might have used it to transport the body to the mill. That might also explain why none of the suspects limped from their collision with the bits and steel. The wheelbarrow had knocked over the pallet, dumping Mike Barnes to the floor.

Cole inspected the wheelbarrow for signs of blood. Nothing. He tried the door handle and found it locked. He fished the keys from his pockets, careful not to drop any of his trash, unlocked the door, and slipped inside. It was pitch black. He patted the wall, found a light switch, and flipped it on. There was a riding mower, a gas-powered push mower, a wall full of garden tools, a broad workbench, and three wheelbarrows on the opposite wall. Above the workbench there was an eye-wash station and a red plastic case with a familiar white cross on it. First aid. Hallelujah, thought Cole.

He hobbled to the wheelbarrows to inspect them. The first one in the stack of three revealed its dark secret. The hub over the wheel was speckled with blood. While the barrow itself was clean, the killer, as he had in the bathroom, had been in a rush and missed this. Cole smirked. Maybe the
RCMP
would get lucky and lift a set of prints from the barrow. He leaned it back against the wall and took a few pictures of it with his cellphone. Then he looked for the Day-Timer on the off chance that the killer had stashed it here. Nothing. Finally he took down the first aid kit and opened it.

He found a broad tensor bandage, a bottle of extra strength Tylenol, and an sa m splint. This would help. Sitting on the bench, he slowly removed his shoe, gritting his teeth and grimacing as the pain shot up his leg. The ankle was nearly black – a deep sprain, if not a small fracture – and he couldn't move it without pain. He wrapped the tensor bandage around it and then applied the splint. He left his sock off, but put his shoe back on. He still had to drive to Oracle. He swallowed two Tylenol, washing them down with water from the eye-wash station, and pocketed the bottle.

He put the first aid kit back on the wall. Time to get the heck out of Dodge, he thought.

He limped to the door, opened it slowly, and peeked out. The rain continued, and he stepped out into it and closed and locked the door behind him.

As quickly as his injury allowed, he hobbled to the fence, checking behind him for trouble. None appeared, and he unlocked the gate, let himself through, and locked it behind him. He discovered that the lock could easily be pushed back from the outside so it didn't reveal anybody's passage. He did so, and sloshed to his truck in the falling rain, wincing from the pain in his ankle.

He slumped in the seat, breathing hard from exertion and from the adrenaline that coursed through him. He took his hat off and his hair flopped across his forehead. He ran a hand through it and water ran down his face. He closed his eyes. He could hear his heart.

What am I doing here?

He opened his eyes with a start, realizing that he had fallen asleep. Pushing himself up with the palms of his hands on the seat, he winced at the pain in his left elbow. He'd have to have that looked at too. He wondered what Sarah would say when he returned home looking as if he'd been through combat. He had told her two weeks ago when she had implored him to be safe, that he was just going to do a little strategy work. Now he was falling out of third-storey windows.

Jumping
out of third-storey windows.

He looked through the rain at the administration building and considered what he had learned in Henderson's office. His Day-Timer showed that Hank had a meeting to finalize the environmental assessment on the same night that Barnes was killed.
Cole had seen Hank leaving the admin building. Did Hank go home for an early dinner and return later to meet with Barnes? If so, had the meeting gone so badly that Henderson, already an angry and violent man, followed Barnes into the bathroom and bashed his head in? Cole shuddered. Some missing piece pestered him, something that he could not put his finger on. But despite all his snooping and risk-taking, he had found nothing to vindicate Dale van Stempvort and convict someone else. Despite great risk to his miserable life and limb, he was no farther ahead than he was that morning.

How, Cole thought, could this possibly be worth the peril he had put himself in?

He turned the truck's ignition over. He'd limp back to town, pay his second visit to the hospital, and reconsider the crazy notion that in one fell swoop he could solve the mystery of Mike Barnes' death, save Cardinal Divide, and purge himself of his anger, guilt, and sorrow for all that had happened in his downward-spiralling life. There were less demanding forms of therapy, mused Cole. Nobody in Vancouver took this sort of risk. They got their chakras realigned or went to Hollyhock and sat in supportive circles and ate vegetarian food; they didn't solve murders and confront killers.

The stereo started up with the truck and he turned up the volume on Ian Tyson, hoping the crooner's cowboy polkas and the lament of his ballads would vanquish Cole Blackwater's remorse. The Toyota in gear, he backed away from the gate, onto the track that paralleled the mine site, and toward Route 40. As he drove past the main gate he wished good riddance to the place. This was the last time he'd see it.

Rain continued to fall as he drove north. When the clouds parted, he saw snow dusting the crowns of the hills above. The long sweeping expanse of Cardinal Divide would be covered too. The grizzly bear family would be holed up in a day bed, in the hollow of a tree or maybe tucked under a ledge of stone, huddled together for warmth.

At that moment Cole Blackwater wanted very much to huddle together with someone for warmth. With his daughter. With Nancy Webber. With anybody. He brushed away a tear of self-pity.

The going was slow. It hurt his sprained ankle to work the
clutch and shift gears, so he stayed in fourth gear, in four-wheel drive, as much as possible. He lost power on the corners and nearly stalled a couple of times, but continued north, past Cadomin Mines and up through the hills cloaked with fir and spruce, their tops tipped with snow. If this keeps up, thought Cole, I'll be fighting a blizzard by the time I reach town. It certainly wouldn't be the first time the Eastern Slopes were snowed under in May. Happened nearly every year when he was a kid.

He was half an hour outside Oracle when he heard his cellphone jingle. It wasn't an incoming call; it was the little ditty it played when there were messages waiting for him.

He pushed some papers on the passenger seat aside, flipped the cellphone open, and hit the keys to dial his message service. He drove with his injured left arm while he held the phone to his right ear.

“Cole, it's Perry Gilbert. I just got out of my session with the
RCMP
. Holy shit, buddy, you're not going to believe this, but they are about this close to being convinced that Dale is innocent. They're getting heat from the Crown Prosecutor in Edmonton to reopen. They're not one hundred percent, but they are getting there. I talked with Reimer for more than two hours this afternoon. They have a positive on the blood in the bathroom, and that's not all.

“Listen, the autopsy shows that Mike Barnes was killed by the blow to the back of his head. The injury to the front on his head was caused later, likely when he was dropped on the floor of the mill. The forensics showed traces of orange paint in the wound to the rear of his head. The wounds to the front of his head showed traces of the oil used to lubricate drill bits. The forensics also showed that several of the bits found on the floor had Mike's hair and blood on them. So the
RCMP
are pretty convinced that he was hit from behind in the bathroom and transported to the mill. I've given them everything we have on Hank Henderson, George Cody, and David Smith. They're going to follow up. Good work, Cole. Call me when you get back into town, we'll have a drink.”

The message ended. Cole felt a wave of elation. Finally, progress!

The next message began. He shifted the phone to his left hand so he could steer better on the slick roads. The truck slid awkwardly back and forth with its misaligned tires.

“Cole, it's Nancy. You're are never going to believe this. I got a call from David Smith today. Your buddy. He was all friendly on the phone, asked me to come and see him, so I arranged to meet at his office. Guess what he handed me?”

Cole guessed frantically.

“He told me that he learned
ESC
o
G
planned to give up on the fight to stop the mine. That's one of your stories!”

That was the story that Cole and Peggy had given suspected mole number three, Anne Stanton.

“You were right, Cole. It worked. So I called Peggy and got the name of the source, and I'm heading over to interview her now. Peggy told me I could. I'll call you when I've talked to her. She doesn't know I'm coming, so this should be interesting.”

Cole's mind raced. Anne was the mole. She was connected to David Smith. After Peggy and he had been at her apartment, she had called David with the good news that the
ESC
o
G
was giving up on the Cardinal Divide. David waited a day, and then called the highest profile reporter in town, Nancy Webber. Nancy called Peggy, who gave up the mole, and Nancy was going to brace her.