Читать книгу Dead Water Creek - Alex Brett - Страница 10

The plane trip from Ottawa to Winnipeg was uneventful, except for a juicy little filet mignon and a passable French cabernet: better than I’d get at home. With time to kill in the Winnipeg airport I called Duncan and updated him on my interview with Lydia.

“Oh, by the way,” he said. “Bob was down. He stomped around your office, opened desk drawers, and rifled your files. He also used inappropriate language.”

“Did he find what he was looking for?” “Nope. Because she’d already left. As an employee of the Crown I have been instructed to inform you, immediately on contact, that you must report directly to your supervisor on receipt of this message. There. I’ve fulfilled my obligation.”

“Registered. Oops. The line is busy. So, are you going up to say a formal goodbye to Patsy?”

“I could be convinced.”

“Mention the salmon network. How pleased you are that it’s gone to me. See what kind of reaction you get.”

“And what do I get for this?”

I hesitated for a moment, as if summoning up the courage to make a great sacrifice. “I’ll babysit.”

“You’re on.”

Actually, I adore Duncan’s kids. Whenever I go over we consume popcorn, coke, and trashy kids’ TV, all the programs that their dad doesn’t let them watch. Still, I try to retain some dignity in the negotiations and pretend that my compliance is worth significant payment in kind.

“I’m meeting Sylvia for dinner — “ “God, how’s she doing?” “Not great.” I veered away from details, mainly because I didn’t want to confront them earlier than I had to. “I’ve got her doing a search on this, so I’ll have a lot more background by tonight.”

“Keep me posted.” “I will. And Duncan, keep your nose clean, but not that clean.”

The Winnipeg-Vancouver leg of the voyage was more exciting, with an inflight movie and Angela. I watched her manoeuvre her bags down the aisle, feeling dread, then resignation, as she stopped at my row, smiled, and said, “Hi there. Jeez. They don’t give you much room, do they?”

She had more carry-on luggage than a hockey team, mainly shopping bags from Eaton’s, The Bay, and Holt Renfrew. She dumped all her bags on the seat and stood in the aisle, surveying the situation and blocking all the traffic behind her. She looked a bit like a middle-aged cherub, or how one would imagine cherubim would look if they ever aged to forty. But instead of fair hair, hers was jet black and cut in short, stylish waves that framed her face. She was dressed casually, but the jeans were designer, the neon yellow sweatshirt was new, and the cowboy boots looked like they came from an endangered species. Someone in the queue behind finally got annoyed and gave a firm shove, which travelled down the line to her.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, looking back, and wedged herself into that tiny space in front of the seat to let the others pass.

Having adjusted to my fate, I tried to be kind. “I can fit a bag in front of my seat. All I have down here is a briefcase.”

“Gee, thanks a bunch,” and she swung two bags in my direction. I arranged them as best I could, then sat up and took a good look at her. She had pulled out a compact and was patting her hair into place. I couldn’t help asking, “You go to Winnipeg to shop? It seems a bit bizarre, coming from Vancouver.”

“Oh, I don’t live in Vancouver. Ellesworth.” She snapped the compact shut and took in my blank stare. “Above Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island. And I got to tell you anyway, Vancouver’s not so hot. I’d rather shop in Winnipeg any day. Sorry if that offends you.” She didn’t sound sorry.

“I’m not from Vancouver. Ottawa, actually.”

A shadow of loathing crossed her face, and she shifted to the other side of her seat. “Really.”

“But I used to live in Vancouver when I was a kid,” I said quickly. “And I went to university in Winnipeg.” She relaxed a bit and moved back toward the centre of her seat. Apparently, with that pedigree whatever I had wasn’t contagious. I finished up lamely, “So I’m not really an Ottawa person, if you know what I mean.”

“Where I come from we don’t have much good to say about Ottawa, if you know what I mean.”

I did, so I let a second pass before changing the topic. “So, what brought you to Winnipeg?”

“Oh, my mum. Jeez, I wish she’d move west where I could keep an eye on her, but you know how old people are. ‘Winnipeg’s been good to me my whole life,’ she says. ‘I’m not going to abandon it now.’ Like Winnipeg cares. Well, that’s fine for her, but my George has to work, and he can’t do that in Winnipeg.”

“But he can in Ellesworth?” “Logging. He runs a feller operation on the blocks above Campbell River. On a good day on flat terrain he can take down four hundred trees. Makes a good living.” She reflexively held out her hand and examined the two chunks of diamond-encrusted gold on her fingers. Together they must have weighed more than a fork. The funny thing was, she wasn’t doing it to impress me. It was as though she was trying to remind herself that these were the benefits of all their hard work.

“You must worry about him. It’s a dangerous job.” She shrugged and switched on a smile. “What can you do? It’s not so bad really.”

“And with the way things are going —” I was stopped by her frank, appraising, and not very friendly look.

“You people in Ottawa think we’re all stupid, don’t you? Well for your information, there isn’t a man working out in that forest who doesn’t know what’s going on. What do you think they talk about over beer? They know we can’t keep cutting like that and still have a forest for my son to work in, but what are you supposed to do? Get out? So somebody else can make the money instead of you? We worked hard to set ourselves up, and every year we got to upgrade equipment and cut more trees just to make ends meet. The forest will be gone no matter what we do, so we might as well make the money out of it. Anyway, you know whose fault it really is?”

At this point she directed her index finger at me and gave me a good, sharp poke in the arm. It hurt, particularly with those acrylic nails. “The government. That’s who. They let in those foreign companies who strip the land, don’t reforest, then send the logs to their own countries for processing. Those are our jobs. If the government would keep their nose out of it,” she poked me again, “we’d run the industry like it should be run.”

I was tempted to remind her that forestry was within the provincial jurisdiction so she was poking the wrong person, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered to her. Government is government and they’re all bad. I rubbed my arm and mumbled something about getting the point, then the lights dimmed and the movie started: Free Willy 3. I wondered how she felt about that.

As we approached Vancouver, the sun was sitting low over Vancouver Island across the Strait of Georgia. Vancouver’s airport spreads across a marshy island in the Fraser River delta, and as we neared the city the plane came in low over the river, following it out to its mouth. Beneath us, tug boats, seiners, and log booms moved sluggishly along the channel while yachts and pleasure craft darted between them. From above, the Fraser looked like nothing more than a vast aquatic highway.

Then suddenly the land dropped away and we shot out over open water, banking sharply to make our final descent. As the plane tilted, the clean line of demarcation — where the muddy Fraser hits the clear, cold waters of the Strait of Georgia — was visible below. The mass of flowing water created a solid, murky wall that ran several miles out, and fishing boats dotted either side of the line.

As we taxied into the airport I wished Angela luck with her mother, grabbed my briefcase and my carry-on bag, and slipped out of the seat before we’d come to a stop. It was going to take her at least half an hour to gather up the fruits of her labour.

For me, Vancouver equals pain, but even so I can’t help but be seduced by the overpowering beauty: the city cradled by snowy mountains against a shimmering sea. I stood for a moment, breathing in the damp, salty air, remembering, and not remembering. When I was ready to move, I crossed to the rental lot, where I picked up my government-rate car: basically, a tin can powered by a blender engine, set on wheels the size of Oreo cookies. If this case involved a high-speed chase I was already dead. I consulted the map, just to refresh my memory, and headed into the city.

As I crossed the north arm of the river, I caught the scent of fresh-cut cedar, pungent and aromatic, escaping from a sawmill below. For a moment I was displaced, no longer in a car speeding toward the city but standing in a moist, dark glade dwarfed by towering trees. Then the car cleared the rise of the bridge and my eyes were assaulted by straight lines and concrete grey. I sighed, jammed my foot on the gas, and descended into the urban sprawl.

For once, someone in Travel had done their job. Instead of booking me into a downtown hotel, which would be more expensive and mired in traffic, they had put me in a high-rise hotel at the corner of 12th and Cambie. While it was slightly off the beaten path, it gave me straight-line access to Southern without having to go downtown. I made a mental note to send an e-mail to the travel clerk and thank her.

When I’d settled in my room, I pulled the salmon file from my briefcase and flipped through it until I found Edwards’s number. It was late, but from his CV he looked like a keener. He answered on the second ring.

“Edwards.” His voice was a resonant low bass, distinctive and beautiful.

I gave him my name, but when I got to the part about why I was here — to investigate Madden Riesler — he cut me off. Explosively.

“Bullshit! After a year and half? Come on.” “I understand your — “ “You’re not here to investigate Madden. You could-n’t get rid of me, so now you’re going to conduct a nice little investigation that will clear him and screw me. Guess it pays to have friends in high places, huh? Well you know what? Sorry to say, you’re too late. I’ve already gone to a reporter, and believe me, I used the word cover-up when referring to your department.”

Bummer. That meant dealing with the press, my media-incompetent management, and the complaint itself. This was getting complicated, and I didn’t like that. If I was going to tie it up fast I needed Edwards on my side, so I decided to go for the truth.

“Look Dr. Edwards, I’ll level with you. I don’t know why it took so long for us to investigate your complaint, but I intend to find out, and the best place for me to start is with the complaint itself.”

“If you really believe that, then you’re a patsy. Madden Riesler is not going to be investigated.”

A patsy? I didn’t like that word usage one little bit. “I’m not afraid of Riesler or anybody else. If there’s a cover-up I’ll find it and expose it, but first I need information. If we could just — “

“Get your own bloody information. That’s what we pay you for, isn’t it?” And the phone went dead.

His lack of cooperation was understandable, but annoying. I’d have to find out from Sylvia who covered the science beat for the local paper. That was probably his contact. Maybe I could cut a deal.

Having jotted a note to that effect I took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and dialed a number I knew by heart. I’d hoped to leave a message on voice mail — after all, it was 9:00 P.M. in Ottawa — but Bob picked up on the first ring. I had the impression he’d been waiting for my call.

“Robert Gregory, Chief of Investigations.”

Really. Give me a break. The guy has call display and would know it was me. “Hi, Bob. I got your message from Duncan. What can I do for you?”

I heard some shuffling in the background, a chair moving. So he wasn’t alone in his office.

“Morgan. You left earlier than expected.” “It seemed more cost-effective. Get me onsite and working sooner.”

There was a slight pause, then: “I see. You wanted to get onsite and working sooner.” He spoke at an unnaturally slow pace, enunciating clearly. I thought of suggesting the speakerphone so he wouldn’t have to repeat everything I said but realized it was to my advantage to play the game his way. There was some more shuffling in the background, the sound of paper moving across his desk. After another brief pause he continued. “There is some concern here about the instructions in that file.” I waited and said nothing. The silence stretched to fill a room, forcing Bob to continue. “What instructions did you receive?”

“The cover page was missing.”

“The cover page was missing,” he repeated ponderously. “I see, but did you receive…” he hesitated. “Was there anything else?”

“Special instructions? No. I just assumed normal procedure. Really, Bob, I am a senior officer.”

“There was nothing in the file?” “Should there have been?”

His voice relaxed a bit. “No, of course not. Other than the cover sheet, which was missing. An oversight on someone’s part, no doubt. Well then.” More paper was shuffled. “I want this investigation tied up as quickly as possible with a minimum of disruption. Understood? Stick to the financial and stay out of the researchers’ way. We don’t want the Network disturbed. There are too many sensitivities involved here. That should get you in and out of there in what, a day? Maybe two?”

Again I didn’t answer. I wanted him to sweat. When he finally spoke it was with forced joviality. “Because with Duncan gone those high-profile projects are just piling up, and really, you’re the only with the clearance to handle them.”

“You mean the investigation and the report, or just the investigation?”

“I’m sure we can reach an understanding on that.” I continued as though I hadn’t heard the last part of the conversation. “You know, Bob, I have my own concerns about this Network file, and I may need your help sorting it all out.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Oh? Since when? But I kept that to myself. “I need to know where the file was when it disappeared from September to June.”

There was dead silence. “Bob? Are you still there?”

I heard a little hiccup, then a muffled sound at the other end. I hoped he wasn’t having a coronary. With a guy like Bob, who smoked, was out of shape, and turned such a livid colour under stress, it could happen in the blink of an eye. Still, I thought it best to continue while I had the advantage. “You see, the reason I need to know is that a reporter may now be involved, and that makes things messy. So any help you can give me from your end would really be appreciated. Oh, and should I refer the press to you, or would Patsy prefer to take it?” Then I added pointedly, “Maybe you should ask her.”

Another minute of silence passed, and by the time Bob gathered himself up to reply the jovial tone was gone. “No one speaks to the press,” he barked. “That’s number one. Number two: you use authorized channels to view the financial records. Authorized. When that’s done I want you out of there. Number three: you report all findings directly to me. And I want you back here and standing in my office Wednesday nine A.M. Got that? Any shenanigans, O’Brien, and you’re up for suspension.”

I let a few seconds pass then asked politely, “And when should I expect the information on those missing months?”

He banged the phone down in my ear.

Two out of two. Not bad.

With the worst of my evening over, I wandered to the balcony door, slid it open, and stepped outside. I was on the twenty-second floor of a narrow tower in a mixed commercial and residential neighbourhood. Beneath me I could see café diners through the glass roof of a trendy little mall across the street, but at eye level I had a panoramic view of downtown Vancouver. It was a spectacular sight, the high-rises jutting over the black water of English Bay, patches of brilliant neon flashing like beacons in the fading light, and behind this, a backdrop of mountains: massive dark forms, ghostlike with the faint glow of snow.

I sighed. It was too much beauty all at once. Overpowering and almost painful. I checked my watch, briefly debated a jog, then decided to go for it. I knew the area well enough to know a reasonable route that would take me through well-lit, safe streets. Not that I can’t take care of myself, but why push your luck.

I pulled on my jogging clothes and headed out the door. The hotel opens onto 12th Avenue, and even though it was 6:ffl P.M., rush hour showed no sign of abating. There was a bumper-to-bumper stream of traffic flowing in both directions, and Cambie, just to my right, was gridlock.

I turned west on 12th Avenue and headed for the next major artery — Oak Street. I knew I could jog up Oak to 33rd, then loop back around and jog downhill for the last bit of my run. Given the traffic, the damage to my lungs from pollution would far outweigh any benefits derived from the exercise, but that damage wouldn’t show up for years, and I tend to be a short-term girl.

The first couple blocks were tough, but then my body and brain began to loosen up and move into that altered state caused by lactic acid overload. By the time I reached Oak and had started the uphill climb, I was absorbed in the details of the case, moving through them in a process akin to free association. I started with Edwards. What did I know about him, other than he was a bit of a jerk with a tendency to interrupt? For one thing he was an American. That had interesting possibilities. Americans studying salmon in Canada would be, to some degree, persona non grata, given the volatility of the issue on the international stage. Maybe somebody wanted him to go back to where he came from.

Or maybe he was part of an American plot to discredit the Network. Someone in Washington was upset by the direction things were taking and Edwards was promised tenure and a big fat grant south of the border to cause a little trouble. We’d do it if our interests were at stake, so why not them? But whose interests were at stake? I’d have to find out.

Or maybe Edwards was just jealous. It wouldn’t be the first time that a junior researcher had accused an established scientist of fraud: a sort of sour grapes approach to career advancement.

But how did any of these possibilities tie in with the file disappearing? I couldn’t see the connection, which raised again the possibility that the disappearance was a random event, unrelated to the investigation itself. The problem was, every time I settled into that conclusion something didn’t feel right, as if I was overlooking an important fact that was sitting right before my eyes.

I had a brief stint with the RCMP, which is to say that I completed my training and was honourably discharged to spare certain people certain embarrassment if they tried to jerk me around. It didn’t matter. I’d realized long before the end of training that it wasn’t the life for me. While I had balked at the militaristic training, I did manage to come away with some critical skills that have saved my butt on more than one occasion. The most important, beaten into me by a brilliant and marginally sadistic crime-scene investigator, was to trust my intuition, so when this niggling uneasiness about the missing file kept reoccurring I paid close attention.

I had begun mentally prodding the little doubt, seeing if I could crack it open, when I was momentarily distracted by the aroma of quality cappuccino escaping from a little café. I filed the location away under caffeine then returned to my uneasiness, trying another tack. Why, for example, was I focused on Edwards? Nationalistic prejudice? I consider myself above that, especially since I know from experience that fraud, dishonesty, and deceit are pan-national characteristics. The unifying force is greed, and that is neither cultural nor hereditary.

So what had led me, perhaps unconsciously, to Edwards?

Maybe it was Riesler’s credentials. It was hard to believe that a gold-medallist from the University of Toronto, a Rhodes scholar in biochemistry, and a tenured professor two years after his dissertation would embezzle money. It’s not like he lacked research grants, and he had a good salary, so unless he was supporting an expensive mistress or had an ugly addiction it wasn’t about money.

By this time I was winded from the uphill climb, and starting to feel a stitch in my side. When I get to thinking and running at the same time, as the thinking speeds up so do the legs, but they don’t have the stamina of my neural tissue. I hit 25th and made a bad decision, because, God knows, I needed the exercise after all those hours on the plane. But, instead of continuing to 33rd, I turned left, cutting my run short a few blocks. I could always blame it on the pollution.

As I jogged along, rhythmically panting in time with my legs, my brain fell into a meditative chant of “Why Edwards, why Edwards, why Edwards,” timed with the intake and exhalation of my breath. After several blocks I wanted to change the channel, but as usual my brain resisted. Finally, in desperation, my unconscious cut in. Because of the reference search, you idiot.

Huh? What reference search? And then I remembered. Attached to the initial letter of complaint was, as I had noted at the time, a very inadequate reference search. It was inadequate because whoever had done the search had only focused on Edwards, calling up his publications for the last two years, and that was very fifth-floor. A poorly done search focusing on the researcher who had the least political sway.

When I hit the corner of 25th and Cambie I remembered something else. The search results had been clipped to Edwards’s first letter of complaint, but the date of the search hadn’t been entered in the action log attached to the file. So when exactly had the search been done? I picked up speed and headed downhill.

Back in the hotel room I didn’t bother with stretching, another bad decision, but went directly to my briefcase. I pulled out the evidence kit and grabbed the magnifying glass, one of the small, high-powered jobs used by geologists. Then I opened the salmon file and flipped to the back. I looked up at the ceiling, said a brief prayer to the goddess of forensic evidence, then looked down at the reference search. It had been printed on a laser printer rather than on the large-format dot-matrix that the National Science Library used. That meant that someone had logged into the library from a remote location and had searched the database from there. And whoever it was had decided that Edwards was the guy to investigate rather than the infinitely more prestigious Dr. Riesler.

On the top of the page was a header, but the type was so tiny it was unreadable. I pulled the magnifying glass from its case, held my breath, and positioned it over the header: Aquatic Sciences Citation Index search time 7 min 32 sec 1342 h Saturday 13 Oct 2001. Thank you for using Canada’s National Science Library.

I let out a long breath. That’s what I had hoped for. Proof that the file was still active well after Patsy claimed she had returned it to Lydia. Active enough, in fact, for somebody to come in on a Saturday afternoon and conduct the search. To do that, the user had to have a special account with the library — they were charged by the minute for search time — as well as a reasonable knowledge of how the database worked. In my job, it is a comfort to know that nothing in the modern world is free of paperwork.

I smiled. Where there’s paperwork, there’s a paper trail, and no one is better than Sylvia at tracing a paper trail.