The Glacier Gallows (14 page)

The officer hung up the phone. Perry could see that he was in shock. “What is it?” he asked. “He's been transferred to Wichita?”

The officer said, “Charlie Crowfoot committed suicide last night. He's dead.”

PORCUPINE HILLS, ALBERTA. AUGUST 1.

COLE WATCHED WALTER AND PERRY
drive down the gravel road and around the bend and out of sight. Trick, one of his brother's border collies, stood panting at his side. He reached down and scratched her head and turned toward the house. Trick followed at his heel, then set off in search of something to chase. Cole watched her disappear behind the barn. He wondered if he'd ever make peace with
that
place. Despite all the work he had done over the last six months, he had barely been inside the barn since arriving at the ranch. His only visits had been to the stables on the lower floor to saddle a horse.

“Whatcha doing?” Nancy sat on the porch behind him. “You want to get some work done? The house is cool.”

“I don't, but I know we should. Perry left us a to-do list two pages long. We should get at it.”

They went inside and Cole poured them both glasses of iced tea from a pitcher in the fridge. “Here's what bugs me about this.” Cole stared at the two pieces of paper. “We're trying to refute what the
FBI
and the
RCMP
say I did. I think that if I'm going to get out of this mess, I should try to figure out who really killed Brian Marriott. That would be a better use of my time.”

“Don't you think Perry knows what he's doing?”

“Sure he does. But at best, I buck the charges and don't end up with a needle in my arm.” Cole's face darkened at the thought of what was at stake. “But until someone else is behind bars for this, everywhere I go people will point their finger at me and say I'm a murderer. My career is done. My life is pretty much over one way or another. I can see the headlines now: ‘Cole Blackwater finally comes unglued and kills someone.' I'll never live that down. I don't just need to beat these charges; I need to make sure that whoever killed Brian ends up in jail.”

“You might be right, but I think we need to start by doing what Perry asked us to do. That will hopefully keep you from being extradited. I think you'll fare better in a Canadian court.”

“Alright.” Cole sighed. “Where do we start?”

“We need to establish a list of people who saw you while you were in East Glacier and Browning in the days before the hike. Everybody. Hotel clerks, waitresses, gas station attendants. Perry wants an ironclad alibi for you for when the
FBI
says you were buying a gun.”

“Okay.” They spent an hour going over Cole's every waking minute for the three days before the hike. Cole told Nancy he had spent the better part of one afternoon driving around the western part of the Blackfeet Reservation, looking at potential hydraulic-fracking sites.

“Why the hell were you doing that?”

“Brian told me he had worked with Joe Firstlight on the fracking issue. I wanted to see for myself what was going on. I wanted to see the place with my own eyes. It's one of my rules. Never give anything away—”

“That you haven't seen for yourself. Yes, I remember. I quoted you once in the
Globe
saying those exact words. Back when I thought they were noble.” Cole looked hurt. “Oh lighten up, Blackwater—they're still noble. I just got to see behind the curtain, that's all. So did anybody see you out there?”

“No. I stopped for gas in Heart Butte at about one and went back to East Glacier for dinner around eight. I passed lots of trucks on the back roads but didn't really talk with anybody.”

“Okay, so nobody saw you, and that's when the
FBI
claims you were procuring a gun.”

“Why a gun? Why not just push him?”

“What?”

“Why shoot him?”

“I don't know. Why not?”

“If you were going to kill Brian, why not just push him over the cliff? It was five hundred feet down. There was no way he would survive. There was no risk. Why go to the trouble of shooting him as well? I mean, you'd be taking a hell of a chance. Even with a silencer, someone might hear. You couldn't expect people to think it was an accident. It would be obvious that he had been murdered.”

“I don't know, Cole. Let's get back to your list. You didn't talk to anybody that—”

Cole stood up abruptly. “Unless the point was to make sure
everybody
knew Brian Marriott was murdered.”

“Cole—”

“No, listen. They
had
to shoot him. They
didn't
want it to look like an accident. They wanted it to be obvious. That way, the
FBI
would have to get involved and they would have to look for evidence. If they just pushed him off the cliff, or hit him on the head and threw him over, there wouldn't be much in the way of evidence. Shoot him and you've got a murder weapon. Shoot him and they've got gun powder.”

“Gunshot residue.
GSR
.”

“Right. And if you've got evidence, then you can link someone
else
to the crime. Me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If Brian Marriott had just been pushed off the cliff to die from the fall, there wouldn't be any way of linking the physical evidence to
me
. Shoot him first, and they can plant the evidence.”

“The
FBI
says they found traces of
GSR
on your shirt.”

“Yeah, on a shirt I never wore once on the trip. It was a light polypropylene shirt I carry in case of bad weather or if I need something to sleep in.”

“What are you saying?”

“Whoever killed Brian knew that I got up early every morning and went for a walk. He found the shirt in my bag, put it on, shot Brian Marriott, and threw him over the cliff. Then he put the shirt back. Nancy, it's a set-up. This isn't just a case of incompetent policing. I'm being framed.”

“By whom?”

“I don't know. We figure that out, and I'm off the hook.”

Nancy sat at the table and tapped her pencil on her notebook. Her raven-black hair was tied back in a businesslike ponytail. “We're going to have to do both. Let's do what Perry asked and address all of his questions. But let's do some digging. Poke around a little.”

Cole was excited. “Now you're talking my language!”

“Cole, we've got to be careful.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Whatever Brian Marriott was poking around in got him killed.”

THEY SPENT THE
rest of the day compiling lists of people who might have seen Cole during the three days he was in East Glacier before the hike. They broke at suppertime, and Cole went out to feed the chickens and pigs. When he was done, his mother was waiting for him by the back door.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, darling.”

“What's up?”

“Do you have time to chat?”

“I should help Nancy in the kitchen—”

“She's fine. She knows her way around.”

“Sure, then.” Dorothy pulled on a pair of boots, and she and Cole walked in silence toward the large garden that stood between the barn and the house. Then Cole said, “What's up, Mom?”

“I'm sorry that I've been so distant since you arrived.”

“It's alright. I'm sure I haven't been the most fun to be around. Funny how a murder rap will do that.”

“I owe you an explanation.”

“No, you—”

“Cole.” Dorothy turned to look at him. “This whole thing with the death of your friend, and you getting in trouble. I know that you have nothing to do with it.” Cole opened his mouth to speak, but Dorothy silenced him with a gentle glance. “I know you don't, Cole. I've got to tell you that I feel a little responsible for the trouble you're in.”

Cole protested, “My trouble has nothing to do with you, Mom.”

“Cole, when you were a boy, a lot of bad things happened to you.” Cole looked at the barn. “For the longest time, I chose to ignore them. Your father was very hard on you. Very hard. I tried to pretend that if I didn't get involved, maybe he would just stop. Grow out of it. But he didn't. I should have done more. Should have said more. But I didn't, and you paid the price. I know that it left its mark. I'm afraid that it may have done permanent damage, Cole.” Dorothy Blackwater had tears in the corners of her eyes. “It made you angry, and that led people to believe you might have done this terrible thing.”

Cole drew a deep breath as he looked at the barn. He'd learned in the last year to take a moment and breathe when his anger appeared. He put a hand on his mother's and held it. She looked up at him.

“I don't blame you, Mom. Hell, I don't even blame
him
anymore. I have to deal with this. Me. It's too convenient to blame him for my anger. It lets
me
off the hook. I know maybe in the past I've let it get the better of me, but not now. Not anymore.”

“But the
FBI
—”

“I know. We're going to beat this—Nancy and Walter and Perry and I. We've got a plan.”

He just wasn't sure if he believed it.

AFTER SUPPER, NANCY
and Cole took cold bottles of beer back to the table and spread out their papers.

“We need to find out what we're dealing with.” Nancy tapped her pencil. “What was Brian Marriott into before he got killed?”

Cole considered this. “A lot,” he finally said and recapped what Brian was working on.

“That sounds pretty straightforward. Which side might have wanted him dead?” asked Nancy.

“I don't know. We need to find out—I just don't know how.”

“Tell me how Brian managed his files and his email.” Nancy had a mischievous glint in her eye.

NANCY HAD CALLED
a friend and explained the situation. By the time they finished for the night, it had been established that Brian had used an online backup service; every file he'd worked on, and all of his email, was safely stored there in case of a computer crash. Now, Nancy and Cole sat on the front porch. A waxing moon rested heavily on the horizon, and the chatter of crickets was almost too loud for conversation.

“By tomorrow, we'll have access to Brian's backed-up files. These servers are tight, but my friend can get us in. I've used her once or twice before. And Walter and Perry will have talked to Charlie Crowfoot. We're making progress, Cole.”

“I hope so. The extradition hearing isn't getting any farther away.”

“Hang in there.”

They watched the moon rise across the black dome of heaven. It cast a pale glow on the folded hills of the ranch. Cole was making a list in his head of people who might have wanted Brian Marriott to shut up with his talk of an energy transition in Canada and who might have had access to him in the mountains of Waterton-Glacier Peace Park. It wasn't that long a list. They sat and contemplated this as the evening fell around them. Cole fidgeted, and finally Nancy said, “What is it?”

“Whoever killed Brian wants me out of the picture as well. They couldn't kill us both up there. It would be too obvious. That's why I was set up. Brian had to die, and I have to go to prison for it. In a state that has the death penalty. Somebody wants me gone, maybe even dead too, Nancy. I just don't know why.”

OTTAWA, ONTARIO. JUNE 1.

THE DEATH THREAT WAS WAITING
for him in his in-box when he arrived at his office.

From: UNDISCLOSED

Subject: You are a dead man

To: Brian Marriott

Marriott: You are a DEAD MAN. Stop now and maybe you'll make it through the summer.

The email had been sent from an account that listed only an
IP
address. Brian copied the address into a search browser and came up with nothing. Whoever had sent the email knew more about computers than he did, which wasn't saying much.

His hand went to the phone. He should report this to the
RCMP
. Making a death threat was a crime, and while he didn't take it all that seriously—he'd been threatened before—he was curious who was behind it. Somebody didn't like him much, but for what reason? It seemed that everybody considered him a turncoat or a traitor. Which one of his so-called friends had he crossed?

“YOU WANT ME
to what?” Rick Turcotte sounded amused.

“Go on a hike with me.”

“Like where? The Gatineau Hills?”

“I was thinking something a little bigger.”

“Algonquin? Do people hike there, or just ride around in canoes?”

“Rick, I was thinking about Glacier National Park, Montana.”

There was a long silence. “Why?”

“To talk about climate change. Think about it. The public believes your government isn't doing enough on climate change. So, you go on a fact-finding mission. It's international in scope, so you'd get a ton of good press.”

“You know I'll have to run this up the flagpole—likely all the way to the Prime Minister's Office. You know how the
PMO
feels about these things. Who else would be along?”

“HI, TARA, IT'S
Brian Marriott.”

“Hi, Brian. I'm writing to deadline right now.”

“This won't take long. I have an idea.”

“What else is new?”

“I wonder if the
Globe and Mail
might be up for sending its hotshot science reporter on a hike this summer.”

“Oh, a junket!”

“Well, it's more like a forced march through rugged mountains packed with grizzly bears and cougars, but sure, a junket.”

“Brian, is this some sort of publicity stunt?”

“No, it's an honest-to-god fam tour of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. Did you know that Glacier used to have a hundred and twenty-five glaciers and now only has twenty-six?”