Forever Dead (28 page)

“You'll have to forgive Donaldson. He's from the old ‘letch' school.”

Donaldson's smile became sweetness and light.

“He's here on sufferance,” said Ray, shooting an intense frown, full of meaning, at Donaldson. “Just here to see where I've decided he should start cutting first.”

Donaldson cracked his smile and was about to speak when Ray waved him into silence and said, “This is the Doctor Ph.D. I told you about who found Diamond's body. Thinks her data disks were swiped because of Diamond.”

Donaldson's pale blue eyes narrowed, and he and Ray exchanged glances. Donaldson stroked his chin with short stubby fingers but didn't say a thing. Ray moved over to a table by the window.

“Want some coffee?”

I shook my head and watched as Ray poured some thick black liquid into the cup and then drowned it with milk and sugar. As I started to say something, a huge bulldozer rumbled by.

“Are you cutting already?” I asked, startled.

“No, but we're finally gearing up now,” said Donaldson. “The injunction was only just overturned, but we want to get a head start. Ray and I and our foreman, Cameron, and a bunch of the lads have been up here since May without a break, setting up the camp.” When he saw the look of surprise on my face, he said, “Sometimes you gotta gamble in this business, and we knew we were going to win, that the injunction would be overturned.” He shrugged. “We didn't want to lose precious time, and besides, we needed someone
up here to guard all the equipment from the loonies at the barricade.”

“She doesn't need to know our entire history, Donaldson,” snapped Ray. He turned to me. “I've pulled out some topographic and vegetation maps of the company's logging areas for you, as you asked on the phone. The company logs right across the country.” He pointed to the crown land areas where the company held timber licences throughout the east. They were extensive.

“As you can see, the loss of this logging tract” — he pointed to the area where we were — “would make only a dent in their balance sheet, but the two mills in this area stand to lose their shirts.”

“Yeah, mine in particular,” snorted Donaldson. “Just look at the map. Most of the area's been logged around here.” He pointed to his mill, situated perfectly for the area now about to be logged, but otherwise surrounded mostly by logged forest. “If the logging had been stopped my mill would have been worth practically nothing, and I would have had to declare bankruptcy. We'd taken all the wood we could from the area except this and were hauling logs from a hundred miles away. It was not cost-effective. As it stands we have a buyer, thanks to Diamond's death, and the court's reversal of the injunction I can now retire, let the young guys make some bucks with it.”

“You have a partner,” I said, stating it as a fact.

“Yeah,” said Donaldson slowly, the word oozing out like molasses, as if reluctant to leave his lips. “Why do you ask?” he said cocking his head on one side like a bird and squinting at me.

“Just curious. You said ‘we.' I just wondered who ‘we' is.”

He un-cocked his head and said, “I have a silent partner.” He laughed. “A very silent partner.”

“You mean Whyte?” asked Ray. Donaldson dragged his eyes away from me and squinted at Ray.

“Yeah, Whyte. One hell of a lumberman was my partner. He started the mill, remember, brought me on board and treated me like a brother. He'd have throttled Diamond with his bare hands. When he died in a car crash I found he had left me fifty-one percent, and the rest went to his wife, on condition she not sell until their son turned thirty. Strings from the grave. The old bugger. He liked control, did Whyte. She was furious. Went back to using her maiden name, Santander, she was that mad.”

I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“What happened to her?” I asked, risking the raking of those eyes for the end of the story I thought I already knew and wished I didn't.

“Quite sad, really. She and the kid had no money to live on. But she had spunk, I must say. Went out and got a job and put her kid through university and then her mind gave out on her, kinda shrank into nothingness. We tried to declare dividends, but the last five years have been hard and things were just too tight. The kid's been supporting her, but I think it's been rough.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Business had been bad for a number of years — there just wasn't the lumber — and we couldn't declare any dividends. About two years ago she came out to persuade me to sell, but by that time there was already controversy about the logging. Diamond had got on his high horse, you see, and the worth of the mill plummeted because of the uncertainty. I had to tell her that her shares were not worth much with the controversy and all, and that we could command a much better price if she waited. I told her it would die down — I really believed it would at the time.”

Ray laughed, “Nobody really knew what was going to happen. Diamond was so volatile, always coming up with some new trick. Anyway, with him gone the protest kind of died.”

“And now the old lady's son has contacted me,” added Donaldson, “and we have a firm offer that we've accepted.”

My thoughts went back to Mrs. Santander in her strange clothes, and the tiny sparse house where she lived with Patrick. I remembered his quiet dignity and his protectiveness. Of all Diamond's colleagues, only Patrick had had no motive for wanting Diamond dead. Now he did. And it made me want to cry.

“I guess lots of people have reason to be happy he's dead.” I said quietly.

When no one said anything I looked up, suddenly aware of the silence in the room. Both men had stopped talking and were staring at me, their faces blank, smiles tight and withering. I could hear the crickets chirruping outside and the wind rustled through the trees, and I felt defeated. Trucks were moving around the complex getting ready to build a bridge across the river to the new stand of timber. I wanted to be somewhere else.

“What kind of suggestion is that?” Donaldson's voice was sharp, defensive, angry. I could read nothing in the blankness of his face or in the now granite coldness of his eyes. I wasn't sure which I liked less, the frozen eyes or the soft, lecherous eyes of moments before. I suppressed a shiver, suddenly very glad I could-n't read all that was in his mind.

“Just that a lot of people who knew him now have a life, a job, money, when before they were …”

Ray and Donaldson suddenly laughed in unison, naked, raw, humourless laughter that raked the air. It
was unnerving, and I cleared my throat to give me something to do other than to stare at them.

“You may be right, but I for one didn't stand to lose my job, so other than the fact that I didn't like the man, I had no reason to wish the poor guy six feet under. But his death did make life a lot easier for a whole bunch of people, no doubt about that. Donaldson here, among others, as you now know, has a damn good reason for being glad the bastard's dead.”

“You didn't like him?”

“What can I say? He rubbed me the wrong way. Constantly. He dominated all the hearings so that we couldn't get any consensus or any work done. It was infuriating. He presented brief after bloody brief, faxed, phoned, and emailed us to hell. I dreaded turning on my computer every morning. He loved the limelight, did Diamond, and he loved a good fight, verbal and physical. We were lab partners in animal behaviour at university before I became smart and switched to forestry. I think he finally drove me to it — just to get away from him. You see we were both Ds so I usually drew him for my lab partner. But enough of Diamond.” He shook his head in mock wonder and pointed to the map on the table.

“I think this is what you are after. They're perfect for your paper, but I can't think how it can help you with your disks …” He paused, waiting for me to say something.

All I could think of was, “Where are we on this?

As Ray made room for me beside him, Donaldson raised an imaginary hat and left us to it. It was a large-scale map of the area with all the vegetation marked on it, just like the map at the zoology building that I had pored over, but this indicated what areas were going to be logged. Ray spread out the map, pushing away the coffee mugs and a half eaten bag of chips. He jabbed his squat round finger at the map. “We're here. This whole
area is slated for logging.” He spread his hand over hundreds of miles of bush.

“What kind of timber is it?”

“Mostly white and red pine.”

“Any cedar?”

Ray looked up with interest, or was it something else? “Some, but it's not a large percentage of the logging tract.'

“Where is it?”

He glanced at me curiously, and then looked back at the map. He pointed with his finger. “The cedar is pretty much concentrated here across the river at the base of the escarpment. It goes inland quite a distance, maybe ten miles. It's low and swampy in there — a natural valley. Starts about a mile above the rapids near where Diamond had his camp, but on the opposite side of the river. It's quite extensive along the escarpment. There's a big cliff area over there and the land is really wet because of the many natural springs in the area.”

“Can you see the cedars from the lake?”

“Yeah, sure. If you want to, then just take the path past the cookhouse down through the woods to the water's edge. There's always a bunch of boats there if you want to paddle across.” He glanced at the clock. “Bit late now, though, if you want to get back home by dark.” He rolled up the maps and put them away as I moved toward the door. I had my hand on the knob, hating myself for what I was about to do, but I had to find out.

“What about your wife?”

Ray stopped dead and our eyes locked in an ugly embrace.

In measured words he said, “What about my wife?”

“I just heard she and Diamond had a thing going. Must have been kind of hard on you.” God, that was hard to say. I had nothing against this guy and here I
was bringing up what must be a painful memory, but I needed the information. I could brood about it later.

I watched as his face crumpled and his hands lost their grip on the maps as he struggled to control his emotions. “That was a long time ago.” He turned his back on me and I quietly let myself out, feeling like a pariah.

It was a hot, humid day and the dust from the new road was clogging every one of my pores. I kicked the dust with my feet and headed off toward the cookhouse and the path to the lake. As I approached one of the mobile trailers I heard a noise and stopped.

“Psst.” It came again. “Psst.” I turned toward the sound and there, perched on an overturned bucket between an outhouse and what I took to be the cook-house, was Martha. Her back was to me, her head twisted around like an owl to keep me in view, and her thick, solid ankles were wobbling in time with the protesting wobbles of the aluminum bucket. I watched in fascination, wondering if the bucket would continue to hold her weight or would decide to crumple and, if so, what Martha would do.

“Good god, Martha, what the hell are you doing?”

“Shhhhh.” Martha's low, insistent command slithered
toward me and caught me just as I was about to laugh.

Martha motioned quickly with one hand for me to join her and judging by the protesting groans of the bucket would have lost her balance except for a rather remarkable balancing act.

I stepped into the alley between the two makeshift buildings and looked up at Martha as I struggled to adjust to the gloom. She was leaning against a fence that crossed the alley, her head just topping it so that she could see what was on the other side.

“There's something fishy going on around here,” she said in her best Perry Mason voice. I rolled my eyes skyward.

“No really, Cordi. The cook told me all about it.”

“About what?”

“The fish,” said Martha in a dark, ominous voice as she strained to look over the fence.

“For heaven's sake, Martha, get down before you kill yourself,” I said in a whisper.

“I can't.”

“What do you mean you can't?”

“I can't get down. I'm caught on something.”

I moved around behind Martha and saw that her shift was caught on a wicked-looking spike. I squeezed my arm in between Martha and the fence and untangled her. She dropped to the ground with relief, took out a large pink handkerchief, wiped her forehead, and slapped a mosquito on her arm.

“Really, Cordi, I don't know how you can stand to be out here with all these bugs.” She looked at me and sighed, as if all her lifeblood had just been sucked out by that one lone mosquito.

“Check out the freezer on the other side of that fence.”

I looked at her in puzzlement and hesitated, wondering what she was getting at. “Well, go on. I can't do it.
You'll get your answer when you see what's inside it, mark my words.” I could almost see each of her words being ticked off with a little checkmark in Martha's head.

I repositioned the bucket and leapt up, gripping the top of the wooden fence and scrambling over to the other side. The freezer was snuggled up against the fence and another fence with a gate in it, well hidden or presumably well protected from any animals. I opened the lid and looked down thoughtfully at the contents, pushing aside the top layer and rummaging down in the lower levels to be sure I hadn't missed what Martha was advertising with her wildly dancing eyes.

By the time I had climbed back over the fence, Martha had rearranged her shift and fixed up her appearance by applying some more lipstick and brushing her hair.

“Well?” she said triumphantly.

“Well what? Your lipstick's on crooked,” I said.

Martha pinched her mouth with her thumb and forefinger to wipe away the lipstick. “Gone?”

“Still some in the lower right corner.” Martha scrubbed some more and raised her eyebrows at me. I nodded.