Blackfly Season

54

ONCE THEY GOT BEYOND THE TRAFFIC in and out of the malls, Cardinal put the pedal to the floor.

“You trying out for Formula One?”

Cardinal looked over at Clegg. He had a friendly smile on his face, not criticizing.

“The guy we’re looking for cuts people up for a living. I don’t want that to happen to Terri Tait.”

“Assuming he’s got her.”

“It’s safer than assuming he hasn’t.”

Clegg adjusted the passenger seat and sat back. He folded his hands on his lap and watched the scenery shoot by: the rock cuts, the Trianon Hotel, the Ottawa turnoff. After that it was hills and trees.

“So, how long you been a cop?”

Cardinal shrugged. “Let’s just say I could retire on full pension if I wanted to.”

Clegg laughed. “And you don’t want to? Guys like you always make me think of those people who win the lottery—I mean, big time. They have a job changing light bulbs in a high-rise or something and here they win twenty-five million and they’re not gonna quit work.”

“Your pension’s twenty-five million? Must’ve been some boost in the RCMP budget this year.”

“We get by.”

Cardinal made the turn onto Nosbonsing Road. It had been paved since the last time he’d been out here. They passed a handful of farms, then the road narrowed and they were bumping through the woods, the flashing wall of trees broken by the odd driveway and mailbox. Flies spattered on the windshield.

“So, how do you want to handle this?” Clegg said.

“We’ll play it by ear. First thing is to establish whether or not the place is in use. If yes, then establish whether there’s anyone there just at the moment. If it looks like our guy is here, then we radio back and they unleash Armageddon. If he’s away, we search the place for Terri Tait. How’s that sound?”

“I’m with you a thousand percent,” Clegg said. “Sounds like fun.”

Delorme had been on her way out the OPP’s front door when Chouinard had called. Now she was in Jerry Commanda’s car, somewhere just outside Sturgeon Falls.

“Jerry, can’t this thing go any faster? There may be a life at stake, here.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re gonna come up empty,” Jerry said, pressing the accelerator. “After all that financial kerfuffle, camp got bought by some hotel outfit. Not sure what they’ve done with it, though. If anything.”

“If it’s sitting empty, it might make an ideal spot for drug dealers.”

Jerry shrugged. “If they like blackflies.”

Kerfuffle, Delorme was thinking. Only Jerry could use that word and not sound like a librarian.

“This is pretty close to the house where Wombat got ambushed,” she said. “Can’t be more than a couple of kilometres.”

Jerry made a sharp right, spraying gravel.

“Cardinal’s checking out the other camp with a guy from the RCMP,” Delorme said.

“Oh, yeah? Who would that be?”

“Corporal named Alan Clegg.”

Jerry turned onto an even smaller road. Branches whipped at the roof of the car.

“I’ve dealt with him a couple of times.”

Delorme scanned Jerry’s profile, finding nothing legible there. Jerry tended to do that a lot, say something with implications and just leave it hanging, as if you should know what he was thinking.

“And?”

Jerry shrugged again. “He seemed to know an awful lot of nothing about what was going down in your neck of the woods. I don’t know why they posted him in Algonquin Bay.”

“Because of the Viking Riders being so close, is what Musgrave told me.”

Jerry gave a little crooked smile. There was the sound of gravel kicking up against the car. “I sometimes wonder about Musgrave,” Jerry said.

“Oh?”

“Musgrave moves in mysterious ways.”

“Jerry!”

“What?”

“What are you getting at?”

Jerry looked over at her, impassive. “Clegg never seemed to know as much as he should, that’s all. Made me uncomfortable, talking to him. Couldn’t fathom why Musgrave thought he was the right stuff.”

They rounded a bend, and then the construction site came into view. Some of the cabins were still standing, but the rest of the clearing was the province of bulldozers and graders. A chain-link fence surrounded the site. Delorme counted twenty workers.

Off to the right, a wrought-iron eagle spread its wings over an old wooden gate.

“That’s the picture Terri drew,” Delorme said. “She drew exactly that eagle, right down to the feathers.”

“Well, we can ask the foreman a couple of questions,” Jerry said, “but somehow I don’t think this was the Eagle Park she was at. Why would the guy be showing up in Reed’s Falls if he was staying way the hell out here?”

“This camp is much closer to the reserve than the other one.”

They drove over deep ruts toward an office trailer that sat in the shadow of a huge sign that said, in French, Future Site of Northern Lights Spa Resort.

The foreman was a chunky rhomboid of a man with a Wild West moustache that didn’t suit him at all. No, he told them, there hadn’t been any strangers around the place. No, there had been no suspicious activity of any kind. They had been working the site for two months now and the only people to set foot on the property other than construction people were exactly two cops, and he was looking at them right now.

“This means Cardinal and Clegg are heading to the right place,” Delorme said. “I’m going to call Chouinard.”

“Doesn’t mean there’s anybody out there right now,” Jerry said. “They could’ve left by now.”

Delorme’s cellphone rang in her pocket. When she answered it, Malcolm Musgrave was on the line. He didn’t bother with preliminaries.

“Listen. Are you and Cardinal still working that murder thing with Alan Clegg?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Don’t work with him. He’s no good.”

“Jesus, Musgrave. You’re telling us this now? Why didn’t you tell us the first time we spoke to you?”

“We’ve had our eye on Clegg for a while, but we didn’t have anything hard core until now. You hear about our little fire in the property room?”

“Yeah. From Clegg.”

“There was two hundred and fifty grand in seized cash from a bust of his. Now we’ve had this fire and the Fire Department is telling me there’s no way that cash could have just turned to smoke. There would have been pounds of ashes left, and there’s nothing. So we’ve just executed a search warrant on his place and we’ve found enough cash and drugs to start a personal cartel. This guy is playing for the other side, Lise. Obviously, this is not for publication till we haul him in, but I wanted to let you know right away.”

“Me, I appreciate it,” Delorme said. “But Cardinal’s in a car with Clegg right now.”

“Not a good place to be. I’m sorry I couldn’t say anything earlier.”

“I’ll call him right away,” Delorme said. She hung up and dialled Cardinal’s cellphone number.