The Fundy Vault Page 16

  “Constable Cudmore located it the next day in the quarry,” Sophie added, “several kilometres from the bridge.”

  “It’s lucky that fellow Donny didn’t dismantle it and sell it for parts, eh Roz?” Björn said.

  “I think we rescued it just in time, Björn,” I said, and turned back to McBride.

  “Our next lead was Molly’s water dish,” Sophie said. “Roz found that in the trees bordering the quarry.”

  McBride was silent, his brow furrowed. “Maybe when they stashed the car, they threw the dish there on purpose. So anyone searching for us might think that we had hiked into the bush and gotten lost.”

  “That makes total sense, McBride.” I was growing impatient with everyone’s interruptions. “Anyway—there you were, taking a quick hike to the top of the bluff with Molly….”

  “That’s right. I remember her sniffing around, happy for the run. Once at the top, I didn’t see anybody up there, except for this one tanker truck driver—Eddie, I think…yeah, that’s what his name was. I guess he assumed I belonged there. In any case, he welcomed the company.”

  “So what did you find out?” I said.

  He closed his eyes. We all stayed silent, waiting. Then he looked at us. “Basically there’s an opening in the ground up there—a hole. They’ve safeguarded that opening with a metal surface—a sort of large steel plate. There’s a pipe fitting in the centre of the plate that the hose from the tanker truck connects to. Originally, it must have been dense spruce, but they’ve cut a circular road through the trees so the trucks can turn around, park, divest their load, and then drive straight out again.

  We all looked at one another.

  “Wow,” I said.

  McBride nodded. “It’s a straightforward system…remarkably simple,” he said.

  “Yes!” Björn said, excited by the revelation. “These openings are what you’ll find referred to on geological maps as ‘vaults’ and this big one you saw up there is known as the Jasper Creek Vault. There are others all along the coast—a natural phenomenon. The inside shape of the vault is a large underground cavern, which doesn’t deteriorate because it formed within the basaltic lava when it erupted 200 million years ago, creating North Mountain. It’s virtually indestructible. The Jasper Creek Vault extends down to below sea level and then runs horizontally deep underground and out into the Bay of Fundy.”

  “So, what exactly are these people up to, McBride?”

  “Well, when I first got up there, Eddie was monitoring the pump on his truck which was sending gallons of stuff into the opening. I asked him whereabouts he lived, and he said he was from Ohio—made a couple of trips a week up here. I asked him who he worked for and he mumbled something about freelancing.”

  “But did you ask him what he was pumping?” I asked.

  “I remember I asked him if the stuff could explode. He said he didn’t think so, but that sometimes it smelled pretty strong…. He said all the drivers have a saying when people ask what they’re carrying. Now wait—what was it? Oh yes, they say, “You wouldn’t want to drink it.”

  We all looked at each other.

  “So what exactly is it?” I said.

  “That’s what I said, Roz. I asked him, ‘What exactly is it?’ And he looked like he was about to tell me—but right then, that’s when Molly was attacked from out of the blue by this vicious German shepherd and all hell broke loose. I ran over to rescue her, and the next thing I knew, a couple of big galoots were beating the crap out of me.

  “When I came to on the floor of that cave, I was tied up—I could taste blood, I was bruised all over—could hear the tide but I couldn’t see—I thought I was blind—was sure it was only a matter of time before I’d drown in there.” He paused, struggling with the force of the memory.

  Finally, he took a breath and looked at us. “You know the next part of the story better than I do, because by the time you found me I was down for the count. Anyway, Eddie from Ohio never had a chance to answer my question. I wonder what the heck happened to him.”

  Björn and Grace got to their feet, and she went over to the stoop to get their dogs. “We’re very pleased you’re on the mend. Between us all, we’ll get to the bottom of this—and hopefully find a way to put a stop to this madness.”

  “Oh, before you go,” I said, “Sophie and I were thinking we could make dinner for everyone. Would you like to join us tonight for a meal?”

  “No, no, no—why don’t you all come to us for dinner? Please! Let us have you as our guests,” Grace said. “How about eight this evening? That will give everyone a chance to take a rest this afternoon.”

  I looked at Sophie. She nodded. “I’d love to join you for dinner. Sounds great!” she said. “And a rest is exactly what I need.”

  McBride chimed in, “I’d like that very much.”

  “We’re on then,” I said. “Thank you, Grace!”

  “We’ll see you later.” And with that they departed, dogs in tow.

  Sophie got Molly and took her into the cottage to feed her, and said the two of them would take a nap.

  “Feed the cat too, Soph!” I said.

  McBride and I refilled our tea cups and moved our chairs across the grass to catch better sun.

  “So you must have a theory, Roz.” McBride looked at me.

  “I think I have a good lead,” I said. “I’m certain I know who the girl was.” I gestured at the basin.

  “The girl in the tree?” he said.

  “Yes. Her name was Aurelia Strange. She was a young journalist. I’ve even found evidence of her being in the same cave where they dumped you.” I got my phone and opened the photo I had taken of the lipstick letters marked on the cave wall. “I found the lipstick too. It was on the floor of the cave. I think they did the same thing to her as they did to you—only she ended up wrapped in a flag, tied into that tree, and floating into the Minas Basin.”

  “Crikey,” he said. “Even with me at death’s door in that cave, there you were sleuthing away!”

  “That part about death’s door is true—check out this picture I took of you in the cave.”

  For once he was speechless. “Anything else I should know?” he said, after a beat.

  I told him about Jacob—his involvement with the thugs and us finding him just leaving the cave when we got there. “He said he’d been giving you water. Do you remember that?”

  He shook his head. “No…I think I was pretty far gone by then.”

  “I’ll say you were. So, back to Aurelia.” I proceeded to fill McBride in on everything I had learned about her, and my recent foray into her cabin, where I’d found her computer and taken it. “Then Jacob called to say he was on his way over, that he’d decided to open up and tell me everything, which I’d been coaxing him to do. Within minutes he arrived, but it was a ruse—he’d brought the evil twins with him. So I quickly hid Aurelia’s computer and hightailed it out of here for fear they’d rough me up again, but they turned the place upside down and found it.”

  “So you lost the chance to find out what she was researching.”

  “Exactly, and believe me, I was not happy that I’d fallen for Jacob’s ploy. But as luck would have it, McBride, I did manage to get one file before they stole it back.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “Nope, I haven’t had a minute to myself—I guess I’ve been saving it for you!”

  “Well, come on, Roz! What are we waiting for? Let’s get at it.”

  Chapter 23

  I was about to open the file when a call came in from Inspector Arbuckle.

  “Donald!” I said. “I’m sitting here in the sun with McBride. He’s on the mend! He’s out of hospital, so that would complete the arrangement with Gateway. How’s this working money-wise? Is it costing you or me or both of us our life savings?”

  “All taken care of, Roz. As I
told you we have a long-standing arrangement with Gateway and a budget to hire surveillance in special circumstances. And since I’ve begun to look into the situation myself, it’s legit. I mentioned the last time we talked that I was waiting to hear from an RCMP regional superintendant from out that way.”

  “Right! High Dudgeon?”

  Arbuckle laughed. “Well—it’s Peter, actually. Anyway, it turned out he was coming into Halifax, so we met this morning.”

  “And—did you find anything out?”

  “Well, you think you know people…. He was friendly enough at first, but not forthcoming, and then he got his dander up, told me I shouldn’t be nosing around in a jurisdiction that I have no authority in, and I disagreed: I’m investigating on behalf of a Halifax citizen who suffered a very serious injury and ended up in the Kentville hospital. So we had a bit of a set-to. I was surprised at his reluctance to even discuss the situation with me. In fact, the attitude I encountered today which was supposed to drive me away has piqued my interest.”

  “‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’ Could he be covering something up?” I said.

  “I guess that Shakespeare’s good for something, eh?”

  “Seems to have known a lot about how deception and corruption work.”

  “Anyway, I asked him why they weren’t at least looking into it, and he told me he’d recently assigned Corporal Monaghan to the case.”

  “Corporal Monaghan said that the case is within her purview because of the Emergency Health Service rescue. She didn’t mention being assigned it by a higher-up. But I think she’s a good cop who wants to get to the bottom of this as much as I do.”

  “How did it go this morning at the bridge?”

  “We got stonewalled—like you. Corporal Monaghan was told she would need an official invitation or a warrant—neither of which we had. On top of that, it was raining cats and dogs. Anyway, my bet is we’ll soon be on our way back up there with a warrant.”

  “Keep me in the loop, Roz.”

  “I will. Also, McBride and I are about to look at something that may shed light on the whole operation. I’ll get back to you if we have a breakthrough.”

  “Give him my best.” We rang off.

  “Donald didn’t get anywhere with his old pal from out this way, who’s one of the higher-ups,” I told McBride.

  “So what do you think?” he asked.

  “I think everybody has their price—apparently even higher-ups.”

  “Or maybe especially higher-ups.”

  “Why doesn’t anybody ever offer us a big bribe?” I said.

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  “Yeah. We just get beat up.”

  “And dumped in a cave.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay—let’s get to work,” said McBride.

  I picked up my phone and opened the file. “Should I just read it out loud?” I said.

  “Why not. I’ll take notes.”

  “Do you need a pencil and paper?”

  He tapped his temple. “Up here—notes up here.”

  “Speaking of notes, I haven’t told you we found Aurelia’s notebook right here in this cottage. Ellie spotted it in the loft the afternoon they were all here. In fact, you could say the cat found it. That notebook was my first clue that the girl in the tree and Aurelia were one and the same. Inside it was a clipping about her winning an award for environmental journalism, and her only entry was about preparing to move from here to a place on the Bay of Fundy. So you see, McBride, they’re the same person!”

  “Okay—so the notebook was your first indication. What else do you have?”

  “The woman who sold her the book described her as having red hair. I know, lots of women have red hair, but that’s not all. When Sophie and I studied the pictures I had taken of the girl, Sophie spotted a King’s signet ring on her finger, which is exactly where Aurelia Strange studied journalism. And most importantly, I can feel it, McBride. I know it’s her.”

  “If I didn’t know you so well, Roz, I’d dismiss that.”

  “That’s a roundabout way of admitting that I’m nearly always right.”

  “Are you going to read or what?”

  “Here goes. You ready?”

  I began to read.

  Notes Re: Fundy Connection Aurelia Strange

  How ‘Fate’ brought me back to beautiful Nova Scotia:

  I finally got to be in the same room with Naomi Klein. She was in Boston on her book tour for This Changes Everything. What an inspiration she is—brave and uncompromising. She does tireless, exacting research and then writes and speaks about her work in a way that fills me with urgency and purpose. I wish I could have a one-on-one meeting with her right now to ask her advice. I’ve stumbled into an explosive story, but people I know could lose their livelihood and worse. So, as a professional journalist, how do you find the courage to stick to your guns?

  Background: Recent Investigation:

  Celia was my family’s hdiarousecleaner for years while I was growing up in Portland. She has a daughter, Lainie, who’s about five years younger than I am. People in Nova Scotia would refer to Lainie as “a hard ticket” because she’s been in and out of jail a few times for minor infractions, but I always found her more naïve than tough, and I like her very much, though she drives me up the wall with her frequent bad decisions, and her terrible taste in boyfriends. But recently, she hooked up with a new man—Fuller—and her life seemed finally to take a turn for the better. They’re happy together and Fuller makes a good living. “Even my mother likes him,” she said to me.

  “So what does he do?” I asked her. She beamed and told me he’s an international truck driver.

  “That’s impressive,” I told her, “but he must be away a lot of the time.”

  She said they were mostly short hauls from the eastern US to Nova Scotia. “But he gets at least two trips a week and it’s excellent pay—in cash! Even if it is kind of scary.”

  I told Lainie I couldn’t see how going to Nova Scotia could be scary.

  Her lengthy reply went something like this:

  “Scary because, for one, he uses an unofficial border crossing into New Brunswick—it’s someone’s farm in Maine—and because, for two, after he crosses the border he’s supposed to put a fake Nova Scotia plate on his truck, so he has to be super careful to make sure he won’t get stopped. But really, it shouldn’t be that scary since the place is like totally isolated, and most of the crossings happen in the middle of the night.”

  In a trice I went from being happy for Lainie, with her wonderful new guy who made a decent living, to being very, very worried that Fuller was deep into ongoing illegal activity.

  “What kind of truck does he drive?” I asked, trying to stay calm.

  “It’s a big tanker. It takes special training for that kind of license, and Fuller is super qualified.”

  “But why cross illegally into Canada?” I asked her. “What’s in the tanker—milk, gas, pesticides, chickens…?”

  “No-no. Nothing like that. Chickens! You’re funny. It’s just water.”

  “Is there a water shortage in Nova Scotia?” I asked her.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered, as though I was sadly lacking in intelligence.

  “Okay—so what’s it for?” I said.

  “You got me,” she said.

  “Well, where does he take it in Nova Scotia?”

  “Someplace up on Fundy where they built a thing for it.”

  “What kind of a thing?”

  “All I know is he empties the tank, comes back across the border, and goes and fills up the tank again. Easy-peasy! Anyway, he’s not the only one. There’s a whole bunch of truckers doing it.”

  “But where do the trucks go to pick up this water?”

  “Different places.” />
  “You mean different states? Which ones?”

  She shrugged.

  “But they’re close, right—didn’t you say the eastern states?”

  “I forget.”

  Lainie clammed up. Too many questions. And surely Fuller had warned her not to talk about his late-night border-crossing gigs, but these are the kind of slip-ups Lainie is prone to, especially if she’s bragging about something or someone.

  So I let her be, and promised myself that I would beg, borrow, or steal the money to get myself to Nova Scotia to do some serious digging into this tanker mystery. The gods were with me! That same week I won the Emerging Investigative Journalist’ award for my article on the assault against the bees.

  Fate was taking my hand and leading me back to my roots! That prize money was meant to pay for my new investigation at the Bay of Fundy.

  I looked at McBride. “Risky business with the trucks. But what are they actually up to?”

  “It correlates perfectly with that encounter I had with Eddie from Ohio. Roz, you need to find out exactly what they’re doing up there, and then nail whoever’s in charge of the whole thing.”

  I stood up and walked towards the edge of the bluff and looked across the basin. “And Aurelia, McBride. How did Aurelia end up out there?”

  “You’ll find out, Roz, like you always do. You’ll figure it all out.”

  “Thanks a lot, McBride! This was supposed to be my vacation—and I’ve got the Beckett. I know you couldn’t care less about my theatre stuff, but that’s what I came out here for. And what do you do? You get yourself beat up and almost die on me…and now you and Sophie and Molly are just going to swan off to Halifax and leave me here with a murdered girl who won’t get out of my head, while I try to tackle this major environmental crime that seems to be going on under everybody’s noses!”

  “Chill, Roz. You’re not alone. You and Corporal Monaghan can get to the bottom of this thing. Or just walk away from it. Go ahead! That’s what they’re counting on—that no one will actually do the legwork and nail them.”