Chapter Thirty-Six
When we return, Rutherford is delirious with pain, but what finally convinces him to open up is the morphine we give him for that pain. Sometimes there really is an advantage to never needing to worry about how you obtain a confession. At least not when the guy is a murdering scumbag.
I’m sure it’s not entirely the morphine either. It’s the giddy relief of having his pain disappear, and the exhaustion of running on adrenaline for hours, racked by agony while lying helpless in a forest as night falls.
It’s also the fact that we already knew the connection between Rockton and the mining camp. No point in holding out … especially when you’re flying high on opiates.
Turns out, to Rutherford, Rockton is just a name, the backstory of his current job. That could be his employers giving him the bare minimum of what he needed to know, but it also seems he just didn’t care. It was a job. Specifics weren’t important.
His primary position had been with the mining operation, escorting new convicts in and old ones out … some of them leaving and others buried in shallow graves. Shot. Strangled. Poisoned. Whatever worked best under the circumstances. His skills were flexible.
His main contact at the camp isn’t Rogers. It’s the older guard we’ve seen from the start, an army vet turned mercenary. He poses as a guard while also keeping a watch on Rogers and helping Rutherford.
How did Rutherford hire Muriel? Pure chance.
On his trips to the camp, he was also expected to conduct surveillance of Haven’s Rock.
He spotted Muriel, who really had been out knitting and reading before her shift.
He took some photos and later identified her through facial recognition.
His employers instructed him to stage an accidental meeting and test her viability as a spy—her financial situation suggested money might be the way to her heart.
While the purpose of his latest visit was a prisoner exchange—and to execute Hansen—he’d lingered because of the Blake incident.
When Rutherford is under the influence of morphine, he candidly admits he didn’t have any solid evidence that Blake was a spy.
He only knew that Blake might have been a threat.
So he killed him. He’d always planned to kill Gretchen, too—no loose ends left untied.
She’d just made it so damned difficult and then we got involved and everything went sideways.
He hadn’t been ordered to kill Blake and Gretchen. That was his initiative. If you consult the higher-ups, they start weighing in with their opinions. Things are just easier handled quietly and efficiently.
Rutherford talks openly, any vestige of a conscience melted by the morphine, and after he’s given us everything he knows, we kill him.
No, we don’t kill him. That’s the solution for guys like Rutherford. It’s efficient but also shortsighted. We have enough to know who to hand him over to, and now he’ll be our ticket to a much-needed conversation with his employers.
Three days later, we’re in Whitehorse. Gretchen and Rutherford left the day after we took Rutherford into custody.
Was it awkward, putting her on a plane with her husband’s killer?
We certainly didn’t tell her that’s who he was, but I still felt the discomfort of having her make that trip with him.
She was safe—Rutherford was sedated and émilie sent along a guard.
It still felt cruel, but Gretchen wanted to leave, and Rutherford needed to, so they disappeared into émilie’s care.
émilie will treat Gretchen well. She is a victim, after all. A new widow who has been traumatized for nothing she or her husband did. Gretchen understands that we didn’t do anything either, and that helps.
A few days after they left, émilie asked us to come to Whitehorse for a video conference. Phil needs to join us and has come along with Isabel.
émilie meets us at the airport. Then it’s off to a rented house, with an hour to settle in. When it’s time for our meeting, we leave Rory with Isabel and follow émilie into the living room, where Phil waits. The big-screen TV is hooked up to the video chat, and émilie makes the call.
I don’t know the person who appears. Our original liaison with Rockton’s governing body had been Phil.
He’d been a pain in the ass. Condescending, officious, and fussy, in a way that always had me imagining a middle-aged management type.
His replacement had been so much worse. While Phil had been patronizing, he’d been coolly efficient and businesslike.
Tamara had delighted in delivering bad news, and after the final fiasco, I suspect she got her own early-retirement package.
Those old meetings had always been audio-only, and it’s clear that this new liaison is uncomfortable being on-screen.
He’s in his thirties, dressed in a three-piece suit, his face sheened with sweat that I don’t think comes from the lighting.
He sits at a table, facing us, and while the others could be videoconferenced in, I get the sense they’re actually seated at the other side of that table.
The liaison has his finger on the mute button, hitting it when others speak and then relaying their words.
Dalton and I are there because this affects us most of all. For now, though, we only listen. Like the board members, Dalton and I stay off-screen, and émilie doesn’t say we’re there. It’s just her and Phil.
émilie has already told them what we figured out and what she’s learned. They’ve come to this meeting with all that information in hand.
Of course they start by denying everything. Not that we’re wrong about our facts—émilie provided the data to back us up. We’ve just misinterpreted.
“Naturally the corporation is curious about Haven’s Rock,” the liaison says, “and yes, they’d love to woo Eric and Casey away, but if they’re doing well, the corporation is happy for them.”
“Curiosity means sending spies,” émilie says. “Possibly even trying to sneak in a resident for insider information. It does not mean setting up a prison-labor camp a few miles away.”
“That was a coincidence.”
She snorts. “It was luck. The luck of finding a man who had discovered gold nearby and was willing to sell his claim.”
“Convenience then,” the liaison says. “A happy collision of circumstances. We do understand there was a negative interaction with a child, which we could not have foreseen, as Rockton did not allow children.”
“But it allowed women,” émilie counters. “And your camp has convicted rapists.”
“A mistake, which we will rectify, and it is our hope that we can continue coexisting peacefully—”
“No,” émilie says. “You will be shutting down that operation.”
“I’m afraid that’s nonnegotiable. We have invested—”
“It’s a camp, not a town. You have thirty days to dismantle it.” She shuffles papers. “Or I have the testimony of a man who executed felons on your orders, along with the location of every buried body and their identities.”
“If Mr. Rutherford took a side job executing—”
“How was it a ‘side job’ when your records would indicate that those convicts never returned? You would have investigated. We can keep dancing, but you know what I have, and you know what I want. Shut down the camp. Leave Haven’s Rock—and everyone in it—alone.”
“We never bothered anyone in it. We were simply amassing data—”
“In the hopes of discovering a problem, and when you didn’t, you would have caused one. You aren’t getting Haven’s Rock. You aren’t getting Eric and Casey.”
Phil clears his throat, speaking for the first time. “Eric and Casey are not a magic key. They are very important components in a system. What you need is to duplicate that system with staff who share their idealism.”
The liaison hits mute and listens to what must be a conversation on the other side.
When he comes back on, he says, “The corporation would like to hire you, Phil. In a temporary position, lasting until spring. You could bring Isabel if you like. They want you to manage the new lodge and implement your system.”
Phil nods, as if he expected this. “For the right price, I would do that. But you would need to follow Haven Rock’s strategy. You cannot cherry-pick from it. You must promise to follow it exactly.”
“Of course.”
“Good. The first order of business would be to stop charging residents for their stay.”
The liaison blinks. “I … don’t understand.”
“No one pays,” Phil says, slowly. “Everyone’s stay is covered. Oh, and the staff draws a modest salary.”
“From where? Who pays for this?”
“The benefactors.”
“I … don’t understand.”
Phil taps his pen, looking impatient. “It’s very simple. Exchange the current investors for benefactors. Find people with money who want to make a difference and don’t care about tax deductions.”
“Don’t … care about … tax deductions?” The liaison stares.
“Yes. Didn’t your spy tell you this? His contact didn’t pay for her stay in Haven’s Rock.”
“We thought she was a special case. We certainly would allow the occasional nonpaying resident, with fees to be covered by white-collar residents—”
“No fees. For anyone. Salaries for staff. These things are nonnegotiable.”
“That’s not … that’s not…”
Phil leans back. “Not how you do business? Yes, I know. But that is how Haven’s Rock runs. It is how it will continue to run and how anyone who works there will expect other towns to run, should you headhunt them away.”
“We will … We will discuss this,” the liaison says, in a weak voice that says they will discuss nothing.
“You do that,” Phil says. “I am still available, temporarily, for the right price. I believe six figures per month would suffice. But you must agree to exactly the sort of sanctuary we already have. Free of charge. Paid staff. Benefactors instead of investors.” He pauses dramatically. “No charitable tax deductions.”
“That is between you and Phil,” émilie says, as if there’s a hope in hell they’d go for it. “For our part, you will have that mining camp dismantled in a month. You will never contact anyone from Haven’s Rock or spy on it. You will, in short, leave them alone.”
The microphone is muted again. When the liaison returns, he seems to have found some of his spine, sitting straight. “We would like to negotiate for the continued existence of the camp.”
“No.”
“You forget that we know all about Haven’s Rock, which is an illegal settlement. You are squatting in the Yukon territory—”
“And you know as well as anyone that there are contingency plans for that. However, I don’t think we need them.
” She waves the folder again. “Mutually assured destruction. Somehow, I think the authorities—Canadian and American—would be much more concerned about an illegal prison camp that takes payments to execute prisoners.”
Muted again. Ten minutes pass.
“Sixty days,” the liaison says.
“Forty-five.”
He glances at the others, and then nods abruptly. “Forty-five.”
“Then we have a deal,” émilie says. “Forty-five days to clear the camp, and you will never interfere with Haven’s Rock again.”
“Agreed,” he says.
Dalton leans over, appearing on camera. “Now fuck the hell off.”
It’s been forty-two days since that meeting, and the mining camp is gone.
Dalton and I are walking where it had been, nothing but an empty clearing remaining.
It’s early November, and we’re tramping through snow, Rory bundled up in the sled, Storm pulling it.
I remember last March, when they’d pulled me in a sled, how I’d dreamed of this winter, my pregnancy ending successfully, Storm pulling our baby in a sled.
I got that, and how I have something more. I have peace of mind. The wolves circling just outside our town are gone, and I don’t need to keep lying to myself and saying it’s fine, they won’t attack.
Lilith is staying in Haven’s Rock for the winter.
Come spring, she’ll be gone. As much as I’ll miss her, I must quietly admit that I will be happier when these woods are home to no one outside our little town.
While Lilith was never a threat, we felt terrible about invading her privacy, and we constantly worried about our residents realizing there was a stranger living out there.
So is this it? The moment when we can say Haven’s Rock is a success and relax?
I wish it were. We can’t relax yet. Maybe that really is our trauma speaking, but I think it’s just common sense.
So much has gone wrong in our first two years.
Murders. Kidnappings. Betrayals. The looming threat of our former overlords, who’ve now stepped from the shadows, confirming that we weren’t paranoid—they really were out to get us … and might still be.
Dalton picks up Rory from the sled as I unhook Storm.
She’s doing fine. A full recovery, which is a relief, given her age.
Rory’s fine, too. Oh, and last week, April “confessed” that she’s seeing Kenny.
She made it clear that we shouldn’t read too much into this.
They’re exploring a romantic relationship, nothing more.
Whatever she says. I’m just happy that we no longer need to pretend we don’t see it.
Dalton circles the site of the encampment, looking for anything left behind. Storm and I wander, doing the same. We meet up near the creek, still running under a layer of ice.
“Eighty percent?” I say.
He glances over, squinting against the winter sun.
“We’re eighty percent of the way to declaring Haven’s Rock a success?” I say.
The corner of his mouth quirks. “I was thinking seventy-five.”
“Wow. I’m the optimist? That’s a first.”
He walks over, cradling Rory under one arm, and hugs me with the other. “Sure, let’s go with eighty.”
Rory squirms, and he lowers her into the snow, where she promptly falls forward, gets a face full of snow, and squeals, not in distress but delight, her arms and legs working until she’s on all fours and crawling over the thin layer of white stuff.
“Good thing she doesn’t mind the cold,” Dalton says.
I laugh. “Wait until she’s a teenager, sitting in the chalet, grumbling all winter.”
He looks out over the clearing, to the snow-covered trees and mountains behind, and when he smiles, I know he’s thinking of it, dreaming of it the way I dreamed of that sled ride, a future where this truly is our forever home and he’ll get to live that scene, our teen daughter grumbling, but only halfheartedly, because this will be her home, as it was his.
We’re getting close. We’ve fixed so much and I think it’s time I dare put out a hope to the universe. A hope that all the worst struggles are behind us … and I can hang up my homicide-detective cap for good.