Page 93 of Axe-ing for Trouble
“So,” Mila drawled, “you were able to shut down areas of privately owned forest to allow drug traffickers to operate with impunity?”
Dickie scoffed. “You make it sound terrible.”
“It is terrible, you piece of shit,” Mila corrected.
“I did my job,” he argued. “I protected the wildlife. I balanced the interests of the environment and industry. It’s not easy. This state was built on logging, but we can’t decimate the trees and the ecosystems.”
“No shit. But you could have done that job without taking kickbacks. Now start giving me names.”
His gaze drifted down and to one side. “I don’t know them.”
“Bullshit.”
“Deimos,” he mumbled, still avoiding Mila’s eye. “They paid consulting fees. Sometimes official payroll, sometimes unofficial. When I got into some trouble a few years ago, they stepped in and paid off some of my, uh, debts.”
Mila’s eyes lit up. “And who did you deal with there?”
“Couple of people. Wayne managed things for years, but he was pushed out, and then I had to talk to that little shit Denis. Fuck, he’s terrible, throwing his dad’s money around and making threats.”
Mila hummed. “To be clear, you’re referring to Denis Huxley?”
He nodded.
“Did you ever meet with his father, Charles Huxley?”
“No. But he was involved. The guy ran a construction empire and was a politician. It’s not a leap to think he has his hands in lots of shady business.”
“Did Denis attack Hugo?”
Dickie grimaced. “I have no idea. I doubt it. He’s a dumbass, and I can’t imagine he’d want to get his hands dirty. That whole mess was so terrible.” Head hung, he deflated. “Hugo was a sharp kid. He loved the work and had a bright future.”
Mila inhaled sharply, like she was fighting off tears.
“I trained him on the job,” Dickie explained. “Counseled him about landowners and how to work with them. In our line of work, we can’t be totally by the book all the time. Sometimes rules have to be bent.”
“Hugo would never have bent the rules,” Mila said with satisfaction.
“And that may be why he got hurt. When I had reservations, when I tried to go back to following the rules I’d been given, I was reminded of their political and economic power. They said Charles Huxley would be sure our department’s funding was cut. That he’d take down the whole forest and build condos.”
Mila pulled a folded map out of her bag and laid it out on the coffee table in front of Dickie, then handed him a Sharpie. “Show me,” she said. “Show me how it worked.”
He circled a small section. “We started here. Then I was tasked with extending some borders.” He made a bigger circle. “When they wanted the road to Sainte-Louise, I had to put together a fake tracking study. According to it, the bats had moved farther north. Once that was done, we shifted the protection area.”
“How did you do that?”
“Easy. Bureaucracy. I’d do my quarterly inspections, file my plans, apply for permission to find nesting areas, then fudge the data.”
“Then what?”
“Occasionally I’d meet with management to confirm that all was running the way it should be. But for the most part, it was easy money. I did my part and went about my business.”
Mila worried her bottom lip in thought. “Could Hugo have discovered this and tried to stop it?”
“Not sure. But my reports were good, and I filed them properly. It would take years to figure out how I’d fucked around with the data.”
“Then why take him out before he completed his survey and report for the year?”
With a shrug, Dickie took another hit of oxygen.
