“You know who butchered Jasper?”
“Yep.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
“Sure, as long as you pick up some cookies for me.”
I glanced around the now empty hot saw section of the loggersports pit. There was no concession or craft service table, just stacks of logs, split timber, and a whole lot of wood chips and shavings covering the dirt ground. Even the bleachers were bare due to the abundance of NO FOOD OR BEVERAGE notices displayed around the area beside the NO SMOKING posters.
I glanced at Declan, who was still hard at work lifting the chainsaws onto the smooth surface of the long, wooden table while flagrantly disobeying the abundance of signage forbidding the lit cigarette dangling between his lips. I turned my attention back to Randy Pippen, who used the round neckline of his crew-neck T-shirt to dab the perspiration that lingered on his forehead from loading the power tools before Declan kindly took over the task.
“Uh, all right, I guess. What are we talking about here though? Oatmeal Raisin? Macadamia Nut? Because there’s a food truck with desserts just outside of the entrance that sells some,” I said, jabbing a thumb over my shoulder.
Pippen chuckled. “Not those kinds of cookies, Sherlock.”
“Are you sure? It would just take me a minute, plus it’s right by a sno-cone cart,” I blurted out, doing my best not to lick my lips. Although it was no DQ milkshake, given all the hustling I had been doing in the heat, an ice-cold banana-flavoured treat would have hit the spot.
Pippen pointed at the collection of circular wooden discs that had collected around the base of the chainsaw cutting area. “I’m talking about these kinds of cookies. Help me clear them out of the way for the semifinals and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Roger that,” I said. Without another word I began stacking the wooden cookies on top of one another, until I had at least a dozen in a pile as if I were cleaning up a stack of barbell plates at the gym.
“Jesus Christ, you’re a strong son of a bitch,” said Pippen. “You ever thought about getting into competitive woodcutting? I bet you could split a poplar right in half in the Standing Block Chop.”
“The only splitting I’m interested in was the kind that was done to the back of my friend’s skull,” I replied, hefting the stack of wooden cookies up and off of the ground.
Pippen mumbled an apology then led me behind the sign-in station and around the corner toward a refuse pile consisting of more cookies, random chunks of wood, a couple broken metal mounts for logs, and a few giant tires.
“Dump ’em anywhere around here,” he said.
I leaned forward and gave the cookies an underhanded heave as they fell forward and splashed across the logging debris like giant coins being tossed into a waterless fountain. I was wiping the sawdust off of my hands on my cargo shorts when I saw them.
Coiled and uncoiled silver wires, spread out across the pile of debris. I pointed at the shiny filaments. “Those are jagger wires.”
“So?”
“Before Jasper took an axe to the back of the head, he was choked out by one. Cut his neck deep.”
“I know.”
“Who has access to this pile?”
“Everyone. But it’s not like this is the only place you’ll find wire.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is a loggersports pit, Man. There’s wire every which way you turn.”
I tried not to frown as the momentary jolt of excitement that I had made some headway quickly faded.
“Who killed him, Pippen?” I asked, finally.
“Kelly Lewis. He’s a rodeo clown and he and Adams were—”
“I know all about Lewis,” I replied, hearing the disappointment in my own voice. “And I don’t think he did it.”
“He’s a whack job.”
“He’s bipolar. Which doesn’t automatically make him a killer. I also saw the anguish on his face firsthand not too long ago. He was absolutely devastated by Jasper’s death.”
“Sounds like guilt to me,” said Pippen. “Especially after their fight.”
That nugget caught my ear. “What fight?”
“The one he and Jasper had by the boom run pool not long before the body was found.”
“You saw this fight?”
“Just the tail end of it. Lewis was screaming to high heaven about Jasper not loving him anymore and giving up on their dream or something. Said this was their big chance to make it happen and that Jasper was throwing it all away.”
I nodded slowly, processing this news. I knew Lewis was unstable, but the timing of this spat bothered me because it was the last known sighting of Jasper alive and established both him and his emotionally volatile ex-lover at the scene of the crime. Also, what did Lewis mean by them giving up on their dream? I hadn’t a clue, but I might if I could get back to the security station and question a conscious Lewis before the RCMP took him into custody.
“You told all this to the Mounties?”
“Yes. They didn’t say one way or the other, but I sure got the feeling they figured Adams’s death was a crime of passion.”
“More like a gong show.”
“Hey man, I’m not a detective. All I know is it makes sense to me, but I’m still down one great lumberjack. I ain’t happy about any of this shit.”
“What about McGraw?”
“He was off-site from this pit when Adams was murdered.”
“Do you know where?”
“No.”
“But I thought he was your boy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Isn’t it true that you would have preferred it if McGraw landed the STIHL sponsorship over Jasper?”
“That’s only because I think he’s a better fit to represent my loggersports competitions. McGraw will schmooze and promote. He’ll get out there and boost the brand.”
“Why couldn’t Jasper do all that? Especially if he was better?”
“The guy was a maverick. He was good—damn good—but he always did things his way. Not really a team player. Plus, McGraw was a lot more competitive with Jasper when it came to the STIHL Six.”
“The STIHL Six?”
“Yeah, STIHL’s select half a dozen disciplines that makeup their prestigious Timbersports brand. Springboard, Stock Saw, Underhand Chop, Single Buck, Standing Block Chop, and Hot Saw.
I nodded slowly as if I fully understood, despite the fact that I was only familiar with a few of the events he mentioned from my recent conversations with Jasper and because the timer on my PVR recorded past the end time of episodes of RAW or SMACKDOWN and occasionally caught the opening of STIHL wood chopping competitions. Pippen seemed genuine, however, and from the time I spent with my deceased lumberjack pal, I could definitely see Jasper preferring to do the lone wolf thing.
“Then your preference for McGraw had nothing to do with him being part of a blueblood family?”
Pippen shrugged. “I mean, he comes from money, so it didn’t hurt he’d often cover a lot of his own expenses without trying to get me to reimburse him. And I guess being one of the McGraws means he has to stay on the straight and narrow.”
“How’d his family make their fortune?”
“Cedar siding. His father owns the biggest business in the Pacific Northwest, with some of the finest western red you’ll ever see. Rumour has it George Lucas bought a shitload when he wanted the best of the best for renovations at Skywalker Ranch.”
“Impressive. And probably a lot tougher to break over your head than the standard two-by-fours available at Lowe’s.”
“Why on earth would you break a two-by-four over your head?”
“I ask myself the same thing all the time,” I said, smirking to myself. “I want to talk to McGraw. Is he here?”
“Yeah, he’s warming up for one of his next events.”
“Where?”
“Hold on, now,” snapped Pippen. “You said you’d help me with the cookies.”
“I already did.”
“I got like two more piles back there for you to carry,” he said, again stretching out his lower back, but this time without any snap, crackles, or pops. “A deal’s a deal, right? I held up my end.”
“Tell my cousin I said for him to do it and point me towards McGraw.”
Pippen sighed but didn’t push back. “He’s in the alley.”
“What alley?”
“The axe-throwing one.”
“Axe-throwing? Are you kidding me? Jasper was found dead from a hatchet to the head.”
“Hey man, don’t push your theories on me. I’m just doing my job. I’m lucky the cops even let me re-open for our big Saturday night of semi-finals after this nightmare today.”
“How do I get to this axe-throwing alley?”
“Down that way fifty meters or so then turn left,” he said, pointing toward a well-worn foot path in the dirt. “You can’t miss it.”
I started off toward the area where I could find “Hot Saw” McGraw. I had taken about ten steps when I turned back around and asked Pippen one more question.
“Who was better at the axe-throwing? Jasper or McGraw?”
Pippen didn’t hesitate when responding. “‘Hot Saw.’ Aside from the event that gave him his nickname, he dominates when it comes to axe-throwing. It’s not even close.”
I turned back around and resumed my trek, and despite Pippen’s and the police’s apparent certainty that Lewis was the culprit, I was finding it very hard to believe that Harland “Hot Saw” McGraw—who just happened to be an expert blade flinger who recently started wearing a motivational washer on a chain necklace exactly like the one I found underneath Jasper Adams’s corpse—was above suspicion.