Policing the Fringe. Charles Scheideman

tall, which is squared at the top with an axe. A soft aluminum tag is attached with a nail, and the claim information is then scratched into the aluminum tag with another nail. A typical claim tag will have the name of the prospector, the date, and the free miner’s license number. Petre had learned the proper procedure to mark his new claim, and applied it correctly.

      At last the two surviving promoters returned to Nelson and Petre met them like long lost friends. They talked about their plans for the summer and Petre made it very clear that he wanted to be involved in their activities: he had faith in their knowledge and skills, and he was sure that some day they would be rewarded.

      About six weeks after the promoters returned to Nelson, a citizen came to the police with a concern that all was not normal at Petre’s shack. He had been walking along the creek near the shack when he became aware of an overpowering stench. Having served on the battlefields in the Second World War, he could tell us with certainty that what he smelled was a dead body in an advanced stage of decomposition. Before he came to us he had found that the odour was coming from the lean-to garage on the side of the shack. Peering through the crack between the doors, he was able to see a car. He also saw that there was a hose attached to the car’s exhaust pipe.

      We drove the few miles to Petre’s place, wondering what was in store for us there. I was new to police work and had not yet encountered a decomposing body. I grew up on a farm and had been in contact with rotting animal carcasses, but that experience did not leave me fully prepared for what we found that day. We parked the police car by the garage doors. It was a bright warm early summer day and our windows were wide open. Before the car had come to a stop we were assaulted by an odour like none I had ever experienced. I suddenly understood how the former soldier was sure that there was a rotting body there.

      We were able to see through the crack between the doors that there was an old Buick in the garage and that there was a hose from the exhaust pipe along the side of the car. The building had no windows and no other door. We called for the Identification Section to photograph the area before we moved anything. The delay while we waited for the identification man would give us time to stand well back and formulate some kind of a plan. We very soon found that there was a slight breeze flowing down the creek valley and that the place to be was on the upwind side.

      A police car on the side of a road with two uniformed police standing nearby always arouses a little curiosity from passing motorists. Most slow down to see what they can see and many stop to inquire and offer assistance. Almost everyone drove with their car windows open in those days, before air conditioning. While we waited for the second police car to arrive we watched the people in their cars. Those who approached from the downwind side would slow and move to the right and look with interest to learn what we were doing. When they caught wind of why we were there, their change of expression was startling; none stayed to inquire or offer assistance. The upwind vehicles, on the other hand, would stop, and in some cases people would get out before they got the rude message from the air. Then they all made a hasty departure.

      The photography expert arrived and recorded the outside of the scene on film. There was no reason to delay any longer. We opened the double doors to reveal the horror inside. The odour in the lean-to garage was beyond description. Fortunately the open doors allowed a change of air and it became just a little thinner. Also fortunate is that the human sense of smell partly shuts down under a severe overload. Once this shutdown had occurred, the task was more manageable.

      The car windows were closed, except for the one on the right rear where a vacuum cleaner hose had been placed through and the window turned up to hold the hose in place. The insides of all the windows were black from a carbon deposit left by the exhaust. The car must have been nearly full of fuel, because it had run for a long time after the occupant was dead. The body lay in the front as though the person had been sitting in the driver’s position and then fallen away from the door so that his head was on the passenger’s seat. The entire interior of the car was crawling with maggots, and adult flies filled the air of both the car and the garage. The body was fully clothed in what appeared to be work clothes of the kind worn by men in the construction or labour trades. The maggots were nearly finished their work. The body had been reduced to less than half of its original weight; only bones and some of the tougher skin tissue remained. Positive identification of this body would have to be done by dental records or through medical records of bone fractures.

      Three pages of handwritten information in Petre’s native language was lying on the dash between the windshield and the steering wheel. Petre had started this writing in his shack some time before he moved to the garage to end his life. The first two pages were neatly done with straight lines of words and uniform penmanship; the final page had been written in the car while he waited for the exhaust gas to do its work. Petre had taken a small square of plywood into the car to hold on the steering wheel and support his paper while he wrote. The final page was uneven in both line and penmanship; toward the end of the writing it was obvious that he was having difficulty with coordination and thought. We were fortunate that Petre was so attentive to detail; even in a near-death state he had folded the pages together and placed them where they would surely be found. Had the notes come in direct contact with the body during decomposition there would have been very little, if anything, left of them.

      Finally, the photographs had all been taken and the necessary records had been carefully made in our notebooks. All that was left to do was to remove the wriggling remains. I suggested to the others that I could hear my mother calling and that I would have to leave immediately. They did not believe me and they were very blunt about it. We wrapped the upper part of the body in disposable blankets and slowly moved it toward the passenger door of the car. As we did this the legs and feet followed; mainly because the trousers were holding them together. More blankets were added as the move progressed until the body was wrapped like an Egyptian mummy. The cold storage at the morgue would eventually stop even the most determined of the maggots.

      The remains of Petre were identified from dental records and he was buried by the public administrator. His niece in Czechoslovakia was unable to attend and she knew of no other living family members. Petre’s old car was towed away by a very reluctant auto wrecker and it was burned as soon as we were certain that it could provide no further evidence. The shack was also burned because it had been illegally constructed on Crown Land.

      The three pages of writings were translated for us. In them, Petre told of his first meeting with the three promoters, and how they had convinced him that he would receive great returns by investing his savings with them. He told of the great friendship that rapidly developed between the four of them, and how they had included him in all their prospecting activities. He told of withdrawing cash from his bank and turning it over to these men, and how they disappeared as soon as they were sure they had the last of his money. Petre said that the actions of these three men had ruined him and that his life was now “not worth a pipeful of tobacco.” Our translator told us that the reference to a pipeful of tobacco was a Czechoslovakian colloquialism.

      The writings described an intense hatred for the three promoters and talked about the one of them who cheated Petre again by dying. There was no direct confession of having harmed the two con-men; however, the translator felt that neither of them had been alive at the time of the writing.

      Our investigation moved to trying to find either of the promoters. They were well known among the regular bar patrons in town. Their return without their third partner had been noted, but no one could recall seeing either of them for over a month. Obviously no one had missed them. The government records of mine claims showed several hundred claims registered over the years by the three promoters, and three by Petre. Two of Petre’s claims had been registered about the time he first met the con-men; the third was made just before the two promoters returned that spring.

      The most recent claims by the three promoters had been registered late the previous summer and were all in the Creston area. We had our office in Creston make inquiries about the con-men. The records at an old hotel in Creston showed that Petre and one of the promoters had stayed for one night nearly seven weeks earlier. They were driving Petre’s old Buick, and he had paid for the room. The hotel staff felt quite sure that there had been only two of them, but they were not positive.

      There were a total of fourteen claims