Fire Lake

by J C Paulson

  Remember this, she said. This is where you belong, where you can escape to, at any time. Any time, Adam.

  She moved his brain, then, into the line of fire. Six years ago.

  “Where are you, Adam?”

  “In the cruiser. There’s a fight at a bar downtown.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Shit, not another one. Same bar, over and over again.”

  “Are you there yet?”

  “Yes. Going in.”

  “What do you see and hear?”

  “Lots of noise. Men shouting and throwing punches. Smoke in the air. Stinks. The bartender looks freaked out. Oh, God. Look out!”

  “What’s wrong, Adam?”

  “The guy is packing. I know it. He’s reaching for something. It’s a gun. There’s never been a gun before. Just fists and knives. Why is there a gun now?”

  Then Adam shouted. “I’ve been hit! Fire in my shoulder. God! Fire in my leg. I’m down. Officer down.”

  He flinched and thrashed, then stilled.

  “Are you conscious, Adam?” Anne asked.

  “No. I don’t remember.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m awake again. I’m in the hospital. There are people staring at me, stabbing me with things. I don’t want to be here! Let me out of here!”

  She watched him carefully, as he twitched and reacted to the scenario.

  “All right, Adam. Think, now, about leaving the hospital. About going back to work. About meeting Grace. Think about being a survivor. You survived. You survived then, and you survived again.”

  She brought him back to his bed of hay in the barn’s loft. Calmed him and returned him to reality.

  “Breathe for me, Adam. Breathe normally. Where are you?”

  “I’m in your office.”

  “Yes. Good. How do you feel? May I take your pulse?”

  “Yes.”

  She reached over to take his wrist under her cool fingers and found his heart rate was almost normal.

  “How did you find the exercise, Adam?”

  “I won’t lie. It wasn’t great. But now . . . I feel a bit tired, but better.” Adam paused, took stock, searched his brain. “Much better.”

  “Would you like to do this again? I would recommend it. It will be a while before you recover entirely. You’ve been through a very serious, recent, significant event, on top of the initial one.”

  “I can’t say I’d be looking forward to it, but yes. How often do you think it will be necessary?”

  “Let’s try once a week. We can also try some other things, such as eye movement desensitization. We can talk about that next time. But, Adam, if you feel the demons are too close, call me immediately. You don’t need to go through that, certainly not alone.”

  Adam wanted to hug Anne, kiss her hand, bow before her. He leaned forward instead, searching her eyes with his, and simply said, “thank you.”

  *****

  “Should you be here?” Charlotte asked the moment she clapped eyes on Adam striding into the office. She jumped out of her chair and stood, legs planted, right in front of him.

  “Charlotte, my sister in crime, my saviour of sanity,” Adam said, smiling down at her. “That remains to be seen. Right now, I am all right. I’m back in therapy. And I’m back in action. Where are we with Adrian Cey?”

  Charlotte gave a small cry and launched herself at her sergeant.

  “Adam, I was so worried,” she said, clearly not caring if the entire squad saw her hugging her boss. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  Adam hugged her back with his right arm, for a moment, and whispered in her ear.

  “Thank you, Char. For everything.”

  They released each other, tears in both pairs of eyes, and nodded. Back to business.

  “He’s not talking, of course.”

  “Do we have a twenty-four-hour watch on him?”

  “Yes, Adam.”

  “When can I interview him?”

  “Whenever you like. He’s had lunch. And yes, before you ask, I checked him fifteen minutes ago. Alive and not poisoned.”

  Adam chuckled at that.

  “No, I suppose he’d be fine on that score, since he was the poisoner. That being said, you never know. How is his leg?”

  “Not bad. If it was, he’d still be in the hospital. He’s on antibiotics and painkillers, and a doctor is checking him twice a day.”

  “Okay. Give me an hour to get my head around the approach and check my messages. Interview one?”

  “That works. See you there.”

  Adam started to head for his office but stopped as another thought occurred to him.

  “Char, has Tom Allbright seen him in a lineup yet?”

  “Yes,” she said, with a wide grin. “Identified him as both the guy who approached him on the street, and as the fake chaplain. You’re good to go.”

  Adam exhaled. “Fantastic. See you soon.”

  He unlocked the door to his office and sat heavily in his chair. He did feel better, but he wondered how he would respond when confronted with Adrian Cey. He had trusted the man, supported his cause, even liked him. A part of Adam felt betrayed. But he knew Cey wasn’t at the top of the chain. He needed him to talk.

  What was the chink in his armour?

  The phone rang, breaking into his thoughts. The chief.

  “Adam. How are you, man?” he asked when Adam picked up the receiver.

  “I’m doing all right, Chief. News travels fast around here. I just got in fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Well, thank God it does, since you didn’t call me.”

  “I was going to, Chief.”

  “I’d like to have a chat with you, soon as possible. When would be good?”

  “I’m interviewing Father . . . ah, Adrian Cey right away, and I need to prepare. Later this afternoon? Tomorrow morning?”

  “Either works. Let me know when you’re finished with that son of a bitch.”

  “I will. Thanks, Chief.”

  “Adam,” McIvor said gruffly, clearing his throat. “I’m very glad you’re okay. Very.” And he hung up.

  Adam, rather moved by his chief’s words, returned to his musings. Did Cey have family who might be threatened? What did he care about, if anything? And who was his leader, if indeed Adam was right and there was someone above him, calling the shots?

  The phone rang again. Grace.

  “Babe,” Adam said, answering. “How are you?”

  “I couldn’t wait until tonight, Adam. How did it go with Anne? Should you be in the office?”

  “Short form, it went well. Very well. It was hard, but . . . I’m all right, love. I’ll tell you about it later. Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Grace said, choking back a small sob of relief. “I also wanted to tell you I’ve heard back from Reuters. They’ve interviewed the Dualeh family. They confirmed that the bones were Abukar’s. He was the only one who went missing that night. I think we’ve got it.”

  “Holy shit,” Adam breathed. “That’s great news. And perfect timing. I’m interviewing Cey in a few minutes. Thank you. Love you. See you at seven?”

  “Yes. Love you, Adam.”

  As Adam hung up, he reconsidered his decision to interview Cey immediately. The impersonating priest struck him as an intelligent, frightening psychopath. Would George Best be an easier target? He called Charlotte.

  “Char, where’s Best right now? Is he here, or in the hospital?”

  “They kept him at RUH, Adam. He was worse off than Cey.”

  “Let’s go see him. Call off the interview with Cey and make sure he knows we’re talking to his partner. I doubt it’ll make him sweat, but I’ll take any advantage I can get.”

  “I’m on it, Adam. See you downstairs in five.”

  “Give me ten. I have to look something up.”

  Twenty minutes later, they were at the hospital looking for Dr. Brian Ashern, hoping for an update on Best’s condition before confronting him. They found him in the ER.

>   “How’s Best, Brian?” Adam asked, after pleasantries were exchanged.

  “He’s all right. Maybe a little stoned. Claims to be in a lot of pain, and probably is. Shot in the hip bone, and yeah, that’s going to hurt. But he’ll survive.”

  “Can we talk to him?”

  Ashern considered, then reached for and flipped open a chart lying on the ER’s triage counter.

  “Okay. Fifteen minutes, though. No more.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” Adam said. “You’re the boss.”

  “Yes, I am, Sergeant. I’ll take you to his room.”

  George Best, who stood well over six feet, had a barrel chest, a rounded belly and a closely cropped ash-blond fringe encircling his balding head. Stern eyes and a grimly set mouth were normal for him, but he appeared considerably less aggressive lying in a hospital bed with several tubes snaking in and out of his body.

  Adam intended to try the oldest trick in the police book.

  “How are you today, Mr. Best?” Adam said, as politely as he could manage.

  “How does it look like I’m doing?” Best growled, slurring his words.

  Adam ignored his question.

  “This is Detective Constable Charlotte Warkentin. We are here to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”

  “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Let me talk to you for a while. Let me tell you a few things you may not know. For example, I know that the bones of Abukar Dualeh have been recovered in Somalia. Looks like your boys didn’t bury him deeply enough, Major.”

  Adam paused. Best grunted but said nothing.

  “Also fascinating about this discovery is that the boy — and he really was just a boy — was shot to death, in the back of the head. No bullet was found in the skull. That sounds very much like what you did to Elias Crow, wouldn’t you say? And also similar to Martin Best. Why, I wonder, did you decide to murder your own nephew?”

  “I didn’t kill Elias or Martin,” Best said.

  “Really. I understand from Adrian Cey that you did.”

  “Is that a fact. I wouldn’t kill my own nephew.”

  “You were complicit in his death.”

  George’s eyes clouded. “Not by choice. Cey ran that whole scenario. He already had Charles’s ID.”

  “I see. Why was the good father snooping around Ferguson Lake looking for Crow? You must have known where he was.”

  “No. I didn’t. And I didn’t kill Elias.”

  “No? You did set fire to the shed behind the Rampling cabin. You tried to kill us.”

  George Best, at his best, might have been able to control his reaction; but lying relatively helplessly in the hospital and thoroughly drugged, his eyes betrayed him. Adam saw the glint of truth. Best did set that fire.

  “It’s too bad,” Adam continued, “that you’re stuck here. Under guard, of course, but there are ways of getting past the police. Adrian proved that when he poisoned Al Simpson in the station cells. I keep asking myself how high the stakes were for him to risk it.”

  That hit home; Adam could see it in Best’s reaction. He moved restlessly, head tossing on the pillow. Clearly, he didn’t want to die here. Adam surreptitiously checked his watch; seven minutes to go. Come on, come on, he said silently. Spill it.

  “I have enough evidence, sir, that my next move will be to approach the military and the government for someone to interview on this case. Believe it.”

  “Fucking Adrian,” Best finally spat. “He’s the killer, not me.”

  “But you helped him, did you not?”

  “Like I had a choice.”

  “You set him up with a false identity, that of your own deceased son, which helped him get your nephew out of the hospital. Your paintball business is really a cover for your little gang, isn’t it? Including Adrian. What else did you do?”

  “I set him up with the fake identity when he got out of jail. They did get him for conduct unbecoming; he led the raid. He needed a fresh start, and I had little choice. The guy’s a freaking loose cannon. I never knew if he or Phi . . . he would make good on his threats to expose me.

  “I knew Elias was somewhere around Ferguson, at least in Meadow Lake Park. Incredible how tight-lipped the Allbrights and Ramplings were. We bought the cabin so I could watch for him — and I knew about the fishing shack. But no one seemed to know where his cabin was. Not even Tillie Allbright; I thought she’d know, because she was tight with Starblanket. Maybe she did know, and just wouldn’t say.

  “So Cey went up to see if he could find it. He couldn’t, at first; you saw yourself how well-hidden it was. He thought he’d ask around, in disguise as a salesman. He didn’t get much, so he moved on to Tom and got enough that he was able to find the place. Elias wasn’t there, though. He caught up to him at the shack. It almost worked. It would have, if you and fucking Grace weren’t there that weekend.”

  “Do not,” Adam said evenly, but with ice in his tone, “ever call her that again.”

  He paused, glaring at the man.

  “Did you think no one would notice the fire?”

  “Unlikely. Cey is good at fire. It would have burned fast and hot, and at three in the morning, would have been out before anyone saw it. It’s quiet up there at that time of year. It was too bad that it was necessary.”

  “I don’t see why. He could have bashed in the door and shot Elias.”

  “True.”

  And Adam saw his way in to Cey’s psyche. The man was a showoff. Fires. Disguises. Risks. Delusions of grandeur?

  “Then he removed the ammunition, so no one would know it was military ordnance,” Adam continued. “He didn’t want to use a civilian gun, because that wouldn’t have been as satisfying, would it? It had to be his regiment sidearm. And it’s easier to remove full metal jacket; it doesn’t break up like regular ammo.”

  “I guess. I don’t know. He’s a freak.”

  “Was he the unit chaplain in the forces?”

  Best gave a harsh laugh.

  “Fuck, no. He was a medic and trained in explosives. He’s not a man of the cloth,” Best said, the last words dripping with contempt. “He’s a scary son of a bitch.”

  “So I gather.” Adam thought for a moment. “A medic. That’s why he knew how to remove bullets from bodies. Quickly and efficiently. Right?”

  Best just nodded.

  “And he would have had access to the dope,” Adam continued. “Mefloquine, codeine . . . anything else?”

  “Yeah. He shot everyone up before we went and doled out the other shit while we were there.”

  “On whose orders?”

  “That,” said Best, raising his head in emphasis, “I will never tell you. Go ahead, get it out of Cey. Good luck with that. But I won’t tell you.”

  Ashern came back into the room; Adam’s time was up.

  “Thank you, Mr. Best. I trust you’ll have a quiet and safe night.” Adam emphasized the last two words before he turned, nodded to Charlotte, and left the room.

  “Have we let Cey stew long enough, do you think?” Adam asked Charlotte on the way to the car.

  “Sure. Let’s give him a go when we get back. Do you know how you’re going to approach him, Adam?”

  “I think so.”

  *****

  Adrian Cey sat back in his uncomfortable chair, legs spread widely, a supercilious grin playing at the corners of his mouth.

  The oldest trick had worked with Best; Adam had presented what he knew, along with the lie that Cey had fingered him, and the older man had coughed up to save himself. It wouldn’t help him much from a legal standpoint, but it might save his life — and Adam was sure he didn’t want to die. Best would be arrested for conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder by setting the shed afire at the Rampling cabin; he had already been charged with the attack on Adam at the paintball arena.

  Painball, more like it, Adam thought.

&nbs
p; But he still refused to name the person at the top. Adam had some ideas, but they all seemed too incredible. He needed Cey to crumble. And he did have a coup de grâce in his pocket, courtesy of James’s search of Harbour House. Would it work?

  Adam regarded Cey, wondering how he had been taken in by him. Wondering how Al Simpson had been taken in, as well; Al would likely have known the medic. Perhaps Cey’s disguise, and the context of a priest coming to visit, fooled Al. Perhaps he ate the pastry before he recognized him. Perhaps he thought Cey really was just coming to visit. Al didn’t know he was the killer.

  Quite the actor, Adrian Cey.

  “You had me fooled, Adrian,” Adam said submissively, sadness in his voice, as he sat across from the prisoner. “I believed in you. You were doing great things, things we couldn’t do. I don’t understand.”

  “Really, Adam? I thought you were smarter than that.” Cey smiled at Adam but said no more.

  Shit, Adam thought. What was going on at Harbour House? It hadn’t occurred to him that Cey was . . . what? Dispensing drugs, maybe? He thought the man was keeping an eye on Tom Allbright and Martin Best from his vantage point on the west side. He’d have to investigate that later.

  “Maybe you over-estimated me, Adrian.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  “But I do know you were the medic for your company in Somalia,” Adam said. “You never were a priest at all, were you? Handy, though, to pretend you were, to keep an eye on your post-trauma vets. Didn’t Martin recognize you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Adam.”

  “Maybe he did, but he didn’t think you were going to kill him, did he? And it didn’t matter with Elias. By the time you got to him, he was going to be dead in seconds. You’re brilliant, Adrian. You had it all figured out.”

  “Interesting theory.”

  “Not smart enough to be the kingpin, though. Or not powerful enough. You were someone’s little slave, weren’t you? Shooting up your men with mefloquine like they told you, and lots of it. Experimenting on your own soldiers. How much did they pay you to do that?”

  Cey bristled. The smile disappeared, and the corners of his mouth went down. He eyed Adam.