by John Farrow
He hung up.
Cinq-Mars returned to his crossword, though he knew she was watching.
“I have a very heavy pot in my hands,” Sandra mentioned. “Do I really need to bong you over the head with it?”
“That was Bill. Mathers.”
“I know who it was. What does he want?”
Cinq-Mars folded up the paper neatly and put it down at his hip. No easy way out of this. “He’s coming over at three. He wants to consult with me, but he’s vague about the details. Needs to talk to me in person, apparently. So I said fine. It’s not likely that I’ll be going in to the office or anything like that.”
Sandra continued to dry the heavy pot in her hands. “Okay. Consult. I’ll put something out for you.” She turned back to the kitchen.
“Ah.” Cinq-Mars started to say something, then stopped.
Sandra also stopped, and faced him again. “What now?”
“He’s not coming alone. Another man will be with him.”
“Who?” she asked.
“No one I know.”
“Who?” she asked again.
Cinq-Mars pursed his lips. “Sandra, it’s only a consultation.”
“Who, Émile?” she insisted.
He sighed. “Some FBI agent, apparently. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Sandra seemed to receive the news as if she expected it. “Lovely,” she said.
“Sandra—”
“Émile.”
“It’s a consultation!”
“It’s fine. I’ll put something out for the three of you. Unless the FBI is bringing in the marines?”
She returned to the kitchen, and Cinq-Mars, eventually, to the crossword. He didn’t know how people got through these things. He was smart, he was well-read, adept at the language even though he was working in English and not his mother tongue. How did people get their heads around these infernal things? He was stumped by the next word and put his pencil down. What’s a five-letter word for nincompoop, he wanted to ask, but he was really thinking that whatever it was that Bill wanted, he was going to have to turn him down flat.
Anyway, Sandra would probably suggest an answer: Émile.
THREE
The former Montreal city detective weighed more than his wife’s concerns about his imminent and violent death before choosing to retire. He sharpened a pencil and composed a pair of lists. A “Why Not Stay On Forever?” list and a “Get Out of Dodge While You Can!” list. On the latter he wrote:
1. Most of the time, Sandra wants me more alive than dead.
Émile Cinq-Mars put a star beside his first selection, which remained his singular choice for quite a few days before he got into the swing of things and added further items. In time, he erased the star. He also decided that a numerical system was not indicative of the order of importance, only the order in which his thoughts occurred to him, for although his first choice was probably the most important reason to quit, he failed to differentiate among the other entries as to which ones were more, or less, vital than the next.
2. The long commute.
He considered adding subcategories, such as the long commute in winter, but realized that hot summer days, the traffic made worse by highway, overpass, and bridge construction, were more tedious and no less dangerous, and the drives in winter were sometimes so magical he wanted those trips to never end.
3. The new idiots at the top.
Dwelling on that one, he thought it might become his most emphatic and irrefutable motivation to retire, except that it soon got into a toss-up with another competing issue regarding police personnel.
4. The new idiots at the bottom.
New recruits were not necessarily dumber than they used to be, and in fact they seemed generally brighter, but they also carried a greater sense of entitlement and were far less malleable. They were less willing to be taught a damn thing, and he no longer possessed the patience to come up against that hurdle when dealing with them.
5. I no longer have the patience.
6. I can spend more time with the horses.
7. I can spend more time with Sandra.
This is when he decided that the numerical order was merely random and he erased the star from Item 1 and made a mental note to himself not to show the list to his wife in its current state.
8. Quit now and avoid a possible promotion.
9. Quit now and avoid a possible demotion.
10. If my brain or my eyesight don’t fail me first, my back might.
A compelling argument. His brain and his eyesight were fine, and even his long-standing arthritis wasn’t so bad, but his back was becoming a chronic, growing and cantankerous issue. During any flare-up on the job he was incapacitated, and he hated that. Which is why, when Sergeant-Detective William “Bill” Mathers arrived on his doorstep in the company of an unknown FBI agent from south of the border, Cinq-Mars was down on his living room carpet faithfully performing gyrations taught to him by an osteopath. Sandra answered the bell while he remained stationary, one leg straight out behind him, the arm on his opposite side straight out before him, his weight on the other hand and on one knee, eyes front like a pointer with a duck dead in its sights. Sphincter and tummy muscles tucked and taut, he sustained the position for a requisite ten-count, then relaxed and remembered to breathe.
He was still down on the floor when his guests came into the room. In preparing his “Why Not Stay On Forever?” list, he had come up with only one good reason, which he had also numbered.
1. Seriously, what will I do with myself if I quit?
Do weird exercises on the living room carpet between crosswords, apparently.
Mathers, of course, seized the opportunity to rub that in. “So this is what retirement is like. You finally hit the gym. I always said you should.”
“No, I always said you should. Good afternoon,” Cinq-Mars greeted the man he didn’t know as he tightened his stomach muscles again to assist his progress to an upright position. “Émile Cinq-Mars, as you may have guessed. I’m not at my best. You’ve met Sandra?”
“Indeed, we were introduced.” The new arrival turned his shoulders to more formally include her. “What a charming home, Mrs. Cinq-Mars.”
The older man with the younger wife wondered if the visiting American with the firm handshake was not flirting. You could never tell with them. Yanks had a way of being effusive that in many cultures came across as flirtatious, but really demonstrated nothing more than an excessive insecurity. Formulaic, somehow. He enjoyed the way that Sandra, an American herself and comfortable with the style, received the compliment, acknowledged it with a smile, yet declined to rise to the bait. She’d been living in Canada too long, perhaps. “Thank you very much, Mr. Dreher. We’re comfortable here.” A glance at her husband acknowledged the irony, for lately she was not comfortable at all.
Cinq-Mars shook Mathers’s hand as well and they exchanged a grin.
Having seen to their coats, Sandra advised the men that she’d leave them to chat momentarily, but first she’d be back in a jiff with something to munch on, and did they prefer coffee or tea?
“Oh, please, don’t let us be any trouble,” Bill implored her in the Canadian style, which demanded that any proffered act of hospitality must at first be politely declined.
“You’ve come a distance. You may need the nourishment to get home.”
A routine joke for this household, and the visitors chuckled lightly. They were not going to protest any further, as it had been well over an hour’s drive out and they could both use a nosh. Each man, including their host, chose coffee.
A ring of shrimp with a red dipping sauce went first, but once the guests sampled Sandra’s coconut squares they became a big hit. The cookies were also a favorite, and even the celery and carrot sticks with a dip were consumed. Coffee arrived served in mugs and a thermos was set before them for refills, so that they were left in a position to talk at length without further interruption. Cinq-Mars wondered what his wife kne
w that he didn’t, but she’d probably answer: you.
Not that he was chatty. Hardly. But in being introduced to a professional whom he’d not met his tendency was to be oblique and circuitous, to circle the man’s position and intelligence as he assessed his words under a microscope. All that usually took time.
Mathers was the one to get down to it. “So we’re here, as I said, about the police shootings.”
Cinq-Mars grunted.
“You’ve followed the investigation on the news?” Agent Rand Dreher inquired. He explained at the outset that he preferred to be called Rand, not Randolph, which seemed an utterly preposterous name, he espoused, and, of course, not Randy, which as he tried to joke sounded too—he hesitated for comic effect—randy.
Cinq-Mars grunted a second time.
“So you haven’t been following it?” Mathers asked. “Are you that retired?”
He put his cup down and made a decision to be more accommodating, or at least less distant. “The papers—the media—haven’t reported on much, Bill, except to say that they have nothing new to report on. So I suppose I know the details of the crime—may I point out that not only policemen were killed—but I really don’t know much else.” He studied Dreher. Tall and broad, he was about 220 pounds and carried it well. He had probably played football in college, or some other team sport, and the fitness regime that would have been necessary at that time still held him in good stead. In the FBI style, he was well dressed and superbly coiffed, and struck a conservative style. The only discernible flaw which would not favor him as a GQ specimen was a bushiness—trimmed, but nonetheless a wildness—to his eyebrows. He was in his early forties, but when today’s jet-black hair turned gray, those eyebrows would become a distinctive feature. For the time being, they were probably an embarrassment that required weekly attention to tame. “So, have I been following the crime in the media? There’s been precious little to follow. That’s not to say that I have no interest in being informed, to hear what transpired.”
Dreher overcame his shyness about doing so to pinch the last square.
“Good. Of course.” He brushed a few crumbs from his fingertips onto a plate.
What the man considered either good or obvious Cinq-Mars could not tell. “Where are you from?” he asked him.
The agent sounded unsure. “The U.S.” He appeared dismayed that his host might not know the country where the Federal Bureau of Investigation was located.
“Where,” Cinq-Mars coaxed him along, “in the U.S.? I’m curious.”
“Oh. Sure. The Midwest.”
He was not going to be more forthcoming than that. Cinq-Mars considered pressing him on where in the Midwest but suspected that that game could go on an indefinite time and he wasn’t that curious. Clearly, the agent was a close-to-the-vest kind of guy, so at least he learned something.
“The papers aren’t reporting much,” Mathers enlightened him, “because there’s nothing to report. Which is pretty much all that we know. Nothing.”
“We?” Cinq-Mars asked. He smiled, and for old time’s sake enjoyed his partner’s mild consternation. Bill was reaching his mature years, in his late-forties now. Cinq-Mars was pleased to see that apart from the inevitable plumpness, he appeared to be growing into himself, rather than out of whom he used to be. He looked fine, more handsome than ever. Lines in his face that might not have been in evidence a decade ago spoke to his experience and a well-earned self-confidence. Roundly baby-faced, though, after a fashion. He’d carry that look into his nineties.
“What do you mean?” Mathers asked.
As was his wont, Cinq-Mars chose to answer a question with more questions.
“Gentlemen, what is it that you know that I am having difficulty figuring out? If you have some personal or professional interest in this case, or special information, why aren’t you talking to the Sûreté du Québec? The SQ are the ones who lost two officers. They’re the ones investigating this case. Not—if I may be presumptuous here—you. I might be out of touch, Bill, but I’m pretty sure the Montreal Urban Community Police Department does not get to investigate murders that take place off-island. Not only are you off the reservation, you might as well be light-years away from your jurisdiction. Or has that changed? What’s more, and I’ll point this out to you because you used to freely point it out to me, you’re not in Homicide. And the FBI? Seriously? You’re not even in the same galaxy here. Why the hell would the FBI be even remotely interested in local murders, let alone send an agent all the way from—we don’t know from where exactly, do we?—to check them out?”
“I was told that you were a tough nut,” Dreher said, testing his American charm again.
“Not true. I’m retired. An old softy now. My wife will confirm it. But the fact of the matter is, Agent Dreher—”
“Call me Rand.”
“Thank you. Rand. I don’t know what you’re doing here. By here, I mean, why are you investigating this case, or even talking about it, in a country where you are the foreigner, number one, and two, why are you talking specifically to me?”
“Fair enough. I was planning to keep that sort of thing to myself for now, until we determined your level of interest, but I’ll answer you. The SQ has given us permission—”
“Us, meaning the FBI, or you and Bill?”
“Ah, the FBI, actually.”
Cinq-Mars poured himself more coffee and offered to do the same for the other men. They declined with simple gestures.
“The SQ has given … me…” Dreher emphasized, growing accustomed to the older detective’s legendary persnickety attention to the exact meanings of words, both the intentions of words, and their ability to obfuscate the truth, “license to have a look at the crime scene, to determine if these killings are connected in any way, shape, or form, to murders south of the border.”
“Ah,” Cinq-Mars acknowledged. Folding his arms over his chest appeared to indicate that he was growing more at ease with their discussion, as the parameters were beginning to make sense.
“I was hoping, Detective Cinq-Mars—”
“Please. Call me Émile. The detective thing doesn’t fly anymore.”
Dreher dipped his head to receive the invitation. “Émile. I was hoping that you might accompany us to the crime scene. Your expertise is legendary. This is your neck of the woods. Perhaps you might be of assistance.”
He wanted to stand. His back problems flared up after he sat for too long. Yet this was not the moment to interrupt their exchange, and so he remained in his chair. He recognized one incongruity right off the top. All that stuff about him being a legendary detective would not hold an ounce of spirits in a shot glass inside the FBI. A smoke-screen, but one that made him more curious.
“The crime scene’s gone stale,” Cinq-Mars reminded his visitors. “It’s what, ten days old? Two cops dead, I’m sure the SQ picked over it with a fine-tooth comb. I doubt very much that I can help. What can you tell me about the other murders, the ones in your own country?”
Agent Dreher seemed to genuinely regret being unable to say more and indicated that his hands were tied. “Examine the scene with us. If you show an interest in helping us out, more can be explained. If you choose not to be involved, I’ll have nothing further to add. I’m afraid that I can’t offer much more at this time.”
Involved. He was retired. Why would he be involved? Why would anyone ask?
“So far,” he mused, “I have some idea of why you’re here. But Bill, my friend, my old partner, how did you get dragged into this? Why are you here?”
Mathers seemed sheepish. He separated his hands, then knitted them together again, a gesture of pleading. His expression indicated embarrassment.
“What?” Cinq-Mars pressed him.
“I’m here,” Bill Mathers admitted, “because I know you. I’m the one who’s supposed to convince you to do this.”
A silent few seconds passed between them, their eyes locked on one another’s, before Cinq-Mars broke off that connecti
on and commenced a guttural chuckling that worked its way up through his lips and cheeks. Mathers quietly joined in. They were obviously finding the circumstance, and Mathers’s explanation, hilarious.
“What’s so funny?” Dreher asked.
Cinq-Mars altered his seated posture and apologized. “Sorry. Inside joke. Look, if my wife is willing to let me out of the house—she’ll probably jump at the prospect—I’ll visit the crime scene with you. But if I help you out at all, which I sincerely doubt will happen, you have to agree to help me out in exchange.”
“How?” Agent Dreher asked.
“By being more bloody forthcoming. I know it’s part of your FBI pedigree, but if you can draw me, however briefly, out of retirement, then you should be able to shed the bullshit for a minute or two. No song. No dance. Agreed?”
Dreher glanced over at Mathers, but failed to find help there. He bobbed his head when he faced Cinq-Mars again.
“Let’s go ask your wife if she’ll let you out of the house,” he suggested.
“That’s okay,” the former city cop told him. “I can do that on my own.”
FOUR
Sergeant-Detective Bill Mathers had arrived on a day off. Otherwise, Cinq-Mars deduced, he’d be driving a department issue, given that he was the host officer with local knowledge. From the Quebec license plate to the wee sticker on a side window—even to the model of car, a Chevy Malibu—the obvious signs suggested that the black vehicle in which the men arrived was a rental. The agent, then, didn’t drive north in his own vehicle from, say, Albany, in upstate New York, or Poughkeepsie, a modest distance further south, but had flown into Montreal, picking up the car at the airport. Strange that he was here at all—that either man had been sanctioned by their respective forces to operate outside their jurisdictions. Émile was inclined to suspect the FBI guy of being a lone wolf, a renegade who was not on official assignment. At the very least, he was going to hold that thought in abeyance.