by John Farrow
Dreher thought through his objection. “Not answer to me, Émile, but keep me apprised, yes. This is important. We may, you see, have a break in the case here, after this episode.”
“How so?”
Responding to Cinq-Mars’s foot drawing, Dreher moved dirt around with the outside edge of a boot. Then stopped. “Every previous event, Émile, followed a natural disaster. A hurricane—Katrina, in New Orleans—a tornado in Alabama, a North Dakota flood. In California, a small earthquake, albeit with only mild property damage. In this instance, that’s what’s different. No disaster.”
“So in the aftermath of a natural disaster, your killer strikes. How’s that for a modus operandi, Bill?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Mathers agreed. “Last week, my eldest boy came home from school with a new phrase. Pure weird. This is pure weird, Émile.”
“It’s all of that. Out here, Rand, we had a snowstorm. A big one.”
“Okay, but hardly a disaster. You always have snowstorms in winter. You guys can handle big snowstorms.”
“So,” Cinq-Mars postulated, “you believe an individual travels to disaster zones to perpetuate his crimes—maybe because in those situations law enforcement is already up to its earlobes—”
“That’s right.”
“But this time—”
“He became impatient. We think it’s a possibility.”
“What is?” Mathers asked, struggling to keep up. “How is he impatient?”
Dreher locked his gaze on Cinq-Mars and declined to answer. The retired detective met his challenge. “Am I being tested again?” Rather than answer, Dreher kept silent, and Cinq-Mars shot a glance over at Mathers. “Agent Dreher thinks his killer, the man responsible for murders all over the United States of America, might be from here. A Québécois.”
“Exactly.”
“So I passed another test. Whoopee.”
“Why does he—? Why do you—why think that?” Mathers asked.
“Because the killer got impatient waiting for a natural disaster.”
“He was waiting to kill. But natural disasters aren’t reliable. He settled for a local storm. Which means he had to be nearby. Was he nearby because he lived here, or was he visiting and waiting for snow? We don’t know. Will you take the case, Émile?”
He smiled. “Well, sir,” he considered, “that depends.”
“I’m sure we can come to an accommodation with respect to compensation.”
“Good. Because I’m sure that I don’t come cheap. But to be honest with you, I wasn’t thinking of that. It’s not the stickiest issue I have, although it might help with one of them.”
“What’s your stickiest issue?”
Resuming his inspection of the rafters again, Cinq-Mars took a moment to reply. “Partly it depends on what you’re not telling me.”
Recognizing that his former mentor was moving into battle mode, Bill Mathers crossed his legs and leaned back against a higher tier of straw, making himself comfortable.
“Come on, Émile, why do you think I’m not telling you something?”
He took his time, but lowered his gaze from the ceiling and looked directly at Dreher. “Because I’ve worked with the FBI in the past. Several times.”
“I can’t speak for those officers—”
“It’s in your training. Becomes part of your DNA. It has to do with how you think of yourselves. You have a style. You can’t seem to get out from under it.”
“Aside from the details of the other murders, Émile, which I’ll provide, what I know about this case is now what you know.”
He smiled. He nearly laughed. “Okay. Look, I’m tempted to take the case if for no other reason than to see if that statement holds up. Tell you what, if it doesn’t, if I work things through and show you later what you are deliberately holding back from me now—and why—then my accommodation, as you so elegantly phrased it, doubles. Not only do I want that in writing, I want my potential bonus for your malfeasance placed in an escrow account. And yes, I’m serious. I know that I can never get the FBI to admit to deliberately misleading a colleague, so I’ll ask for the next best thing. I’ll make the FBI pay for doing so.”
To Mathers, it seemed clear that Dreher wanted to inquire if Cinq-Mars was serious, if not out on farmland howling at the moon, but he curtailed his own gut reactions. “On a matter of that nature,” he stated, “I’ll need to speak to my superiors.”
“Do so.” In raising his chin, he looked down his magisterial beak at him, his eyes as penetrating as an eagle’s. “Now it’s my turn to test you, Rand. Let’s see if you can’t get that done within two days. I have to think about it some more, pass it by my wife. She might be the stickiest issue of all. I can’t predict how that might shake down. I am, after all, supposedly, retired. I’ll also need to have a private word with Bill here, before you go. If I’m to be of any use to you, I’ll need some help myself. That’s where Bill comes in. After all, he’s an officer of the law. Not much of a brain but he packs a weapon.”
“Which I might indiscriminately use on an old retired kook like you,” Mathers chimed in, straightening up on his bale now.
“Did you say kook or coot?”
Mathers thought about it. “Either applies. Take your pick.”
Cinq-Mars enjoyed the joust, a refresher from the old days.
He continued, “While you’re in with your superiors, Rand, bargaining for my substantial pay increase, why not advise them that they can save considerable expense, and time, and everyone a great deal of trouble, if you just tell me now what you don’t want me to know ever. I’ll give you that out, that chance to reform.”
Agent Rand Dreher pulled his car keys from his pocket, his way of wrapping up their conversation. “I hope to disabuse you of your suspicions, Émile. Though I suppose it’s an occupational hazard. I’ve kept nothing from you. What makes you think that I have secrets?”
Touching the man’s shoulder briefly, Cinq-Mars smiled again, not without some obvious pleasure. He winked at Mathers. “Agent Dreher, you’re FBI. Of course you have secrets.”
SIX
Believing he’d made substantial progress in recruiting Émile Cinq-Mars, Rand Dreher was not put out to leave him alone in the barn with Sergeant-Detective Mathers while he returned outside to warm up the car. Cinq-Mars promised not to be long, although Dreher called over his shoulder to take his time.
With the barn door shut again, the former cop paced. Mathers stood still and observed him. He’d seen this contemplative visage before. The cold and the barn’s dampness brought a spot of fluid to the tip of his mentor’s nose, which he knocked away with a gloved hand, and went on thinking. Mathers waited beyond his point of impatience, but when the silence was just too much for him, he finally asked, “What’s bugging you?”
He recognized that much. The wily retired detective was not flummoxed by some notion he did not understand, but he was visibly upset.
“He doesn’t want the SQ involved for a reason.”
“Would you?”
Cinq-Mars rocked his head gently, quizzically, from side to side. “Touché, Bill. But I know them. I have cause not to want to work with them. But why doesn’t he want them around? He’s an outsider. What does he know?”
“So, are you saying you’re not buying his argument for an independent investigator? Made perfect sense to me.” With his hands in his coat pockets, Mathers caused the bottom portion of the coat to flap a moment. Either that motion, or what he said, stopped his colleague’s pacing.
“The man lies with confidence, doesn’t he?” Cinq-Mars noted. “Man, what a crock of pig manure. That’s one thing about a truckload of pig shit, Bill. You’d know this if you lived out here. Sure it has a purpose, but my God it stinks.”
Mathers let his friend’s anger settle a moment. “Why then?” he asked. “What’s the real reason he doesn’t want the SQ to help investigate the earlier murders?”
“My hunch, you mean? I have no proof.”
“I miss your hunches, Émile. When you left the force we were finally rid of them. I thought life would be enjoyable again. But I was wrong. I’ve missed them.”
“Channels,” Cinq-Mars said, ignoring the younger man’s whimsy. “The FBI—or specifically our Agent Dreher—may not want to sift through SQ channels. I understand that, but still, whether it’s convenient or necessary, if they must go through channels they will do so. But the problem for them is this: it becomes tit-for-tat. That’s how the system works. The SQ will expect to work back through FBI channels, be in touch with other key officers, higher authorities.”
Mathers let his eyes wander as he mulled this over. He tried to fathom what Cinq-Mars found so fascinating about the upper rafters. They looked like old beams to him. “Are you suggesting—you are, aren’t you?—you’re suggesting that Dreher is out here taking a flyer on his own? He doesn’t want the SQ involved because he doesn’t want the FBI involved. No tit-for-tat. Is that it? You think he’s gone rogue, or he’s doing all this on his own dime?”
“That’s the new phrase now, isn’t it?” Mathers might miss his partner’s propensity for hunches, but he could still do without the sarcasm. “Gone rogue,” Cinq-Mars repeated. “More infuriating cop lingo to make cops feel like cops. Isn’t it?”
Mathers flapped his coat again. “I don’t know,” he demurred. “Just a phrase.” He waited a moment, then tried again. “So has he? Gone rogue?”
The older man’s interests drifted up into the rafters again, but there was nothing up there, Mathers was convinced, not a blessed thing.
“Possibly,” Cinq-Mars finally indicated. “More likely, he has reasons to not want someone in the Bureau—superiors, peers, underlings, who knows?—to find out what he’s up to. I know what that’s like. Been there myself. You keep your nose clean, Bill, procedure-wise. I never did, as you know, and our agent out there might not either. We represent his way to investigate this case yet keep it under the radar inside the FBI. They probably don’t even know he’s in Canada. He’s not packing a piece, did you notice?”
Rather than admit that he hadn’t, Mathers said, “Packing a piece. Cop lingo.”
“Bill, you should’ve noticed. I figure it’s because he didn’t want to announce himself as FBI leaving the U.S., or entering Canada, or re-entering the States. He’s at least semi-incognito, is my bet.”
Mathers caught on to something then. “So that’s why you asked for the payment bonus. To test your theory. To see if he can pull that off.”
“He’s been testing me, Bill. I can do the same back, no? Why not?”
Mathers agreed that he could do that. “Émile, you told him that you wanted me to help you. I don’t know if you were serious—”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Unlike you, I’m not retired. Unlike you, I answer to bosses, and unlike the way you used to be, I can’t just go off on my own within the department.”
“True,” Cinq-Mars conceded, “and I should have asked first. Pardon my manners. But, like me, you’re curious about the case and upset about dead cops. Besides, I’ll need your help, precisely because you’re not retired. First, get the SQ to bring out their dog squad. Their K-9. Most likely they’ll turn up the dead animals but no evidence, but the SQ will feel involved that way, in the loop, and that might keep them onside and allow us to muddle in what is essentially their business. At the very least, the pets will get a decent grave. See, I can only ask for K-9 by going through my connections, and that’ll piss people off inside the SQ. But you can ask, and that’ll make folks happy inside the SQ. See the difference?”
“Okay.”
“Next,” Cinq-Mars pressed on, “after I get the information from Dreher on the previous murders, do your own inquiry into them. Use appropriate protocol for police networks. Ring no bells. Show me what local police and local journalists had to say about the killings. If you find out the names and numbers of the specific investigating officers, pass that along. See? I can’t get any of that without you.”
“Okay. I can do that. What are you going to do?”
“Talk to my wife, Bill. That’s the biggest hurdle here. Then, if she lets me, I’ll talk to the SQ. If I’m going to be the FBI’s man on the ground, then the SQ should know that and hear it in such a way that they don’t get their collective back up. Just because he doesn’t want relations with them doesn’t mean that I have to adhere to the policy. Besides, I can help them out. I know I can. That way, they might help me. If the Bureau wants to be in the shadows, that’s their choice. Or Dreher’s choice. The rest of us are still free to walk around in the light of day. But, Bill. Don’t tell Dreher that I’m willing to work with the SQ. Let that be our secret.”
Mathers took a moment to consider all this. “Émile, come on, what are you up to?”
That earned him a wide grin from his former partner. “Bill, did anyone ever tell you that you’re cute when you’re suspicious? I’m retired. Isn’t there a song? Old men just wanna have fun. There’s nothing more to it than that. But, Bill, Bill, here’s a head’s up. A farm without farm animals and a bare minimum of domestic pets. The people who lived here did not farm. Whatever comes back about their histories, if anything, get that back to me. I can’t do that without you. This barn, for instance. It’s clean and well looked after because it’s empty and unused. All we know about our dead farmers is that they weren’t farmers. I really hate to cast aspersions about the victims, but that’s suspicious, don’t you think?”
Mathers waited a respectful half minute, then asked, “Are we done here?”
“Yeah. He’s cooled his jets long enough. His blood level’s been raised. He’ll be pumping you for information all the way home, but since you don’t have any, you won’t say peep. Right?”
“Right.”
“So let’s go. Good to see you, Bill.”
“First,” Mathers said, failing to budge. “Tell me what you see, Émile.”
“What I see?”
“Up in the rafters.”
Cinq-Mars gazed up there again. “I might want to buy this barn,” he said.
“No, Émile. Seriously.”
“Barns can be moved, Bill. Don’t you know that?”
Mathers sighed. “All right. Keep me in the dark. See what that does for you.”
They both turned to leave in unison this time.
“Don’t worry, Bill,” Cinq-Mars told him. “I will.”
“That’s how you know he has secrets. You keep so many of your own.”
The older detective chuckled quite brightly. “That must be it,” he concurred. “You might have something there. My God, you’re finally starting to think like me!”
SEVEN
Émile and Sandra Cinq-Mars did not get into a lengthy discussion on his job offer—if he could call it that, it seemed strange to do so—upon his return home. She was busy in the barn securing water and feed for the horses, which took longer than usual as he had not been around to assist, and then it was her night to prepare the evening meal. She was well into her culinary creation as Émile slumped home. Over his iPod and through the living room speakers he played Chopin, and further fortified himself with a single malt. In a choice between two favorites, the Talisker and the Highland Park, he simply went for the easiest reach and safest bend for his back, which turned out to be the Talisker. Then he sat, sipped, closed his eyes, and opened his ears to the music.
If he was at all in the doghouse, his status was not borne out by the meal. A pasta in crème sauce, with shrimp, lobster bits, and scallop pieces, the edges of the bowl rimmed by mussels and small asparagus flowers under a drizzle of sauce. Nothing thrown together. Candlelight aided the ambiance and the white wine was pleasant, causing Cinq-Mars to regret that he had carried to the table a serious subject to broach.
Sandra beat him to it.
“So, Mr. Famous Detective, what do the dogs of war want now?”
He buttered a slice of focaccia. “It’s the cop killings and th
at poor couple.”
“Seriously? The FBI is involved with that?”
“Apparently it relates to something they’ve been looking at.”
“I see.” As a policeman’s wife, a chill went over her at the mention of cops being killed. She didn’t suppose that the feeling would ever dissipate merely because her husband had retired. “So, what, are you like a hired gun now?”
“Hired goon, maybe. Except I haven’t been issued a weapon.”
“East of Aldgate,” she said.
He used to utter the phrase, lifted from a Sherlock Holmes teleplay, but he hadn’t repeated it in some time and was surprised to hear it tossed back at him. Holmes, who did not commonly arm himself, had advised his good friend, “Always carry a firearm east of Aldgate, Watson.” He’d been heading for that part of London, a notoriously violent neighborhood, at the time.
“Two policemen dead,” he explained. “It’s difficult to sit still for that.”
“It’s difficult for you to sit still.” She was trying to make nice, but being anxious about the conversation, her husband failed to catch her tone.
“Sandra, if you don’t want me to do this, say so. I haven’t committed to anything. I told everyone that I need to discuss it with you.”
“Oh, please, Émile, don’t make it my burden. Do what you wish to do. Or need to do. You might have thought differently, but you were never a great candidate for retirement. I concede, I hoped otherwise. But you’re more interested in horse-trading than in their day-to-day—oh, don’t deny it, you know it’s true. And it’s still true even though you’re less interested in horse-trading than you used to be.”
He took his time responding and chewed a shrimp. “It’s a matter of looking into the situation to see if I can help. Nobody’s asking me to head up a squad or anything like that.”
“Do you have to sound so disappointed? I’m not fighting you. Seriously, Émile. I’m really not fighting. Look.” She showed him her hands, upraised and flat on the table. “Open palms. No fists.” Her smile was tentative, and he returned his own, as if agreeing to cool down. Sandra continued, “Tell you what. Since this is apparently a negotiation, at least you seem to be treating it that way, we’ll negotiate. Say what it is you want, and I’ll draw up my own demands.”