Even the Wind: A Jonas Brant Thriller

by Phillip Wilson

  ``What was that about earlier this evening when he and Eichel almost took a swing at each other?’’

  ``A woman. What else.’’

  ``Ah, I see,’’ Brant said, filing the information away for later reference and followup.

  King found a canvas tarpaulin.

  ``This’ll have to do for now,’’ Brant said as they pulled the covering taut over the body.

  ``Hell of a thing,’’ King said. ``This is the last thing I would have expected.’’

  Brant smiled as he patted the other man’s shoulder in consolation.

  The storage room was small and intimate. With the arrival of the body, the air had turned sour and thick. While Brant had done his best to push his feelings aside, he couldn’t help but notice how the mood had turned dark and foreboding. Understandably, John King’s playful demeanor from earlier that evening had been replaced by dark melancholy.

  Brant turned to King and was about to say something when the other man doubled over.

  ``Jesus, I think I’m going to be sick,’’ King said as he bolted for the door and the freshness of the outside air.

  ``I still don’t understand,’’ King said to Brant when he’d recovered and regrouped. ``This isn’t like him at all.’’

  ``You saw the revolver and the shot to the chest. There’s no other explanation.’’

  King looked contemplative.

  ``Sorry but I don’t buy it.’’

  Brant finished the last of a coffee served up by Ingrid King after they’d returned from placing Eichel in the storage room. She’d offered breakfast, which he’d politely declined. Darkness lingered and he was in no need of food. Doubtless he’d be able to keep anything down anyway.

  ``He’d taken a job at a ski resort in Quebec for the winter. He was going to help close up the lodge here then he was going to take a month in Asia before heading up to Canada.’’

  John King stared vacantly into space as he spoke.

  ``That doesn’t sound like a man contemplating taking his own life.’’ Ingrid King spoke in a whisper. Her eyes were downcast, her mouth taut. A quiet, unspoken tension seemed to bubble from her like a kettle on boil.

  ``Suicides are a funny thing. It’s rare for someone to wake up and say this is the day I’m going to kill myself. The emotions behind a suicide are random and difficult to predict…or control. Had he been under stress?’’

  Brant did his best to make the question sound neutral. He knew the answer, of course. All the same, he’d decided for the time being to play it close, to avoid any mention of the Carswell investigation. He didn’t believe for a second that Franz Eichel had died by his own hand. Which made it all but certain that one of the guests at the lodge had pulled the trigger.

  Ingrid King began to form a response. John King cut her off.

  ``He was a private man. A good worker. But he kept to himself. He spent a lot of time in his room when he wasn’t taking a class out on the lake or on an overnight.’’

  ``He sat down by the lake a lot of the time when he wasn’t guiding,’’ Ingrid King said, her voice betraying the hint of an accent that identified her as an outsider.

  Brant stood to leave.

  ``I guess quiet lives of desperation and all that,’’ he said, trying to sound convincing. ``I can write up a brief report for the state troopers. I can also send over the photos of the body.’’

  ``Can’t you investigate?’’

  ``I don’t have authority here,’’ Brant said, calculating how he could keep his own investigation intact while state troopers converged on the lodge.

  He needn’t have worried. The integrity of his investigation was assured a few hours later when John King reappeared at the cabin.

  Two hours in bed and his headache began to lift.

  The cabin’s kitchen was rudimentary but well-enough equipped that he was able to prepare a meal without issue. After eating, he took tea out onto the deck to contemplate the quiet of the morning and Eichel’s sudden death. He’d found a copy of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms at the bottom of his book box. He’d rested the book on the arm of the deck chair.

  The rain had stopped on his way back to the cabin. Breaks had begun to appear in the sky.

  What the hell had happened to Franz Eichel? He’d been preparing to confront Eichel head on, to ask about his relationship with Allison Carswell. But first, he’d needed to piece the strands of the investigation together, to weave tight what he’d learned in Boston with what he’d observed since arriving at the cabin. With Eichel’s death, the playbook had been thrown away.

  John King appeared out of nowhere. From the look of his hiking shell, he’d been walking through the forest. His hair was damp, his face flushed.

  ``I was knocking on the door for a good ten minutes. You didn’t hear?’’

  ``I must have been lost in thought. You’re looking a bit better.’’ Brant lifted the mug of cold tea to his lips.

  ``You’re going to want to hear this.’’

  Brant removed his feet from the second of the two deck chairs and motioned for King to sit down.

  ``Is that coffee?’’

  ``Tea. You came all this way to ask for something to drink?’’

  ``Hardly.’’ King smiled awkwardly.

  ``Wait here. I’ll see if I can find some coffee. Instant okay?’’

  ``Whatever you have is fine.’’

  Brant searched the kitchen. A tin of instant coffee and a jar of powdery creamer had been left by the previous tenant. Out of habit, he lifted the lid of the coffee tin and inhaled. Moisture and age had begun to degrade the granulated crystals, but they appeared safe. He boiled water using a pan he’d found in a cabinet underneath a set of camping burners.

  ``Here. Kampai.’’ Brant lifted his mug of tea in a friendly toast as he handed King the mug of coffee. King took a sip and declared it perfect.

  ``I got a call into Troop C after you left. The phone lines are down again but we had power and communications for an hour. The weather system stalled. It won’t reach us until tomorrow. Until then, we’re stuck. Too dangerous to leave in case the weather turns and we get caught in the storm.’’

  ``What’d Troop C say when you told them about Eichel?’’

  ``They want you to investigate.’’

  Brant leaned back in his chair. The owner of the cabin had opted for the cheapest of furnishings inside — the bed, the couch, the kitchen table were all made from plywood or discarded bits of wood left over from the cabin’s construction. No such economy had been used for the deck chairs. They were Adirondacks and had been oiled and polished to a shine.

  ``Look, I told you John, I have no authority here. My investigating Eichel’s death would be highly unusual. You told them about the initial findings?’’

  King shook his head in the affirmative.

  ``And they still want an investigation?’’

  ``Troop commander is a guy named Ablen. I’ve met him before. He asked me a lot of questions. I was able to email the photos and sent your writeup. That’s when he told me that he wanted an investigation.’’

  ``Even if I could, I doubt I’d find anything. No Internet. No forensics lab. No access to the outside world. It’d be old-school in the worst possible way. Surely Ablen knows that.’’

  ``He knows. So you’ll do it? You’ll investigate?’’

  ``Do I have an option?’’

  King smiled weakly, content in the thought he’d scored a minor victory by ensuring Brant’s cooperation. ``I have someone who can help. You met her last night. Everyone’s still pretty shellshocked but they’re recovering.’’

  King looked across the deck to the screen door and the cabin’s darkened living room. He drained the last of his coffee and rose to leave.

  ``We should move you to the main lodge.’’

  ``Move?’’

  He’d started to settle into the cabin. It was dark, broken and sad to look at but he’d started to warm to the place.

  ``The lodge’ll be more comfor
table. This old cabin is falling apart.’’

  King reached out with the heel of his boot to crush a spider drunkenly making its way across the deck.

  ``I was just settled. I kind of like the old place.’’

  King hesitated, unsure whether Brant was serious.

  ``You’ll have access to whoever you need to speak to. And don’t worry about meals. We’ll take care of food. There’s a room in the back of the lodge. You aren’t superstitious are you?’’

  ``No. Why?’’

  ``It’s the room next to Franz’s.’’

  ``The dead don’t concern me. It’s the living that scare me the most.’’

  ``A philosopher.’’

  ``A pragmatist. I’m a cop.’’

  ``Come on. Grab some clothes and your toiletries. You can get whatever else you need at the lodge.’’

  ``What about my books?’’

  ``Books?’’

  Brant held up the spine of the Hemingway.

  ``Bring it with you,’’ King said, momentarily confused.

  ``There’s more.’’

  ``How many more?’’

  ``A box of them. Twenty maybe.’’

  ``I’ll get someone to come over later and pick them up. Sooner you get to the lodge and get set up, the better.’’ King pulled the zipper of his hiking shell up to his chin. ``A book-reading cop, huh?’’

  ``It’s been known to happen.’’

  ``Not what I pictured all the same.’’

  ``Well, whatever your prejudice, I’ll try not to disappoint.’’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ``Meet Christine Mallek.’’

  ``It’s Chris. We’ve met and it’s Malakov actually. My parents changed it when they moved here. They were afraid we’d be harassed if we kept the Russian name. They were right.’’

  ``Christine is training to be a doctor at Boston University,’’ John King said. Brant extended a hand in greeting.

  ``I told you, it’s Chris. Christine sounds like a child’s name.’’

  ``You’re a woman in transformation.’’

  ``I’m a regular butterfly.’’

  She smirked. Brant was unsure how to react.

  ``Chris has agreed to be your assistant or whatever it is you call it.’’

  ``What is it you do when you aren’t working on being a doctor?’’

  ``You mean there’s a life outside the classroom?’’

  ``I meant here at the lodge.’’

  ``I’m the camp nurse. But I hate that term so please don’t use it around me. Sounds so condescending.’’

  ``She already has medical training.’’

  ``I wouldn’t call it that.’’

  ``What would you call it?’’

  Brant waited for her response.

  ``I have a rudimentary understanding of human anatomy and I have an eye for detail. I’m bitching with a scalpel. I can strip a cadaver to its ligaments in a couple of hours. The brain’s my specialty. Give me a hacksaw and I’ll cut through any skull, the thicker the better. Other than that, I’ll let you decide what my skill set is.’’

  ``Fair enough.’’

  ``Well, the perfect pair,’’ John King said, almost clapping his hands with glee. He seemed to be enjoying himself, or at least reveling in the role of organizer. ``This is going to be a productive partnership.’’

  ``A temporary partnership,’’ Mallek said, correcting him.

  ``We have to tell the others what’s happened. You’re going to need as much cooperation as you can get. And we also need to get you settled.’’

  ``I’d just as soon get started right away.’’

  ``Give me five minutes to get everyone together. We’ll meet in the lounge. Meantime, you can check out your room. It’s down the corridor and to the left.’’

  His room was at the end of the main hall and two doors down from Eichel’s. He unpacked, clothes first. Most of the guests shared a large bathroom on the main level. Brant’s room had its own toilet and small shower/bathtub. It was a luxury few of the others would be able to afford.

  The bunk had been stripped. Sheets were folded at the foot of the bed along with a set of towels and facecloths. White candles had been placed at either side of the wooden window ledge. The view was of the woods beyond the cabin. An earthy, pungent smell filled the small room.

  ``You must be a hell of a cop.’’

  Brant turned to find Mallek surveying him from afar.

  ``I didn’t say I was a cop.’’

  ``John told me.’’

  ``And what makes you rank my abilities so high? You haven’t seen me in action yet.’’

  ``This room. It’s for VIPs. He’s obviously trying to impress.’’

  ``Well, it’s certainly more cozy than the cabin I was staying in.’’

  ``That wouldn’t be too hard.’’

  ``Tell me, who else was staying back here?’’ Brant asked.

  ``Just Franz. John and Ingrid are the closest. They have the master bedroom on the other side of the hall. The rest of us stay in the guest wing.’’

  ``Which is where?’’

  ``Off the main dining room.’’

  ``I see.’’ It would take him some time to get oriented. He made a mental note to walk the corridors later in the day. King had mentioned he’d be introduced to the other occupants. Perhaps after that he’d make his presence known. Until then, he was keen to lay low and stay quiet.

  ``Remind me. How many are staying here?’’

  ``Well, there’s me, John, Ingrid, Mark, who you met last night of course. Then there’s the family. I don’t know much about them.’’

  ``Where are they now?’’

  ``In their rooms. They were going to go out on the lake but then the rain came in and…well, you know the rest.’’

  ``You must be upset by Franz’s death,’’ Brant said. He was curious to see her reaction. He’d seen the look on her face when he’d arrived. She was a hard nut. Difficult to crack. Tears would come seldom and not without thorough provocation.

  Mallek shrugged. ``We only worked together this summer. I didn’t know him very well.’’

  ``Tell me, what was he like? By the way, please have a seat. You’re making me nervous standing there.’’

  Reluctantly, she entered the room and took the offered seat. It was a brown leather lounge chair set in the corner. A rice paper reading lamp had been placed beside the lounger. The lamp had been turned on, providing a warm glow to the room’s interior.

  Brant sat at the end of the bed. Mallek eyed him warily.

  ``So am I being interrogated?’’

  ``Call it whatever you want. I’m sure you don’t mind.’’

  Mallek shrugged. ``Fire away.’’

  ``I’ll repeat the question. What was Franz like?’’

  Mallek sucked air in through her teeth. ``He was an asshat. Abrasive. Obnoxious. Narcissistic.’’

  ``Is that all?’’

  ``You want more?’’ Mallek looked at him, staring him down with her inquisitive eyes. When Brant failed to blink, she continued.

  ``He was your typical jock. Aggressive. Confident. Full of himself. He showed no interest in anyone but himself. He had to be the center of attention. He was a bully. And he was likely a sociopath. How those sides of his personality reconcile with each other is up to you. Otherwise, he was a stellar guy. Top of the class.’’

  ``How was he with the guests?’’ Brant asked, without missing a beat. ``With the female guests in particular?’’

  ``Do you mean did he sleep with them? Yes, I suppose he did though I can’t tell you with any degree of certainty. But anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest that was the case.’’

  ``So a model employee?’’

  ``If your model is Ted Bundy.’’

  Brant smiled at the reference despite himself.

  ``Seems a bit harsh, isn’t it?’’

  Mallek shrugged. ``We weren’t the best of friends. I guess you can tell.’’

  ``You seem to ha
ve strong feelings. Maybe there’s something you want to tell me?’’

  Like most women accused of infidelity, Mallek bristled. Embarrassed, her face turned red before she set her lips into a firm grimace.

  ``Are you asking me if we slept together?’’

  ``If we’re going to work together, we’re going to have to be honest with each other.’’

  ``Honest as in why is some cop holed up in a shack by a lake in Maine all by himself?’’

  ``Is there any other kind?’’ Brant asked, ignoring the accusation for a moment. He’d have to feel out Mallek first before confiding anything about the real purpose that had brought him to the cabin and to Eichel.

  Mallek crossed her legs and gazed at him, cold and hard. Brant stared back, unblinking and unfriendly. He really wanted to like Christine Mallek. She was smart. She was attractive. She crackled with intensity.

  ``It would seem we’re at an impasse,’’ she said.

  ``I guess we are. Only I’m asking nicely. You’re being a pain in the ass. I don’t know which is more annoying — my attempts at best behavior or your attempts to avoid the question.’’

  ``Your hunch is correct,’’ Mallek finally said. ``Franz and I slept together at the beginning of the summer. It lasted for about a week.’’

  ``There, that wasn’t so hard now, was it? What happened?’’

  Mallek shrugged as she blew a loose strand of hair from her face. ``What always happens in these kinds of situations, I suppose. He dropped me the minute the next woman came along. He was a democrat like that. An equal opportunity philanderer.’’

  ``I see.’’

  ``But I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking.’’

  ``That’s not what I’m thinking,’’ Brant said.

  ``So what are you thinking?’’ Mallek asked.

  ``If Eichel was the man you say he was, doesn’t it seem odd to you that he’d kill himself? Suicide doesn’t fit the picture. Not for someone who has everything going for him. Alpha males typically don’t take their own lives. They take out others. Not themselves.’’