Ice Lake

by John Farrow

  “That’s a long drive at night. You will be careful, Émile. Coffee?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now you won’t consider me a ‘whiskey priest/will you, if I offer you a glass of Glenfiddich?”

  “Are you a whiskey priest, Father?”

  The priest shook his finger at him as Cinq-Mars took a chair at the long and narrow antique pine table. “I should remember that I’m talking to a detective.”

  “I’m happy to join you for a small one.”

  “Fine. Fine. I’d press a large one on you, but I know you have that drive.”

  “I’d accept a large one, or two, Father, if not for that.”

  The priest busied himself with glasses. He was a man of average height and build, although now that he was sixty his body had slumped. His hair was white and quite full, and he combed it straight back. He had a liverspotted forehead, soft, intelligent brown eyes, and a small, charming pug nose. He was wearing black, but not clerical garb—slacks and a heavy wool sweater. Over the door, as in most of Quebec Catholic households, hung a crucifix. Inside the kitchen, nothing distinguished the room from farmhouse kitchens for miles around. Old, a dark, sombre patina graced the woodwork, and the floor sloped gently in different directions, quietly buckling with age. Cinq-Mars felt comfortable here, not because he was in a priest’s residence, but because he was in a home similar to those he had visited during his childhood.

  The refrigerator door had pictures of children pressed to its surface with magnets, unusual in a rectory. In his investigation of priests, Cinq-Mars had learned that Father Réjean had had a previous existence as a part-time lecturer in economics. He had also been a husband, a parent, and a failed entrepreneur. Some years after the death of his wife, he had opted for the priesthood, and had actually made his way through the seminary while still an active single parent. His children were now grown, educated, off on their own in distant big cities, while Father Réjean had been assigned to the countryside, an entirely new environment for him.

  “How’s everything, Father?”

  “Oh, you know.” He brought the tiny glasses back full. “There are days when I think that my real job is to be a glorified social director. At other times I know I’m needed. And with you?”

  Cinq-Mars put his elbows on the table and folded his hands thoughtfully. “There are days when I know I’m useful. Other days when I believe the criminals are fortunate to have such a bungling idiot as an adversary.”

  Father Réjean laughed. The two clinked glasses, and cried, “Santé!”

  Both men enjoyed a sip.

  “You can’t believe that, Emile. You’re no bungler.”

  “Some days you’re right. I’m not. Then again, I’ve long believed that one of the most important aspects of my profession is learning to deal with failure. You have to be willing to make mistakes, and to suffer the consequences. Otherwise, in a job like mine, it’s easy to become paralysed. I’ll thank you to not to let the criminals know that. I wouldn’t want to give them comfort.”

  “Ah, yes,” Father Réjean noted, “comfort to the criminals. Now that would be my profession, wouldn’t it?” He sat with a contented grin on his face, the wee glass held between the chubby fingers of both hands.

  “Somebody has to do the dirty work, Father.”

  “Someone must!” he burst out. “But is that my job or yours, that’s the question! Is it a dirtier job to comfort criminals, or to catch them?”

  “I’ll concede the high ground.”

  “You say that, Detective, but do you mean it? Or is it a ploy, culled from a policeman’s bag of tricks, to lead me down a road of no return? You do that sort of thing, don’t you, Emile?”

  “What sort ofthing?”

  “Snare people in the maze of their character flaws.”

  Cinq-Mars laughed lightly, and took another sip of the single malt. “Let’s just say, Father, that when those in your profession fail, I’m left to pick up the pieces.”

  The remark started the priest off on a deep-throated chuckle. At its conclusion, he proposed, “Let’s just say, Detective, that when your work succeeds, my work begins. Then it’s my job to go in and pick up the pieces.”

  Cinq-Mars wasn’t going to allow him the final word. “It’s a matter of faith, Father. I have faith that the bad guys will not enjoy incarceration. You believe you can redeem the irredeemable. Misfits can reform, that’s true. Boys with wild hearts can straighten out. Men with troubles, or who took a wrong turn, sometimes choose to live properly for a change. But the bad guys, Father, the truly bad, once we turn the key on them, there’s nothing for you to do but provide them with a diversion in an otherwise dull week.”

  “Our Lord might suggest otherwise.”

  “Our Lord said to the thief on the cross next to his, ‘I’ll see you in Heaven, buddy, there’s nothing I can do for you down here.’”

  The priest erupted into full-blown laughter. “Emile, who’re you trying to kid? You’re not a cynic. I haven’t known you for long but I know that.”

  On the counter, the coffeemaker was starting to gurgle with a fresh pot, and the aroma filled the room.

  “I’m not a cynic. I won’t even pretend to call myself a realist. I’m probably a romantic, as sinful as that may be. Ludicrous as it may be, in this world. But there are bad guys, Father, who are not redeemable, not by you, and not by me.”

  “Your point being?” Father Réjean stood to pour the coffee.

  “My point is…” Cinq-Mars required a few moments to think about it. The priest had time to pour the coffee and stir in cream and sugar for himself. He remembered that the detective took his black. “My point is, my father is dying, and there is nothing that I can do about it except to ask … except to hope and pray that the latest drugs he’s taking give him some comfort. In essence, Father, I pray to drug companies now, to doctors, and I thank God for nurses.”

  Placing the cups on the table, the priest sat down again. He spoke softly to Cinq-Mars. “Ask,” he said.

  The detective looked up. “Pardon me?”

  “You started to say, that there was nothing you could do except ask. Ask what, Emile?”

  “Ask that you go and see him.”

  “Of course. I will go tomorrow.”

  “I know it’s not good enough.”

  “Emile.”

  “I’m a man of faith, Father. So I’ve thought. But I’m a man of faith who doesn’t want his father to die. I’m aware of the inherent contradiction in that.”

  “You don’t want him to suffer. But you know he will die, Emile.” The priest looked at him with his small and deep-set eyes. “What’s more, you know he’s ready to die. You know that he’s waiting to die. You know that there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re also quite right. Whatever I can do for him won’t be enough. Priests, like cops, must learn to live with failure too.”

  The conversation had already helped. Emile Cinq-Mars wearily exhaled. He tried the coffee, which was hot and strong and a jolt to his system, and he laughed.

  “What?” Father Réjean asked him.

  “My father. He wanted me to find him a half-decent priest.”

  “Thanks for that, Emile. From what I hear, you’re a half-decent cop yourself.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I think I do.” The priest wore a wry grin. “And yet, I do not feel overwhelmed with praise.”

  “The point is, Father—” Cinq-Mars stared off into space a moment.

  “Yes?”

  “Now I’m wondering if the sly old codger didn’t mean to find a priest for me. Not for himself so much. For me.”

  “Emile,” the priest said, as the wind outside shook the doors and shutters, “I cannot betray a confidence. But your father is facing death with some anxiety, regret, fear, and, frankly, with a measure of rage. He is also prepared to get on with it and see it through. He’s calm. He’s ready. His conscience, much to your surprise, perhaps, might have been blemished in the Cast, but more
importantly it is clear now. I think, Emile, that you should phone your wife and tell her that you won’t be home tonight. The roads are too snowy, the north wind too strong. You’ll travel when it’s light out. In the meantime, you’ll stay holed up with a renegade priest drinking whiskey.”

  “Renegade? You?”

  The priest raised his glass and winked.

  Cinq-Mars nodded. “Then what?” he asked quietly.

  Father Réjean smiled. “Then comes the really scary part, Emile. I’ll either hear your confession, or, better still—scarier still—we’ll sit around in my kitchen, drink whiskey and chat. You can tell me about the bad guys. You can tell me about the boundless depths of evil in the world.”

  “That’s the problem. I keep discovering new depths.”

  “The phone’s on the wall, Emile.”

  Cinq-Mars was surprised by his own weariness as he pushed himself to his feet and crossed the room to make that call. Sandra was understanding, even glad, that he wasn’t going to be out on the roads. Earlier she had counselled him to stay at his father’s for the night.

  When he returned to his chair, the whiskey bottle stood between him and Father Réjean on the table. Cinq-Mars helped himself. He took a long sip, then poured again, this time filling his host’s glass as well.

  “The murderers, the traffickers, the gangs, Father, they’ve been getting to me. They’re impairing my judgment.”

  “How, Émile?”

  “They’ve undermined my faith in the just. People in all walks of life have lacked courage. And the gangs have been teaching me how to hate.”

  “That’s their job, Emile. The question is, what’s yours?”

  Both men took a long sip, and this time the priest in his winter kitchen poured.

  The question was a more difficult one than Father Réjean might have supposed. At different times in his life, Cinq-Mars might have rejoined with a cavalier remark, “My job is to defeat them,” or one that was merely pragmatic, “Put them in jail.” Time had eroded easy conclusions.

  “Bearing in mind, of course,” Father Réjean encouraged him, “that you are a romantic.”

  “I suppose,” Cinq-Mars sighed, “that my job is a prosaic one. It sounds uninspired to me. But if I combine my experience, my success, my failures, my observations, and my ideals—mix them all up in a blender—then here’s the best that I can muster. It’ll all sound a little boy-scouty. It already sounds foolish to me.”

  “Yes?”

  “My job is to be ready.”

  The two men nodded. In time, each smiled, enjoying the company, the late hour, the drink.

  “Emile,” the priest said, “I have snifters in the living room. The chairs are more comfortable in there, as well. Shall we go through?”

  “You are a whiskey priest,” Emile Cinq-Mars remarked.

  “For tonight, anyway.” Father Réjean laughed.

  Two days later, Tuesday, February 1, 1999

  Camille Choquette kept the engine running in her Mazda 626 in order to operate the heater, and she gave her seven-year-old strict instructions to remain in the back seat. A tape that repeated the little girl’s favourite children’s songs played, and Carole had two dolls to dress and undress and a teddy bear to keep her company. Camille entered the restaurant where Werner Honigwachs was waiting.

  Drinking coffee in a corner booth, he put on a show of being disgusted with his environment, to the point of scowling whenever he looked at a patron. He’d shudder, as if mortified. Camille guessed that he was merely disgruntled about being overdressed in a greasy spoon. When she arrived at his table, he grumbled, “Why this place?”

  “Do you know anybody here?”

  “If I did I wouldn’t admit to it. But I don’t. Who would want to know anybody who comes here?”

  “Well, that’s why we’re here, Wiener.”

  “Don’t use that name in public. As a matter of fact, don’t use it at all.”

  “Nobody can hear me. That’s another reason, Wiener, why we’re here.” The restaurant didn’t pump out recorded music, but kept a golden-oldies radio station turned on with the volume high. Camille unwound her purple scarf and unbuttoned her overcoat before sliding into the seat across from him. She made eye contact with a waitress, who popped over with a coffeepot. “Tell you what, just make me a grilled cheese sandwich, all right? Two, actually. One to go.”

  “BLT,” Honigwachs requested.

  Accepting that the room was warm and that Honigwachs was refusing to remove his overcoat only out of disdain for the premises, Camille shrugged hers off where she sat, pulling her arms free from the sleeves. She brushed bits of wool fluff from her pale-blue cardigan and tugged the collar on her white blouse. She liked to keep men waiting. All set, she said, “So.”

  Leaning toward her, Honigwachs kept his voice down. “Have you spoken to Lucy?”

  “I’m not sure that Lucy wants to talk to me.”

  “I don’t like this,” he conceded. “She’s talked to Andy already—on Sunday. On Monday, she didn’t show up at Hillier-Largent. How did she find out? She was supposed to administer the doses, provide the cocktails, then move on. She was supposed to be in another city before anybody got sick, and be home before she was any the wiser. The plan was, she’d never know. That way, she’d never ask questions. We weren’t going to send her back down. Lucy wasn’t ever supposed to find out.”

  “Andy Stettler spilled the beans.”

  “This you know for a fact?”

  Camille shrugged. That she was calmer than he was pleased her. “It’s how I’m betting.”

  Honigwachs shook his head. “Not possible. Not Andy.”

  She also leaned forward to whisper her opinion. “He called me, Andy did, from Baltimore, when I was still in New York. He wanted the latest news. What could I tell him? I knew that he knew the truth, he just didn’t know that I knew. So I had to tell him. I had to tell him that we had lab rats who were dead and dying.”

  Werner Honigwachs raised his chin and moved his body back in his seat, as though to guard against her parry. “I don’t get it. Why’d you have to tell him that?”

  “Wiener, get wise in a hurry, will you? If I had lied to Andy, it would have been like telling him that I was in on it. Why else would I be covering up? So I was frantic, I was worried, I was concerned and I gave him the bad news in my frantic, worried, concerned voice. I told him what he already knew. What choice did I have?”

  “So you think he told Lucy?”

  “How else did she find out? If she’s found out. Lucy never visited another lab rat after Andy’s phone call to me. And now she’s home. She never finished the job and she’s come home. She’s already talked to Andy, but she hasn’t called me yet. What does she know and who does she trust? I’m betting that she knows everything and that Andy’s not only her man, he’s her conduit.”

  As the waitress passed by with food for other customers they stopped talking. When she was gone, Honigwachs stated the obvious. “I don’t like this.”

  “You don’t like it, you! I’m the one with the exposure here, Wiener, me! I’m the one who cleaned their sores. I did the body count.”

  “No, no,” Honigwachs insisted. “It wasn’t Andy. He couldn’t have been the leak. You don’t know his background like I do. He’d be the last one to talk.”

  She shook her head and gave a little laugh, as if both amazed and annoyed by his intransigence. “He asked me, I gave him an answer. We know he was with Lucy. After that, Lucy stopped treating rats. She disappeared for a while and then came home. That’s all I’ve got to go on, but it adds up to something.”

  He breathed deeply, taking in the full dimension of their predicament. “I’ll talk to Andy,” Honigwachs decided. “But you have to contact Lucy.”

  Camille nodded aggressively, eager to make the call. “I can do that. I’ve got lots to say. I can vent about the disaster. I was just hoping she’d get in touch first.”

  “What’s the difference?”


  “I need a sign that she trusts me. That’s going to be important.”

  Honigwachs’s tone was intense, commanding. “I’m counting on you, Camille. If she’s suspicious of you, you’ve got to turn her around in a hurry.”

  “I’ve thought about it. I’ve got an idea.”

  She had to keep it to herself for another minute, as their food was arriving. Both ate rapidly, and Camille, in particular, wolfed her sandwich down. The second grilled cheese was neatly wrapped in wax paper.

  “So what’s the idea?” Honigwachs asked once the coast was clear.

  “Okay. Andy told you that Lucy wants to gather evidence, right? So far it’s the two of them, her and Andy. I’ll convince Lucy that she’ll need help. I’m going to squeeze my way in, and I’m going to do it by suggesting that my boyfriend joins us. And no, I don’t mean you.”

  Honigwachs was appalled. Both his hands fell to the tabletop with a thump. “He’s a cop!”

  “Exactly. But he’s my cop.”

  “No way, Camille, are you mad?”

  She again leaned forward to drive her point home. “Wiener, if Lucy knows what I think she knows, sooner or later she’ll bring information to the cops. Better we do it in a situation I control. I go to Charlie. I tell him that Lucy can’t go down for the crime, because if she goes down, I go down. I work it so Charlie’s protecting me. You’re already protected. You’re so well insulated you have nothing to worry about. No one can link any aspect of this to you.”

  “Andy can,” Honigwachs put in.

  “How come?”

  “I sent him down with new stock for Lucy. I arranged that with him.”

  “You twit! You bonehead!”

  “All right, a mistake, but Andy is on our side.”

  “That doesn’t matter! You don’t give anybody a job to do that can be traced directly back to you! That’s basic! It’s your own damn rule!”

  “I made a mistake. Now drop it.” He put his hands up as though to physically repel any countervailing argument.

  Camille crossed her legs under the table, folded her hands on top of it, and straightened her posture. She seemed quite prim. She wanted to be the calm one. “Something happened in New York that you don’t know about. At first, I didn’t think it mattered. Just some strange New York thing.”