by John Farrow
There wasn’t all that much room for the two men to remove their outerwear without bumping into one another. When they sat down on opposite bunks, they found the cabin quite toasty.
“I’ve had a problem,” Werner Honigwachs announced. “This is my way to solve it.”
“What problem’s that?” The president had called him away from a quiet night at home. Andy’s shirt was an earth-tone green, something he usually put on only around the house. He’d dropped his good jeans into the laundry his mother had going and so had thrown on an old pair with frayed cuffs and holes worn in the hip pockets. The denim was thin for the cold, and he appreciated the stove’s heat.
“Tomorrow, you and Camille have a meeting with Sergeant-Detective Emile Cinq-Mars.”
“That’s right.”
“The two of you should go into that meeting with the knowledge that you’re on the same team. That’s what I think.” Honigwachs himself was casually dressed for this occasion, as if he had just come from putting his kids to bed. He wore a bulky wool sweater and corduroy pants.
“We are?”
“You are.”
Andy put a hand to the back of his neck and gave himself a gentle massage, as if he needed to relieve a pent-up tension. “Sir, I can see by your grin that you’re feeling pretty pleased with yourself. Like you just swallowed a canary.”
“I put one over on you, Andy. Admit it!”
“But anytime you want to compromise my identity to anyone, I might suggest that you check that out with me first. You told Camille about me?”
“Now listen, Andy—”
“No, asshole! You listen! Don’t go around telling people who I am or what I do! Is that absolutely crystal clear?”
“Andy—”
“Is it? Crystal?”
Unaccustomed to being dressed down, Werner Honigwachs needed time to come around. He sighed heavily and looked around the cabin, anywhere but at the two people in it, and finally he conceded that he had missed a step. “I’m sorry about that, Andy. You’re right. You’re right. I should have checked first.”
“Of all the harebrained—”
“I should have checked first. You’re absolutely right on that.”
“Okay. All right,” Andy said, tamping down his rage. “So. Camille. You’re in the loop.”
“You’re good, Andy. I’ll give you that. You’re really good.”
He accepted her compliment with a wry smile. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Tell me…” Camille asked. She closed her hands over her crossed knees, shaking the dangling foot.
“What?”
“Your thing with Lucy. Is that for real? Do you love her? Or are you just, you know, stringing her along?”
Andy laughed lightly. “As you said, I’m good at what I do. That’s the kind of detail that you will never know, Camille. You’ll have to guess.”
“You’re the master.”
“If you say so.” He turned to face Honigwachs again. “What’s this about?”
Honigwachs smiled and opened his hands in a gesture of conviviality. “I thought we’d fish, Andy. And, of course, discuss tomorrow’s meeting.”
“All right,” the younger man agreed. “We can do that.”
“Good. Camille? You’re the expert. Show us how it’s done.”
She opened the floorboards for the men and saw to it that they both had lines with hooks and bait. Andy insisted on hooking his own minnows.
“Tell me something, Camille,” Andy said. “I always wanted to ask you. I just never found the right … moment. You’re a scientist, right?”
“I know my way around a lab.”
“You’re educated?”
“Is that such a shock?”
“Not at all. I know you’re a bright woman. But, you know, you and me, we can both tell, we’re from the same kind of background. You know? More or less.” He paused to concentrate on hooking a minnow. “I think it’s great that you got an education, I’m just curious about it, that’s all. I don’t mean to insult you.”
The question struck a chord. Camille was interested in answering. “I liked science. That was one thing. When I was a kid. But probably I never would’ve gone to school, to university, if I hadn’t had a benefactor.”
“A benefactor?”
“Yeah.”
“Now be careful, Camille.” He lowered his hook through the ice into the water. “You know what some people would call a benefactor.”
“No. What?”
“A sugar daddy.”
Having gotten the men settled away, she spooned coffee into a pot for perking over the stove. Camille laughed lightly. “Nothing like that. I never actually met our benefactor.”
“What do you mean, Our’?” Honigwachs asked, getting interested in the story himself.
“My dad and me.”
“Why did you and your dad have a benefactor, Camille?”
The way Andy posed the question startled her. She stopped what she was doing in mid-motion and stared at him, her spoon hovering above the pot. “You’re kidding me,” she said.
“How’s that?” Andrew Stettler bobbed his line in the water, as though nothing else could interest him at the moment.
“You know. You bastard. You know.”
Honigwachs looked from one to the other and back again. “What are you talking about?” he asked finally. “What does Andy know?”
Camille continued to wait, and stare. Abruptly, she broke off her gaze and finished what she was doing.
“What do you know?” Honigwachs asked Andy.
“Camille had a brother.” Andy looked at her at last to gauge her reaction. “He was killed in his youth. Gunshot. Tragic. Wrong place, wrong time, that sort of thing. Well, associates of mine—”
“Hell’s Angels?” Honigwachs wondered out loud.
Andy shot him a stern glance. “You can’t expect me to answer that.”
“I understand. I’m sorry. Go on. Your associates—”
“—felt sympathetic.”
Camille made an odd sound, a kind of snort.
“You don’t agree?” Andy asked her.
“Guilty, I would say. They felt guilty.”
Andrew Stettler stared down at his fishing hole for a few moments, and then began to nod. “You could be right about that. Associates of mine—I mean the older crew, you know?—they felt some guilt for the incident. Nobody wants to see the innocent die. It’s bad public relations. They contacted the dead boy’s father and, as I understand it, offered to pay for the education of the family’s remaining child.”
Again, Honigwachs looked from one young person to the next. “That other child,” he asked finally, “that would be Camille?”
“That would be me,” Camille concurred. After putting the coffeepot on the stove, she stood with her hands on her hips. “Did you bring a bottle, Werner?”
“Oh, shit.” He slapped his forehead. “I left it in the car.”
“I don’t need a drink,” Andy said.
“I do,” Camille barked out.
“All right,” Honigwachs offered. “I’ll walk back and get it. It was my own fault.”
“Just give me your car keys. I’ll take the Ski-Doo. Be back in a second.”
Honigwachs put the little stick-holder for his fishing line down, stood, and went through his coat pockets in search of his keys. Camille put on her one-piece snowmobile outfit.
She was going out the door when she paused and shut it tightly again. “We don’t agree with you,” she said, “about the cop thingamajigger.”
“Camille,” Honigwachs protested. He put his coat back down but remained standing.
“What thingamajigger?” Stettler asked.
“You know,” Honigwachs said.
Stettler glanced between the two of them.
“The murder thing,” Camille specified.
“You told her?” Stettler was clearly angry again.
“She’s in the loop.”
“Not my loop, she isn’t
. You told her about a cop-killing? Are you crazy?”
“I wanted her advice,” Honigwachs demurred.
“Here’s my advice. Shut the fuck up. Now I’ll have to rethink. Too bad I already gave that order.”
Honigwachs was mortified. “You did?”
“Call it off,” Camille suggested.
“Yeah?” Stettler asked her. “That helps you out how?”
“We’re all in this together.”
“No we’re not. I’m not in this with you. I didn’t ask this asshole to blab to the whole world about my plans.”
Honigwachs appeared offended. “It wasn’t the whole world—”
“It was a big enough chunk!” Stettler told him. “Jesus H. Christ!”
Camille had said her piece, and so she went outside in search of alcohol. The two men who remained behind sat in a glum mood.
“Un-freaking-believable,” Stettler mumbled.
Honigwachs took a stab at changing the mood. “That’s quite a story,” he said, while he continued to search through his pockets for something. “About Camille. I guess that’s one way to get an education.”
“There was more to it than that.”
“Oh? Hey, just grab hold of my line there, Andy. Thanks. I wouldn’t want a big one to slip away.”
Outside, the snowmobile sputtered, then roared.
Andrew Stettler leaned across the hole in the water to retrieve the other line. From the pocket of his winter coat, Honigwachs pulled out a pistol.
The Ski-Doo revved louder.
The barrel of the gun grazed the back of the young man’s neck and the older man’s hands shook and Stettler jerked slightly.
“Oh shit,” Stettler said under his breath. He bolted up.
Honigwachs fired.
He shot him through the neck.
Stettler fell face forward. His body continued to flex and thrash. Honigwachs slumped down onto the floor, suddenly unable to stand. He was breathing heavily and erratically, and outside the snowmobile continued to roar. Stettler’s feet started kicking.
“Oh God, oh God,” Honigwachs said.
Suddenly his voice was loud as the snowmobile was shut down.
The door opened, and Camille Choquette stepped back inside.
“Oh God. Oh God.”
“What? Werner, what’s wrong?”
“He’s not dead. He’s not dead yet!”
His head at the rim of the fishing hole, Andrew Stettler flopped like a hooked walleye.
Camille Choquette shut the door quickly.
“Damn it! Did you miss? How could you miss?”
“He’s not dead,” Honigwachs said.
Stettler’s legs trembled and kicked, but there was little life in him.
“You missed? From an inch away?”
“Start your Ski-Doo again,” Honigwachs ordered, getting a grip on himself and breathing deeply. He struggled up to his knees. “I was nervous, all right? I’ll shoot him a second time.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Camille scolded him. “You can’t attract attention. Do something else. Drown him. Drown him like a kitten. Do something, Werner!”
“Camille, my God.”
She shook him. “You have to do it! You can’t stop now!”
He took a deep breath, then stood and moved above the trapdoor, stepped down onto the ice, and, without any further hesitation, pressed his boot onto the back of Stettler’s head. He shoved his face into the water where it flooded up into the ice-hole, and he held him there while his arms flapped and his legs trembled. All the while, Honigwachs just looked up at the ceiling. He held him there until the young man moved no more, and after that continued to keep his face buried underwater.
Camille held her chin in her hand and stared.
Then Honigwachs raised his boot and the body below him remained motionless.
“He’s done,” Camille said, and Honigwachs finally looked over at her. He still held his gun.
“Shit,” he said. “Ah, shit, he didn’t die.”
“What’s your problem?”
“Camille!”
“Werner, pull yourself together. We have work to do.”
He stared at the body awhile, then nodded. He stepped out of the hole onto the floor of the cabin, drawing himself up to his full height, as though assuming his place in all of this and shaking off the shock of his own action. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get it done.”
Together they pulled Stettler’s face out of the water and turned him over onto his back. He lay on the ice with his knees and lower legs perched on the cabin floor. They dragged him to one side of the ice-fishing hole and arranged him out of their way, then Camille went outside and fetched a few tools.
She carried in a block-and-tackle attached to a hook and a length of chain.
She went out again and returned with an ice-block carrier.
Then she closed and locked the door.
By the light of the full moon and a single candle the two applied themselves to the task at hand. First Honigwachs, then Camille, chipped away at a crack in the ice. They had previously sawn out a block around the ice-hole with a chainsaw, which, as they had anticipated, had refrozen to the lake’s ice. They laboured to break it free once again. Camille always kept a crowbar handy to shatter ice, and she used it now to attack the fault lines around the block, and it was partially freed.
They worked steadily, methodically, calmly. Honigwachs utilized his strength and conditioning as both a squash player and a horseman, pacing himself but refusing to rest. He needed another hour to separate the block from the frozen lake.
On his back on the ice, Andrew Stettler’s body froze. The cabin went cold.
The huts were constructed of debris taken from job sites, and for this one a hefty frame supported a stout roof beam. Camille wound the heavy chain around the beam. She attached the block-and-tackle to the chain and placed the ice-carrier on the hook, lowering it to the water. She had to fuss with it, but eventually they managed to grip the block of ice with the carrier and raise it higher, with Honigwachs pulling on the rope and Camille working the crowbar to good advantage. When the block dangled above the lake, swinging slightly on its apparatus as the old timbers creaked with the strain, Honigwachs spun a knot and the two sat down to rest.
“The fire’s gone out,” Honigwachs noted.
“Nobody needs to see our smoke.”
“Let’s move the body a bit. I don’t want him freezing to the ice.”
“Right.”
They shifted Stettler a little, until they were certain that he wasn’t stuck.
“Bastard,” Honigwachs said, still emotional. “He blew the whistle on us.”
“Organized crime, my ass. He was weak. He found out his friend was being treated so he blew the whole operation, then tried to finesse his way out. I still say the dumb prick fell in love.”
“Don’t take that organized crime thing too lightly, Camille. The last thing we want is to have those guys breathing down our necks.”
“It’s the perfect crime, Werner. Nobody can look at you for this.”
“Hope so.”
Camille stood and picked up the bait bucket half-filled with water. Ice had frozen on the water’s surface and she broke through it with several light taps of the crowbar, then slid the minnows into a bowl. She stood the candle alongside the bowl to help keep the water warm.
“What did you do that for?” Honigwachs asked.
“I need the bucket.”
“What for?”
“Wait and see.”
The cold had penetrated the cabin, and it was colder still beneath the floorboards, where the ice in the ears, mouth, nostrils and lungs of Andrew Stettler continued to expand. Scant blood was evident, and what there was had congealed in the frigid temperature.
“All right,” Honigwachs announced. “Let’s get it done.”
Together they hoisted the dead man up, and dropped him feet first into the lake, through the hole they’d cleared by removing
the block of ice. His head bobbed in the opening. Using a plastic serving spoon, Camille held his hair and the top of his coat against the bottom of the ice, long enough for him to freeze in place.
“This way,” she said, although they had already been through this, and she was merely confirming their agreement, “nobody will suspect I did it, not in my own shack. But that tramp Lucy will fear this. Fear she’s next. That fancy cop they’re bringing in, he’ll have his hands full with this. He won’t get around to much else.”
“Imagine. Andy ordered him killed. A cop! He never consulted me. Wouldn’t even listen to me when he told me about it.”
“The cop might die anyway,” Camille reminded him. “Andy being dead might not stop that. Not that I mind.”
“Who knows? But we’re not connected to it and we don’t care. Not any more, that’s for sure.”
“Only Andy could betray us.”
“He can’t now,” Honigwachs brayed.
“That’s right.” She stood beside him, holding his arm. She whispered, “We had to do this, Werner. You gave Andy the extra drugs for Lucy. He tied you to this. He was going to kill that cop and lord it over you. He was going to make your life miserable, squeeze the life’s blood out of your company. What did he say to you about that?”
“ ‘Get it straight.’ That’s what he told me. ‘Remember who’s really in charge.’”
“Intimidation.” She tugged his arm. “Who did he think he was? He was a sexy guy but, come on, he was a punk. Everything you’ve worked for should go to him? You’re supposed to charge him an administration fee and be happy with that? That’s a shakedown. That’s not right, Werner. We had to do this. We had to test enzyme accelerators in order to discover their preferred script, and we had to do this.”
Honigwachs nodded. “Funny. His last words were about you.”
“Oh yeah? How romantic. What were they?”
“I can’t remember. Something … I don’t know.”
“Come on. Relax. Think.”
Honigwachs moved his arm around her shoulders and pressed her against his side. “Something about … that … there’s more to your story than you told us. About your brother and your benefactor and all that. Something like that.”
Camille put her arms around his waist. “I don’t know what he meant.”
Honigwachs sighed. “Andy could’ve made a link,” he said, as though he still needed to justify the deed once again. This event put him close to the action. He was no longer safely ensconced in his suite while others performed his handiwork. “You know how cops make crooks talk. They threaten them with more jail time and the dickheads cough up everything they know.