Ice Lake

by John Farrow

  “Done. Get on it,” Tremblay told his men, and as they were rushing out he moved across with Mathers and Cinq-Mars to the broad windows for a private chat. “Do we have a next move?”

  “Her name is Lucy Gabriel,” Cinq-Mars told him. “She’s native, from Oka. We know next to nothing about her, except that she works at a pharmaceutical company called Hillier-Largent Global. Bill and I are heading there now. I’d like background information on her and on the dead man, Andrew Stettler. Can you put some people on that? I’d really appreciate it, because after we do this interview, Bill and I will need personal time. I’m whacked. Last night was no accident, Remi. The bull’s-eye on my forehead might not scrub off anytime soon.”

  Nodding, Lieutenant-Detective Remi Tremblay placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder and left it there a moment. “Go,” he said. “I’ll have the background checks done. You take care.” He nodded deliberately at Mathers to include him, and the partners left the room, their footsteps echoing off the stained oak flooring.

  Mathers hurried ahead at a fair clip down the stairwell until Cinq-Mars called him back. He was moving stiffly now, his calves and thighs having knotted following the sprint up the stairs. “Is there a horse race I don’t know about?”

  “Sorry, Emile. I’m pent up.”

  “Not enough gunfights for one day? You’re hoping to take somebody out?”

  Cinq-Mars was leaning to one side and holding the banister as he stepped down on one foot, tilting in the opposite direction for the other, as though his knees and hips were locking up. Lack of sleep sometimes did that to him, old horse-riding injuries acting up in his joints. As he moved, though, his muscles slowly relaxed again and he began to find his rhythm.

  “That’s not it. I talked to Donna. She’s not too happy.”

  “Did you wish her a Happy Valentine’s Day?”

  “What? No.”

  “There you go. That’s half your problem right there. You can’t continue to make these huge blunders in life, Bill. They’ll cost you.”

  “I don’t think candy and flowers will cover this one.” As Cinq-Mars reached him, he turned and they walked down together.

  “Maybe not, but it won’t hurt. This isn’t easy for her.”

  “How do you handle Sandra, Emile?”

  The Sergeant-Detective’s short burst of laughter was so loud that it echoed down the stairwell. “That’s a good one, Bill. Me—handling Sandra. Thank you for that. I needed a good laugh right about now.”

  The two men descended the stairs and returned to the street. To anyone watching, the elder appeared amused, the young one glum, so that no bystander could ascertain whether the raid had gone poorly or well. Cinq-Mars carried on as though he had places to go and people to contact. He acted as if he might be onto something new, on the chance that among those looking down from their windows or from behind police barricades were people with a vested interest in having him fail. The way the investigation had gone so far, he wouldn’t discount the possibility that a spy had him in his sights.

  Dressed in a brown habit, the cowl lying loosely around his neck, a monk used a plastic ladle to transfer soup from a stainless-steel pot to a heavy porcelain bowl. He repeated the action twice, filling the bowl, pouring with extreme care. With each scoop he swilled the soup around, sure to catch a rich complement of vegetables and lentils. He placed the bowl upon a tray. Alongside the steaming broth, the monk arranged an assortment of cheeses and bread. He poured hot water into a small green teapot and dropped in a single bag, leaving its string to dangle on the outside. Then he sliced thin squares of butter and placed them delicately upon a plate, and added a napkin and cutlery. The monk picked up the tray in both hands and departed the broad kitchen with the high ceilings and old, chipped enamel sinks, and started on his trek.

  Officially, this wing of the monastery was vacant.

  The monk walked down a sombre, cave-like corridor, his soft steps creating a trace of an echo off the stone walls. Forty yards along he was bathed in refracted sunlight angling through the high window. When he reached the end of the corridor, he placed the tray on a shelf while he opened the doors to a dumb waiter. The monk then placed the tray inside and pulled a rope with both hands, which lifted the tray to the floors above. As the counterweight for the dumb waiter descended on its rope, it signalled what floors the rising tray had attained with old, hand-drawn signs. The numeral nine appeared, indicating that the tray had reached that floor, and the monk fastened his rope with a quick and expert hitch.

  Then he commenced to trudge up the stairs himself.

  He was not an old man, despite the weariness of his walk and the ample streaks of grey throughout his wavy hair. He had to lug a considerable paunch around with him, and so he paced himself, stopping briefly on the third and fifth floors before climbing higher. At each level he was washed anew with sunlight.

  At the ninth floor, the monk removed the tray from the dumb waiter and shuffled on down that corridor, away from the window light, toward the gloomy interior.

  Eleven doors down, he balanced the tray in one hand and knocked.

  “Come in,” a woman’s voice responded.

  The monk opened the door and entered.

  “Hey, Brother Tom, how are you?” Lucy Gabriel inquired brightly. She wanted him as a friend.

  Brother Tom smiled, nodded, and placed the lunch on the simple wooden desk beneath the room’s window. This was a spartan enclosure, with a cot for a bed, the mattress no more than two inches thick. Next to it stood a table and two ladderback chairs.

  “Beautiful day,” Lucy offered.

  Mute, Brother Tom nodded, and bowed slightly on his way out.

  “Have a great day, Brother Tommy!” she called as he was closing the door.

  Lucy did not immediately fall upon her food. She stood by the window next to her desk, the steam of the soup bowl rising to touch her wrists and the bandage on her upper arm, then lifting higher, to touch her chin. She gazed out the tall, narrow, castle-like window, with a view of the blue winter sky, and if she stood on tiptoe and angled herself over the desk she could look left, south, to the Lake of Two Mountains, where the snow-covered ice reflected the sun.

  She sat down, and in the austere quiet of the monastery’s empty wing Lucy began to eat her lunch, her first as a secret novitiate. Her first meal, she thought, as a damsel in distress tucked away in what might as well be a medieval turret.

  Before heading to Hillier-Largent Global, Sergeant-Detective Emile Cinq-Mars and Detective Bill Mathers commandeered an unmarked cruiser. Emile’s Pathfinder, pressed into service the night before as an ambulance, had been returned to the station, and Mathers parked his Ford alongside it.

  They made their way up the Décarie Expressway trench. The highway was dug deep below ground level, with ramps ascending and descending, and few drivers heeded the speed limit of forty-five miles an hour unless forced to do so by heavy traffic. Mathers was doing sixty-five and still waiting for a chance to slip into the fast lane when a call came over the two-way radio.

  SQ, Sergeant Charles Painchaud had left an ASAP call-back request and a number where he could be reached.

  “Morning, Charles,” Cinq-Mars said into his cellphone. “Are you living on coffee too?”

  “Slept like a child, sir. But, unlike you, nobody took a shot at me earlier in the evening. Don’t have your celebrity status, I guess.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Heard you were on a blood trail. Anything come of that?”

  Cinq-Mars paused while Mathers undertook a high-speed, somewhat risky manoeuvre to duck in behind a Mercedes, pass two trucks on the right, then scoot back out to the fast lane. “Gone before we awoke. We found the rug from the girl’s place. It could use a dry cleaning. Interesting thing is, it looks like she received medical attention.”

  “That’s great news! Sounds like she’s among the living. I re-interviewed Camille Choquette this morning.”

  “Who?” He covered the mouthpiece
and whispered to his partner, “Who’s Camille Choquette?” Mathers could only shrug.

  “You know, the woman who rents the shack where the body was found,” Painchaud reminded him.

  “Ah. Never did catch her name. What’s the story there?”

  “She can’t explain what the body was doing there. Says she wasn’t there. Hadn’t been around for several days. Says the lock on her cabin was intact when she arrived, and nobody else has a key.”

  “Hang on,” Cinq-Mars instructed the SQ, detective. This time he buried the mouthpiece against his coat. “What’s wrong with this picture, Bill? The woman who rents the shack full-time where Stettler was found—”

  “What about her?”

  “—she told Painchaud she hadn’t been there for days.”

  “Days?”

  Cinq-Mars nodded.

  Mathers caught on. “Then why wasn’t the ice thicker?”

  “Charles,” Cinq-Mars said into the phone, “do you remember the heavy bar on the floor of that cabin? It looked like a railway lining-bar, some kind of crowbar.”

  “She cracks the ice with it,” Painchaud explained.

  “Sure she does—when the ice is thin!” Cinq-Mars roared back. He switched ears and spoke more softly. “When it’s thin she cracks the ice. When it’s thick, she uses an auger, like everybody else, or a chainsaw. If she hadn’t been there for days, how could she crack the ice?”

  Painchaud went quiet a moment to contemplate the point. “I’ll have to re-interview. She’s gone to work. I’ll catch her there maybe.”

  “One more thing. A minnow bucket was on site. Minnows were swimming beneath a thin layer of ice. Categorically, that shack was not unoccupied for days. Hang on a second,” the senior detective requested. The car was heading off the expressway, where the road diverged in different directions, and Mathers chose the quiet streets of Ville St. Laurent. Cinq-Mars needed a second to think this through. He asked Painchaud, “Where does she say she’s been lately?”

  “Home alone,” the SQ, sergeant replied.

  “This is what you do.” As Bill Mathers looked across at him, Cinq-Mars caught himself. “Sorry. This is what I’d do if I were you.”

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Painchaud assured him.

  “Talk to her husband.”

  “She’s not married. She lives alone.”

  “Better still. Find out who babysits her daughter. Talk to the sitter. See what that tells us about her schedule. Then do the re-interview. Compare her schedule with the babysitter’s version.”

  “Good thought. I’ll take care of that. There’s something else that’ll interest you. The woman works at Hillier-Largent Global.”

  “You’re kidding! Does she know Lucy Gabriel?”

  “Yes. I told her about Lucy and the news upset her. Ms. Choquette used to work at BioLogika, also, but that was long before Andrew Stettler showed up.”

  “She works at Hillier-Largent, and used to work at BioLogika,” Cinq-Mars repeated to Mathers, the phone in his lap. “I’m declaring a pattern as of right now.”

  “What was your first clue?” Mathers asked, tacking on a grin.

  “Do me a favour, Charles,” Cinq-Mars requested into the phone. “Delay your re-interview. Don’t talk to her inside Hillier-Largent. Keep it external.”

  “You’re on. I’ll keep in touch.”

  “I owe you, Sergeant.”

  “Balances out.”

  “All right. Thanks for all this.”

  Emile Cinq-Mars shook his head as they turned down a residential street, a mix of parks, duplexes and individual homes. Snow clearance was usually tardy in this district, and the street had narrowed. Sidewalks were engulfed by snowbanks and parked cars intruded into the traffic lanes. Vehicles travelling in opposite directions had to wend their way around each other with care, the traction slippery. Although Bill Mathers drove with authority and ease, his older partner kept one hand on the dash as though a crash were imminent. Cinq-Mars was not distressed, merely distracted by his fatigue and the intermittent churning of his digestive system.

  “Go figure. Charles Painchaud is one cooperative cop. I wonder about him.”

  “You two should partner up, Emile. Cross the great divide/Get married.”

  “What’s with you?”

  Mathers shrugged. He checked his mirror to make sure the car behind him was capable of stopping as he pulled up to a red light. He told Cinq-Mars, “Donna suggested that I cut you loose. You’re trouble, Emile.”

  “Donna,” Cinq-Mars advised, “is a delight. Tell her we’ll talk things through as soon as we’re off this case. We’ll see what’s what. We just have to get out from under this one.”

  “Nice try, Emile. I think that’s what I did say to her. She mentioned that that would be your usual line. I think she’s on to you, partner.”

  Emile Cinq-Mars offered up a grunt, as though it expressed an opinion.

  Hillier-Largent Global Incorporated was situated in an industrial park beyond a large shopping mall. The company did not occupy the vast space that its competitor, BioLogika, commanded, and managed as well to cope without fences, barbed wire or guards. Once inside, the detectives found that the building was more secure than at first glance, in the sense that any visitor entering the premises was prohibited from passing beyond the receptionist without an escort. All doors leading from the lobby were electronically locked. Employees had to show their identification or have their faces verified by the receptionist, then punch in a password, with the entire process recorded on videotape.

  “You don’t carry a weapon?” Cinq-Mars asked as he displayed his badge and, for the first time in his lengthy career, had the information off his shield written down. The receptionist was black, exceptionally attractive, and her voice carried a Caribbean lilt.

  The woman appeared nonplussed and managed a smile without responding. “Whom do you wish to see, sir?” she asked sweetly, finally.

  “Lucy Gabriel. I believe she works here.”

  She checked her computer, then announced, “I’m sorry, sir. Miss Gabriel didn’t come in to work this morning.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me somehow. Who else is here?” Cinq-Mars inquired.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Hillier? Largent? Either of those guys? What about Global? Is he around?”

  “Both Mr. Hillier and Mr. Largent are in, sir. Whom would you prefer to see?” She was finally aware that she was dealing with an ornery caller who had not arrived on the friendliest of terms.

  Cinq-Mars appeared to give weight to the question, rocking his head slightly. “Tell you what, set up a meet,” he decided. “I’ll talk to both of them at the same time.”

  Mildly befuddled, the woman put in the call to Mr. Largent, notifying him of the policeman’s request. She was attentive to instructions. “If you’ll have a seat, sir,” she informed Cinq-Mars after hanging up, “someone will be down shortly to escort you upstairs.”

  Comfortable on a pair of Naugahyde loveseats under flowering tropical plants, both detectives were tempted to nap. Cinq-Mars appeared to nod off for a second, only to be awakened by a random burp. Their escort arrived, a young, curly-headed, arrogant trainee with his sleeves rolled up and tie slackened. His glasses were thick. In one hand he carried a clipboard. In the other he drummed a pencil against the door he held open with his foot, with more than a hint of impatience, as though to suggest that he didn’t have all day, that this interruption was probably retarding science. The hour was coming fast, he would have liked to announce, when he’d achieve a station in life that would allow him to speak his mind. In the meantime, he’d serve up fake smiles. “Follow me,” the young man instructed. He took them around the corner to an elevator, earning the ire of the senior cop.

  “Is there any particular reason why we’re running?” Cinq-Mars asked him. On a good day he could keep up, but this was not a good day. His escort smiled at the rebuke. The youth struck him as bored, as if meeting someone from the outsi
de world for the first time in months had proven, yet again, that the species remained as he remembered it—indolent, dull, dumb.

  The elevator travelled just three floors to reach the top. Cinq-Mars and Mathers followed their guide to the office of the company’s Chief Executive Officer, where he scurried away to save the species. Randall Largent, said the imprint on the door opened in their honour. Inside, two men were waiting.

  As Mathers quietly closed the door behind them, the impression he shared with his partner was that they had entered a photograph, a portrait of two gentlemen frozen in time. The man who posed at the side of the desk was strikingly bald, his pate made especially prominent by his thick, black side hair, which he combed straight down. Although he tried to carry himself erect, he stooped. His partner, who was seated, had wild, Einstein-like white hair. Both returned the gaze of the visitors, until the man who was standing announced, “I’m Harold Hillier, sir. To my friends, I’m Harry.”

  “Randall Largent,” the seated man said. He did not extend an invitation to be called ‘Randy,’ and remained seated behind the desk.

  “Gentlemen,” Cinq-Mars replied.

  “Sir,” Randall Largent began, “what can we do for you?”

  Cinq-Mars curtly introduced himself and Mathers, then demanded, “What positions do the two of you hold in the company, please?”

  “Officially,” Largent explained from his leather chair, “I’m the CEO and Harry’s President. What the titles mean can change on a whim. Essentially, we’re equal partners. We’re both men of science, only Harry’s the genius. His bailiwick is the lab. I try to make myself useful in management. Now, what is this about?”

  “One of your employees has been abducted from her home,” Cinq-Mars declared. “We’re here to investigate.”

  Air rushed from Harry Hillier’s lungs. “What?”

  “Who?” Randall Largent, still seated, managed.

  “Lucy Gabriel.”

  “My God, Lucy?” Hillier slowly drew a hand across his shiny pate, to mop sudden perspiration there, then ran it down the back of his black hair.

  Largent moved his swivel chair closer to his desk, as though to signal a different stage in their discussion. “Please, gentlemen, be seated.”