Ice Lake

by John Farrow

  At the outset, Bill Mathers had been unclear on why they were re-interviewing Honigwachs, but now the line of questioning was beginning to make sense. Once they’d got Camille Choquette and Sergeant Painchaud on the hook, Honigwachs had seemed to drop out of the picture. Mathers reminded himself that the president of BioLogika was connected to the victim, and the nature of that connection had never been fully disclosed. Cinq-Mars, it seemed, had a point.

  “As stated,” Honigwachs demurred, “I don’t have to answer your questions.”

  “Bill,” Cinq-Mars directed, “make a note. Buy one share of BioLogika, and mark the date for the next Annual General Meeting.”

  Shaking his head and chortling a little, Honigwachs said, “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Count on that,” Cinq-Mars warned him.

  “Andy had talents,” Honigwachs explained. “I decided to use them. As to his past, I was convinced that he had reformed. You know, sometimes the best security personnel are the ones who know how to beat security systems because they used to do it for a living.”

  “I see.” Cinq-Mars looked across at Mathers and fiddled with his tie a bit, as though a thought had stuck in his craw and he needed to shake it loose. He also was not sure why he was here. He had been hoping that Werner Honigwachs was involved in this case, because he knew he’d enjoy the pleasure of the man’s arrest. But he had other people at the top of his list now, and so, if he was going to arrest Painchaud for Stettler’s murder and take this guy off the hook, he’d at least like the pleasure of worrying the arrogant company president one last time. “Sir, you told me during my previous visit that pharmaceutical firms are interested in your secrets. In part, Mr. Stettler’s job was to protect against espionage, is that correct?”

  “That’s right.” Boredom evident in his sigh, Honigwachs put a hand through his hair as if tempted to pull a fistful out by the roots. Then he sank with resignation into his chair again, preparing himself for a lengthy discussion similar to the one he’d endured at their first meeting.

  “What about your business, sir? Does BioLogika engage in espionage? Do you spy on other companies and scientists to see what they’re up to? Did Andrew Stettler involve himself in that line of work? Was he, in fact, a company spy, someone who did illicit work on your behalf?”

  Honigwachs shook his head and calmly checked his fingernails, as if to determine whether or not it was time for a manicure. “We’ve never felt the need, Detective. At BioLogika, we lead. Others follow. Others want to know what we are doing.”

  “Weren’t you interested in what Hillier and Largent took away with them when they formed their new company? You entered into a legal wrangle with that firm, did you not? Didn’t you want information on them?”

  “I’m not afraid of Hillier-Largent, Cinq-Mars.” He was refusing to look at the policeman now, and his voice had adopted a dull monotone, as though the discussion was too mundane for a man of his intelligence.

  “Who else left BioLogika with Hillier and Largent? Surely they didn’t go alone.”

  “I don’t recall at the moment.”

  “Anyone?”

  He rapped his hands against his armrests like a horse’s galloping hooves, as if he wanted to speed the other man along, as if the progress of the slow and poky was a great cross for a man such as himself to bear. “A few might’ve thought twice about the move. I’m not sure we cared.”

  “Scientists leave and you don’t care?”

  “Scientists,” the president scoffed. “Hillier was the best of the bunch and he wasn’t returning, obviously. He’d burned that bridge. The remainder are a dime a dozen. Cheaper than that, some of them. If they’re not loyal, then good riddance.”

  Cinq-Mars looked over at Mathers, then back at Honigwachs. “I have to think that you couldn’t allow Hillier-Largent to establish itself without knowing what they were doing. Perhaps that meant hiring a man like Andrew Stettler, and sending him in. I happen to know that he was in contact with people at Hillier-Largent.”

  His hands folded across his stomach now, the president offered up a nod of concession. “Maybe he had contact with individuals. Big deal. As I recall, the people at Hillier-Largent did him a favour and sent him over to me.”

  “‘Yes!” Cinq-Mars enthused. “That still puzzles me. I don’t see why your arch-enemy would send you personnel. Unless, of course, Andy was their spy? Now that’s a thought. Here’s another question—why would you hire somebody sponsored by your rivals? That makes no sense, unless you thought that maybe Andy could help you penetrate Hillier-Largent’s security.”

  “Really, Sergeant-Detective, you’re living in fantasy-land.” Honigwachs was sitting straight up now, inadvertently acknowledging that Cinq-Mars had trapped him. He had raised questions about his relationship with another company, and questions about Andy’s role. The president had not wanted that.

  “Think so? Do you know Camille Choquette?”

  “Who?”

  Cinq-Mars did not bother to repeat her name but sat still, waiting.

  “Her name’s familiar. Didn’t she work for me at one time? I think she did. She might have gone to Hillier-Largent, now that you mention it.”

  “Actually, I didn’t. Mention it, I mean. Not with reference to Miss Choquette.”

  “Anyway,” Honigwachs said.

  “What about Lucy Gabriel? Do you know her?”

  He shrugged.

  “Is that a no?”

  “I don’t recall the name. But thousands of people have worked for me. Who is she?”

  “Just your average run-of-the-mill kidnap victim. She also worked for Hillier-Largent. Strange, your employees are being murdered, your competitor’s are being abducted. I keep trying to put two and two together, but nothing adds up.”

  “I guess you have a problem there.”

  Cinq-Mars shifted his weight around. He caught a glimpse of his partner observing him, and it was evident that Mathers was amused. The younger man liked to watch his senior in action, that was one thing, but Mathers was also tickled by the evidence of his partner’s rancour. Cinq-Mars shot a little smile back at him, as if to confirm their little sport. He didn’t like Honigwachs, and even if he was innocent of any crime, he wasn’t going to leave him alone without first making life uncomfortable for him. He believed that his presence alone made Honigwachs uneasy, so he was in no hurry to depart the man’s company. “Sir, on the night of Saturday, February twelfth, into Sunday, the thirteenth, the night that Andrew Stettler was murdered, where were you?”

  Honigwachs was still a moment, mildly smirking. Then he rubbed a finger just over his upper lip, to dry a thin line of perspiration. “Here,” he answered, smiling more broadly. “In my office. I had work to do. I often come by when the premises are empty. A job like mine, Cinq-Mars, isn’t nine to five.”

  “Who saw you here?”

  “The security guard, I suppose. No one else was around. The building was pretty much empty.”

  “So you were in the vicinity.” Down the great length of his imperial nose, Cinq-Mars studied the man under duress.

  “What do you mean, vicinity?”

  Cinq-Mars nodded toward the lake. “That’s the scene of the crime, sir. You’ll have to agree, it’s not far. By your own admission, you were in the vicinity.”

  “I wasn’t on the lake.”

  “You were in the vicinity.” The detective’s beeper sounded. He clicked it off and passed it to Mathers to answer. Both the senior detective and the executive watched the junior policeman leave the room. Cinq-Mars stood and retrieved his winter coat from the back of the chair. “Thank you for your cooperation, sir. We’ll be in touch.”

  “You’re supposed to be a hotshot cop,” Honigwachs protested. “If you’re accusing me of the crime, you’re nowhere near solving it.”

  “I have not accused you of the crime, sir. We’ve had an exchange of views. If I had accused you of murder, you wouldn’t be sitting comfortably in your chair. You’d be handcuffed and in
a state of agitation. I know. I’ve arrested many people. You’d hear the charge loud and clear. You’d want your lawyer on hand for the occasion, sir, if for no other reason than to help you believe your ears. For now, I’m off.”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Cinq-Mars.”

  “Then who killed Andrew Stettler?”

  “Not me.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Honigwachs shrugged again. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Maybe it is,” Cinq-Mars mused, and shifted his overcoat over his shoulders. “Or maybe it’s not as good. Maybe it’s better, there’s always that possibility. Not that it matters. In my work, I try not to leave matters to guesswork. Do you think that Andrew Stettler was involved, perhaps, in illegal activities—corporate spying, for example—that cost him his life? Is that not a possibility?”

  Honigwachs held his ground. “I don’t see it.”

  Cinq-Mars didn’t want to leave this man with his confidence intact. He crossed to the corner of the desk where the astronomical gizmo was located, the one that kept distracting his attention.

  “The event horizon,” Cinq-Mars mentioned, inviting the question.

  “Pardon me?” Something in Honigwachs appeared to stir. He straightened, as though he’d suddenly been prodded with a stick.

  “Seizes the imagination, doesn’t it? That plateau in space-time where objects—planets, stars, light—drift before falling into a black hole. The most terrible wonder in the universe, don’t you think? Here, on earth, people die, enemies die, while the knowledge they carried with them continues on. But a black hole bends light into itself. Deflects time. Consumes everything, and the knowledge of the material, of matter, is crushed within its sphere.”

  “Do you have a point, Cinq-Mars?” Honigwachs inquired.

  “This. Andrew Stettler was shoved down a black hole.”

  Honigwachs twisted an impressive topaz ring on his left index finger back and forth repeatedly, until he seemed to decide consciously not to do it any more. He put his hands on the surface of his desk with all the digits closed together, then he spread only his thumbs apart before returning them to their original position, hands closed. People talked with their bodies, Cinq-Mars knew, with their gestures and postures, and the movement of the thumbs seemed to admit his question, then close on any possible response. “The metaphor escapes me,” the president of BioLogika admitted.

  “Someone took the trouble to open up the ice to shove him down the hole. Not through the hole, but under it. Peculiar, don’t you think? I have to wonder why.”

  “You have so many questions, Cinq-Mars. As do I, in my business. But my business demands answers. I would think that yours does as well. Let me tell you, I’m disappointed in your lack of progress.” He folded his arms, with his elbows on the desk. These were all self-conscious gestures, Cinq-Mars believed, orchestrated to try to make him look relaxed, when clearly he was not.

  “Do you really think we haven’t progressed?” Cinq-Mars narrowed his gaze slightly, as though trying to peer inside the president’s head, read his thoughts, worry him.

  “What evidence do I have to the contrary?” Honigwachs asked. He shook his head, dismissing the detective’s opinions. “If you think that I was somehow involved in this crime, then I know you’re fishing.”

  “Fishing, yes, as I was on the day we found Mr. Stettler. You’re right, sir, our businesses are alike. You allow a theory to evolve. You give it great thought and develop a formula that should work to suit the theory. You test the theory in the lab and on the computer, but at some point you must test your formula on people, see how they respond. That’s very much what I do. I can work an issue to death inside my head and among my colleagues, but at some point I must see how people react.”

  “Then let’s conclude that your experiment today was a failure, Cinq-Mars. It’s back to the drawing board for you.”

  The detective raised a finger to the air. “I beg to differ.”

  “How so?” Smiling, Honigwachs seemed to be enjoying the gamesmanship once again. “Have I compromised myself in some way, by your scorecard? I’ll admit, I was, as you say, in the vicinity. But that’s true of thousands of others, anyone who lives around here, anyone who was visiting. Anyone on the highway. That sort of information doesn’t allow you to convict the innocent, Cinq-Mars.”

  The detective was smiling also, nodding slightly, as though to concede the point. He moved, ever so slowly, little more than a shuffle, toward the door. “There were subtle moments of interest.”

  “Care to confide? Your mind is an attraction to me, Cinq-Mars. Clearly you’re out of kilter here, but I appreciate your intellect. I’m conscious of my innocence in this, so go ahead, enlighten me with your subtle moments of interest”

  Cinq-Mars put on his coat, and turned the collar-flap the right way out. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your intellect, as well. I believe that what you do not say might be as significant as what you choose to confide. For instance, we know that Stettler was connected to bad guys. He was never an out-of-work bum. So why did he show up at Hillier-Largent as a lab rat? Why did you hire him? He was working for somebody. If he was working for you, he might have double-crossed you, sold out secrets, something like that. If he was working for Hillier-Largent, then you’d have an obvious reason to want him dead. Either way, I mentioned today that you had motivation to kill Andrew Stettler, and do you know, sir? You didn’t even blink. Which tells me that either the news came as no surprise to you, or you were relieved that I haven’t properly figured it out yet. Either way, I appreciate, to use your words, our time together.”

  “If that’s all you’ve got—”

  “I agree, sir!” Cinq-Mars interrupted. He was through listening to this man. “Mere speculation. Nothing I can take to a court of law, but we are discussing subtle moments of interest. We’ve agreed on that. For instance, I revealed to you something that no one knows. Andrew Stettler was shoved down the same hole he was found in. No one knows that. No one’s even thought that. And yet, you greet the news with scarcely a ripple. As if, sir, you knew it all along.”

  Honigwachs wetted his lips, and his chin did a small, involuntary jerk. When he spoke again his tone was modulated, controlled, as usual. “Always a pleasure, Cinq-Mars. Now if you will excuse me, I have to get back to more serious matters.”

  The cop nodded. “Finally! I am being dismissed. Don’t you think that it’s a lot like being on an event horizon, flowing toward the black hole?”

  “What is?”

  “Premeditated murder.” Putting his head back, Cinq-Mars used majestic hand gestures to underscore his words. “The killer feels the presence of a black hole ahead and commits his victim to being crushed, to having the totality of his knowledge and light extinguished. A fearful thing, don’t you think, to be poised above that precipice before the murder? Equally fearful, you must agree, is the realization after the murder that the victim has not yet gone over the edge, that the victim has not yet been wholly consumed but continues to emit erratic light and issue blips of knowledge. In the meantime, the killer discovers that he is upon an event horizon himself, inextricably drawn into the clamour and weight and awesome gravity of a black hole—his view of the justice system.”

  Sitting cockeyed, leaning on one arm of his chair as though in danger of toppling over, Honigwachs maintained a bemused expression that the detective, for all his dramatics, could not vanquish. “I take it that you’re a frustrated actor,” he replied.

  “Priest, some would say. Good day, sir. Thank you for your time.”

  He departed with a flourish, closing the door firmly behind him.

  In the corridor, Mathers was waiting. “Painchaud,” he said, indicating his cellphone. “He’s agreed to meet for a conference, so he thinks, downtown.”

  “I don’t want it to be Painchaud,” Cinq-Mars admitted.

  “Yeah,” Mathers agreed. “Nobody likes busting cops.”

  “That’s n
ot it,” he told him brusquely. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I want it to be this guy. I don’t like him.” Cinq-Mars noted his partner’s expression. “What are you grinning about?”

  “You want it to be the guy you first thought it was. You don’t want to admit how much you’ve confided to the real killer.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Bill. We don’t know it’s Painchaud.”

  “It’s how we’re betting,” Mathers pointed out. He punched the call button for the elevator.

  Cinq-Mars again aimed his thumb in the direction of the president’s office. “He’s hiding something,” he decreed. “Mark my words. That man’s seriously worried.”

  The same day, mid-afternoon, Tuesday, February 15, 1999

  Cinq-Mars slipped into the squad room and headed for his cubicle. He hadn’t been here much lately—he’d been taking days off at random to visit his father—and he missed the place, although nothing had become any neater in his absence and yet more paper had accumulated. News of his arrival got around, and he was called in to see Lieutenant-Detective Remi Tremblay, who asked if his caseload was going to remain untouched forever.

  “I’ve got a murder to solve,” Cinq-Mars told him.

  “Really. Let me see.” His friend took a quick glance at the shift rotations. “Nope. Nobody put you in Homicide.”

  Cinq-Mars chuckled and took a seat, putting his hands behind his head and stretching his legs. He and his boss might be close, but he would still have to explain himself. “Whoever attacked my house put me in Homicide. The two events are knit together.”

  “You know that for a fact?”

  “Remi, it’s a perfectly valid hunch.”

  Tremblay picked up his ballpoint pen, a sign that he was about to get serious. “Emile, it’s an SQ case. They don’t inspire you with confidence, I know, but—”

  “I’m working very closely with the SQ. They’re happy to have my input.”