Ice Lake (3 page)

“Floated in, I imagine,” Cinq-Mars suggested.

“You were just fishing? That’s a coincidence. You’re carrying your shield, that’s also a coincidence. Are you carrying an issue?”

“Habit,” he acknowledged. At least this guy had half a brain. Cinq-Mars was beginning to appreciate a few of his meagre qualities.

“What about you?” the chief asked Mathers.

“Shield, yes. Always do. Issue, no. I prefer to catch fish with hooks, not shoot them.” Mathers gave Cinq-Mars a scorching look. He could not believe his partner had carried a service revolver to go fishing on a weekend off.

“You’re a famous detective,” summarized Chief Brasseur. “A legend in your own time, they say. You’re fishing, carrying a shield and pistol, when a body bobs to the surface near your hook. So I’m wondering, what did you use for bait?” A pair of constables arrived at the door and the chief ordered them to clear and secure the perimeter. He turned back to Cinq-Mars. “Did you say you called the SQ or not?”

“I thought you’d prefer to do that.”

“Their case, bud. The coroner will assign it that way.”

“You’ll be privy.”

“Don’t count on it. Not with the SQ. What we know for sure is, you won’t be.”

“I happened to be on hand, Chief. I’m not fighting you on jurisdiction.”

“What else do you know?” the younger man asked him.

“Excuse me?”

“About this case.”

“I cleared civilians away and called the cops. That’s the full extent of my involvement.”

“You can’t see any bullet hole from here,” the chief reminded him.

“I discovered it, actually,” Mathers put in.

“The body or the bullet hole?”

“The hole. The entry wound is in the back of the neck, under all that hair. The exit wound is out the front of the throat.”

“Do you think I give a flying fuck? Tell it to the SQ, as if they need your input.”

“We thought you might be interested in a homicide in your own backyard, Chief,” Cinq-Mars interrupted. “Our mistake. Obviously, you’d rather hand out traffic tickets, investigate dog poop on lawns.”

“Don’t talk like that. Not to me. I warned you once.”

“We’ve pulled you away from poop-’n’-scoop patrol, I can tell.”

The chief responded with a snide laugh, then stepped up to Cinq-Mars, though he stood under the other man’s nose. “I’m not interested in you, Cinq-Mars. I don’t need you on my turf taking credit. You want publicity? You want to be a front-page cop? Go back to the city, don’t sniff around here.”

“I live out here. I’m a citizen.”

“You’re a
TV
cop, Cinq-Mars. I know your kind.”

“You used to be on the force yourself, is that it? What happened? Did I get promoted while you got skunked?”

“You want to talk about promotions? I’m Chief of Police. You’re a rat-shit Sergeant-Detective.”

“How’d you get this job if you got trashed out? Who’d you marry?”

Chief Brasseur reached between his legs and gave his paraphernalia a hoist. “Up yours,” he added.

“Call the SQ, Chief.”

“You think I don’t know why you called me? You expect I’ll be your bum-boy from the little town. Sure, I’ll call the SQ. They think even less of you than I do.”

Cinq-Mars shook the tension from his shoulders as though he’d rather be throwing punches. “Listen. I was out here fishing. A woman screamed. We went over. We found a body in the water under the floorboards. I buzzed the cops. I’m a citizen. What’s your problem with that?” If the local chief wanted to get under his skin, he was making good progress.

“You’re right, I was on the force, so I know how assholes like you operate,” the chief threw back at him, ignoring his question. “Every word you speak is two parts bullshit to one part jam. You’re spreading it right now.”

Cinq-Mars stared down the prodigious slope of his nose at this poor excuse for a civil servant. He’d seen much worse, but when men brought their pathetic grudges and grievances to the job, to any job, he felt no compassion. Ages ago he had given up trying to disguise that stance, and while he understood that cops were envious of him, he had ceased to care. “Sorry to interrupt your Sunday nap, Chief. I guess you can’t function with the Super Bowl behind us. Why don’t you just call the SQ before the body goes smelly.”

“Wiseass. I’ll make that call.” Under his overcoat he wore a policeman’s leather bomber jacket, and under that a microphone pinned to his shirt. He tapped it and called his station, his voice relayed through the transmitter in his cruiser. He informed his subordinate to forward the news to the SQ.

Finally, the chief bent to his knees and leaned over the hole. He pulled the deceased’s head up by the hair and studied the face.

“He’s thawing,” Mathers noticed.

“What?”

“When I first looked at him, the face seemed more
frozen than that. Ice was poking out the nostrils. Not now. Maybe it’s the warmth of the cabin.”

“You got no jurisdiction here,” the chief reminded them both. “Why don’t you both buzz off?”

Cinq-Mars nodded. “I’m on my way.”

“But not too far. Don’t leave the lake until the SQ gets a crack at you.”

Cinq-Mars left and marched briskly through the snow to his rental hut. He looked neither left nor right, and failed to acknowledge the questions of those on the ice awaiting news. Mathers raced to catch up, fearing that the door might slam in his face if he didn’t duck inside soon enough.

“Do we stick around like he said?” Mathers asked in the cabin. A superior’s command carried little weight with his partner. That the superior in this case came from another force made that order irrelevant.

Pacing the small quarters, Cinq-Mars considered what to do. He would have preferred to send Mathers home, except they had only one vehicle between them. “Bill, we stay. It’ll be an education. Take notes on how the SQ botch things this time.” He paused, and eyed his partner closely. When he spoke again he had lowered his voice. “There’s something you should know, partner. Friday, I received a call. I was advised to rent a fishing shack on this lake this morning and wait for a visit. Someone with information to peddle. A woman’s voice, that’s all I know. Whoever called knows I fish here on occasion, and that was enough to arouse my curiosity. I didn’t tell you for a couple of reasons. First off, it was liable to be a wild-gooser. I didn’t want to get you excited for nothing—I wanted you to concentrate on fishing. Besides that, I gave my word not to tell. Point is, we have to hang out to see if my contact shows. If she does, after all this mess, that’ll be good. If not, at least we can say it’s been an eventful afternoon.”

“Maybe you’ve received your information.”

“Meaning?”

Bill Mathers motioned in the direction of the crime scene.

“That I don’t know,” Cinq-Mars admitted.

“I’ll stay on one condition,” Mathers negotiated.

“What’s that?”

“No more bloody fishing. I’ve hooked my last minnow.”

Lucy Gabriel was waiting outside in the freezing cold, her neck tucked deep into her collar, when her friend returned. He was no longer quite so calm and collected.

“What’s up?” she asked him.

“Something’s happened on the ice.”

“What?”

“A death. You know how it goes, some old guy drinks himself into a stupor then freezes when his fire goes out. Or he gets excited reeling in a big fish and has a heart attack. It happens every few years. Anyway, there’s too much activity out there, we’re not meeting Cinq-Mars today.”

Lucy was pounding one foot against the other to keep her toes warm. “We should find out what happened, don’t you think? Camille’s there—”

“Not both of us. I will. Go home, Lucy. I’ll give you a ring later.”

“Don’t bother,” she told him. “The day’s shot. I’m going into the city.”

“To do what?”

“Drink. Laugh. Be with people.”

“I warned you, Luce. The coffee has you wired.”

“The situation has me wired. You take it easy. We’ll talk.”

Pensive, Sergeant-Detective Emile Cinq-Mars ground his upper and lower molars together while Bill Mathers
tended to the wood-burning stove. The junior officer discovered that if he played with the fire and arranged it to one side, less smoke leaked into the cabin, which made breathing more relaxed. Meanwhile the constant tinkering helped pass the time.

When the SQ, arrived, Cinq-Mars didn’t bother going onto the lake to greet them. “What kind of a uniform is that?” he mocked, watching through the frosty glass. “Whose idea was it to dress them up in brown shirts? Doesn’t anybody understand the symbolism?”

“I think they’re meant to be green,” Mathers said, hoping to cool him down.

“Green!
Who’re they supposed to be, the Environment Police? Heaven help us if that’s true. Cops should wear blue. True blue. These guys look like something scraped off a pasture.”

Cinq-Mars sat back down awhile, wishing that he still smoked. Twelve years now since his last puff, time that had gone by in an eye-blink. He wasn’t a reformed smoker who had learned to detest smoke. Half the time he wished he still indulged—not for the taste or to feed a craving or for the show, but just to help get him through those hours when he had nothing to do but wait, sit still and be bored, then wait some more.

Both men were startled by a fierce knock. The door sprang open without their invitation.

“Sûreté,”
an officer informed them.

“As if we couldn’t tell from the uniform,” Cinq-Mars grumbled.

Mathers showed him a badge in return, and the young officer came in with an even younger, apparently pubescent partner in tow. They’d been told whom they’d find inside, and both men did their best not to appear impressed. They were intent on treating the city cops no differently than nuisance civilians.

“We’re taking down everybody’s name, then releasing them.”

“Releasing?”

“Sending them home. Clearing the site. You’re Cinq-Mars?”

“I’m pleased to meet you. My partner, Bill Mathers. Who’s the Investigating Officer?”

“Sergeant Painchaud is the IO. He just arrived. You know him?”

Cinq-Mars shook his head and surrendered his phone numbers when asked. Mathers did the same.

“All right,” the slightly older of the two said, “you can go now.”

“I’ll stay.”

The officer was lean, arrow-straight, almost gaunt. His thin moustache stood out, a match for his heavy eyebrows. He was filling out his form with a pencil in his left hand, curling his wrist above the line he was inscribing. The remark seemed to fluster him.

“I don’t know. You’re not supposed to. Why would you stay?”

“I’m fishing.”

“I’ll ask about that.”

“Go ahead. In the meantime, Officer, did you know that when addressing a superior from another force it’s customary to use the appellation ‘sir’? It’s a courtesy. Is this news to you?”

“Yes, sir,” the officer said, lowering his clipboard to his side and looking Cinq-Mars in the eye. “I didn’t know that, sir. It’s news to me, sir. I’ll ask if you got to leave, sir, although it’s possible Sergeant Painchaud will want to talk to you, sir, to see if you disturbed the crime scene, sir. Sir?”

Still seated on the cold wooden bench, Cinq-Mars had raised his hand, his palm aloft for silence. “Say ‘sir’ once more to me in that tone of voice and I’ll shove you down this ice-hole and seal the hatch. Don’t think I won’t. Don’t think I can’t.”

The officer chose to say nothing, then turned to leave.

“Wait!” Cinq-Mars advised him.

The aggrieved cop and his mute partner faced him again.

“Check the hole.”

“Excuse me?” Quietly, the officer tacked on, “Sir?”

“Check the hole. This and every other one in the entire ice-village.”

The officer wiped his leather-gloved hand down over his moustache, mulling the advice. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t take orders from you.”

“Fine.” Cinq-Mars abruptly stood. “Be a useless fuck-up
Sûreté
cop. Screw up another investigation. Go ahead, make uselessness your life’s work. Aspire to being an ignorant dolt, let it be your highest ambition, don’t mind me.”

The patrolman in khaki green was less inclined to leave at that moment. “What’s down that hole?” he asked.

“That’s the point. You don’t know. You should want to find out.”

The young officer considered his options. Leave in a huff. Depart quietly and seek advice elsewhere. Or look down the hole. He decided to beat a rapid retreat.

“What if another body’s down there?” Cinq-Mars addressed the man’s back. “What if bodies are down half a dozen holes in this village? What if you miss that? What if we’ve had a massacre here? How will that look? Doesn’t it scare you that you might miss something so big?”