Ice Lake (52 page)

Lights on. Happened after dark? Get time of phone call.

He called Mathers and told him the bad news.

From the height of land that Painchaud’s cottage occupied, Cinq-Mars could see the SQ, coming, their red cherries flashing. A cop-killing prompted a general response. The cars were speeding along at different points on the highway, often vanishing from his sight-lines and then reappearing again. He got out of his vehicle before they arrived and had his shield ready to show the first cops on the scene. He shouted his name the instant the driver jumped out of his patrol car, both hands in the air, his gold shield flashing in the headlamps. “I’m police!
MUCPD!
I called it in. Sergeant-Detective Cinq-Mars!” You couldn’t be too careful around upset, jittery cops.

By the time Bill Mathers arrived, the SQ had the investigation in top gear. He had to park some distance away and walk briskly through the gathering of reporters, television crews and a bevy of police and emergency vehicles to where Cinq-Mars, his chin downcast, leaned against the side of his Pathfinder, his hands deep in his coat pockets and his collar pulled up around his neck.

“I’ve answered the same questions a dozen times over,” his partner told him before the young man could utter a word. “You can spare me.”

They stood side by side, each content to be in the other’s company and out of the way of the SQ, officers. Mathers didn’t speak until Painchaud’s father arrived in a black Lexus. “Shit,” he said.

“Keep your opinions to yourself, Bill.”

“That’s not it, Emile. I have to talk to the SQ. I’m a witness.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just remembered. I drove by here today—after I followed Roland Harvey to the monastery. A white Caddy was parked in the yard. Emile, it could’ve been around the time. I thought it might’ve been his old man, just because, you know, it looked like wealth. But that’s not the car.”

Cinq-Mars nodded toward the SQ. “Go tell,” he said.

That delayed them awhile, and when Mathers was finally released, Cinq-Mars suggested they visit Painchaud’s girlfriend. “She’s not here. I have to figure she hasn’t heard the news. Maybe nobody knows to tell her.”

“Is that our job?” Mathers pondered.

“As far as I can tell, Charlie didn’t have friends in the SQ. It might as well be us. At least we know what he’s been doing for us lately.”

“How much of that do we tell?”

“None of it for now.”

“Émile—”

“It’s unexplainable, Bill. He was trying to save his girlfriend. I think that’s the least we can do for him now, don’t you?”

They left in the Pathfinder, with Cinq-Mars dropping his partner off by his car farther down the road. In tandem they continued on to Camille’s house, where they discovered that the SQ had arrived before them, and in significant numbers. Half a dozen squad cars and a couple of unmarked vehicles filled her driveway and spilled out onto the street. A few neighbours had come out to have a look. Mathers followed Cinq-Mars past the house and parked behind him on another street. Before he had a chance to turn off his car, he
spotted Cinq-Mars coming around to climb into the passenger side, so he left the motor running to keep them warm.

“That’s a surprise,” Mathers said.

“How’d they know to come here?” Cinq-Mars asked.

“Any ideas?”

“Two. Somebody in the SQ, knows Camille and Charlie were going out. That’s not hard to believe, he could’ve had a friend who knew about her, but why would they send so many people to deliver bad news?”

“What’s your other idea?”

“Who did Charlie call before he died, if anyone? By now, the SQ, must know. If it was Camille, then yes, they’d be here in force.” Cinq-Mars had taken out his cellphone and was punching in a number with his thumb. “Is he in?” he asked whoever answered. After a moment, he said, “Yeah, I know. We’re all busy. Could you get him, please? Tell him it’s Jeremiah.”

“Who?” Mathers asked.

Cinq-Mars did not respond, the phone pressed to his right ear. More than a minute passed before he spoke again. “Hi. Yeah. I heard. That’s what I’m working on.” He listened awhile. “Yeah, I’m sure they are. Listen. I need to know if Painchaud got a call through before he died. If so, what time, and to whom.
Noqua.”
A moment later, he said, “Yeah. I’ll wait.”

“Jeremiah?” Mathers asked, while Cinq-Mars was silent.

“Any prophet will do,” his senior told him. “I’m talking to my contact inside the SQ.”

Mathers nodded.
“Noqua,
that’s also some kind of code?”

“For ‘no questions asked.’ It could apply to you, too.”

The younger detective had never met any of the famous Cinq-Mars contacts, although he understood
the concept. Cops found like-minded and trustworthy colleagues on other forces. When it was necessary to bypass the bureaucracy, they did so, trusting one another to use the information wisely. He wished that he could set up his own pipeline inside these forces, but it wouldn’t be easy. To start with, you had to be an excellent judge of character. As Cinq-Mars had done, he would have to find the right people, then assiduously avoid using them until they all got older and became well placed and trusted within their departments. Patience was the operative word. Bill figured that he would do one thing differently. If he ever put together a similar group, they’d never use the names of prophets to identify themselves. Rock singers, maybe.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Cinq-Mars spoke up. “Yeah. Yeah. Thought so. Yeah. Really? Okay. Listen. I’ll give you something. Tell your people this. According to you, Painchaud made the call during daylight hours, right? When I arrived, the lights were on. A lot of lights is hard to explain. No, no, you don’t get it. He gets the shit kicked out of him. He makes a phone call. That happens in daylight. Somebody else shows up and turns on the lights. Maybe that person kills him. Or maybe that person sews his lips together. Somebody who shows up and runs away scared doesn’t first turn on all the lights. Do you hear what I’m saying? Anyhow, the point is, pay close attention to the time of death and the time of the phone call. When you get the time of death, let me know. Yeah. Right. I got you. Okay. But, listen—find out exactly how long she listened to the tape. Okay. Right. Thanks.”

Mathers sat up straight after Cinq-Mars signed off, anxious to know what was going on.

The senior detective put his phone away and moved his body so that he was sitting almost sideways on the seat with his knees up, facing Mathers. “Okay. The SQ, is at Camille’s house because Charlie called her. The
call went through before dark. She says that when she got home there was a call on her answering machine, but no one said anything. She listened to a lot of blank air on the machine, then erased it.”

“That could be,” Mathers said, “if Charlie passed out after making the call.”

“Makes sense. Or, if he was shot just as the call went through, she’d only hear silence. There’d be no gunshot on the tape. Apparently, she listened to the tape for a little bit, waiting for a voice, then she stopped it and pressed erase. So we don’t have a record.”

Mathers took a deep breath. “Where does this leave us, Emile?” he asked.

Cinq-Mars shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t want to put myself in the middle of that hornet’s nest.” He jerked his head in the direction of Camille’s house and the SQ. “I guess we knock off. Pick up the pieces in the morning.”

His phone twittered, as though to immediately contradict him. After saying hello, he listened for awhile. Once he said, “God.” Later he said, “Shit.” At the end of the call he hung up without saying thanks or goodbye and tucked the phone away in his breast pocket. Then he slumped backward in the seat.

“You should have a hat,” Cinq-Mars told his partner.

“Why’s that?” He looked closely at his partner, who looked defeated, somehow.

“Because now would be a good time to hang on to it.” He sighed. “This has gone dark, Bill. It’s all pitch-black now.” He spoke in a low voice.

“Emile? What’s up?”

“Harry Hillier,” Cinq-Mars recited slowly, trying to comprehend the words as he uttered them, “of Hillier-Largent Global. He’s the bald one, right?”

Mathers concurred.

“He just blew up.”

“Blew up?”

“Outside his office. Stuck his key into the ignition of his car, and the whole works exploded. Harry’s history.”

They were both on overload, and the information they processed cascaded into a darkened realm. Cinq-Mars hoarded a visual image of a black hole, where planets and galaxies were extinguished, where time itself was bent out of shape. Life seemed to be mutating. Whatever was not crushed became monstrous.

“What’s going on?” Mathers begged.

Cinq-Mars failed to help him out. “Scientists puzzle over a problem of missing matter in the universe.” He put up a defensive, gloved hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to lecture you. I’m just tired. I’m just saying that the matter missing in the universe, Bill, doesn’t compare to this. Everything that matters here is missing. We’re nowhere. We’re lost.”

“His car, we’re talking dynamite?”

“Or
plastique.
I keep forgetting that somebody tried to wire
my
car.”

“I don’t forget it. I’m not living with my wife because of it.” Mathers gripped the steering wheel as though he wanted to rip it out. “What are we going to do, Emile?” he demanded, shaking himself loose from his own lethargy. “We have to
do
something. We have to respond.”

Cinq-Mars nodded. He was tired, but the young man was right to remain aggressive. “You get the scene at Hillier-Largent. Find out what’s there to find out. I’ll talk to Roland Harvey.”

Mathers was confused. “About what?”

“Harvey led you straight to Lucy, Bill. At least, he led you straight to her car, and I’m betting that that’s pretty much the same difference. He didn’t ask anybody’s permission first. Either the Mohawk Peacekeepers are hiding Lucy, which is possible, or the Warriors are, and he’s a Warrior, too. Either way, Roland’s involved, and he’s going to introduce me to
Lucy Gabriel. I’d prefer going to see her with an invitation. I’d like that meeting to be friendly.”

Mathers wasn’t so sure. “He might not feel inclined to do that, Emile.”

Cinq-Mars grunted. “After tonight, he’ll feel inclined. There’s been a cop-killing. They know what happened the last time there was a cop-killing near here.”

“The last time it was the Indians who shot the cop. Are you suggesting—”

“I’m not,” Cinq-Mars assured him. “But they know that when a cop is shot dead the world goes crazy for a while. He’ll lead me to Lucy.”

The night was brightening, the clouds dispersing to reveal a half-moon. The detectives headed in opposite directions, intent on different situations. Bill Mathers would deal with the grisly aftermath of a car-bombing. Emile Cinq-Mars would enter a domain of cop-hating criminal Indians—some of whom might be cops themselves—hopefully to arrange contact with a young native in hiding, to see if they could find common ground.

Cinq-Mars drove back along the highway through the woodlands and farms that rimmed the north shore of the lake. He made a phone call, which gave him Roland Harvey’s home address, culled from a phone book. He was then passed along to a police dispatcher who searched through her directories and gave him the necessary directions.

To pop in on Lucy uninvited was a temptation, but he didn’t know what level of security existed inside the monastery, and he certainly had no desire to instigate a gunfight or to spook her, or anyone else. His best bet was to visit Roland Harvey first.

The directions took him onto Indian land and down a narrow, winding back road through a forest of pines.
Snow hung on the boughs, pristine in the moonlight. Initially, the road carried him uphill, but later it veered and descended into a clearing, where he spotted a smoking chimney before he saw the house. Cinq-Mars was unnerved by the number of vehicles parked in the driveway. Ratty pickups and high-priced four-by-fours. Rifles were mounted across the back windows. As he dimmed his lights and turned off the engine, he saw movement inside the house responding to the sound of his vehicle.

At least he wouldn’t be waking people up or disrupting matrimonial intimacy.

His steps crunched snow as he walked toward the door. He made a point of remaining in the light from the living room, so that he was seen, to keep everybody calm. A fine, crisp night. A snapping cold. His breath visible in the night air.

Stars twinkled through the bare trees.

Cinq-Mars knocked on the stout pine door.

Roland Harvey waited a moment, then opened up. The two men regarded one another carefully.

“What’s happening?” Constable Harvey asked. He was out of uniform, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt. The men behind him were standing, as though worried they might have to move quickly, and a couple of guys were keeping a vigil at various windows in case Cinq-Mars was not alone.