Ice Lake (55 page)

“Maybe. Try to relax about it, Emile.” He was trying to do something about the shambles on his own
desk, or at least appear to be interested in his caseload.

“How can I relax? I’ve got two cops flying in from New York for no known purpose other than to waste my time.”

Tremblay had been emphatic. He had to wait for the New Yorkers.

Mathers grunted and didn’t go any further into that problem, not wanting to encovage his partner’s rant. He hadn’t told Cinq-Mars the worst of his own problems. Donna’s demands had some beyond Bill splitting with his partner. She was leaving him. The only thing that would make her stay would be the news that he had quit the department and was looking for another career. He had coaxed her into giving him more time, but first he had to quit the partnership with Cinq-Mars as an act of good faith. She hadn’t given him a couple of days. He had to be off the case and out of the partnership when he came home, or their marriage would be irreparable.

“I’ve made this case, Bill,” Cinq-Mars was muttering as he passed behind the room dividers into his office cubicle. “I know it’s inside me.”

Maybe Donna’s right,
Mathers was thinking. The man seemed half mad.

“New York cops!” he was raving, as if the indignity was too much to bear. “I have to waste my time with New York cops! Doesn’t anybody around here know we’ve had a cop-killing?”

They were both quiet awhile, then Cinq-Mars blew up and shouted from behind his dividers, “They’d better show up on time! And if they do, they’d better have something interesting to tell me. Or else!”

Against his better judgment, Mathers replied, “Or else what?”

Cinq-Mars came to the entrance to his cubicle and stared down his lengthy nose at him.

“Sorry,” Mathers apologized. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Another time he heard Cinq-Mars ranting and got up to calm him down. “Apparently, nobody cares if cops are being shot,” he was shouting, “or if key players are being blown up in their cars, or if witnesses are being stuffed under an ice cap or squirreled away from public view to keep them alive. I’m on assignment. I get to talk to New York cops. Whoopee!”

Mathers stood in the entrance and discovered that Cinq-Mars wasn’t ranting to himself but talking on the phone, to his dying father, as it turned out. The morning was shaping up to be a long one for everyone concerned. For his own sake, he hoped that the New York cops arrived on time.

The same day, Wednesday afternoon, February 16th, 1999

They arrived late, escorted by Lieutenant-Detective Remi Tremblay.

“Explain it to me, Bill,” Cinq-Mars whispered as, over the room dividers, he watched the men approach. “If the New York Police Department needs to communicate with us, if they have to do it in person, why are they sending
two
cops? Two plane tickets, two hotel rooms, double the meals. Either they don’t have a single cop smart enough to keep things straight, or this is a boondoggle. I’ll lay odds these guys brought their skis.”

Standing next to him, buttoning his jacket, Mathers mentioned, “They’re not wearing ski boots, Emile.”

Cinq-Mars wouldn’t be knocked off his soapbox easily. “They were lured here by the cheap Canadian dollar. They’ll want our opinion on restaurants.”

Three men entered the cubicle.

Tremblay undertook the introductions. Austere, he carried himself with a professorial countenance. Not a man displaced by the new wizardry of statistical analysis
or computer-generated profiles of crime suspects, the lieutenant was a team player at heart, although for him that usually meant being the team leader. Before Christmas, Cinq-Mars had enjoyed ribbing Tremblay after the lieutenant had given an interview on television. “Crime is down except in certain pockets of the city where children are stealing automobile hood ornaments, which is a new fad, thereby creating a statistical anomaly.” In department meetings, Cinq-Mars had taken to asking if they were going to put together a major task force to crack down on the scurrilous, hood-ornament-stealing, statistic-busting twelve-year-olds before it was too late, before all hell broke loose.

“Detective First-Class Recchi,
NYPD.
His partner, Detective McGibbon,” Tremblay stated. “Gentlemen, may I introduce Sergeant-Detective Emile Cinq-Mars, the man I was telling you about. This is his partner, Detective William Mathers. You four have a lot to talk about. I have to run, so take care of our guests, Emile.” He gave a little questioning nod, as though to indicate to Cinq-Mars that his best behaviour was being solicited.

They shook hands. They were all large men, Cinq-Mars the tallest, but the new arrivals had broad shoulders and chests and the necks of football linebackers. A black man, McGibbon offered a relaxed and cordial smile. Recchi, olive-skinned, dark-haired, carried himself with the chiseled head and loping, worried stance of a pugilist. Both men held their overcoats slung across a forearm.

“Sit down,” Cinq-Mars invited. Mathers had already brought chairs in for the purpose. “What can I do for you?”

Seated, McGibbon straightened his tie. “I didn’t know for sure if you guys spoke English up here.” He smiled again.

“My partner’s English,” Cinq-Mars remarked. “He’s dragged me down to his level.” He wished they’d get on with it.

McGibbon braced his hands on his knees, his overcoat falling across his lap. “We have a situation in New York, sir. Men with
AIDS
have been dying prematurely. Unexpectedly. All at the same time. Before dying, a few talked about being on a secret drug therapy program—some kind of thing like that. They’d been undergoing treatment for years, that’s what they told people, but this time, when the program changed, they didn’t stay well or get better. They got worse. They slid downhill fast.”

Cinq-Mars and Mathers shared a glance. Chickens were coming home to roost. “The reason that my superior officer charged out of here so quickly—”

“He explained,” Recchi said.

“We have no jurisdiction on this case.”

“He said something about SQ,?”

“Za
Sûreté du Québec,
the provincial police.”

“Sir,” McGibbon stated, straightening somewhat and lowering his voice, as though to sound conspiratorial, “obviously, we don’t know the ins and outs of how things work up here.”

“Frankly, we don’t care,” Recchi put in.

“The lieutenant, he said even though you don’t have jurisdiction, the one person up here we got to talk to, that one person is you. To confer with anybody else would be a waste of our time. Maybe damaging. Would you disagree?”

Without committing himself, Cinq-Mars folded his arms across his chest. “What do you know?”

“One woman came to New York City and administered drug cocktails to
AIDS
patients,” McGibbon recited. “The patients thought they were getting the latest deal, experimental drugs on the leading edge, not yet approved. That woman’s name was Lucy. She’s
native, attractive, long-legged, black hair. We have a decent description. A week later a second woman appeared on the scene. She checked on the health of those taking the first woman’s medication, to see how they were doing. She’s referred to as Camille. Her name, and especially her accent—people thought maybe she was French Canadian, which pointed an arrow up here. By the time the second woman had shown up, patients were dying, a few were already dead.”

They possessed a good overview.

“I’m aware of your situation,” Cinq-Mars revealed.

“You’re aware?” Recchi asked. “We could’ve used a heads-up. A consult.”

“As far as I know, every patient was contacted, told to cease their medication and seek treatment.”

“That’s another reason why we’re here. We heard about that. What does that do for us, Sergeant-Detective? It sorts out the medical side of things, maybe, but I don’t think it helps us out crime-wise, with the illegalities.” Recchi liked to gesture with one hand as he talked.

Cinq-Mars imagined that a few perpetrators had been swatted by that hand over the years. He tried to redirect the conversation. “I understand, sir, that we’re talking about two young, idealistic women, who thought they were helping. For years they
were
helping, before something went wrong. They never had any intent to do harm.”

“Sir,” McGibbon interrupted, “do you have any idea how many people ended up dead from their desire to do no harm?”

“Forty-two,” Cinq-Mars replied, which startled both visitors. Both their heads shifted back as if from a blow. ‘You didn’t know it was that many because we’re not only talking about New York.”

“We know about Jersey.”

“Add on Philadelphia.”

‘Jesus,” Recchi said.

“Baltimore,” Cinq-Mars mentioned, “escaped by the skin of its teeth.”

“Forty-two dead by your count,” McGibbon summarized. “I think we have a crime here. I don’t think it matters how idealistic they were.”

“We have a crime,” Cinq-Mars concurred. “But—behind the crime are men, and syndicates, who knew exactly what they were doing. People who deliberately killed others to advance science. The mob’s involved. Around here, if something’s big, the mob’s always involved. They insist. Usually, all we have to do is figure out which gang. What I’m trying to say is, the women were pawns. If I’ve been protecting them, it might be because they’re the only hope I have left to nail the real criminals.”

This time, McGibbon and Recchi shared a covert communication. “We’d like to talk to them,” Recchi said.

“No can do.”

“Why not?”

“They’re in hiding.” Cinq-Mars saw no need to discriminate between Lucy and Camille. These men had no particular right to his knowledge.

“From who?”

“Not from me.”

McGibbon turned his head to one side and nodded while looking down at the desk. He finally understood that the meeting was adversarial. “Are they police informants?”

“Would I tell you if they were?”

“I don’t know why not.”

“Would you?”

“That would depend.” Under the stern gaze of Emile Cinq-Mars, McGibbon made a decision and spoke honestly. “Probably not.”

“I won’t tell you if they’re informants or not.”

“We’re on the job, like you.”

“Yes, you are. With respect, sir, I don’t know you.”

Recchi brushed a hand through his hair and breathed out with apparent impatience. “Tiddlywinks. We’ve got—how many, you said?—forty-two dead. You want to screw us around here?”

“We’ve got an officer assigned to this investigation beaten to death,” Cinq-Mars told him. “We’ve got key witnesses blown up in their automobiles. I’ve had an assault upon my home and family. My partner’s family’s in hiding. I don’t know you, sir.” Cinq-Mars put both elbows on his desk and pointed a telling finger at the visitor. “I don’t know you.”

The four men were quiet awhile, each mulling avenues of possible reciprocity.

Recchi broke the silence. “Look, we’re on your turf. What you say goes. We can’t do anything here. We’d be lost. How can we make this work? How can we make this happen, Sergeant-Detective?”

Cinq-Mars leaned back in his swivel chair and issued a lengthy yawn. “All right,” he declared when he snapped forward again. “We’re driving out to a crime scene. If you want to tag along…?”

“What’s the crime?”

“A cop was beaten and shot to death in his home. I want to revisit the scene. We can start there. See how it goes.”

McGibbon checked with Recchi, who shrugged. “All right. Let’s go.”

Cinq-Mars jumped to his feet and grabbed his coat. “You guys armed?”

Reaching down, McGibbon retrieved the computer mouse that dangled just above his feet and put the object on the desk where he thought it belonged. The wee, plastic creature had obviously been irritating him. When he stood, he tapped his hip holster, and Recchi nodded.

“Good.I wouldn’t want you reading tourist
brochures. I wouldn’t want you thinking you’ve crossed into a safe country. It’s not safe if you’re law enforcement. This time of year, especially. The gangs are bomb-happy. This time of year, they might blow a man up just for using a word like ‘tiddlywinks.’ That wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Show them your gold shields and tell them you’re from New York, they might not be impressed.”

“I got that message,” Recchi said.

“What’s so special about this time of year?” McGibbon asked.

“Boredom, maybe. Long winter nights.”

“The mob here kills cops?” Recchi asked Mathers, as they followed Cinq-Mars out of the cubicle.

“Somebody does,” Cinq-Mars told him over his shoulder.

“Cops. They kill cops?” Recchi, hurrying in pursuit, pressed the junior officer in a hushed tone, as if he wasn’t sure whether he could believe the older guy or not.

Bringing up the rear, bobbing as he picked up his rubber boots on the fly, then reaching out to grab his overcoat off a hook, Mathers confided, “Lately.”