The Storm Murders (43 page)

Interpreting their mood,
É
mile said, “I see.” When Sandra exhibited a questioning expression, he explained, “She was working with these two.”

Hartopp conceded with a shrug. “We needed someone in that group, on that team. This goes way back, even before the murders. We flaunted Agent Sivak’s credentials, knowing that Dreher could never resist lassoing the latest brainiac to join the Bureau. So she was charged with the duties that Dreher brought to her, but also to be our person inside his group. And, I have to say, once we made contact with you, her job was to make sure she kept your confidence going forward. So we could figure out your role in all this. Which wasn’t so strange to us, you understand. That was Dreher’s thing. Find the brightest and bring them onto his team. But, I guess, he had other intentions with respect to you.”

É
mile let that sink in. “Might that be why he killed her then? Not the matter of her investigation in Alabama, but he got wind of her involvement with you? Remember, gentlemen, that we know he was in a defensive mode. This whole Quebec escapade was part of that. He may have found out, or deduced, that Vira was working with you.”

Perhaps that had not occurred to the men previously, but in any case they chose not to respond to the possibility.

É
mile reached across and touched Sandra’s knee, and she looked up at him. If she had any more questions of her own, now was the time to ask them.

“Why,” Sandra wondered, “did Dreher bring
É
mile into this in the first place? Not just because he’s smart, surely. It turned out to be Dreher’s biggest mistake. Why didn’t he leave well enough alone, for his own sake?”

Her query seemed to arise from the center of her being, as if this one mystery so vexed her that no piece of the puzzle could settle onto the board without this locking mechanism being in place.
É
mile noticed that the two agents were studying him with equal intent, indicating they’d rather hear his take on the matter than postulate one of their own.

“I hate to be the one to say this,” Cinq-Mars admitted, “but partly—only partly—it’s accidental. As these two men indicated, Sandra, Dreher needed his hired killer, his adjustor, which is to say his evil twin, to descend upon FBI business, which had to be business not connected to him. He probably had very few options. He would’ve
wanted
access to everybody in witness protection, to make an informed choice, but he’d take whatever he could find.”

Sandra nodded, absorbing that. She said, “So he found out about Morris and Adele Lumen by accident?”

“I’m guessing yes. Probably through a personal contact with a loose tongue, he got an address somehow and went with it. In a way it turned out to be perfect for him. Not only out of sight and out of mind, totally unconnected to him, but also out of the country. That was a bonus. After killing them, he wouldn’t have to say it himself or point it out to anyone. It would just be so obvious that neither he nor his team were connected. He’d know that others would think that any relation between the storm murders and Rand Dreher was coincidental now, because it obviously extended well out of his reach and even beyond the American border, which is to say, way beyond his working territory.”

The men were nodding in agreement, and Sandra did as well.

“Was he sent here officially?” Cinq-Mars asked the agents.

“He was never sent here. But Dreher had scope,” Hartopp explained. “He could latch onto things if he gave himself, and the Bureau, a good reason.”

“As for bringing me onto the case,” Cinq-Mars speculated, “he essentially could not trust local investigators. I told him that at the start, even though I didn’t understand the ramifications then. Local authorities would not include him in what they were learning, if anything. He couldn’t have that. He couldn’t speak the language. He needed someone on the ground to keep him informed. So I was duped. When that errand took me on to New Orleans, he was probably surprised by that, but he wasn’t in any position to fight against it. So he took advantage of it instead. He could make life difficult for me, and he did. So that’s how it came about, except for one thing. This is where I’m in slight disagreement, Sandra, with our new friends in the FBI. As to what constitutes his Achilles’ heel. Yes, he feared betrayal. But his undoing, gentlemen, which we find in every crime he committed, has to do with his disdain for the police, and his conviction that he was smarter than any of us. He may have been smarter, but that character flaw, that need to be in the attic when the cops investigated, that need to phone in this crime while he was in the attic and couldn’t get out because of the snow, that need to publicly humiliate investigating detectives, and the need to choose me—I have a reputation, I’m ethical, I’ve been a success—all that derives from his compulsion to prove the universe wrong. In his own head, he was the most cunning, the one and only wicked witch of the Midwest, so he had to take on the wicked witch of the North to prove his own greatness. That’s why he chose me even before he killed the Lumens. So he could better a foe some might consider worthy then brag about it before putting a bullet through my head.”

“Don’t be graphic,” Sandra whispered, and he would have obeyed, but he was done. She looked satisfied though, she’d heard enough.

Cinq-Mars looked across then at Hartopp and silently they accepted that their mutual agreement had also been fulfilled. They were finished here.

At the door, the agents shook hands with Cinq-Mars, only to have Sandra swish by them to pour coffee for the other men and to feed them cookies. They weren’t going to get out of here without experiencing hospitality on Canadian soil, even if she was a born and bred American herself. Everyone seemed quite grateful. When she was done—and only when she was done—the caravan prepared to move out, and Sandra joined her husband on the porch to watch it go.

“We got the call,” she said. She looked at him and smiled. “From the vet. Merlin’s ready to come home. We pick him up at four.”

He released a deep, slow breath, and smiled back at her.

Waiting, Cinq-Mars let his eyes cross the paddock, observing the horses in an early spring frolic. Merlin was coming home to carry through on his old age, but the horses, what of them? Would they be staying? Would he and Sandra be saying goodbye to all this and letting them go? Now was no time for such a major decision, but he knew that it weighed on Sandra as much as it did on him, and events of the last weeks might have reached a tipping point, precipitating a crucial change in their lives.

If he held to Sandra, and she to him, then he’d adapt to whatever came next.

The final car made the turn in the mud of their yard and headed out, and the couple turned back inside. They collapsed on the sofa, then napped sitting up for twenty minutes before Cinq-Mars extricated himself to make a phone call from his den.

“Dupree,” he said when the New Orleans detective answered.

“How’re they hanging,
É
mile?” That wasn’t quite how Cinq-Mars understood the phrase and it made him laugh. Dupree had that knack.

“I called to fill you in and give you that advice you were looking for. Go ahead, Dupree. Hire Everardo. It’s always a decent thing to give a good man a good job.”

This time, Dupree was the one who seemed most amused.

“What’s so funny?”

“I already set it up,
É
mile. You must be slipping. For the first time in our brief history together, I’m ahead of you.”

“Good man,” Cinq-Mars said, and he laughed, too.

“So I guess you’ve heard about our Miami boys by now. We’re bringing them back here for a chat.”

“That’ll make you more popular than ever within your department.”

“Oh it might. Or make the department a little smaller. Open up a spot for Flores. So how are you,
É
mile? Heard y’all been defying death. And how’s Sandra holding up? You’ve been putting her through it, my man.”

“Sandra and I are both counting on her resilience, but it’s being tested. As for me, I cut it a little close this time. This retirement of mine is more dangerous than being on the job ever was.”

“I hear that.”

“Do you know what she did, my lovely wife? She saved our lives.”

“I didn’t hear. Tell me.”

“When Rand Dreher was in the house, ranting away, getting set to kill us, she coaxed him into letting her use the bathroom. In there, she took the lock off the small window, opened it for a second and stuck out a long flag of toilet paper to blow in the breeze. Grace under pressure. She closed the window again with the paper jammed in it. The powder room window has opaque glass, of course. Dreher couldn’t see her flag. But our rescuer, my old partner, didn’t have to waste time finding access into our home. Otherwise, I’m a dead man now.”

“
É
mile,” Dupree said, and he whistled. He marveled at Sandra’s acumen. “Do you know what y’all should do, after she goes and saves your shabby life?”

Cinq-Mars chuckled again. He liked this guy. “What should we do, Dupree?”

“Take a vacation. Y’all allowed back now. Come on down to New Orleans. We’ll warm you up. Feed your bones good food. Get y’all out chasing alligators, something easy like that for a change.”

“That might be the best advice I’ve heard lately. I may bring that up.”

“Do it,
É
mile. I’m serious. I bet our friend Everardo can get the Hilton to donate a room. After what happened last time, they should be willing. And after what you put her through, how she saved you, your wife, she deserves it. Big time.”

Cinq-Mars mulled it over. The idea had its appeal. “I may go for something a little more
interesting
next time, with respect to accommodation. Now that I have someone to guide me to a good spot, why not?”

“You found the Hilton boring? I personally had a great time.”

“I’m glad you were entertained, Dupree.”

“Sounds like a plan,
É
mile. Y’all should make it happen.”

É
mile spun his head around to thinking that he might do just that. This conversation alone felt good. More than cheerful, it felt lively and restorative. As though time, which had taken a breather, which had been standing still for him for days while his heart, so he felt, was stopped, might again begin to tick away the minutes, bring on new days and nights, and resume once more its own familiar sure rhythm. Besides, he could have a drink with his new pal Pascal Dupree, although not at Sinners Too, and be shown around the town. That sounded not only beneficial, but necessary.

“Come to think of it,”
É
mile suggested, “I could go down and identify those Miami boys for you. If you say it’s necessary, that might be best.”

“Ah? Y’all fishing for a good excuse? All right then,
É
mile. I can hand that out. We need y’all down here lickety-split, all right? Get your ass in gear.”

He could detect the other man’s smile and presumed it matched his own.

“All right,”
É
mile told him. “If you insist, we’ll both go down there. If I have to discharge my duty as an ordinary citizen, Sandra might as well come along.”

“That’s the stuff,
É
mile. Y’all talking now. Anyway, you’re safer with her than without her. That much is clear.”

Cinq-Mars responded in kind to the other man’s jibes. “If I get down there, Dupree, I might as well clean up the NOPD. What do you think?”

“Bring a mop and a bucket,
É
mile, and get to work. Why not?”

The two men heard each other chuckle. That felt good. By the time he put the phone down, the retired detective was doing what retired people are supposed to do, dreaming of his next journey, the adventure oncoming.