Seven Days Dead Part 20

TWENTY.

In early morning light, emile and Sandra repeat the walking tour at their end of the island. They have no plan to do the whole trail, as emile intends to examine the ground where they spied Pete Briscoe shoveling. Still, the stroll provides the joy of birdcalls and pliant sea air and soon they rhapsodize about a return trip to Grand Manan one day, which might include a boat ride out to view the puffins, an excursion on a lobster boat, another to be up close and personal with whales. emile wants to investigate the salmon farms to make up his own mind on their pros and cons, sick fish being a major con, and he wants to visit a weir to learn more of how it operates. Sandra teases him that all he really wants is a net that big, for criminals, not herring. She has a point, for the genius of a weir is that the fish find their way in easily enough but can't find their way out because they keep swimming in circles in one direction only. How great would it be if criminals marched their way into prison, and even though the door remained wide open they couldn't use it, because they kept marching in a circle around the yard.

They speak also of spending a whole glorious day sitting on a beach-but only after this nasty business is behind them. They kiss, a pause on their walk to commiserate with each other for failing, once again, to have a holiday.

"Don't worry about it, emile," Sandra says.

From a precipice, they observe a fish boat motor out, gulls surrounding it in a feverish cry for sc.r.a.ps. They earn a few, as a crewman culls the bait box and tosses wastage into the sea. Then the truly rambunctious bickering begins.

"I imagine they're company," emile ponders. He's mesmerized by the scene, the richness of the color, the example of proud, tenacious work. "Like barn cats to a farmer. Lonely work. Must be. The gulls are company, I suppose."

Locating Pete Briscoe's spot is not difficult. They had certain pines to pinpoint, and that proves easy. Ascending a rise, they see where holes have been dug, then backfilled, the surface smoothed over. Rain, sunlight, and vigorous gra.s.s will conceal Briscoe's labors over time, but they've come early enough to be successful archaeologists.

emile has brought along a garden spade nicked from the shed by his cottage in order to scratch the earth. He digs a patch separate from Briscoe's handiwork to give himself an idea of what the undisturbed terrain looks like when turned over, its texture and density. He can then revisit the other man's excavations and sort out any differences. Going deeper, he will be able to determine the limit of Briscoe's foray. His theory works, for in a couple of the old holes Briscoe soon struck solid rock. When emile does find a deeper hole, nothing is in it.

He tries elsewhere.

No luck.

In all-and emile walks a wide berth to confirm that he's missed nothing-Briscoe dug eight separate patches. Only in one is anything found, and emile would rather not have made the discovery-a long stool has been left behind.

"He was going to the bathroom?" Sandra asks. "That's why he was digging?" By itself, that makes no sense.

"Can't be. Who walks a mile into the woods when there are public toilets in town? If he came here with a shovel it wasn't to dig an outhouse. His waste is incidental."

"Nothing's here. You only have one more to dig."

Nothing shows up in that hole either. He hits rock eight inches down.

On the walk back they puzzle it through. The consensus between them is that Briscoe might have buried something. When spotted by emile and Sandra, he opted to dig it back up again. Still, that fails to explain the need for eight separate holes. Sandra proffers the habit of squirrels, who bury their precious nuts then fail to remember where. The critters hope that enough of them bury a sufficient quant.i.ty of nuts that they're bound to sniff one sometime by digging around. emile quietly takes that in, and Sandra needs time before she grasps that he isn't being his usual pensive self. His mind has gone off somewhere.

"emile? What is it?"

"He could have been burying something," the detective explains. "Or he could have been digging something up. There's a third option."

Given his general parameters, she can't think what that might be.

"At the crime scene, somebody tried to dig a grave. Okay, that's my conjecture, but somebody was digging for some reason and didn't get very far. Here, the digger had some success and some failure. There are holes where the earth remains soft enough and deep enough under the surface, where Briscoe could have gone deeper. Then there are holes that hit solid bedrock."

"What does that imply?"

He doesn't want to say. "Suppose somebody had that problem originally. A grave can't get dug when it's necessary. So Lescavage is strapped to a tree instead and savaged. Now suppose that somebody wanted to do such a thing again. What would the killer think to find out before committing to a second time around?"

Sandra gets it. "He'd want to make sure he could dig a grave. So Pete Briscoe was experimenting? Making plans? emile, is he your killer?"

emile c.o.c.ks his head from side to side, makes a face. "His alibi has holes. I haven't gone over it carefully, or tried to break him down. Those aren't the questions foremost on my mind at the moment."

"What are?"

"Why the h.e.l.l was Pete Briscoe up here shoveling if he's not our killer? What other explanation might he have? If so, what was it he didn't want us to see? What did he feel so strongly about that he has since removed the evidence? And if he is probing for an easy-to-dig burial ground, who does he plan to inter? I don't believe he came all the way up here only to shovel his own s.h.i.t, although apparently he did that, too."

Back at the cottage, they enjoy a simple lunch of salmon sandwiches and chips, followed by cherries and cool lemonade. emile then absconds with the Jeep and heads to the primary general store on the island. The young woman who works there found a dog's owner quickly, and Wade Louwagie let on that she subsequently helped him out when an "episode" shattered his nerves. She knows stuff, emile is certain. She knows people, their place and their histories. He needs to acquire local knowledge and Margaret of the General Store strikes him as a bountiful source.

Confirming that, she knows who he is this time and what he's been up to. Island news is making the rounds only a whiff slower than the speed of light.

"So I heard you're, like, famous, like a Sherlock Holmestype guy."

"Not by a long shot." He wants to explain that he doesn't think of himself as particularly bright, merely diligent, with a missile's guidance system for the truth. That might take time and still not be understood. "Our Corporal Louwagie could use a hand at the moment, so I'm pitching in."

"You can say that again, poor guy."

"You were kind to him."

"Maybe too kind. He might have ideas now."

"Would that be so terrible?" he asks.

The hint of a blush slips onto her skin, even as she shrugs. He studies her. Sometimes even the most humble of people exude a warmth and honesty that transcends the usual quagmire in which humans perpetually bathe. She is one of these, spry and witty and cogent, and probably a real tease in her way to any boy who's not prepared for cleverness. He cannot say if Margaret's a gossip-she may or may not be-although she is a bona fide gatherer of gossip, he imagines, given that her workplace is a hub for the island sport. He's hoping that she discriminates between information that is truthful and what ought to be held up to the light.

"Any chance that you can take time off for a chat?"

"My boss is a stickler."

"I see. I don't mean to impose, but when is your next break?"

"Of course..." she says, and lets her voice trail off in a telling way.

"'Of course...'" emile encourages her.

"If you think that I could say to him that this is police business."

"It is. Let him know that. If you prefer, I'll tell him myself."

At that, she takes his hand as though he's a pupil and she his teacher guiding him to the princ.i.p.al's office, in this case her boss's. She knocks.

A voice shouts back, "Open!"

She shoves him through the door ahead of her, hanging back. When emile utters the phrase, "police business," she repeats it for her boss's benefit, which prevents emile from getting to the point.

"What police business?" the boss inquires. He seems pleasant, not a pariah.

"I need to ask Margaret a few questions."

"About the murders?" He's more than surprised. He almost takes umbrage. "She doesn't know anything."

"About the island," Cinq-Mars counters. "She can help me out on several fronts. I need to talk to her precisely because she's not in any way a.s.sociated with the murders. I don't want this conversation with anyone who might be even remotely involved."

He understands, and changes his tune. "About the island, Margaret knows everything. What she doesn't know, she can invent and still be right."

"Police business," Margaret repeats, as if she's won a prize.

"All right," the owner allows, "take her away. Just bring her back in one piece, if you don't mind. The truth is, I don't know what I'd do without her."

Outside, Cinq-Mars suggests a walk by the seaside.

"Too close to the fish plant. Do you love the stinkeroo of dead fish?"

Good point. Instead, they head off along a footpath by a brook. A few bugs a.s.sail them, but nothing serious.

"What do you want to ask me? My boss is right. I know nothing about those murders. My gosh. Not me."

"This is touchy, Margaret. Let me explain it to you carefully, because I need your fullest cooperation."

"You have it. Of course! I'm cooperating."

"You know the people who live here. I don't. I want to ask you about certain people. I don't want you to think that someone is therefore under suspicion. No one is. I just need to start putting together how certain pieces interconnect and how certain people fit with others. I don't want you to talk about what I say because, misinterpreted, if you make the wrong a.s.sumption, you could ruin a good person's reputation."

"I get you. Don't worry about me, sir. I know when to keep it zipped. But thank you. That's a compliment, and I thank you."

emile is momentarily lost.

"You're saying out loud that you trust me. I appreciate that. Fire away."

He does like this girl. Smart and able.

"Who," he wants to know, "is Aaron Roadcap?"

First, she needs to lean against a maple, let her neck and head droop, and release several breaths without appearing to draw any back in.

"Isn't he just," she says, looking up and straightening again, "the world's most handsome man? He's so beautiful. You should see him with his shirt off. I have. Only when he was on a beach, you understand. Okay. I have not been all around the world, I've hardly been off this island. But oh my G.o.d, isn't he the world's most handsome man? He is so frigging cute! I just want to die whenever he walks in, which isn't close to often enough. He should take his shirt off more often. I have a boyfriend, but I wouldn't if Aaron clicked his fingers in my direction. Anytime he visits the store I need to go pee after."

She makes him laugh. She won't bore him, this girl. "The thing is, Margaret, where I come from, girls also take into account what a man does, what his place in the world might be. Sometimes it doesn't mean so much if a man is handsome if he's not also, let's say, as an example, a movie star. Or just a good guy."

"I know what you're saying," Margaret attests, and emile believes she does. "He picks dulse. Aaron Roadcap wades in the cold waters off Dark Harbour with his shirt off on a hot day and picks dulse. He's not a banker. He's not even a fisherman. He's one step above shining shoes for a living, not that anybody around here makes a dime doing that! I can't believe that anybody on earth can't shine their own shoes."

"You do understand me," Cinq-Mars confirms, hoping to get her on point.

"He lives in a hovel. How can an attractive man live in a hovel? Probably with rodents for pets. Or maybe he has a cat, I don't know. I wish I knew. I would gladly visit his hovel to find out. But the thing is, what you need to understand is, Aaron Roadcap is not just a dulse farmer." She resorts to a conspiratorial whisper, and checks around to see if anyone else is listening. But they occupy these quiet woods on their own.

emile Cinq-Mars is wholly confident now that he has come to the right person to fortify his local knowledge.

"Go on," he says, encouraging her.

TWENTY-ONE.

If he stuck to a logical list of priorities, the cult's gaggle of levitating devotees would not be next to interview, but as he's in the vicinity and following no such list, emile Cinq-Mars knocks on their door. Besides, he bears a grudge against them, still miffed by the lack of civility he experienced when he showed up with a dead dog. If he can in any way disturb their afternoon, that success will only elevate his.

He thinks it might make him so happy, he'll positively float off the ground.

For this encounter, the group's leader and resident doorman at the old City Hall does nothing to ingratiate himself or his band of spiritual neophytes. He's still wearing his high-rise boots, suitable for a clown. "Not another dead dog story." The man is expressionless. "Do we have an epidemic on our hands?"

Today he's not sweaty, and his motley crew seeking to defy gravity must be on a break or enjoying nap time. They've gone quiet, wherever they might be.

Cinq-Mars is equally as superior. "You're the only person on the island who doesn't know who you're talking to right now, or why, or what's at stake."

Arms crossed, a hip b.u.t.tressed against the doorjamb, the tall, skinny, waiflike sentry with a skin tone that eschews the sun-perhaps Dracula-like he ventures out only at night and, unlike the drinker of blood, only during storms-blows a bubble with chewing gum. It pops, and his tongue slips it back into his mouth again. He asks, "Who are you supposed to be? King Kong?"

The detective figures that he probably deserves that, and tells him, "I'm an officer of the law investigating a rash of murders on this island."

The lie, he justifies, is a minor one, a question of time and circ.u.mstance. The fib is working, as the guy seems less blase. "You're a cop. A cop who the last time he was here didn't know that this isn't the real City Hall. Are you sure you've got your story straight?"

Cinq-Mars figures he's owed that one, too.

"Like I said, you're the only person on the island who hasn't heard of me. Best advice? Take this meeting seriously."

The man concedes an inch, at least. "I can't help with any murders."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"Officer," he says, giving his brow a wipe as though overcome by the la.s.situde of the age, "shouldn't you show me your badge or something?"

Rather than do the impossible, Cinq-Mars stares him down.

"Okay, okay. Look, we're not exactly integrated with island life. People don't know us, we don't know them. I don't know you or anybody else, so don't take it personal. Truth is, me and n.o.body who comes here can help you."

"Your group was on the ridge the night the Reverend Lescavage was murdered."

"How do you know?"

"Who else would be silly enough to be out on a night like that?"

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I'm not answering questions. You are."

At an impa.s.se, perhaps a crossroads, the two men glare back at each other.