Seven Days Dead Part 23

Coffee and a bite of toast and he's out the door.

Before retiring the previous night, emile put in an overdue call to Sticky McCarran. What he learned interests him, although how the mystifying tidbit he gleaned fits into the overall jigsaw puzzle of this case is beyond him. Sticky was out on the water the night of the murders, ferrying Maddy Orrock across to the island. Cinq-Mars wanted to know if he had seen or heard anything unusual while crossing the bay. He didn't want to lead him in any one direction, and purposefully chose not to mention that he was interested in radio communications, exchanges among boats that night, or ship-to-sh.o.r.e messages or vice versa, or anything that came across as odd or inexplicable over the airwaves. He planned to ask the Coast Guard the same question, and listen to any recordings that might have been made, if they let him, but someone familiar with the usual chatter on that radio frequency and familiar as well with the princ.i.p.als at sea might be a superior resource.

On that account, he was correct.

"A fish boat was anch.o.r.ed below Orrock's house," Sticky brought up.

"Was that unusual?"

"Any day or night, it's a bit weird. It's not a smart place to anchor off. The current is strong, harbor traffic is frequent, you might not be seen, and the waves can be lumpy even on a calm day, not to mention the obvious."

"Please," Cinq-Mars said, as he didn't know, "mention the obvious."

"That sh.o.r.e's a shipwreck waiting to crush you."

"Weird, then," emile summed up over the phone, the receiver c.o.c.ked between his ear and shoulder while he scribbled notes, "but not totally out of the question. Is that what you're saying?"

"Nope. Not saying that."

"Okay, what are you saying?"

"In a storm, it's beyond ridiculous to anchor there. h.e.l.l, you're only a short hop from the harbor. If you don't want to risk going in, and I admit, it's not easy in those conditions, like a camel through the eye of a needle, then stand farther off, you know? Or go around to the lee. Or get inside Whale Cove. The last thing a skipper should do if his brains aren't up his a.r.s.e is anchor off close to that sh.o.r.e. If your anchor drags in those waves, you're on the rocks before you can react. Totally out of the question is what I'm saying, but somebody was there anyway."

"We don't know who," Cinq-Mars presumed.

"Sure we do. It was Pete Briscoe."

Cinq-Mars listened to the silent air over the telephone a moment.

"You got close enough to identify his boat?"

"He didn't have enough sense to stand off elsewhere, but he had enough sense to reduce the chance of a collision in the dark. He left on his AIS."

"Sorry. What's that?"

"AIS. Automatic identification system. More of us keep them on board these days. AIS is a device that transmits your boat name, type, speed, and position to other vessels or sh.o.r.eside and receives the same data back. I never saw Pete's boat, not in that downpour. The radar was fuzzy, at best, but the AIS let me know it was him and showed he wasn't moving. Except for the wave action. Otherwise he wasn't moving."

Suspicious enough. "He was below the Orrock house. Did you hear from him, maybe over the radio?" He wasn't leading him before, but was leading him now.

"Later. Yeah. Normally, I would've hailed him, but I was making harbor. That took all my concentration. Yeah, now that you mention it, I did hear him over the horn later on. Not that I paid much attention. By then I was moored in North Head, trying to catch a little shut-eye. A bad night, so the radio stays on, you know, in case there's trouble and you need to pitch in. I heard Pete having difficulty, nothing life-threatening. Not for him, anyway. Dog overboard. Yeah, that was weird enough. This was more weird: he said he was conning the sh.o.r.eline for his pooch."

"Why, Sticky?" He wanted to say his name at least once, and did so. "What's so weird about that?"

"Because he still wasn't moving. I checked. I had him lined up on my AIS."

"Couldn't the others see that he wasn't moving?"

"It's a relatively new device. Fairly expensive. More of us have one, but it's not the first device put on a working boat. With those who had one, some had troubles of their own. Others weren't paying attention, or didn't give a hoot. I was safe in the harbor. Easy for me to listen in."

"So Briscoe wasn't moving but more or less saying he was."

"Exactly what he was saying. That didn't sound like the truth to me. You know, no skin off my nose particularly. He sounded drunk anyway."

When he was ready to sign off from the conversation, emile offered up a mild plat.i.tude. "Good of you to talk to me, Sticky. And good of you to help Miss Orrock to cross over to the island that night."

"You know how it goes. She pays well. Anyhow, I got to drive her Porsche onto the ferry after that. Took it for a swing around town first. That made the trip worthwhile by itself. I didn't take her across because it was a good thing. I don't deserve the compliment for that."

"Okay, so you did it for the money. And the chance to drive a Porsche. Still, not everybody would've bothered."

"I didn't do it for the money, although I got paid. Well paid."

"What, then?"

"I didn't, one hundred percent, absolutely for sure, know that Alfred Orrock was going to die. If he didn't, if he survived the night even, I didn't want to face him in the morning after turning down his daughter the night before. I'm not that big a fool. That's one thing."

"Sounds like there's another thing."

"You bet. If Alfred dies, who replaces him? I'm thinking to myself, the daughter, no? I didn't want to be in the bad books of somebody who generates most of the extra work for a man like me on Grand Manan. It was just good politics to do what she wanted, that's all I'm saying. Just good business. Nothing to do with kindness. I billed her to make sure she knows that, while she can count on me, I don't come cheap."

Cinq-Mars accepted that. He understood. He doubted that even Maddy was aware of the power now at her fingertips. "Thanks, Sticky," he said, and signed off.

This morning, he's off to see a man on the island who, if he doesn't actually have power-and Cinq-Mars is convinced that he does-challenges the power of others. He drives across island through the hilly woods to Dark Harbour.

Having checked the tide tables, he's arriving early. When he turns down the steep rocky road to that strange hillside habitation, men and women are out in the shallow waters, at the edges of sandbars, bent over and working. He spies them from a great height. The road grows only more b.u.mpy and becomes rockier and increasingly narrow, virtually daring any novice to proceed. Soon it appears impa.s.sable to Cinq-Mars. He's glad to be in a Jeep but doesn't want to wreck the undercarriage either. emile parks, partially pulling up an embankment, and sets out down the hill to the sea on foot. Twice he almost stumbles over himself on the descent. The trail turns into a virtual donkey path wet from hillside streams. He pa.s.ses by ramshackle huts where dark-eyed kids peer out at him through the doors' ripped screens. Not much color distinguishes the shacks, although a large number brandish junkyard artifacts on their mossy porches, usually for the sake of an artistic impression. Flies buzz and mosquitoes pester, and Cinq-Mars makes his way down onto the beach, where he finds relief.

The flat portion is wet, and he removes his shoes and socks to proceed, carrying a set in each hand. The sand is so cold he begins to hop along.

Water spilling from the Labrador Current chills this bay, and his feet redden quickly. He meets three children first, and perhaps they're supposed to be working, but they are so obviously in a mood for play that no one seems to mind. He asks if they know where Aaron Roadcap is.

They look at him as though he just asked where to find the ocean.

One boy points in the general direction of eight men. Under the sun's bright glare, and given the similarity of everyone's clothing, recognition is difficult. Nor can he concentrate very well, his feet seizing up. He knows he didn't plan this properly.

"Is he in the first group or the second? It's much deeper, isn't it, where they are?" He's trying to be cheerful. The fact that he can't recognize Roadcap even at a distance confirms the suspicions of each wild child. Here's a man who can't be trusted. Here's a man who can't stand in cold water without constantly raising one foot, then the other, to try and warm them on the opposite calf. Silly ninny. Here is someone we call a stranger. Someone we've been warned about. An evil outsider. So they clam up and emile can't really blame them. He asks again, with a bigger smile, but perhaps that broad grin kills his standing once and for all among these kids. Their defiance is as evident now as their pride. They stay glumly, emphatically silent.

It's as if they are defying him to keep both feet in the water at the same moment.

He can't. His feet are freezing. He says goodbye.

Walking on, he picks out Roadcap in the second group of dulse harvesters, and rolls up his pant legs to wade into deeper, colder water.

Now his calves scream back at him.

The working adults wear black hip waders, and he's guessing that under them they have on multiple warm socks and cozy long johns. Approaching them, he must look like an idiot, an idiot who wants to holler.

He's hoping either to go numb soon or perish.

Seeing him, Aaron Roadcap straightens up. His grin widens the closer the former cop gets to him. By the time emile is at his side-off the sand now, in among the rocks, the frigid water is up to his knees-Roadcap is enjoying a good laugh.

"Ah, are your feet cold?"

"You mean these blocks of ice? Are they my feet?"

He holds one foot up to the warmer air, like herons do. Then, unlike any heron, he squeezes his shoes and socks under an armpit and, with his hands free, grabs the toes to pa.s.s along some warmth.

"Let's get you back to sh.o.r.e. I presume you came out here to talk to me."

"And to learn about cutting dulse, but maybe that can wait."

"It can. Your feet? Maybe not so much."

Over the last forty yards across the sand flats, Cinq-Mars excuses himself, dispenses with pride, and runs.

"Be careful," Roadcap warns when he arrives back onsh.o.r.e himself. "Your feet might be mistaken for lobsters, they're so red. They might end up in a pot."

"At least they'd be warm. Somebody, please. Put them in a pot."

Roadcap chuckles while he removes his hip waders. Not only does he have socks on, Cinq-Mars finds out, but shoes, which have a thick sole. emile is thrilled to plop himself down on the sand and put his socks and shoes back on. Then in silence they walk off the beach. Where the forest meets the edge of the sea and climbs the face of a high, steep slope, Roadcap locates a trail invisible to the visitor. They enter into that darkly shaded enclave. The two clamber along a narrow trail, ascend a short wooden ladder at one point, and scramble on through the woods and across exposed mossy boulders until they land at Roadcap's rough-hewn home.

What Margaret at the General Store termed a hovel. She was right, too.

They settle into chairs on the porch and the visitor scrunches his toes inside his shoes to try to warm them that way, grimacing.

"Coffee or whiskey?" Roadcap asks, and pops back up again.

"It's so early," Cinq-Mars objects.

"Single malt? There's no clock on the good stuff."

"I wonder if I might prevail upon your hospitality," Cinq-Mars negotiates.

"Both? No problem."

"One for my inner warmth. The other so I can press the cup against my toes before I drink from it."

Roadcap laughs easily and goes inside while Cinq-Mars gazes out at the serene beauty of the ocean from this treetop aerie. A woodp.e.c.k.e.r lands on the banister and gives him the eye, as if to request his photo ID, then flies off, and in a moment Roadcap returns, the screen door banging shut behind him. He's carrying the whiskey and four mugs. No gla.s.ses here. They'll drink whiskey and coffee from tin mugs adorned with bright portraits of curious cows.

"Coffee's perking. It'll be a couple of minutes."

"Sorry to impose."

"I felt like a break. My head's not in it today. Mr. Cinq-Mars, can we come to a mutual agreement?"

"Sure thing. On what?"

"I'm not going to prison for something I didn't do."

Cinq-Mars waits for him to pour, then takes a sip. Good whiskey. He thinks it might be impolite for him to check the label, but in any case it's smooth. Irish, he thinks, and raises his gla.s.s in salute to the drink itself.

"How about," Cinq-Mars responds, "you don't get anywhere near a prison for something you didn't do?"

"Sounds about right to me."

"All this in deference to your father, I suppose."

Roadcap makes a deflecting motion with his chin and shoulders.

"I agree," Cinq-Mars says. "Let's not repeat past mistakes."

"Agreed. If you don't mind, I'll be skeptical about you to the same degree that you're suspicious of me."

"Am I? Suspicious?"

"Bound to be. It's not a problem. I understand. But I need your a.s.surance in principle."

"Agreed. Tell me, Mr. Roadcap, where did you study?"

"Study what?"

"You tell me. You went to university. You grew up here, yet you talk as though you learned the language somewhere else, which suggests that you went away somewhere, at least for a spell. University is as good a guess as any. Makes sense. Other than your clothes, which are related to your occupation and this environment, you give off an educated air. Yet, you didn't have a mother for most of your life and your father was in prison. University, then, from that point of view, seems unlikely. I'm not going to put you in jail for anything in your background, Mr. Roadcap, but you must admit, it's intriguing. Where'd you go?"

Roadcap thinks about it, then decides to see to the coffee. Cinq-Mars hears wood crackling in the stove inside. No electricity here. No coffeemakers. This will be a cup made the old-fashioned way, and when it arrives, it's all he can do not to forget the whiskey. The coffee is so good, he doesn't use it on his toes.

"McGill," Roadcap stipulates, after he settles into his chair again, stretching his legs out. "In Montreal. Your city. Most folks from here choose a school from the Maritimes. I went elsewhere."

"Why?"

"I think you already explained why." Roadcap sips the hot coffee, then washes it down with a whiskey chaser.

Cinq-Mars feels that he can get into this life, although realistically for no more than a day or two. Perched on a dark cliff overlooking the sea and living in a tree house, essentially, has its wild, organic appeal. Back to the primitive. More than anyplace he's ever visited, he senses that here he's on another planet. "How so?" he asks his host.

Roadcap displays a contemplative disposition when he sips. "I'm from Dark Harbour. If I'd gone to a Maritime school, which most do from this island, people from here would have let my story run loose. Dirt-poor dirt and a murderer's son to boot. I wanted out from under that, let's put it that way."

"Yet you returned here after graduation, if you graduated."

"Most of us do. Graduate and return. Look out to sea. You'll spot a dozen boats at any one time and most of the men on board, skippers and crew both, have degrees in English literature. It's just how it goes. There's no work after we get those degrees. Anyway, we prefer the work we do, to the work we don't have."

Cinq-Mars believes that the coffee and the whiskey and, perhaps especially, the forest musk and the sea air are giving him a high. He could fall asleep and check himself off as being content in life.

Instead, he asks another question. "You mentioned the fishermen. Does that life not appeal? Hard work, certainly, but so is cutting dulse. If I was a young man on this island, I'd rather fish."

"You're fishing now, aren't you?"

"Lifelong habit, asking questions. Pete Briscoe is a fisherman. He owns his own boat. Wouldn't you aspire to do that work?"

"Pete Briscoe is not a fisherman."

"Excuse me? How do you figure that? Are you saying he's a bad fisherman?"