Seven Days Dead Part 28

"That's a question," Cinq-Mars points out to him.

The fisherman goes silent then, and Cinq-Mars stands more closely in front of him, staring down his lengthy beak at the much shorter man.

"You weren't burying a d.a.m.n thing. Certainly not your dog. You were retrieving that long-handled spade from the murder site. That was your job for the day. Admit it. Don't tell me another lie. You took the shovel away from the scene of the crime, where it was up by the forest, and so the cops never saw it. You carried it away and took it to another location. What were you doing with it? Don't answer, because that might come out as another question and you'll be sorry then. You were wiping the blood off it, Pete. Wiping the blood off."

The pupils of Briscoe's eyes have grown huge, but Louwagie is also perplexed, and intrigued. He's evaluating the fisherman under different light. He a.s.sessed him as a possible material witness, not someone who committed a serious crime. Now he's not sure. He doesn't know where Cinq-Mars is going with this, but he can tell that Briscoe is busting to elude him.

"Pete," emile goes on, "you were tampering-this is a serious crime by itself-you were tampering with the evidence. You wanted to get the blood off. After I went by and we saw each other and you came running to me with some c.o.c.kamamie tale about burying your dog a whole day late, after that you did more than just wipe the spade through the gra.s.s to get the blood and the tissue sc.r.a.pings off. You started digging to make it look good. Because I saw you there. That's the only explanation for what you were doing up there. So-and be careful now, because I'm about to ask you a question and I don't want another question in return, and trust me, you don't want that, either-where is the shovel now, Pete? Who did you return it to? Who did you borrow it from? Don't take your time with this. For your sake, because you're already in serious trouble for tampering with the evidence, just answer the questions."

As straightforward as the path has been laid out for him, Briscoe still doesn't know how to take the first step. Instead, he tries to get around emile.

"I had nothing to do with any murder. You can't think that. That's crazy."

"Except to tamper with evidence."

"Yeah," he agrees. "Okay. Maybe that. But I didn't know I was doing that."

Cinq-Mars backs off a moment. He goes over to the porch railing as another, yet still distant, thunderclap rolls across the sea.

"I'm a big-city cop," emile says to him, looking out toward the water now with Briscoe at his back. "You've heard the stories about me, I'm sure." He looks back over his shoulder to see if he'll respond, and Briscoe does nod yes. emile turns, intertwines his arms over his chest, and leans his b.u.t.t against the railing. He decides to make use of his exaggerated reputation. "Do you think I cracked the Mafia apart in my home city and took down the h.e.l.ls Angels by being Mr. Nice Guy? Tell him, Officer. He listens to you. If he comes down to the station, you won't interfere with what I do."

"I'm not interfering," Louwagie says. "Sorry, Pete, but this is serious business, murder is. Things aren't normal anymore."

Cinq-Mars likes this, the conviction in his voice, the logical explanation to deter Briscoe from a.s.suming that the old guy is mere talk, no action.

"You won't protect him," emile states.

"I'll go home, sir. Leave you two alone."

That's when Pete Briscoe confesses although he might not know it. "I borrowed it from my girlfriend. Okay? The spade."

Cinq-Mars stares him down. Briscoe's a challenge, as his near unibrow somehow gives him a place to hide his eyes by tilting his forehead down a few degrees, as if his mind and his reactions are hiding in the bushes. Yet emile has much confidence, gained from long practice, in the ferocity of his gaze, and when the man's eyes do quick little shifts, from holding his look to measuring the mountain that is his nose, and then feeling self-conscious about that, tries to regain a hold on his eyes again after it's too late, the former cop has him right where he wants him.

"Never make me wait this long again for an answer. Understood?"

Briscoe appears to accept this altered structure to his universe, and nods.

Cinq-Mars asks, "Where were you the night Orrock was killed?" Keeping him off guard again, going on to a different subject altogether.

"Killed?"

Cinq-Mars scarcely moves, but ever so slightly his pupils expand.

"Sorry, that's not a question. I thought he died is all. Old age."

"Killed," the older man confirms. "I told you that already. This is not news."

"I just forgot."

"Who can forget that? Selective memory? Now answer my question."

"I was out fishing."

"Not possible," Cinq-Mars states.

"Sure it is," Briscoe protests. His voice is weak and his eyes scurry around.

"You're not a real fisherman."

Cinq-Mars can tell that the man is trying to ask a question but has to warn himself not to do so. "Sure I am," Briscoe says at last, but he clearly has his doubts.

"You're a fish farmer. That's different."

"Yeah, it's different. There's more money in it. A better life, too."

"I understand," emile says, and there's genuine sympathy to be gleaned from his tone. He knows that old ways sometimes change and people adapt. "What it means, though, is that you weren't fishing that night. Because you don't fish, do you, Mr. Briscoe? You don't fish, and I know exactly, very precisely, where your boat was moored. Under the Orrock mansion." Pete Briscoe so much wants to ask a question that emile takes pity on him and answers it himself. "You left your AIS on. That's how I know. I'll give you credit. You didn't want anyone to crash into you. Where you were moored, that was possible, even probable, if anyone was making harbor that night. So at least you exercised good seamanship, I'm giving you credit for that. You weren't out fishing and you weren't out at the fish farms. You were moored where you had no business being moored, and you weren't on your boat, because why would you moor there if you wanted to stay on your boat? You'd have gone into the harbor. On to a safer place. The question is-and remember, I don't want you wasting my time, so answer right away-where were you, Pete?"

Pete has begun to cooperate, and emile needs to keep bringing him along, to help him feel more at ease divulging secrets. Once he says something to implicate himself or others, there will be no turning back. The whole shebang will come out. Louwagie at that moment moves over to an Adirondack chair on the porch and sits down, and both Cinq-Mars and Briscoe observe him do so. They'd both like to be that comfortable, that free. Louwagie looks up, waiting to see how this plays out.

"Here," the young fish farmer answers.

"Who with?" Cinq-Mars fires back.

"Ora. We had a date. We arranged it, see."

"Where was your dog all this time?"

This part hurts him. "I took Gadget in the dinghy. In the waves, in the storm, she put her paws up on the gunwales at the wrong time. She might've been able to stay in the boat, but she loved the water, and when she lost her balance, she kind of leaped. She half jumped, half fell into the waves. After that, I stayed out there looking for her."

"Looking," Cinq-Mars says.

"She was black, and there was no light in that storm. I saw her for like ten seconds then lost track. The waves moving me around, moved her around. We separated really quickly. I stayed out there looking for her, but I never saw her again until you showed up in your Jeep."

Cinq-Mars crosses his arms, removes the fury of his gaze from Briscoe to give him some breathing room and enough lat.i.tude to fall overboard himself. "Why risk it, Pete? Coming ash.o.r.e. Why bother anchoring your boat?"

At first, he shrugs. He doesn't want to say. Then admits, "For s.e.x. What else? Been a while. I was h.o.r.n.y as-Ora was always with Orrock on account of he was sick all the time. She never got away. When she did, I was usually out at the fish farms. It was building up, you know? So we made a date. Then that d.a.m.n storm blew up. That wasn't going to stop me, was it? Ora wasn't going to be stopped, either."

"Why anchor off? Enter the harbor."

He doesn't want to say. Then relents. "I get paid by the hour. For the fish farm. If I get caught out in a storm, I get paid for that. If I'm seen in the harbor, no pay."

"You quit trying to save your dog and came here instead, just to get laid."

"No! It wasn't like that. I came ash.o.r.e. I was hoping Gadget would swim ash.o.r.e. Or, if she was out there trying to get to me and the dinghy, and she could see me, then she'd follow me and come ash.o.r.e. After I landed, I walked up and down the water's edge looking for her. I don't know for how long. For a long time."

"Yeah, but Pete, you were on the radio."

"That was later. I needed people to know I was out there. To get paid."

"You've lied to me again. You told me you were here in your house. Now you say you weren't here at all. You were all alone on the sh.o.r.e. Walking up and down where not a soul saw you. Not even your dead dog."

"Yes. Okay? I lied. I told you the truth this time."

"You didn't see Ora that night," he continues, and Briscoe responds with silence. "Why won't you say so?"

"I'm not supposed to," he replies, and at that Louwagie and Cinq-Mars share a glance. They've got him now. Cinq-Mars has been looking for men in the hire of a boss, and Briscoe has let on that he is one of them.

Very slowly, Cinq-Mars asks, "Pete, you're not supposed to what?"

Briscoe dips those big eyebrows right down, so that his eyes are totally concealed. When he raises his head again, he chooses to cast his gaze out to sea. "I'm not supposed to say."

"Where was Ora, Pete? As I've warned you, I am willing to take you in. We can go on all day and night like this and play by n.o.body's rules except my own. You understand that, right? I'm not a cop. I don't have to follow the law. I have no boss to keep me in line. Not a soul."

Involuntarily, Briscoe checks with Louwagie, who makes a gesture with his lips as though to say that he doesn't get it, either, but whatever the man is saying is how this will play out. Briscoe bites his lip a moment.

"You're going to tell me anyway, Pete. I know that. Corporal Louwagie knows it. More important, even you know that. Tell me now rather than later, Pete. That's my best advice. At this stage, you want to be helpful."

The man seems to accept what he's being told, but he attempts to lay out the ground rules for his capitulation. "It wasn't Ora," he contends.

If that's what he needs to believe, Cinq-Mars will let him. "Of course not, Pete. Who could ever think such a thing? Where was she? If she's innocent, and, like you, I presume that she is, the truth won't hurt her. It'll only protect her."

Briscoe takes a deep breath. "She was here. Where she was supposed to be. Waiting for me. Except I let her down. I was looking for Gadget instead."

"How do you know she was here if you weren't?"

A simple man's emphatic shrug. "She told me she was. We talked on our phones. And then, she was still here when I came by in the morning. Only she was asleep."

"Then you had s.e.x." Cinq-Mars doesn't believe that a man who'd just lost his dog would do that, but tests Briscoe anyway.

He's shaking his head. "Too tired," he says. Then he looks out to sea again. "Too upset. I forgot about s.e.x. I just forgot."

Having stepped away from him to give him a sense of s.p.a.ce, Cinq-Mars now moves closer to him to choke off whatever his exit plan might be, and asks in a low, commanding voice, "Okay, Pete, tell me, who asked you to fetch the shovel?"

He can almost hear the man ask "What shovel?" Briscoe has learned to swallow that response. Now whenever he's confused or needs time, rather than ask a question, he opts for silence.

"Who was it, Pete?" Cinq-Mars presses him, no longer permitting any maneuvers. "Who wouldn't risk going up to Seven Days Work to fetch it herself?"

His eyes go wide when Cinq-Mars infers that it's a woman, and he insists more vehemently than ever, "It wasn't Ora."

"I didn't think so, Pete. I still don't think so. But you need to tell me what I already know. Who was it, Pete, who sent you for the shovel?"

Louwagie stands again, and also comes closer. The two men, both much taller than the fisherman, stand firm against his desire to elude them somehow.

"Pete, I've seen the photographs of the crime scene, of Reverend Lescavage's body. He was a nice guy, wasn't he? Were you a member of his church?"

Briscoe wags his head no.

"You b.u.mped into him from time to time. In the winter, everybody b.u.mps into everybody else, right?"

He nods yes.

"Quite a guy, by all accounts. Terrible what was done to him. Precise parallel incisions, like this." Cinq-Mars traces two lines over Pete Briscoe's stomach to form the top of a triangle meeting just under the base of his sternum. "Most likely cut with a sharp knife. A knife anyone who cuts fish would use. Or anyone who cuts dulse for a living would carry with him. Then the bottom of those two lines are connected by another slice of a knife."

Briscoe nods to indicate that he understands.

"The thing is, Pete, the center portion of that bottom slice, right here"-and emile shows on the man's own stomach a slice the length of his hand that cuts below the belly b.u.t.ton-"was messy. From a more blunt instrument. Something less sharp. Corporal Louwagie didn't notice this detail because he's a sensitive soul, and such an ugly scene, that kind of horror, doesn't interest him at all." Briscoe looks at the Mountie as though he's willing to sympathize. "I, on the other hand, studied the photographs. The middle part of the lower incision wasn't inflicted by a sharp knife, but by a dull blade, and the shape of it, and the fact that it was rammed into the body several times in the violence of the moment, suggests the business end of a spade. Possibly a long-handled spade. Whoever sent you up to the ridge, Pete, sent you there to retrieve the murder weapon. The person couldn't find it in the dark on the night in question, couldn't risk hunting for it later. Whatever sick story you were told-and you're gullible enough to believe it, aren't you?-that story was a fib. Tell me who, Pete."

While his eyes dart between the two men, they also seem to bear inward, and he's rabbit-like now beneath his furry unibrow, trapped and panicky.

"Name her, Pete. Tell me what I already know. Name her."

"You keep saying 'her'. But I keep telling you, it wasn't Ora. No way."

"I know that, Pete. So name her. Name who it really was. Remember? You didn't want to tell me that you didn't see Ora until the morning. Because, you said, you weren't supposed to tell me that. Somebody wants you to tell the other story, that you were home with your girl. I know you're supposed to be Ora's alibi. Who says she needs one? If you want, if it helps you, it's the same person anyway, just tell me who coached you on what to say or not say. Who told you to lie? Who sent you for the shovel? Pete?"

TWENTY-FIVE.

"Head to Ora's house," Cinq-Mars instructs the Mountie as they buckle up inside the RCMP cruiser. His voice is sharp, not tense, but directed, on edge, as though he's ready to pounce.

"Shouldn't we bring him in? Petey boy's involved."

"A lot of people are involved. That's the kicker. Someone has control over them. Someone is in charge now that Orrock's dead. Leave Pete to marinate awhile. That'll only help us later."

"You have strange methods."

"Notice the results."

"Trust me. I'm taking notes."

"You're a good cop, Wade. I've found that out."

"When I'm not planning on shooting myself." Something's on his mind and Cinq-Mars lets him take his time. "I don't believe my superiors are even close to being right, the way they treat PTSD."

"But?"

"But today, I don't know what it is, I'm glad to be busy."

Cinq-Mars dwells on that awhile. "It's like the work we do," he postulates. "No such thing as one size fits all. You can follow a procedure, you can go down a checklist, but if you're going to catch the bad guys, you will have to break from procedure. Even break from what you think. Sometimes you have to escape your premonitions, even your faith. You need to get at things a different way each time if you're going to do it right. I should write a book."

"You think it's the same with PTSD?"

"In a way. Never mind different strokes for different folks, even the same person might need a new approach for no other reason than it's a new day. It's all tricky business."