Seven Days Dead Part 19

"Can it be a herd?"

"I've heard," he tells him, and he's being honest, "that it can be a herd."

Outgunned, outmaneuvered, the rigid man from Delaware with the popping cheeks and stern brow gazes out across the water and the hills beyond. His wife shoots a glance at emile, interested in the fellow who performed an impossible sleight of hand, defeating her husband at being a superior p.r.i.c.k.

The Whistle lies not at the very crest of this ridge, but on the downward slope to the sea. Once upon a time, a fog whistle blew from this point, and while it is now gone the name remains. The three tourists lean their thighs against the wood bal.u.s.trade as they take in the view.

A car bounds up and over the crest toward the threesome.

The man from Delaware seems less relaxed now, somewhat uneasy as the new car parks right in behind his own by the side of the road, leaving little room to squiggle out. He heaves a sigh, as though to designate the newcomer as a dolt, and no doubt a.s.sumes that he can ask him to move later on. The new arrival is a diminutive man whom emile finds familiar, although he can't immediately place him. He comes straight to the bal.u.s.trade, takes a long and satisfied gaze, and breathes in deeply as though inhaling the view, then digs a pack of smokes from his pocket, bangs the pack to shake one out, and lights up.

"You don't smoke, I bet," he says.

"Used to," emile acknowledges. "Quit. Long ago."

Most smokers usually say "Lucky" to that, but this one says, "Can't understand it. Neither why nor how. We've met."

He grins broadly then with an undeniable sparkle, and emile places him.

"You're Raymond, from the ferry."

"I'm Raymond from the ferry," he agrees. "I hustled you into your car while you wanted to stand by the railing, enjoying the view. Happens every trip. There's always a troublemaker in the group." That sparkle again. He isn't being critical.

Suddenly, the man from Delaware spies more trouble for himself. Evenly s.p.a.ced, about a half minute apart, six pickups broach the hill and swing down toward the meeting place. The vehicles park in the middle of the road and on both sides, so that the American couple may have to walk home now. Any exit for their car is blocked. The man appears sullen.

Fishermen and their companions tromp down the hill and a pair of flasks are pa.s.sed. emile and the couple from Delaware are included in the offering, but only emile indulges himself. A smooth, peaty scotch.

Over the next ten minutes, sixteen more cars park and empty out. Even walking away from here will be a challenge.

"I built this barrier," Raymond tells emile at the cliff, then asks, "Know why?"

"I presume so people won't fall off. You mean you built it personally?"

"Personally, yeah. But for two reasons."

"Should I be able to guess?"

"I don't mind telling you why," Raymond says with a laugh. "If you can guess, that might be a bit of an insult."

"Then I'd rather not guess."

"One you got. We look after our own. If somebody is too drunk or stoned or getting off on some s.h.i.+t, you know what I mean, he has to stand on this side of the barrier and watch the pretty sun go down. We take our precautions."

"Makes perfect sense. And the second reason?"

"So that one among us can lean back and look the other way, back up the hill."

"Okay." Cinq-Mars ponders this. "Someone is looking uphill why?"

"That's what might've been impolite to guess. So that no Mountie can surprise us. We'll see him coming. He won't bust us for drinking, unless he's got a burr up his a.s.s, but he might bust some of the young guys for their M&M's and whatever else they put down their gullets, or suck into their lungs."

"Then that makes total sense," Cinq-Mars admits. "I commend you."

"Like I said," the man confirms, "we look after our own."

This time, that smile of his seems less friendly.

He c.o.c.ks his head a little, a further indication.

"So you know who I am," Cinq-Mars surmises. "What I do."

"You've landed on a small island. There's consequences to that." Raymond sips from the flask, then pa.s.ses it along to emile, who does the same. "Everybody's got a job to do in life. I'm not holding your work against you. We got people falling off cliffs now where we never did before. I mean, you gotta go back in time for that kind of thing. We've got a bit of a history for hanging people off a cliff, just not for letting them drop. Which is different. We got a man of the cloth being sliced up for crow food. That cannot be justified. We need somebody to come in here to undo the wrong. Tidy this s.h.i.+t up. Make it right. I guess that's you."

"I appreciate the understanding."

"Just don't break up the party. Now that would be a crime against humanity."

Cinq-Mars sees Pete Briscoe walking toward him. More cars are coming over the crest, until finally they must park on the other side of the zenith.

"I was invited, Raymond. I'm here to join the party."

He grins broadly again. "Yeah. Right. Like I said. Everybody has a job to do."

"Raymond," emile says, testing the waters as the sun reddens in the west and a cooling sea breeze picks up, "all these people come here. How long do they stay?"

"Everybody keeps their own dance card."

"That couple over there, see? First car in. Does that mean they're last out?"

"Remember, I'm the one who shoos folks off the boat. Do they want to leave?"

emile speaks up to address the couple from Delaware. "Do you two want to leave?" He knows the answer before asking, as their misery is obvious.

They can enjoy the beauty of the evening, the whales below and the crimson setting sun across a vast horizon. All these people, though, so many cars, the alcohol, the laughter, the flirting women and intemperate men, the size of these muscled fishermen, their off-color language, the unmistakable waft of marijuana, this is neither a suburb in Kansas or Delaware and they want to go home. First the woman nods yes, then the man.

Raymond whistles-a strikingly clear and loud trill. Everyone looks up. Everyone, absolutely everyone, stops talking.

"This car here, first in, the Impala, wants out."

A movie scene. An unbelievable one at that. Car doors are opened and slammed shut, then the vehicles skitter into ditches and up the other side, back up over rock surfaces, buckle up closer to one another, spin their tires up a bank, veer this way, then that. Two dozens engines roar and whine and the pickups budge an inch here, a few feet there. Many back up, some are pushed into an alternative position, and, not unlike the Red Sea parting for Moses, the pair from Delaware are granted a sacred path home. Men and women provide hand signals, the spoken word is at a minimum, and the couple makes the turn around on the edge of the cliff and picks their way back up the hill in their vehicle to say good-bye to the Whistle just as the sun dips below the highest hill on the mainland. Then they're gone. Cars jostle and s.h.i.+mmy around and suddenly they're back in place and, as quickly, everyone is back at the cliff's edge, yammering away as though they'd never been interrupted.

People on this island, the wily old detective takes note, know how to get along. They know how to get things done.

He's reminded of that opinion a half hour later when, in faint light, a man comes over the hill to join the group, perhaps having parked on the other side of the crest, or he was dropped off there, yet looking as though he just walked the entire perimeter of the island twice around. He possesses a wildness to his countenance that causes others to check him out.

Cinq-Mars takes note. "Who's that?" he asks his new friend Raymond.

People seem aware of the fresh arrival, and many chatting a moment ago are rendered mute by his approach.

Pa.s.sing a flask on, not his own this time, Raymond squints to make a positive identification. "Aaron Roadcap, the guy who happened to find the minister's body not too far from here."

Cinq-Mars is intrigued, as much by the respect, or fear, the man instigates in others as by the man himself. "Maybe you can introduce us."

"Trust me, emile," Raymond counters, and forces a smile, "he knows who you are."

Having seen this gathering in action when charged with moving a car, Cinq-Mars doesn't doubt Raymond's statement. He's intrigued. He's been charged with investigating people who are intricately connected and intimately familiar with one another, so much so that it's hard to believe that anything, let alone a murder or two, or three, can go unnoticed on this island or remain unsolved for long.

While he senses that Roadcap has been informed of his presence at the Whistle, and has come here specifically to see him-no logic to the thought, pure conjecture and intuition-the man does not approach at the outset. He remains close enough that, given the social interactions at the Whistle, engaging with him is inevitable. emile is convinced that Roadcap's purpose is to talk to the off-island, non-Mountie, retired cop who's mysteriously taken over the biggest murder case in island history. Or is it the second-biggest, as Roadcap is the son of a previous killer? He notes a sea change to the environment. Large groups have formed into smaller ent.i.ties. Voices lower across the board. Women are especially quiet-they don't say much at all. People still return to the pickups and come back again with more beer, but otherwise the tenor on the cliff has changed. A sense of antic.i.p.ation wafts in the night air. People are expectant.

Without detecting the genesis of a different movement, Cinq-Mars is suddenly brought up short, for he and Roadcap, still apart, have been isolated together. Everyone else has magically moved off, as if a modest form of teleportation s.h.i.+fted the crowd twenty feet away without disturbing the air yet successfully segregating the two men. emile can imagine being thrown off the cliff at that moment, and among the three dozen witnesses none will have seen a thing. All will deny that he was ever there. The thought creates a tinge of fear in his gullet. His senses are alert. He looks down and looks up again, and Roadcap is beside him, beer in one hand, leaning his posterior back against the rail fence, staring west. No barrier between himself and the sea.

The sun is long gone. The last glimmers of red light are fading.

emile stands on the opposite side of the fence, protected by it.

He wonders if he says nothing, and merely waits, what the man will say.

Finally, Roadcap twists his neck to look at him.

"Cat got your tongue?"

"Admiring the view."

"What's left of it," he says. Then adds, "I found the body."

"I heard. I know which one you mean," Cinq-Mars tells him.

Roadcap concedes this with a nod. "There've been a few."

"What's your interest?" Cinq-Mars asks him, deciding to be forthright.

"In what?"

"In me."

This man has authority among his peers. Cinq-Mars can see that. This is not an idle meeting or an exchange provoked by insecurity.

"I know how wrong the police can be sometimes. Dead wrong. They have the power to destroy an innocent life. I want to keep tabs on how things pan out."

Cinq-Mars dwells on that a moment, although really he's trying to hold to a sense of this man. He looks like a fisherman, except that he's strikingly handsome, more like a girl's dream fireman, and lives in a sketchy neighborhood. Yet the very tone of his voice exudes intelligence, which anyone might expect, yet a sophistication to his manner and speech is surprising. Maddy told him to expect an educated mind, but to the degree that he is willing to permit it within himself, emile finds himself spellbound. Part of that he puts down to the night, the vanis.h.i.+ng crimson horizon, the beauty of the sea, and the reaction of others, but part of it cannot be measured by anything in his previous experience.

"You're talking about your father," Cinq-Mars says.

"What do you know about him? See, that's unexpected. I'd want to keep tabs on something like that. What you know, let's say, or what you think you know."

"You're surprised that I've done my research."

"You know what they say."

"Tell me."

"A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Yet I'm surprised you know anything about us."

Yes, Cinq-Mars acknowledges to himself, knowing what he knows about police work, it is surprising if a policeman is aware of anything.

"What can you tell me about your discovery?"

"Nothing I haven't told the Mounties."

He thinks about that answer. He has a hunch. If he can relate to this man and detect the depths of an uncanny intelligence in him, then Roadcap may well be able to do the same with him. What he might say to a local policeman or a relatively local Mountie from the mainland, and what he might be willing to impart to him, could provoke two very different lines of inquiry. He has some trust building to do, perhaps years of distrust to tear town. None of that can be accomplished or even broached with so many ears nearby, and he isn't sure that the other man, with his manner as much as anything, isn't suggesting as much. Pete Briscoe, for one, eyes them closely, and Cinq-Mars can tell that he wants to get closer to this confab, that he resents giving them so much s.p.a.ce. Still, the whole of the Whistle is a small area, and others, ears straining, eavesdrop.

"Any thoughts on Professor DeWitt?"

"I don't run in his circles," Roadcap stipulates. "Didn't really know the man, although I met him. Maybe he jumped. Not many around had much to do with him. I never heard that he had much to do with us."

If emile had to qualify the man's reply, he'd mark it down as being careful. Plotted. Circ.u.mspect. Indeed, if he doubted the man's mind, he might conclude that he was coached by a legal representative, that this governs the quality of his response. Since he does not doubt the man's mind, Cinq-Mars concludes that he coached himself.

"You harvest dulse for a living. A little bird told me that."

Roadcap nods, sips from his beer, and sweeps the neck of his bottle to indicate the bay. "The beauty of this place never leaves me. I'd rather cut seaweed from a rock than sit in a chair all day."

An acknowledgment that he has options in life he's dismissed.

"Perhaps I could watch you work someday. I know nothing about dulse."

He's asking for a private interview, which the other man has antic.i.p.ated.

"I'm out on the flats at Dark Harbour, the low side of any tide."

Just like that, they've agreed to meet again, and privately.

Roadcap briefly rubs one eye, then the other, an indication of weariness.

"All right," he says, confirming that. "Short and sweet. I'll see you around."

He walks back up the hill again and a man Cinq-Mars a.s.sumes is his driver traces his steps. Moments later, he hears an engine start up, a pickup by the sound of the growl. Raymond wanders closer to him again, and conversations regain their currency around them.

"Quite a place," Cinq-Mars mentions. "The Whistle. This island."

"It is," Raymond agrees with some conviction. "What's going on, n.o.body needs that. n.o.body's for that. We're all every one of us against it."

Cinq-Mars accepts the sentiment as intended. He doesn't bother to say that while it may be true, somebody thinks differently and favors the killings, given that one or more people, jointly or in collusion, caused two murders and possibly a third to occur. The oddity of the case is that one killing was precipitated by a knife's rapacious blade, one by suffocation, and a third death, a murder or not, from a fall. Cinq-Mars has seen the photos of Lescavage's death, a grotesque killing, yet not a crime of pa.s.sion in his deliberation, for the knife's stroke was straight and therefore swift from the apex just under the center of the rib cage down almost to the hip bone. Then, while the victim would have been roiling in the horror of that incision, strapped upright to a tree trunk, a matching slice was ripped down the opposite side of his solar plexus, the third line of a triangle. The swipe across the belly was more savage in a way, less precise. It might have occurred first, causing the man's intestines to spill out. Possibly three murders. With that kind of disparity in method-blade, suffocation, a fall-he has to think that more than one person is responsible for this havoc. Raymond's claim that n.o.body wants what is happening derives only from one man's wishful thinking.

Studying the photos, emile had consoled Louwagie. "No big surprise that you got sick."

Anyone who witnessed the scene in person, and that would include Aaron Roadcap, or through the photographs, knows that a person capable of extreme horror is on the loose. No fanciful island serendipity about how people on the island aren't like that is going to will that fact away.

At the outset of his investigation, emile accepts that whichever person he is talking to at any one moment might be the person capable of such butchery.