Seven Days Dead Part 26

"Which way did they leave?" Louwagie asks.

"Neither left nor right. I could've seen them," Sandra tells them. "The sound of the machine went back straight behind my tree."

The three men stare behind them into the forbidding forest, where a network of walking trails fans out like a spider's web.

Roadcap proves to be the optimist among them. "There's only a few ways to get in and out on an ATV."

"Maybe they came across hikers who can provide a description," Louwagie adds.

"Did they say anything, sweetie?" Cinq-Mars asks. "Why they did this?"

She nods yes but can't answer just yet. Her trauma and the adrenaline of her rescue rebounds across her nerve endings. She fights to pull herself together, and Cinq-Mars, who's recuperating also, who suddenly feels so light-headed he could fly, stretches his arm behind Louwagie's back and holds her hand. "Next time," Sandra says, "I go over the side. That's what they said. That's their message. This was a demonstration. Next time, they shove me over. That's what they told me to tell you."

emile blows out a gust of air.

"All right," he determines, and attempts to rise to his feet. He benefits from Louwagie's helping hand as the Mountie's getting up also, and stretches once he's on his feet. His lower back is an old lament that's been behaving all summer-after the cross-terrain gallop and these gymnastics he's doomed for a relapse. "I'll get you off the island."

"emile," Sandra states, in a tone he finds worrisome.

"What?"

"Don't give me that c.r.a.p. We've been through worse stuff than this." The two men look at him as if he ought to be arrested for what he's done to this woman. "I know your arguments. It's not what I signed on for. We don't know whom we're up against. We don't know the odds. We don't know how it'll play out, so we might as well err on the side of caution. Blah blah blah. Cry me a river."

"That's about the size of it. Sandra-think-we don't need this. Not our fight."

"Oh, emile," she says, and again he's not happy with her tone.

"What, San?"

"Didn't you see me tied to that tree? I believed they were going to throw me over! I was terrified, emile! Saying my prayers. You'd be proud of me for my sudden switch to religion."

She makes him laugh, she makes him cry. "So?" he asks.

"When you were sliding off the edge, you didn't see me scared out of my mind? This is our fight now, emile. This is so our fight."

He blames her life on horseback for her compet.i.tive fire.

It's taken all this time, but the men who came with Roadcap finally arrive. They collapse into the tall gra.s.ses thirty feet away, panting and gasping.

"All right." emile relents, and will say nothing more about beating a retreat. He's back on the case, and back in charge. "No arguments on this one point: when we leave here I'm taking you to Maddy Orrock's. At least she has locks on her doors." He turns. "Mr. Roadcap. I need to talk to you. Walk with me."

Way in the distance, not over the water as yet, as their views are to the east and northeast, but to the west over the hump of the island, the heat and high humidity of the day are bringing on storm clouds. Cinq-Mars doesn't take the younger man too far, as the conversation will remain a secret only if the man so chooses.

"If you recall, we came to an agreement," Cinq-Mars reminds him. "You don't get jail time for something you didn't do. I was less clear on my side of the bargain in that, what I get out of it. I didn't know. Now I do."

"Okay," Roadcap says, studying him.

"Here's the deal. Tell me what you know. No further negotiations. Thank you. Really, I can't thank you enough for saving Sandra and me. Sandra especially. To say that that's appreciated is so much an understatement, it's ludicrous. I'll show my grat.i.tude when I can. Right now I need answers. No more keeping your cards so d.a.m.n close to the vest."

"All right," Roadcap responds, a tentative acquiescence.

"You didn't like my asking you about dulse. Why not? What makes you uncomfortable with that? Before you go back into your sh.e.l.l, please remember that I saw my wife tied to a tree overlooking a cliff."

"Is that a threat?"

"Should it be? What makes you uncomfortable about dulse?"

Roadcap looks down, then away, internally hemming and hawing through a possible response. He seems to decide on a course to follow, and looks up.

"I'm Orrock's man," he says.

Not an answer emile expects. He actually takes a step back, then has to retrace the movement. "What does that mean?"

"I operate the dulse trade for him, on the home front anyway, the supply end. He takes care of-sorry, took care of-the distribution end."

"I picked you as a man who might try to take it away from him."

"You're wrong in that."

"Okay. Tell me, how does his death change things?"

"To be decided. The winds of change are blowing. There's been compet.i.tion lately, long before his death."

"Who from?"

"We don't know."

"We?"

"Orrock. Me," Roadcap explains.

Cinq-Mars is skeptical of that response, distrusts it. "How can that possibly be true?"

"How? Whoever is involved knows who they're up against. I don't mean me. I mean Orrock. They've done a h.e.l.luva job of staying on the down low. Haven't shown their faces. They haven't made a move that risks their own exposure. My guess, they're setting things up, and when they make a move, it'll all be over. That, at least, is the plan."

"And you don't have a suspicion?"

"I have a suspicion. More than one. I draw blanks when it comes to proof."

"I'm all ears."

Roadcap takes a second to line up his opinions, then proceeds. "The timing of when things started to go wrong might be a clue. People who cut dulse for me started bickering about prices. I didn't think much of it at the time, it's normal, only Orrock started hearing from his distribution end about price, and I was hearing from my supply end about price, and that all occurs more or less at the same moment. Me and Orrock, we both get suspicious. So I kept my ears to the ground."

"And?"

"That's partly why I was on the cliffs the night of the big storm. The cult goes up there in a storm. I go for my own reasons, but because I do, I've encountered them up there before. They're trying to obliterate their minds in the wind and the rain, use the power of lightning or the storm to fly, or some harebrained stupidity. I went up there specifically to spy on them, because I know they race to get there in those conditions. They'd mark that storm down as perfect."

"Okay, so you're not quite the Daffy Duck I took you to be. But why spy on them? What's the interest?"

"Because. We had issues cropping up from both our supply and distribution ends, and that time exactly coincided with the arrival of the cult on the island. With my ears to the ground, that's all I came up with. That, and checking out their parking lot one day. I noticed a lot of American plates. Including, notably, California. That state is our biggest customer by far. But that's all I've got on them. Coincidence."

"Coincidence is good," Cinq-Mars notes. "Always a thread worth following. Okay, who else? You said two."

"Maddy Orrock."

"Seriously? What's her line? Do you have more evidence on her?"

"Less. But she comes in here every few years like a tide. Then fades away again. Every time she comes and goes she leaves her father in a c.r.a.ppy mood. He didn't trust her much. His own daughter. He told me she might be out to get him. Orrock was a wealthy man-from various sources. The salmon farms dwarfed what he made on dulse, but dulse started him out. It's still the backbone, not just the original component that put him on the map. Dulse is as steady as the tide when it comes to making money. That's really all he cared about, making money. And dulse was the one business he could own outright without the bigger boys being involved, you know who I mean, without the really big fat cats also having a bite. That meant something to him and maybe, maybe, not just for the steady cash. Maddy? Not so much. He was skeptical of what she was playing at, and, you know, she lives in the States. She knows the business. Grew up with it. She might be forming her own distribution network. After all, she's always hated her dad. She's been my big fear, anyway, that she'll take over, either over me or instead of me."

"Control the distribution, you control this trade, is that the idea?"

"Totally."

"What's your degree from McGill?"

Although Cinq-Mars wants to hear the answer, his technique in an interview is to keep the person off guard. Allow no one to antic.i.p.ate the next question or know what the last one was meant to reveal.

"What? Why? Biz admin."

He said it so fast, Cinq-Mars can't be sure. "Business administration? You?"

Roadcap doesn't confirm that right away, as if he already regrets mentioning it. "Orrock," he says, then stumbles. "Orrock ... I know that everybody is down on the man, but Orrock put me through school. Financially, he helped people who helped me when I was growing up. He pointed out to me what my opportunities on the island might be. He believed in me. He set me up."

"Maddy Orrock," emile brings up, "comes in like a tide. Attracted much?"

The man from Dark Harbour receives the inquiry as a challenge, straightens his shoulders only for a moment before he relents. "Sure. Why not? Although she's always hated me. Through school and that. For good reason. My father pushed her mother off a cliff. So the story goes. My dad told me that Mrs. Orrock fell, and him I believed. Not the cops. Not the courts."

"Strange, isn't it?" Cinq-Mars proposes. "Your father throws Orrock's wife off a cliff, or that's how the courts ruled, yet he takes care of you while you were growing up, then trusts you to manage the business most dear to his heart. How do you figure that?"

The question provokes a sorrow, opens an old wound, which Cinq-Mars can see. In thinking it through, Roadcap has to deal with variant emotions along the way. emile is patient.

"I believe he was never sure. My feeling is that he had doubts, that maybe his wife neither fell nor was she pushed. He might've had an inkling that maybe she jumped. So looking after me was a kind of guilt thing, on account of my dad. But there you go. I don't know. I've never known for sure. And now he's dead."

Cinq-Mars touches a hand to the man's shoulder, then suggests that they move on. "I want to get Sandra away from here. After that, I've got work to do."

"emile. I know you don't trust me a whole bunch. That's okay. I don't trust you, either. Big deal. I'm saying you shouldn't trust Maddy all the way. She's paying you, and that puts you in a jam."

"She's not. Paying me. Who told you that? I told her that I won't be hired, in case I have to convict the one who's signing the checks. If I help her out, I'll send a bill. If I put her in jail, it'll be hard to collect on my invoice. I won't bother trying."

"Well," Roadcap decides, and Cinq-Mars is impressed with him once again, "you don't have to bill me. I'll help any way I can."

"Thanks. As far as trusting you goes, I just trusted you with my life. n.o.body would've said boo if you let me drop."

"I thought about it," Roadcap says, but under the surface he's smiling, which Cinq-Mars can spot in his eyes.

They shake hands in a formal way, a moment that falls naturally upon them at the outset, until both men suddenly retreat, as though realizing that the circ.u.mstances oblige them to remain wary of each other. They return to the group. The sky may be darkening in the west, but the meadow glows with light-to emile's eye, lit by both the sun and Sandra's relieved smile.

TWENTY-FOUR.

Mild consternation arises when a motor disrupts the peace of the meadow and forest, blotting out the symphony of an easy breeze through the leaves and the ocean's wash a great drop below them. emile Cinq-Mars gazes across the bay, as if a fis.h.i.+ng vessel has floated into the sky. He's been fooled by an ATV, its m.u.f.fled roar echoing off a string of trees along the sh.o.r.eline, and seeing it bound over a hillock he responds with a moment's elation. His wife's abductors are either unbelievably stupid to have returned or so filled with remorse that they feel compelled to surrender.

No such luck, he notices seconds later.

"I called him," Louwagie explains. "He can take you out."

The vehicle is driven by his constable, Rejean Methot, and while emile's fantasy is dashed, he's delighted to see the second Mountie. He can use the ride out, and make good use of the time saved.

He grouses, "Ah, you couldn't've called him sooner? Spared me a heart attack running in here?"

Louwagie finds his complaint amusing.

"What?" Cinq-Mars barks back.

"emile, I did call sooner. Back in Dark Harbour. This is how long it takes to fetch the machine, get organized and out here ASAP. Or would you prefer we'd left your wife dangling over the edge until now?"

Cinq-Mars concedes a grin. Once again, the Mountie has shown capability under pressure. He gathers that they've both been afflicted with a kind of giddiness after Sandra's rescue, and Louwagie, having found a person tied up and eviscerated in recent days, is relieved down to his toes to have located the next victim high, dry, and alive, albeit tied up and emotionally distraught. Sandra, he notes, is coping well. Better than he is. As if, as she implied, she's experienced this sort of thing before.

The ATV is a two-seater. Sandra can settle onto emile's lap, and Louwagie is content to walk out. The retired detective nixes that arrangement.

"Wade, can't you drive this thing instead?"

He can, but that doesn't seem fair to his officer, to make him walk out.

"Obviously, Rejean can give us a lift," emile explains, "but I need you to drive me around after we drop Sandra off. Not just because I don't have a car."

"Why," Sandra asks, "don't you have a car?"

As shaky as her condition may be, his wife doesn't miss a beat. Nor can she be she fooled easily. She catches a glance between Louwagie and Roadcap and knows that something's up. Yet how much grief can she bear? To let her know that their car has been incinerated, that the two of them have been attacked not once, but twice-and before noon, emile wants to say, although there's no logic to the thought-is more than he's willing to get into at the moment.

"Later on that one. Let's just say that the roads on this island can be risky."

"Oh, emile." Better to have her annoyed with him for reckless driving than frightened more deeply by the truth. At that moment he has a sudden notion-he appreciates the range and capabilities of his unknown adversary. He and Sandra have been simultaneously attacked on two fronts, which took planning and manpower, expertise and coordination. Daring, too, although his gut feeling tells him that since neither attack was necessary, except to bolster his resolve, they were instigated by fear and possibly panic. Who, then, has he managed to scare?

As well, these provocations were ordered. Given that they took place at the same time, different people were involved in each incident, so the actions were either independent of one another-highly coincidental, therefore unlikely-or one and probably both required people to follow instructions. Both events were meant to threaten, unlike Lescavage's murder, where there had been no known threat, only the execution. emile is familiar with a modus operandi from his days dealing with violent biker gangs. Those gangs never-never-made threats, at least not any they meant to carry out. If and when they killed someone, they did so without the victim being alerted ahead of time. If they did issue a threat, that meant they had no intention of carrying it out. If these people operate in similar fas.h.i.+on, and he suspects they do, then he and Sandra are probably safe, for the perpetrators did nothing with their opportunity to inflict serious harm. All this tells him that whoever organized the day's threats controls underlings-someone has a gang-but that individual is neither foolish enough nor powerful enough to have ordered them killed. Nor were the underlings willing to do more than threaten-in the greater scheme of things, a car fire and strapping someone to a tree, with one of the most impressive views on earth, caused no one bodily harm. And the events were in keeping with island tradition. Here, rough boys might be cajoled into doing such things as long as a line was not being crossed. Sandra had fallen, initially, getting cut in the scuffle, but she was never punched or bruised. emile gleans from this that when a murder needed to be committed, at least in the killer's mind, the perpetrator operated alone, without help, unable to order anyone to either carry out or aid and abet so ruthless a crime. He considers that today's troublemakers may not have connected their actions to the murders. They might even have been hoodwinked into thinking that something else was at stake.

Having hunted professional killers and organized gangs all his life, emile Cinq-Mars can detect when he is dealing with amateurs. Not that amateurs, he reminds himself, aren't equally as dangerous and lethal. With their spotless records and obscure motivations, at times they can be more difficult to root out.

"As I was saying, Corporal, I need you with me. I may require the loan of your authority. Remember what I asked you for? About following the money, the will? Ask Rejean to look into that when he gets back to town. I need you with me."

"You think it's that important right now, the will?"

Sometimes, in the greater scheme of things, go by hunch, and sometimes go by the numbers. Following the money will fulfill both obligations, as it is both by the book and a wholesale hunch. Still, Louwagie's question stands as a good one, for which emile doesn't have an equally good answer. "Who knows? I want to find out if Orrock antic.i.p.ated anything. He controlled so much. Did he control his succession? If so, how? I'm grasping at straws here, but somebody is turning the wheels in this scenario and somebody else is greasing them. If there's something about power and money to be found out, I need to find that out. Better quickly than too late."