‘His head—?’
‘He got run over by a motorboat,’ said Gibbs, ‘which we later found abandoned and half sunk on the far side of the lake. With bullet holes in it, I should add. Now, Jeff Cairns has been coming up to Lakeside for some years, Mr Dumont,’ Gibbs continued, ‘and I’m sure you’ve noticed this isn’t a very big town.’ Saul stepped back from the drawer as Gibbs slid it shut. ‘I knew we had the wrong guy, soon as I set eyes on him,’ Gibbs continued, ‘and I told your people that. Except next time I watch the news they’re claiming it’s Cairns that’s dead.’ Gibbs made a helpless gesture. ‘Whoever that is, we can’t even trace him through the tags in his clothes.’
‘Why not?’
‘There just aren’t any. Looks like he didn’t want anyone being able to track him.’
Saul nodded slowly. ‘So any idea what happened to the real Cairns?’
‘None,’ said Gibbs, ‘and I already asked your people that same question. Now, you have to understand that whenever shit like this happens in my own backyard, I take a considerable interest in it –
not
that your people were exactly forthcoming when it came to sharing information. When you told me you were on your way, I hoped you might be a little more open with us than that other guy.’
That other guy
. ‘Was his name Donohue?’ asked Saul, taking a chance.
‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ Gibbs’ face screwed up like he’d eaten something sour. ‘Is there anything else you need from me?’
‘If you don’t mind,’ said Saul, ‘I’d like to take a quick look at Cairns’ cabin.’
Gibbs guided the truck around the first of several switchbacks ascending a hill dense with forest. The sheriff clearly had a taste for driving on manual, and had complained, before setting out, that the auto-drive function in most vehicles wasn’t up to the mountainous terrain surrounding the lake.
Saul caught flickering glimpses of the lake itself through a tangle of trees and brush, while he thought about everything Gibbs had told him during their drive here to the lake.
‘So whoever stole the motorboat also stole the car?’
Gibbs glanced at him and shrugged. ‘Makes sense to me. I figure it must have been Cairns. He drove down to the lakeside, grabbed the boat, made his way to the far shore and stole a car, making mincemeat out of our friend there in the morgue on the way. Seems to me that whatever kind of trouble he was running from had caught up with him.’
‘Did he seem to you the kind of guy to get himself mixed up in something like this?’
Gibbs thought for a moment before replying. ‘Depends on what you mean by “this”. But, y’know, not really. Not if you’re talking organized crime or whatever.’
‘Right.’
‘But sometimes people get out of their depth, without even knowing it. Next thing you know, there’s bodies everywhere.’
‘I guess.’
‘Why ask me anyway?’ said Gibbs. ‘You wouldn’t be here unless you were looking for something. Maybe you should be telling me what Cairns was involved in?’
Saul smiled. ‘That’s not something I can talk about, sorry.’
‘Fuckin’ ASI.’ Gibbs shook his head. ‘Ever thought about cooperating once in a while?’
Saul shrugged, as if to say,
What can you do?
The sheriff sighed heavily. ‘Do you need to see the incident report?’
Saul nodded. ‘I’d appreciate that.’
A moment later, a copy of the report appeared within Saul’s vision. He focused on the dashboard, thus projecting the report’s contents on to it. He quickly shuffled through several UP-generated video-files of Sanders’ bedraggled form being pulled from the water, along with several still shots of the motorboat and the bullet-holes drilled through its hull. He next skimmed the text, trying to build a picture in his mind of events as Gibbs had already described them.
Glancing away from the dashboard, Saul saw they had almost reached the cabin.
‘I figure the dead guy and one other chased your man Cairns down to the lake, meaning to kill him,’ said Gibbs. ‘Maybe they meant to shoot him out in the middle of the lake, where it’d be easier for them to dump the body. Except Cairns got away and took the boat for himself – which would at least explain the bullet holes.’
‘Two men chased him? Do you have any evidence for that?’
‘It’s as clear as daylight if you take a good look at the hillside up there. You’ll find a shitload of skidding footprints and broken branches. There were two of them all right.’
Saul nodded. ‘And you reckon your dead guy shot at him from the shore, then waded out into the water, and got hit on the head by the motorboat?’
Gibbs took one hand off the wheel and waved it in the air. ‘Something like that. I don’t have any better ideas at any rate.’
Maybe Sanders had been in the boat along with Jeff, thought Saul, while the third man was waiting on the shore. Sanders had fallen out, and got himself rammed in the head, then the third man had tried to shoot Jeff before he could get away. And if Sanders had been present, did that make Donohue the third man?
‘Look, I’m dying of fucking curiosity here,’ said Gibbs, ‘but I know I shouldn’t stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong. The important thing is that you make sure ASI understands the victim’s body has been misidentified. Cairns is still out there somewhere.’
And somebody doesn’t want me, or anyone else, to know that either Jeff or Mitchell are still alive
, thought Saul. Both of them worked for the ASI . . . and now Donohue or someone else was trying their damnedest to cover something up.
As the truck lurched around a corner, Saul saw the cabin itself for the first time. Gibbs parked close to the edge of the wooded slope out front, and they climbed out. Mountains rose beyond the far side of the lake, and the air was startlingly cold as Saul drew it into his lungs. He walked over to the edge of the driveway and peered down through the trees towards the lakeshore, to where he could just make out a wharf and a boarded-up hut.
‘Let’s take a look inside,’ he suggested.
Gibbs led him over to the cabin, and Saul followed him inside, wondering what the hell benefit anyone got from sitting halfway up the side of a mountain with no one to talk to and the nearest bar a half hour’s drive away.
Gibbs closed the door behind them and Saul gazed around. The place seemed comfortable enough, and less primitive than he’d expected. There was even a TriView that responded to his contacts. All in all, it looked quite cosy. There were ashes in the hearth, and the bedroom was visible through a half-open door. The way things were scattered about made it clear that either Jeff Cairns had left in a great hurry or someone had recently turned the place over.
Gibbs waited by the fireplace while Saul stepped through into the bedroom. He glanced under the bed and behind some mementoes gathering dust on a single shelf alongside the window. After that, he proceeded to check out the bathroom and the kitchen.
‘Forensics boys already been over the whole place,’ said Gibbs when Saul rejoined him a few minutes later.
Olivia answered after just a few seconds. ‘You were more than right,’ he said. ‘I’m at the cabin right now, and they pulled someone out of the lake, but it wasn’t Jeff.’
She made a small sound in the back of her throat, followed by a stifled sob. From background noise, it sounded like she was somewhere in town. After a moment the traffic noise faded, and he guessed she’d found somewhere quieter.
‘Then Jeff’s still alive?’ she asked.
‘Well, all I can say for sure is that you were right about him being in some kind of trouble. I’m still not sure just what kind.’
‘Do you think you can find him?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
He headed closer to the trees. ‘I need you to be absolutely straight with me, Olivia. If you’ve been holding anything back, now’s the time to tell me.’
‘Saul, I swear I haven’t, and I wish I could tell you more. I tried so many times to get him to tell me whatever the hell was bothering him, but he just wouldn’t open up. And if he is still alive, there’s a part of me wants to wring his neck for not being straight with me.’
Saul chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, in that case. Look, from what I can tell, the police have already been over the whole place thoroughly. If there was ever anything here that might tell us where Jeff’s gone, it’s not here any more.’
‘Did you check the tool shed?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Tool shed?’
‘It’s around the back of the cabin, just where the trees start. There’s a safe embedded in the floor.’
Saul glanced back towards the cabin and saw Gibbs peering out of the window towards him. Saul smiled and raised a hand. Gibbs nodded grudgingly, then moved back out of sight.
Saul ran a quick search of the report Gibbs had given him earlier, for any mention of a tool shed, but found nothing. ‘Hang on while I take a look myself,’ he muttered, then headed around behind the cabin, where the trees resumed four or five metres to the rear.
He looked around. ‘I’m here,’ he told her quietly, wary of Gibbs overhearing him. ‘I don’t see anything.’
Saul glanced to his left. ‘I see them.’
Then he spotted the shed, almost out of sight beyond the boulder. It was painted green, so nearly invisible among the tangled undergrowth.
The structure was in a semi-derelict state, leaning slightly to one side, and he pulled the door open only with some difficulty. Various tools hung from hooks, and the disassembled parts of a chainsaw lay scattered on a tarpaulin spread across the floor, so that he had barely enough room to squeeze inside and close the door behind him.
‘What am I looking for?’ he asked next.
‘All I know is that he kept some stuff in a floor-safe there. Maybe there’ll be something there to tell you where he’s gone.’
Saul bent down and quickly moved some of the chainsaw parts aside, then hauled away the tarpaulin to reveal a flat steel panel embedded in the concrete floor. ‘I’ve got it,’ he told her, ‘but there’s no external lock.’ Doubtless it needed a UP-coded password before it would open up. ‘Short of digging it out of the concrete, I can’t see any way to get inside.’
‘Maybe you won’t need to,’ she replied.
‘How so?’
‘Because if he was going to store anything in there, it would probably be a set of contacts, or the like.’
‘Yes, but if I can’t open the safe, I can’t get to them.’
‘Remember how there are back doors built into a lot of the commercial contacts. Maybe I can get you in through one of those. Are you physically close to the safe?’
‘I’m kneeling right over it, Olivia.’
‘Okay, I’ve got a data key that should do the trick, and I’m sending it to you now.’
An icon suddenly materialized, looking bright and cheery against the drab browns and greys inside the shed.
‘Got it. What next?’ he asked.
‘All you need to do is run it. If there are any contacts, or anything UP-compatible, in there, then they should open right up.’
Saul did as instructed, and a bright blue bubble popped into existence, hovering just above the floor-safe door.
‘I see something.’ He was suddenly excited. ‘Looks like you were right on the money.’
He touched the bubble and it expanded into a three-dimensional image of a filing cabinet. The wall of the shed cut through one side of it, shattering any illusion of solidity.
Saul pushed the shed door back open and peered in the direction of the cabin. Gibbs must be wondering where he’d got to by now.
He touched one finger to a drawer marked ALL, and it took mere moments to copy the complete contents of whatever data device was hidden in the safe over to his own contacts. Once he’d disengaged, the filing cabinet abruptly vanished in a cloud of animated smoke.
‘Thanks,’ he said, as he exited the shed.
‘Did you get anything?’ she asked.
‘I copied some data across, but I can’t check it out just yet. I’ll let you know what I’ve got later.’
He walked back around the front of the cabin and almost ran into Sheriff Gibbs, who had evidently come outside looking for him.
‘Find anything useful?’ the sheriff asked.
Saul gave him a sheepish grin. ‘Not a damn thing.’
Gibbs squinted at him, then scanned the line of trees amongst which the tool shed was hidden. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me just exactly what it is you’re looking for?’
‘If I already knew that,’ Saul replied, ‘I wouldn’t need to be here at all.’
Gibbs gave him a frank stare, his whole demeanour radiating suspicion. ‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘I guess not.’
That evening Saul checked into a Lakeside motel with a fine view of the mountains. He closed the blinds with a single spoken command, before summoning up the same filing cabinet he’d discovered in the tool shed. Some of its drawers refused to open, so he guessed they had been provided with extra security to guard whatever they might contain. Other, more easily accessible drawers contained merely junk: copies of scientific papers and back issues of journals, along with the random bureaucratic detritus of a lifetime.