Seven Days Dead (12 page)

All are agreed, and Louwagie arranges with his own partner upon his arrival, and the two city detectives, to escort the corpse and its entourage down from high ground. He will do for him in death what he was unable to do in life—protect him.

As he departs with his grim brigade, he notices that Detective Isler is trying to see if the dog can pick up a trail of a different kind, but if the animal has nothing to go on he doubts that the men will learn a thing. In terms of solving the crime, it’s reasonable to suppose that if the killer keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t wave the murder weapon around in a bar, and if he hasn’t conveniently parked his DNA on a signpost, then he has a chance of being home free. Unless someone has openly been threatening the man or was seen coming up here with him—in a storm, in the pitch-black—they’ll have no leads to pursue. They will have absolutely nothing to go on. Likely, that will only focus pressure on Aaron Roadcap, for finding the body while out in a gale at night—two strikes against him—and they’ll have to find the mysterious people he says camped out in the storm, if they even exist.

At least, Louwagie is thinking, as he trails the procession across the lovely mountain meadow, that that would be how he would handle the investigation if it was left up to him.

*   *   *

The dog lying dead in the open back end of his Jeep is visible as Émile Cinq-Mars asks a pedestrian where City Hall might be located. Fortunately, the old-timer doesn’t glance in the rear. The man with a wizened complexion and a long, crooked, bony finger that he uses as a pointer needs to think twice. In the end he provides simple directions. Driving off, Émile finds the building straight away. Above the door the sign is carved in stone: C
ITY
H
ALL
. He discovers the entry firmly locked. Odd, this being the middle of the day.

“Maybe they take early lunches,” he gripes as he straps his seat belt back on.

“Their lights are on,” Sandra notices. So they are. The side of the building has a bank of windows well off the ground, all showing the interior lit up by ceiling lights hung from chains, the bulbs covered by stout metallic shades.

“Maybe they don’t use the front door for some bonkers reason,” Émile grumbles.

He tries the back entrance then, up a short flight of stairs. Again, the door’s locked, but this time he hears sounds inside, a muffled clamor, nothing he can figure out, so he knocks. When no one answers he puts an ear to the wood and listens. More rambunctious thumping, like a gathering of boxers working out on heavy bags. Still, listening with his ear to the crack, it’s more thunderous than that, yet strangely muffled. He has no clue what’s going on at City Hall to create the noise, and his curiosity is piqued.

He believes he’s in the village of Castalia. He’s not positive of that, either, and no sign is posted to help him out. He strolls around to the far side of the building, out of sight of the parking lot now and no longer visible to Sandra, who’s holding down the fort in the Jeep. He’s glad she talked him out of his original idea, to carry the dog through the front door and drop it on the first desk in sight. He’s done enough lifting for the day without lugging the dead animal around and around this building. The far side does yield an advantage. A window suffers a broken corner, a hole through both panes of glass, likely caused by an errant baseball or a rock. While the windows are too high off the ground for him to gaze inside, here he might better interpret the strange sounds emanating from the room.

This time, he hears a rhythmic grunting to go along with the repetitive thumping. Drolly, he wonders if City Hall hasn’t been transformed into a daytime brothel. One keeping a hectic schedule. Curiosity now has the better of him, but there’s no way into this edifice. Coming full circle to the front door again, he mounts the stairs. He spots his wife leaning forward in her seat to see what on earth he’s up to as he begins to pound, very heavily, on the big wooden door. He bangs it with the side of his fist as hard as he can, even though he knows that the pounding going on inside is much louder. He stops to listen from time to time, then pounds again, less interested in the dog’s carcass now or in contacting an owner than he is in uncovering the origins of the noise. About the fifth time that he stops his banging to listen, he hears something. Or rather, nothing. A change. He hears silence. He assumes from this that his pounding has perked up the ears of those indoors. So he goes at it again, harder than ever, both fists this time, a furious citizen demanding a voice at City Hall.

Finally, the door is unlocked and creaks open a crack. “What?” a high-pitched male voice asks. He can see a portion of the man. Cinq-Mars is over six two when he stretches, while this man is taller.

Forgetting, perhaps, that he no longer carries a badge, he speaks with an authority that sounds official. “What’s going on in there?” And thinks to add, Group sex? before he censors himself.

The door opens a wider sliver, still too narrow for anyone to enter through, although he might make an exception for the man inside, who’s as thin as he is tall, about the width of a fishing pole.

“I believe the operative phrase to be,” the man lets him know, “that that’s none of your concern. Not in this lifetime, nor the next.” Good point, and the visitor agrees, but the fact that the other man talks with the door barely ajar, his face in shadow, undermines his perspective, to Émile’s mind. He’s not inclined to leave just yet.

“This is City Hall. It’s a public building!” The retired cop does irate quite well.

At last, the door opens an appropriate amount. The man is not taller than he is after all because he’s wearing elevated boots which lift him an extra four inches. He has a thin, pinched nose, scant fair hair that’s brushed forward in the front but sticks up in clumps at the back, and he’s sweaty. Very dark brown eyes. He’s wearing what Émile would describe as a kung fu or judo uniform—a thick short robe tied with a jute belt over white trousers that end at midcalf. While he still can’t figure out what could constitute the rhythms he overhead, he’s guessing they have something to do with martial arts. Behind the young man is a wall on which rain gear has been hung to dry, and behind that barrier lies an eerie silence. People are probably listening in, so he’s not going to get a full explanation easily.

“This is not City Hall,” the man informs him, his tone clipped, condescending, weary. “Maybe it used to be. Once upon a time. It is now
privately
owned.”

His emphasis on
privately
sounds like a slow incision.

“Ah. I see. Like for a judo studio, something like that?”

“If that satisfies your need to poke your nose in where it does not belong, then sure, something like that. Goodbye!”

“There aren’t any signs up,” Émile protests. “No advertising.”

“It’s a
private
building. Why do we need to advertise? The old City Hall name is inscribed above your head, but in stone, which is not easy to remove. Nor do we feel the slightest obligation to undertake the cost of doing that. Anyway, it’s part of the original look of the place, so we left it.”

“We?”

“We.”

“There’s a new City Hall, then. I need to find it. I have a dead dog.”

“I’m sorry about your dog.”

“It’s not my dog.”

“I’m no less sorry. For the dog. There’s no new City Hall. Years ago, long before you interrupted my afternoon, towns on this island were independent, each with its own City Hall. Since then, they’ve been amalgamated into one. By the province. Now there’s only one City Hall for the entire island and this is not it. Try North Head, but I’m really not sure and I am busy, so if you don’t mind.”

Whether he minds or not, the young man is closing the door on him.

“Kung fu?” Cinq-Mars asks. “Tai chi. Akido! Which is it?”

“Excuse me? It’s not any of those. Did you run over the dog?”

“It drowned. Karate!”

The man is still shaking his head.

“Bokator!” Cinq-Mars calls out. He wants to get this. “That’s from Cambodia. Choi Kwong-Do, that’s from Korea. Am I getting warmer at least?”

“We’re not a martial arts studio. Sir, I’m closing the door.”

“You’re
not
martial arts?”

“Sir, if you don’t leave, I’ll have you removed. Don’t knock on this door again. You are not welcome here. Do you understand? I’m trying to be polite. I could say this a different way, but you are not welcome here.”

“A different way. You mean the
f
word?”

He closes the door quite directly on Émile’s face. Rebuffed, Émile turns, and departs the stoop, miffed that he’s not guessed the activity inside, but now more curious than ever. “They’re not martial arts,” he explains to Sandra, forgetting that she possesses no reference to make sense of the comment. “And so much for island friendliness.”

“What? Who? Why should they be?”

“Friendly?”

“No, martial arts.”

“They pound around a lot and they’re private. They wear these skimpy robes with belts. They’re secretive, I’d say. Any guesses?”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about. Is this City Hall or not?”

“Not.” He starts the ignition. “I’m going to that general store again. I bet someone in there can tell me where to go.”

“I’m sure they won’t be the first or the last people to tell you where to go.”

Émile is too irritated to notice the ribbing.

“By the way, don’t be too quick to sully island friendliness,” Sandra advises him. “I’ve been sitting here reading license plates. Ontario. Nova Scotia. Rhode Island. New York. Even Quebec, and I don’t mean us. North Carolina. Michigan. Missouri. Can you believe that? Missouri. Here. On Grand Manan. So don’t blame unfriendly locals.”

This gives Cinq-Mars pause. People have come a long way, and from many different places, to make pounding noises not connected to martial arts. As the man said, it was none of his business, but in saying that, he might as well have waved a red flag before a bull. His vacation is cracking up to be all that he expected and yet challenging, as well. Nothing galvanizes his attention more than people behaving in a secretive, indeterminate way, especially if they’re on his doorstep, or he on theirs.

At the general store, Émile briefly waits for the cashier to become free. She seems an affable and mature woman, in her forties, whereas others nearby are quite young and might take the death of a dog to mandate either a maudlin or dramatic response. He need not have been that discriminating, for once he speaks to her, she promptly broadcasts the news to everyone within earshot, then proceeds to ask over a loudspeaker for a “Margaret” to come to the front of the store.

“Who’s Margaret?” Émile wants to know.

“A fisherman’s girlfriend,” he’s told. When he returns only a blank stare, she explains, “A bunch of them have black Labs.”

Margaret shows up and is told about the dog in the Jeep and immediately falls into a near panic. The very thing that Cinq-Mars was hoping to avoid. “Oh my God, it’s not Remington, is it? Is it Remington? Oh my God!”

She throws herself out the front door, running from car to car, so that Émile has to chase her down. He cautions her to take several deep breaths, and she does, clutching her chest, before he opens the hatch to his Jeep. “Easy, now.” This seems an impossible instruction for her, but once the hatch yawns wide, she relaxes.

“It’s not Rem. Rem’s a guy dog. This is a girl dog.”

“I explained that to the cashier, but you didn’t give me a chance.”

“It could be Alex Waite’s. He’s got a girl dog.” She’s digging under her apron, which is some bother, then her hands resurface with her mobile phone. Sandra entered the store with him and probably hasn’t noticed this kerfuffle, as she remains inside. He scans the windows for a sign of her, but she’s elsewhere, probably lost in the store’s vast hind room. “Alex,” the girl is saying into her phone, “it’s Margaret.” She is no Peg, this girl, no Maggie. “How’re you doing?”

She crosses her fingers while listening to her friend’s response.

“That’s good to hear. Do you know why?”

Émile hears the man on the other end ask why.

“Before I tell you that, how’s Sass doing?”

She’s doing fine, he says, but the young man is losing patience.

“Okay, that’s good. You know why? Because there’s an old guy here with a dead black Lab. Looking for its owner, yeah. It’s a girl dog, too. Like Sassie.”

Émile waits while she listens to a spiel, and adjusts to being referred to as an old guy. The girl’s expression grows sad. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. I’ll tell him. Okay. Yeah. That’s too bad, yeah. Yeah. You, too.”

She clicks off her phone.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay,” Émile repeats, encouraging her.

“The dog is Gadget. I know, a bit weird that name. Anyway, it’s Gadget, and she belongs to Pete Briscoe. He’s brokenhearted, my friend Alex says, because last night Pete was out fishing, only he wasn’t really fishing, he was just riding out the storm, but anyway he was out on his boat and at some point, Pete doesn’t know exactly when or what happened, but Gadget went missing. Off the boat. Into that wild sea. Alex says that Pete’s been bawling his eyes out ever since, that he was on the radio last night telling the other guys about it at sea and bawling his eyes out over the radio. He wanted to search along the shoreline. The guys were warning him off that because it was too damn dangerous and Gadget was either going to make it or she wasn’t. So I guess she wasn’t. Will you tell him? He doesn’t live far from here. You’ll probably have to wake him up like I did Alex—those guys had a rough night—though I’m sure he’ll appreciate that he can give Gadget a proper grave and that. You know what?”

She appears to be waiting for an answer. Émile asks, “What?”

“It’ll be better for Pete in the long run going out to sea knowing that Gadget’s not floating around out there somewhere. I sincerely do think so.”

Émile assures her that he will take the remains to Pete Briscoe if she will be kind enough to give him directions. “I’m only a tourist. I’ve got all the time in the world, so that’s good, but I don’t know my way around.”