The Storm Murders (40 page)

“What about it?”

“The kidnapping.”

Dreher was only too happy to gloat. “The other side,
É
mile. Blame them. The people who are after me who don’t know it’s me they’re after, just an amorphous ghost—but maybe they were thinking it’s me, I can’t be sure—they’re the ones. They kidnapped your girl. You tell me what they got out of that. Nothing, it would appear, because both of you are about to die and I’m still up to no good! So say your prayers and let’s get on with this. If you’re not going to give me the satisfaction I’m looking for, fuck it, I’ll do without. But sorry, guys, I must be on my way.
É
mile. You first.”

And just like that, he aimed his pistol at his head.

“Oh!” Sandra called out. Then yelled another desperate sound.

“There’s things you don’t know!”
É
mile bellowed. “You won’t be getting away soon.”

“Sorry,
É
mile. Can’t talk your way out of this one. Don’t disappoint me. Take it like a man. If you insist on being optimistic, grant me that at last. Your integrity. Let me blow that away with your brains.”

“Help is on the way! That’s why I’ve been stalling you! That’s why we have hope! Everything you’ve told us is theory, so who can convict you? You’re still in the clear, Rand. But this, this you can’t walk away from.”

“Nice try, but you lie, and now you die.”

“My husband doesn’t lie!” Sandra shouted out.

“Lovely sentiment, my dear. But sentiment holds no water with me. Is that a surprise to you?”

“Were you recording us?”

He looked at her. “Recording?”

“Could you hear what we were saying?”

“Oh yeah.”

“She’s right,”
É
mile said, catching on.

“About what?”

“I used code,”
É
mile said. “Bill Mathers is my old partner. He knows my language.”

Dreher released a plaintive sigh, then rubbed his eyes. “As much as I love to see the light go out early, I really hate it when people start this relentless, useless pleading.”

“I can prove it to you,” Sandra told him.

“How? Prove what?”

“Do you know what
É
mile told Bill? You were listening?”

“He gave him instructions on a shortcut home. So?”

“Bill Mathers,”
É
mile answered, “has lived here all his life. He doesn’t need directions home. And the directions I gave him are bogus.”

“You’re pathetic. You’re making that up.”

Sandra yelled, she screamed near the top of her lungs:
“I can prove it!”

He was shocked for a moment, but that insidious grin arose again. “Okay, lady. Go ahead.”

“I’ll tell you what
É
mile said means. In a different room. In the kitchen. Then we’ll come back here and he’ll explain it himself. You’ll see. It’ll be exactly the same thing.”

They stared each other down a few moments before Dreher addressed
É
mile. “I got to say, you married a lady with guts. That’s good to see. All right. Sandra, get up. Into the kitchen we go.
É
mile, I’m going to tie you to that chair. If this is some sort of pathetic plan, just remember that I’m under no obligation to stick to a script today. I can make you pay before you die, and you won’t want that. If your wife pisses me off, then she pays, and I’ll let you live to see all that in its fullest glory.”

He put down the pistol briefly and lashed
É
mile’s wrists to the hardback chair, yet neither of them could do a blessed thing. Dreher then clutched Sandra’s forearm so forcibly that she gasped. He yanked her forward. He pulled her with him into the kitchen to listen to her explanation with the door closed.

But instead she pleaded for a bathroom visit.

She squeezed her thighs together and hopped on one foot, then the other.

“Please don’t humiliate me. Let me pee.”

“Fuck!”
he hollered.

“I’m scared! It’s the excitement. Let me pee!”

He opened the door to the living room again. “Don’t move,
É
mile! I’ll be checking on you.”

Cinq-Mars didn’t bother pointing out that he was unable to move, not while attached to his chair.

Roughly, Dreher pushed Sandra ahead of him down to the powder room. He went in first, did a quick scan of the medicine cabinet. Pills, floss, ointments, gauze, Band-Aids. No razors, no scissors, nothing to be construed as lethal. He stepped out of the room.

“You’re not closing the door,” he told her.

“You’re not watching,” she told him.

“Of course not. I’m a gentleman.”

“Undo my hands.”

He studied her. He saw her predicament. She had to undress. She hopped some more.

“Turn around,” he instructed her, and when she did so he untied her wrists.

He then retired to a spot in the kitchen when he could keep an eye on the door and on Cinq-Mars by shifting his glance. He heard the tinkle, and when the toilet flushed he went back to the room, gave it a visual inspection as Sandra adjusted her clothing and checked her hands and pockets.

He pulled Sandra back into the kitchen and checked that Cinq-Mars had remained still. Then he closed the door and told her to quietly say what she wanted to say, and after telling him he tied her wrists again in front of her.

His eyes bore into her. Then he opened the door and signaled for her to go through. In the living room, he shoved Sandra back down into a chair.

Despite the roughhouse handling,
É
mile could tell that he had changed. Worry had crept in. A darkness behind the eyes, perhaps a premonition of the very same darkness that he’d been waiting for, and not seeing, in their eyes, was now evident in his.

“Talk,
É
mile. Explain your code. Not that you don’t die either way.”

Sandra’s gambit was his last prevailing hope. “I told Bill to go east of Aldgate. In the old days, that’s what I told him when it was time to draw our weapons. It comes from a Sherlock Holmes teleplay—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard that already.” Dreher drew a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck, in distress.

“‘Always carry a firearm east of Aldgate, Watson,’ Sherlock said. Bill took it to be code. I can pretty much guarantee that. So you see, we haven’t given up hope because we know the cops are coming and probably in force. Your best bet, your only bet, is to get out now, then you’ll only have our stories to defend against in court. Otherwise, you kill us now, and you’re the dead man.”

He seemed to be considering his options. He went to the front door and looked out. He sprung the lock. He crossed to a side window and checked that it was locked. But it would be in winter. He walked though the living room, checking on his captors, warned them with a wave of his gun, and went through the kitchen to the back door and locked that. He searched in that direction. Nothing alarmed him out there. He returned to the living room.

“This does change things a little,” he agreed. “Sandra, you’re getting out of the finger-cutting, you’ll be pleased to know. If you don’t mind, I’m going to borrow riding tack from the stables and mount one of your horses. I’m an old kid cowboy from Missouri, you know. Riding a horse can’t be much different than riding a bicycle, once you know how. That gets me as far as the riding trails out back. My GPS will guide me out of there. Then I take the redeye to Birmingham. Technically, I’m already on a flight to Jacksonville, but that’s not really me, as you can see. Either way, I get to investigate Vira’s murder tomorrow morning, and I guess that’s when I’ll hear about yours. So. Short and sweet. It’s been nice knowing you.”

Sandra emitted a sound, one that
É
mile had never heard, and both men looked across at her. “There,
É
mile,” Dreher said, “do you see? There it goes. All hope. We’re back in the swamp. I love the swamp. You see? Her light’s gone out. She’s already dead and I haven’t even touched her yet.”

But Sandra was not going to tolerate that verdict or at least not give him the satisfaction.
“Fuck you, you fucker!”

“That mouth!”

Cinq-Mars tried to kick him. A futile effort. Dreher went around behind him. Cinq-Mars tried to twist around but there was no point. He felt the barrel of the gun against the back of his head.

Dreher leaned in and whispered in
É
mile’s ear. “Personal aggrandizement,
É
mile. That’s why you’re dying today. But I like you. So I’ll tell you something else. It’s also political. So many of us have plans. For those plans, we do a little fund-raising on the side. So you see, you’re dying for a cause. My cause. You’re not dying in vain. Oh, just wanted you to know.”

“You bastard.”

“You fucked up,” Dreher said, as if wanting to console him. “I know, it’s hard to stomach. But look, don’t feel bad. So did I. Today is but one example. Shall I let you in on a touch of irony,
É
mile? I never counted on that big snowfall. When I arrived at the Lumens’ place, one footprint was the same as any other. When the snow covered everything, that’s when I knew I was in trouble.”

“The cops would think you were still in the house,” Cinq-Mars whispered.

“That’s right. Adele Lumen not dying instantly was one mistake, but I didn’t count on the implications of the storm. Normally, they’d never think to look for me. They’d just call it in. So you see, I’m always trying to improve my practice. I learned new things today. So thanks. I promise,
É
mile, I’ll do better next time.”

He straightened up. Shoved
É
mile’s head forward with the gun’s muzzle.

“Ready, lady?” Dreher said to Sandra, although he wasn’t looking in her direction. “Say goodbye, then watch him die.”

The shot was fired. Sandra released an unholy scream to drown out that noise, to explode that final terror.

TWENTY EIGHT

Funereal, grim, the procession of five black cars turned off the county highway to traverse the pockmarked road on up to the farmhouse. A thaw transformed the drive into a series of puddles and ponds and made it particularly bumpy where frost heaves rippled the surface. Sandra Cinq-Mars stepped out onto her front porch to watch the cars and SUVs arrive. She was surprised, although only briefly, that she recognized one of the first men to emerge from his vehicle. The fellow buttoned up his black suit jacket and exchanged a glance and a nod with her. He stood out as strikingly familiar.

She’d know that face anywhere. She just never expected to see it again and not in a million years on her own property. He was one of two men, both in their fifties, who approached the porch and came up the steps.

Not him, but the other man, extended his hand and said, “Mrs. Cinq-Mars, on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, may I convey to you our sincere regret for all that has transpired.”

Her eyes remained reddened from crying jags that in the last day were finally becoming less frequent. She replied cordially, “Thank you. Won’t you come inside?” Taking note of her front yard, where more and more men stepped out of the vehicles, she added, “My goodness, so many of you!”

“Don’t be alarmed,” the man assured her with a smile, “we won’t all come in.”

“Perhaps what you mean to say is,” she contradicted him, “not all at once.”

“Ma’am,” the man said, which she thought a meaningless response.

The two agents from the lead car stepped inside the front door. They’d already dispensed with their overcoats, left behind on the vehicle’s front seat given the unexpected warmth, and once inside slipped off their rubbers, leaving their shoes on. Spit and polish from head to toe. They came through to the living room, where they found
É
mile Cinq-Mars, also dressed in a suit and tie, lying in state on the sofa, hands folded across his chest in at attitude of peaceful, eternal rest.

They stood respectfully in silence, hands crossed solemnly at their waists.

“Gentlemen,” the retired Montreal detective decreed, without opening either eye, “the last of my osteopath’s exercises. My back’s been acting up in light of all this. The stress, he says. I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. I blame the change in the weather.”

“Don’t let him kid you,” Sandra chided. “He’s been practicing lying in a coffin since the moment he came within a hairsbreadth of one. Coffee?” she inquired of her guests.

“Thank you, yes. Much appreciated,” an agent said. They’d not been introduced as yet. “But really. Just the two of us. The minions outside can wait.”

“Minions?” Cinq-Mars asked, eyes still shut. He had just returned from mass.

“They brought an army,” Sandra let him know.

He at last opened his eyes, to see the agent indicate with a facial expression that her observation was abundantly true. “Sorry about that,” he said. “We had nowhere to leave them, so we brought them along.”

Departing for the kitchen, Sandra pointed to the man she recognized. “That one,” she informed her husband, “kidnapped me in New Orleans.”

Cinq-Mars spun up onto his derri
è
re.

“Gentlemen,” he announced and rose from being prone with an evident flexibility unbecoming a man who supposedly was smitten with a sore back, “
É
mile Cinq-Mars. How do you do?”

Quietly, Special Agents Pettibone and Hartopp agreed that they were doing quite well, thank you, and having introduced themselves went on to repeat their regret concerning recent events. They apologized again on behalf of the Bureau.

Cinq-Mars was not ready to accept their words of contrition. “You do realize,” he pointed out to both of them, “that Special Agent Dreher’s blood and brains were spread across my wife’s face and throughout her hair? I had his blood all over me.”

The two men stood in silent acceptance of that horrific moment.

“Better his than mine, I suppose, but still. Not to mention Sandra’s abduction in New Orleans. What the hell has the FBI come to, gentlemen?”

“With all due respect, sir,” Pettibone remarked, “that’s more or less what we’re here to find out. We’re hoping that you can help us with that.”