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| What the hell... |
Louis Shalako
After
the usual morning huddle, with the usual calls, phones ringing, and everyone
talking all at once, the other detectives had scattered to the four winds. With
nothing really pressing on his plate, and with more routine typing lined up
than anything else, Archambault found himself in sole possession of the room.
This probably wouldn’t last for long and he’d better get onto it…
His
notebook was full of stuff and he always tried to get it down while the
memories could still augment bare bits of sentences and his own unique
short-form. Too many cases, too little time, and a new problem-child every day,
and that’s how it usually was.
He
was just getting down to it, with a fresh sheet in the machine, a fresh cup of
coffee beside his elbow and a pack of cigarettes open there as well. He’d just
dumped the ashtray as a precautionary measure. He looked up in some irritation
when the door opened and a uniformed officer stuck his head in. In
shirt-sleeves and hatless, he was one of their administrative wonders, in the
sense that he worked the front desk, and the big situation room behind it. He
knew all about radio and telephone communications protocols, and the importance
of making a notation about every little thing, and he never left the building
during working hours. With enough seniority to hang onto the duty, he was still
a constable, and probably useful enough in his own way—flat in the feet, pasty
in the face, paunchy in the belly, bald as a cue-ball, but still useful.
“Huh. Henri?”
“Sorry,
sir. It’s just that there’s a young man here asking to speak to someone.
Maintenon’s nephew. His name is Guillaume Maintenon and I thought you’d
probably…”
“Yes.
Absolutely.” His jaw was hanging so he pulled it up again—
The
young man must have been waiting outside the door. The constable nodded him in,
and then closed the door behind.
Archambault
stood.
Young
Maintenon was fairly tall, dressed well enough in a brown suit, and about
thirty-five years old. Stolidly middle-class, whereas he’d always had the
impression that the Maintenons were peasant farmers. Young people were getting
all sorts of education these days, and who could blame them. Once they’d seen
the lights of gay Paree, there was no
more keeping them down on the farm. There were certain signs, but the collar of
the shirt seemed crisp and clean and he wore a wristwatch and a tie-clip.
Clean-shaven, hair neatly trimmed. Very neatly, in fact. Some kind of cologne.
Shiny black shoes. There was some suggestion of a family resemblance, if one
accepted the idea of archetypes. It wasn’t the facial features so much, as it
was the skin tones, bone structure and hair and eye colour. Okay, he was fairly
convinced…a young Maintenon, tall and kind of skinny, just as Maintenon himself
might have been, once upon a time. Not exactly a carbon-copy—the fellow was
definitely a few centimetres taller than Gilles.
It
was a social phenomenon, in that the human race was getting taller.
“Please,
come in. Sit down. Can I get you a cup of coffee?” This was distinctly a
surprise, and yet the people downstairs would have checked the identification
if nothing else. “Ah, so. What brings you here, young man?”
It
was awkward enough, but he beckoned at a convenient chair and acted as if the
fellow wanted coffee. He’d probably take it. Back half turned, he was aware of
the young man settling in and taking a good look around the room…
“Here
you go.” He set the cup down on a corner of the desk and took his own seat
again.
“Cigarette?’
“Ah,
non. No thanks.”
Archambault
snapped one of his own into life and blew out the match. He waved it around,
then dropped it in the ash tray…
He
nodded across on an angle to the left.
“That
was his desk, right over there in the corner.” There was a bustle and cooing
from the doves and pigeons outside of the open windows high up on the wall in a
kind of counterpoint and it was all very interesting…
Craning
a bit, colouring a bit, the young man had a good look. The face came back and
caught his eye again.
“I
guess it goes without saying that the family has our deepest condolences, ah,
officially and also as friends and colleagues. We had nothing but love and
respect for your uncle Gilles. So, uh, what’s up.”
It
was a technique, and it had worked well enough, and often enough, with perps,
witnesses, and victims. Set them at their ease insofar as it was possible, to
be open, non-judgemental, and to let nature take its course. The human being,
just loved to talk. It was what set them apart from the animals, in his
opinion. Above all, it was a kind of calm, inner voice, one that had served him
well enough over the years.
“Yes,
well.” Guillaume had a package in his lap, all brown paper and twine.
Archambault
hadn’t quite noticed that before.
Guillaume
hesitated, and then opened it up.
“This
is Uncle Gilles’ hat. Here is his gun. An MAB, Model D, 7.65 millimetre, one
clip, no loose rounds or other accessories. One wonders why he even had it with
him, pure habit I suppose…” Guillaume trailed off.
Archambault’s
mouth opened and then closed.
The
young man explained.
“I
suppose it’s the property of the next of kin, but the gun at least, should be
properly accounted-for. There isn’t much else.”
Archambault
nodded as if he understood.
“I
mean, ah, the fishing equipment, the rods and the reels, the hip-waders and
stuff, that was mine anyways, and the weapon was probably issued by this
department. I’ve unloaded it and there is no round in the chamber,
incidentally.” He carefully placed his exhibits on the corner of Archambault’s
desk. “One has to wonder why he was carrying it, and how it happened to be
there…sort of on the log, where he must have sat down for a moment…”
Gilles
had left a razor, clothing, and some other things at the house, the police
probably weren’t too interested in that.
“Oh,
really.” This detail hadn’t been in any of the written reports, also, he
wondered why the police down there hadn’t sort of seized the weapon just on
general principles.
Of
course, they would be going on the assumption…the assumption of accidental
death, with no suggestion of foul play.
“The
so-called search parties have been called off. I suppose I just wanted to see
where he worked, you know? I suppose I just wanted to talk to somebody.”
He
felt, somehow, responsible.
“Of
course, and naturally, I understand. You know, somebody must be Gilles’ heir,
someone must be the executor of any estate he might leave behind. I believe
they, I mean him and Ann, owned the flat and things like that. I would imagine
he had a bank account, some savings or investments, stocks and bonds, things
like that.”
The
young man flushed a bit on hearing that.
“That’s
not what this is about.”
He
hesitated.
“Actually,
I am an alternate executor. The primary executor is my father Maurice, who
still holds down the family, er, homestead. My uncle Alexandre, the oldest of
the boys, is in an old-age home. His mind still seems pretty good, last time I
visited, but he’s not too mobile, and I suppose Uncle Gilles had to name
somebody.” As for the aunts, three of them, they were scattered about the
immediate area, but some miles out of the town, more of a big, straggling
village as he put it. “There are aunts and uncles all over the place.”
There
were nieces and nephews, cousins, and all of their progeny in some sense, four
or five generations of them, and some of them had scattered, but they were mostly
still down home as he called it.
The
will had been made ten or so years previously, sometime after the decease of
his Aunt Ann.
His
sister Monique, five or so years older, was the co-executor. The regular form
was to have at least two executors, perhaps one or two alternates. They both
knew he was here, and more or less approved of the intention.
“Okay.
So. What is all this about?”
“Well,
for one thing, I’m just not buying it.”
Archambault
sat up a bit on hearing that. Now this, was getting interesting.
“They’ll
find the body, it’s only a matter of time. Look, maybe it’s stuck in a crevice
or something. But surely, sooner or later, it has to turn up.” A funeral
without a body didn’t seem all that likely, it took seven years or something
like that to declare someone legally dead…Archambault didn’t want to go into
all of that right now.
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| "Fuck," and this from a school teacher... |
Guillaume
shook his head.
“Fuck.”
It
was all he said, and that, coming from a school-teacher.
***
As
much as anything, police work was about listening.
“When
I was very young, I seriously considered becoming a detective. Some of that was
probably the influence of my uncle, and I still have a couple of old scrapbooks
with photos and clippings from the newspapers. Anything about him, really. For
quite a few years, he really was my hero. I blush to think that I actually got
him to autograph it one time. Holy crap, was I young. Uncle Gilles had a lot
more hair, and long sideburns back then. It was all black hair. Yet it was
still the same person, I guess, ah, there’s a picture of him up on the
mantelpiece back home. I suppose I was just that age. I cut things out and
stuck them in the book. But, ultimately, I became a teacher.” Guillaume taught
science, mathematics, history and geography in the local ecole primaire. “That’s not to say that I don’t have my own
thoughts, my own instincts.”
According
to Guillaume, Maintenon had seemed fit enough, physically able enough, to take
on a bit of rough country and walking on narrow goat-paths and things like
that. A little out of breath, perhaps, but it was a long walk and with a fair
climb along the way. The pair had separated, each seeking their own luck, as he
said. After an hour or so, he’d tired of it and went looking for his Uncle
Gilles.
“And?”
“And
then, he was gone. Just gone—I suppose I’m having a hard time coming to terms
with it.”
“How
well did you know, ah, your uncle.”
“Not
that well, really, mostly just boyhood memories. The last time they visited, it
was like twelve or fifteen years ago. Maybe even longer than that. Shortly before
she died—” It seemed getting the man out of the house and the company of old
people, old memories, had been sort of his motivation for inviting Gilles to go
along on their little fishing expedition. “I was barely eighteen or twenty, and
maybe not paying all that much attention. One regrets such things later in
life, of course…”
Hmn.
That
one had the ring of truth. Archambault was lucky if his own children phoned up
once or twice a month and asked how they were doing. He usually just said
hello, told them he was fine, and then let the wife take over.
“What
was your impression of his state of mind?” The Boss hadn’t had a vacation in
years, and had kicked up at least some kind of a fuss before going.
“Ah,
yes.” In his own impression, Gilles had been enjoying it—insofar as it was
possible to do so when he wasn’t an avid fisherman and hadn’t done it in years.
“Considering
the elevation, and the fact Uncle Gilles was a smoker, he seemed to be doing
all right.” He wasn’t exactly young.
It
would be a strange bed, in a strange house, with someone else’s strange sounds,
the toilet flushing and a door closing in the night, and he would be on someone
else’s schedule…breakfast, lunch and dinner.
He
was killing the time as best he could, in other words—and doing his best to
enjoy it, and not to be a burden, or even a disappointment, to the relatives.
That
part seemed to make sense. There was the wrench of no routine, the journey, the
relief at actually arriving somewhere else, catching up with the rest of the
family, so to speak. They would have to find something to talk about after all of those years.
“He’d
actually caught a couple of really nice ones, and we were looking forward to,
ah…eating them later, for dinner.” Guillaume had three or four smaller fish,
and it would have made for a pretty nice meal. “I have to clean them, which I’m
pretty good at, or the wife just won’t cook them.”
He
looked pretty miserable.
“Fuck.
There was a fresh one, not real big, laying there in the dirt at the foot of
this log, it was mostly dead but it still twitched when I picked it up…this is
when I started wondering where he had gone. It couldn’t have been more than
fifteen or twenty minutes.” He shook his head. “To leave a perfectly good fish
laying in the dirt like that, it’s just a bit abnormal.”
Something
struck Archambault.
“I
seem to recall that Gilles’ mail is being held downtown.” He rummaged around
and found a name and phone number. “Speak to a Madame Lemieux at the main
postal centre downtown.”
He
wrote that down for him.
He
bit his lip.
“Other
than that, I can let you have a key to the flat, perhaps we could have an
officer go along and you could just take a walk through the place…” Maintenon,
always thinking, also, a very long time ago, had made a point of leaving one in
his desk drawer just in case.
“Thank
you.” There wasn’t much more to be said. “I’m almost ashamed to say this—”
“Oh?”
“It’s
just that it’s getting close to our tenth anniversary, and I brought the wife
along.” They’d had dinner and a show the night before, and she was waiting at a
little bistro around the corner, just over the bridge and a few doors to the
right as he described it.
Archambault
nodded, he knew the place well enough. Dorani’s. Their meat-ball sandwiches
were almost legendary, at least in the world-view of your typical flic.
“Well,
that’s understandable. Ah, about that key—”
“Sure.”
Guillaume seemed hesitant, but it seemed the thing to do so Archambault went
and got it for him. “You can drop that off later, or mail it back or whatever.”
The
housekeeper would still have one in any case, and LeBref, of all people, had
claimed custody of the cat, at least until other arrangements could be made.
It
was the mention of the cat—but Guillaume’s eyes watered.
He
had to take a minute and Archambault let him take his time.
They
could always call a locksmith.
They
probably would go around and have a look, or so thought Archambault. It was
only human nature, and there was that hero-worship aspect. The young man was
rising and Archambault couldn’t think of much else.
“It’s
too bad really—a couple of our guys have gone down there, to, ah, Luchon, and
you and the wife were probably on a passing train on the opposite track.”
“Oh,
really.”
The
pair shook hands.
“Here’s
my card.” Archambault handed one over. “Give us a call if you need anything, or
if you think of anything else. We really do appreciate you coming in. Ah, how
long are you in town?”
“Oh.
No more than a couple of days. I have seven days of compassionate leave, a
little unusual, but my boss is pretty understanding. I have to teach on
Monday.”
“Ah.”
Archambault held the door for him....
The
young man was gone, and Henri had indeed waited in the corridor to escort him
out, as it was very important that strangers weren’t left unattended. Otherwise
they would end up wandering all over the building, wide-eyed and curious…it had
happened before.
He
picked up the hat, fingered the brim, a little stained around the sweatband but
not very much, and set it back down again. That was Maintenon’s hat all
right…and then there was the gun, and the clip. He would have to check the
serial number, but there was little reason to doubt.
It really was hard to believe he was gone.
END
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