Dead Reckoning, Chapter Seventeen. An Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #10. Louis Shalako.

Like something out of Zane Grey.

Louis Shalako

Worn out as he was from his own little ordeal, Éliott had skulked, stalked, slithered, and clambered over rocks and fallen trees, some of which were huge and very rotten, literally crumbling under him in some cases. He really had belly-crawled in the final stretch. He had holed up in between two large slabs of the native stone, over a metre thick. There was a spot that was thankfully flat, at least partially padded by clumps of moss in green and grey. His position was screened by the branches of small, resinous shrubs that he thought might be juniper going by the little blue berries, looking as if they’d been dusted with something powdery, like icing sugar.

He’d pulled out the camera, hiding it in a crevice just to his right. He’d gotten the people at the store to throw in a good piece of the same paper they wrapped the sausages in—the camera, bundled up in its brown paper and practically invisible under a few dead leaves and small twigs, would be all right for a day or two anyways. It was better if the hermit didn’t see that just yet.

Sure enough, he’d fallen asleep…thankfully, he didn’t snore, or at least he thought not. He was a bare fifty or sixty metres from the cliff shelter and it was in plain sight from this perspective. When he woke up, there was gravel stuck to his cheek, the jacket and the shirt were riding up and something had bitten him a couple of times right in the fleshy part above the right hip.

Oh, yes. When he realized he was awake, it was with a barely-stifled groan. He was stiff and sore all over, something he really hadn’t bargained for. Especially the ankles, the calves and the upper legs. Some of the other body parts weren’t so good either. All that riding, all of those hills.

Argh.

Peering through a gap, biting his lip, he saw that the bags were gone. Even better, the door was open, the curtains were open just a slice, and there was blue smoke coming out of the stove pipe.

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” His old man had said that once over the dinner table, and his mother had giggled—covering her mouth, blushing a bit, and then arching her eyebrows, lifting her chin and giving him a certain look.

The old man had winked back.

Kind of a disturbing image, in retrospect—

He grinned a feral grin.

“Gotcha, you son of a bitch.”

If that wasn’t bacon he smelled, he would be a monkey’s uncle.

As for his mother, she’d always been a very good cook and he had the brothers and sisters to prove it.

Mere LeBeaux: a very good cook.

***

Martin Garnier was still waiting on the results of that sergeant’s exam, but.

The detectives had come up with an idea.

“Planted information?” Roger Langeron, elegant as usual, with a good tailor and an even better barber, and unflustered by just about anything, was non-committal. “Well, it’s an idea.”

He sat there in a chair at the side of Maintenon’s desk, with Garnier standing and Hubert leaning back in the chair behind his own desk. He’d calmed down considerably since a day or two before, and that was a good thing.

“Ah, yes, sir. The idea is that a fairly senior officer, someone in a position to have the information, not just any old rumour-monger, leaks to the press, certain information. Normally, we would withhold as many details as possible. This time, we take an opposite tack—we’re going to release all kinds of detail. We’re not telling the criminals anything they don’t already know. It helps us just to keep the story alive in the news, for one thing. But basically, we can be choosy about what we let out there. One, someone bought a couple of dozen bags of ice. That almost had to have been the same day, right. They did have the freezer, one assumes, but the lid was off and the interior in very good condition as far as the technical people can determine. That’s a fairly solid date. They might have been dumb enough to be wearing those coveralls, right. We would get at least one sighting. A better description of even one suspect might turn out to be very helpful. That would have been an unusual purchase in almost any case, although the big ice companies all have their regular customers. It’s a wholesale-retail thing. Perhaps someone on that list made an unusually large purchase. Distributors know an awful lot about their customers, they know what they bought last week, and the week before. They know what to expect for this week’s order and they have to plan accordingly.” There were only so many companies in town, and there were other approaches, after all. “If they cleaned out a corner store somewhere, we might even get a call.”

This one leveraged the power of the press and might even save a little time and manpower.

“I see.” Langeron nodded, in fact poor old Gilles had always kept a good relationship with more than one journalist, for just such eventualities—the late Hector Vachon, Maintenon’s buddy came to mind.

That one still hurt, as he’d known and liked the man as well.

“What else.”

“Okay, sir. The freezer had to come from somewhere. The tools they dumped when stealing the van had to end up somewhere. If somebody found them somewhere, we’d sure like to know. We could offer a small reward—no questions asked, but the owners are just trying to get those tools and materials back. Somebody had to make those signs, Montgolfier Brothers, those were fairly professional, and the vehicle had to be kept under wraps for some time before the actual delivery. Someone had to make those coveralls, with the name on the back and everything. There must be an industrial supply shop in town that does that sort of thing. What if it was a rented space. What if it wasn’t, or, what if they owned it under their own name. The people that did the work had to come from somewhere and to disappear back into somewhere. The bodies had to come from somewhere. What if it’s some big institution somewhere? They might not even be aware they are missing yet, alternatively, if they have discovered, ah, some discrepancy in the number of bodies in stock—we’re thinking of some medical school somewhere, a hospital morgue, even an official police morgue somewhere, fuck, for all we know a funeral home, they might have mislaid a body or two, and they sure as hell wouldn’t be all that eager to talk about it.”

Elegant, and unflustered.

Somebody, teaching anatomy somewhere, might just be missing three stiffs and not even know it. They might even be grateful, to know the police had them in safe keeping. It was interesting, in that the bodies hadn’t been embalmed. They were just dead—

Doctor Poirier was saying the bodies had been on ice for a while, and that was definitely suggestive.

“Do it.” Langeron nodded. “Who did you have in mind?”

“I’ll do it myself.” Hubert was firm on that. “It doesn’t matter too much, when the police officer in the story is going to be pretty much anonymous. Yet I will have to give my name, as the journalists have to have at least some confidence in the source. So do the readers. I’m a sacrificial goat, if it ever comes down to that—”

Someone would have to be accountable.

He couldn’t help it, he had to get up and pace a little, but this was definitely unusual. It had its risks. Were they supposed to ask for volunteers? Why put somebody else on the spot. The responsibility was his, and his alone…

“I’m thinking of a lunch date, somewhere nice, assuming they even bite on it. That way they can get a look at me, ah, no photos of course…” Once he’d gotten a couple of stiff drinks into him, he’d let them have it. “What reporter wouldn’t bite on a free lunch in any case…”

Roger nodded along…so far.

“…the approach is everything, of course.”

And poor old Hubert was a member of the Special Homicide Unit. The press were going to lap it up and they could hardly deny that, him or Delorme. The Inspector had already cleared it if only they could get Roger to go along.

The mere mention of Maintenon’s name would work its own magic.

“…and so, right at the end of the story, we remind the readers that the police could hardly ever solve any crime, big or small, without some degree of assistance from the public, and then we make a good, clear mention of the fact that we will take all calls in the strictest confidence. Just in case they’re a bit shy and are worried about their own asses. We’ll talk about a reward, at the beginning and at the end of the story. Right?”

Roger didn’t have too much to say to that. As plans went, it was good enough to get going on…

They could talk about it later, but Hubert had been humbled in a way that really hadn’t happened before. What the hell, it might even do him some good—and yet he would probably redeem himself soon enough. They still hadn’t run out of ideas yet, and that was good too.

“Do it.”

“Yes, sir.” Hubert and Garnier exchanged glances.

Garnier spoke up.

“First of all, thank you for the, uh, authorization. Second, if we think of anything else, we can throw that in too—we’re holding back on the, er, LeBeaux thing, that only makes sense.”

Roger grinned at that first one. He understood the sentiment, in what was a kind of shorthand. But these guys were only going to go so far out on a limb. Not without running it past higher authority. And even Delorme had deferred to Roger. He nodded at the second point.

“So. Any idea of who—or where?” They had anticipated the question and therefore they’d put some thought into it.

It was Hubert who spoke.

“We’ll try Le Temps first. It’s a serious, paper-of-record sort of thing, with a reputation for being serious, so serious as to the point of boredom. They might be interested in something, um, just a little bit different, especially if it’s offered as an exclusive. If they won’t go for it, we’ll give it to Figaro, they are much more conservative, very much anti status-quo. They’re a royalist paper; and not too fond of democracy, but they also have the kind of national circulation we’re interested in.” While he had no great relationships at either paper, he had a few names in mind—their bylines were all over the paper, and at least one or two specialized in crime-writing. “The basic premise is that I am disgruntled, pissed off, and mostly just belly-aching. But also swearing to the facts as stated. Just trying to light a fire under someone’s butt as the Maintenon investigation appears to be going nowhere…”

If someone in the department should get offended by all of this, maybe even issue their own statement, it would only serve to make it more real. It could be arranged, after all. He stood there, eyebrows raised in a questioning manner.

“Do it.” Roger rose to go. “We’ll talk about LeBeaux when we get more information. And not before. In the meantime, I’m keeping an open mind, ah—insofar as that is possible.”

There had been no sightings of, and no communication from LeBeaux. The longer that situation went on, the longer it was likely to continue, pure instinct on some level. Having been notified, all the small police detachment in Luchon could do was to keep an eye out for him, and if he was spotted, the Unit would get a call. The request, which was both official and unofficial at the same time, (which was not really a contradiction in police work), was to observe, to identify, and to report, other than that, let us know and take no immediate action. We will advise.

Garnier stopped him before he could go.

“Ah, Detective Hubert has a request…or two.”

“Yes?”

“I want to go around to LeBeaux’s house and take them his paycheque. Er, I mean the pay stub, but with the money in cash.” He could explain that LeBeaux was on special assignment, they were not to worry, that he would be home soon and he sends his love, although this kind of thing might be tough to fake.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t being sincere—he really would mean it, it was just that he knew a little more than he would be letting on. Sooner or later, they’d have to pay the rent, as he put it.

And if LeBeaux had called home in the meantime, the odds were, they’d tell him right off. The thing there, was to play stupid—but nice. Confused, maybe. But still nice.

“Done. Anything else.”

“I want to talk to, ah, consult, the shrink, or someone in the social services division. Ah, I mean about LeBeaux.” Not so much for me, in other words—

“Sure. Do whatever you need to do. Let’s hope we get some results.”

“There’s more—”

Roger nodded. There always was.

“I was wondering if anyone had spoken to the d’Coutu woman, er, since the event. Also, one wonders if she’s been paid off or whatever. It occurs to me that we really ought to go around and put a seal on the door—Maintenon’s apartment. I don’t know—just to keep people out of there, maybe.” Then there was the will.

Guillaume had alluded to it, without actually saying what was in it. That might be interesting information. The flat was worth real money, and it had been all paid off at the bank for some years. Maintenon would almost certainly have a bank account. At his rank, the salary was pretty decent and that went back ten or twenty years. He was known for living within his means and his needs had been simple and few—the fact that he hadn’t taken a vacation or gone anywhere in years spoke to that. The will would almost certainly be in the desk in Maintenon’s study, knowing the man and the way his mind worked. Either that, or in a safety deposit box somewhere.

“We have no idea of whether Guillaume and the wife went around there or not…”

Roger nodded.

“All right. Do that too. I’ll get us a nice, quiet little warrant for that one.”

It was the best they could do for now.

He stood there, looking around at Maintenon’s desk for a moment. The hat was there, and the gun had been properly stowed somewhere, presumably, tagged, logged and locked up. He picked the hat up and fingered the brim. There was that catch in the throat, the very breath again. That sense of emptiness, again.

Fuck.

He turned back.

“And thank you. There is always hope, gentlemen—and lady.”

Busy at her phone, the only other person in the room, Margot gave him a quick wink and kept on scribbling.

So, that was it, then.

They were back in business.

END

 

Previous.

Chapter One, Scene One.

Chapter One, Scene Two.

Chapter Two.

Chapter Three. 

Chapter Four. 

Chapter Five.

Chapter Six.

Chapter Seven.

Chapter Eight.

Hmn. Interesting.

Chapter Nine.

Chapter Ten.

Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Sixteen.

 

Real Change is Incremental.

Louis has books and stories available from Google Play.

 

Thank you for reading.