Dead Reckoning, An Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery, Chapter Two. Louis Shalako.

Hubert.

Louis Shalako

A couple of weeks had gone by, with the workload about the same as usual, and with Andre Levain taking over in Gilles’ place. Senior man, he had plenty of experience and word was, he could probably go anywhere in the force, perhaps even taking on his own department—if only he had wanted it.

Andre was happy enough where he was, and while promotion might bring in a little more money, always important to a family man, it was a kind of trap in that you ended up with a much bigger pile of responsibility. A big, steaming pile, sometimes. At some point, you could be held accountable for the mistakes of the people under you, and that was always a consideration. You’d be dragging a briefcase full of work home every stinking night and every stinking weekend. He’d be competing for the best and the brightest people, going up against a bunch of other department heads, playing office politics, and accounting for the budget and the overtime, and answering to the more political brass-hats, whereas under Maintenon he was more or less insulated from all of that. Maintenon could defy them, upon the proper occasion, and somehow, make it stick. Now that, took not just nerve but real talent, and he wasn’t too sure he had that, or if he ever would.

There was a subdued knock at the door and he looked up from a file he and Hubert had been going over.

“Yes, yes.”

The door opened and a somber looking Roger Langeron entered, his mouth tight, eyes down and dark-looking, and Andre wondered if someone had fucked up real bad. He had a couple of flimsy sheets in hand.

“People.”

Two or three others, Margot, LeBref, and the new guy, LeBeaux, froze for a second and then all eyes swung to the Chief.

“Sir?”

Roger stood there, and uttered a long, deep sigh.

“Merde. Well, there’s no making this easy…Maintenon is missing, presumed dead—”

What?

The silence was pressing, all eyes on him and all mouths open as the significance of the words sank in and hit bottom.

“…Gilles and his nephew Guillaume were fishing a river not far from the original family home, down there in Bagneres de Luchon. They say it’s very remote, with hilly country, forest, and, ah, ah, the river runs in a gorge.” Choking up, Roger looked down at the paper in his hands. “The body has not been recovered, and he is presumed dead…due to the current, rocks, waterfalls, the temperature of the water…”

The amount of time that had passed, the rugged terrain.

There were tears in his eyes, and Margot was openly sobbing.

“How?”

“They don’t say—they’re not sure. Apparently, Gilles went downstream a ways, looking for a better pool or whatever…it’s a mountain stream. He was going for some of those exquisite little brook trout. Guillaume stayed where he was, or so it says in the report. When he finally went looking, Gilles was gone…just gone.”

They stared at Roger, and he reached for a handkerchief. His eyes came up, looked around and he headed morosely for the chair—Maintenon’s chair. He landed with a firm thud, as if the knees had given way. Roger dabbed at his eyes.

Heaving another sigh, mostly in control of himself, he kept going.

“They say Guillaume found a few things, his fishing rod, a creel, that’s like a wicker basket they put their fish in…that famous chirper cap of his. The one he got when he was in England that one time.” That hat came out about twice a year, spring and fall in a kind of ritual.

Roger had to stop for moment, perhaps blaming himself in some ways.

“I suppose there’s more. I only got the message this morning. I will follow up, but I thought you should be the first to know.” He’d have to call the Minister in a few minutes.

The news would be going around like wildfire, and the rumours, and it was better if the Minister heard about it from Roger first—

The rumours wouldn’t be too far behind the news.

There were other thoughts, a funeral, or some kind of a memorial perhaps. The next of kin would take care of the arrangements, presumably, and yet they would all want to be there—but what if it was down there, in the freaking Pyrenees. As he recalled Maintenon’s late wife was buried in a cemetery here in the city. They wouldn’t all be able to go, especially if it was down there, and yet someone should—probably him, and he wasn’t quite ready to get into that just yet. He just didn’t have the information.

“Fuck.” That sounded like LeBref, the near midget, Joseph, who had known Gilles as well as, and as long as, anyone.

It was like the people just couldn’t find the words.

Margot wiped her eyes and blew her nose one more time, keeping the crumpled tissues in her hand for now.

Roger cleared his throat and tried again.

“They have search parties out, in the faint hopes that he might be clinging to a log somewhere down in the gorge, but it’s been almost two days and no sign of him.” Up in the mountains, even in June, the nights were very cold and the water near-freezing from the snow-melt. “I have a phone number for the chief down there, and I will be calling him as soon as I get back down to my office.”

Levain nodded, his head was down, but still listening nevertheless…

Roger bit down hard, and there was a long silence.

“Sir.”

“Yes, Andre?”

“Was there any indication of foul play…?”

Roger stared at him.

“Now that, is one very good question.” There was that crazy freezer thing, to his knowledge the police inquiries were generally getting nowhere. “Without a body, how could we possibly know…”

He trailed off, looking lost.

“Not that I am aware of, Andre.”

There was a long sigh from Hubert, shaking his head…looking at the clock on the wall, and then eyes drifting inevitably towards the coffee-pot, and then tearing themselves away in a kind of self-disgust.

He and Roger exchanged a look of understanding: life must go on, no matter how unpalatable the thought. The work would never end. Hubert’s eyes dropped.

Merde.

Maintenon. Dead.

It was all too much to comprehend.

***

A couple of hours later, the detectives, pressed for time and results, and with little more to be said, had more or less gotten back to work. Levain had to leave, taking the new guy with him on their latest case, which had some hopes of being solved…

Margot was off to court.

Hubert, for one, was finding it hard going. It was just the three of them now, in between phone calls and other interruptions.

“I just can’t believe it.” He shook his head. “Gilles—fishing, no less. What, was he going back to his youth or something. Okay, he was an older man, the banks are quite steep. Maybe he slipped on mud or wet grass and hit his head. But then there’s that fucking freezer in his kitchen, with three fucking dead bodies in it. If he really is…gone, I find it very hard to believe that this is a complete coincidence.”

There were no takers for this conversational gambit, and one could hardly blame them.

Even so, his instincts were killing him—just as poor old Gilles would have said.

It was just too much of a coincidence.

“What’s the name of the river down there?”

LeBref looked up from his phone-work, and shook his head. He put his hand over the mouth-piece.

“Look it up.” That was it.

Archambault, a little late for work this morning but having been briefed on the situation, and wrought with his own emotions, barely looked askance, busy with his own telephone, his own notes. One quick glance out of one fairly jaundiced eye, and that was about it for him—

Still, it was a kind of support, if not exactly encouragement, and Hubert resolved to do just that.

The bullshit piled up on his desk would just have to wait.

Mind made up, Hubert was just rising, heading on down to the research library in the basement, which was universally referred to as the catacombs, when LeBref covered the phone again and spoke.

“While you’re at it, get the number of that fucking cop-shop down there.”

Archambault covered his own telephone mouth-piece.

“Get every bit of God-damned information they have.” It was gruff, but the man was a veteran, perhaps even a legend in his own right.

“…sorry about that, can you repeat that last line…?” Archambault, in control of himself, nothing but pure professionalism.

Back to work again.

Hubert, bit his lip in cold emotion and nodded sharply. No, it wasn’t over yet, with all due respect to the locals…back on the job, and with a real vengeance this time.

“Will do.”

The rest of them could get on with the work.

And tomorrow was another day, as they often said in the homicide business.

It could hardly be any worse than this one.

 

END

 

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Heaven Is Too Far Away, Chapter Two. Louis Shalako.

  

Chapter Two

 

B Flight

 

Captain Mick Dinwiddie was on patrol with four planes of the flight. Other than the mechanics, sitting bored in the shade of a tree beside the hangar, there was no one to talk to. Singh was flying today as well. There were a few glances in this direction, but lieutenants outrank privates. We don’t have to explain our presence.

With no aircraft to look at, and not much to talk about, there was time to observe the men around me. Most of them were older, although several were about the same age as I, and one poor little fellow looked about fourteen years old.

Their lot could be worse. They often worked far into the night repairing aircraft.

Sometimes their sleep was disturbed by the Hun’s nightly bed check.

At least they got to eat at a table and sleep in a bed.

It’s better than a trench.

Not that they weren’t brave, or courageous. But they looked somehow contented in this brief respite from the noise, the dust. The constant hazard of the whirling props, and all the machines maneuvering on the ground.

I had never seriously worried about being killed by a bomb. Not after the trenches. Not after April 22, 1915. I was at the Second Battle of Ypres. That was the first gas attack in history. It must have been understood by these fellows that some might get killed by machine guns or bombs, artillery, or gas. They had seen it all before, and they would see it again. No doubt. Appalling as the losses in pilots were, it was like nothing compared to the trenches. At some point you just accepted that you probably will be killed by a bomb, a shell, a fragment of flying metal. Then it somehow feels better. The matter has been settled. It was the suspense that was killing you. It was the uncertainty that was eating you up inside.

For now, the men were happy in each other’s company, with pipes comfortably held in callused palm, a chipped, enameled-tin mug of hot tea on an empty box. I didn’t know any of their names, but I didn’t feel like a stranger here. We heard engines in the distance.

“There’s only three of them.” Someone said it, very quietly.

They all stood up and shuffled out to the flight-line. I tagged along because there wasn’t much else to do until someone said otherwise. Anyhow, I didn’t want to be asleep when the Flight Commander called. Sure enough, one of the aircraft of our flight was missing. Believed shot down. Overhearing snatches of talk, it was said the plane had gone down in flames. To say the mood was somber was an understatement.

The mood was infectious.

Now, now I felt like a stranger, there on the verge of the crowd milling about the planes.

Small groups of aircraftmen began to service and replenish them, while the three surviving pilots went to the office-hut to make their reports and get rid of their heavy clothes. I helped a few of the lads push planes around. They liked to have them just so, easy to refuel and re-arm, easy to dispatch, hard to hit from the air. Dispersed from enemy observation and enemy artillery.

The S.E. 5 was probably the best aeroplane designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory.

Certainly a couple of years of war experience had benefited this machine. It was an exceptionally steady gun platform. Agility was good, although some enemy aircraft could out-turn it. It also possessed good performance without sacrificing structural integrity.

The plane could take a few hits without folding up, as I had just proven.

The S.E. 5 began to enter squadron service in April 1917. The early versions had an inline Hispano Suiza 150-h.p. engine. This was joined and replaced in the front line by the Wolseley Viper 200-h.p. S.E. 5a version. B Flight was equipped with early variants of this airplane. This was much superior to the tired old machines I’d been flying.

Is it any wonder that I wanted to get a closer look at my new mount? And hopefully, to at last have a personal aircraft and crew dedicated to me.

Water cooled, very slick.

A fairly effective machine.

With that massive chunk of propeller out front, and the tail sitting down low, the impression it gave was one of speed and power. The plane was capable of surviving a two-hundred-fifty-plus mph terminal-velocity dive, if you believed the stories. It just won’t go any faster. That’s what terminal velocity means. Too much wind resistance from the front of the propeller disc.

As I stood looking at the plane, watching the chaps working on it, my ears were still ringing from the morning flight. The nearest plane, one with a big white 4 on the nose, had the bonnet open and the boys were tweaking the engine.

It sputtered up and roared, then backfired and they shut it off.

Smoke rolled away on the light breeze. One of the boys got his eyebrows singed by the carburetor backfiring. Curses and laughter.

She sure was a beauty. I shuffled off to see if Dinwiddie or Singh were ready to talk yet.

That’s when I noticed them. The kid, and another fitter or mechanic. The older one standing there disconsolately by the empty hangar door. And the kid sobbing. Like a kid.

Oh, yeah. One plane missing. Another fellow sitting inside, on a stool by the workbench. His head was hanging.

This may sound awfully self-centred, but I wondered if this was my new crew?

And just exactly how good they were.

I wanted them to be at their best.

 

 

 

END

 

ChapterOne.

 

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Core Values, Chapter Two. Louis Shalako.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Two

 

Two years later, a ride along the boardwalk…

 

A Bible quotation popped into his head.

“He goeth among the horses, and the shouting, and the armed men, and the trumpets, but he feareth not, and he rejoiceth,” Old Testament Stuff.

For he is the war horse of Israel.

But, with the back stiff and sore, a long bike ride would have to wait for another day. He had his camera in the pouch, and a mission to fulfill. Picking his moment, poised on the bike like a big cat, he watched the traffic for a break. He put the nose over the rim of the old ferry dock hill on Perth Street, and the speed built up. Banking to the right, he felt the tracks under the wheels. As usual the back end came out about two inches, but he had just enough in reserve…he was through. You wanted to hit that one perfectly, and watch the gravel on the off-camber bits. There were several patches in front of the law office.

The warm spring sunshine beat down on his head and neck as he pedaled. His heart beat strongly and confidently in his chest. It wasn’t uncomfortable, it was reassuring in its very immediacy. Carefully reaching for the bottle, he swigged down a couple of mouthfuls of water.

As he rode along the boardwalk, the man on the bike nodded pleasantly to those he passed. First there was an elderly couple on bikes, complete with matching jogging suits, shoes and helmets. He nodded at others as he went. For a young mother with a stroller and a toddler, he courteously slowed down and gave a wide berth. Bru was a happy person, comfortable with himself. He liked to make a lot of eye contact with strangers, especially in the more non-threatening environments. Like the boardwalk, for example, although it was in fact made of concrete and steel. After a while, if you made it part of the routine, everyone knew you, and you knew everyone.

Next came a pair of joggers, off-duty cops by the look of them, one a tall, slender male about thirty years old, and the other a female perhaps a couple of years older. Then it was the lineup of old men from the rest home. The men were bundled up in sweaters and all arranged in a row along the railing. A young woman pushed the last wheelchair into the line. Another struggled with a rod and reel. She smiled at Bru.

The male cop turned to watch as he went past, but Chuck was uncaring and oblivious.

“Hold on, Hank, this worm’s a rebellious devil.” The words were spoken in a patient tone as he went by.

That was Wendy, a good sport, and probably the savior of this little crew.

Ten guys, where’s old man Bogaert?

The male cop began muttering something to the female cop as they jogged south towards the other end of the park.

Bru tended to cruise along and rest. When an interesting set of turns beckoned up ahead, he would stand on the pedals, lean way out forward, and really get going.

He could hear music in his head, from Bush’s, Machine Head.

“Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out…got a machine head…yeah…”

The knobby tires of the mountain bike howled through the turns. Just like the pro motorcycle road-racers on TV, he liked to put out a knee, and really push forward on the bike as he leaned in. With a dab of brake, he was through the esses and headed for the chicane at the end of a long straight. Sitting up, he was breathing deeply from the top of his belly, feeling warm wind push back on his chest. When sea gulls scattered in flight ahead of him, Bru stomped on the pedals and accelerated. He was oblivious to the row of vehicles, and all the passengers munching French fries from the chip truck, watching the ships pass.

Bru just figured he was part of the show.

“Got a machine head…no doubt about it.”

The music beat in time with his heart.

The fountain was dry. The city didn’t turn it on until the first of June, and it would be just as promptly shut off again on the first of September. It was a cost-cutting gesture that did little to ease a climbing mill rate these past few years. Occasionally he lingered, getting off the bike to stretch his legs. With the flash turned off, the digital camera from his belt pouch was completely unobtrusive. No one gave the tall man in the green military shorts, blue T-shirt and silver-grey bike helmet a second glance.

 

***

 

The two off-duty officers reached the end of the paved walkway, where the antique wrought-iron light standards and benches petered out. Then the railway wastelands began. As they turned around, the male cop explained his previous remark.

“He thinks he’s Dirk Pitt, the popular action hero created by Clive Cussler.” He said it a little louder and more distinctly, now that they were out of earshot of casual listeners.

“Dirk Pitt?” The female cop was a big fan of Matthew McConaughey, the star of Sahara.

“He’s like an underwater James Bond. So, on my last days off, it was my turn with the kids. I took them and Mazy, that’s the dog, a little Jack Russell. She’s really cute. Anyway, we went down to the Point Lands.”

The story went in fits and starts as he huffed and puffed alongside.

“The dog went into the bushes and the kids went in after her. I was watching this guy. That guy. He was standing on a rock with something in his hand. It looked like a plastic peanut butter jar.”

She turned her head and raised an eyebrow, and he went on, encouraged.

“He put this shiny thing in there, presumably a camera. Then he screwed the blue plastic lid on. That’s why I figure, Liberte Peanut Butter, right? And then he whipped out a roll of electrical tape, spun it around the lid a couple times, tore it off, flung it aside, and then he bloody well jumped in the river.” Constable Jason Williams, was a tall, lightly-built officer with seven years on the force.

Constable Elizabeth Grunion had to giggle at that one, but it wasn’t over yet.

“I swear to God, the guy was down there a good three or four minutes.” She had to laugh again.

“They call that guy, the Mutant, you know. Something that happened in high school. I don’t know what.”

That was the worst thing sometimes. It left it entirely up to the imagination.

 

***

 

Upon returning from his ride, Bru noted the approximate mileage on his calendar.

Brubaker sat down at his dog-eared and nicotine-stained old Pentium II computer. He cleared his thoughts.

He thought again, as he had many times, of the person he was writing to. Fred Barnes was the editor of the local daily. Barnes was maybe fifty-four years old, tall, about two hundred and eighty pounds, balding, paunchy with a grizzled, greyish beard, all pepper-and-salt and trimmed quite short. His twinkling blue eyes and granny glasses, a holdover from the 60’s, belied a keen and devious mind—and a very hard-nosed son of a bitch he could be. Journalists never answered questions, in Chuck’s experience, and what did that say?

These are the facts. Take it or leave it.

But don’t question the messenger, as to Caesar’s state of mind at the time of this writing.

Brubaker knew that an editor in a market of this size would be conservative. They would be scared shitless over the possibility of offending readers, or losing sales in the advertising department. Newspapers seemed to operate on a pretty slim margin of profit. In a town like this, the local paper probably lost money. Only the fact that it was part of a huge chain made it possible at all.

To a Canadian journalist, it would be a cardinal sin to get involved with the source, to lose one’s objectivity. The story, this story, had come up and bit Chuck on the ass. To have objectivity meant giving up the ability or the inclination to act.

He had no choice.

He was on disability, he was going to write about it. Someone harassed him out of his home, he wrote about it. Poverty, and pollution, he wrote about it.

Somewhere in the world there was a mealy-mouthed prick saying, Write about what you know.

“Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”

That’s the way he had it figured.

His old man loved Volvos...

The clatter of a familiar engine came as the cat, Butt Plug, perked up its ears.

His dad’s 18-year old Volvo was coming up the driveway beside his basement apartment window. Brubaker got up and went to help with the groceries. The next letter could sit a while. Chuck was now living in his dad’s basement.

He greeted the old man in the driveway and hefted the major portion of the load.

“Senna-ma-gui.” He intoned majestically.

“Kutta-tutta, mutta-ma-tutta.” The old guy responded.

Bru gasped. “Shula ma biwi.”

This always bemused and entranced spectators, of which there were exactly none this morning.

“Kuskapoo-gorka.” His father concluded with a grin, the ritual complete.

As they stood in the long, narrow kitchen, never painted since mom left thirty-something years ago, he chaffed the old man a bit to keep up morale.

“There’s a new young lady at the grocery store.” His old man was reporting on the day.

“I could eat her with relish.” Rolling his eyes and breathing deeply. “She could make a married man wish he was single…”

“Yeah, yeah, and a single man wish he was married. I get the picture. That’s why you can’t just give me some money and a list.”

“When you stop looking, you’re dead.”

Anyway, it helped the old man pass the time. Not much to look forward to at his age.

The old man was too stubborn to buy a book of stamps. He had to take each and every bill, the minute it landed in the box, make up a cheque, and drive it down to the post office. While Brubaker loved the old guy, he was totally predictable after all these years. Brubaker figured routine was all that kept some people going. Maybe that was what kept zombies going. They were stuck in a rut.

The late Sean Connery as Frank Brubaker.

Then it was time to give his dad a smoke. Again, he was saddened to note the tremor in dad’s right hand. About the same as yesterday, the tremor was five inches plus a little more.

“I got better pictures today.” Bru was pretty sure the old guy had Parkinson’s or Huntington’s.

It didn’t look like classic Alzheimer’s.

He was still all right in the head.

It’s just that Pop was stubborn about going to the doctor.

 

 

 

END

 

 

Chapter One.

 

Images. Louis.

 

Louis has books and stories available from Smashwords.

 

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