 |
| 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.
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| Hmn. Interesting. |
Chapter Nine.
Chapter Ten.
Chapter Eleven.
Chapter Twelve.
Chapter Thirteen.
Chapter Fourteen.
Chapter Fifteen.
Chapter Sixteen.
Real Change is Incremental.
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