Ice Lake Read online

  “Yes, sir,” the officer said, lowering his clipboard to his side and looking Cinq-Mars in the eye. “I didn’t know that, sir. It’s news to me, sir. I’ll ask if you got to leave, sir, although it’s possible Sergeant Painchaud will want to talk to you, sir, to see if you disturbed the crime scene, sir. Sir?”

  Still seated on the cold wooden bench, Cinq-Mars had raised his hand, his palm aloft for silence. “Say ‘sir’ once more to me in that tone of voice and I’ll shove you down this ice-hole and seal the hatch. Don’t think I won’t. Don’t think I can’t.”

  The officer chose to say nothing, then turned to leave.

  “Wait!” Cinq-Mars advised him.

  The aggrieved cop and his mute partner faced him again.

  “Check the hole.”

  “Excuse me?” Quietly, the officer tacked on, “Sir?”

  “Check the hole. This and every other one in the entire ice-village.”

  The officer wiped his leather-gloved hand down over his moustache, mulling the advice. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t take orders from you.”

  “Fine.” Cinq-Mars abruptly stood. “Be a useless fuck-up Sûreté cop. Screw up another investigation. Go ahead, make uselessness your life’s work. Aspire to being an ignorant dolt, let it be your highest ambition, don’t mind me.”

  The patrolman in khaki green was less inclined to leave at that moment. “What’s down that hole?” he asked.

  “That’s the point. You don’t know. You should want to find out.”

  The young officer considered his options. Leave in a huff. Depart quietly and seek advice elsewhere. Or look down the hole. He decided to beat a rapid retreat.

  “What if another body’s down there?” Cinq-Mars addressed the man’s back. “What if bodies are down half a dozen holes in this village? What if you miss that? What if we’ve had a massacre here? How will that look? Doesn’t it scare you that you might miss something so big?”

  The man spun on his heel. He was ready to belt his tormentor, but instead sighed heavily, pushed past him and flung open the floorboards to the ice-hole.

  Cinq-Mars leaned in behind him. “What do you see?” he asked quietly.

  “Nothing!” the officer threw back at him.

  “Nothing?”

  “An ice-hole. Snow. Ice. Water. Nothing else.”

  “Good!” Cinq-Mars tapped him lightly on the shoulder in praise. “Now you know what’s down there. Before, you didn’t. I suggest you do the same thing in every cabin on this lake. If you come up with nothing, at least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve done your police work properly. Now get out. If anybody asks, tell them I’m staying put for now.”

  The uniformed officers departed, as if escaping Purgatory. Mathers was chuckling to himself and shaking his head.

  “What’s up with you?” Cinq-Mars barked.

  “Sometimes I wonder how I survived being your rookie partner.”

  “Funny you should say that, Bill. Sometimes I wonder why I let you.”

  Mathers laughed louder, happy to be somewhat immune when Cinq-Mars rattled his cage. The flue had begun to smoke so he continued to tend the fire while Emile Cinq-Mars closed his eyes, ostensibly napping. They were interrupted by a knock on the door again. Both men waited, but this time the visitor did not barge straight in.

  Cinq-Mars opened the door to another uniformed officer, one with rank equivalent to his own. The cop, however, was no older than Mathers, mid-thirties, with a loopy kind of grin, a side-angle smile. It was an infectious grin, which seemed genuine. “Sergeant-Detective Emile Cinq-Mars?” The man was holding out a gloved hand.

  The older detective shook it.

  “An honour, sir. I’m a big fan. My name is Painchaud—Sergeant Charles Painchaud. I’m the Investigating Officer on this case.”

  “Are you, now.”

  “So far. May I come in?”

  An SQ cop with manners. This was novel. “Please.”

  Cinq-Mars introduced him to his partner. Mathers mentally translated his name to mean hot bread, and filed away the mnemonic reference.

  “It’s fortunate for us you were on the scene,” Painchaud mentioned. “At least I know that nothing’s been disturbed. Do you fish here often, sir?”

  “Several times a year,” Cinq-Mars replied, sizing up this new intruder. He was taken with his manner, and especially with his ability to ask a pertinent question while seemingly engaged in small talk. But the man’s size was disconcerting. He was unaccustomed to cops so small.

  “Any luck today?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “That’s not surprising,” Painchaud offered.

  Cinq-Mars was intrigued. “Should I be offended, Sergeant?”

  The Sûreté detective laughed heartily, and Cinq-Mars could see that there was definitely something wonky about his mouth. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not suggesting that you’re a lousy fisherman. How would I know? Last night was the full moon, a big night for fishing. The bay was probably fished out. With Ski-Doos and four-wheelers around for the weekend, you’d think fish would know better than to get hooked this morning.”

  Cinq-Mars was willing to concede the point. “I should have taken all that into consideration.”

  “But you never know, do you, when you’re fishing, what might show up?”

  Cinq-Mars smiled and conceded that point as well.

  “Sir, you asked my officer to check the holes. Did you have a specific reason for that request?”

  Sticking a hand down the back of his collar, Cinq-Mars gave himself a good scratch between his shoulder blades. His bulky clothing, the range of temperatures in and out of the huts, and the smoke had made him itchy all over. Feeling that he was being interrogated by someone with skill also made him squirm. “I suppose I should mind my own business. This is out of my jurisdiction, as you know. And even within my jurisdiction it would not be my case, because I’m not connected to Homicide. I suppose I should mind my own business and shut the hell up.”

  “No, sir,” the detective replied, surprising him yet again, “you shouldn’t. If you have something to contribute, I’m interested. Your reputation is immense, I’d be a fool not to consider your counsel, and I don’t consider myself a fool, Sergeant-Detective, despite what you might think about the SQ.”

  Cinq-Mars met his eyes then. Clearly, his prejudices had shown, or had preceded him by reputation, and he had displayed them to the wrong person. “All right,” he consented. “I’ll tell you what I think.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant-Detective.”

  “Everything is conjecture. I have no facts.”

  “Understood.”

  Cinq-Mars sat with his feet wide apart and put his hands on his knees. “Sergeant Mathers identified an exit wound through the front of the throat.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “The victim was shot through the back of the neck.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Who does that? Given the option, what killer shoots his victim through the throat? What I think happened is this. The victim was down on his knees. He was to be shot execution-style, through the back of the head. At the last second, either because he flinched or because he suddenly knew what was going on, he jerked up slightly. The gun that had been aimed at the back of his head fired, and he was shot through the neck.”

  The uniformed detective was nodding, but he had questions, objections. Cinq-Mars waited to see what they would be, to help him determine if this IO deserved more.

  “How do we know that he was down on his knees?”

  The right question to ask. “That’s what the wound tells us. The killer’s aim was suddenly deflected. That’s the first clue. Had the victim been standing, and suddenly flinched, the bullet would still have travelled into his head, only the head would have been turned slightly. The entry line is downward, and the location of the exit wound says that the gun was pointed down at him.”

  “What’s the second clue?” Painchaud asked. Cinq-Mars had dropped
that remark to see if he was sharp enough to pick it up.

  “The ice inside his face.”

  “It makes him look strange. Isn’t it a case of water freezing inside him? It’s cold down there.”

  Cinq-Mars opened the hatch to the ice-hole under the floor. Forming a pistol-shape with his fingers, he fired an imaginary bullet. “The victim is shot and immediately falls face down into the hole. He’s still alive. He wasn’t shot through the head or heart. He’s still breathing and will be for a while longer. Why does his assailant not fire a second round? The first was no accident. Execution-style, remember. Has there been any sign of a second wound?”

  “We won’t know until we get him out of the hole. On first examination, no.”

  “For now, let’s say there was one shot. Why only one? Because he needed noise to cover the sound, perhaps? Three or four snowmobiles are roaring towards his cabin—”

  “Not the cabin where we found the body?” Painchaud wanted to verify.

  “Some other one. I saw no sign that he was shot there. Now, snowmobiles are roaring up, and the killer entices or tricks the victim to check the ice-hole. Maybe to pull up a line, clear ice, something like that. The victim gets down on his knees and pulls up a fishing line. The killer takes out his pistol. The snowmobiles are roaring by, and when the sound is loudest the victim feels the pistol on his hair and jerks slightly. Pop! The killer fires. The head of the victim collapses into the water, but he’s not dead. He’s not able to save himself—he will drown there or bleed to death—but he’s not dead. The killer cannot fire again—”

  “—because the snowmobiles have moved on.”

  “Exactly. He’s not sure what to do. His victim is thrashing around. Should he shoot him again? No. Let him drown? Either his head is underwater or it’s just above the surface. Maybe he lifts him by the feet and pushes him down. Maybe he plants a boot on the back of the man’s head. But he keeps him in the water. Only after he’s been in the water awhile, and is quite dead, does he lift him up.”

  “Why?” Bill Mathers asked.

  Cinq-Mars shakes a finger in the air. “The killer is not done with the corpse. We know this because the corpse freezes on land, not in the water. Water does not turn to ice when it enters a warm body. But water turns to ice when it freezes in a dead body left out in the cold. Perhaps the dead man remains in the hut with no heat, and overnight the water in his face, throat and lungs freezes and expands. Some drains off him and crystallizes in his long hair. Perhaps he’s carried on a Ski-Doo sled across the lake and in the forty-below temperature freezes stiff. The thing is, before he is put back in the water, he freezes above ground. That’s key. That’s important.”

  Painchaud nodded thoughtfully. “So my men should be checking ice-holes for signs of blood and tissue.”

  “Not only here,” Cinq-Mars admonished him, “but all around the lake. As soon as possible.”

  “Why do you think the victim was not shoved into the hole right away?”

  “Good question, Painchaud. You must have your thinking cap on.”

  “Actually, Sergeant-Detective, some of us in the SQ, have brains, contrary to the perception of our friends in the MUCPD.”

  Cinq-Mars chuckled. “Touché, my friend. Possibly, the victim did not fit into the hole, just as he does not fit the hole where he was found. The killer may have left him to go and find tools to open the ice. More likely, the killer might not have wanted him to be found where he was shot. I doubt that he would know to rely upon a current. He might not have expected him to be found until spring, and when he was, he wanted it to be as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. Or perhaps, and this is a long shot, the killer had specific reasons for having the victim found where he was. I’d want to make sure there was nothing keeping the victim in place, other than the fishing line tied to the stove, which Bill put on him. We must at least entertain the notion that he was deliberately left to be found where he was found.”

  “But how?”

  “That’s another good question,” Cinq-Mars acknowledged, but he did not suggest an answer.

  Painchaud jumped up from his seat. “I’ll get on that right away. I hope it’s not too late.”

  “Very good, Sergeant. Good luck with your case.”

  Painchaud held the door open a moment, admitting the frigid wind, before stepping outside. “Thank you, sir,” he said, turning, “for everything.” Then he was gone.

  Mathers and Cinq-Mars waited in the cabin, listening to the howl of wind around the timbers and plywood surfaces, hearing the old wood creak. Mathers had a grin on his face.

  “What?” Cinq-Mars finally bellowed when he had had enough. “What?”

  “Emile Cinq-Mars,” Mathers chortled, “confiding in an officer from the SQ. Will wonders never cease?”

  “I didn’t tell him any damned thing,” Cinq-Mars huffed. But after a while he asked, gesturing broadly with his chin, “The guy seemed different from the others, though, didn’t he? To you?”

  Mathers nodded slightly. “Smaller,” he conceded.

  Sergeant Charles Painchaud strode across to the hut where the body had been found. The woman who had discovered it was inside trying to keep warm, and another woman was hovering around her, being helpful. Upon entering, he gave a slight nod to the friend, who understood that she was being asked to leave, and through a series of hand signals and facial expressions she understood also that she should gather up the woman’s daughter and take her along. It took a while to get everyone dressed and out, and only when the door had closed did Painchaud give up the pretence of conducting an official police interview.

  “Camille, I’m so sorry,” he said, and pulled up a wooden chair to sit beside her.

  “Charlie. My God. They’ve killed Andy. What’re we going to do?”

  “You didn’t tell anyone you knew him?”

  “I didn’t know what to do,” she confided. “I just started screaming. I figured Cinq-Mars was around somewhere. That he’d come.”

  “Okay, Camille, you did fine. Now, think, did you tell anyone you knew him?”

  “No, I didn’t. Was that wrong?”

  “If it’s found out that you knew him, you can always plead that you didn’t look at his face.”

  “I told people I did. Look at his face, I mean. I don’t know why I did it. I told people I lifted up his head to see if it was attached.”

  “Camille!”

  “I was in shock! I am in shock! Damn it, Charlie.”

  “Okay, okay, take it easy.” He held both her cold hands between his, rubbing them. “It’ll only be a problem if someone finds out that you knew Andy. I’m in charge of the case, so the question probably won’t come up.”

  “What about Cinq-Mars?”

  “He seems interested in what’s going on. I’m going to make that work for us. I’m going to keep him interested.”

  “Why don’t we just tell him everything? We were going to talk to him anyway.”

  “Andy’s death complicates things. You knew him. He’s dead in your hut. Andy held so many keys that could have helped you and Lucy. Now he’s dead. That’s trouble. Lucy’s in trouble. You are, too. I need time to think this through.”

  She began to breathe heavily, and tears welled. “Charlie, Charlie, they’ve killed Andy! Andy’s dead!”

  “Shhh, shhh,” he whispered, both cautioning and soothing her.

  “How did he get under the ice in my hut?” The mystery of it seemed to make her frantic. “Is that some kind of warning? Do they know about me, too? Are they going to kill me next?”

  “Don’t panic, Camille. It’s a coincidence. They would never warn you first.” That seemed of slight comfort, so Sergeant Painchaud moved across to the bunk on which Camille was sitting and took her into his arms. He rocked her and urged her not to worry, but he knew that there was much to fear, and much that was left unexplained. Eventually, the woman who had crossed the ice on a Ski-Doo that morning only to find a friend dead beneath her fishin
g hut calmed herself.

  “Where’s Lucy?” Camille Choquette inquired.

  “She’s gone into the city. To blow off steam, I imagine.”

  Camille looked up at him, astonished.

  “No!” he hastened to add. “She doesn’t know about Andy.”

  “Oh my God. Charlie!”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. It’s going to be rough on her.”

  They held one another in the stark, warm comfort of the shack.

  That night, Sergeant-Detective Emile Cinq-Mars snoozed toward the end of the movie he was supposed to be watching with his wife, missing the romantic bits. He struggled to wakefulness when she got up to snap the tape out of the VCR and switch the television to the news. Groggy, he had a difficult time pushing himself farther out of the sofa’s deep cushions. Clips from an earthquake in Colombia were depressing, and yet another uprising among Palestinians contributed to a sombre mood. They were watching a station out of Vermont, as his wife was American and preferred to catch the news from home.

  “If we switch to the local channel you might see your husband in action,” Cinq-Mars remembered.

  “Why’s that?” Sandra asked. She was much younger than him. She was sitting with her knees up, encircled by her arms.

  “Some lout with a video camera was on the ice. He probably sold me off to the highest bidder.”

  “Then switch!” Sandra Lowndes enthused. “I never get to see you on the job.”

  A local French station was also finishing up the international news, but the lead story when they turned their attention to home was a murder on the Lake of Two Mountains.

  “There you are!” Sandra cried out, seeing her husband peering down into the cavity where, the audience was told, floated a dead man’s head. “Did you touch him with your bare hands? Talk about a body gone cold.”

  “Bill did the touching.” The sad-sack Chief of Police from Vaudreuil-Dorion received two seconds of airtime. Much of the report was devoted to the amazing coincidence of star detective Emile Cinq-Mars being, once again, in the right place at the right time.