The Storm Murders (21 page)

É
mile couldn’t help himself. Although off the case, he could not dispel his questions or vanquish a need to figure out the confounding aspects to everything that transpired. He failed to quell his instinctive passion to
investigate
, so in approaching his wife with good intentions, wanting to comfort and console, he discovered himself undermined by tangents of inquiry that beat him off that simple foray. He retreated then and sensed himself hurled away from the very center of their lives, dismissed for his prurient, professional intent.

Similarly, in the midst of her ordeal in New Orleans, Sandra had called upon her deepest reserves of resilience to maintain her bearings. In the aftermath, she felt her psyche submerge to the base of a well that she had since drunk dry. She wanted sympathy and tenderness and a chance to unload her fears and slough off her delayed responses, but to do so felt treacherous, as if she might discover herself void of any basic resolve. She might come undone. Sometimes she broached her need for company only to do a complete spin and flee the very comfort she sought.

Coming together, then, invariably wrenched them apart.

Neither knew what this meant for them, or for their marriage, in the longer term. Both instinctively understood that now was not the time for that discussion, although they could not dismiss the issue either. That, too, pushed them away from each other, often at the very moment when they most desired to be close.

Under the cloud of their mutual surveillance, watching, noticing, and backing away to ponder, Sandra made an executive decision to retain the farmhand hired to mind the horses in their absence. He had animals to care for on his own farm twenty minutes down the road, but in winter he also had significant free time so that he could tend to her horses as well. His two teenaged children were available after school to help out. She explained as vaguely as possible that she and her husband had returned early due to “a bit of a shock,” and would he mind dropping by mornings and afternoons—they’d still look after the animals in the evenings—for the foreseeable future? The helper, Noel Lambert, was fine with that, and both Sandra and
É
mile were happy with the reduced workload.

So they persevered, somewhat aimlessly, with ample time to sit alone and do nothing or very little. Except get on each other’s nerves.

Sandra barred any discussions that might pertain to their malaise from the bedroom. “I declare it a problem-free zone.” As a consequence of that edict, although it was never her plan, time spent in the bedroom passed in silence. Given their trouble communicating, a full week went by before
É
mile finally got the lowdown on her abduction. They met in the barn, on a warmish day, when Sandra was active at nothing more than patting a horse’s snout, and
É
mile was sussing out a place to hang from the rafters to ease his ailing back. They took each other by surprise and sat down on low stall stools. Rather than wait for a question, which might get them off to a bad start yet again and undermine the moment, Sandra waded in, prompted only by the silence between them and perhaps by a rising need.

A woman, she related, ostensibly a police officer with the NOPD, phoned their hotel room and asked for
É
mile. When Sandra explained that her husband was out for the evening, the female officer told her that the two men who had broken into their room that day after first trying to pilfer their wallets had been apprehended. Could she come down to the lobby and make a quick identification, to confirm that they nabbed the right pair? Sandra interrupted her husband’s censure and insisted that she did indeed protest, begging that the matter wait until her husband’s return or, better yet, until morning. The officer successfully mollified her, promised that it would take no more than a minute, one which might spare the police the embarrassment of keeping the wrong men in custody all through the night if they weren’t the guys. Sandra acquiesced. Cleverly, as it took careful choreography, one of her abductors, a stocky man, was already on the elevator when it stopped for her on the eleventh floor. The car stopped again at the sixth floor where a woman boarded and immediately slapped a chloroform pad to Sandra’s face. The man behind her bound her in bear hug. Sandra retained an impression of the elevator doors closing, although she wasn’t sure. After that, she remembered nothing before waking up in a bare, dark room. How they got her out of the hotel, sight unseen, remained a puzzle.

Discussions with her captors ensued.

They insisted that she relax. They wanted her to feel safe, to understand that she would not be harmed. They spoke well. They were articulate and calm. Their talk soon evolved into a negotiation. No one would hear her if she screamed, they told her, but if she promised not to, her gag would be removed. The gag terrified her. She feared she might vomit into her mouth then choke to death. She had to concentrate to keep her food down. Her head ached, her heart raced erratically, and she believed she was going to upchuck her dinner merely because she feared doing so. She agreed, violently nodding, and the gag was removed. Sandra coughed and spit up fluids and dutifully remained quiet.

She heard no evidence of other people within shouting range, so felt no particular temptation to scream. The prospect of being gagged again thwarted any outburst.

Her wrists were lashed behind her back to a chair and one ankle to a heavy table leg. Strange, she said, that one leg was left free and it was her impression that they just didn’t bring enough rope. In any case, she could flex and twist about, but only with effort and without beneficial effect.

They had her. She was utterly under their control. So fierce was her fury, she was surprised when she was unable to burst the ropes apart and kick the chair and table into smithereens through sheer rampaging will.

É
mile absorbed the narrative as it emerged, in bits and pieces, and held her hand. Then he wandered off to the edge of the barn, forced to flee by the return of his flagrant anger and by a desire to pummel her with questions. He knew he could readily cause an event the kidnappers successfully avoided and make her scream. So he walked it off, minded his tongue, and gave his tension a chance to expire.

To himself only, he mentally highlighted two aspects of her experience. First, her abductors knew about the pair of Latino pickpockets and knew that those gentlemen had attempted to strike against them not once, but twice. This fact was known to some people but was not common knowledge across New Orleans. That meant that her kidnappers had inside information at some level, either through contact with the pickpockets themselves or through contact with the police or hotel security. Second, they were clever and efficient in how they executed the abduction. A flawless operation. Anyone might think that they were experienced at such a gambit.

Also, their actions following Sandra’s abduction were consistent with her claim that they wanted to be perceived as being the good guys.

Trouble was, that last thought did not compute.

“Interestingly,” Cinq-Mars mused upon his return to where she was waiting, and moved his stool under a crossing beam so that he could hang himself from his hands, “if they didn’t know that I was out of the room, they might have been planning to kidnap me. You were Plan B. If they’d snatched me up, I wonder what our discussions would’ve been like and on what subjects.”

“If they already knew that you were out on the town, carousing with New Orleans’ finest—”

“I wouldn’t say carousing.”

“Hobnobbing, then. Whatever.” To kid and to be kidded felt good. Normal, even. “But if they did know you were out—” Sandra repeated.

“Then they knew that when I arrived back at the Hilton they’d have me dead to rights.”

He stretched as high as he could and worked his gloved fingers over the rough beam. Managing a speck of purchase, he stretched further, then released himself to hang in suspension, his feet dangling, his back straightening against its will.
É
mile grimaced, looking down between his feet. Sandra observed her husband, looking less Christ-like than like a cartoon cat hanging above a cavern just clear of a rotating saw operated by devilish mice, the whole of the feline’s body but particularly the arms elasticized and on the verge of snapping as the cat descended closer to the spinning steel blade. The image was striking enough, as he struggled to support himself with only his fingers, that she started laughing under her breath.

Grumpily,
É
mile called out, “What?” And again, when she only laughed harder,
“What?”

The images, and the sight of her husband, took hold of her and brought on hysterics. She seemed out of control, so
É
mile, as if through a hangman’s trapdoor, let himself drop.

They held each other, gently.

Needing a break, he drove into the city to visit Bill Mathers. A last minute arrangement, and he presumed that he was interrupting the detective’s workday. So be it. A consultation between them was necessary.

Mathers knew that, too.

Cinq-Mars expected to find the detective still upset by the call to his home, when in fact his former prot
é
g
é
had managed a turnabout on that one. Time had shifted his perspective. The call from criminals continued to vex him, but he appreciated that
É
mile’s predicament at the time was far worse. His former partner had nothing to do with the call. Just bad news all around.

Cinq-Mars apologized anyway, but Bill was feeling sheepish about his reactions on that night and was having none of it. “Funny, we’re calm and rational when other people’s lives at stake, even when it’s our own lives, but when it’s our family the mind runs amok. Mine did. Sorry,
É
mile. I wasn’t much use that night.”

“It worked out in the end. That’s all that counts. So how’s business?”

The retired cop had warned him that he was coming, but sought to avoid a meeting at the old precinct building. Too many hands to shake and useless remarks to repeat. Officers might haul out pictures of their grandkids to show how they’d grown, as if there was ever a chance they’d shrink. So the two met at a caf
é
they had frequented in the past whenever a spot was required for a private chat that was both relatively close to the station yet far enough away to spare them the intrusion of other officers.

“Isn’t it the beauty of our profession,
É
mile?” Mathers remarked. “Put bad guys away, more arrive to take their place. I guess I’m getting older myself. I’m finding the common criminal more common and less interesting that he used to be. Like I say, maybe it’s because I’ve put on a few years.”

“We ran down a few doozies in our time.”

“How’s Sandra?”

Perhaps Mathers intended the question to be polite, casual, but it sucked the energy out of their nostalgia-speak in a hurry. Cinq-Mars told him that she was fine, and made a gratuitous comment that it would take awhile before she put everything behind her.

“What about you,
É
mile? Have you gotten past it?”

Cinq-Mars stared back at him. The fellow had learned a few things during his time on the force, and not only during the years before
É
mile retired. He knew how to sneak up on a point.

“You know, Bill, it was your friend who sent me down there.”

“
É
mile. I’m sorry—”

“Sorry? We were set upon by pickpockets, our room was broken into, Sandra was kidnapped, yet I haven’t heard boo from the man. I expected to hear from him.”

Mathers nodded and sipped coffee. He accepted Cinq-Mars’s apology but his own wasn’t getting accepted in a hurry. “
É
mile, the only friend I have in all this is you. Buy that or not. My relationship with Rand Dreher is no different than my relationship to this table. Or to this cup. Or this—”

“I understood the first analogy.”

“But I heard from him. He asked about calling you or seeing you. He wanted my advice. It’s like being back in university and some guy asks you about a girl, if he should call her or not. Really, the guy was screwing up his courage.”

“Don’t compare me to a girl. That’s an analogy I don’t get. What did you say back then? In university, I mean?”

“I was all for it. Call the girl.”

“And now?”

“Leave Cinq-Mars alone. Let the dust settle. Words to that effect. Wait until he’s ready to deal with you. Then expect to be reamed out sideways with a rusty spear.”

Cinq-Mars thought about that exchange, then suggested, “He should’ve called. You should’ve let him. You shouldn’t deny me that satisfaction.”

Mathers was feeling his oats. “I’m a newfangled cop,
É
mile. I believe police should prevent crimes, not just solve them. Are you still in the mood to rip his skin off or have you settled down yet?”

The older of the two also sipped coffee, mulling the question, which he considered legitimate. “That’s the trouble,” he said. “That’s the nub of the matter.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know what mood I’m in.”

Later they walked.

The temperature nudged above freezing in the city, mild for the season, though still a huge drop from New Orleans. The city was probably five degrees warmer than the countryside. Wherever the sun broke through the phalanx of office towers and condominiums a melt ensued. They sidestepped and hopped puddles and minded the splash whenever cars drove by. Yet they enjoyed the walk, and where it was convenient, the two stuck to the side streets of Old Montreal. Cobblestone pavement. Horse-drawn
cal
è
che
with tourists bundled under blankets clip-clopping past them. To think that he was that person himself a short time ago, in another city and climate, carefree and delighted. Now here, he was part of the scenery, someone who conveyed the tone and ambiance of these streets in his stride. He recalled the piano player in the old town of New Orleans. In a way, he resembled him. Someone who conveyed the soul of the city just by breathing the air.