During her third winter with me at the rectory, Grand-maman began to work part-time for Parks & Wildlife as a volunteer, measuring the thickness of ice on the surrounding ponds & lakes. And posting warning signs if necessary. No Skating, No Snowmobiling, things like that.
She began to discover that Ravenwood Pond is not typical of the bodies of water in the area. Not at all. It has some very strange properties. It’s almost perfectly round for starters, and though not huge, it’s VERY deep, much deeper than any lake or pond for miles around. It’s easy to estimate the thickness of the ice on the others, easy to determine when they’re safe for skating or snowmobiling or ice-fishing. Often by colour alone. But not the Pond.
Here is our “colour code”:
Black ice — this is new ice, very common early in the season.
Clear blue, black or green ice — this is the strongest for its thickness.
White ice/opaque — this ice is usually found midwinter, after the temperature has been below freezing for many days. It must be twice the thickness of clear blue, black or green ice to support the same weight.
Mottled (“rotten”) ice — this ice fools you because it may seem thick at the top, but it’s rotting away at the centre & base. It’s most common in the spring & often has browns from plant tannins, dirt & other natural materials that are resurfacing from thawing. Not suitable for even one footstep!
Here are our safety guidelines:
7 cm (3”) (new ice) — KEEP OFF
10 cm (4”) — will hold approx. 200 lbs.
12 cm (5”) — suitable for one snowmobile or ATV
20-30 cm (8”-12”) — suitable for one car, or group of people
30-38 cm (12”-15”) — suitable for a light pickup truck or a van
60 cm (25”) — suitable for 13-ton aircraft
On Ravenwood Pond, there’s really no such thing as “safe ice.” It can be rock hard in one spot & open up like a trapdoor in another. Mostly because of its natural springs & currents, which are warmer and weaken the ice from below. They’re dangerous because they’re not easily noticed. Or predictable. Especially near a rocky patch at the northern end. There’s no rhyme or reason to them.
But there are other reasons that the Pond is hit & miss. First of all, it has dark patches of vegetation sticking out, or floating beneath the surface (like the hair of suicides?), which absorb heat & transmit it into the ice. Decay also generates heat. So areas where there are sedges and weed beds are much weaker than areas where there are none.
Second, the Pond is brackish, briny. Salty ice is weaker & needs to be thicker to support the same weight as fresh water.
Third, ice forms more quickly over shallow water than over deep water. At the northern part, near some “submarine crags” or black outcrops of rock, the Pond is unbelievably deep — maybe as deep as Loch Ness, who knows? There are Algonquin legends & 19th-century tales about the bottom of Ravenwood Pond, but they’re mostly forgotten. Only my grandmother & the village librarian (& me) seem to have read them. In one tale a man falls in and his body is found years later, floating in a lake in China. In another, at the Last Judgment, the Pond becomes the Lake of Eternal Fire, which all sinners are thrown into. God pours them out like “a bag of nails.”
No one’s ever measured the depth near the outcrops, and no one has ever been able to figure out the springs & currents around them. They move in mysterious ways. But after spending the last few days skating around there with Nile, drilling & measuring & pounding, I think I’ve got at least a few things figured out.
XXXI
They came not in snowmobiles but in trucks. An old snowplow with a barrel sticking out of its Plexiglas turret, and a black pickup with raised chassis and bulldog grille, its empty headlight socket staring back at me. This time there weren’t as many of them, only two—the forest king and his fool—and this time it was in broad daylight.
Céleste spotted them first, through the lens of her telescope. She sent me a mayday—not on the walkie-talkie, which was broken, but with a two-finger whistle: one short and one long, one short and a long repeated, an owl’s warning cry that set our plan in motion. Her plan, I should say.
We met in the kitchen, each of us unaccountably calm, as if all this were a shared dream that would soon end. There was a beatified radiance of resignation about Céleste as she laced up her snowboots. I held out the Kevlar vest for her, trying to keep my hands steady.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “I’m not wearing it.”
“Put it on,” I said.
“It’s too big for me and it’s too heavy.”
“Put the damn thing on or the plan is off. Stop trying to be Wonder Woman.”
She sighed as she held up one arm and then the other. I strapped up the front. She put on her parka but left it open.
“Zipper it,” I said, and she did. “You sure you don’t know where the gun is?”
“The Taser or the Sig?”
“Either.”
“No. And I don’t need them anyway.”
I looked her in the eye and whispered two departure clichés. “Take care. Good luck.”
To my surprise she responded with a hug, short and sweet. “See you later, alligator,” she whispered in my ear.
As she walked out the back door, her skates slung over her shoulder, I walked toward the front door, my rifle slung over mine. But after leaning against a wall by the entrance, feeling close to blacking out, I retraced my steps, back to the kitchen for a slug of la fée verte. Through the window I glimpsed Céleste coming out of the church with a big burlap sack. Like the one that enwrapped her in the bog …
I was about to run after her, to ask what the hell she was doing, when two shots rang out, seconds apart. One hit the church bell, the other thudded against the front door of the rectory. Would there be a third, aimed at Céleste? I watched her as she scrambled down to the Pond, dragging the burlap sack, beyond their field of vision.
Two forces pulled at me in opposite directions. The stronger one pushed me down the hallway. I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to see what was on the other side of that door. I wanted to be with Céleste. But there was no resisting that force.
Standing to one side, I peered through the small rectangular door pane. No one there. At least no one on the porch. In the front yard, blade up, was the plow, its turreted gun trained on me. It rumbled closer and closer, and for the second time I wondered if it was going to stop. It did.
For the occasion Gervais was wearing a kind of green sash over his parka, like that of an Eagle Scout or South American president. With a demented grin he saluted me military-style with gloveless hands, first the right, then the left. Square and hairy hands that reminded me of joke-shop gorilla paws.
Bazinet—who else could it be?—was sitting on the shotgun side. He climbed down and walked toward the door, his lips in an “o” as if whistling. I drew a long slow breath of air to fill my lungs for what lay ahead, to help me seem as calm as he was. Anger chases fear, anger chases fear, I repeated mantrically. It would not be in their best interest to kill me now, I reasoned as they do in the movies, but in real life you never really know. Another deep breath and I seemed to be fine: a bit of stage fright, little more. I flung the door wide open—and was astounded by what I saw.
The great villain I had pictured as a shadowy figure with scorching, Satan-tilted eyes. Mishealed, animal-inflicted scars on his face. A dark cloud over his head, like a reverse halo. Instead, he was a man of preposterous ordinariness: average height and build, forgettable face, corporate hair of some elusive shade between brown and black. A nondescript par excellence. The only peculiar thing about him was that he was not wearing winter clothes, only a grey blazer over a grey turtleneck, black doeskin gloves and grey dress pants, pressed and pleated with military precision. Conservatively dressed, running a bit to fat, he looked like a golfer. Or bowler. Or some ready-to-ship facsimile from the taxidermy shop. I say this because he carried death with him in some odd wa
y, because his eyes were like inert grey stones, his hair and face like a wig and mask.
« Monsieur Bazinet, je présume, » I managed to blurt out.
« À votre service, Monsieur Nightingale. »
« We were expecting you on St. Valentine’s Day. Or at least a card. »
A plastic smile. « I thought today, Ash Wednesday, would be more … fitting, shall we say. » His voice was plastic too: colourless, inflectionless, without his cousin’s Franglais or argot or nasality. « But let’s dispense with the pleasantries, shall we? I have some private business to discuss with the girl. She has some items that belong to me. Bring her to me now and you won’t get hurt. »
I let a few seconds go by, playing for time, time for Céleste. « Do you mean like poaching videos and bear-farming photos? Do you want Gervais’s army boots and rubber gloves as well? »
He directed a long stare, glassine-like, not at me but at a point just above me. Perhaps at the bullet hole in the door. « I’ve told you what I want. » His lips were set in a straight line, and even when speaking he scarcely opened them, like a ventriloquist.
I began to smell something pungent. Not the smell of a backwoods moonshiner like his cousin, but of cologne, something outmoded like Brut or Hai Karate, which seemed to have been applied with a fire hose. Unusual for a hunter. Was it to mask his natural odour, because animals could smell the vileness in him, the bentness, and stayed away? Sensed that those who didn’t would have very short futures?
« Fair enough, » I said. « You’re welcome to her. But in return you have to do something for me. »
A tiny stretched smile. « And what would that be? » His voice now had a strange lilt to it, as charming as elevator music.
« I just want a few things cleared up. For my file. »
He darted a glance back at Gervais, then gave another pursed smile. « I’m going to humour you, Nightingale, not for long, but I’m going to humour you. » Like a cyborg he avoided eye contact, and the cold seemed not to affect him. « It’ll be like a last cigarette for you. »
« Okay, but I decline a blindfold. »
« If we’re going to chat, exchange quips, should we not do it inside? Perhaps I could measure for drapes while we’re at it. The place is really mine, after all. Or will be soon. We could discuss the art of hunting. Or choose some final prayers for you from a prayer book, assuming Madame Jonquères had one. Over a glass of wine perhaps, like gentlemen. What do you say? »
You’re madder than I thought. « We’re out of wine. But I might be able to whip you up a vodka hemlock. »
His face remained immobile. « Excellent, I admire a man who can make jokes as time winds down on him. »
« So tell me what happened to Céleste, speaking of time winding down. Was it you who tried to kill her? »
« I was in prison. A fair alibi, no? »
A leathern thong over his turtleneck caught my eye; at the end of it, according to Céleste, was a piece of dried bear heart, for courage. « But it was you who gave the orders? To bleed her to death like an animal? »
« I have no idea what you’re talking about. »
« You’re a liar, » I said in a whisper. I could feel the needle of my cranial pressure gauge creeping clockwise. « A goddamn liar, » I said in a shout. For the second time, I had this mad urge to start swinging my rifle like a baseball bat.
« Watch the Lord’s name there … And get your hand off that barrel or my cousin will remove your face. »
I clenched and unclenched my fingers. The door of the snowplow slammed shut and its driver was clambering down. With a shotgun.
« Gervais, » said Bazinet, barely turning his head or even raising his voice. « Get back in the truck. »
« But I told you, Alcide. What he did to Jean-Marc. He went batshit. With that same rifle. »
« Get back in the truck. »
« I wouldn’t trust him farther than I can piss. »
« In … the … »
« He’s crazy as a shit-house rat. »
« Truck. »
A dumb-ass pawn, Gervais still knew better than to cross the bishop. He turned on his heels, spitting out a string of religious oaths, including hostie, câlisse and tabarnac.
Bazinet turned, raised his voice. « I’ve told you before— there’s no need for profanity. »
« And her grandmother? » I said, watching Gervais climb back into the cab with his big furry mukluks. « Dr. Jonquères? What happened to her? »
« From what I heard, she committed suicide. Assisted by her granddaughter. Mortal sins, both. »
« But you were happy to have her out of the way, am I right? »
He shrugged. « She was a hunt sab, like you and the girl. And the vet. »
« Hunt sab? »
« Saboteur. »
« So that’s why Gervais killed her? »
Bazinet laughed without smiling, then raised his hand to his mouth as if embarrassed. On his little finger, deeply embedded in the flesh, was the plain gold ring of a nightclub singer. « The whale that spouts gets harpooned, as they say. »
Gervais, I couldn’t help noticing, was now bobbing up and down on his seat as if listening to music. Or needing to pee. I wanted to kill the pair on the spot, or die trying, and forget about the plan. But it wasn’t the right time to die.
« And the forest ranger, the American one? You kill him too? »
He shook his head. « I don’t do humans. Oh, I’d like to, I’d like to cull them, harvest them like animals. Especially women, who’ve plagued mankind since Adam. Do you realize there are more women in this world than anything else, except insects? And Indians would be second on my list. They’ve gone from a hundred thousand a century ago to over a million today. But I’m not stupid. Animals don’t call 911. Animals don’t lock you up in jail. Animals don’t come after you with a gun, looking for revenge. You know what I mean? »
Did I know what he meant? Oh yeah, I was hip deep in what he meant. « I do. But it’s not what I asked. »
He tugged on the heel of each glove, pulling them snug over his knuckles. « The ranger was found by Inspecteur Déry. In his SUV, stiff as an icicle, buried in a snow ditch. »
This didn’t make any sense. If the ranger went missing— weeks ago—why didn’t Fish & Wildlife send someone looking for him? « But that doesn’t make any sense. If the ranger— »
« He was acting on his own. Retired. Bounty-hunting for yours truly. »
I nodded, trying to digest all this. « So his death was an accident. »
« Looks like it. But you’ll be charged with his murder. »
« For burying him in a ditch? »
« Déry swears he found his body on the floor of your cabin—with a bullet hole in his back. From a Sig Sauer with your prints on it. It doesn’t look good for you. A man on the run, considered armed and dangerous, wanted in the state of New York. »
« New Jersey. »
Another wax-museum smile. « I stand corrected. The Garden State. » His cloudy grey eyes were hard, with a polished inorganic quality, like marbles. « Give me the girl. »
« She’s not here. Search the place. » I stepped aside.
His eyes darted about in their sockets, resting on the Winchester slung over my shoulder. He was as wary as a crow. With his gloved hand he pulled his blazer to one side, perhaps for my benefit. I looked down. On his hip was a black leather sheath, showing the grooved twin handles of a butterfly knife, like ones I’d seen in China. « And where is she, may I ask? »
« Out for a skate. »
« On the pond? » He shot another glance back at Gervais, then at a spot above my head. « I’ll be back. If you are toying with me, Mr. Nightingale, you will be used as bear bait. Dipped in maple syrup and tied to a tree. »
In my role as watcher of the tower, keeper of the treasures, I hauled myself up the stairs to the attic. Everything was still behind the wall, including Céleste’s sketchbook, locked inside my father’s Halliburton. My hands were now trem
bling, but I don’t think from fear. It was more like … horror. Not the same thing. There was something about Bazinet, something that went light-years beyond bad vibes. After positioning and adjusting Céleste’s telescope, I sat on her wicker chair, fingers drumming, kneecaps pumping, waiting for her plan to unfold.
I felt minor-parted and miscast, and while glaring at the sweep hand of my watch I wondered why I ever accepted my role. I had told Céleste that her scenario was flawed, that I wanted to be on the Pond with her, that she wasn’t well enough to be there on her own. But she mulishly stood her ground, insisting I was needed here. “Besides, where I’m going it’ll be too much weight for the two of us. And if you’re there with me, Baz will stay away.”
Now with a long fur coat on, Bazinet made his way down to the Pond at a trot, displaying no athleticism, no agility of leg. There he inspected the ice, wiping the frozen surface with his boot and pounding it two or three times. It was rock-solid, I knew, from the drills and measurements we had taken that very morning. And there was much to suggest this: the trails of ice fishermen and the charred stubble of their fires; snowmobile and animal tracks—deer and rabbit and what looked like some large breed of dog.
Céleste skated along one of the snowmobile lanes then veered off toward a rocky islet at the northernmost end. I could see her, and so could Bazinet. It was hard not to: she was motioning vigorously, sirenically, with her right arm. She skated a few feet before turning sharply and stopping in a knight’s L. Which signalled “so far so good.”
In his cloud of cologne Bazinet walked slowly back to the snowplow, as if pondering his next move. I prayed he wouldn’t spot the van, which was now parked by the Pond and camouflaged with snow and downed branches. He stopped right in front of it, but instead of turning his head a few degrees to the side, he looked up, as if directions for what to do next were printed in the sky. He pulled his gloves tight, caressed the knife handle on his belt. Then continued on his way, whistling, back to Gervais’s plow.
The Extinction Club Page 28
