The Marble Mask

by Mayor, Archer

“Meaning everyone’s having a field day.”

  He looked like he’d swallowed something distasteful. “A few people are blowing it out of proportion, but they’ve been filling my ear from the start.”

  “It’s not like we don’t meet with CIs all the time,” Sammie complained more petulantly. “Things can go wrong. You get out with your butt intact, it’s a success, right?”

  Predictable responses all around, I thought, although I was pleased by Shanklin’s. “Okay,” I said. “I just wanted to know what to expect. For the record, though, this was more than a meet with a CI, Sam, as you well know. I was a guest. I should’ve let the locals handle it. Don’t any of you downplay that if you’re asked, okay?”

  There was no response.

  “Be that as it may,” I continued, “I was telling Willy earlier that maybe it’ll work out to our advantage anyhow, which is why I asked you here.”

  I paused to take a sip of my ginger ale. “The minute we found that letter from Marcel to his father—and were told by the SQ that if we hadn’t, they had another way of pointing us to it—we all thought that was pretty convenient, right?”

  “No shit,” Willy muttered, poking through the small dish of pretzels in our midst.

  “Still, the dead guy came from Canada, and so did his supposed killer. It looked likely he’d been whacked on our side of the border just to complicate things.”

  “Wasn’t he?” Shanklin asked.

  I waved that aside. “Probably. But what I’m saying is that we were happy to think that we were just the dumping ground.”

  “For good reason,” Shanklin persisted. “There was no evidence to the contrary.”

  “Except that now the Canadians are having doubts about Marcel. They’ve offered him a lie detector test, which, if he takes it and passes, means the prosecutors at least will probably lose interest. That’ll put us right back where we started. Whether we like it or not, we may have to either come up with an alternate bad guy, or find some new evidence to override the lie detector and profilers both. If we don’t, Kathy’ll have her hands full getting Marcel to our side of the border.”

  “How the hell’re we going to do that?” Willy asked. “It was a goddamned miracle we found that letter.”

  “We found Arvin Brown,” I argued, “and traced Jean Deschamps to where he spent his last night alive. The footprints are there, even if they are fifty years old. People are still around, documents are sitting on dusty shelves—they can tell us things if we find them and ask the right questions.”

  “It’s a waste of time,” Willy grumbled.

  “You want us to look for someone besides Marcel?” Sammie asked, obviously intrigued.

  “Not exactly,” Tom answered for me. “He wants Marcel to be just one of several possibles.”

  “That’s it,” I agreed, struck again by Shanklin’s objectivity. “Run through what might have happened here in 1947, but exclude Marcel as the killer.”

  “Meaning no letter,” Sammie concluded.

  “Right. No letter.”

  In the sudden lull that followed, I became aware of the bar’s quiet vital sounds—the humming lights over the rows of bottles bracketing the cash register, the hiss of running water as the bartender washed glasses and set them into overhead racks. I wondered if I might be expecting more than these people were willing to offer, especially given how little we had after all this effort.

  “Which begs the question—” Willy argued, “what got Jean down here if it wasn’t a letter from his son?”

  “What do we know about his trip?” I asked.

  “That he left Sherbrooke without telling anyone,” Tom said quickly.

  “That when he was here,” Sammie added, “he stayed at a swanky inn, ate high on the hog, and felt cocky enough to leave Arvin Brown a fat tip.”

  “He also packed a bag,” Tom said.

  “And registered under his own name,” I remembered.

  “Just as if he’d been invited down by his son,” Willy concluded sorrowfully.

  But Sammie wouldn’t bite, “No letter and no son.”

  “Says you.”

  “Hardly sounds like he was flying under radar,” Tom said.

  “What does a typed letter imply?” I asked suddenly.

  There was a silence reminiscent of a classroom full of stumped students. Willy finally volunteered, “Access to a typewriter.”

  “Anonymity,” Sammie answered.

  “Sure,” Tom agreed, his surprise apparent. “The only handwriting was the word ‘Marcel’ in block letters.”

  “And we’re talking about a time when few men used typewriters, much less had access to them on vacation,” I added.

  “Okay,” Willy conceded grudgingly, “no letter, no son.”

  “So why did he come down here without telling anyone?” Tom asked. “Especially when he made no effort to be discreet once he’d arrived?”

  I played the trump card I’d been hoarding since Lacombe first gave it to me. “I don’t know why he was alone, but he was chasing down a lead on who killed his son in Italy in World War Two.”

  Willy sat back in his chair. “You old bastard. What the hell’s that all about?”

  “Something they found in Marcel’s office,” I explained. “A bundle of Jean’s old papers—including a few pieces of correspondence between him and Canadian armed forces types about Antoine’s death. Jean seemed to think he’d been murdered and not killed in action. They weren’t buying it.”

  I drained my glass and continued, “Remember the other flag we had that Marcel lured Jean down here?”

  “The old secretary,” Willy said.

  “Right. She thought her boss had been whacked all along, so when she was given the heave-ho, she stole the receipt from the Snow Dancer Hotel—at least supposedly. One of Lacombe’s people interviewed her using a soft approach. Didn’t crowd her about the convenience of finding the receipt just when we needed it, but kept things conversational instead. From the report Paul and I read, when the interview eventually turned to Antoine, she got all enthusiastic. Antoine had been the fair-haired boy, as far as she was concerned, and Jean had taken his death hard, especially after hearing he might have been murdered. She said Jean went after the truth like someone in a ‘Greek play,’ quote-unquote. Claims he swore her to secrecy.”

  “But why?” Tom repeated. “What was the advantage to keeping it secret? He could’ve used his manpower to widen the search.”

  I had no answer for him, and Sammie was off on another tangent anyway. “How long before he died had he heard about Antoine?” she asked.

  “Only a few months, which explains the small amount of correspondence. And she couldn’t say—or wouldn’t say—how he found out in the first place. One day he just asked her to start writing those letters—that’s how she got in the know. And when we asked Lucien Pelletier what Jean was like just before he vanished, he said he was ‘energized,’ like he used to be before a big deal was going down.”

  “How do you go from that to getting him killed here?” Tom asked.

  “Maybe we don’t,” I conceded. “But if we work on the theory that the Marcel letter is bogus, then a lead about Antoine’s death is the next best way I know of encouraging Jean to cross the border.”

  “The guy who killed his son in Italy lives here?” Sammie sounded incredulous.

  “Not necessarily. Jean was on a hunting expedition, from what the secretary said, chasing down old comrades in arms, superior officers, people who might’ve known the truth. He may have found someone living here that fit one of those categories, or he may have simply been lured across the border by someone who knew about his obsession. What we need to do is retrace his steps, not for who killed him, but for whoever he was looking for—a whole different trail.”

  “Or maybe not,” Willy commented.

  “Or maybe not,” I agreed.

  “Is the SQ going to help?” Tom wanted to know.

  “Yeah. My screwup is a bigger deal around he
re than it is up there. Lacombe even said the whole thing might’ve been a setup by someone wanting a police witness to a Hell’s Angels killing. And tensions are cranking up. The local press is all over this and the Angels have been quoted as saying they aren’t going to be pushed around—that their pal will be avenged. The Canadians don’t care much about Jean’s ancient paperwork right now.”

  I half expected Willy to blurt out he had no intention of becoming an archive rat chasing down old army records, so I was surprised when he said instead, “If the letter was a frame, we could do more than just follow Jean’s footprints. We could also go after whoever planted the letter.”

  “How?” Sammie asked. “It was buried in a suitcase covered with mildew—probably been there almost since Jean was killed.”

  But I understood where he was headed. “The Alvarez will,” I murmured.

  “Right. We found it through old-fashioned legwork, but that geezer secretary was ready if we hadn’t. Why would there be a restriction on the barn behind the B-and-B, and a further one telling any new owners they couldn’t mess with its contents? It had to be to preserve the suitcase and its smoking-gun contents.”

  Sammie understood now. “Trace the will’s executor and maybe we find our bad guy.”

  “Okay,” I concluded. “New attack plan. Since they’re used to me up there, I’ll go back to Sherbrooke and collect what I can on Antoine Deschamps, especially on when he was in Italy. Willy, you came up with the Alvarez angle; chase it down. Sam and Tom, we need to find out who was in Stowe and what it was like in 1947—the movers and shakers, the oddballs, the busybodies. Check the town hall, the newspaper files. Willy covered some of that ground already, so get ideas from him. Neither the state police nor the town cops were around back then, or just barely, so either the constable records or the sheriff’s office might have something. Arvin Brown seemed on the ball—maybe he could tell you more, or give you names of people who might. Also, let’s see if we can find out what Gaston Picard was doing here just before Jean’s body popped up. He claims he was playing tourist. Maybe somebody saw him around town—sure as hell someone did business with him. Check all the local lawyers, Realtors, banks, anyone else you can think of.”

  We all rose to our feet as if summoned by a signal. “Any of you needs help, let out a shout. That’s the whole idea behind this unit—we have the resources, the manpower, and the network. Let’s put it to use and see if it works the way it’s supposed to.”

  We filed out of the bar, Willy, I noticed, giving Sammie’s shoulder a quick squeeze—the first outward sign of affection I’d witnessed so far. There was no telling how the Canadian prosecutor was going to fare with Marcel Deschamps and the pending lie detector test. But for the first time since this all began, I wasn’t that concerned. We finally had something we could work on independently—and I could feel the longed-for adrenaline at last taking hold.

  Chapter 17

  LACOMBE SEEMED BEMUSED BY MY REQUEST. “You would like to see the papers on Jean’s son’s death in Italy? Why?”

  We were sitting in his favorite restaurant for lunch, he eating seafood and drinking a beer, I nursing a Coke and a ham sandwich, wondering why they’d loused it up with some fancy cheese.

  “I wish I could tell you,” I admitted. “Call it a hunch I can chase down while we wait for Marcel to decide about the polygraph. It’ll probably be a waste of time, but it occurred to us we might’ve let a few details slide after we found that letter from Marcel to his father, like what the old man was doing in Stowe in the first place. I’m hoping those old papers might help.”

  I was purposefully downplaying my interest. This wasn’t my turf. If Lacombe liked what he heard, I was fearful he’d take control of it, leaving me as empty-handed as before. I didn’t ponder the irony that VBI had been created precisely to overcome such territorial self-interest—I was too busy both licking my wounds and hoping to earn my paycheck.

  I should have known better than to play cute with him. He gave his trademark gentle smile and said, “They sound like the key to your lock.”

  Old-fashioned guilt got the better of me. I still couldn’t shake the trouble I’d caused this man all too recently. “We’re pretty interested in them. For the sake of argument, we’re pretending the letter never existed.”

  “Because maybe it existed to make us happy only?” he suggested.

  “Right.”

  He mulled that over a moment, chewing thoughtfully. “This is interesting. You are thinking the letter was not written by Marcel and that it wasn’t sent to Jean—that it came to be after Jean was killed.”

  “Maybe,” I stressed. “It’s a little like deciphering a logic problem, because even if Marcel wasn’t the author, it still might’ve been written to bait Jean, especially if Jean thought Marcel was in Stowe when he received it. We need to know for a fact that Jean knew Marcel’s whereabouts when he left for Stowe. If we find a witness to Marcel being in Sherbrooke, for example, then we’ve also got proof that the letter was a complete fabrication, designed solely for us. Which is why the barn and its contents were preserved by the Spaniard’s will—to create a credible time capsule fingering Marcel.”

  Lacombe smiled broadly. “Incroyable. This is very good.”

  “Only if you’re interested in establishing an alibi for your prime suspect,” I said. “Is there any chance we could find out which outfits Antoine was with in Italy, along with their rosters?”

  He laughed softly. “You are a strange policeman.”

  · · ·

  I was tucked away in the Sûreté’s property room in the basement, wedged into a corner at a small desk under dubious lighting, side by side with Paul Spraiger, a pile of yellowed correspondence spread out before us.

  “Anything?” I asked him after he put the last sheet down.

  “Same as the English stuff you read—pointed questions from Jean Deschamps, vague and meaningless gobbledygook from the bureaucrats: ‘We’ve examined our records pertaining to the death of Antoine Deschamps and have found nothing to indicate anything at variance with the initial findings earlier forwarded to you,’ blah, blah. Amazing how no matter the nationality, the bullshit smells the same.”

  “What about the private papers?”

  He sighed and shook his head. Our research fit into two categories. Correspondence to and from various government agencies in both languages, and letters written between Jean and several of his son’s co-combatants, all in French. “There’s nothing here,” Paul conceded. “Every one’s a dead end. Either the writer didn’t know Antoine Deschamps, except maybe slightly or by name, or he wasn’t around when Antoine was killed and doesn’t have any details.”

  I picked up the official report of that death and scanned it once more. Antoine Deschamps was killed in action in Italy on June 4, 1944, outside Rome during offensive maneuvers against an entrenched enemy force. His personal effects were collected and his body shipped home to his family. From what I could decipher from the bored euphemisms of such documents, he was shot during an assault, like so many others—plain and simple.

  “We’re missing something,” I said.

  “Could be Jean just couldn’t accept the truth,” Paul countered. “His whole life was based on an-eye-for-an-eye. An old-fashioned combat death was probably unacceptable.”

  I shook my head. “No. I mean literally. We’re missing something. Even if he did go around the bend and invent a suspicious death, why aren’t there any letters here from people who were with his son when he died?”

  “He was just beginning to dig into it.”

  “I know,” I argued, “but still, what do you do when you organize something like this? You make lists—who to contact, their addresses, their old unit affiliations. You start with letters from the son, picking up names of buddies who were with him. Any letters from Antoine?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t a writer.”

  I appreciated what Paul was doing. “Okay, let’s say that’s true. Who’s the first perso
n you contact if you’re in Jean’s shoes?”

  Paul hesitated. “His commanding officer, friends he enlisted with, parents of friends who didn’t make it back.”

  I waved my hand across the pile before us. “There’s nothing like that here. What’re the chances of writing letters to… how many do we have?… thirteen survivors in your own son’s old outfit and not finding a single one who was at the right place at the right time?”

  “What’re you suggesting?” Paul asked cautiously.

  I sensed what was behind the question. “Not a military conspiracy. I’m not that paranoid. This has to have been picked over. I don’t think Jean couldn’t accept his son’s death—from what we know, he wasn’t the hysterical type. I think he either got a letter or a telegram or a phone call, or maybe met someone, and that’s what got him going. I also think he found something tangible that kept him on track, and which isn’t in this pile. How do you explain his actions otherwise?”

  But Paul kept to his role of devil’s advocate. “How do we know about those actions in the first place?”

  I stared at him and then repeated Willy’s comment from the day before. “You mean the old secretary?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Maybe we should do our own interview.”

  · · ·

  Marie Chenin lived in a modern apartment building on the fringes of Sherbrooke, in a section I suspected had been farmland not long before. It was an expensive building, clean cut and tidily maintained, as neatly placed next to its neighbors as a brand-new domino. Approaching it from the parking lot with Paul, I couldn’t help superimposing a sense of sterile imprisonment where only luxury and comfort had been intended.

  We took a quiet, plastic-walled elevator to the fifth floor and walked down the hallway, striding through an invisible haze of new-carpet odor and disinfectant.

  Madame Chenin met us at the door, looking old, bent, and frail, except for a pair of intelligent, calculating eyes.

  Paul did the translating.

  “Gentlemen, how nice to see you. Please come in. It’s not often I get so many visitors in such a short time.”