When Calhoun sat down across from him, Mr. Brescia looked up, nodded, folded his newspaper, and put it on the table by his elbow. Then he held his hand across the table. “Mr. Calhoun,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
Calhoun took his hand. “I don’t figure I had much choice.”
“Well, of course you didn’t.” Mr. Brescia didn’t smile. Calhoun guessed he didn’t smile very much. “I thought you deserved to hear the epilogue to your story,” Mr. Brescia said.
Calhoun shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s ancient history.”
A waitress appeared. Calhoun asked for coffee. Mr. Brescia said he was all set, thank you.
After the waitress left, Mr. Brescia said, “I thought you might like to know that we decided to give the girl, Robin, immunity in exchange for her testimony.”
Calhoun shrugged.
“She said she tried to seduce you,” said Mr. Brescia. “She said she was unsuccessful.”
Calhoun said nothing.
“Robert Dunlap was paying Curtis Swenson, the lodge’s float plane pilot, to smuggle cases containing vials of botulinum toxin over the border from Canada. As you know, we’ve managed to button up the highway crossings between our two countries pretty tight. But there are thousands of miles of unprotected border where you can swim a river or drive an ATV or a snowmobile or, in this case, fly a float plane back and forth across the border without being detected. Enemies of our country have begun to exploit this for their purposes. McNulty was onto it before he died.”
“You saying Robert Dunlap was some kind of terrorist?” said Calhoun.
“Not him,” said Mr. Brescia. “He was just an entrepreneur making what must’ve seemed like easy money, as were the pilot and the girl and a taxidermist named Soria in Pittsburgh. Dunlap hid those vials in the containers of dead fish packed in ice that they flew down to the UPS office in Greenville, and from there were shipped to Mr. Soria in Pittsburgh. At the end of the line, though, yes, there were terrorists who aimed to kill thousands—maybe millions—of Americans with that poison.”
“Did you catch the terrorists?”
Mr. Brescia shrugged. “We got some of them. We’ve got others in our sights. Once we convinced Dunlap and Soria of how serious we were, they were most cooperative. Your girl, Robin, of course, was a big help.”
“She ain’t my girl.”
Mr. Brescia almost smiled.
Calhoun said, “Robert Dunlap murdered Elaine Hoffman and Curtis Swenson, too, don’t forget.”
Mr. Brescia waved the back of his hand at Calhoun as if he were brushing away a couple of murders.
“I figure Swenson got greedy,” said Calhoun. “Did Robert tell you why he had to kill Elaine?”
“He guessed she had figured out what he was up to,” Brescia said, “and he was worried that she’d tell you.”
“Dunlap killed her right after I got there,” Calhoun said. “He saw through me that quick?”
“He didn’t exactly see through you,” Brescia said. “But the McNulty thing rattled him, and he was uneasy about you. He prowled through your room first chance he had, and he saw your sheriff’s badge and your .22 pistol. So he took the pistol, killed the Hoffman woman with it, and planted it in the Indian’s room.”
“Franklin Redbird is his name,” Calhoun said.
“Sure,” said Brescia. “Redbird.”
“You’re going to prosecute Dunlap for those murders, aren’t you?” Calhoun said. “I mean, it ain’t just about smuggling that poison.”
“Our job is to prevent terrorist events, Mr. Calhoun. You do understand that.”
“I don’t know what your job is.”
Mr. Brescia shrugged as if it was of no importance what Calhoun knew.
“You saying you bargained away the murders?” Calhoun said.
“I’m saying,” Mr. Brescia said slowly, “that it’s none of your business what we do. You did your job, and you did it competently, and that enabled us, in turn, to do our jobs, and you should trust me when I tell you, we are very good at our jobs.”
The waitress came with Calhoun’s coffee. He waited for her to leave, then said, “A couple things still bother me.”
Mr. Brescia lifted his hand, turned up his palm, and let if fall, which Calhoun took to mean, “You can ask, but I might no answer.”
“McNulty and the girl,” Calhoun said. “They died of botulism poisoning. They must’ve inhaled it, to die so fast. Right?”
Brescia nodded. “That’s right.”
“How’d it happen?”
“We surmise,” said Mr. Brescia, “that McNulty or the girl, Millie Gautier, one of them—most likely the girl, because McNulty would’ve known better—uncapped the vial that he’d taken. Robert Dunlap told us that when he found the vial missing and McNulty gone, he tracked down McNulty, and when he caught up with him, he and the girl were parked in their car, already dead.”
“So Dunlap retrieved the vial,” Calhoun said, “and put bullets into their dead bodies.”
Brescia nodded. “To make it look like a suicide and a murder. To make it obvious. Because he didn’t want anyone to know they died from botulism poisoning.”
“The ME solved that one.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Brescia. “To Dunlap’s credit, though, it did confuse things. Until you went up there and got it all figured out.”
“I didn’t figure everything out, by a long shot.”
“Speaking of a long shot . . .” Mr. Brescia reached down and took something from his attaché case. It was wrapped in a soft chamois cloth. He put it on the table and pushed it at Calhoun.
Calhoun unfolded the cloth. It was his Colt Woodsman .22 pistol. It looked like it had been cleaned and oiled. “Thank you,” he said to Mr. Brescia.
“It’s from the sheriff up there. He said to tell you hello.”
Calhoun nodded. “So now it’s over.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Brescia, “It’s never over.”
“But you’re done with me, right?”
For the first time, Calhoun thought he saw the flicker of a smile in the man’s dark eyes. “We’re done with you for now, Mr. Calhoun,” Mr. Brescia said. “For now, anyway.”
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