by John Farrow
“Or of a man, guilty or innocent,” Roadcap interjects, “who wants to pass himself off as innocent.”
Louwagie can’t dispute that. Still, he persists. “Will you help me out here, sir? I can ask people to come on their own, but it’ll slow down our procedures.”
“Sure,” Roadcap says without hesitating further. “Why not? I’d do it for anybody, but Simon Lescavage was someone I liked. You see? I’m not doing it to indicate my innocence. I don’t care what you think of me. I’m doing it for him.”
If the man is trying to prove his innocence, Louwagie grants that he’s doing a good job. He doesn’t seem to be acting as a guilty man might, at least according to his own speculations. In any case, he is not free to trust him on this, he just needs him to do this one huge favor.
The man strikes off, back to the Whistle, and before Louwagie gets on the phone to call for help, he studies the body again. He can scarcely bear a glance, yet sticks with it and observes the man’s face. The wide-open eyes. The gaping mouth, as though he’s been caught in mid-scream. His hair is cut short. Strands are flattened by the wind and rain against his scalp, and what hits the corporal then is what has felt odd from the moment of his arrival. The stark eyes, the flat hair, the slack jaw—it’s as though he’s not looking at the man he knew as Reverend Lescavage, or even at his corpse. For some reason, out here on the edge of this field, it feels as though he’s looking at his skeletal remains. At his skull. As though the man’s been dead for a week. The pestering birds may have created that effect, but hanging on a tree trunk that way, he more closely resembles a scarecrow than a man. A thought that both creeps the officer out and causes him to feel particularly unnerved.
Perhaps it’s a good thing, he thinks, that the minister’s internal organs and intestines are strewn on the ground. Crows and animals unknown have had plenty to feast on, and have left his face intact. For now. Louwagie gets on his phone, as he needs to protect the corpse from further carnage, then begin the hunt for the brutal murderer of this gentle soul.
NINE
The call for passengers on the ferry to return to their vehicles belowdecks is repeated over the loudspeaker, but neither Sandra nor Émile Cinq-Mars is budging. Let others answer the cattle call to crowd below, to sit in the cave of the hold while waiting for the ship to dock and the great steel doors to crank wide open. They will not easily be removed from their rapt attention of the view from the ship’s topmost deck.
As the vessel steams to the harbor at North Head, they pass Long Eddy Point, the northern tip of the island. The whole of Grand Manan is shaped not unlike a cow’s carcass prepped for seasoning, wide in the flanks and narrowing at the base. The upper shoulder, then, is where a hook garrotes the beef for hanging in a meat locker. By consulting a tourist chart, Émile Cinq-Mars determines that above the jut of Long Eddy Point at sea level, way up high, in essence where the hook would emerge in his imaginative rendering, is a lookout known as the Whistle, at the end of Whistle Road. The sunset views from there, he’s told, are extraordinary.
The Bishop is the next section of promontory as the boat travels nearly due south, slightly easterly, followed by the solid rock of Ashburton Head. A sailing ship from another era sank on that stark shore, leaving behind nothing but its name. Then rising from the sea comes next the sheer cliff pegged as Seven Days Work, where the whole of creation is said to be etched in the massive rock borne to a sheer and impressive height. From that aerie, it’s a dizzying drop below. They catch a last glimpse into Whale Cove, where they’ll be staying, when the peninsula that’s shaped something like a jigsaw puzzle piece, and which guards the cove on one side and on its opposite the harbor and town of North Head, juts into view and blocks their line of sight. As the boat bears around Swallowtail Light, and the loudspeakers again beg them below, Sandra and Émile curl into each other and dream of summer, of this time away. Hard to believe that it’s upon them now.
A man of forty or so who’s wearing big canvas gloves, as if he’s intent on harvesting honey from hives, stands next to them, places his wrists comfortably on the ship’s railing, and gives them an appraising eye. They look back at him. He smiles. He’s more than a foot shorter than Émile Cinq-Mars, big-boned, with wide, expressive ears and full lips. In an astonishing way, he projects the kind of face and disposition another man can trust in virtually an instant.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” Sandra says, and smiles back. She can’t help herself, he seems so jolly.
“I’m Raymond, myself.”
“Hello, Raymond,” Émile says, and offers his first name in return.
“Good to meet you, Émile. Listen up. You have a car. That fact cannot be hidden from me. I remember you coming aboard. Sometimes I notice tall people, I don’t know why. Anyway, I noticed you.”
“Okay,” Émile says, not yet cognizant of where this might be going.
“Okay,” Raymond explains. “So now it’s time for you to get below, like it or not, and sit in your vehicle. If you don’t, I will have no choice but to kick your butt—your wife gets a pass on this, I’m a gentleman—but I’ll kick your butt, Émile, right on down the stairs. No matter what you do or don’t do, you are going to find yourself down below in your car. You might as well go voluntarily, no?”
Not many people could issue such a threat, even in jest, and still come across as friendly. Raymond succeeds. Émile relaxes his grip on the rail.
“Nice talking to you, Raymond. I have to go now.”
“Yes! You do. Nice talking to you, too.”
They find their way down the echoing chamber of the stairwell, happy that they remained on deck for the best of the island views, that they halved their time in the boring, dank hold.
Disembarking, they spot Raymond, this time waving cars off and cordially keeping them in straight lines, a bright grin on his face, a man in love with his work. The oversized gloves flash instructions to stop, go forward, or slow down, and as they pass him by he gives Émile and Sandra a wink. They both feel formally welcomed onto the island.
The tide’s gone low again, making for a steep climb out of the hold and up the docking ramp to ground level. Drivers are moving more slowly than necessary, in Émile’s estimation, their progress herky-jerky, but once he gains the higher ground he identifies the issue. A squad car bearing the buffalo-head emblem of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has positioned itself with its cherries flashing to block cars about to load onto the ferry for the trip back to the mainland. Disembarking cars are not directly affected, but rubbernecking drivers slow down to see what there is to see—not much really—and the vehicles jam up in the arrival lanes.
Émile rubbernecks as well, although he convinces himself that his interest is professional rather than idle curiosity.
“Émile,” Sandra chastises him.
“Just looking,” he says.
“Forget it, chum.”
An officer is snapping a photo of every license plate and quickly sharing a word with each driver.
“They’re looking for somebody,” Émile remarks.
“Cops are always looking for somebody. But you, you only have eyes for me.”
“This is different.”
“How so?”
“Whoever it is, they don’t want that person to leave the island.”
“Which is,” Sandra warns him, “just so we’re clear on this, absolutely none of your business.”
“Absolutely,” he agrees, but he must slow down for the cars ahead of him, which are bunching up at a stop sign. After that some go left and some veer right, and Cinq-Mars is guessing that he wants the left lane, but he isn’t really sure. He tries to recapture a glimpse of the tourist map in his head. Other first-time visitors are also confused and that slows the entire process. “I’m just thinking how convenient it would be to work on an island. Makes it tough for the bad guys to get away if all they can do is swim.”
“You worked on an island, Émile. Montreal,” she deadpans.
“We have bridges. And a tunnel. Here, there’s only one way to drive or walk off—via the ferry. You’re trapped if you don’t own your own boat.”
“Which still makes it none of your beeswax, darling.”
“Absolutely. No argument. But I’m saying, these are lucky cops. I hope they appreciate that.”
“I only see one.”
Émile hazards a further look. “You’re right. They’re short-staffed.”
“Which shows you that it’s not that big a case. You don’t need to enlist.”
He keeps one hand on the wheel but raises the other to acknowledge both her point and her humor. “I’m not enlisting. Have no fear. I’m just saying—”
Looking back at the policemen going through the line of cars, he feels something ominous in the air. An instinct perhaps, but he figures that even on a small and presumably peaceful island the police don’t investigate every car leaving and take a photograph of its license plate if some guy shoplifted a screwdriver. He disagrees with his wife. Asking only one guy to do this job doesn’t diminish the necessity or importance.
“What are you saying, Émile? May I remind you? Dear? Sweetie? A, you’re retired, and B, we’re on vacation. C, I repeat, this is not your affair.”
“I’m just saying, something must have spooked them to go to all this trouble.”
“Drive, Émile. The coast is clear.”
She no sooner speaks than the car behind them honks, and Émile scoots out and turns left. They’re immediately in the heart of North Head. A preponderance of ferry vehicles creates congestion in the village. Émile pulls off to check his bearings, congratulates himself on choosing the appropriate direction for their destination, memorizes a couple of coordinates, and merges his Jeep back into traffic. He’s going at a snail’s pace until he splits off from the main artery onto an inland roadway and is making good progress when he spies trouble ahead.
Sandra sees it, too. “Other cars aren’t stopping,” she mentions.
“Tourists,” Émile responds.
“We’re tourists, too,” Sandra protests, even while she agrees. Certain troubles you don’t drive by whether you’re a local resident or not, even if it is your time for leisure.
In the oncoming lane, a battered, rusty old pickup, which looks as though it has always been battered and rusty, has been further beaten up by virtue of being down in a shallow ditch, mostly on its side, with no way of extricating itself. The driver, a woman, is still behind the wheel, although she hangs on to the door frame through the open window to keep from sliding down to the lower side of the truck. She is being assisted, more or less, by a man who is probably the driver of the Audi A8 parked farther along and pointed in the same direction Cinq-Mars is headed. Émile parks his Jeep behind the Audi and slides out.
The man on the pavement throws up his hands.
“She doesn’t want to get out!” he shouts as Émile comes closer, almost as though he expects to be accused of something and needs to shift the blame.
Almost as though, Cinq-Mars is thinking, my old badge shows. If not his badge, then perhaps his demeanor. The man appears to be treating him as though he’s a cop in a uniform. “Why not?”
“A bump on the head perhaps. She might’ve knocked herself senseless.”
“You’re the nutcase!” the woman hollers out.
“Is she badly hurt?” Cinq-Mars asks.
“She’s bleeding.”
Cinq-Mars discovers that the man is wrong on one account, for the woman seems very keen on escaping her vehicle. She just can’t. She looks strong, but she lacks the purchase to push her front door upward and open, in part because the gravitational pull of the door angling down into the ditch is too much for her, and in part because she won’t let go of it. Her own weight thwarts her from pushing the door open. She’s also too large a person to easily slide out the open window, although that’s also a question of her footing. He gets her to switch her grip to the steering wheel, then pulls on the door and holds it open as Sandra assists the woman—it’s a struggle—to squeeze herself out. Essentially, she has to squirm uphill out of the vehicle as it’s way over on a tilt. She’s no sooner on her feet on solid ground than she lights into the man from the Audi.
“All over the road you drive!”
“Listen, lady.” He’s cross, but she overrides him.
“I know, Mr. Fancy Car, you think you own the highway. But I pay my taxes, too, year-round, not like you summer folk with your fancy cars and honking horns and pedal to the metal.” She waves her hands in the air to make her final point.
“I had to honk my horn. You were way over the line! Like by six feet!”
“Just to show I won’t be pushed around by the likes of you. I was making a point! I’m sick and tired of being pushed off the road because you think it’s a racetrack. Now look what you’ve done!”
“If you didn’t crawl like a tortoise, I might not appear to be going so fast. Why don’t you walk? For you, it would be quicker.”
“You see?” the woman asks Émile, and in the wink of an eye she’s calm. She poses the same question to Sandra. “You see? He wants me off the road. He wants me to walk, so he can use the road as his personal racetrack.”
“I don’t want you to walk—”
“You’d run me down if I did. At least I’m safer in my truck.”
“You call that a truck?”
Both faces are red, their minds made up, but they take a break, as if a bell to end round one has sounded. The abrasion over the woman’s left eye where she banged off the steering wheel is nasty enough, and Sandra manages to soothe her sufficiently to have a closer look. A number of cuts and bruises are across her face, a little blood, and Cinq-Mars concludes that perhaps she is a drinker. Given the evidence of her wreck of a pickup and the marks on her face, she’s been in fender benders previously. He makes a mental note to drive way over to one side if he sees her coming.
“It’s not deep,” Sandra assures her, “but it’s ugly. You’ll probably need stitches on your forehead. These other cuts could use some help, too. Disinfectant.” Her polite way of calling her dirty. “Let’s get you to a hospital.” Then she rethinks. “Is there a hospital on the island?”
“You bet.” The woman’s tone is mildly scolding now. “It’s a fine hospital. Ten beds!”
Émile has a suggestion. “Sir?” he asks the Audi guy. “Would you care to take her there? You probably know the way.”
First he says, “It’s not like I don’t have other matters to attend to,” but when Émile continues to gaze at him, a gentle look, nothing overly accusatory, he relents to a degree. He’s a tall man with blond locks showing under a baseball cap that advertises a company that manufacturers shock absorbers, and he has a rosiness to his complexion and clear pores. He exudes affluence, a member in good standing of the leisure class, as much an effect of the monocle he’s sporting on a dangling string as the Audi. “Yes indeed, I will take her should she choose to go. I put in a call to the police, but no one is answering in person at the moment.”
“All right. Why don’t you take her in, then? Will that be okay, ma’am?”
She bristles and scoffs but slowly comes around. “No speeding,” she stipulates.
“I’m sure he’ll take it nice and slow. Won’t you, sir?”
Conceding to such a demand is against his nature, he lets that be known, but eventually consents. The two move off toward the Audi, and Sandra and Émile follow behind.
“Fancy car,” the woman says as she gets close to it. Émile skips on ahead and opens the front passenger door for the injured woman. She examines the interior before climbing in. “Fancy leather,” she says, still making nice.
“Yes, well,” the man replies, the best that he can do to acknowledge her compliment. “If you don’t mind, try not to bleed all over it, okay?”
Émile nearly reprimands him, but lets it go and so does the woman. The two buckle up and the Audi makes a U-turn. Watching the car drive off, Émile
Cinq-Mars notices the Massachusetts plates.
“Good save,” Sandra compliments him. “Okay, Émile, you did your good deed for the day and police work all in one fell swoop. You should be done for the next two weeks, minimum. Let’s get on with this vacation thing. Figure out how it’s supposed to go.”
He kisses her then, right on the highway, and a different pickup coming down the road rewards them with an exuberant honk. That breaks them up and, smiling, they tramp back to the Jeep and carry on up the road to find their cabin.
TEN
Despite the hiccup of encountering a road accident along the way, their holiday could not be getting off to a better start for Sandra and Émile Cinq-Mars. Having booked a cabin built in the 1920s that’s described by its proprietor as rustic, they were never certain if the charm depicted in online photographs might be duplicated upon close inspection. The claim to be charming could cover a plethora of sins, such as musty, damp, drafty, mouse-ridden, and leaky, with lousy plumbing, a filthy kitchen, a plugged toilet, a smoky fireplace, and dismal views of a parking lot or a construction site. Rustic could be deployed to dignify a dump. The ocean view depicted on the Internet might have been superseded by a condominium development a week earlier, or years ago. One never knows.
All such fears are summarily allayed.
Their home for the next two weeks is not only rustic and cozy, it’s tidy, clean, and as charming as a fawn nuzzling a doe in a spring meadow. They can’t get over the loveliness of the setting, the waving tall grasses down to the rocky shoreline, the hilly, picturesque inlet highlighted by small wooden fishing boats in a multitude of colors, which benefit from an old-fashioned winching system to haul them up an impossibly long ramp to cope with the stunning disparity between high and low tides. Émile’s statement, “Charm out the wazoo,” doesn’t duplicate Sandra’s choice of words, but she takes his meaning. They’ve landed not only on their feet but, as near as she can tell, smack-dab in the heart of a summer paradise.
