The Marble Mask Page 25

  “I’m wondering about Marie Chenin,” I finally admitted. “Lacombe just told me she and Michel had a very emotional private meeting shortly before Guidry was found dead and Picard disappeared. I think it was so she could tell him she’d been used by those two to frame Marcel. When Paul and I met with her, it was pretty clear she didn’t know why she’d been asked to produce the receipt to the Snow Dancer Hotel. She hated Marcel for the disrespect he’d shown Jean and Antoine, not because she thought he’d killed one of them. And when I asked her where Guidry and Picard had been when Jean went missing, it looked like a light lit up in her head, which I’m sure had everything to do with Picard. I think she squealed to Michel to atone for fingering Marcel, inadvertently adding to the mayhem in the process.”

  Tom returned to a problem he’d had from the start. “She was also the one who claimed Jean’s investigation into his son’s death was a secret, and backed up Pelletier by saying Jean went to Stowe alone as a result. That was probably a setup by Picard and Guidry to keep themselves out of the picture, especially after they discovered Marcel really did think his father had traveled solo.”

  “But why would she have allied herself with those two?” Sam asked. “We know Guidry at least was buddy-buddy with Marcel, and she hated Marcel. What was the angle there?”

  “Money,” Willy said shortly.

  “Partly,” I agreed. “Also, it must have been tough for her, losing two lovers, one right after the other, both murdered. She was young, impressionable, attracted to strong men. It makes sense she’d form an alternate alliance with somebody in that situation.”

  “Picard?” Tom asked.

  “That’s what I think,” I said. “He’s a patient planner. It probably meant nothing to him to tuck her into his pocket for future use—or just to have her available. Pretty much what he was doing with a lot of people behind Marcel’s back.”

  Sammie scowled. “But Guidry killed Jean. If you’re saying she knew they were together down here, you’re undermining your own theory.”

  “I think she was given compelling proof of Guidry’s innocence,” I said.

  Willy was becoming irritable. “What the hell’s that mean?”

  But Tom had seen where I was headed. “He’s saying someone else killed Jean.”

  · · ·

  It was eleven o’clock at night when the phone rang. Normally still up at that hour, I’d called it quits early to catch up on some sleep, and so had to grope around a few seconds, both for the phone and the wits with which to answer it.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is this Joe Gunther?” The voice was hesitant, no doubt surprised by my gruffness.

  “Yeah. Sorry. What’s up?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up. I was told this would be okay.”

  “It is, it is. Who’re you?”

  “Oh, right. Patrolman Jim Patton of the Stowe police. We haven’t actually met, but the chief asked me to call. He’s got something to show you and wanted to know if you could drop by the PD to take a look at it.”

  “Now?”

  Patton paused, obviously in a spot. “I, uh… I guess it could wait. He’s actually coming in from another direction. I could get him on the radio, maybe, and tell him tomorrow morning would be better.”

  I sighed. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” I hung up and lay in the dark staring at the ceiling for a couple of minutes, finishing the process of waking up. As he said he would, Frank Auerbach had largely stayed out of the picture until the Sawyer killing. But now his department was looking at two unsolved homicides, and even with Bill Allard’s having opened up the spigots to deliver more VBI agents, Auerbach still had his hands full—putting out political wildfires, if nothing else.

  I had no idea what he had to show me, or why it was so urgent.

  Ten minutes later, I’d washed my face, put my clothes back on, and was heading out the door for the short drive to the PD. The hallway outside was quiet and dark. I heard the muted rumble of an ice machine somewhere in the distance. I pocketed my key and headed toward the lobby.

  “Joe.”

  It was a loud whisper from my right. I stopped and saw a door partway open, only darkness beyond it.

  “In here—quick.”

  I hesitated, took an automatic step in the door’s direction, and began to say, “Who is—?” when two arms reached out, grabbed me by the shoulders, and pulled me across the threshold in a neck-snapping jerk. Before I could shout out, a knee came up and caught me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me and sending me sprawling to the floor.

  Gasping for air, writhing in pain, I felt hands all over me, pinning me in place, stuffing something soft into my mouth, and wrapping what felt like thin wire around my hands and feet. Outside of a single “Don’t hurt him,” there were no words spoken, the lights stayed off, and the men around me acted like a well-rehearsed team. Finally, one of them lay on top of me, making all movement impossible, and several hands gripped one of my arms with viselike ferocity. Still struggling as much as I could, I heard the slight click of plastic hitting plastic, and then felt a sharp needle jab in my shoulder.

  I heaved up convulsively, but too late. Almost instantly, I felt a numbness spreading out from the injection site, and in under a minute, my body began relaxing despite my best efforts. The last thing I remembered was feeling as I had just a half hour before, when I’d turned out the light to drift off to sleep.

  The only distraction being that this time I was going under in the middle of a panic.

  It was dark when I woke up with a headache so blistering, I thought I saw small planets circling my head. I closed my eyes, concentrated on trying to dislodge the cloth wad in my mouth, got nowhere, and ended up sitting motionless, trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

  That was when I heard the sound—a pulsing, rhythmic thunder I could feel throughout my body—and realized how cold I was. I thought back to when I was on Mount Mansfield, again in the cold, the dark, and all alone, surrounded by the howling wind.

  Except this was not wind. I steadied the fear rising within me, breathing through my nose in slow, steady repetitions, and concentrated. I was riding a train. I opened my eyes again. The planets were still there—dim, perfect circles, in front of me but not extending to either side, and illuminated like gentle nightlights in a child’s room. I blinked several times, trying to adjust my focus against the aftereffects of the drug I’d been given.

  They were breathing holes. I was in a box.

  The fear subsided. It almost made sense, although why I’d been kidnapped instead of killed I didn’t know. But I knew I was heading north into Canada, that I was a guest of one of the Deschamps factions, and that given the effort put into my packaging, I was in no immediate lethal danger—assuming the gag in my mouth didn’t swell any bigger with my own saliva.

  I tried wiggling my feet and hands. Circulation was good, although the hands were half numb from the cold, but I could feel I’d been strapped to a chair of some kind, which in turn, I supposed, had been mounted to the inside of my box. I’d been as carefully encased as an egg in a carton.

  One of the planets darkened on the right, then another beside it, then a third as the first reappeared. Someone was moving in front of my refuge, slowly and without sound.

  I heard a slight scratching about waist high, then a loud snap, and finally the breathing holes were replaced by an enormous rectangle as the front of the box swung back to reveal the shadow of a man standing before me.

  A man with a withered right arm.

  Willy Kunkle reached forward, pulled the duct tape from my mouth, causing no small amount of pain, and plucked the wadding from my mouth.

  “You okay?” he asked quietly. I couldn’t speak at first, my mouth was so dry. I nodded. He took a penlight from his coat pocket, held it between his teeth, and began loosening my bonds. As he freed one hand and then
the other, I bent forward to finish the job myself, at last finding my voice.

  “We heading to Canada?”

  “Already there,” he said. “I think to Sherbrooke. You been out for a couple of hours.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  He stepped away from the box’s entrance so I could try to stand up—easier said than done given how long I’d been cooped up. “I saw the grab. I wasn’t so sure Guidry’s death meant they still wouldn’t try to nail you. They’re in such a mess right now, who knows who’s following whose orders? So I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I’m right across the hall, so I heard your phone ring and was up when you left. Saw three guys mug you and followed you here.”

  “Does anyone else know?”

  I could just make out his rueful expression in the dim light. “Caught me by surprise. I didn’t have time to let anyone know. They hustled you out pretty fast. I thought about doin’ a John Wayne—maybe shoot one and bust the others, but then I heard one of them say not to hurt you, so I figured it might be better to see where they led me. Besides, I might’ve got you killed.” He smiled suddenly. “And you’re kind of my meal ticket right now.”

  I stood up at last and started moving around, flexing my limbs as much to get them warm as to check their condition. “We in a boxcar now?”

  “Yeah. Bonded so it didn’t get checked at the border. Trust a bunch of smugglers to have a few customs people in their pocket.”

  “How’d you get in?”

  Willy shook his head. “Jesus Christ. What’s with all the questions? I slipped in while they were wrestling the box on board.”

  I could sense his own self-doubts, which, given the man, would never find voice. A less bull-headed, more reasonable course of action would have been to identify the car I was in, locate a phone, and get the authorities to stop the train.

  Not Willy’s style at all—not that I was about to complain.

  “You find a way out of here yet?” I asked instead.

  The real reason for his testiness became clear. “No.”

  I borrowed the penlight and began exploring our prison. It was much larger inside than it might’ve looked speeding by at a railroad crossing, and aside from a few small ventilation portals letting in the dim light, as tightly sealed as the crate I’d been in minutes earlier. As far as I could tell, there was but one way in or out, and that was the car’s huge, central sliding door, which was locked.

  I returned Willy’s pen to him and asked, “Got a plan?”

  In reply, he squatted down, reached up under his pants leg, extracted a small semi-automatic, and handed it to me.

  I peered at it in the gloom—a very nasty, compact piece. “I suppose now’s not the time to tell you this is a violation.”

  He smiled benignly. “I’m handicapped. We’re exempt.”

  He handed me an extra clip from an inside pocket, shoved a smaller wooden box over to one side of the large entrance to hide behind, and motioned to me to do the same opposite him. It wasn’t original or flashy, but it was a plan, and it had a hopeful element of surprise factored in. All things considered, it made me feel almost confident.

  Chapter 24

  WE STAYED HIDDEN ON EITHER SIDE OF THE BOXCAR door for another hour. I got up periodically to move around, do some jumping jacks, and otherwise fight the cold. Willy sat as still as a stone sentry. By the time I felt the train slowing down, I half suspected that even given the uncertainty we faced, he’d fallen fast asleep.

  The steady rhythm of wheels hitting track joints became jumbled as we entered a train yard, crossing junctions and switches, the train finally creeping as it searched out its berth. By the muffled sounds of bells, street traffic, and other trains passing by, I imagined we were enmeshed in the tangle of tracks on the south shore of the Magog River that I’d seen from Lacombe’s office window the first day I’d visited him.

  At last, we came to a shuddering, clanking stop, the sudden silence feeling louder than the noise just preceding it. Across from me, Willy briefly laid his gun down before him and gave me a thumbs up.

  I quietly checked to make sure I had a round chambered, slipped off the safety, and waited.

  When it finally came, that first sound made me think of a rodent—slight, stealthy, and evasive. There was a delicate scratching at the hasp, followed by a small click, and then a low moaning as someone pushed gently against the heavy door. A fresh current of cold air swirled into our dark enclave as a pale slit appeared in the wall between us, gradually growing to about five feet wide, or a little larger than the width of my erstwhile box.

  We’d resealed that earlier, and left it parked front and center. Now, the dark shape of a man crossed from the opening to the crate and lit up the corner of one of its sides with a flashlight.

  After a moment’s scrutiny, he let out a low command in Joual, prompting another shadow with a dolly to join him from outside.

  This was our moment, since as soon as these two tilted the crate on its side, they’d realize it was too light for its presumed contents. Looking across at Willy, I pointed first to him and then at the door, at me and then at the two near the box. He nodded once and we moved as a single unit.

  I took five fast steps to the man closest to me, pushed the back of his head so he fell forward with both hands braced against the box, shoved my gun against his temple so his buddy could see what I was doing, and said, “Don’t move—police.”

  Simultaneously, Willy had swung around to the open door, stuck his head out quickly, found a third man standing guard, and silently gestured to him with his gun barrel to join us.

  We stripped them of their weapons, had them lie on their stomachs, and used the wire and duct tape that had once bound me to tie their hands and feet. Their mouths I left free.

  “Who’s in charge here?” I asked them.

  One of them said something fast in French, presumably not a compliment.

  “No one going to fess up?” I turned to Willy and winked at him as I spoke. “Drag the big one over to the far side of the car, interrogate him any way you want. I’ll work on these two. We’ll see who comes up with the best story.”

  Willy laughed. “All right. This ought to be fun.”

  He holstered his gun, grabbed the man in question by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him away into the shadows.

  I squatted down between the remaining two and rolled them both onto their backs so they could see me. “I hope the guy Willy’s talking to has a low pain threshold—might speed things up.”

  Behind us, the sounds of Willy’s retreat faded into the distance, accompanied by several dull thumps and a few guttural outbursts from his guest.

  “Okay,” I resumed. “I don’t speak French and you’re pretending not to speak English, but let me tell you how this plays out just in case one of you is a quick learner. I’m a kidnapped American police officer, in mortal fear for his life, rescued in the nick of time by a heroic fellow officer. Through a trick of fate I haven’t invented yet, we managed to get hold of at least one of your guns.” I held up the largest of the confiscated weapons. The more intelligent-looking of the two narrowed his eyes slightly, obviously confused about where I was headed.

  “All the Sûreté’ll know is that we had to fight it out, killing you one by one. It’ll be a hell of a story—make me look like a hero. And the local cops’ll eat it up ’cause that’s the way they wish a lot of these things would turn out.”

  I slowly pulled back the gun’s hammer.

  “You’re full of shit,” the one I’d focused on said, his words straight from some American action movie and his accent sounding as if the dialogue had been dubbed into French and back again.

  “You think so?”

  We were interrupted by a loud noise and a sharp cry from far down the boxcar.

  I leaned into the man’s face. “What’s your name?”

  “Didier.”

  “Well, let me tell you, Didier, I’ve been shot at, punched, drugged, and half frozen to
death by you flamers, all of which has given birth to a giant case of the don’t-give-a-shits. I’m home free here—the helpless victim fighting to save his life. Even if the Sûreté does smell a rat, they’ll cut me some slack because we’re all brothers and you’re not. Face it—you’re out of luck.”

  There was another yell from the gloom. Didier tried to raise his head. “What’s he doin’?”

  “Willy doesn’t talk as much as I do,” I explained. “Gets right down to business. Guarantees him more fun that way.”

  “This is a crock. I watch TV. I know the ‘good cop-bad cop’ routine.”

  I believed him about the TV. “You want to risk your friend’s health on that?” I asked.

  He closed his eyes briefly. The man next to him said something, which Didier answered tiredly.

  He then looked at me again. “We got you pegged. Your sidekick ain’t much, but he’s no torturer. Besides, the guy he grabbed don’t speak English.”

  “So you say.” But I was as impressed by his insight as I’d been by his John Wayne imitation. This was a step above the average thug.

  Didier sighed heavily. “It don’t matter anyway. You already won without knowin’ it. I’ll talk, but not because of this little comedy.”

  “Why, then?”

  He hesitated, as if taking one last measure of a final step forward. “Marcel Deschamps is in a car near here, waiting for us.”

  That caught me unawares. “I thought he was almost dead.”

  “He is—this deal was a gamble, to buy his son time.”

  “Michel?”

  Didier made a sour expression. “It’s complicated. He better tell you himself.”

  “Who says he’ll want to talk to me?”

  “I do. The three of us are about all he has left.”

  “What about the three who grabbed me?”

  “Goons—bought and paid for. They had no idea.”

  I looked at him suspiciously. “We’ve been studying the Deschamps organization pretty closely,” I said. “I don’t remember anyone high up named Didier.”