The Marble Mask Page 6

  And making everything much colder.

  When I slipped and fell, I had no real sense of it at first. I merely extended my boot as I’d been doing all along, and felt nothing. For a fraction of a second, still unaware that my hands were no longer holding the cliff, I began to simply look for another perch with my toe. And then my body hit something hard, and I knew I was in freefall.

  It didn’t last long. A couple of jars, dulled by my heavy clothing, and then a single, stunning smack to the head.

  Followed by nothing at all.

  Chapter 6

  I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I LAY THERE. It was dark, pitch black, and I was so cold at first I had trouble moving. My head also hurt, although not as badly as I thought it should, for which I figured I had the frigid temperature to thank.

  But useful or not for headaches, the cold was about to kill me. I knew that before I’d even confirmed that all my parts were functional and intact. As soon as I opened my eyes, and heard the screaming of the wind, I realized most of my body was almost totally numb.

  I didn’t worry about the others. They were either alive or not, either safe or in peril. I also didn’t think about how I’d come to be lying in the snow at night alone, seemingly abandoned by people who more than most were trained to work as a team. My only thoughts were about survival and how to attain it. It was the same kind of focus I’d encountered in combat, when the enormity of the threat comes second to the will to live.

  I tried standing at first, more to see if I could than to actually start walking anywhere. I had no flashlight and knew that even if I had, it wouldn’t have done much good. But the point was moot in any case—the wind threw me to my knees before I got halfway up.

  I felt around me. Like Jean Deschamps, I’d created a hole where I’d landed, although blessedly less deep, and so decided to finish what I’d unwittingly begun by digging not just down but to the side as well, hoping to end up with a cave of sorts.

  It wasn’t easy going. I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel with my hands, and I wasn’t even sure if I was burrowing in the right direction. It occurred to me that if I’d landed on a slope and was tunneling downhill, my reward would be to eventually reemerge back into the storm.

  But I got lucky. After what felt like hours, I not only began feeling comfortably entombed, sheltered from both the wind and its incessant, biting howl, but I was warmer as well, my exertions having pushed blood if not to my fingers and toes, at least most of the way there.

  It was only then that I thought beyond the immediate and remembered the radio.

  I pulled it awkwardly from my pocket, fumbling with hands that felt like useless claws, and finally succeeded in depressing the transmit button, the small red light on top of the radio giving me a curious, instant comfort.

  “Gunther to Mountain Rescue. Anyone out there?”

  The response was instantaneous. “Jesus, Joe. That you?” Ray Woodman’s voice betrayed a relief he’d obviously all but abandoned.

  “One and the same.”

  His next question was more hesitant. “How’re you doing?”

  It was a professional’s concern. In his place, I might have asked where I was. Knowing the futility of that, he was more interested in how long I might last.

  “Okay so far. I hit my head, but I don’t think there’s any damage. I’ve dug a snow cave, so I’m out of the elements. Can’t feel my hands or feet.”

  There was a telling pause.

  “Where are you guys?” I asked, more to quell my own anxiety than out of any curiosity.

  “Taft Lodge. The weather totally shut down the mountain. After you fell, Mike injured his ankle. Gary tried to find you, but I ordered him to take care of Mike. As it was, we had to go back and get them—they were already lost in the storm. Dumb luck they even made it.” There was another long hesitation. “I’m sorry, Joe. I had to save who I could.”

  I understood what he was going through, and could only imagine the efforts he’d expended. Good news that it was, my returning from the dead was also like the resurgence of a guilt-evoking ghost. “Don’t worry about it. I would’ve done the same thing.”

  “Well, we’re in good shape now,” Woodman came back with forced optimism. “The storm shouldn’t last too much longer. You just stay hunkered down there, and we’ll come get you as soon as we can. I got someone who’d like to talk to you. After that, we better conserve our batteries. And put the radio next to your body if you can,” he added.

  I waited for a moment and then heard Sammie’s voice—small, worn, and worried. “Hi, boss. How’re you doin’?”

  “Not bad—kind of making like a bear.”

  Again, there was a long silence. I knew she’d already been dealing with my death and now was groping with my resurrection. If I’d correctly judged Woodman’s false nonchalance about the storm’s length and ferocity, she was also contemplating losing me all over again. Stowe Mountain Rescue was famous throughout the state for braving weather other people called lethal, especially if the lost person was a colleague. But they were buttoned down now.

  Things were really bad out there.

  I tried to ease her distress a little. “Sam, thanks for asking, but we’d better follow Ray’s advice for now. Keep warm and I’ll see you in a bit.”

  I took my finger off the transmit button and watched the red light die, wondering how long it would take me to do the same.

  Chapter 7

  IT WAS SNOWING—THE KIND OF FAT, LAZY FLAKES kids love to catch on their tongues. It came down gently, incessantly, softening the view of the hospital parking lot and crossing the window with a soothing, lulling monotony. It was all I could do to turn away at the sound of the door opening.

  Gail stood on the threshold, watching me, her expression a mixture of concern and irritation.

  I tried stacking the deck by giving her a big smile. “Hey, there.”

  It had the opposite effect. She frowned and said, “Why’s it always you who gets banged up? Couldn’t you let someone else go first, just once in a while?”

  “I was last in line this time, and someone else did get hurt.”

  She shook her head. “I heard—a twisted ankle.”

  Still, she came across the room to the bed and kissed me long and tenderly.

  “You’re a pain in the neck, Joe Gunther,” she added after straightening up. She dragged a chair over to where she could sit within reach.

  I hit the control button by my head and moved the bed to a more upright position. “You didn’t ask how I was feeling.”

  She smiled grudgingly. “God, just like a kid. I know how you’re feeling. I just spent fifteen minutes with your doc getting the lowdown, and half an hour before that being briefed by Sammie Martens on the phone. It’s a miracle all you got was hypothermia—you should’ve at least lost some toes or fingers. You need to do something about that girl, by the way. She’s a walking grenade—steel on the outside and a wreck inside. If you ever do get yourself killed, she’ll go to pieces.”

  I waved a hand dismissively, understanding from her rapid patter that Sammie wasn’t the only one wound up. Self-serving as it sounds, I found comfort in that. “She’s not that fragile.”

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  I knew not to. When it came to judging character, Gail, hyper or not, was rarely wrong. We’d known each other a long time, had been lovers almost from the start, and, whether living together or not, were as intertwined as any long-married couple.

  An odd couple, of course—a lifelong rural cop with a hodgepodge education and an affluent, city-born, liberal lawyer, currently staff counsel for the state’s most powerful environmental lobby. Over the years, Gail had fought for women’s causes, the protection of children, to help the downtrodden, and to keep the planet healthy, working variously as a chronic volunteer, a selectman, a political advocate, and even briefly as a deputy state’s attorney. She’d made it her business to know what made people tick and how to win them over.

  I therefore
conceded her take on Sammie. “How is she?”

  “Fine, now—in total denial. Ready for combat.”

  “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”

  Gail’s face softened. “Joe, she wasn’t the only one who thought you’d died.”

  I reached over and took her hand in mine. “I’m sorry. When did you hear about this?”

  “Kunkle called me on a cell phone when you were all still on the mountain. He didn’t want me to find out listening to the news. He also wanted me to know there was a chance. Good thing, too, because later the press had you all but buried.”

  “You’ve been here a while, then.”

  Her expression cooled once more. “Yet again, yeah.”

  I didn’t respond. Our life together hadn’t been overly peaceful in that respect. This wasn’t the first time she’d come to see me in a hospital, or the first time she’d had to keep her own company for hours or days, wondering if I’d pull through. The toll had cost us both.

  “Are we okay?” I suddenly blurted.

  Gail looked at me, visibly startled, and then laughed, leaned forward, and kissed me again. “I’m sorry—yes, we’re okay. If I didn’t love you so much, I wouldn’t be so angry. I’m just a little frazzled—and being a hard-ass.”

  She looked out the window at the snow. “I don’t tell you often enough what you mean to me, Joe,” she said softly.

  “I don’t expect you to,” I told her. “I was just making sure, that’s all.”

  But she was shaking her head. “No, it’s the least I can do. You give me freedom when I need it and support when I crash and burn. Sometimes I feel all I give you back is a hard time.”

  “That’s not true. You tell me the truth. That’s why I asked what I did.”

  She squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to worry—not from my end. I’m bugged about this job keeping me in Montpelier for so long, though. It’s tougher than I thought it would be. I miss you a lot.”

  There was a discreet knock at the door, and Gary Smith stuck his head into the room. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said and began to retreat.

  Gail stood quickly to stop him. “I have to get a cup of coffee. You can have him till then.”

  Gary watched her pass him without comment but then raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Gail Zigman,” I explained. “My unofficial better half. How’s Mike?”

  Smith took a few steps into the room and stopped, looking awkward. “Fine. Barely limping, already.”

  The conversation stalled.

  “Well, then,” I tried, “I guess it wasn’t such a bad deal after all. You get anything from that severed hand yet?”

  He seemed lost in thought and looked up at me suddenly, as if dragged from some reverie. “What? No. The lab’s still working on it. Your contact at the Sûreté in Sherbrooke came through, though—Gilles Lacombe. Asked to meet with us.” He finished walking to the foot of my bed, grabbing the rail as if it separated him from a great fall. “I wanted to thank you for covering my butt.”

  “I did?” I asked, momentarily lost.

  “From what I heard, you told the inquiry team this morning you were the one who held us up on the ledge—till we were caught in the whiteout. You implied you didn’t follow my recommendation to leave when the leaving was good.”

  “I did slow us up,” I countered. “Using the ice axes as crowbars took too long.”

  He compressed his lips a moment, pondering whether to accept my gift or not. Being the oldest, the novice climber, and the injured party all in one, I’d known shouldering most of the blame wasn’t likely to result in any reprimand from the inquiry team, and in fact they’d been gracious to a fault. It hadn’t been a great sacrifice on my part—I’d been as aware as everyone of the closing weather, and I knew that both Woodman and Smith were judging themselves far more harshly for this near-miss than any disciplinary board could.

  Smith’s appreciation showed in his response. “Still. I wanted to thank you. I should’ve had ropes—should’ve gotten us off in one piece. It was my responsibility.”

  “Which is why you got Mike to safety instead of risking all three of us looking for me,” I said. “I know what those kinds of situations are like, Gary. I wish I didn’t, but they tend to crop up.”

  “How long you been a cop?” he asked unexpectedly.

  “Over thirty-five years.”

  He nodded, as if coming to terms with the argument in his head. “You have a good reputation. I’m sorry I was a jerk before.”

  “You didn’t know what I was up to.”

  He smiled then. “I still don’t—not really. This VBI thing doesn’t make much sense to me.”

  “It will,” I said, sympathizing with his confusion. “And I’ll try to make you like the end result.”

  Gail reappeared at the door, a Styrofoam cup in her hand. “Too early?” she asked.

  Gary looked back at me, responding to my last comment.

  “Well, so far, so good. Thanks again.” He then turned to Gail and gestured in my direction. “He’s all yours.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “Not hardly, but I’ll take what I can get.”

  · · ·

  There were three of us in the car, heading northeast on Route 100 toward Newport and Derby Line, Vermont, and Canada beyond, to meet with Gilles Lacombe of the Sûreté du Québec in Sherbrooke—known in cop shorthand as the “SQ”—Gary Smith, Paul Spraiger, and myself. Sammie Martens had lobbied to join us, but the meeting was to be an icebreaker only, and I didn’t want to load the deck with VBI personnel. Also, Spraiger spoke French, although I’d asked him not to advertise the fact until it proved absolutely necessary.

  “What did Lacombe sound like on the phone?” I asked Smith, who’d made the arrangements.

  He slowed to a stop to let a small herd of cows cross from a barn to the pasture on the other side, their nostrils enveloped in periodic bursts of vapor as they plodded along. We waited until the farmer had latched the gate behind the last of them before resuming our trip. Route 100 meandered up the spine of Vermont, broad-shouldered and well maintained—a pleasure to travel at any time of year, but particularly right after a fresh snow had made everything from mountaintops to old trailers look like pictures from an art book.

  “Real friendly,” Smith answered. “And he spoke decent English, too. I think we hit a nerve with Deschamps. Our Popsicle’s first name—Jean—that didn’t mean much to him, but he said the family was well known. To use his words,” and here Smith affected a thick accent, “‘We ’ave a very big file on dem.’”

  “A criminal file?” Spraiger asked from in back.

  I’d already been briefed on that when Smith had updated Frank Auerbach and me earlier. “Apparently,” I said. “It sounds like the Deschamps have been in business for a while.”

  Spraiger looked out the side window reflectively, “Huh.”

  “What?” I asked him. “That mean something to you?”

  “Maybe not. Sherbrooke’s a pretty interesting town, though—a little lost between Montreal and Québec City. Magog is nearby, and a hangout for the mega-rich, but people drive by Sherbrooke barely looking out the window. It’s actually pretty big. Seventy-five thousand in the city itself, maybe double that if you throw in the suburbs. A lot of industry.”

  His voice trailed off. I’d come to appreciate Paul Spraiger over the short time I’d known him. He mulled things over before shooting his mouth off, and was generally worth listening to.

  “Which ties into Deschamps how?” I prodded him.

  He took his eyes off the scenery and looked at me from the back seat. “Oh, I don’t know—not in any specific way. But I’d heard Sherbrooke was a Hell’s Angels stronghold—one of their biggest and most secure. I was just surprised another group was working the same turf.”

  “Hell’s Angels?” Smith asked, surprised. “I thought they were mostly in Montreal.”

  “They’re there, too,” Spraiger explained, “a
nd a bunch more places. But so are a lot of others. Sherbrooke was like a haven—at least I thought so—a place to call their own.”

  “The local cops must love that,” Smith laughed.

  “They don’t complain too much,” Spraiger told him. “Sherbrooke’s got one of the lowest crime rates in Canada, in part because the Angels have done a number like the Mob in Boston’s North End—they’ve made it safer. The cops wish they weren’t there, of course, but they keep to themselves, run a tight operation, and make pretty sure everyone else stays out.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the Hell’s Angels I know,” I murmured.

  “They still have the guys with the Nazi helmets riding hogs,” Spraiger continued. “They’ve got an image to protect. But they’ve also got members who’re lawyers and accountants, wearing suits and driving Beemers. They’re big-time nowadays.”

  “How do you know so much about them?” Smith asked.

  “From my days at the Burlington PD. We used to bump into them coming down from Canada, selling drugs or moving weapons or money. They liked what Burlington had to offer. That got me started doing research—one thing led to another… I like digging into stuff like that.”

  I returned to the topic at hand. “What do you make of there being a rival organization in Sherbrooke?”

  Spraiger shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out, but I’d assume the word ‘rival’ doesn’t apply. If the Deschamps clan is a separate entity, then it probably means there’s a working arrangement of some kind. That’s the only thing the Angels would tolerate, especially there and especially now.”

  “How so, ‘there and now’?” I asked.

  “The Angels are in a squeeze. For years, they were pretty much kings of the hill. Then, several smaller competitor gangs formed an association called the Rock Machine. They’re hungry, big, and act like they’ve watched too many gangster movies. Rumors are a major power struggle is brewing, so it’s no time for the Angels to be skirmishing on their flanks. That’s what I meant about Sherbrooke—it’s behind the front lines. They’re going to be protective of that. If the Deschamps have been around awhile, like Gary was told, I’d bet their relations with the Angels are very cordial.”