TWENTY SEVEN

As Merlin padded through to the vestibule to greet him, lacking, it seemed, his customary enthusiasm, Émile heard Sandra preparing dinner in the kitchen. He removed and hung up his winter coat, kicked off his boots, and leaned down from his significant height to stroke the dog’s brow and snout. Merlin carried on as curiously cheerless although he managed a faint tail-wag on his way back to rejoin Sandra. Émile kept his eyes on him. He often sought her company—or her protection, or to protect her—when distressed. Cinq-Mars returned his coat to the rack a second time, it had slid off a hook encumbered with jackets, then wandered through to the kitchen. Hands in the sink, Sandra tilted her lips to him, they kissed, and before he could fill her in about the fire or inquire about her day, the phone rang.

Émile answered the wall-mount. “Cinq-Mars.”

Sandra rolled her eyes. Clearly, reforming his salutation was a lost cause.

“Émile, hi, it’s Bill.”

“Sergeant-Detective,” Cinq-Mars said, “how goes the battle?”

“Still driving home, of course, but Borde’s people just called him. Then he called me. We have the answer you were looking for.”

“I don’t recall the question, but go ahead.”

“The dead pets, gas can, and empty packs of accelerant, as near as Borde could figure out over the phone while he was driving, were dumped in more or less the same spot. What’s your best guess, Émile? Coincidence? Or the same guy?”

Clues were not going to help him, he already decided that. He needed to start thinking from the perspective of the answers.

“Hang on,” he said. He processed Mathers’s news, but something else was bugging him. Merlin went over to his food bowl and somewhat disinterestedly helped himself, then slurped water, then moved off again. Cinq-Mars continued to study the dog’s bowl. Holding the phone to his chest, he asked Sandra, “You fed Merl?”

She looked up. “No. Why? It’s not time.” The geriatric dog was on a strict diet and feeding schedule. They never altered it. Yet he had more food in his bowl, by far, than when Cinq-Mars left the house for the day.

He got back on with Mathers. “Bill? Where are you exactly?”

He had stopped for a doughnut. He mentioned that without a shred of embarrassment. “Near the Île aux Tourtes right now. Still on the west side.”

He was referring to the bridge to take him back onto the Island of Montreal.

“I know an excellent shortcut from there, Bill. Saves time. You can skip a ton of traffic.”

“Excuse me?”

“Take the turn-off to go east of Aldgate, Bill. Cut your time in half.”

Privy to only one side of the conversation, Sandra, who was busy at the sink and running water to wash lettuce, knew that what he said made no sense. Or made sense in an alarming way. She turned off the tap and stared at him.

A grim fright reared up.

Émile was waiting for Mathers to respond. He understood that the man needed a moment to process his code. His silence meant that he grasped that it was code, but he needed him to not only understand it but to do so at lightning speed. His life might depend on Bill Mathers getting this, and fast.

“Yeah,” Mathers said. “You’re right. That’s a timesaver. Thanks.”

“No problem.” He meant it the other way around. He had a problem. “You owe me.” He meant that the other way around as well.

“You’re right about that.” He meant that he understood. “Take care, Émile.” He meant exactly that, for Émile to take care.

Émile put the phone back in its cradle. He whispered, “Of course,” to himself, then turned to face Sandra. Their eyes locked. “Us, too,” he told her quietly, redoubling her trenchant fear.

By the way her eyes shifted to the bottom cupboard next to the pantry he could tell that she understood him. Then she looked back at him, and Émile tilted his head in such a way that she looked over at Merlin’s food bowl. She dried her hands on a dish towel. Sandra was a good American girl. She had no qualms about crossing the kitchen at that moment, even though her knees felt like jelly, to open the undercounter cupboard to take out her shotgun. Her weapon, not Émile’s. She pulled out a box of shells and inserted one in each barrel and dropped more shells into the side pockets of her blue cardigan with the rope-like weave that hung extra-low on her hips. She looked back at Émile.

“Rather than go out again later,” he said in a normal voice, “why don’t we feed and water the horses now? Then relax for the evening.”

That voice of his. He was telling her that someone might be listening.

Although she already guessed as much.

“Good idea,” she said.

He moved across to the gas range and turned the flames under two pots off. He checked that the oven wasn’t on, turned, and indicated the front door. A finger to his lips curtailed further discussion. Sandra tapped her thigh to invite Merlin along and the old dog fell into step behind her, though he seemed reluctant.

In the front vestibule, they discreetly took turns holding the shotgun. They dressed for the out-of-doors and a cold barn, then went out with the weapon, which was cracked, concealed under Émile’s down coat. They crossed the yard between the two buildings, Sandra going on ahead, Merlin at her heels. The side door intended as a convenience for humans was still heavy and more broad than any normal one, mainly to facilitate the passage of wheelbarrows and wagons, though nothing the size of the barn door for horses. Sandra heaved it open without any help as Émile’s hands were occupied. Inside, he removed the shotgun from under his arm. Sandra swung the door shut and turned on him in an instant.

“What the hell is going on!”

“Sshhh!” he urged her.

She quieted instantly. “Nobody can hear us in here.” Her statement carried the inflection of a question.

“We don’t know that.” She was about to object when he put two fingers on her lips. He whispered, “Don’t assume this isn’t sophisticated.”

She urgently wanted to ask what the hell that could even mean, but she didn’t. Not so hard to imagine. Listening devices. Bugs. Wireless this and remote that. Even out here on the lone prairie they had satellite TV for heaven’s sake, so who knew what toys bad guys might be playing with?

Whoever they were, they might have satellites, too.

Émile was walking past the horse stalls to the rear of the barn and Sandra scurried after him. She didn’t appreciate being left alone. Merlin chose not to follow. Émile checked the latch at the rear—it was closed—then stuck a peg through the bolt. The peg hung by the side of the door permanently for those rare times when they wanted to lock that door to extreme weather. He returned to the front and the big barn doors that, apart from their latch, could be bound together and shut by fitting a six-foot-long two-by-ten plank, through four pad eyes. Which he did.

Émile then returned to the door they had entered and looked out the window. The old cracked glass was barely opaque after a winter’s dirty abuse. The house stood as they left it, with a few lights on, but no movement within could be detected.

Indeed, the whole of the farm seemed serene and quiet.

Just as he loved it.

He motioned his wife over to his side and whispered directly into her ear, as quietly as he possibly could and still be heard. “The Lumens’ barn burned. If somebody tries that here—only a remote chance—we shoot our way out.”

She looked into his eyes then. She’d given herself barely a moment to be scared, but fright took hold now, simmering. She breathed in deeply. No time for histrionics. Explanations could come later. She’d been through enough with Émile before to know that she had to be brave, smart, expectant, and decisive. She nodded.

Merlin whimpered. They didn’t know why. The cold and damp of the barn? He never liked it, but he was used to it. Their inactivity? He was staring away from them as he did whenever a horse put him on his guard with unsettled behavior.

But no horses were out.

In a stall, one lone mare whinnied.

Émile let Sandra carry the weapon. She grew up shooting grouse, gophers, and wild fowl. She could hit targets with that thing better than he could and fire and reload more rapidly than he could, and anyway her life was the one he most wanted to protect.

He checked his mobile phone. No communication from Mathers or Borde. He had to hope and pray that their silence derived from intention, not neglect. Some trap I laid here. He considered smiling. But self-mockery could not help him now.

Then Émile thought to look up. He scanned the rafters, but his vision was limited, as the floor for the hay loft above him covered most of the barn’s footprint. The ceiling was low, one reason he was hoping to buy a new barn.

Sandra followed his gaze. A barn cat poked its head out from the loft, staring back. “You don’t think?” she asked. Right inside her coat, against her skin, she felt a chill that held her as if by a human’s grip.

Émile whispered, “Let’s get in the Jeep. I didn’t think. I’m supposed to think. I was being a cop, wanting to catch him. But I don’t have to do that anymore.”

He was legitimately cross with himself and breathing heavier. Sandra was watching him, breathing more rapidly as well. She wanted to comfort him, but wasn’t in any shape to do so.

“He knew we’d come out here sooner or later. Or one of us would. To look after the horses.”

“Who? What’ve you brought on us, Émile?”

“Burning the Lumens’ barn was a distraction. To get me away from here. That would leave you home alone except he might’ve known you were gone, too.”

“Émile. No.”

“The Jeep.”

“The horses, Émile.”

“What?”

“I can’t leave the horses.”

“No one has any reason to harm them.”

“He burns barns, you said.”

True. Perhaps that’s why, subconsciously, he came in here. To protect the horses as well as themselves. He hadn’t realized that he was evacuating a two-story house for a two-story barn. Same difference. Same modus operandi.

But he forsook that idea. He came in here because his instincts to run were nonexistent. He wanted to catch the guy.

“Who, Émile?” Sandra asked him again, whispering still. Although she knew.

“Someone who might expect us to come out here to check on the horses.”

He didn’t want to say in case he was being foolish. Ridiculous, even.

“Any chance you’re just paranoid?”

“Hope so. I pray that I am.”

She considered all that. “Let’s put them in the paddock. Then leave.”

“Eight horses. Can we do that in one trip? Four each?”

“Are you crazy? We’ll lose them!”

“That doesn’t matter. Not really. We’ll get them back.”

“No, Émile. Four trips. One horse each. If this person knows anything about horses, if he’s watching us, that will be a lot less suspicious. Four horses at once, even two each, will look like we’re panicking.”

“Which we are.” A joke. He smiled. She did, too, finally. Briefly.

“Four trips,” she said. “We’ll look relaxed. Like we don’t have a care in the world. Leave the shotgun behind. Take our time. Anybody watching will think we’re heading back into the house after that. Only we jump in the Jeep instead. Oh, God, Émile, do you even have your keys?”

Even in a crisis a husband and wife were still husband and wife.

He felt through his coat pockets and nodded that he had them.

“We’ll do it your way,” he decided.

First he returned to the barn door that he just secured and pulled the locking brace back out from the pad eyes. He tripped the latch and swung each door wide open. Then he and Sandra each took a lead-chain down from where a dozen dangled on a wall and returned to the aisle of horse stalls.

They had done this in totally benign circumstances countless times before and so fell into an established routine. Émile went to a stall at the back of the aisle. Sandra chose the one second from the front. A halter for each horse hung on a hook outside its stall and they entered and kept each animal calm and slipped its halter on, then snapped on the lead-chain. They exited the stalls at the same moment, the two horses well separated, and Sandra led the way out.

At the paddock she unhooked a loop of rope that secured that gate, which was pernickety sometimes, but she succeeded in pulling the gate free with one hand and walked her horse inside. Émile followed with their only mare. They unclipped the lead chains and the two horses trotted off a short distance to enjoy the novelty of evening air. Émile closed the gate and secured it, and they returned to the barn to repeat the ritual. Cinq-Mars was beginning to believe that he was nothing if not paranoid. This was going to be a difficult one to explain to Mathers if ever he showed up and a difficult one to explain to Sandra once they were done and he was wrong about everything. But who fed Merlin? He had that to hang his hat on.

Outside, he whispered, “Your helper. Noel Lambert. Does he come into the house ever? When we’re not here?”

“Why would he? Maybe for a pee, but he’d do his business outside if we weren’t around, no?”

“He wouldn’t bother to feed Merlin though.”

“Why would he? But he might’ve. You never know. Do you think he might’ve?” She had a thought. “Where’s Merl?”

The dog never left the barn. Unheard of. Inside, they found him moping on a bed of straw. Barely able to lift his head now.

“My God,” Sandra said.

Émile so wished that he was merely paranoid. That he could drum up some other explanation for the extra feeding and subsequent demise of his dog.

“The horses first,” he said. “We’ll carry Merlin out with us.”

He forgot to whisper. Sandra was the one to put a forefinger to her lips.

This time Sandra entered the first stall, Émile the third.

They repeated the process without a blemish, then started on the opposite side of the aisle. They finally did appear relaxed, as if this was old routine and not frightening.

Then the last two horses were escorted out to the paddock to run under the light of the rising quarter moon.

Émile swung the paddock gate shut and secured it.

Sandra was already hurrying back to the barn.

She went straight for the dog, Émile to the shotgun where it rested upright against a stall. Sandra slumped onto her knees over the animal. “Merl,” she said. “Merl.” Émile joined her and she asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s been drugged,” Émile said. He could have said more. That he believed the dog inadvertently had saved their lives with his lethargic behavior, which had shown him the food in his bowl, but this was no time for explanations.

“Why? Who? Where?”

Émile supposed that the last question meant where is he now? But he did not have to answer. Another voice spoke up.

“Yes, Émile. Why? Who? Answer the little lady.”

Cinq-Mars swung around and aimed the shotgun, ready to fire.

“Don’t bother,” Rand Dreher advised him. “I took the liberty of removing the shells.”

Not one to fall for a bluff, Cinq-Mars aimed the gun to the side and pulled one of the twin triggers. The hammer impotently clicked on nothing. Husband and wife remained shock-still after that, Sandra kneeling, Émile at her side, the gun raised.

“Take it easy,” Dreher said. “I’m not going to shoot you. Not right now. Although I should, after that stunt.”

Cinq-Mars aimed the gun at him and tried the other trigger.

Click!

He felt his life expire like air evacuating his lungs.

“Told you.”

They were surprised that they didn’t see a weapon, that his arms were folded comfortably across his chest. They couldn’t see his hands.

“What’s going on?” Cinq-Mars asked him.

“You’re the famous, brilliant detective, Émile. Why don’t you tell me? I’d be interested to hear what you’ve discovered.”

“Until now, not a thing.”

“No? Is that why you’re out here hiding behind your wife’s skirts? Why you put the horses outside? Why you carried in a loaded shotgun? You aimed it at me and tried to fire the damned thing! Not friendly! Is that because you haven’t figured anything out? Or—were you venting your frustrations? Emile, don’t take me for a fool, it won’t help you at all.”

“What’ve you done to Merlin?” Sandra beseeched him. All three looked over at the dog.

“He’ll die slowly,” Dreher said. “But he’s an old dog and he won’t feel much pain. He’s getting groggy. I was hoping to delay his sleepiness, but it’s hard to get the dosage right. So, you two, haven’t you messed up my plans! I considered burning the barn with the horses in it. But you went and saved them. Pity you didn’t think to save yourselves.”

“We were working on that, actually.”

Dreher raised his left hand to make a point, which is when his pistol came out from the folds of his overcoat in his right hand. Probably not government issue, Cinq-Mars analyzed, too expensive a weapon. Although he was not an expert on firearms, his best judgment told him that he was staring at a Glock 21, a high-capacity, forty-five caliber pistol. He perceived no benefit to any quick rush.

Dreher wore surgical gloves. No prints.

His free left hand motioned Sandra to stand and close ranks with her husband. She rose slowly and stood beside him, their clothing touching. “This is what I’m asking you,” Dreher emphasized. “What tipped you off? How did you know I was on the farm? You must tell me. I want to improve my practice.”

Sandra didn’t give her husband a chance to answer, asking a question instead. “Why, why would you want to harm the horses?”

Dreher smiled. “Nothing personal. I have no particular dislike for horses, although lately I’m finding that I’m mildly allergic to their dander. Or maybe it’s hay. Strange, for a farm boy like me. But no, if you didn’t come out of the house on your own, I was going to draw you out. I was counting on you rushing out to save the horses as the barn started to burn and before you thought to phone for help. But it would be all right, if you phoned first. You might’ve saved the horses in that case as well, so there you go, I wasn’t being mean. Merely … pragmatic. But you helped me out. You came out here on your own.”

“Not the best plan in the world.”

“Mine or yours?”

“Yours. We might’ve gotten in the car and left.”

That simpering, disagreeable smile again. “Not to worry. I fixed your cars. Simple little thing. Squirt Crazy Glue in the ignition. Big headache after that. Sorry! So your flight to the barn was a good one. If you tried to run away, I would’ve been so disappointed, Cinq-Mars. Honestly, you don’t want to disappoint me right now.”

“What do you want, Dreher?”

“Oh, you know, Émile, what I’ve always wanted. Your humiliation. Complete and utter. Thank you so much for obliging me so very well up until this minute. But first, let the shotgun drop. It’s not of any use to you anyway and I want to rule out the temptation to swing it around.”

Émile put the stock to the floor of the barn, then let the gun topple over.

“Now your cell, please. At your feet. Then kick it over.”

He did as instructed, although the phone plowed through hay and didn’t travel far.

“Do you have one, too, Sandra? It’s best to be honest.”

She shook her head.

“Back away. Both of you.” They did so until ordered to stop. Dreher went over and picked up the phone, gave it a glance, then put it in his pocket. “I’ve been listening in anyway. I’ll need to delete that app. Wouldn’t you like to know when I put it on? Charming device. Our Vira Sivak—yes, the very same—she invented it. Now, shall we go inside? The house, I mean. Barns are so cold, don’t you find? And damp. As well, I’ve got this little allergy thing going on. The sniffles. Red eyes. Nothing serious though.”

“Why’d you want us in the barn? You had access to the house.”

“A mystery, isn’t it? I was going to connect this barn burning to the other one, which directs suspicion from me onto the man I’ll convict for this dire crime. But not to worry. No fire. Plan B. We’ll go back to the house now.”

“Merlin—” Sandra started to say.

“Let him die in peace. There’s nothing you can do for him now.”

“I can carry him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No! Please! I’m not leaving him.”

Dreher measured her resolve, his eyes narrowing intently, yet looking vacant. His voice adopted a flat, low staccato beat, and a tinny, mechanical timbre. “Have it your way. I can never say no to a pretty dame. But Émile, you do the carrying. Help the little lady out.”

And so they moved, from the barn to the house, Cinq-Mars carrying the heavy weight of Merlin, a considerable strain on his lower back. He hesitated before attempting the steps up to the front door.

“Come on, Cinq-Mars. In exceptional circumstances, any man can discover extraordinary strength. Isn’t that what they say? Don’t give me that old man’s pose.”

He hated that this was true, but being baited that way compelled him to gather his strength again. He remembered his osteopath’s instructions, clenched his sphincter and tummy muscles to take up the strain, then climbed up.

Sandra opened the door and they went inside.

She helped her husband lower the retriever to the sofa.

Merlin’s head lolled forward.

“Almost gone,” Dreher said. “It’ll be peaceful. You’ll see. Ah! Of course! You might not live long enough to see him go. But I give you my word. It’s an easygoing, gentle death. I have nothing against old dogs.”

He wore an insidious grin.

Émile rose to his feet. His wife remained seated on the sofa, petting the head of her dog. “All right,” he said. He had but one purpose here. To delay. “What do you want?”

“Initially, your compliance. Please don’t ask me to make any specific threats, Émile. That would be so unbecoming, you know? Just do as I say and know that it’s for the best.”

Holding his weapon with one hand he was shaking an arm free of its coat sleeve. Then he switched hands and did the same for his other arm until the coat fell off his back. He retrieved it off the floor and placed it over the arm of the nearest chair. “Take your own coats off, and please, kick those boots away. I’ll tidy up later, but we don’t want to be tracking snow through the house. Sandra, your cardigan, please, remove it. Throw it over here.”

Perhaps he was being weird for the sake of weirdness, but the detective doubted that. Whatever his plans, he wanted them to adhere to a certain look and protocol. If he had their executions in mind, and Cinq-Mars assumed that he did, then he also planned to stage them, either to assist with an exit strategy or to obfuscate the circumstances to foil future investigators. Cinq-Mars took his coat off, pulled one boot off with the toe of the other, then the second boot was similarly peeled away. Sandra let her coat fall back behind her on the sofa.

She threw her sweater his way, and a shotgun shell tumbled from a pocket onto the rug. Dreher stooped to pick it up, and smirked. “What will the IO think of these, I wonder,” he said, and put it back in the cardigan’s pocket.

He was not yet satisfied.

“Okay now,” Dreher determined. “Let’s get comfortable. Émile, pour us each a fine Scotch, will you? And don’t be stingy.”

“I’m good,” Cinq-Mars told him. “But I’ll get you one.”

“Ah, that’s not a request, Émile. I was merely trying to be polite, to keep this pleasant. So pour yourself a fucking Scotch, as well as one for me, please and thank you. Sandra? I’ll give you a choice.”

“Fuck sake,” she said.

“Whoa. There’s a mouth on that one. Suit yourself. You might regret that later—declining a drink. But life is full of regrets, isn’t it? I’m sure you must be running through a whole catalog of them right about now. Such as, why did I feed this bastard dinner? Don’t deny it now. Émile? The Scotch. And please, you know better. Don’t throw the bottle at me or do anything silly. The matter won’t go well if you do.”

He moved over to the liquor cabinet. “Will the matter go well if I cooperate?” he asked.

“As you know, Émile, everything in life, and in death, is a matter of degree.”

He poured into two snifters, and if this was to be his last drink on earth, he was not being stingy, just as Dreher requested. Bringing a glass over to his captor, he obeyed Dreher’s gesture with the pistol to place it on a side table.

“Now sit,” Dreher said. Apparently, he didn’t care exactly where. Once Émile was seated in a hardbacked extra chair, Dreher made himself comfortable in a deep cushioned armchair and inhaled the scent of his single malt before imbibing. “It’s been a day,” he said.

“A dead field officer. Then burning barns,” Cinq-Mars concurred. “Yeah. That’s a busy day.”

“Only one barn, Émile. Could’ve been two. The second won’t be necessary.”

“That’s good news.”

“Always have a backup to your backup plan,” Dreher opined. “That’s how you do it.”

“And what is what you’re doing all about, Rand?” The man always wanted him to be familiar, to use first names. Now might be the time for that.

“Émile, honestly, trust me. I’m sorry that it became necessary that you, or someone like you—But of course, there is no one quite like you, is there? At a certain point it became evident that a person of your reputation needed to become part of this. Geography was a factor, for sure. But I also required someone with impeccable credentials, and honestly—congratulations—you fit that criteria to a tee.”

“To what end?”

Dreher chuckled lightly to himself.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are. Stalling like this. Thinking that time is on your side. That time will be your friend and help you.”

“What else would you have me do?”

Their captor waved his pistol in the air. “You’re right. It’s desperation. Your last resort. So, good. We can have a conversation, as futile as your hope for this talk may be.”

Émile and Sandra exchanged glances. Nerves caused her elbows to jump, and she returned to giving comfort to, and in return, perhaps being comforted by, the dying retriever. “So tell me—”

“No!” Dreher stopped him, his voice sharp but not raised. “That’s not how this is going to go down. You will guide me through what you know, and then and only then, if I am satisfied, and if I’m still in the mood, only then will I fill in the blanks for you. So you first, Émile. Talk.”

He flicked the barrel of his pistol to urge him on.

“All right,” Cinq-Mars said. “I’ll talk. You want to know what I know. The killing in Alabama was botched.”

“How so?” Dreher, his eyes darting between his two captives under his bushy eyebrows, appeared bemused.

Cinq-Mars knew that he had to engage him. He had to prolong his curiosity, in order to extend his own and his wife’s lives.

“First, there’s the botched business with the finger. Whoever amputated Agent Sivak’s finger didn’t do it right. She was still alive. In all other cases, including with the Lumens up here, the fingers were removed postmortem.”

“Oh, but aren’t you the brilliant detective!” No admiration underlay his words. Only derision.

“I said ‘first.’ There’s more.”

“Okay, Detective, show me what you’ve got. So far, not much.”

“So, a lesser detective, shall we say, could look upon that killing and think that it was a copycat. But even a lesser detective wouldn’t hold that thought for long, because the previous killings were not public. There’s been no public suggestion of a series of deaths, and the business of the fingers being cut off may not even be known publicly. So the inferior detective would have to assume that a surrogate was brought into all this to execute Agent Sivak and to make it look as though he was part of that series, if only to provide the initial killer with an alibi because he was elsewhere for the latest crime. The inferior detective would conclude that the murders were botched.”

Dreher was holding Émile’s gaze, less dismissive of him now. “What do you mean,” he asked finally, “by inferior detective?”

“Because a superior detective would get it. That the surrogate was intentionally provided with improper instructions. That the whole point of those two murders was to make them look botched. They were meant to appear botched.”

Dreher looked over at Sandra and smiled. “Your husband,” he said. “I find him interesting. You must enjoy having him around the house. How do you figure all this, Émile? I’m curious.”

“Up until now, all the murders have been meticulous. Almost perfect.”

“Why only almost perfect? Who’s been caught?”

“Touché. But I’m saying almost perfect because the cases are still being investigated. If they were perfect they would’ve disappeared off everyone’s radar screen by now.”

“They’re being investigated,” Dreher objected, “because I’m investigating them.”

“And that’s why they’re almost perfect. Because you couldn’t let them go. You created these perfect little murders, but you admire them so much you have to keep involving other police, and to keep even famous retired detectives from Canada investigating them, to show off how brilliant they all were and how devious you are.”

“That would be an indulgence,” Dreher contended. “Here’s a tip, Émile. Not that it can do you any good now. One does not indulge in murder. The proper killer needs a sound reason, a logical strategy, a platform.”

“Of course,” Cinq-Mars agreed, and allowed a note of derision to enter his own tone, “I was getting to that. But let’s not lose sight of the fact—the fact—that ego was involved in your gambit. The killer did not hide in attics merely to get a handle on police procedure. The killer could have walked in the front door and shown his badge to manage that. The killer hid in attics in order to expose police departments as incompetent. And that was done, largely, out of ego.”

“Marginally,” Dreher protested. “Marginally for ego. A pattern had to be created, for the simple reason that it could be repeated, for repetition has strategic value. That police reputations were damaged in the process was a bonus. Mind you, an ingenious bonus, even if I do say so myself. Ego was not being served, Émile. You’ve got that wrong. Everything, everything, is purely strategic.”

“Bullshit.”

“Émile. Please. There’s a lady present. Besides, I’m the one holding the gun, remember?”

The conversation was allowing time to slide by, and that was all he cared about. He could tell though, that Dreher was enjoying himself. For the killer, prolonging the inevitable was a pleasure. He imagined that the man had conducted these conversations with each of his victims, explaining himself, pontificating, exulting in his genius for subterfuge and strategy, the whole time listening to their desperate pleas and laments. Taking his time to inflict the highest degree of psychological anguish, rather than physical pain, was a critical aspect pertaining to his style for murder.

“Vira was killed,” Cinq-Mars explained, “in the way that she was killed, because she was getting close.”

“That’s your fault, Cinq-Mars. Her blood is on your hands. Take that to the grave. Anything that happens to you today may be unfortunate, but it is well-deserved. You must agree.”

“My fault?” Cinq-Mars repeated.

“You and that fucker assistant of yours. Everardo Flores. Who is he anyway?”

He understood. “Had she interviewed people in Alabama, Vira would have gleaned more information about a self-appointed claims adjustor who promptly showed up on the doorsteps of storm victims who just happened to be in the FBI witness protection program. He then assassinated them. That’s all the pattern required. Staying behind in the attic was done for two reasons. Ego, which took pleasure from damaging the reputations of legitimate and solid officers of the law, and danger, a joy in itself.”

“Don’t forget now, hiding in the attic extends the pleasure of the kill.”

“Okay. Also, our killer is drawn to high-risk like the proverbial moth to the flame. Why else are you here today? You could have sent your Alabama killer, used him one more time. I assume that your plan is to eliminate him soon enough?”

Dreher mulled it over. “Actually,” he revealed, “that is the plan. And won’t I be the hero for that one? In a gun battle, most likely. I’ll kill the man responsible for slaying an FBI agent in Alabama and shooting the husband and wife team of Émile and Sandra Cinq-Mars all the way up in Canada. Such a shame. For the world to lose their revered detective. Are you surprised? It’s true. He’s here now. Not here here. But in the environment. Lives close by, actually. I hired a somewhat local. Upper New York State. So you see, as you may have guessed—”

“I have guessed. It’s Exit Strategy 101.”

“Oh, come on, give me a little more credit than that!”

“I won’t. I’m sorry. It’s too basic. Create a foil—”

“Over years! For years I had him waiting in the wings! It’s brilliant, Émile! Give me that much credit, at least! If you don’t, then I’ll know that you’re too ego-obsessed yourself to speak the truth where and when the truth is warranted.”

“So now you want the truth.” Cinq-Mars shook his head. And looked over at Sandra. To her, he said, “He wants the truth.” And back at Dreher. “You know what they say about the truth.”

Merlin took that moment to pull his head up a little, and he struggled on the cushions to push his front end upright. Sandra comforted him and kept him still. The movement though interested Rand Dreher.

“Did that dog eat all his food?”

“He doesn’t chow down as rapidly as some big dogs do. Anyway, you fed him early.”

“Then he might not expire. Too bad your own prognosis is decidedly more bleak. As for the truth, Émile, don’t kid yourself, I can take anything you can dish out. You, on the other hand, will melt if you hear what I know. But we don’t have all day. The time has come to get on with it.”

Cinq-Mars thought fast, to keep him interested in talking. “Didn’t you want to know how I knew that you were here when I got home?”

Briefly, he pointed with his free hand at him. “You’re right. I’m curious. What tipped you off? Educate me. I won’t want to make the same mistake twice.”

“Merlin tipped me off. That was your error. He left more food in his bowl than was there before I left the house. That told me that somebody visited. Also, his temperament seemed decidedly subdued. So, Rand, you were outwitted by a dog.”

Dreher chortled. “I suppose you expect me to be mortified by that insult? I’m far more mortified by your response. Look what you did. You took your wife and ran out to the barn. Why? That seems so stupid to me. Even when you thought someone was on the premises, you thought you’d be safe in the barn. Or is it because, like most people, you were too proud to act on your basic animal instinct? You needed proof before you were willing to run.”

“Something like that, I suppose,” Cinq-Mars conceded. “Unlike you, I don’t aspire to perfection in what I do. I just take what comes.”

“Émile! God! Don’t give me that humble-jumble crap! You’re a goddamn power-hungry, fear-mongering, asshole-reaming cunt of a detective and the vast majority of your peers say so. I checked you out, don’t forget, before this all began. There’s your public reputation, and then there’s your reputation according to those who know you. So don’t spoon-feed me any of your hyper-ego in the form of humility horse manure—no offense to horses—because I’m not buying it.”

“Fine. I didn’t run because—” He hesitated.

“Because why, Émile. Don’t be so damn proud. Share your ignorance with us lesser mortals.”

“Because I didn’t want to catch you. I wanted to outwit you.”

Popping back out of his chair, Rand Dreher waved his gun around, as if consumed by a rant and intending to theatrically deliver more upon the stage of their living room. But he stopped short, as if he understood in a trice that he was being baited.

Interpreting the change in him that way, Cinq-Mars switched tacks.

“I’ll grant you,” Émile said. “This is not about hating cops, although that’s at least a small part of it, and this is not about your ego, although that is a part of it, too. Has to be. But I’ll grant you, Rand, that neither of those things is compelling enough for a man like yourself. They are only the side benefits you’ve picked up over time, similar to getting an extra week’s vacation after putting in twenty years on the job, that sort of thing. So the real question here is, what’s your angle? Because—grant me this much intelligence, Rand, this much investigative acumen—you’re no bottom-feeder. I recall our talk about the swamp. That was a good talk. You were defending the intelligence of sludge—”

“Slime, actually,” Dreher corrected him.

“Slime. You indicated your sympathy for slime, and by osmosis for all beings bent to a criminal or warped mentality, yet you are not a bottom-feeder yourself. Don’t get me wrong. I’m in a difficult situation here, but I’m not sucking up to you. I’m too proud for that. So I’m telling you, I do not number you among the elite intelligentsia and certainly not among the angels. You have your horrific attributes—you’re a killer, Rand—but you don’t dwell in slime. You may be sympathetic to their plight but you do not live among the swamp bugs. You’re in this for your own benefit. If I’m to die today, the least you can do is let me in on that part. What’s in it for you? What do you get out of all this?”

Standing above them both, the gun at his side, Rand Dreher gazed from one to the other. For the first time, his victims saw the killer in him. He had a finger on the trigger of his gun, but now, and really for the first time, he had his mind on the trigger of his intent. He was contemplating killing them soon, they could tell.

“Don’t overestimate me, Émile. Do you know why I kill couples the way I do? Hatred. It’s that simple. I hate couples. I hate that you don’t share your DNA, that you keep it in-house, so to speak. I hate that you presume to rise up out of the morass and swamp-muck to live behind your white picket fences and tidy wee homes. We should all be down in the swamp, Cinq-Mars, down low in the muck and mire, slurping each other’s shit. I hate all you shithead couples who presume to adapt to civility. Who have manners when you screw. It’s against fucking nature. I protest.”

He paced before them, and Sandra began to tremble.

“Out of respect for our fine chats, Émile,” Dreher went on, “I might grant you that dying wish. Why not? But first, let’s take care of business. Sandra, I’m going to ask you to stand and to face your husband. Let’s see if you can do so without making a fuss or falling over. It’ll be better that way, I promise.”

She did so reluctantly, feeling dizzy now, transported, as if this was not a real moment. Not a dream, but not a real time or place, either. What allowed her to remain upright, for she was surprised that she could, was Dreher moving away from her, not toward her, which gave her a measure of relief. But after he visited his coat he returned. Blocked by his wife’s body, Émile was not able to observe what the man extracted from a pocket, then he and his wife held to one another’s gaze, silently beseeching one another to be brave and to have faith. His gaze was meant to remind her that he had summoned help.

Dreher told Sandra, “Clasp a wrist behind your back with the other hand.”

She dreaded doing so, but he poked her with the pistol and she obeyed. He then bound her wrists tightly with what felt like thin strong cord—the treasure seized from his coat pocket—and she was ordered to remain standing.

“Émile. Your turn. Stand up.”

Doing so, he exhibited the posture of an older man with a failing back. He slowly straightened. Dreher ordered Sandra to sit in the hardbacked chair Émile abandoned, and she did so and he knotted Émile’s wrists behind him. Told to remain standing, he was relieved, given the cramping just above his hips.

Dreher chose to sit again.

“There’s something you must understand. I’ll tell you now so that you can deal with it, get over the shock, then make an informed decision. I know what your decision will be. How do I know, you ask?”

Not having a clue what he was driving at, Émile shrugged.

“Because everyone else has made exactly the same decision when offered the same identical choice.”

By everyone else, he presumed the man meant everyone he had slaughtered.

“What’s that?” Émile asked.

“When it comes time to cut off your ring finger—we’ll do it the old-fashioned way, not like in Alabama, so you will be dead first—yes, you may thank me for that—you’re welcome—when it comes time to slice and dice, Sandra will do it.”

“What?”

“What’s he talking about?” Sandra asked. A tremor entered her voice.

“Sorry, dear,” Dreher explained, “but you’re going to have to cut off Émile’s ring finger. End this fucking marriage once and for all.”

“I won’t. Émile!”

“Actually, you will. And don’t ask Émile to help. He’ll be dead by then. And anyway he’s tied up at the moment.”

“You fucking bag of crap.”

“The mouth on this girl, Émile. And you, some sort of good Catholic man. Do you know that your former colleagues call you the Pope? The ones who like you anyway. The other ones call you the Fucking Pope.”

“I’m not going to cut off his finger,” Sandra declared, finding her strength again.

Dreher smiled and returned to his feet again and paced in front of them, staying out of Émile’s kicking range. He allowed his calmness, his quietude, to parlay his menace. “I can understand how you might feel that way. And you do have a choice. Listen to your options first. Option number one, after I shoot him, you cut off his ring finger. After I shoot you, I’ll cut off yours. Then I’ll bury your two fingers together with your wedding rings in this sweet little graveyard I’ve got going. Down by a riverbank. Only the ring fingers of couples are buried there. Quite romantic, actually. The river flows by, day by day.”

“Oh God,” Sandra said. That he was monstrous and murderous had seeped through at the onset of their ordeal, but the breadth of his depravity struck home.

“That’s option one, which you say you won’t accept. It’s your choice, but that leaves us with option two. In this scenario, while he’s still alive, I saw off Émile’s head. You watch, and then, I saw off yours. Again, we’ll keep you alive for that.”

The couple gazed at each other. Tears flooded Sandra’s eyes that she couldn’t wipe away, and her shoulders and torso quivered violently now. She shook her head though, to try to persevere through this.

“Perhaps you understand now why option one has been the preferred choice, one hundred percent of the time. Should you renege on option one and refuse to honor your commitment after I shoot your husband, then we revert to hacking off your head. Hacking, of course, is the operative word. It’s not like I’m walking around with my own private guillotine. It’s a slow and difficult operation with second-rate tools. Whatever I can find in your kitchen, actually. Do either of you doubt my resolve in this matter?”

Reeling, Émile found it hard to think in any cogent way. “Yeah, actually,” he challenged Dreher. He had to keep him talking, keep him boasting, if necessary. “I do. In the past you’ve only cut off the fingers of dead people. That’s easier, I should think, than if someone’s alive and the blood is spurting everywhere. A neck, more difficult still. You might not have it in you, Rand. As I pointed out, you’re not a bottom-feeder. Don’t you agree with me?”

“But I dream about it, Émile. I can’t tell you how much. Anyway you’re wrong. Adele Lumen was still alive when I amputated her finger. I should have known she was still alive. Just didn’t believe it. But her hand bled more. I liked that. I still see it in my dreams. Émile, I will carry through on you and your wife’s decapitations if you want to test me. So go ahead. I’m begging you. Test me.”

Both Émile and Sandra endeavored to hold their heads up, Sandra weeping, Émile trying to remember to breathe. He struggled for a deeper breath, felt his lungs collapsing. He remembered his episode in New Orleans, when a panic attack had overwhelmed him, but here he needed to maintain, through all this madness, his composure. Even unto death. His hope, dissipating, still clung to that necessity.

“She’ll do option one,” he managed to say, his voice garbled.

Sandra nodded when Dreher looked to her for confirmation.

“Good. Good. This is important to me, actually, that you accept your roles as co-conspirators in one another’s removals. I don’t know why, I just prefer it that way.”

Removals.

Émile took another shaky breath, his lungs like twin spikes inside him as they expanded. “So, Rand. If you’re not going to spare us, at least tell us, what’s your angle? You said you would.”

Dreher placed his right hand, which held the pistol, over his heart. “Happy to, Émile. Some criminals, I believe, and I’m sure you’ve seen this throughout your career, some criminals are only too happy to get caught. Why do you suppose that is, Émile?”

“I’m not a psychiatrist. I can’t say.”

“Take a wild stab at it. Entertain me and your life is extended for those few minutes. People like doing that, I’ve found, extending their pathetic lives that last little speck. Gives them hope, I suppose, even though it’s fleeting. People want to believe that rescue is on the way when so clearly it isn’t. They want to think that God will strike me down. Or that, miracle of miracles, I’ll change my mind. By the way, your wrists are tied, but I’ve left your fingers free. Do you want your prayer beads?”

He waited for Cinq-Mars to reply.

“It’s possible,” Émile began slowly, “that some men can’t really keep a secret. That they need for other people to know what it is they’ve done. In their minds, I suppose, they think of it as what they’ve accomplished. Even, in some cases, they want people to know who they are. Sometimes, men are proud of their crimes, and want other people to know that they were the ones who pulled them off. Later, they’ll regret being caught, but that’s just how things go.”

“I believe you’re onto something, Émile. I want people to know who I am. And what I’ve done. But confession, that’s out of the question. Incarceration? Let’s just say that I’m not going there. Still, I do experience a need for people to know. So, I tell them. I get it off my chest. Afterward, of course, I kill them.”

They waited. What they did know, between them, was that death was not imminent, not as long as he had a story to relate or a boast to advance.

“Émile, trust me, you’re going to love this.” He waved his gun with his rising excitement. “It’s just so cool. Inside the FBI, we have found a way, incrementally, but impressively, to augment our budget. At least, to circumvent certain budgetary constraints. The consensus being, if criminals’ funds are confiscated, why not use them to further our pressure against crime? But this is where it gets interesting. Within that program, a few have found ways for their personal aggrandizement. I’ll leave the rationalizing to them. Now that’s a big word I’m using but I prefer it to greed. But it’s true. Some people who walk this earth are atrociously greedy. I’m not naming names, you understand. By our own careful accounting,” and Dreher spoke ponderously now, as though his excitement required him to linger over his words to fully satisfy his impending pleasure, “we participate in, oh, nearly eight percent—” He shifted his attention to Sandra to augment his point, his eyes opening wide. “That might not sound like a lot, but trust me, it’s huge. Or, as you would say with that mouth of yours, it’s fucking huge!” Then his attention reverted primarily to Émile again. “Eight percent of the entire marijuana trade in the continental United Sates of America. We control. The supply end. Like you say, I’m not a bottom-feeder getting my hands dirty with distribution. But we grow weed, baby. In the cornfields of Nebraska. And Kansas. As far east as Kentucky. As far north as Idaho and Montana. We’ve got Mormons growing our pot amid their corn in Utah.” He laughed at that titbit. “We’ve proven that it’s less dangerous to grow pot under my auspices than for the mob, and we can protect the honest farmer against the mob. Not that anybody knows its for the Bureau, only that somebody seems to have power and the ability to move mountains. Even the mountains of Utah. So it’s a win-win-win situation all around. If I benefit to a certain extent, then so be it, mere humble servant that I am. I come from that milieu, you understand. We’re talking about my people. I was recruited into the FBI while my daddy was growing corn. But that wasn’t his only cash crop, if you know what I mean. He had a cash crop that essentially wasn’t very different from growing cash. Instead of threshing corn, although we did that too for the sake of appearances, we were mainly into plucking greenbacks from the stem. So you see, it’s all good.”

He observed them, shifting his gaze from one to the other, anticipating their praise.

“Of course,” he continued, “from time to time we have to protect our growers. So-called honest cops might arrest them, so we take them into witness protection. Or we have to show that we’re doing our job. We get our people to inform on their neighbors, who the mob controls, then we have to take them out of the operation even as our operation increases, because we’ve now taken over new fields from the mob. But you see my problem. It’s a chess game, that’s one thing. And some of that comes back on me. I have to play it five moves ahead or I’ll be behind. So I have people in witness protection who know me as a special agent in the FBI who has, shall we say, complicated ethics. So that leaves me with no choice but to go back through that field and cull the chaff from the wheat, so to speak. I know that sounds ass backward, but that’s what has to be done on occasion. It’s safer.”

Émile could tell that Sandra was disinterested and losing hope. He could not allow that to happen. He had to buoy her up with his own enthusiasm for Dreher’s story.

“But the Lumens, Rand? Did they fit into that scheme? Up here in Canada?”

Dreher clicked his fingers. “You’re right, Émile. Different scenario entirely. By this point, somebody is noticing inside the Bureau that not only are we losing informants—usually they think our witness protection people are informants, and usually we do manipulate things to make it look that way—but we’re losing informants who were attached to me. We’re losing my informants. So I get to investigate, but also I have to find a way to take this off my shoulders.”

“It’s a tangled web we weave, Rand,” Émile encouraged him.

“Call it a web,” Dreher said, as if missing the familiarity of the remark entirely, “but for sure my operations created a pattern and that pattern was growing visible, for those with eyes to see. People associated with my work in the war against drugs and in my geographic concentration were being eliminated. One by one, spread out over time. Oh, I was clever in creating the storm motif, this wandering serial killer who struck in the aftermath of a strong wind or a quaking earth, but, nonetheless, the idea persisted that a pattern was forming that revolved around me. So, guess what I did?”

Cinq-Mars obliged him. “You struck outside your parameters.”

“Precisely. I blurred the pattern. That’s where you fit in. Lovely of you to come down to New Orleans, for example. To give yourself that exposure. Meet the troops. Too bad about Vira. She was an up-and-comer, but the connection, the bond that she was forming with you, and you guys finding out that the killer was a claims adjustor—” He performed a pantomime of shivering. “Too close for comfort. She had to go. And now you. Then I’ll solve these murders, Vira’s and yours, and dear Sandra’s, and that won’t be difficult, it just means shooting the killer before he gets to talk to anybody, then we’ll trace his movements after the fact to prove his guilt. Brilliant, all around. Puts me in the clear inside the Bureau. Our market share continues. Life goes on. Everything is put behind us. Hell, even your dog lives to die a natural death. What more can anyone ask for?”

That Émile managed, somehow, an incomprehensible smile, transfixed Dreher’s attention.

“Do you know what I enjoy the most about killing people,” he asked them. “There are many aspects I relish, but do you know what gives me the deepest, most gratifying satisfaction?”

“Of that, I have no clue,” Cinq-Mars whispered.

“You should know killers, Émile, if you want to be a cop when you grow up. Allow me to educate you. To be honest, there are many moments I love. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy it when the wife cuts her husband’s ring finger off. So much for that marriage! Ha ha. That’s what I say. It’s nearly orgasmic. But the moment I love though is when I see hope dissipate, when hope leaves the eyes to be replaced by despair. When I see them die before they are dead. I just so get off on that.” He resorted to his Scotch and that seemed to elicit a quieter, more philosophical moment. “You know, the phenomena has been studied. In a Russian movie theater, for instance, many hostages looked like they were dead already. But some didn’t, they clung to hope. Those who survived remarked on this. Once the shooting started and the bombs went off, it was those who looked dead ahead of time who ended up dead. Those who did not, did not. It’s an amazing phenomena about life and death, how one informs the other. Those who were going to die knew they were going to die. I love to see my people die before I’ve even touched them.”

In a way, Cinq-Mars noticed, Dreher had accomplished what he himself was trying to do, sparking Sandra back to life. She was not willing to yield her spirit to this mad man.

“But you two. Look at you. Go on! The two of you. Look at each other!”

Émile and Sandra did as they were instructed. They each noticed the other’s pain, which instantly intensified their own suffering, as if that was even possible, and yet they each took strength and solace one from the other.

“Do you see what I see?” Dreher demanded.

They looked back at him.

“Neither one of you is dead yet. Why not?”

This time, when Émile and Sandra shared a look, they smiled. The gesture was faint and unremarkable, and not meant to be provocative, but it was there, perhaps only in the other’s eyes, perhaps only for themselves to see.

“So how come? You are both about to die. You have no hope. Stop dreaming in Technicolor. No god and no angel and no flying hero from any police department anywhere is about to rescue you. So forget about it.”

“We’ll get there. We’ll lose hope. But first, explain New Orleans to me.”

“What about it?”

“The kidnapping.”

Dreher was only too happy to gloat. “The other side, Émile. Blame them. The people who are after me who don’t know it’s me they’re after, just an amorphous ghost—but maybe they were thinking it’s me, I can’t be sure—they’re the ones. They kidnapped your girl. You tell me what they got out of that. Nothing, it would appear, because both of you are about to die and I’m still up to no good! So say your prayers and let’s get on with this. If you’re not going to give me the satisfaction I’m looking for, fuck it, I’ll do without. But sorry, guys, I must be on my way. Émile. You first.”

And just like that, he aimed his pistol at his head.

“Oh!” Sandra called out. Then yelled another desperate sound.

“There’s things you don’t know!” Émile bellowed. “You won’t be getting away soon.”

“Sorry, Émile. Can’t talk your way out of this one. Don’t disappoint me. Take it like a man. If you insist on being optimistic, grant me that at last. Your integrity. Let me blow that away with your brains.”

“Help is on the way! That’s why I’ve been stalling you! That’s why we have hope! Everything you’ve told us is theory, so who can convict you? You’re still in the clear, Rand. But this, this you can’t walk away from.”

“Nice try, but you lie, and now you die.”

“My husband doesn’t lie!” Sandra shouted out.

“Lovely sentiment, my dear. But sentiment holds no water with me. Is that a surprise to you?”

“Were you recording us?”

He looked at her. “Recording?”

“Could you hear what we were saying?”

“Oh yeah.”

“She’s right,” Émile said, catching on.

“About what?”

“I used code,” Émile said. “Bill Mathers is my old partner. He knows my language.”

Dreher released a plaintive sigh, then rubbed his eyes. “As much as I love to see the light go out early, I really hate it when people start this relentless, useless pleading.”

“I can prove it to you,” Sandra told him.

“How? Prove what?”

“Do you know what Émile told Bill? You were listening?”

“He gave him instructions on a shortcut home. So?”

“Bill Mathers,” Émile answered, “has lived here all his life. He doesn’t need directions home. And the directions I gave him are bogus.”

“You’re pathetic. You’re making that up.”

Sandra yelled, she screamed near the top of her lungs: “I can prove it!”

He was shocked for a moment, but that insidious grin arose again. “Okay, lady. Go ahead.”

“I’ll tell you what Émile said means. In a different room. In the kitchen. Then we’ll come back here and he’ll explain it himself. You’ll see. It’ll be exactly the same thing.”

They stared each other down a few moments before Dreher addressed Émile. “I got to say, you married a lady with guts. That’s good to see. All right. Sandra, get up. Into the kitchen we go. Émile, I’m going to tie you to that chair. If this is some sort of pathetic plan, just remember that I’m under no obligation to stick to a script today. I can make you pay before you die, and you won’t want that. If your wife pisses me off, then she pays, and I’ll let you live to see all that in its fullest glory.”

He put down the pistol briefly and lashed Émile’s wrists to the hardback chair, yet neither of them could do a blessed thing. Dreher then clutched Sandra’s forearm so forcibly that she gasped. He yanked her forward. He pulled her with him into the kitchen to listen to her explanation with the door closed.

But instead she pleaded for a bathroom visit.

She squeezed her thighs together and hopped on one foot, then the other.

“Please don’t humiliate me. Let me pee.”

“Fuck!” he hollered.

“I’m scared! It’s the excitement. Let me pee!”

He opened the door to the living room again. “Don’t move, Émile! I’ll be checking on you.”

Cinq-Mars didn’t bother pointing out that he was unable to move, not while attached to his chair.

Roughly, Dreher pushed Sandra ahead of him down to the powder room. He went in first, did a quick scan of the medicine cabinet. Pills, floss, ointments, gauze, Band-Aids. No razors, no scissors, nothing to be construed as lethal. He stepped out of the room.

“You’re not closing the door,” he told her.

“You’re not watching,” she told him.

“Of course not. I’m a gentleman.”

“Undo my hands.”

He studied her. He saw her predicament. She had to undress. She hopped some more.

“Turn around,” he instructed her, and when she did so he untied her wrists.

He then retired to a spot in the kitchen when he could keep an eye on the door and on Cinq-Mars by shifting his glance. He heard the tinkle, and when the toilet flushed he went back to the room, gave it a visual inspection as Sandra adjusted her clothing and checked her hands and pockets.

He pulled Sandra back into the kitchen and checked that Cinq-Mars had remained still. Then he closed the door and told her to quietly say what she wanted to say, and after telling him he tied her wrists again in front of her.

His eyes bore into her. Then he opened the door and signaled for her to go through. In the living room, he shoved Sandra back down into a chair.

Despite the roughhouse handling, Émile could tell that he had changed. Worry had crept in. A darkness behind the eyes, perhaps a premonition of the very same darkness that he’d been waiting for, and not seeing, in their eyes, was now evident in his.

“Talk, Émile. Explain your code. Not that you don’t die either way.”

Sandra’s gambit was his last prevailing hope. “I told Bill to go east of Aldgate. In the old days, that’s what I told him when it was time to draw our weapons. It comes from a Sherlock Holmes teleplay—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard that already.” Dreher drew a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck, in distress.

“‘Always carry a firearm east of Aldgate, Watson,’ Sherlock said. Bill took it to be code. I can pretty much guarantee that. So you see, we haven’t given up hope because we know the cops are coming and probably in force. Your best bet, your only bet, is to get out now, then you’ll only have our stories to defend against in court. Otherwise, you kill us now, and you’re the dead man.”

He seemed to be considering his options. He went to the front door and looked out. He sprung the lock. He crossed to a side window and checked that it was locked. But it would be in winter. He walked though the living room, checking on his captors, warned them with a wave of his gun, and went through the kitchen to the back door and locked that. He searched in that direction. Nothing alarmed him out there. He returned to the living room.

“This does change things a little,” he agreed. “Sandra, you’re getting out of the finger-cutting, you’ll be pleased to know. If you don’t mind, I’m going to borrow riding tack from the stables and mount one of your horses. I’m an old kid cowboy from Missouri, you know. Riding a horse can’t be much different than riding a bicycle, once you know how. That gets me as far as the riding trails out back. My GPS will guide me out of there. Then I take the redeye to Birmingham. Technically, I’m already on a flight to Jacksonville, but that’s not really me, as you can see. Either way, I get to investigate Vira’s murder tomorrow morning, and I guess that’s when I’ll hear about yours. So. Short and sweet. It’s been nice knowing you.”

Sandra emitted a sound, one that Émile had never heard, and both men looked across at her. “There, Émile,” Dreher said, “do you see? There it goes. All hope. We’re back in the swamp. I love the swamp. You see? Her light’s gone out. She’s already dead and I haven’t even touched her yet.”

But Sandra was not going to tolerate that verdict or at least not give him the satisfaction. “Fuck you, you fucker!”

“That mouth!”

Cinq-Mars tried to kick him. A futile effort. Dreher went around behind him. Cinq-Mars tried to twist around but there was no point. He felt the barrel of the gun against the back of his head.

Dreher leaned in and whispered in Émile’s ear. “Personal aggrandizement, Émile. That’s why you’re dying today. But I like you. So I’ll tell you something else. It’s also political. So many of us have plans. For those plans, we do a little fund-raising on the side. So you see, you’re dying for a cause. My cause. You’re not dying in vain. Oh, just wanted you to know.”

“You bastard.”

“You fucked up,” Dreher said, as if wanting to console him. “I know, it’s hard to stomach. But look, don’t feel bad. So did I. Today is but one example. Shall I let you in on a touch of irony, Émile? I never counted on that big snowfall. When I arrived at the Lumens’ place, one footprint was the same as any other. When the snow covered everything, that’s when I knew I was in trouble.”

“The cops would think you were still in the house,” Cinq-Mars whispered.

“That’s right. Adele Lumen not dying instantly was one mistake, but I didn’t count on the implications of the storm. Normally, they’d never think to look for me. They’d just call it in. So you see, I’m always trying to improve my practice. I learned new things today. So thanks. I promise, Émile, I’ll do better next time.”

He straightened up. Shoved Émile’s head forward with the gun’s muzzle.

“Ready, lady?” Dreher said to Sandra, although he wasn’t looking in her direction. “Say goodbye, then watch him die.”

The shot was fired. Sandra released an unholy scream to drown out that noise, to explode that final terror.