The Storm Murders (33 page)

“One holy fucking mess!” he yelled, as if it was her fault for bleeding. He had to clean himself up in the washroom a second time and blustered whenever he found more blood on his clothes. Somewhat satisfied at last, he switched off the lights and departed the room, taking her key and locking the door behind him.

TWENTY FOUR

They slept in.

É
mile Cinq-Mars stirred as his wife awoke to her inner clock and dutifully embarked to the barn for the care of the horses. Their man came later to exercise them, but she still got the feeding shift before morning light. Merlin tramped along beside her, but only after gazing longingly at his master snug beneath the covers as though to ask how he got to evade the chore. Dutifully, he did not disturb him, but a few gentle guttural noises indicated that an act of disobedience was tempting.

Cinq-Mars was awakened early enough himself as it turned out, startled by the jarring exclamation of his bedside telephone. Vengeful memories of his old days on the job returned, of when his phone would crow across the countryside more stridently than any alarm, a rooster up with the sun, and he, just in from pulling an all-nighter of dreary investigative legwork, was obliged to answer.

Still dark out. In this land in winter that could mean just about any hour. He didn’t bother to consult his clock before answering

“Cinq-Mars,” he said. Then coughed. His free hand rubbed his eyelids.

“I know it’s early.”

He recognized the voice, but never before had it sounded so dull, so somber.

“Even earlier where you are.”

“Good that y’all know that. Your brain is functioning.”

“You’re at work, Dupree?”

“Bad news.”

“Hang on,” Cinq-Mars told him. “Bad news can wait. I need a minute.”

“
É
mile—”

“Don’t argue.”

Cinq-Mars was less convinced than Dupree about the capability of his brain, but after all the wine and Scotch his bladder was indeed on the job. He got up, left the room to use the washroom, did his business, and snuck a peek through the half- open door into the guest bedroom as he returned. Dreher was still down for the count. When he picked up the phone again, just as sleepy, but more convincingly awake, he remained standing in his pajamas. “All right,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I got the call from my department because they heard the news. It’s already a big deal in this town, even in the middle of the night. A night watchman or a night manager, somebody like that, noticed a cart out of place at a motel in Alabama.”

Cinq-Mars took a breath at the mention of the state. Dupree paused. “Alabama,” Cinq-Mars repeated.

“Yeah. So y’all know what this means.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s bad,
É
mile. Vira Sivak, she’s dead. Cut up. Some other guy, too. The night manager or whatever was moving a cart out of the way when he noticed it was too heavy. This other guy was in the cart.”

“And Vira? Tell me about Vira.”

“Upstairs in her room.
É
mile, her ring finger was cut off, even though she didn’t have a ring on it. Same as our killings. The guy, too. He had been a visitor in her room, the local detectives think, because he left a tie and jacket behind. His finger was also cut off, and he was on the downstairs level. She was a flight up.”

The news seemed to be more than he could process so early in the day. He recognized that his head was in a dull throb and blamed the tiny sip of incredibly bad wine that Sandra served.

“I know,” Dupree commiserated, as if speaking for him. “It’s incredible. I’m going there.”

“To Alabama?”

“With a banjo on my knee if I have to. She’s FBI, but she was stationed in New Orleans and she was working a couple of our cases. Easy to imagine that the killer came from here. The FBI will never share a word on this so I need to be on-site, hear what the local cops are willing to reveal.”

“This is incredible,” Cinq-Mars managed to articulate. “I’m stunned.”

“Yeah. Me, too. She and me, we had our quarrels, truth be known, but I figured she was straight up.”

“I’ll tell her boss.”

“I’m sure he knows by now.”

“I don’t think so. He’s asleep in my house.”

“No fuck.”

“Talk to you later, Dupree. Soon.”

Dreher’s eyes were still adjusting to the light when Cinq-Mars knocked and stepped into the room through the open door.

“Good morning,
É
mile. I heard you talking.”

“You better sit up for this.”

He told him the tragic news and Dreher hardly responded. What he was saying was incomprehensible. Then he held his face in this hands for a whole minute before he got busy. He discovered that his cell phone’s battery had run down. Cinq-Mars carried over his suit jacket, and Dreher fished out the charger. Seated on the bed in his underwear, he plugged the phone in and made three calls to have the news confirmed. During the last call, Cinq-Mars excused himself and got dressed and went out to the barn to tell Sandra, and they walked back together. She started preparing breakfast, guessing that Rand Dreher would soon be off. She brought up coffee to the two men.

The American guest was still on the phone. His voice and manner remained thoroughly professional, but when he signed off they could see that he was emotionally wrung out. “I can’t believe it,” he said.

“I’m so sorry,” Sandra said.

Dreher became conscious of his state of undress and moved to reclaim his clothes. Sandra left the room, but Cinq-Mars stayed. They hadn’t had a chance to talk yet.

“What do you make of it?”

“She must’ve been followed. Somehow it was planned. I don’t know who the dead guy is. I mean, we have a name, we’re contacting his family, but it doesn’t relate, you know? I knew she was going to Alabama, and you knew, that’s about it.”

“Dupree knew.”

“What?”

“I believe I mentioned it to him.”

Dreher was tucking his shirttails into his trousers. “Perhaps there’s been too much fraternization, generally speaking, among police departments.”

Cinq-Mars wanted to remind him that he was the one who brought him onto the case in the first place after first contacting Mathers, but he let it go. Instead, he asked, “Where’re you off to?”

“Alabama, I guess. Where else would I go?”

He let that pass as well.

Dreher apologized. “I didn’t mean to snap. You’ve been kind. I’m just—I’ve never lost a colleague before.”

“Sandra has breakfast ready. There’s no point leaving before you have a bite. You can arrange flights from here if you want.”

Dreher thanked him and accepted breakfast, but argued that he needed to think things through and would do that on the drive to the airport. “I have choices with respect to flights that aren’t available to folks, but only when I show up in person. Thanks,
É
mile. I’m sorry to have dragged so much trouble into your home.”

Breakfast was both quiet and brief, then Dreher was on his way just as the first signs of dawn appeared beyond a distant horizon. The special agent stood by his rental and observed the faint glimmer.

“That’s east?” he asked at last. He seemed confused. Discombobulated. Turned around.

“This time of year, there’s a lot of south in our sunrise.”

He nodded. He seemed to understand. “Thanks,
É
mile. I’ll be in touch.”

“Take care, Rand. You and your colleagues, and of course her family, you have my sympathies. I liked her. I thought she was strong and clever.”

The former detective was underdressed and as the car pulled away he rushed back inside. Sandra was holding his mobile phone out to him. “Dupree,” she said.

É
mile took the phone and, shivering a little, asked, “What’s up?”

“One thing that might be significant,
É
mile,” Dupree told him. “I worked a few connections that got me through to an Alabama trooper who’s up to speed.”

“And?”

“It’s about the fingers that were cut off. Both victims had their throats slit, but the guy had his ring finger cut off
postmortem
. Here’s the thing—Vira was not so lucky. Her finger was cut off
before
she died.”

“That’s not the MO.” The words were off Cinq-Mars’s lips before he could even think about them.

“Made to look like, maybe, or maybe the killer didn’t get all his facts straight. Hard to say. Maybe he wanted to make it worse on a cop. Who knows?”

“Do I have to ask? Did they check the attic?”

That may have been a partial chuckle out of Dupree that he heard. “A flat roof, apparently. And they checked the roof. I believe someone from here made a point of telling them. They checked the entire motel. No sign of the killer.
É
mile, I’m told it’s a bloody mess. That’s also not the MO at all, not the same style. One more thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“Not related to this, but Flores, he told me what he wanted to tell y’all. I guess he just couldn’t wait for your call.”

“Okay.”

“The deceased couple here in New Orleans had a visitor before they were killed. Someone who claimed to be their insurance adjustor. That struck me as interesting, because each of these killings, until now, happened after a storm. After damage was done. So that could explain how the killer gained access to all those places. Not yours, maybe. But the other ones.”

Cinq-Mars remained silent, processing the news.

“
É
mile?”

“Interesting, Dupree. Makes me wonder. You’re going to Alabama?”

“I’ve already made a connection there, so it might be worthwhile.”

“Maybe you can do what Vira Sivak was going to do. Interview the previous victims’ neighbors out there. Ask that one question.”

“Was there an adjustor?”

“That’s the question.”

“I’m on it,
É
mile. We’ll talk soon.”

TWENTY FIVE

É
mile and Sandra Cinq-Mars spent the morning tidying up the house after their festive dining and imbibing with Dreher the previous evening. They were both particularly quiet, saddened by the death of someone they knew only in passing. Her death held a deeper pang given that Special Agent Vira Sivak had served in law enforcement.

Although tired,
É
mile declined to nap and resorted to more coffee. Sandra, weary also, snuggled up on the living room sofa for some midmorning shut-eye. Merlin wanted up, but had to settle for the carpet below her. Another call came in from Dupree which
É
mile took right away, not to disturb her rest too much. He spoke standing in the kitchen. Dupree’s travel plans had been denied. Yet he was able to make contact again with the state trooper known to a friend of his, and so managed access to the file on the Geraldine murders. According to that record, a neighbor stated that in the aftermath of the tornado the couple was visited by an insurance adjustor shortly before the murders. No one followed up on that, presumably because thousands of people across several counties were being visited by adjustors at the time.

“But if it’s in the file,” Cinq-Mars objected, “why in God’s name did that information not get around to anyone investigating the other cases? Dreher never mentioned it to me.”

“We’re only attaching significance,” Dupree pointed out, “on account of what Flores told us. The other investigators—no, okay, forget it. I won’t make excuses.”

“Don’t. Consider this. Flores heard it and considered it significant. The cops in Alabama, and I daresay the FBI, heard it and let it drop. What does that tell you?”

“Good on Flores, for one thing. He wants a cop job. I might get him one.”

“Hold back on that for now. We’re not trusting anybody just yet.”

“Except each other.” The man paused before he released a big belly laugh. “Don’t worry,
É
mile, we both know that that’s got limits, too.”

“Dupree, look,” Cinq-Mars carried on without commenting on their mutual level of engagement, but he was very much inclined to trust this guy, “if your superiors won’t allow you out of the state, why not see what you can come up with about the insurance company instead, the one that sent an adjustor to your town? Usually after a disaster, adjustors are outsiders, partly because so many are needed, but also because expertise in disasters is a specialty job. So they go to the disaster, since disasters tend to be all over the map, rather than living where a disaster comes to them only once in a lifetime. See if you can’t find out who he was and where he came from.”

“Already on it,
É
mile. I had to lie about why I needed two detectives, but I’ve got them working that file.”

“Good on you, Dupree.”

“Y’all realize the alternative?”

“You mean that the adjustor’s not an adjustor, that he only says he is? But it’s still good to know if that’s the case. Dupree, don’t take any offense to what I’m about to say to you, all right?”

“Why am I not going to like this?”

“Take it as a compliment that I’m asking you a question straight-up and not slinking around behind your back for the answer.”

“I’m really not going to like this, am I?”

“I told you that Vira Sivak was going to Alabama. Think now. Did you tell anyone else?”

“What’re y’all accusing me of?”

“You knew, I knew, and Rand Dreher knew that she was going. Plus anyone she told. I’m just trying to find out how wide a field that might be.”

“Why should I take offense if y’all accuse me of shoddy police work and/or murder?” He laughed, and really quite heartily. “No offense taken,
É
mile. I had no reason to tell anyone. I’m trying to think if I might’ve done so off the cuff for one reason or another or maybe I was talking in my sleep. But no. Definitely not. Any leaks, they never came from me.”

“Okay. I figured that. Dreher’s on his way to Alabama himself. Maybe he’ll let us in on anything interesting.”

“Wishful thinking, no?”

“True enough. Thanks, Dupree. Now I’m wondering if I can press you for one more item on my shopping list. I’ve been doing some thinking.”

“You’re the pearl oyster,
É
mile.”