"I don't know why you're telling me any of this," emile says.

"Sure you do," Sandra contradicts him, and he antic.i.p.ates some edginess between them to come out later on.

"Commander Racine contacted me," Isler says. He lets that hang in the air as an explanation.

Sandra takes up the challenge. "My husband is retired, first and foremost. As well, allow me to state the obvious for you. He's not a Mountie."

The comment is more pointed than emile realizes, as the two cops seem sheepish now.

"I'm the problem," the other cop, Louwagie, maintains.

"You're not the problem," Isler states, and sighs as though he might not believe what he said.

"What problem? And guys, make it short and sweet. I'm supposed to be taking it easy with my wife here. We're having a drink. It's c.o.c.ktail hour. I'd ask you to join us, but, you know, pardon my manners, I don't necessarily want you to stay, not until I know what's up."

That's going to win him brownie points with Sandra later on, he's sure.

"Another man has died," Isler reveals, deliberately not answering the question. "Natural causes, most likely. We're having an autopsy performed."

"Why?"

"To confirm natural causes. Primarily to give us a time of death. You see, a young woman came onto the island last night by fish boat. Through that big storm, if you can believe. Her father died sometime during the night. The other man, the one who was murdered, was in her father's house last night. So. She arrives mysteriously in the dark. Two men who were in her house are dead the next day. Suspicious, no? I've called for an autopsy, since our experts are on the island for the murder anyhow. If we can pin down time of death, that might tell me if her father was alive or dead when she showed up. And it might help us guess when the other man left the house."

"Okay. Makes sense. But what does this have to do with me, and what's Corporal Louwagie's problem that you say is not a problem?"

The two cops again look at one another. Louwagie chooses to admit why he's a liability. "I have PTSD. In recovery, let's say. The bra.s.s have let me hide out here, a.s.suming I only deal with drunks, drugs, and arson."

"Arson?" Cinq-Mars asks.

"It's a thing here," the uniformed Mountie explains. "It's how the locals get even when they feel they've been done an injustice. They're not into law and order so much, not in the traditional sense. It's more a case of you screw me and I'll burn your house down, or your car, or your boat, or your dinghy, or your back shed, depending on the level of the grievance."

"Only now there's been a murder. Which suggests a larger level of grievance," Cinq-Mars says.

"When somebody really gets ticked off, the usual practice is to hang the other person off a cliff for a spell. That usually gets the message across."

"Nice," Cinq-Mars says.

"Interesting," Sandra notes. The light is lovely at this hour across the fields, the birdsong and chatter hypnotic. She doesn't want to lose that sense of magic, of equilibrium, of peace, but this talk isn't helping. She really doesn't want to lose her husband to crime fighting once again.

Isler explains, "I'm the I.O. But I'm not stationed here, I'm out of Saint John. I can come in once, twice a week, tops. So Corporal Louwagie has to carry the load. This has been a gruesome crime and ... well..."

"I'm not great with gruesome," Louwagie confirms. "The murder was a h.e.l.l of a mess. That said, I'm handling it. I'm all right. I haven't fallen apart yet."

"Commander Racine thought that since you have this reputation, Detective Cinq-Mars, that you might be willing to back up Corporal Louwagie while I'm engaged elsewhere. Talk him through it. Suggest. See that he stays on track."

"Make sure I don't come apart at the seams is what he really means," Louwagie says, cutting to the chase.

"Will you?" emile asks him. "Come apart?"

"I don't think I will. I'm doing all right. The past hasn't totally come back to haunt me, not totally, not yet, but then again..."

"Then again what?"

"I haven't tried to sleep yet."

s.h.i.t, Cinq-Mars is thinking.

"Pretty gross, what I saw this morning. I can't pretend it doesn't bring up some bad stuff. Things I'm shaky about. I'll see a shrink. Talk about it. It's not good to hold that stuff in."

s.h.i.t s.h.i.t s.h.i.t, Cinq-Mars is thinking.

"I'm getting the picture," he says. "Corporal Louwagie, are you aware of any cults on your island?"

"Cults? Some of the churches are a bit wacko."

"Outside cults."

He says no.

"Then you might want to check out the old City Hall in Castalia. People in there are showing up from around the continent to try to learn how to fly. I don't mean in planes or ultralights. They're teaching themselves how to levitate. Without much success, I gather."

Louwagie is still staring at him without any sign of comprehension, while Isler's chin is wagging up and down.

"So you think people who think they can learn to levitate might be out in a storm at night," Isler says.

"Trying to marshal the forces of nature, or some such. Maybe hoping a lightning bolt will strike their collective a.s.s and shoot them off the ground."

The plainclothes detective removes a red book from his shirt pocket and jots down that note. He looks at emile then. "So you're already helping and you just arrived on the island."

"That's the limit of my support," emile lets him know.

"emile," Sandra says sharply. If he's declining their request for a.s.sistance, she guesses that he's doing so on her account. She knows that this might not be the best motivation in the long run.

"No. Look. I've not had a summer off my entire life. I want that. Specifically, I want this summer. So, gentlemen, I don't care what's going on with your investigation. I'm not interested in being an informed party. Tell Racine not to call. If you want my advice, let Corporal Louwagie go with this as far as he can, and if he can't, get somebody else in here. Just don't call me. That's final. Guys, been a pleasure. Nice meeting you both. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to sit here awhile and do nothing but listen to the birds and drink vodka until the fish boats return and the sun goes down. If that's okay with you. Or even if it's not."

Sandra knows that her husband possesses the ability to make it known to all and sundry when he will broach no further argument, and people always get that. These two policemen get that now. She gets it, too. Whatever point she might raise will fall on deaf ears, and for once she is quite happy with that. No blame falls on her for his decision. emile has spoken. He is not going to be on this case. n.o.body, not even emile himself, she can tell, doubts that for a second.

"Thank you, sir," p.r.o.nounces Isler. "I'm sorry for our intrusion."

"Thank you," Louwagie says, and his voice conveys that he refers to more than tolerating the visit. He wasn't given a ringing endors.e.m.e.nt, although he did receive exactly the feedback he wants the bra.s.s to hear. He does not know if he can take whatever is coming in the deep dark of the night, when the trembles may overtake him. Yet, time has gone by, and he does want an opportunity to find out. It's time to give this up or get on with it. To decide if he is healthy enough for this line of work, and if not, to face that fact.

The men depart, the couple gaze off across the meadow and sip their drinks, and after about five minutes go by, emile hazards to say, "Where were we?"

Sandra touches the back of his hand tenderly. "Right here, emile," she says. "We were right here where we are right now."

The first of the fish boats, with a bright green hull, eases its way back into Whale Cove at the end of a long day's work.

PART 2.

THIRTEEN.

The sun has set beyond the distant hills to the west, the sky on the horizon turning a brilliant crimson that reflects on the sea between Grand Manan and the mainland. The tide is rising as Aaron Roadcap departs his cabin on the steep slope of Dark Harbour, waves rolling gently across the long flat plain of the sand-and-rock sh.o.r.e. Unlike the previous night, when he embarked to relish the storm in solitude, on this peaceful night he seeks companionship, and walks down a trail to the waterside, then up a separate path that draws him back into the thick trees of the cliffside. He carries on past the shacks and ramshackle cabins of his neighbors. Enough light lingers in the sky to make out the rocks, stones, and hollows along the path, and to avoid patches still muddy from the downpour.

Roadcap is strikingly handsome, with a waviness to his black hair, which he wears just a bit long around the ears and at the nape of his neck. His shoulders are cla.s.sically broad, and on the hottest days of summer, out in the shallows cutting dulse with his shirt off, not only do the women giggle and make no bones about their admiration of his pectorals, his six-pack, his waist, his tush, the men let loose a few catcalls as well. They laugh, but their overt mockery perhaps is feigned. Their admiration differs from the women's only by being tinged with envy.

He takes longer strides up a steeper embankment to gain the tumbledown cabin he's heading for. The roof overhanging the long porch is tinged with moss. Chairs face the sea and branches have been cut away to clear the view. Four men sit out tonight, their voices muted in the hush of the evening. At the near end, a woman wearing gla.s.ses knits, and at the far end, her young daughter sits in a huddle on an old rocker above her terrier, her legs pulled up, her chin resting on her knees. She fiddles with her fingers, bored among the adults, but perks up as Roadcap arrives. Steps he climbs at the end of the balcony aren't rotted yet, they only look that way. They're often damp and usually bereft of sunlight under the canopy of the forest, the humidity having stained them green. They're slippery. The porch repeats the same look-damp, st.u.r.dy enough to warrant sitting upon without being in imminent danger of skidding down the cliff. Not a place where anyone wants to arrive gussied up. Which is of no account, as the regulars on hand tonight and those who habitually show up rarely step out of their work clothes.

Pulling up the first free chair he comes to, Roadcap sits between Angela and the others. He leans back and gives a wink down the aisle to Della Rae, whose happy grin sails back to him across the porch.

"Guess we yakked about the devil too loudly in our haste," the man called Frank attests. He has the grubbiest appearance of the bunch, having not washed up since coming off the beach where he cuts and collects dulse. Grime streaks his forehead. Not unlike the latest arrival, the others have cleaned up and look half-decent. "Ears burning there, Roadcap?"

"Is that what drew me down to this h.e.l.l pot?" he jousts.

"Cops drive in, cop cars go back out all day," the man known as Chip says. He's exaggerating. About sixty, he's a scrawny man, wizened. Three days growth of white whiskers skim his jaw. His fingers have been purpled and made gnarly by time, bad weather, and long stretches of work out in the sun and during cold winters. "If I get a chance, maybe I'll take your cabin over."

"I'm not selling," Roadcap replies. He knows what Chip's getting at.

"Who's buying? Thinking about taking it over, that's all, once you're outta there, doing time for this or that. Confiscating. That's what I had in mind. Said nothing about buying."

A few men chuckle, although Roadcap appears less amused. Plump Angela peers over her gla.s.ses to see how he takes the ribbing, finds that he's all right, then goes back to swishing her needles around.

"The Mounties didn't book me yet," Roadcap reports. "So the cabin stays with me. Beer for sale, Angie?"

"Cooler's half-full, Aaron. Your money's about as good as the next man's. Maybe better."

"No discount for the better, I suppose."

"Nothing much changes, hey?"

Roadcap helps himself from a cooler that's flooded with melting ice and twists off the cap. He drops three loonies into the tray on the windowsill and doesn't take change. That's what she means when she says his money is better than the next man's, as the next man rarely tips. He takes a long pull on his Moosehead and sits down again in the same chair, and this time the terrier shoves itself up from its nap. With some difficulty, he stretches his old bones, then waddles down to say h.e.l.lo to the newcomer. Roadcap leans forward and gives the dog's floppy ears a vigorous scratch.

"Why they interested in you at all?" Chip asks. Everyone turns to take in Roadcap's reply. "If they was looking for me, I'd understand that more."

"You heard about Lescavage?"

No one answers, and the quiet is strained and holds a portent. Even Della Rae is looking down the porch at him, interested in the adults' conversation now, and Roadcap, as if summoned, looks up.

"Don't jump to conclusions, people. I didn't do it. I happened to find the body, that's all."

They continue to stare down at him until a weathered blond man whose name is Kai finally says, "Jesus, Aaron."

Angela puts her knitting down. "You can say that ten times over and tack on a Hail Mary to boot. You found the body? We heard it was gore city. The reverend got cut up, they say. What's supposed to be on the inside of him was outside."

Roadcap resumes patting the dog's lovely soft ears. He sees a flea jump and takes his hand away then.

"Brutal," he concurs. "Yeah."

Frank, the last man in the row before the girl, declares, "Holy Mother of c.r.a.p."

Everyone seems to agree. They join in a mutual silence.

Roadcap breaks it. "You want me to talk about what I saw. Dish up the gore city details. But that's not going to happen, so how about we change the subject? There's a kid sitting around out here."

"Who, me?" Della Rae asks.

"Yeah, you. What are you now anyway, seven?"

She sighs with some elaboration, pokes out her tongue, and wags her head at the porch roof, as if she's heard this joke before and found it tiresome then. Secretly, she's tickled to be the center of attention.

"I'm two and a half, okay? So there."

Kai asks, "How old are you really, kid? No, seriously, I forgot."

"I'm nine! Okay? Got it? Nine? Christ, you're gonna ask me again tomorrow."

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain, Della Rae," her mother trumpets in a singsong voice.

"You do."

Men on the porch say "Oooooo" to mark her lippiness.

"Never in vain, dear," Angela disagrees. "In anger, sometimes. In tribute, on occasion. In exasperation, quite often. But never in vain."

Della Rae wags her head at the porch roof again.

"Let's hear it for all that's holy," Chip proposes. "I mean, isn't it the f.u.c.k? Lescavage gets sliced up. His belly fat is cut right out. All his disgusting squirmy stomach rope is lying on the ground. What do you think he did to p.i.s.s somebody off that much?"

"Could be there's a madman on the loose," Angela says. "Could be he didn't p.i.s.s n.o.body off. Could be this is what you call a random act of violence."

"My a.s.s. He p.i.s.sed somebody off."

"My mom's right," Della Rae argues. "I mean, lookit here. There's three or four madmen sitting right on this porch. Any one of you freaks could've done it."

She smiles and giggles all on her own, and while the men pull faces, they are pleased to have been singled out for her notice.

"These guys don't think that's so funny, Della Rae," Roadcap tells her, even though that might not be the case. "Know why?"

"Why?" Della Rae leans forward to get a better look at him.

"Because it might be true."

They give out a few hoots over that.