"Pointe finale," she says, really to tease him. emile nods in agreement. She's still not sure, and as she packs up the remains of their picnic, adds, "We'll see, emile. I also have intuition, and I don't believe that you're done with this yet. You're trying too hard not to be. That won't work."

"I don't know what it is exactly, San, but I'm determined to stay out of it. That surprises me, too. I just believe it's the right thing. Let the local boys handle it."

He wanders off for a sheltered pee. On the way back, he studies, not for the first time, the cairn where someone has been sick, probably upon seeing the body as the rains would have washed it away had the person been sick earlier. So, best guess, not the killer's vomit or the victim's. If a policemen lost his appet.i.te for life here, he feels empathy for that man or woman, and thinks no less of him or her, and, rather, in a strange way, thinks more of that person. The sight that instigated this illness, a glimpse of the eviscerated victim, must have been savagely ugly. Photographs would have been taken. Although he's not on the case, not by a long shot, emile accepts that he will find it hard to resist the temptation to examine them should anyone offer. He hopes that no one will.

"Why, emile," Sandra wants to know upon his return, "are you so convinced that the police didn't see what you did? You haven't spoken to them about this in any great detail."

"The footprints in the gra.s.s give them away. We can see where the investigators tromped through here, and none of their footprints goes high enough, up to where there was an attempt-three attempts, I'd say-at digging."

She has another issue to broach. "If you think you know the killer, who is it?"

"Remember the last time you had too much knowledge?"

Another time. Another place. She knew too much and was kidnapped. "Different situation, surely."

"True. You're in no danger here. But you might meet the person in question. Are you sure that you won't accidentally tip off that person about my suspicions? How could you not? Or treat that person differently than you would otherwise, which, in a way, is the same thing? On top of all that, you know me. I need to keep things inside. Let the kitty out of the bag too soon and it never grows up to be a cat."

"That's not a saying!"

"I just made it up."

"emile Cinq-Mars. You're a-"

"A what?"

"A piece of work." A notion occurs to her. "A seven days' piece of work. There. I just made that up."

Happily enough, and feeling a close bond following the intimacy of their talk, they depart the crime scene and carry on across the edge of the sea and sky. They don't know that they are both thinking more or less the same thing. emile said, "Let the local boys handle it," and he's hoping that they can. Sandra, on her part, is hoping that they will.

SIXTEEN.

Officer Wade Louwagie pulls up his squad car outside the old-fashioned General Store so popular with tourists, in particular, and island folk, as well. He is on his way to interview the group that has rented out the former City Hall, to check if they were up on the cliffs the night of the murder. The day is turning into a warm one. He hasn't had much to eat and is feeling light-headed, even faint and strangely distracted, so he stops to pick up a sandwich and a cold Dr Pepper.

He chooses the egg salad.

"I guess it would be stupid for me to say the sandwiches are selling like hotcakes today, but they are, so really I should say the sandwiches are selling like sandwiches, since that's what they are, but they don't usually sell out so quickly, so we have less choice to offer now, because they're selling like hotcakes. You see?"

He doesn't. The cashier, Margaret, scarcely takes a breath, and the cop is hard-pressed to follow her logic. "I'm fine with the egg," he manages to say.

"You're kind," she a.s.sures him.

He pays, thanks her, and is about to leave when she declares in a voice that's almost defiant, her arms emphatically crossed under her modest bosom, "I'll let you kiss me in the back room, Mr. Policeman. Nothing more. A nice kiss. In the back. That's my offer."

Now he knows that he's truly lost in this conversation. The best that he can muster in return is, "What?"

"A kiss. Don't you? Kiss girls, I mean. I do. I mean, I kiss boys, not girls, but you get me. That's my offer. In exchange."

Something is being bartered here, but he has no clue. He's gone from light-headed to dizzy, and he's dizzy enough that he's nervous about it now. Sometimes island girls just turn his crank and he's come to believe that they do it for a lark, to make fun of him. This one is more puzzling than any.

"In exchange for what?" he asks.

"You know."

"No," he contends, "I don't."

She beckons him closer and cups his left ear while he stares down at the slight, yet mesmerizing cleavage of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, revealed now as she leans in to whisper. "For information. About the murder. The gossip. You know. Tell me stuff. The lowdown on the hoedown and I'll give you a nice kiss. That's fair, no?"

When they both retreat, she's smiling and he has no clue if she's serious, half-serious, or having fun with him to the hilt. She looks like she's about to burst out laughing, so he dares not take her up on it. He'd be the b.u.t.t of jokes. Louwagie marshals his shoulders back, as though to summon a measure of dignity.

"I'm an officer of the law, ma'am. I don't partake in gossip."

"Partake! Oh. There's a word. I'm only kidding anyway. You know that, right?"

He does now.

"You know how it is. People come in here all day and they want the scoop. What can I tell them? What's, you know, public knowledge? What's okay to pa.s.s on? I mean, a murder, come on, geez, we don't have those around here. We burn each other's cars and boats, houses-sometimes we might dangle somebody off a cliff for a few hours-but we don't do anything serious. This is serious. People want to know what's up. Should we be worried? I never lock my doors. What for? Should I now? Should I?"

Louwagie yearns for a customer to walk through the front door or to come out from the vast array of goods in the back and rescue him, at the very least interrupt. No such luck. He's still thinking about how her b.r.e.a.s.t.s glow at the edges of the fabric of her blouse and blue bra and he's imagining what that kiss in the back room might be like if that were ever possible and not just another infernal tease. He hates being a cop sometimes. Young women tease him so freely so often that he must come across to them as easy pickings.

"I'm sorry, ma'am-"

"Ma'am? Ma'am! Come on. Do I look like a ma'am to you?"

Yet she's still grinning at him, despite her tone, looking as pleased as punch.

He tries to smile back. Everything is a joke to some people. Even he is.

She helps him out. "It's Margaret. I've told you before, but you never take it in. What's wrong with you? You look like you're going to fall over. I have a boyfriend, but, you know"-she waves a hand in midair-"we're kinda shaky. I mean, I'm always kinda shaky with boys."

"No wonder," he says, the first bright remark he's managed.

She gets what he means, too, and laughs off the tease. Indiscriminately offering kisses to cops could cast any relationship upon a rocky sh.o.r.e. "Oh that," she says. "I was only kidding, right? So, what can you tell me about the murder? Much? Anything? Not gossip. Not that, just, you know, what you're allowed to say so I can turn it into gossip. Ha-ha."

She doesn't laugh, she just says, "Ha-ha." Then she laughs at her own remark and so does the officer. With a tip of his cap, he's quietly heading out the door. An escape.

Something happens on the way back to his squad car. At first, he's not convinced that what he's feeling will amount to anything. That it's merely another dose of whatever has been ailing him on this day. He's less certain as a wave swamps him. His right knee buckles, he almost goes down, as if he's been shot. Then he feels remarkably dizzy. He's not eaten all day, but that shouldn't be enough to do this to him. He makes it to his vehicle and puts his sandwich bag on the roof of the car and stands there, tenuously upright, both hands against the roof, as though he's being frisked. He stays that way awhile, as if under arrest. He knows he has to open the door but that doesn't feel possible at the moment. He has to get into the car and drive away even though it feels out of the question. He has to interrogate some people, but he has no clue what questions to ask. He's afraid to get into the car. He's scared to death to drive. He thinks he'll drive straight into the sea. Off a bridge or some such. He stares at the steering wheel and fears getting into the car more and more every second. A wave is coming over him again and this time it won't disperse. He has to do it though. He has to open the door and get in. He must overcome his condition. He has overcome his condition, why is it back on him now?

Corporal Louwagie puts his hand on the door latch.

Holds it there awhile.

He hears another door slam behind him.

Checks over his shoulder.

It's Margaret. "Are you sick?" she asks. He can't reply. He can't speak.

He has to get in the car first.

He opens the door.

He looks in the car. He just looks in. He can't imagine sitting in there. And then he topples over.

He's on the ground and he's ashamed of himself and he knows he can't let this defeat him, but he panics. He fears that he's already finished, beaten by this disease, and the girl, Margaret, is by his side and he would like that, to kiss her in the back room, but he can no more tell her that than he can get in his car, and he struggles as she paws him, tries to stand while she tries to get him to stay down, to relax, to stop fighting as he claws at the car to help get himself back on his feet, and he wants to say, I'm having an episode, as if that will explain everything when the phrase has never explained anything, but that's what the doctors say, and he tells her, "I'm having an episode," and just saying that, getting the words out, admitting it, helps so much.

It's miraculous how much it helps. His breathing relaxes.

"What can I do?" she begs. "What can I do?"

He wants to kiss her.

He has his wits about him though. He knows better than to say what he really wants. "Help me stand up straight. Don't let people see me. I don't want anyone to see me."

Together they get him properly on his feet. He hangs on to the open door.

"Now what?" she pleads. "Oh my G.o.d oh my G.o.d, what's wrong?"

"Please. I don't want anyone to see."

"Cars are coming, but."

"The back room," he says.

"What?"

"Take me in there. Can you?" He doesn't say, You don't have to kiss me, but he wants to say just that. He says, "I need time," which makes more sense.

They start off. "Oh my G.o.d," she says along the way. "Oh my G.o.d. What happened to you?"

"Don't let anybody see me."

"n.o.body's going to see you!" She suspects that a few people will.

Margaret guides him up the stairs and into the store. What she calls the back room is all the way forward, really just in the rear of the older front section. It's a private s.p.a.ce for employees to hang out and for the storage of surplus supplies like cigarettes and coffee and candy. He's able to sit and accepts a sip of water from a paper cup that she hands to him. She stands over him.

"Can you ... go back ... and close ... the door?"

"The door?"

"The car door."

"Oh. Yes. Sure. Stay here. I'll be right back."

They both know that he's not going anywhere.

While she's gone, his head spins less. His feet feel far away, and when he looks at them, he contracts the toes inside his boots as though he's squeezing mush. He squeezes them just to experience the odd sensation. He breathes heavily now but more evenly and senses that he's coming back to some sort of equilibrium. Out the corner of his eye he spots a door ajar. He knows that he should not look, but he does. He sees the edge of a toilet in the enclosure. Seeing that toilet in that small room causes him to reel and he panics, and when the girl comes back he is on the floor, moaning and clutching his chest, and she rocks him where he lies, and when another girl comes in she screams at her to take care of the store, "Take care of the store! I got this!"

She's got this.

She rocks him. Back to life, in a way. She knows when tears are on his cheeks that he's probably getting better, so rocks him less. She'll let him come out of this in a way of his own choosing. Keep his stupid male pride intact. He comes to his knees, then props himself up onto the chair again, and sits there, silently wringing his hands.

After a while, she whispers, "What happened?"

"I had an episode."

And she says, "I don't mean now. I mean, what, what happened to you?"

He wants to kiss her. Maybe that's what happened this time, the make-believe suggestion of a kiss. He says, "Do you mind-I'm sorry. This is crazy. Do you mind closing that door over there?"

"The toilet?"

"Yes. The john."

"Sure. Why?"

He doesn't want to say. Then thinks that he should. "It's a memory." Then he says, "Somebody else saw me."

"No biggie. I'll tell her to keep her mouth shut. And she will. Just like I will. If she doesn't do what I say I'll kill her, and that'll keep her quiet for sure."

She's always joking, this woman. He can't keep up.

She goes over and shuts the door and comes back and sits opposite the policeman. That's when he tells her about the child's head in the toilet bowl and what that did to him, how it wrecked him for life and that's why he got shuffled off to Grand Manan, to recover.

"But today, you saw something just as bad."

Even though he recoiled initially, and his stomach heaved and he was paralyzed by dread, her statement helps him understand what has laid him low. A delayed reaction. A whiplash effect.

"What I saw on the ridge," he admits, as though he has something to confess, "was nearly as bad. A reminder anyway. But it wasn't the worst."

"What was the worst?"

"Looking at the photographs they took afterward. I don't know why."

She leans into him, speaks quietly. "You have to sit here and take care of yourself, Officer Louwagie."

"Wade," he tells her.

"Okay. Wade. n.o.body's going to know. Okay? It's our secret."

He holds so many secrets so tightly to his bones. He feels a certain ease in having one that at last he can share.