SEVENTEEN.

Returned to the sanctuary of their summer cabin, emile and Sandra Cinq-Mars enjoyed a peaceful late-afternoon nap. The timbre of birdsong lulled them to sleep, and as they awaken, the scent of sea air wafts through the open windows, a magical stimulation of the senses. Rising with some minor muscle soreness brought on by their long trek, emile reconfirms that he's glad not to be on the job. Glad also not to be running down the murder that's presented itself locally, like some kind of devilish, or at least impish, temptation.

He wants no part of it.

This is so much better than that. Just lying around.

Besides, the time has come for drinks.

The high that routed the storm brought with it warmer temperatures, and the day progressively heated up. They choose to occupy the shady side of the porch to imbibe. To combat the heat, emile opts for a long vodka tonic, while Sandra fixes her favorite cranberry cosmopolitan. A few salty snacks and mixed nuts come out. Sandra tucks her legs in under her on a comfy wicker divan and opens her newly acquired, nearly antique book on numerology, while emile is content to stare out at the gra.s.ses and the bay beyond, observing a dalliance of warblers and thrush, goldfinch and pine siskin. Way off to the right a dog romps freely, literally bounding into the air as though its abundant happiness is all but impossible to contain.

Sandra observes, "We've had quite a day, emile."

Although she contends that he always has some other level to achieve in any talk, emile has detected a pattern that's similar in her. Whenever she utters what might sound to be nothing more than a casual observation, a way of breaking a silence, such thoughts with Sandra inevitably instigate the onset of a trail worth traveling, as if her life is perpetually littered by bread crumbs. emile conveys a soft utterance and waits for her to say more, then smiles to himself when she does so.

"Taking care of horses ... putting in a hard day's work is satisfying, you know? Get all the ch.o.r.es done, the animals exercised, watered, fed, brushed, put to bed. And yet the prize for that long day's work-which is hard, and you can never ask the horses for a weekend off-the prize is always to get up in the morning and realize that you have to do it all over again."

"Whereas here, we don't know what tomorrow brings."

"My sentiment exactly. I like this. I love it. I could get used to it in a hurry."

"Mmm," he concurs, although vaguely.

"Horses are demanding," she imparts from long experience. "Seven days' work and the next week begins. Only it never ends."

He agrees again, yet with only a slight grunt.

For her part, she knows that he is thinking of something and so delays speaking, hoping that he'll come out with it. He doesn't always. emile prefers to keep contrary thoughts to himself.

This time though, he declares his position. "Ironic, in a way. Today I b.i.t.c.hed about devoting my life to criminals. Chasing them down really means being tied to them by a kind of umbilical cord. I wasn't complaining exactly, and you're not either, but I was reflecting on what a shame it is to devote one's life to criminals. You have a similar thought-namely, that the care of horses takes up the bulk of your life. Both the better part of your day and ultimately, let's face it, the better part of your life. You'll notice a similar theme running through here."

She does. "Careers are demanding, no matter what they are. Even though we've been lucky enough to choose ours, and to have enjoyed them, a career can still have a shelf life. Comes a time to move on."

No grunt this time, which she extrapolates to mean that he's not quite ready either to agree or disagree, but he's taking her ideas deeper into his consideration.

"So, individually," he begins, "our lives have been changing, right? Yours and mine. Maybe I'm just being hopeful here, but perhaps our couple troubles stem from that, when really we should count ourselves fortunate. We're both seeking a change. The trick might be to find out what we're looking for and track it down together."

A different p.r.o.ng to the discussion altogether, and Sandra muses that she may have been apprehended by her husband's famous penchant for speaking at cross purposes to help foil a culprit's gambit. Yet she puts that notion aside. He's right, of course. They have to talk about this, get down to the root of the matter.

"I'm not sure about anything being a trick, emile. I take your meaning. I take your intention. But we can't be facile if this is going to be real."

"Expressed poorly, then. But ... you do take my meaning?"

"We need to go over what we do next. No criminals for you. No horses for me. Is either possible? If so, what else is there? Dogs and cats?"

He laughs, and sips his vodka tonic. "Why not? Go save wildlife. A zebra in Africa one week, some kind of lizard in Brazil the next. Then off to the Rockies to rescue Bigfoot from an avalanche. Exciting, no?"

"Haven't you had enough excitement for one life?"

He surprises her. "What I'm feeling right now, with this view and this drink and the company of my lovely wife, is as relaxed as I've ever been. I'm skeptical that this is real, but I like it. As the kids used to say, I can dig it."

"Speaking of digging," Sandra asks, "what was that fisherman up to this morning with his shovel?"

He laughs again. "Maybe you should do the detective work from now on, San, and I'll take care of creatures. The change might do us both good. I could become a bird-watcher maybe."

"Okay, now, here's a subject!" She springs this on him, and her sauciness is evident before she explains a thing. "Speaking of what suits us both. Old story, but we've noted that your libido is not what it used to be."

"Now what?" He isn't really perturbed, knowing that she's always delicate around the subject.

"Hear me out. It's understandable. You're older. But I was thinking. Why wait for nightfall, when you're tired, to try? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? I know you want to meet me halfway on this."

"All the way, I'd say, is what I want," he teases.

"So then, I was thinking. You know what some people call 'nooners.' We could have ... c.o.c.ktailers. No pun intended. It's just a suggestion. No pressure whatsoever. But a drink, a romp in the hay, a sleep, then dinner, then a quiet evening. We could try it, emile. Not now. That's pressure and unfair. But we could try it. You might like it. The way our life is set up here, by the sea, could be the ticket."

The idea has merit, although he's not sure about one thing and says so. "Why not now?"

She smiles in return, and something might develop, but the sunny disposition of their day is clouded by the sound of a car, not a vehicle in the best running order, pulling up in front of the cottage. Sandra goes down to the end of the back porch and peers around the side wall. A tall, astonishingly long-legged woman uncurls from an older Porsche. The visitor neglects to turn the engine off at first, and leans back inside the small frame to eject her keys. When she stands upright again, she catches sight of Sandra around the corner of the house and smiles. A perfunctory greeting, the smile fading immediately upon being summoned. Sandra notices that the young woman appears under duress.

"May I help you?" Sandra calls out.

"I'm looking for emile Cinq-Mars. The detective."

Mentioning his old profession is a warning sign, but Sandra invites her around to the back.

emile is on his feet by the time the visitor appears. She scales the short stairs and arrives with her open palm extended, stepping past Sandra to shake his hand. She's a handsome woman, though not a conventional beauty, her features strong, and she carries her height with confidence. She then retraces a step and offers her hand to Sandra. "My name is Madeleine Orrock. How do you do?"

"Miss Orrock," emile says. He has a handle on whom she must be.

"I go by Maddy."

"I'm Sandra, and of course my husband, emile. What can we do for you?"

"Can we talk?" the tall woman asks. "Sorry to intrude. I'm a bit shaky. I've just had news. Sir, it was suggested that I come to see you."

"Who by?" emile inquires.

"The police," she states.

Sandra takes a deeper breath, glances at her husband, and offers Maddy a drink. The woman declines until emile insists, then she opts for a vodka tonic like his. She's ushered into a wicker chair and Sandra volunteers to make the c.o.c.ktail. emile sits on the love seat closest to her. He doesn't mean to inflict his incisive stare down his imposing long beak but does so in any case. Force of habit. She seems ready to bolt, he projects, so breaks off his penetrating gaze.

"What police?" he asks. "Louwagie, I presume."

"No," she says, "no. This one came to see me on his behalf. Officer Louwagie is taking some downtime, this other officer told me, but they both thought that I should be informed right away."

"Informed?"

"That was the question I asked. Informed? So, expecting to be informed, I invited the officer into my house, where he proceeded to interrogate me."

Sandra hears this last line as she opens the screen door with her hip and places her guest's drink down on the small oval table beside her. Maddy takes a sip at first, then a gulp, and Sandra asks, "Should I leave?"

Maddy begs her to stay. "This isn't private. I mean, it is. I hope you don't tell anyone about this, but I've interrupted, I've intruded. Please stay."

Sandra agrees after receiving her husband's subtle nonverbal accord-he is the person this woman has sought out, after all-and emile continues. "You were interrogated. About what?"

"You two are visitors. You have no reason to care."

"We heard about a recent murder. Is this related?"

"No, sir. At least I presume that's a coincidence. My father died two nights ago."

"You have my sympathies. I'd heard. The police told me. An autopsy is to be conducted."

"Normally, no one bothers with the death of an old man. Not here. But because of the murder, a visiting medical examiner is handy."

"What's become of that?" emile is forming an impression of his visitor. Her intelligence is apparent, and she probably keeps herself together and controlled. Something's upset her, and he doubts that she's accustomed to being in a state. He imagines that her life normally goes along swimmingly.

"Do you know who my father is?"

"Should I?"

"He owns this island. Or he did. h.e.l.l, I guess I do now."

"Owns," Cinq-Mars repeats, both a leading question and a criticism.

"Okay, an overstatement. I'm understating it if I say that not much on this island was bought or sold without my father raking in a cut."

"I see. And he died of old age?"

"I thought so. I drove in from Boston because he a.s.sured me left, right, and sideways that he was on death's door. Honestly, I didn't want to come. We had that kind of relationship. Anyway, I was hoping against hope that he might say something. He insisted that he wanted me here. I came, hoping for a deathbed confession. Or apology. Or something.

"You drove through the storm."

"I did, yeah."

"As we did, actually."

"Really?"

"On a different errand entirely. How did you find your father when you got here, Maddy?"

"I arrived too late. He was already dead."

"Again, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Yes. Well. n.o.body else is. Truth be told, it's not much of a loss. You'll find that out sooner or later if you take this case, so I might as well tell you now."

Sandra and emile exchange a questioning glance.

"Maddy, there may be a misunderstanding. I don't know why you're seeking me out."

"Officer Methot-Rejean Methot-he suggested it. He said that you already said no to investigating the murder of Reverend Lescavage, but he also said that you might be my only hope. Things aren't looking too good for me otherwise."

emile laments, "I'm still in the dark here."

"Sorry. I'm rattled. Making no sense. Okay, I arrived home. My father was dead. I've been told that he was being looked after by his housemaid. She was relieved that night by Simon Lescavage. That's what she told me anyway."

Up to this moment, emile is feeling that he might be in the company of a soft loony, someone who is bright and privileged from whom he might need to extricate himself early on and perhaps with difficulty. Now the parameters are beginning to interest him.

"The same clergyman who was killed."

"That's him. When I arrived home, he wasn't there. My father was neatly tucked in his bed with two nickels on his eyelids. The bedcovers smoothed out. He seemed peaceful in death. As though he pa.s.sed away quietly."

emile sips from his own drink. He wipes a bead of perspiration from his left temple. Now that he's gotten over his concern that she might be a trifle daffy, he sees that she's not only smart but credible. He doesn't feel he's dealing with someone who's trying to put something over on him. Though if it's true that a policeman directed her to him, he needs to have a word with that man.

"What was the agenda for this so-called interrogation? What did Officer Methot want to know, essentially?"

"Honestly, I think he wanted to know if I killed Simon Lescavage."

"Really?" emile is surprised. He recalls that the two officers on the island had not been given laudatory reviews. One was dismissed as being of lesser intelligence, the other a basket case. "Did he indicate why he might think that way?"

"I arrived here during the storm. By boat. With the power on the island off. That's held against me as if I'm responsible for the rain and the power outage. I was home alone. That's also held against me. Apparently, the whole point of my arriving in a storm was to do away with people when no one was around. They think I was the last person to see Reverend Lescavage alive, since he was in my house. He left before I arrived. How do I prove that? No witnesses were out on a night like that one."

"The slimmest, barest of threads. Only natural they'd ask questions, given that you and the minister were in the same house on the night that he was killed, even if it was at different times. They don't know that for certain. Are you sure that the officer is accusing you of anything? Not just asking the necessary questions?"

All three persons on the porch know that he's coddling Maddy Orrock now, patronizing her, and both emile and Sandra see that she does not take it well.

"It gets worse, sir." Her voice is strident. "Much worse."

"Go on."

"The autopsy on my father has confirmed that he apparently did not die of natural causes, as everyone, including myself, had a.s.sumed. He died of suffocation. My father, apparently, was put to death. He was murdered. And, while an endless line of persons known and unknown would've liked nothing better than to do that to him, I am, apparently, considered to be in that line and also, quite probably, close to the front. Or first in line. So I'm a person of interest in the death of my father, and, since he was last seen in my house, of Reverend Lescavage, too."

"Did you kill your father?" No longer humoring her.

"Please. Of course not. He was dead when I arrived. Would I have, if I had the chance? I'm not the type. Could I have? Yes, in the sense that I had the opportunity if-if-I arrived earlier, but I still don't have it in me. Did I have motive? I'm inheriting a fortune that was coming my way anyway, so the most I can be accused of with respect to motive is impatience. The whole thing is preposterous, except that I know this island. Once the word gets out-and it will-that my dad was murdered, everybody, and I mean everybody, will believe it was me."

A quiet lingers on the porch, then Sandra says, "That's dreadful."

"And how-" emile begins a question, then checks himself to make sure he is not being impolite. "Not that you are not welcome, you are perfectly welcome, but how have you come to arrive on my doorstep?"

She understands his query. This is an out-of-the-blue visit for her, as well. Less than an hour ago she'd never heard his name.

"My father and I," she explains, "did not have a good relationship. You've gathered that. Yes, an understatement. Still. He's my father. So having him die, I haven't known what to think or how to react or even what it is I feel. I have to concede that I'm feeling more than I expected. I'm being hit with a few things that go back a long way."