A Dismal Thing To Do (17 page)

“No, I have to wait for the bomb squad. I’m sure Mr. Bain won’t give you any trouble.”

Bain’s parting shot was “What’s goin’ to happen to my truck? Leave it there to get blown up, I s’pose.”

“No, I expect we’ll want to impound so it can be examined for possible evidence,” Madoc replied.

“Evidence o’ what?”

“Perhaps you’d like to save us a little time by answering that question yourself.”

That shut him up. Madoc had thought it would. He might as well let the experts give the truck a thorough going-over at that, just for the record. There might be some scientific interest in finding out what was keeping that old heap of rust still running.

He and Fred had killed more time than he’d realized pawing through the wreckage. Madoc didn’t have to wait long for his reinforcements. He explained the situation to the corporal in charge of the squad, headed them in the direction of the exploded junkyard, and went on back to the farm.

Janet gave him a pleasant surprise by being up and dressed, sitting in the rocking chair with Annabelle’s mending basket on the floor beside her and the button box on her lap.

“Hello, Jenny love,” he said. “Back at work, are you?”

“Yes, I’m trying to detect a few pajama buttons,” she told him. “What happened out at Bain’s?”

“Quite a lot.” Madoc described the scene of devastation while his wife and sister-in-law listened, spellbound

“Going to all that trouble to blow up a pile of junk?” Janet shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. Whatever’s behind it, do you think?”

“Spite,” said Annabelle, fetching the freshly filled teapot and the doughnut crock. “Sit down, Madoc. Lots of people have a down on old Jase for one reason or another, as you well know. Though that’s carrying a grudge pretty darn far, I must admit. Sounds to me as if they must have used a ton of dynamite, considering the size of the mess out there.”

“I don’t know if it was dynamite or something else,” he answered, “and it looked more like small charges carefully placed, but I’ll be able to tell you better after a while. I left a squad from headquarters out there poking around to see what they can find.”

“Haven’t found anything of old Jase himself, I’ll bet. I shouldn’t be surprised if he did it himself, for the insurance. He’ll turn up yelling for his rights, you mark my words.”

“He already has,” said Madoc.

“There, what did I tell you? You should have arrested the old coot.”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

“No fooling! What did you charge him with?” Janet asked.

“Assault and battery with a not very dangerous weapon, namely a filthy old boot.” Madoc hiked up his trouser leg and displayed the rather puny bruise. Janet was unimpressed.

“That the best he could do? Oh well, if you play it right, maybe it’ll get you a few days off for being wounded in line of duty. But whatever do you suppose got into him? Could it be having his seventeen traveling privies blown up that shoved him over the edge? Or was he actually asking to be locked up?”

“Well,” said Annabelle practically, “I don’t know how else he’d get bed and board without having to pay for ’em. You going to press charges, Madoc, or throw an aged widower out in the cold to fend for himself on his own money for a change?”

“I thought I’d give him time to get over the shock, if it was one, and see what develops. Is Sam Neddick around?”

“If he isn’t, he ought to be. Try the big barn.”

Madoc did. Somewhat to his surprise, Sam was there.

“Mornin’, Inspector. Lookin’ for rustlers?”

“No, I’m looking for a deputy. Do you think Bert could spare you for a while?”

“How long a while?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Do you ever go out to Bull Moose Portage?”

“I been.”

“Got dressed up for the occasion, did you?”

Sam thought that one over for a second, then allowed his lips to twitch. “Not me, Inspector. I always stuck to galluses myself.” To prove his point, Sam snapped the broad khaki webbing of his braces.

“What’s it all about, do you know?”

Sam shrugged, which meant that either he didn’t know or that he didn’t care to say. Madoc tried another tack.

“Is Dubois running the show, or fronting for somebody else?”

Sam’s eyes, clear crystal like a malemute’s, met Madoc’s for an instant. “I been wonderin’ that myself.”

“Would you care to help me find out?”

Sure he would. Finding out was Sam Neddick’s one passion in life, as far as Madoc or anybody else had ever been able to determine. The hired man didn’t come right out and say he’d be tickled pink, but he didn’t try to act as if he’d rather stay and commune with the cows.

“What you got in mind?”

“A point of information I was hoping you might be able to help me put to use.” Madoc described what Dubois had been up to during the dance. “Would you have any idea what it might mean? Aside from the fact that Buddy McLumber was shot directly afterward. I don’t know whether he was still wearing his sash at the time.”

Sam did, of course. “He’d took it off an’ stuck it in ’is pocket. Must o’ got in the way when he was puttin’ on his fancy snowmobilin’ suit. His Aunt Cecile’s all for buryin’ it in the coffin with ’im, but his mother wants to keep the fool thing to remember ’im by. God knows why.”

After this burst of information, Sam fell silent. Madoc waited. Protocol having been observed, Sam went on.

“What Dubois done didn’t have nothin’ to do with Buddy gettin’ shot, I wouldn’t think. Means a meetin’, more likely.”

“Any idea where or when?”

“Same as usual, I s’pose. We might’s well get started. Snowshoes in your car?”

“I’ve a pair of cross-country skis I borrowed from Armand Bergeron last night. I meant to return them this morning.”

Sam twitched his nostrils, went to the woodshed, and came back with two pairs of snowshoes. “I stuck my head in the door and told ’em we was goin’. Annabelle gimme this.”

A lunch and a thermos, of course. Annabelle must keep them lined up in a row on the pantry shelf. Madoc got into the car and shoved Armand ‘s skis aside to make room for Sam. Receiving no instructions to the contrary, he headed for Bull Moose Portage. They weren’t more than halfway there, though, when Sam ordered abruptly, “Turn in here.”

“Here” appeared to be nowhere in particular, but it had been dug out after a fashion and looked more or less navigable, so Madoc turned. After a hundred feet or so, the turnoff petered out to a snowbank on one side and a sheer drop on the other. Guided solely by the instinct of self-preservation, Madoc pulled as close as he could get to the snowbank.

That proved to have been the right move. Sam hopped out, taking both pairs of snowshoes with him. He pawed around under a spruce that grew down over the side of the bank, dragged forth a vast sheet of whitish plastic, and draped it over the car. Commando tactics, by thunder. Madoc waited for Sam’s next move, and was not disappointed when the hired man fished again among the branches of the spruce and came out with a long rope that had a noose tied in the end of it.

“Stick your foot in the loop, grab holt of the rope, an’ swing yourself across the ditch,” he ordered. “Aim for the bare limb o’ that big oak that’s stickin’ flat out behind them little seedlin’ firs on the other side of the ditch. See it?”

Madoc saw it, got himself adjusted, shoved off from the bank, and made a perfect landing. The rough bark gave a good grip and wouldn’t show footprints. He sent the noose whizzing back across the ditch, and lowered himself gingerly to the crust. By the time he’d got his snowshoes strapped on, Sam was beside him, tucking the noose into a fork of the oak.

“We’ll find it there easy enough on our way back,” he grunted. “Whole thing’s prob’ly a waste o’ time, but it never hurts to muddle your trail. Don’t matter if we leave a little sign from here on in. Ain’t nobody likely to notice.”

He glanced up at the sun that was trying to break through the overcast, and set a course roughly west-southwest. Madoc followed, avoiding the snow-laden evergreens as best he could. That light fall of new snow last night hadn’t penetrated this thicket much, but he and Sam both watched out for soft patches and steered clear of them whenever possible.

They didn’t talk at all. Madoc had never tracked with Sam before, and he respected the work of a master. A timber wolf would have seemed clumsy beside the elderly man. Just how old Sam was, none of the Wadmans could say. Maybe Sam didn’t know, either, but whatever his age was, it hadn’t slowed him down any. Madoc almost wished it had. He was musing on that de-squeaked bed he’d got to spend so little time in and wondering how much farther they’d have to go when Sam flopped down on his belly, slid his snowshoes under his body, and snaked himself in under a low-spreading spruce.

Madoc did the same, and just in time. He found they were directly behind a good-sized lean-to made of overlapping fir boughs over a framework of saplings. In fact, they were so close it was possible to burrow with one finger into the needles and make a tiny peephole while keeping themselves well screened from those inside.

Pierre Dubois was kindling a small fire just outside, where the heat would reflect back to warm the lean-to while the smoke drifted the other way. The chap was a woodsman, whatever else he might be. His cohorts were straggling in by twos and threes, each with that woven sash tied around his mackinaw or parka. Some were tying the sashes as they came, Madoc noted, and he could understand why. They wouldn’t be the sort to whom anything in the nature of fancy dress came naturally.

He was recognizing faces and voices. These were the men who’d got the secret handshake, no doubt about that. They were crowding into the lean-to, hunkering down, talking to each other in low tones, like hunters on the stalk. None of them looked out of place in so rustic a setting. Like as not they were most of them guides or pot hunters, who depended on their guns to keep meat on their family tables.

They weren’t here for fun, that was plain. Their voices were harsh, their faces grim. There was none of the fraternal joshing Madoc had run into the night Bert took him to the Owls’ Club. Strange as it might seem, he got the distinct impression that this was a business meeting.

When everybody was present—and they all were, because Madoc had been keeping count as they arrived, deducting one for the murdered recruit—Pierre stood in front of the lean-to with his back to the fire, and made his opening remarks. Gone was the bon vivant, the insouciant
voyageur.
Today Dubois was a man with a mission.

“I don’t have to tell you, brothers, why our number is one short today. One of us—perhaps not the most important to our cause, but still one of us—was murdered last night.”

“What do you mean murdered?” demanded one of the older men. “He got shot going home from the dance. How do you know it wasn’t an accident?”

“I know because it’s my business to know, Brother G. You men have trusted me to be your leader. I aim to honor your trust by looking out for your interests. To do that I need everybody’s full cooperation. If any one of you knows anything about the shooting of Brother W, he’d better tell me now.”

There was a shifting of bodies and a clearing of throats, but nobody spoke. Dubois looked from one to another, his black eyes glinting.

“I think you all understand what I’m asking. We don’t have to know who shot him, but we do have to know why he was killed. Naturally we’re all outraged and grieved by the loss of our young brother, and extend our sympathy to those members of his family who are present”—he didn’t put quite so much punch into this last—”but what we absolutely must know is whether his being shot had anything to do with the fact that he’d become a member of our group. Because if it did, that means every one of us could be in danger.”

“We knew that when we signed on,” grunted one of the men.

“We knew that when it came to carrying out our avowed purpose we’d be exposing ourselves to certain risks, yes. You have to admit, though, that it’s one thing to get fired at by a security guard when you’re performing an act of sabotage, however justified, and something one hell of a lot different to get potted like a rabbit on your way home from a dance.”

“Damn right!” From the way he pronounced his final t that must be either a Grouse or a McLumber. “What’s the sense in lettin’ ourselves get killed before we done the job?”

“Okay then,” Dubois had to raise his voice over the chorus of agreement. “Keep your eyes and ears open. If anybody picks up any scrap of information, however small, I want it reported to me at once. By the way, does anybody know anything about an RCMP man who showed up at the Portage last night.”

“Married Bert Wadman’s sister Janet from up on the hill in Pitcherville,” somebody replied promptly. “He come with Bert’s wife, Annabelle. Fine-lookin’ woman in a black dress that fit pretty good. Cécile knows ’er.”

“I’m s’prised you didn’t ask to get introduced, Pierre,” said somebody else.

Dubois wasn’t interested in kidding around. “What about the Mountie? What does he look like?”

“Scrawny little black-haired runt with baggy britches an’ a red mustache.”

“No mustache,” someone contradicted. “Janet made him shave it off. Smartened him up some, too.”

“That so? I never noticed.”

“He ain’t the kind you’d notice.”

“Did anybody happen to notice what his name is?” Dubois didn’t sound happy.

“Reed? Royce? Rhys, that’s it. Welsh name. His folks live in Wales mostly. Got money, they say, but you’d never know it to look at him.”

“Nice-spoken feller. Talks so soft you can hardly hear him.”

“Wait a minute,” said Dubois. “You’re not by any chance talking about the Inspector Madoc Rhys who tracked down Mad Carew single-handed?”

“Well, he had to, didn’t he? A Mountie does whatever he’s sent out for. That’s the rule. Always has been.”

“It’s different these days. They wouldn’t be likely to send a single man out on an assignment like that. They use modern methods.”

“What the hell kind of a modern method you goin’ to use against a crazy lumberjack seven feet tall with a double-bitted ax who’s already killed God knows how many people an’ won’t come out o’ the woods so’s a posse can get at ’im, eh?”