The word came out in one breath. “What?”
“If Mr. Egan here doesn’t tell me where they disposed of Scott’s body, I’m going to brain him with this pistol and toss his body into the St. John. The police will think he overturned in the rapids.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I know you believe that, son, but the last few days have tested me, and, well, I’ve learned I’m not the man I thought I was. I failed Scott. But I am going to avenge him tonight, so help me God.”
I felt the first stirring of a breeze on my cheek, saw the woodsmoke shift direction, even begin to rise. How many days had this stagnant heat sat motionless over us?
“So what do you expect is going to happen—that Roland is going to come motoring out here?”
“That’s the general plan. Yes.”
“That’s ludicrous.”
In the flickering firelight Egan’s face had turned nearly the same shade of red as his hair. I worried he was going to hyperventilate before Roland even arrived.
“You’re not a murderer, Charley.”
“I killed Pierre.”
“You shot Pierre. He drowned, trying to get away.”
“I tried to kill him, though. And how can you be sure Nick and I didn’t just let him drown?”
I didn’t believe this last statement, not remotely. “Where is Nick?”
“Not here. I didn’t want to include him in this if things go wrong.”
“But you included me.”
“More than once, Mike, I told you to stay out of this.”
“For Christ’s sake, Charley!” I took a step toward him, but a pitiless look came into his eyes that stopped me cold. “This isn’t you. At least take Egan’s gag off so he can breathe.”
“If I do, he’ll call out and give us away.”
The man on the log shook his head vigorously to indicate he wouldn’t ruin our plans.
“How can you be certain Egan knows where they hid Pellerin’s body? The Warden Service searched half the County for it.”
“And the Mounties searched their side of the border, too. But I think you might’ve guessed why I suspect Mr. Egan here was a party to a conspiracy. It has to do with a certain identifying mark.”
I pointed at the bound man. “Can I see for myself?”
“Just so long as you cut the cloth and not the ropes.”
I removed my knife from my pocket and pressed the button that opened the automatic blade. With the razor-sharp tip, I cut a hole in the shoulder of Egan’s shirt. The dancing light didn’t reveal much of the tattoo beyond the greenish-black ink. But I didn’t need to see the design. I only needed to run my fingers over the raised skin to feel the old scar.
“Pierre Michaud branded everyone who participated in the killing,” I said. “That way, they couldn’t lie and claim they weren’t there for the murder.”
“They could still rat him out, though,” said Charley. “I have no doubt that Mr. Egan was tempted to do so. But the prosecutor would’ve had a problem getting a reduced sentence for a self-identified cop killer.”
“Pierre Michaud was a shrewd man.”
“One of the coldest and most ruthless men I’ve come up against.”
“But not shrewd enough to escape.”
“He underestimated the wrong person.”
For the past few minutes, I had felt like I was having a conversation with a dangerous stranger, a man whose actions I couldn’t predict, possibly someone capable of unprovoked violence. But I recognized something of the old Charley as he spoke those words.
He underestimated the wrong person.
He wasn’t referring to himself. He was talking about the person who’d told him where to look for Pierre. It hadn’t been a coincidence that he and Nick had spotted the poacher king crossing Beau Lac that night. They had been tipped off.
I understood now.
This trap hadn’t been set for Roland Michaud.
42
As I processed this revelation, I listened to the rapids below us in the darkness, the steady rush of falling water. It was an ominous sound that spoke of dangers impossible to see or avoid.
“You’re not going to kill Egan,” I said.
“Scott was like a son to me,” Charley said, his voice creaking. “More than you even.”
It would have broken my heart if I didn’t know better.
I knew what I had to do next. I hardened myself to do it.
“I’m cutting him loose. Then I’m taking him back to Fort Kent. He’s going to give a full confession to Zanadakis. I won’t tell anyone what you did to him, Charley. And Egan won’t either, will you?”
Once more, the gagged man tried to signal his enthusiastic compliance.
“I can’t let you arrest him, Mike. He has to pay the price for what he did.”
“He will.”
“Blood is the only currency that matters.”
I knelt down on the hard-packed sand beside Egan with the knife in my grip. He was sweating hard. The odor coming off him was the uniquely sour smell that comes from fear.
Charley rose to his feet, bulky in those ridiculously loose coveralls. “Get away from him, son.”
I rose to my feet, feeling the breeze again on my sweaty neck. “I won’t do that.”
Charley raised the revolver at me. The barrel was aimed at my kneecap. Those old Smith & Wessons were massive guns. A .357 Magnum round would have amputated my lower leg.
“Back away.”
“No.”
He cocked the hammer, curled his index finger around the trigger. “Please, Mike. I don’t want to do this.”
“You won’t be able to live with yourself if you do.”
“Don’t test me!”
I pulled down the gag over Egan’s chin. He coughed, gasped out a few ragged breaths, and then spoke a single tortured word. “Forge.”
Of course. It was what the investigators had feared at the time, why they’d found no evidence. Why we never would. Pierre Michaud, trained blacksmith, had dismembered Pellerin and burned him, piece by piece, in his smithy.
Charley’s lip curled with contempt. “You saw Pierre do it?”
Some of the capillaries in Egan’s eyes had popped, giving him a hobgoblin gaze. “We all did.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” I asked, unable to contain my contempt.
“Me, Roland, Zach.”
Most killers would have wanted as few witnesses as possible, but Pierre Michaud had
