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  Tom, despite his own lack of interest in other people’s business, had come to know the key players, and their very distinct, sometimes conflicted agendas. Even a quaint little place like Beaufort boiled, no differently than Montreal or Boston, with struggles for power and the clash of colossal egos.

  Beaufort residents came from all walks of life, through their family lineages which could be traced back to the very beginnings of the European conquest, from the great battles with the Abenaki and Iroquois, the influx of soldiers and desperate families from France, Scotland and Ireland, all mainly farmers, and black Americans who came north for freedom through the underground railroad—to more recent affluent arrivals who built ranches, ski lodges, weekend homes, and luxurious retreats from their urban, professional worlds. Beaufort County might be Quebec’s best kept secret, proof being the social elites, especially successful artists and actors, and well-to-do families from Western Canada and the United States, who had been buying considerable stretches of land to establish elaborate, well-hidden estates—all within a reasonable driving distance from airports, transcontinental highways, high-end ski centres and a vast, forested playground. Paul was in this category, identifiable as such more by his wealth and resources than by familial or cultural ties to the area. Paul’s father had been a notary in the area toward the end of his life, but the Carignan family had its roots in St. Constant, a two-hour drive west of Beaufort. The Carignan house, modern and ostentatious, and a strange construction in Tom’s view, spoke to Paul’s desire and ability to stamp the terrain with his mark.

  But it wasn’t Tom’s place to judge and he knew it. He did his job and he did it well. He wasn’t much of a politician in his work, seeing himself more as a craftsman, honing his abilities, intervention by intervention, and taking a common-sense approach to laying out the law. He tried his best to stay out of trouble here, which sometimes meant a certain precision and non-intrusiveness—and not passing judgment too quickly on those he protected and served.

  At other times it meant doing what others were not able to do in order to maintain basic peace and order. That’s what he did best, though blunt intervention usually had a price. If all went well, the instigators paid most of that, though innocent people sometimes shared the cost. In any event, Tom was ready to pay his share. This made Brooder distinct in law and order, and somewhat dangerous. He conveyed strength and a kind of restrained energy, much like a racehorse in its stall, muscled, capable, and frustrated.

  Deep down, it was Tom’s sense of responsibility that made him tick, though that had not always been the case. He had known difficult challenges, though these were behind him. Years as a cop had toughened him. Staying objective was essential, and his respect was growing for the community in which he now lived and worked, even if he didn’t always fully understand, or even tolerate, its constituents.

  Tom would do Paul Carignan this favour without treading the not-so-murky waters of why the argument between Paul and Lennox had occurred in the first place, which he could guess. Lennox had made it a well-known habit of shooting game, big and small, from his truck, whether out of disdain for better hunting practices or motivated by his heavy drinking. Nobody really knew.

  Tom was also learning, however reluctantly, about the off-the-books approach his police department took toward toward local residents, especially the affluent, influential ones, and the amount of game they killed as opposed to the number they owned up to with the Ministry of the Environment. The Police Chief, who aligned himself with the Mayor and her Council, thought Beaufort police should look after their own people, their own territory, with as little outside involvement as possible. Things were simpler for everyone that way, he often told Tom, and Tom generally abided by that. It wasn’t his fight. All the problems and incidents in Beaufort County in Tom’s five years were a small fraction of what he’d seen when he was a big city cop. Nothing much in Beaufort County could faze Tom, or so he thought.

  He found the deer carcass where Paul told him it would be, in the field just north of the Carignan house, and he spotted the matted wild grass easily with a few sweeps of his powerful flashlight. He then brought his pick-up truck from the road to where the carcass lay. After putting on work gloves, he pulled the carcass by its cold, stiff legs onto one of the tarps he kept in his truck for just such tasks. Field-dressed by Lennox, the carcass gave off a repugnant smell that filled the air. The evening’s slight breeze didn’t alleviate it.

  Tom folded the tarp around the carcass, tied it with a bungee cord, then climbed over the open tailgate and hoisted the two-hundred-pound carcass onto the truck bed. The fact that it was already field-dressed lessened its weight, but it was still a mighty load to lift onto a truck. One of the buck’s antlers, sharp as a knife, tore through the canvas and jabbed Tom’s forearm. Jolted by the pain, he gave the tarp a final tug, until the whole carcass was over the bed. He threw it down to the metal, banging loudly, as angry as if the deer had come alive and deliberately struck him. An inch-wide spot of blood formed on his sleeve, around a distinct hole in his flesh. He kneeled at the open tailgate and pulled out a roll of duct tape from a toolbox, yanking a stretch, ripping it off and slapping it on his wound, winding the ends around his arm. Then he dragged three bags of ice, unopened, from a corner of the truck’s flatbed, onto the carcass.

  He jumped off the truck with another, smaller tarp which he laid on the grass, and began tossing the dark, soft organs and entrails onto that. The buzzing flies were tenacious. One final organ. He held the heart in his gloved hands and hesitated, feeling its weight. It was dark blue, almost black. A gruesome thing to hold separate from the creature’s lifeless body, wrapped for removal from its natural terrain. Was the spirit of the beast entirely in his hands, or did some of it remain in the carcass? Had the spirit seeped into the earth along with its life’s blood?

  He was surprised by where his thoughts had strayed. Tom did not want to think of death, nor life. He’d come to this field to do his duty, help a citizen, and clean up a mess. The task should have been easy for him, after everything he’d seen in his life and professional career. Maybe it was the stench of death in the night that sparked these thoughts?

  Whatever it was, Tom tossed the heart on the mound of guts, folded the smaller tarp around it and moved it onto the truck with the carcass. He threw in the dirtied gloves, took up the flashlight he had set to light his work, and snapped up the tailgate.

  With darkness all around, he drove off.

  CHAPTER 3

  A BAD FEELING

  Tom loved the serenity of the country, especially in the evenings. This night was cold, the sky clear and starry. Tom drove at an easy pace, hanging his wounded arm out in the whipping air for the fifteen-minute trip to Chief Bernier’s place, where he planned to drop off the buck. When he got to the ranch-style house, his arm was numb, nearly frozen, but the bleeding had halted. He jumped from the truck and was greeted by his boss, Chief of Police Arthur Bernier.

  Besides having had a life-long career in law enforcement, beginning in the rural regions outside Sherbrooke and later years in the Eastern Townships, Bernier was a self-taught woodsman. Not a great one, but good enough to lease out his services as a guide to hunting parties now and then. The Bernier family was well known in the region. The youngest brother, who had died of heart failure five years ago, had owned and operated a popular used-car dealership just outside Cowansville. The dealership was eventually sold and the location became a gas station. The Bernier Auto sign, in large blue and green letters, still remained, paled by time and weather.

  Bernier’s older brother, André, had followed a similar path to his own, rising in the ranks of the Quebec provincial police, but they were not close. Not close at all. Years ago, they had fought bitterly over the love of the same local girl, and she had chosen Arthur, not André. The resentment between the two never subsided and, as often with sibling rivalry, it festered like an unattended wound. There was not
hing Arthur Bernier, as Chief of Police of Beaufort County, could ask of his brother, and nothing his brother would ever ask of him. It was a clear, though unspoken, agreement between the two to stay out of each other’s lives. To the SQ’s Director General André Bernier, Beaufort County didn’t exist.

  “Hey, Brooder,” said Bernier, going directly to the back of the truck to check out the deer. Brooder had called ahead about it and joined him. Together they unwrapped the tarp to reveal the carcass. Bernier was impressed with the size of the animal. He pushed off the bags of ice, prodded and pulled at it, and found the bullet entry wound.

  “Very nice.”

  “What’s nice about it?”

  “Smack through the shoulder. A good kill.”

  “Lennox,” stated Tom.

  “Right,” Bernier responded, “he’s a good shot, that crazy boy.”

  “Hardly a boy,” said Brooder. “Usually drunk.”

  “Imagine how he could shoot sober,” said Bernier, with a smile.

  Tom wasn’t amused, but Bernier continued. “He’s a boy to me. You too! When you’re sixty-five, you’ll see! All thirty- or forty-year-olds are just kids, still figuring themselves out, causing as many headaches for everybody as pimple-faced teenagers who don’t understand how the world works!”

  Bernier watched Tom, waiting for a reaction, but got none. Tom had this way about him, where his focus easily went elsewhere, or he just didn’t want to talk. Bernier knew Tom didn’t do this out of disrespect. It was just his way.

  Stubborn in his own right, Bernier gave it another try. “Look, it’s my sixty-fifth tonight. You know that, right?”

  Tom shrugged, neither a clear yes or no. “Well, I feel two hundred-and-sixty-five today, but there’s a party with all the gang tonight. Just hanging out. Nothing fancy. The boys will all be there, at Henley’s place. I know you don’t go to these sorts of things, but I’ll ask you anyway.”

  “I’ve things to do, Arthur.”

  “Oh, come on! Get over yourself! Let your hair down while you still have some. Before you know it, you’ll be old!” He paused and caught his breath. “It’ll be too late!”

  “Too late for what?” asked Tom, half-heartedly.

  “For your future! For your life!” explained Bernier, arms outstretched to the night. “To live it out!”

  “There are things I’d rather do,” said Tom, answering the invitation in a definitive tone.

  “Tom, seriously, you need to get in better with the community. Can’t always be on the outside!”

  Bernier stopped talking and just looked at Tom. His Deputy Chief wasn’t listening at all. Tom wrapped the buck in the tarp again and pulled it off the truck on his own. Bernier held his thoughts and leaned in to help. The two men brought the good kill to the ground, then Tom dragged it alone to the large tool shed. Bernier moved a set of shovels out of his path then caught his breath.

  “You should be there tonight,” he said. “They tell me Rob Morrison’s coming. How often does he come by?”

  “I don’t care who’s there, who isn’t.”

  “Alright, I shouldn’t be surprised. The master rifleman comes to town and you don’t care. Tom Brooder Doran doesn’t care! You know if you want to take my place someday, move up in the world, it might do you good to socialize a bit, talk to people once in a while. Might make it easier for you to lead one day.”

  “I talk to people all the time, Arthur,” said Tom, followed by a long, silent pause.

  “Uh, really?”

  “Where do you want it?”

  “Just leave it. Lars is on his way to pick me up. To go to Henley’s. Might bring the buck over there anyway. He should be here any minute.”

  Tom turned to leave.

  “Hold on, what things do you have to do tonight?” Bernier waited for a satisfactory answer, hands on hips, but got only silence from Tom.

  “Come this way a minute, Brooder,” ordered Bernier. “I want to show you something.”

  Tom sighed. He was about to get a lecture from his boss, one more of so many. “Do we have to now?”

  “The greenhouse!” insisted Chief Bernier, leading the way. Tom slammed the tailgate of his truck and followed, head down, like an impatient teenager.

  The greenhouse, lit up from the inside, shone in the night like an oversized lantern, filled with vibrant colour. There were a variety of plants and flowers, in planters, bins and pots of clay, bags of seed and fertilizer, gardening tools and watering devices littered about. It was also hot, stuffy and humid. Bernier led Tom along a row of deep red roses and what Tom guessed were carnations, but he wasn’t sure; he didn’t know anything about flowers. Bernier smiled and held his arms out, presenting the facility, as if unveiling a treasure. Tom was unsure what needed to be said to satisfy Bernier, so he said nothing.

  “I have no idea, Brooder,” Bernier said, “what kind of plants and flowers these all are. Not a clue. My job here has been to help sustain the place, a bit of maintenance, but really, I’m the provider of whatever’s necessary to make it work! The money for the seeds, fertilizer, tools, whatever!”

  “You’re telling me this because … ?”

  “Because you need to hear it.” Bernier motioned for Tom to move closer to a table-top planter filled with budding roses, a row of suspended lights blazing down on them. “I couldn’t care less for flowers. I mean, not a bit. This is my wife’s thing. Flowers are her passion. She wakes up thinking, not about our daughter and our grandchildren in Wisconsin. She knows they’re fine. And she certainly doesn’t wake up thinking about me. We’ve been married too long for that. No, she wakes up thinking about these goddamn roses.”

  Tom was doing his best to stay attentive. It was difficult.

  “In the house,” Bernier continued, “Gabrielle has a wall with plaques and ribbons she’s won over the years for her flowers. Who knew there were competitions for flowers? But there’s a whole bunch of them! She opened my eyes to it all. See this one here?” He motioned to a set of roses with crimson and soft white petals. One flower, of this colour scheme, was very large and set off from the others in the planter.

  “This is her latest award winner. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  Tom was unmoved. “Okay,” he muttered.

  “Well, it is. Very rare and hard to grow to this quality. Goes to my point, son. Something else I learned through all this flower growing. I realized that all this was my wife’s way of trying to do something of quality. Better than anybody else. You and I, we might appreciate the quality of a good beer or, better, a fine rifle. Its craftsmanship. Its accuracy. The quality of the wood. Like those Rob Morrison makes. Nothing like ‘em on the planet. Or a good, solid pick-up truck with a bull in its engine! Well, one day it clicked. That’s what my wife was trying to do here with this. When I understood that, I realized that I needed to support her effort. That I could be a part of it—and prior to that I was obstructing her efforts, her dream of the perfect flower. Didn’t matter that I didn’t have an interest, and not a green thumb to save my life. It didn’t matter. What mattered is that I gave up a good part of my time, every week, to helping her do what she liked to do. And, you know what? She’s done that more than a little for me! Yeah. That’s the sweat equity needed to build good relationships. You’ve got to invest in other people. That’s the key, Brooder.”

  “The key to what?”

  “Aren’t you listening?”

  “Arthur, happy birthday, really, from the heart, but I’m still not going tonight.”

  “Crap, son! You’ll be happier if you make people around you happy, is what I’m telling you. Do you get that? You can’t go it alone all the time!”

  “Arthur, do you have plans to retire any time soon? The truth?”

  “On bad days, I feel I’m getting old for this shit. On good days, when people do what I tell them and are grateful for what I�
��ve done for them, I think, why would I do that? I’m only sixty-five. I have years to go! Don’t I?” said Bernier, smiling.

  “Let’s save this lecture for when it applies.”

  “Lecture? You bonehead! Come on, Tom, you’re the best hope I’ve got. The best hope Beaufort Police has got. I didn’t bring you on here just because I knew your father. You’ve more than earned your place, and you could do my job with your eyes closed. Better than me. You know that and you know you could do even better than this stinking Beaufort, if you wanted, but that’s for another time, another lecture, as you call it!”

  “Thanks, Dad,” said Tom sarcastically.

  “You’re a stubborn son-of-a-bitch, Brooder!”

  They were silent for a moment. The crickets in the fields hissed loudly, an invisible orchestra, filling the void. Bernier knew he had gotten through to Tom to some degree, but what would come of it was anyone’s guess. Tom was known to be moody, impulsive, even volatile. Bernier took one more chance.

  “Those who know you well, besides me—and I don’t know if there’s anybody who does—know your life is on hold here. By your doing! You could go places, be important in a bigger force, say Montreal, Toronto, wherever, even back in Boston. Heck, New York. But never mind that, why don’t you at least get back in the world. Know what I’m saying? Don’t just watch it go by. Look, your personal life’s your business.”