The Storm Murders Read Online Free Page A

importantly, the finest olive oils. “Stuff you don’t get in stores.” Cinq-Mars declined. After all, he explained, he didn’t do anything. The jeweler hugged him again, then sneezed, then got up on his tiptoes and the ex-cop politely leaned down to be kissed on both cheeks. Cinq-Mars thanked him and the jeweler kissed both his cheeks again, then coughed, then sneezed once more and apologized for having the flu, which was transmitted to Cinq-Mars as part of his current run of bad luck and developed soon enough into a cocktail of flu, sore ribs, and finally, in a week’s time, pneumonia.
    The pneumonia took longer to be gone than the ribs did to heal, although the ribs hurt like hell whenever he sneezed, coughed, blew his nose, or even evacuated his bowels.
    At least he was retired. Going to work would have been a killer.
    If bad things came in threes then one more turn of nasty luck lay ahead of him, yet when it arrived he could scarcely believe his misfortune. His wife, who was much younger than him and the guiding principal behind his retirement because she really didn’t want him getting himself killed on the job, now let him know that she was thinking about leaving. A head’s up. At least she’d not made a definitive decision to decamp.
    Thank goodness for small mercies—he was counting on bad luck to come only in threes. He’d swallowed his full dose. He didn’t want the breakup to occur.
    To that end he was staying around the house a lot, so that when the phone rang on a mild and cloudy day, a few flurries in the morning, just an inch predicted for later that afternoon, he was home to answer. He put down a crossword puzzle which wasn’t going well either. He’d never attempted one prior to retiring, and had yet to complete one. “I got it,” he called through the house.
    Sandra didn’t respond. She was taking it upon herself to scrub every pot in the kitchen. Her husband chose not to question why.
    “Cinq-Mars,” he said into the receiver. Sandra frequently admonished him but old habits were difficult to scuttle. She suggested that a simple hello would suffice, but in any case, if he really did feel the need to announce himself, he might include his first name, as only friends were likely to be calling now.
    “And telemarketers,” he pointed out.
    “Why reveal your identity to them?”
    He didn’t see why not but that was another argument not worth the trouble.
    “Hi there, É mile, it’s Bill.”
    “Bill!” Mathers. His longtime partner, who inherited his rank after Cinq-Mars left the force. “How are you?”
    Pot in hand, Sandra wandered through to the living room, curious about the call. Pleasantries went on as the two men caught up on department scuttlebutt, but her intuition kept her nearby. As the small-talk concluded, Cinq-Mars kept listening with the phone to his ear while Bill Mathers prattled on. She heard her husband say, “I don’t know how I can help with that,” and then he listened some more. He was growing impatient with the call, rather than intrigued, which she counted as a good thing. Finally, he conceded, “All right. Sure. Come over.… Actually, I muck out stalls at that hour. Can you make it for three?… Okay. See you then.… Yeah. It’ll be good to see you, too. Bye, now.”
    He hung up.
    Cinq-Mars returned to his crossword, though he knew she was watching.
    “I have a very heavy pot in my hands,” Sandra mentioned. “Do I really need to bong you over the head with it?”
    “That was Bill. Mathers.”
    “I know who it was. What does he want?”
    Cinq-Mars folded up the paper neatly and put it down at his hip. No easy way out of this. “He’s coming over at three. He wants to consult with me, but he’s vague about the details. Needs to talk to me in person, apparently. So I said fine. It’s not likely that I’ll be going in to the office or anything like that.”
    Sandra continued to dry the heavy pot in her hands. “Okay. Consult. I’ll put something