Bodies Out Back

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Early that afternoon

The four of them walked north on what was left of the overgrown road. As they approached the edge of Cam’s property, the road veered west, running along what Cam thought was the US—Canadian border. There were several places where a car could turn around. In other places, bushes, fairly young saplings, and tall grass had blocked the entire path. The road looked like it went on for quite a ways.

“This looks like it hasn’t been used in a many months,” Michael commented. They each inspected the sides of the road.

“This may not be the way those guys got in here,” Guy suggested. “There may have been another way completely.”

“These bushes are too new to have been here since more than this spring,” Jean-René decided. “No, this was the way they came in. You may need to put in a fence or some other deterrent.”

Cam immediately thought of the trap that had been set along that back road in West Virginia. She had been working for the drug cabal at the time. That trap could have wiped out an entire platoon as they plunged into a fifty foot hole with spikes at the bottom, been impaled between two giant wooden claws which had been spring-loaded to clamp together if someone passed the wrong spot on the road, or crushed under large falling logs. When she had found it, her friend Pauly and her boss had led a team of DEA agents to destroy it. That had been the beginning of the end of the drug traffic on the east coast, at least for a while.

Cam didn’t think this required anything that drastic, but at least a fence would discourage anyone for a while. If left alone, the path would be grown in by the end of the year; impassable by vehicle in two or three.

“It wouldn’t cost a lot to put a four-foot chain-link fence in here and back into the trees a ways. We could get it done over a weekend.” Jean-René was sure of it.

“Yes, forty, forty-five feet should do it. It doesn’t need to go all around the entire property, only to stop vehicular traffic here. Nothing would stop foot traffic if they really want to come onto your property,” Guy added.

“Give me a list of what to buy and I can get it this week. You can bring the whole family out to help. We could have a barbecue and they could see the house,” Cam suggested.

All three Gauchets nodded. They hiked on.

“I wonder whose property this is,” Guy said as they looked around in the trees.

“I’ll have to check it in the county records,” Cam said. “It doesn’t look like it belongs to anyone.”

Eventually, the road dead-ended onto a well-traveled two-lane road. They’d walked almost three-quarters of a mile.

“Is this the US or Canada?” Michael wondered.

Jean-René stepped onto the pavement. “Unless I’m turned around,” he started, “this is Leadville Road, the road coming down from Magog, it hitches into Lake Road…that’s the road that runs through your property…a few miles south and then goes all the way into Newport.”

“That’s right,” Michael agreed. “I missed the turn-off onto Lake Road one time and had to backtrack almost ten kilometers to get to your property.”

“Does anyone live on this road?” Cam asked.

Jean-René nodded. “There are a couple homes about ten kilometers south, then only sporadically until it gets closer to Newport.”

“So it would be very easy to smuggle stuff across the border,” Cam decided.

“Extremely,” Jean-René agreed. Guy nodded.

“Let’s go back to the house and get my car,” Michael suggested.

“I’ve got to get home,” Jean-René said, shaking his head. “I promised Teresa I’d work on her car today and it is getting late. The starter has been giving her trouble.”

“Such a good husband.” Michael smiled. She winked at Cam as they turned around and walked back into the woods.

As the four approached Cam’s property line, they looked around.

“It’d hard to believe so much was happening around here that we never knew about,” Guy admitted.

Jean-René walked a few yards further along the overgrown road. “Did the Vermont Troopers say how far they looked through the property?”

“They were too busy when they found the plants and the meth barrel to look much farther,” Guy explained. “They wanted to get the bodies and all the evidence back to the labs as quickly as they could.”

“They simply said they’d be back,” Cam replied. “I should probably look myself.”

“If you two go exploring, please be careful.”

“We will, mon frere,” Michael promised. “There’s too much at stake here to do a slip-shod job.”

“Yes. Don’t worry,” Cam added. “We’ll always be together. I don’t think either of us wants to do this alone.”

“Especially after what I found this morning.”

Then Jean-René turned to his sister. “Oh, also, I was going to ask you if you could come out here to teach my officers. I have seven that need refresher courses and to be recertified. It would be cheaper for me if you could come to the Magog station to teach them instead of me paying travel and hotels for them in Montreal.”

“That is a good idea, mon frère. I can have my assistants teach the classes in Montreal while I’m here,” Michael agreed.

“I’ll speak to Dr. Nance this week and get permission.” Dr. Nance was the District Commissioner over the entire program. “Magog will be better for everyone than going all the way to Coaticook.”

“Yes, if you said Coaticook, I’d decline right away. It’s as far to Coaticook as it is to Montreal, and the roads are worse. It’s almost as long to go around the lake as it is to get to a major city.”

“How long does it take you to get to Coaticook?” Cam asked Jean-René.

“It’s forty miles each way, so an hour? An hour and a half in the rain. The schools are better in Stanstead, though, and you can’t beat living right on the water.”

“You should look into buying a boat,” Guy suggested to Michael. “Then you could go to his house and ride with him.”

“True. We should have a boat, anyway. I’ll check into it.

“Good,” Guy said. Then he turned to Cam. “Keep my little sister out of trouble, s’il vous plaît.”

Cam gave a short chuckle. Like that was ever going to happen.

* * * *

That night, Michael rolled over with a deep, satisfied sigh.

“Have I told you how much I love making love to you?” she asked, staring at the ceiling. “I do, you know, I really do, and I’m so glad you bought this house. It’s perfect.”

“Yes, but it’s quite a commute for you to get to work.”

“Oui, but it is little effort if I can spend time with you here.”

“Are you sure? It’s a long ways to travel.”

“Cherie, there in Montreal is my job; here is you and my life. I can spend one night a week at my house and then have the other six to spend with you. It is well worth it.”

Cam took a deep, contented breath and smiled back at her. “And did I tell you that I enjoyed making love to you just as much as you do in return?”

“Then we must be in the right place. I want to do this every single night.”

“But what will all your little tricks do without you?”

Michael had been known to prowl leather and lesbian bars in Montreal to pick up women who were willing to go home with her.

Michael shook her head. “They were only that. Tricks. One-nighters. They were merely warmth to keep me busy when I had nothing else to do. None of them meant a fraction of what you mean to me.”

“Won’t there be a million broken hearts if you stay here every night?”

“Then they will have to get over it. I’ve told each of them that she and I had no relationship. If they wanted more, they were out of luck or might have to wait months. Now I have you right here, a few miles from my house. I don’t have the need or desire for others. I have you. I have the original.”

Cam smiled a very satisfied smile. “A few miles? It’s almost an hour and a half drive.”

“It’s closer than when you were in Baltimore.”

“I’ll still have to go away on assignment from time to time.”

“I know, and I will miss you very much, but none of those women meant anything to me.” Michael turned over and leaned up onto her elbow. “Cameron, you are forty years old, I am forty-one. We have wasted the last ten years in our relationship but we cannot waste more. Will you marry me?”

“Marriage? Where did that come from?”

“Same s*x marriage has been legal in Canada for years, even before your Massachusetts legalized it. Wouldn’t you feel better knowing we had that legal bond between us; that if something happened to you or to me, we’d be able to legally make things better? That we could visit in the hospital anywhere? And I could tell your doctors where to shove their instruments!” Michael and Cam giggled over that one.

When Cam didn’t respond any farther, Michael immediately sat up and leaned over to her.

“I know this is sudden, but we don’t have to do it this very minute. Think about it.”

“Honey, I don’t have to think about it. Yes, I want to marry you. I’ve already committed my entire life to you, but we have to talk about some things.”

“All right. What?”

Cam gave a brief laugh. “First of all, when I’m on assignment, there may be times when I’ll need to get information…”

“And the easiest way to get it,” Michael took over, “is to take her to bed. I know that.”

Cam sighed, “Yes.”

“And when you do that, do you ever do it with your heart?”

“No! How can you think that? I never let my heart get involved. I know it seems cold and unfeeling, but it is only sex.” Cam shook her head. Yes, only s*x. The first few times it happened, she’d been in deep despair over the situation, but after that, she checked her morals to understand the entire thing. Yes, it was s*x, but nothing more. She had never initiated it herself, but if that was the way she had to get information and the trust of the woman she was investigating, then that’s the way it had to be. In her heart, she knew her emotions weren’t involved, and if the woman went to prison after that, then it wasn’t her fault. Cam had never even suggested that it would continue further.

“Oui, it was the same with my girls. That doesn’t affect us, Cam. I understand. When you are away, you are doing your work. You’ve dedicated your life to that and I will not try to stop it. You must do what you must do, as long as you don’t lose your heart over it and you keep yourself safe.”

Michael leaned down and kissed Cam long and hard.

“Then we will plan our wedding,” Cam whispered.

Michael smiled. “Yes, we will plan it. We will see when everyone can attend. Oh, wait; there is something I should do.” She got out of bed and walked around to Cam’s side. She knelt down on one knee. “Cameron Ann Andrews, I will love you for eternity. Will you be my wife?”

Cam smiled and took Michael’s face between her two hands. “Oui, Michelle Marie Gauchet. Je t’épouserai. I will marry you.”

Michael leaped up onto the bed and took Cam into her arms. “Je t’aime, cherie.”

“And I love you.”

This time Cameron took control and made love to Michael.