by Giles Blunt
The male guard handed back the spiral notebook. “This too.”
Delorme returned to the check-in counter. The plump guard shook his head. “Sorry. Tear a few pages out of the notebook, and you can use this.” He handed her a library pencil.
Delorme returned to the security gate and went through.
“You’re lucky that ain’t a underwire bra you’re wearing,” the female guard said, “or I’d a taken that too.”
Yet another guard escorted her from security, unlocking and relocking each door as they went. The prison interior—this part of it, anyway—resembled a high school. Gleaming floor, the smell of cleaning products, and steel doors that almost looked like wood.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Too long.”
Another door, another corridor. Halfway along, he stopped at a door with a small square of thick Plexiglas. It had been spat on and inadequately cleaned.
The guard opened the door and held it. “I know they told you the rules and I know you signed the visitors’ agreement, but I will tell you again. You do not touch the prisoner. You do not give anything to the prisoner. You do not accept anything from the prisoner. Nothing. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Sit in that chair over there. You will find a panic button under the edge of the table. It’s big enough you can operate it with your knee if need be. It rings an alarm out here that can’t be heard in there and will bring me pronto. You find it?”
Delorme felt under the table. “Got it.”
“All right, then.”
He closed the door and locked it. Delorme tried to pull her chair closer to the table, but it was bolted to the floor. She wrote several single-word reminders on a sheet of notepaper, the soft lead smearing her attempts at neat strokes and loops. The chair was too far from the table, and in no time at all her neck started to hurt.
The clack of the lock made her jump. The door opened and the guard steered Fritz Reicher inside. The prisoner was manacled at wrists and ankles, the two restraints connected by a short chain that kept his wrists low and before him in a monkish attitude. He was thirty years old, six-three, with enormous hands. The manacles did little to diminish the impression of physical power.
“Fritz, you’re gonna behave yourself, right?” the guard said.
“Yes, of course.” The German accent was still strong, but Reicher had a pleasant voice, melodious and surprisingly soft for a man of his size.
“You know what happens if you don’t, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Yes, of course. Yes, of course. You got a way with words, Fritz.” The guard had him lean against the wall. He knelt and unlocked the ankle manacles. He stood again and pulled the connecting chain through, turned the prisoner around, and unlocked the wrist restraints.
Delorme had expected the manacles to stay on. She thought about saying something.
“Sit.”
Reicher sat and folded his hands in his lap.
“You stay seated throughout, understand?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You don’t move out of that chair until I come get you, understand?”
“Yes, of course.”
“All right, then.” The guard put his key in the door and looked back at Delorme. “I’ll be right out here.”
“Okay. Thanks.” She wondered again if she should ask about the restraints, but the guard looked as if he knew what he was doing.
He went out and closed the door behind him. Bolts slid home. Then nothing. No sound of him walking away. No sound of anything at all from the corridor. From somewhere beyond the prison walls, a truck horn honked long and loud. Men’s voices echoed along distant corridors, involved in a game or a fight.
Reicher remained still, a mild expression on his face. Even sitting down, he looked extremely strong. Years ago, at the academy, Delorme’s instructor in hand-to-hand combat had stressed that physical power was not just a matter of muscle. “Big muscles are one thing, but they’re not everything. You can get these big-boned guys, tall, wide in the shoulders, even if they’re quite skinny—even if they never work out—with formidable advantages of reach, obviously, but also incredible grip, not to mention the kind of leverage that can snap a major bone like that.” The snap of his fingers had reverberated around the gym.
Delorme introduced herself and told Reicher the reason for her visit. Loose ends on the Choquette case. If he was helpful, she would ask that his co-operation be noted in his file.
He showed no sign that he remembered her. That was not surprising, as her own involvement in the Choquette case had been peripheral, her testimony confined to minor matters.
She expected a demand for a more exciting quid pro quo—cigarettes, more privileges, the usual barter. A note in the file was pretty cheap.
“It’s a mistake,” Reicher said. He turned his head and looked at the door.
“What’s a mistake?”
He turned his head back to look at her. “He should not have removed the manacles. This is not the way.”
“I’m sure we’ll manage.”
“It’s an error because of last week. My lawyer was here. For lawyers they remove restraints. It’s proper protocol. This is not. I worked in security. This is bad security.”
“Do you get the news in here, Fritz?”
“Ha ha. Yes, of course.”
“Then you know about Marjorie Flint? The senator’s wife?”
“Yes, of course. Poor woman, freezing to death like that.”
“Do you know anything about her—or about the senator—besides what you may have read in the news?”
“No, I’m afraid, nothing.”
“Are you sure? Her name never came up anywhere? Did you see her picture on the news?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Did you recognize her?”
“No, I don’t know her. Freezing to death like that, it’s no joke.”
“Would you actually tell me if you did know her?”
“Ha ha. Yes, of course.”
“Fritz, are you on a lot of medication?”
“Do you think I am?”
“You repeat yourself a lot. You say ‘Yes, of course’ a lot. And you laugh at weird times.”
“I see. Possibly I am being medicated without my knowledge.” He pronounced it nollich. “They could give me things, I wouldn’t know. I have to eat what they give me. Ha ha, you think I’m on medication. Interesting. Did someone inform you of this?”
“No. What about Laura Lacroix—does that name ring a bell?”
“Who?”
“Laura Lacroix.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know this name.”
“You’re sure?”
Reicher seemed to throw off his lethargy. He sat up and leaned on the table, the change in posture doubling his size.
“Do you half a dog, Detective? Did I already ask you this?”
“I don’t.”
“Damn. It’s too bad.”
“Laura Lacroix was Leonard Priest’s girlfriend. Briefly.”
“Ha ha. Leonard.” Lennet. “Yes, of course. You know I can tell you nothing about Leonard. Some people, yes. Ha ha. Not Leonard.”
“He claims she came to Club Risqué. I thought perhaps you might remember her.”
Delorme pulled the photo from the file. Reicher reached for it but she pulled it back.
“Ha ha. I’m just trying to see.”
“You can see.” She tilted it to counter the glare.
“Pretty.”
“Do you recognize her?”
“Not really. But she is Leonard’s type. They all look the same, Leonard’s girlfriends. The ones he really likes. She looks like you. Ha ha.”
Garth Romney’s position was beginning to make more sense. Whatever else Fritz Reicher might be, he was not a great witness, drifting in and out like a faint signal. Then there was his size, his accent, his air of aggressive indifference. Not to ment
ion the stupid laugh. You might not automatically brand him as a murderer, but it was easy to imagine him standing by while someone else did the murdering. “Yes, of course,” he would say. “Kill the lady, yes, of course.”
Delorme started to ask him about the night of the murder, but Reicher’s mind was elsewhere. “You don’t half a dog, okay, it’s fine. But perhaps you are knowing some veterinarian? Or the—what do you call it—the animal authorities. The shelter people? I want to walk dogs. It’s my plan. For when I’m getting out. Leonard says he will help me do it. I want to be a dog walker. I lift for a time in New York City. There they half many dog walkers. Five on a leash—six sometimes—you should see. So funny.”
“The night of the murder. In your initial statement, you said you drove Leonard Priest to Algonquin Bay to—as you put it—’play some games.’ That it was Priest’s idea. That you were just there to role-play.”
“Yes, but I was confused. I was high, you know, when I was arrested. I was confusing it with another time. Many times. Leonard was wanting me to play Nazi always. With people who like to be scared and so on. I didn’t like to do it myself. I didn’t like people thinking always Germans are Nazis. But Leonard luft it and so did many customers also. To me it was acting. Performing a part. Pretty convincing, too, I would say. You know, I studied acting.”
“In fact, you terrorized people.”
“Only people who wanted it so. Nobody was calling the police, something like that.”
“Because they were terrified.”
“Yes, of course—but like at the movies you’re terrified. Frightened because you want to be frightened.” He half rose from the chair and flashed his enormous hands. “Boo! Ha ha, you jumped.” He sat back down. “But it’s not like you’re having a heart attack, something like that.”
Delorme glanced at the door.
“He’s not there probably. I think so.”
“You can hardly call it a game, Fritz. The gun was loaded.”
“Yes, of course. It’s more frightening. Shoot a hole in the wall, shoot a tree. Boom! Then you are convincing people. When I was studying acting in New York, they used to say, ‘Ya gotta sell da line.’ Just like that, they would say. ‘Ya gotta sell da line.’ We were selling the gun, in that sense. Not really selling it, of course. Ha ha. Not gun-running.”
“Do yourself a favour, Fritz. Tell me something I can use. There’s no mention of you being high when you were arrested. You were a bartender, sometimes a bouncer—how would you get to know a customer so well that you could drive up to Algonquin Bay on your own for an encounter with her—let alone take her out to an abandoned boathouse for sex? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It was sex. To make sense is not required. I got carried away, that’s all. I was playing my role, you know—Nazi bastard interrogating poor little prisoner and so on—threatening her. I’m drunk, I’m in character, a total Nazi bastard, and I did it. I’m sorry for it. I never wanted to kill her. I never wanted to kill anyone, never in my life. Always I am a peaceful person. It was just games and I had too much to drink. It went too far and I can’t fix it.”
“Except in your initial statement you said it was Leonard’s idea, Leonard giving the orders. Leonard ordered you to shoot and you did.”
“I was high. I was confused. It’s wrong. Leonard didn’t do it. I did it.”
“So here you are for, what, another twelve or thirteen years.”
“No, it’s eight years total. So six more only.”
“Really? Someone’s telling you they give parole to a guy who takes a woman to an abandoned boathouse? Who slaps a leather mask over her face and terrorizes her for God knows how long? Threatens her with a loaded gun and then puts a bullet through her head?”
Reicher’s face changed. His eyes stayed on her and Delorme pitied Régine Choquette if those were the last eyes she saw in this world.
“You’re being harsh to me, Detective. But I’m having good behaviour. I’m taking courses. I will get parole.” Even from across the table, Delorme could see the heat rising from his chest, up his neck, scorching the pale skin. His breathing had become rapid.
“Meanwhile,” Delorme said, “the years go by. You’re in here getting old, losing your good looks, surrounded by people a lot nastier than you are, and the man who ordered you to murder this woman is in one of his beautiful houses. How many houses does he have, by the way?”
“Okay, so life is not being all the time fair. Is life treating you all the time fair?”
“Fritz, it was his gun. Found at his club. His prints at the scene. Why isn’t he in prison?”
“Leonard is trying his best to get me out. He’s doing, you know, behind the scenes. It takes time. He’s talking to the Ottawa animal shelter for me, too. He has a veterinarian friend in Algonquin Bay, too, he’s talking to. He cried, you know. When he heard I got twelve years? Leonard cried.”
“His gun. Found in his club.”
“I was not thinking clearly. Hiding the gun at the club, it was not the best idea.”
“All of this against him, and yet Priest was never charged. Don’t you wonder why?”
“Leonard has money. Friends. People like Leonard.”
“Fritz, I can name three millionaires who are serving time in this country. Money and friends don’t get you off a murder charge.”
“It’s the women, with Leonard. I’ve seen it. A magnetism. And Ottawa, you know, powerful people. There’s a woman who helps him.”
“A lawyer? Who are you talking about?”
“I told him, Leonard, I said—one time he’s coming to visit me—I said, ‘It’s amazing, I thought they would charge you. Why didn’t they charge you?’ ”
“He came to visit you?”
“Listen about Leonard. If you are Leonard’s friend, he stays always your friend. He’s generous. He’s kind. He understands. He told me, he said, ‘Fritz, it’s not fair’. He said he was just lucky. He had a secret weapon. A person, I mean. A secret weapon named Diane something. Deborah, something like. Darlene! That’s it. Darlene. I never heard of any Darlene and I said Darlene who but he said it was better I’m not knowing. Well, you can look at me like that if you want, but it’s true.”
“Some lawyer in Ottawa. Darlene.”
“Could be Toronto. Could be also Algonquin Bay.”
“No. I’d know her.”
“Toronto then. I don’t know.”
“This is bullshit, Fritz. You know it’s bullshit. I don’t believe in any magic ‘Darlene’ and neither do you. The reason he wasn’t charged is because you changed your story. You took the fall. Do you have any idea how dumb that is? You could get years off your sentence if you told the truth.”
“You call me stupid?”
“I just said taking the fall for a murderer who doesn’t care is dumb.”
“You think I’m stupid.”
“I didn’t say that.”
The placid, indifferent features had rearranged themselves. Reicher unfolded himself from the chair and went to the door. He put a hand up to shade the Plexiglas. He made a tsk-tsk sound. “It’s improper. It’s bad security, don’t you find?”
“Sit down, please, Fritz.”
He turned his back to the door and leaned against it, folding his arms. “Look at you, so small. I could kill you right now. Imagine. And no one would know. No one would hear.”
“That would be a really bad idea.”
“I don’t like it. Calling me stupid.”
“Just sit down, Fritz. If that guard sees you’re up, you’ll get in trouble and that’s not what you want.”
“Do you see a guard? Do you see a camera? There is no camera. What’s to stop me pulling you out of that chair, snapping you in half?”
“Fritz, I’m a cop. You’re not going to touch me.”
He showed her an enormous hand, just swivelled his arm out from the elbow like a gate, hand open, fingers aligned. He flexed it a couple of times.
Delorme pressed the panic but
ton with her knee.
“Look at you. One hand I could wrap around your throat—one hand. You couldn’t even scream.”
“Unless I shot you first.”
“Ha ha. You’re not armed.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s not allowed. No one brings weapons in this place. Not even the RCMP.”
Delorme put a hand inside her blazer. “Think about it, Fritz. Why would they take the manacles off if I wasn’t armed?” She pressed the buzzer again.
“He won’t come. It’s change of shift.”
Possible self-defence scenarios were flashing through Delorme’s mind. A leap to the table, kick to the head.
“Let’s get back to Laura Lacroix. She may still be alive. If you help us save her, that could look very good in your file.” Delorme opened her folder, pulled out a photograph and held it up.
“What could you do if I decide to hit you a few times, ruin that pretty face?”
Delorme sat forward and tried to look bigger. “And what are you going to do when I tell them you made repeated threats? That you refused to stay seated? How do you think that’s going to play at your parole hearing? I’ll tell you exactly how it’ll play: Petition denied. Shows no remorse. Still a danger.”
“I was not threatening.”
“Do it again and I’ll make sure you never get parole. I’ll devote my life to it.”
Reicher went to his chair and sat down.
“Press the buzzer, please. I don’t like you. I want to go back.”
“Tell me why Leonard Priest wanted Régine Choquette dead.”
“He didn’t. It wasn’t intentional. I told you. I did it. It was an accident. Call the guard, please.”
She pressed the buzzer yet again. Where the hell was he?
“Why are you protecting this killer, Fritz?”
“Leonard is not a killer. He is my friend. He looks after me. Takes care of me. Loves me, even.”
“You think Leonard Priest loves you?”
“Maybe he doesn’t say so in words, but I know he loves me. He gets me a lawyer I can’t afford. Sends me money, packages.”
“You think Leonard Priest loves you? He’s the one who got you into this mess, and he’s out there laughing.”