“Very much,” I said quickly. “For whom did she do this research? For students? Professors?”
“Yes, for both,” she responded, leading me down a corridor and unlocking a door at the end of it. “Voilà. The office of Mademoiselle Leroux.” She gestured with a flourish. “I will leave you, madame. You can find me if you have any more questions.” It is Monday morning, her tone implied, and I have better things to do than talk with the directrice de publicité.
I was relieved to be alone. Better to snoop in private when one is unaccustomed to snooping, I thought, moving over to the desk, sitting down automatically behind it. It was a small, narrow office, with a grimy window that overlooked nothing much at all, and the kind of bookcases on the walls that are put up using strips of metal into which one fits the supports for shelves. They were filled with reference books, these shelves, most of them in French, in keeping with UQAM’s status as part of Québec’s primary French-speaking university system.
I sat behind the desk and tried to imagine Danielle here.
The laughing eyes must have turned serious while she worked, I thought; and there was more than enough work obviously taking place here to keep her feeling the weight of her job responsibilities. Piles of papers, folders, and books were scattered around the surface of the desk. I moved a pile and it slid noisily to the floor; behind it I saw what I hadn’t seen in my deputy’s office, a small framed picture of Richard and Danielle together, both of them laughing; it seemed to have been taken in the countryside, on a hot brilliant summer day.
That did it. I put my face in my hands and cried.
* * *
If Danielle Leroux’s office held any secrets when I arrived, it still held them when I left.
I’d dutifully taken notes, of course, copying names scrawled on folders, glancing through the contents. She had been doing historical research lately, it seemed, on behalf of two different professors; one was looking into the fur trade, the other into the history of the province’s separatist movement. The latter held my attention for a while; there was enough passion on both sides of the separatist issue to provoke violence; but this was an old argument, one that had taken place long ago over issues that were no longer even contested.
Her computer might have held more, but it was password-protected, and no one appeared to know what that password might be. “If it’s a university computer,” I asked diffidently, “surely there’s some way to override the password?”
Ah, yes, the young student at the front desk agreed. The IT department would be able to, surely. But they would not.
“Excuse me?”
“Non, non, madame,” she said. “It is not because of you. They are most difficult to work with, even for the smallest of problems. You would need authority before they would consent to come and do such a thing.” She shrugged. “They showed the police the password, they had the authority, I suppose.”
“Authority?” But even as I spoke the word, I knew that she was right. My own experience working within the political bureaucracy told me that the university would be no different. Better to find another way in. “Thank you,” I said to the student, and left.
“We should try and see what’s there before they decide to wipe it,” I told Julian, my only bright idea of the morning, when we met for lunch. It was unclear whether or not I’d be able to expense it, I thought ruefully as I ordered my favorite crêpe aux champignons at the Breton crêperie on Saint-Denis; but I’d fight that battle when I came to it.
Julian had spent the morning with Danielle’s landlady, who didn’t actually live in the same building as the apartments she rented, but had a small place near Chinatown. Communication had been difficult. “She’s ninety if she’s a day, and hard of hearing,” he pronounced, “so it would have been difficult even if she did want to speak English, which she made clear that she did not. Seemed disappointed that I knew how to speak French. Thought she could one-up me.”
I could just imagine his accent. “I could talk to her, if you’d like,” I offered.
“No problem. We got along well once we started talking about Danielle. Danielle was the nicest tenant you could ever hope for, and why she wasn’t married was a mystery, pretty as she was and smart, too,” he said, and I could hear the woman’s voice coming through in his. “Never forgot her landlady’s birthday, if you can believe it, and never any complaints in the building about loud music at night, not like some she could mention.”
“So Danielle was a saint,” I said, watching the server approach with our crêpes. I waited until she had set them down and we’d thanked her. “Who kills a saint?”
“One of those motorcycle maniacs, you want the landlady’s opinion,” said Julian, forking ham and béchamel sauce into his mouth. “She’s not that far off, though, honestly. I think some of my colleagues have been looking hard at the Angels.” He shook his head. “But they look hard at the Angels for everything, and they’re usually right.”
“And the motorcycle gang has a new affinity for middle-aged women?” I asked, thinking of Annie Desmarchais. As far as I’d been able to see, the women on the backs of the cycles were barely of legal age.
“Well, that’s where we’re ahead of them, anyway,” said Julian. “Hey, you think UQAM is going to wipe her laptop?” he asked suddenly. I hadn’t thought he’d been listening before.
“Eventually,” I said, sipping cider and thinking about it. “Just like how eventually they’ll hire someone and clear out all her stuff. Your people didn’t seem to want anything from there; they left her apartment pretty fast. And no one seems to think she’s anything other than a statistic. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m still stuck on your people.”
“You know. Your people. The police,” I said, gesturing vaguely. “SPVM. Anyway. Does she have family? I mean, someone who’s taking care of her effects?”
He pulled his own small notebook from his pocket and flipped back through the pages. “Parents deceased,” he read. “There’s a brother up in Québec City, came down to identify her, probably still around somewhere.”
“He might know the password.”
Julian looked at me sharply. “Where are you going with this? You know the police already looked at it.”
“What did they find?”
He grimaced. “Nothing. Nothing anyone said was connected to her death, though we may be looking for different things. Why, what do you think is there?”
I shrugged and finished chewing before I answered. “Who knows, Julian, but if you’re right and this isn’t about sex, then it has to be something more dangerous, more cerebral. And most people keep their cerebral stuff on their computers these days. And no one found a computer in Danielle’s apartment, did they? There’s just the office one?” I considered. “I mean, okay, at the very least it will give us more information about her. I mean, if you wanted to find out about me, that’s where you’d look. I have online calendaring, my address book, my personal finances, reports, employee evaluations, e-mail … it’s all there.” I frowned. “Did they find her address book, or her daily planner anywhere? I didn’t see any in the office.”
He didn’t have to consult his notes this time. “Nada. So she’s probably like you, keeps everything on the computer.”
I nodded, thinking of the messy desk, the papers everywhere. “We both use Macs,” I said slowly. “We probably have a lot of the same software for keeping track of life, for managing everyday stuff. There might be something there your colleagues didn’t see, or think was important.”
“Did you try any passwords?”
I shrugged again. “Her name, her street name, that was all. I didn’t know her birth date, but honestly, it could be anything. Her mother’s maiden name, a nickname, even something completely random. University accounts have really hard-to-guess passwords, and they get changed all the time, so who knows?” Ivan did that, generated a new password every week. But then again, Ivan worked with people whose minds were pretty
good at trying to outsmart stuff like that. It was less likely that Danielle would have felt a need to be that safety-conscious. “Listen, I’ll write something official for the dean, see if that gives us entrée with the university IT guys. They can probably override her password in two seconds flat, maybe even over the network.”
He was frustrated. “That’ll take time. We need to move on this, because the other computers were wiped. Maybe even remotely. Let me get it done through the department. Maybe a phone call will be enough.” He grinned, suddenly and vividly. “I’m close with one of our IT people. Maybe she can do it, or talk to her counterpart at UQAM. Get us access.”
“She?” I smiled back at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Definitely a she. You about ready to go?”
I finished my cider. “Where to now? What’s the plan?”
He signaled for the bill. “You want to take turns paying? I’ll take this one.”
“Fine.” I nodded. “What’s the plan?”
He counted out money. “I’ll call Monique and see if I can get the computer stuff started. If you’re right, then that’s critical.” He smiled at the waitress and she giggled. I mean, really, giggled. He had the strangest effect on young women.
Julian stood up. “Then we’ll go see Danielle’s place together. I want you along, you might see something I haven’t. And then we’ll see about talking to frère Jacques.”
“That’s not really his name?”
“Cross my heart,” Julian said cheerfully, and held the door for me. “Après toi.”
We were able to do both errands at once, as it turned out, because Jacques Leroux was sitting in his sister’s apartment when we arrived. Just sitting. Not reading, not watching television, not looking through her possessions. Just sitting.
Julian presented his credentials and glossed over mine, then took another look at the man sitting dejectedly in the tapestry chair by the window and turned to me. “Madame LeDuc…?”
Obviously dealing with the grieving was to be my role in this partnership. I said, as gently as I could, “Monsieur Leroux, please accept our condolences. Losing your sister in such a way is beyond terrible.”
He looked at me as though seeing me for the first time, a big, burly man, without the laughter that sparkled around his sister’s face, even in her pictures. “Yes?”
I sat down hesitantly on the edge of the sofa nearest him and said, as gently as I could, “Though it is no doubt painful for you, monsieur, it would help us if you could answer some questions.”
“They’ve already been,” he said heavily. “The police.” He looked around as though expecting to see more of them. “They just left. An hour ago, perhaps. They have asked me many questions.” My, this was fun, following Julian’s colleagues around and pestering people in pain for a second time.
“Je sais, monsieur,” I said. I know. “But just a few more questions…”
He made a gesture of resignation. “Ask, then, madame.”
I opened my notebook. “Were you and your sister close, monsieur?”
He shook his head; I had already sensed what the answer would be. In a room filled with books, art, and photographs, this man was simply sitting. They had had, I thought, little in common. “We would see each other for holidays,” he said heavily. “She came to Québec for Christmas and New Year’s, stayed with us a few days. She sent us cards—for birthdays: that of my wife and my sons as well as my own.” That was what Julian had said: she remembered birthdays, Danielle—her landlady’s as well as those of her family. The more I knew about her, the more I realized that she was someone I would have liked.
Jacques Leroux was still talking, and I reminded myself to take notes. “Danielle went to university,” he said. “I never was interested. I do construction. I like working outdoors.” He looked around him again, as though startled anew to be finding himself in this room. “I’ve sent for my wife,” he said helplessly. “She’ll know what to do with—all this.”
Julian cleared his throat. “When was the last time you heard from Danielle?” I was right: his accent when he spoke French was atrocious.
Jacques seemed not to mind, though I wondered if Julian was having trouble following him. Even for me, the upriver accent was thick and difficult to understand. “It was in the summer,” he said. “In July. She called on the telephone,” and then, as though such an extraordinary occurrence rated an explanation, he added, “it was my son Luc’s birthday. She always called to speak to the children.”
Too long ago to be useful, I thought. “Monsieur, did you know of your sister’s life? Anyone who might have wished her harm?”
He shook his head mutely, then raised his eyes to mine. “Who would?” he asked. “Everyone liked Danielle. Even when we were children, everyone liked her.”
“Did she tell you if she was—seeing someone? Something romantic?” I hated myself for asking it.
He nodded slowly. “Back in the spring, yes, there was a letter. She was happy, I think, about him. But she did not say a name.”
Julian looked at me sharply; he had probably sensed my sigh of relief. All I needed was to hear that she and Richard had been fighting, or something of the sort. I wondered fleetingly if he was being questioned at that very moment. “Monsieur, if it is not too painful for you, it would be helpful if my colleague and I could look around here. We won’t disturb anything.”
He nodded again. “Stay if you want, I’ll go for a drink,” and he rose slowly from the fragile chair.
He looked as though he needed one. We waited until the door closed behind him, then switched back to English. “So?” Julian asked.
“So what? He hasn’t got a clue,” I said impatiently. “See if you can find any files somewhere around, Julian”
“You’re obsessed,” he grumbled, but he started looking all the same. I wasn’t really sure why: the place was sealed; his colleagues had already been over it and found it so uninteresting that they’d allowed the brother to stay.
Danielle Leroux’s apartment was only slightly more orderly than her office, but it, too, practically embraced her personality. Hand-woven fabrics were everywhere: in the wall hanging in her bedroom, in the shawl tossed casually across a chair, in the bright textures of the rugs scattered over polished hardwood floors. Colors were vibrant, from the original oils and acrylics on the walls to the books, hardcover and paperback alike, which filled the bookcases to bursting and spilled out onto chairs, tables, and the counters in the kitchen. She read in both French and English, I noted, and at one time had apparently tried to teach herself Russian; I’d have to remember to tell Ivan about that. There were hand-cast pottery mugs in the kitchen, a used and not yet washed wineglass in the sink, an espresso machine next to a canister of coffee. In the refrigerator, cheese and lettuce and some convenience items; not much there.
She kept a tarot deck in her bedside table along with a couple of novels and a vibrator, which made me smile. Her clothes were more muted than her apartment; like most Montréalers, black was Danielle’s main motif, though she also apparently liked blues and greens in their darker varieties. Like me, she preferred flat shoes.
There was absolutely nothing that we saw that gave any indication of why she had been killed.
There was something distasteful about the whole enterprise: like being a voyeur in someone else’s life, pawing through dirty clothes and scummed-over glasses. I wondered what people would think of my home, my kitchen, my bed, if they were to go through it as I was doing now. Like undressing an already denuded corpse, finding out what’s under the skin as well as under the clothing. It gave me chills.
Julian, happily unaware of my dark thoughts, at length snapped off his gloves. “No secrets,” he pronounced. “No laptop, either, so we need to crack the code at school.”
I looked around me, feeling suddenly desolate at the apartment’s emptiness. Bereft of the young woman who would never open that door again. “Julian,” I said quietly.
“Yeah?”
That first time, I was in restraints for three days.
Three long days and three longer nights, and if I’d found the howls of the dormitory occupants disturbing, it was nothing to what I was hearing now. These weren’t the screams of people haunted by ghostly apparitions; this was pain. I was tied down: I couldn’t even cover my ears, shut it out, pretend that it wasn’t happening.
I’ll never speak out again, I promised myself; if they’ll only let me out of here, I’ll do whatever they want. Anything. Anything to make this stop.
They gave me water to drink from a long straw and once a day the restraints were loosened enough for me to sit up and eat a slice of bread. That was all. Other than that, I lay there, my muscles cramping, the restraints cutting my wrists and ankles, staring at the ceiling. Twice a day I was brought a bedpan. That was all.
I had nothing to do but think, and hear, and smell, and feel. They were cold and hard, the restraints, and there were no blankets at night. I couldn’t stop shivering, even though it was springtime, even though the air should have been warm.
There were people coming and going all the time, and gradually I stopped knowing when it was daytime and when it was night. The clatter of chains, the murmur of voices, doors slamming, children—you couldn’t not know that these were children—wailing.
What I heard when I was there—it was the worst. I wanted to pretend that the voices I was listening to weren’t human, because I didn’t want to believe that a human could make a sound like that.
The metal had rubbed my wrists raw. The orderlies returned me to one of the dayrooms, where I recognized the sister in charge, and she looked at my wrists right away and sent me off with a younger nun to have them cleaned and bandaged. “Sister’s always angry they don’t take better care,” the young one said.
“That’s kind of her,” I said, my voice tentative, because I didn’t yet know what got you in trouble in this place.
“It’s not,” the young sister said. “Sometimes they get infected, and then the patient can’t work, and Sister Véronique hates that.”
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