Killing a man to get his finger.
What kind of messed-up world are we living in?
14
Lessard stopped off at a convenience store and bought four cups of coffee. Arriving at Mongeau’s office, he gave a cup to Pearson, one to Adams, and one to Adams’s assistant.
Was the guy’s name Perron or Charron?
He could never remember.
He took a gulp of coffee that scalded his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He brought a hand to his lips, swearing like a sailor. “Aaargh! What do they make this stuff with, a goddamn blast furnace?”
Pearson was still working at the computer.
“Hey, Victor. Check this out.”
Lessard stepped behind his colleague, who scrolled through a series of photographs of the victim taken from various angles.
“Are these the pictures Doug took?”
“No, they’re from the CD that we found on the desk. This answers your question. The disc was left here intentionally by the killer.”
Lessard licked his lips reflexively.
Why had the murderer taken these photographs? Was he sending them a message? If so, what was it?
“Is that all?”
“I checked the URL on the label. It’s a blog, created from a public IP address.”
Lessard knew almost nothing about the digital world. Pearson might as well have been speaking Chinese.
“A what?”
“A blog. It’s like a personal website where you can post online content for free. There are millions of them out there, on subjects as varied as curling, the Kennedy assassination, and erectile dysfunction.”
“Are you telling me anybody can create one of these things? Like, for instance, I could build a site devoted to Muhammad Ali?”
“Or your vacation on Lake Pohenegamook.”
Lessard had taken his family there two summers ago. Their last ceasefire before everything went to hell.
“Hey, show a little respect. Lake Pohenegamook is really nice.”
“Sure,” Pearson said, grinning. “It even has its own monster.”
Lessard ignored the jibe. “If there’s a website, then there’s got to be some kind of electronic trail. We should be able to track down the person who set it up, right?”
“If the blog came from a private computer, yes. But in this case, it originated on a public network.”
“Meaning?”
“It was created at an internet café in the Quebec City area.”
“Okay. Are there security cameras at internet cafés? Registration requirements?”
“None.”
“So we have no way of knowing who’s behind this blog?”
“Barring a stroke of luck, no. I’ve put in a call to the café. I’m waiting to hear back from the manager.”
“If you go to the website, what do you find?”
“That’s the weird part. You don’t find anything, except the same text that was on the label of the CD: Error message: 10161416.”
“Maybe the site is where the killer plans to publish the pictures that are on the disc. What do you think the error message means?”
“Typically, an error message appears when an operating system or program runs into a problem. The number usually indicates the nature of the problem.”
“Does the number on this message refer to a well-known type of problem?”
“No. I checked the standard error messages that are used on current systems. None of them matched this one. I thought it might be a reference to an anniversary or a phone number, but there are too many digits.”
“What if it’s the combination to a safe?” Lessard asked.
“A safe equipped with fingerprint recognition? Interesting idea. But in that case, why would the murderer be giving us the combination?”
Lessard was silent for a moment.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he said at last. “But it’s too soon to be ruling out possibilities. Keep looking through the pictures. Maybe they hold some message or hidden meaning we haven’t figured out yet. The killer’s trying to tell us something, that’s for sure. Otherwise he wouldn’t have left us the disc.” Lessard picked up Pearson’s Coke can from the desk and took a sip. “Find out from the manager of the café if it’s possible to identify the person who created the website. And check with Adams to see if there are any prints on the disc, and whether he can say what kind of camera the pictures were taken with.”
“He’s already working on that.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“Yeah. I found something pretty interesting. Have a look.”
Pearson clicked on a file and an image came up on the screen. It showed the victim, Jacques Mongeau, kneeling on an earthen floor, his hands manacled and chained to a wall. He was stark naked. A woman in skin-tight latex pants stood over him brandishing a riding crop. The dominatrix’s pendulous breasts hung a few centimetres from Mongeau’s mouth. Lessard had seen this woman before. Where? The staging was very suggestive, very hardcore.
Lessard stared in astonishment.
“BDSM?”
Pearson nodded.
“Who’s the woman?”
Pearson pointed to the family photograph on the windowsill.
“His wife.”
Lessard made an effort to overcome his surprise.
“Are there others?”
“Fifteen pictures in all. Based on lighting and framing, I’d say they were taken by an amateur, using a digital camera. It’s just the husband and wife in some shots. In others, additional couples have joined in.”
“Swingers?”
“Sure looks like it.”
Lessard hesitated. What did this mean?
“Did you recognize any of the other people?”
“No. Most of them are masked.”
“How twisted do the photos get? Any animals? Children?”
“No, no. As far as I can tell, it’s just consenting adults.”
Lessard frowned, perplexed. Was this a real lead, or just another dead end? He had trouble imagining the prime minister’s former counsellor bound to a bed, getting whipped by a latex-clad dominatrix. But the pictures spoke for themselves.
“Was this stuff well hidden?”
“Not if you know anything about computers.”
“Could the killer have copied the pictures?”
“With ease, either by emailing them to himself, downloading them to a USB flash drive, or burning them to a CD. I can tell you right now that they weren’t emailed.”
“Were they downloaded or burned to a CD?”
“There’s no way to know.”
Pearson looked at Lessard. “Victor, do you think the killer might post these photographs on his blog?”
“Maybe.” Lessard thought for a moment. “Would it be possible to put the blog under surveillance to identify the killer? Like setting a digital trap?”
“Absolutely. But if he’s careful and sticks to public computers, we won’t have much chance of catching him. Do you want me to request a warrant?”
“No. Let’s not waste time on that for the moment. What else have you got?”
“Not much. There are a lot of emails, including some exchanges with the former prime minister, but nothing that hints at a link with his death.”
Lessard looked over at a metal file cabinet in the corner. Adams and his assistant were busy lifting prints from it.
“What about physical files? Have any gone missing or been tampered with?”
“I had a look with Ms. Daoust earlier. She didn’t notice anything out of place.”
Lessard cleared his throat. “So what are we looking at? A guy who’s tight with the former prime minister and a fan of kinky sex, who gets murdered and then has his finger cut off. The whole thing is clear as mud!”
Lessard approached Doug Adams.
“What have you got, Doug? Any prints?”
“A ton of them. A ton of fibres, too. That’s the problem. The desk, in particular, is covere
d with prints. If the killer left any and we have him in the database, we’ll identify him. But it’s going to take time.”
Lessard let out a growl. He had nothing definite, nothing he could work with. It was maddening. Tanguay would be only too pleased to hand off the case.
The detective sergeant made a face. This goddamn heartburn was driving him nuts! “Pearson, the commander’s called a press conference for seven o’clock. Let’s all meet at six-thirty to debrief. Doug, the minute you come up with anything —”
“Yes, Victor. You’ll be the first to know.”
Lessard walked out, hands in his pockets, scowling. The image of the two caribou heads crept back into his mind. The feeling that he’d forgotten something was nagging at him.
A glass of Scotch would make everything so much simpler.
15
I can’t say how long I stood there on the sidewalk gazing at the health food store. It felt like I was rooted to the spot, incapable of the smallest movement, as though an invisible bubble had descended, making me its prisoner.
I scoured my memory and inspected the wall minutely, searching for the slightest difference, but I couldn’t find any. Everything was the same — the ornamentation, the colour of the stonework, and, above all, those inimitable gargoyles.
Everything was the same except for one detail: George’s bar was nowhere to be seen.
I walked into the establishment.
A young store clerk with a ring through his lower lip was working languidly at the counter. Standing in front of him, a man with a deeply lined face was waiting to be served. I gazed at the shelves, the walls, and the faded linoleum, as though these things might reveal some truth that I hadn’t yet thought of.
The dimensions of the space were roughly the same as those of the bar. But the similarity ended there. Though its walls were configured the same way, the health food store, crammed with items of all kinds, bore no resemblance to the minimalist interior of the bar.
Hesitantly, I approached the clerk, who seemed unaware of my presence.
“Excuse me. I’d like some information, please. How long has this store been open?”
The clerk turned and looked at me with a dazed expression. Keen intelligence clearly wasn’t his defining trait.
“Huh?”
Impatiently, I repeated the question.
“Uh … since nine o’clock this morning.”
“No, I mean, how long has the store been located here?”
“Like, in this building?”
“Yes.”
“Since 2000, I think. Before that, we were on the other side of the street.”
Which meant they’d occupied the space for more than five years. How could that be?
“What was here before that?”
“I can’t remember, exactly. I think it was a dry-cleaning place.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh … yeah.”
“It wasn’t a bar, by any chance?”
The young man shook his head. I murmured a vague thank-you and left the store. My head began to spin. I sat down on the curb and vomited between my legs.
What was happening to me?
First it had been Miles’s apartment. Now it was the bar where I’d had a cup of coffee in his company. In each instance, the space had been radically transformed between my two visits.
These discoveries were forcing me to rethink the whole situation. Changing the appearance of an apartment in a few hours was one thing. Moving one business out of its premises and replacing it with an entirely different business was something else altogether. The task would have been impossibly complex.
I remembered a movie starring Michael Douglas in which an elaborate scheme had been concocted to make the central character believe that someone was trying to deprive him of his property and take his life.
Did Miles have the means to pull off a hoax of that magnitude?
This wasn’t Hollywood.
Nobody had that kind of power in real life.
------------------------
Trois-Pistoles
Through the window, Laurent watched as tendrils of mist rose off the river and dissipated into the air.
Still strapped to his bed, shaking uncontrollably, he had spent the last few hours yelling.
“Waldorf! Let me go!”
But the son of a bitch wouldn’t even answer.
Then a moment came when Laurent couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the door. Was the man still in the house? If so, what was he up to?
He wished he could free one arm. But despite pouring every ounce of his strength into the effort, despite tugging in every conceivable direction, he couldn’t do it. Waldorf was manifestly skilled at restricting a person’s movements. Laurent’s desperate struggles had achieved nothing except to flay the skin from his wrists.
He was dizzy and nauseated.
He knew it wasn’t Waldorf ’s injection that had made him unwell. No, the problem was that Laurent desperately needed alcohol. Just thinking about it made his bones ache.
His head was spinning. He began to scream.
“Waldorf! Waldorf!”
• • •
In the living room, Waldorf was peacefully immersed in a book. Now and then he would mark a passage with a yellow highlighter.
Betraying no emotion, he took small sips from a cup of green tea while the screaming ran its course. Only after several minutes of silence did he finally stand up.
Noiselessly, he stepped into the room.
Laurent looked at him with haggard features. A thread of drool hung from his left cheek. Without a word, Waldorf jammed two tablets into the young man’s mouth and forced him to swallow some water. A fresh wave of energy washed through Laurent, and he began struggling once more.
“Let me go, Waldorf! You have no right to —”
Waldorf smiled and patted the jacket pocket into which he had slipped the gun.
“On the contrary,” he said, cutting Laurent off, “I have every right.”
“You want to talk? Fine. Talk!”
“Not yet. I promised Miles I’d wean you off the booze first.”
Laurent’s eyes narrowed. He hated this man.
“Stop it, Waldorf! You never spoke to Miles! You know that’s not possible!”
With a sigh, Waldorf left the room. Would he succeed in breaking the young man’s will?
------------------------
I no longer had enough strength to think.
What are you supposed to do when reality turns upside down? What are you supposed to believe when all the things you took for granted turn out to be wrong?
I remained seated on the sidewalk, hoping to get over my lethargy. After a moment, I heard the door of the health food store swing open.
Aware that someone was behind me, I swung around. The man who had been waiting at the counter when I entered the store was now approaching. He bent down. I tried to brush some snow over my vomit, but he glimpsed it.
“Are you okay?”
I wanted to tell him I was fine, but I couldn’t control myself. The tears started to flow again. It was my second crying jag in the space of a few hours. Hardly my usual style.
“I’ll be all right,” I said. “Thanks for asking. I’m just having a really bad day.”
Then the weeping started afresh. There was nothing I could do to stop it. The man pulled a checkered handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me.
“Go on, give your nose a good blow. It’ll make you feel better.”
I did as he instructed. He waited patiently while I calmed down.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My memory’s been playing nasty tricks on me today.”
“Oh, I know all about that,” he said. “And I have bad news for you. It doesn’t get better with age. But in your case, I think there may be hope.”
“What do you mean?”
“I overheard your conversation with the cashier. I didn’t want to seem like I was eavesdropping, so I d
idn’t interrupt. But you’re quite right, there used to be a bar at this location. A jazz bar. It closed down years ago. I wasn’t a regular customer, but every so often I’d stop in for a drink. It was run by two brothers, Tom and George Griffin.”
I was on my feet in an instant.
Hearing the man talk about the bar and an owner named George filled me with hope. Here at last was proof that I hadn’t imagined the whole story, that I hadn’t fallen prey to hallucinations.
But as my mind processed everything the man had just said, my spirits fell.
Closed down years ago.
“When did it close down?”
“If I remember correctly, it would have been sometime in the early eighties.”
I described the bar in great detail, wanting to be sure there was no confusion.
“Yes, that’s it exactly,” the man said. “You have an excellent memory. You must have visited the place. With your parents, perhaps?”
I almost replied that such a scenario would have been impossible. I was in kindergarten at the time, my parents didn’t like jazz, and anyway, we lived in Quebec City. But I didn’t want to contradict the man.
I tried to ignore the strangeness of the situation and focused on the questions I needed to ask. “What happened to George? Where can I find him?”
The man’s expression grew sombre. “I’m afraid you can’t. George had a serious motorcycle accident in the late seventies. He’s surely dead by now. Tom never got over it. He started drinking heavily. That’s what led to the bar closing down.”
I stared at the man, expecting him to start laughing at any moment. He did nothing of the kind.
I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I felt fear creeping into me.
How could I have met George if he was dead?
It took an effort to fight down the anxiety that was threatening to overwhelm me.
If George was dead, then I had lost my only lead. How could I possibly hope to find Miles?
“What about his brother?” I asked.
“Tom? He opened another bar on Monkland Avenue. I think it’s called the Old Orchard Pub. But it’s not the same kind of place. In the old days, people used to come from all over to listen to jazz here. All the local greats performed at this bar: Sandy Simpson, Jamal Cherraf, Felix Redding …”
Without Blood Page 13