Without Blood

by Martin Michaud

  Ivy cloy eve humour run late

  (Will you remember how to decipher that?)

  Miles

  Laurent wiped away a couple of tears with his thumb and handed me the note. As I read it, I had to fight back sobs of my own. But I stopped short when I saw the words “run late.”

  “That list of words — it’s an anagram, right?”

  “Right.”

  “What does ‘run late’ mean?”

  “It’s my name, with the letters rearranged. ‘Ivy cloy eve humour run late’ is an anagram for ‘I love you very much, Laurent.’”

  I thought about the painting tacked to the wall in Miles’s bedroom and the words that appeared on it: Run, late, elapse, lid, me, tee.

  I tried to tell myself that it was simply a coincidence.

  Come on, Simone! It’s staring you in the face. That’s the message you’ve been looking for.

  “Do you recall the picture that your father painted, the one that showed a stone wall covered with graffiti?”

  Laurent frowned. “What are you talking about? My father wasn’t a painter.”

  “Are you sure?” I hesitated. “There was a painting in his bedroom. I remember very clearly that he said he’d created it.”

  “I’m positive. My father didn’t paint. Why do you ask?”

  “Because there were six words written on it in red letters.”

  “So?”

  “Two of the words were ‘run’ and ‘late.’”

  Laurent’s face flushed.

  “What were the others? Hang on. Write them out.”

  He handed me a pen. Hastily, I wrote the words on my paper napkin and gave it to him. He scribbled briefly, his lower lip twitching involuntarily.

  “Waldorf was right. You have brought me a message.”

  His face had grown pale. He slid the napkin over to me.

  Under the six words I’d written, he had deciphered the anagram.

  ------------------------

  Ariane paid the bill and they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  “Did you enjoy your lunch, sweetie?”

  The child put a hand on her stomach.

  “Yes. That was good. What are we going to do now, Mom?”

  “We’re going to run some errands.”

  “Like buying food for dinner?”

  “That’s right, my love. We’re also going to stop off at the pharmacy, and we’ll drop by the video store to return the movie you watched last night.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we’ll go to Simone’s place. Can you walk a little faster, honey?”

  “Why are we going to Simone’s place? Is she home from the hospital?”

  “She did leave the hospital, but she’s not home right now. That’s why we’re going. She asked me to feed her cat.”

  Mathilde’s face lit up. “We’re going to feed Mozart? Can I do it, Mom? Please? Can I feed Mozart?”

  “Of course, sweetie. Hold my hand, we’re going to cross the street now.”

  “Yay!”

  Ariane Bélanger smiled. She’d had a troubled adolescence. She had struggled with issues of physical self-acceptance. She’d fallen into all the classic traps — alcohol, drugs, tattoos, piercings, unbridled sexuality. She had intended to spend a month backpacking in Central America. In the end, she’d stayed three years.

  It was while working as a volunteer with underprivileged children that she’d taken control of her life. Bringing Mathilde back to Canada had completed a process of transformation that had begun long before.

  Ariane liked to have fun now and then, and she occasionally allowed herself to go overboard. Her fling with Diego had been particularly entertaining, but she defined herself first and foremost as a mother, with all the responsibilities that entailed.

  Ariane Bélanger had reached a point in her life where she wanted to share her happiness with a man who wasn’t afraid of commitment, a man who wanted to devote time to his family.

  She had found her path in life when she’d realized that children are the embodiment of hope.

  She thought of Victor Lessard. She was convinced that her best days were still to come. Had Victor called? She was suddenly eager to go home and check the messages on her phone, which she had plugged into the charger before leaving the house.

  ------------------------

  Laurent, please let me die.

  Nothing else existed beyond these words. It was as though the world had come to a standstill. I took the letters of the message and reinserted them, one by one, into the six words that I’d seen on the painting. There could be no doubt. Even so, I turned to Laurent.

  “Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake? Maybe the letters could be put together in some other order, creating a different message.”

  “Do you honestly think this is just a coincidence?”

  I looked at him without answering.

  “I didn’t want to believe that my father was living in a parallel reality,” Laurent said, “let alone that he was ready to die. But that was the message that Gustave and Waldorf brought. And now you.”

  “I never got the impression that Miles was ready to die,” I said.

  Why hadn’t he confided in me? I wasn’t sure I had grasped all the implications of what I’d just learned. Laurent was looking distressed, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “I have to get out of here. I can’t breathe.”

  He jumped to his feet, dropped some money on the table, and rushed out of the restaurant. I quickly put the envelopes back in the chest and caught up to him on the sidewalk.

  “Take it easy, Laurent, you’re having a panic attack.”

  But he darted into the street, weaving between the cars.

  He ran into the church parking lot, followed by a chorus of honking horns, and disappeared out of sight.

  31

  Thinking back on the investigation afterward, Lessard kept second-guessing himself, unable to dispel his doubts or erase his feelings of guilt. Could he and the team have responded sooner? Could they have found the killer’s trail more quickly? Whatever the case, from the moment the first victim’s identity was known, the detective sergeant became feverishly active.

  He started giving orders in a disconnected rush as they came into his mind. His only concern was not to forget anything.

  “I want officers sent to Stefan Gustaffson’s home. They need to establish a crime scene, check for signs of forced entry or a struggle, search for bloodstains, dust for prints, the whole nine yards.”

  Fernandez was writing in her notebook. Sirois was already on the phone.

  “I also want Berger to look at the photographs on the website and give us his opinion. Is our first victim really Gustaffson?”

  “Do you have any doubts?”

  “No, but I want to cover all the bases. Someone should get in touch with the Quebec Provincial Police. They’ll need to find out whether Simone Fortin visited Miles Green at the Trois-Pistoles Hospital. If she did, the provincial cops should be given her description. She may still be in the area. Also, I want a background check on this Green character. Who is he? How does he fit into the case?”

  “Slow down, Victor, you’re going too fast.”

  Fernandez was scribbling furiously.

  “Somebody find a picture of the young woman and make sure it goes out to the onboard computers of all our patrol units. And I want an officer posted in front of her home to intercept her if she turns up.”

  What are you hiding from me, Simone Fortin? What’s the connection that I’m not seeing? What were you up to with Mongeau?

  He had a sudden intuition.

  Because of the kinky photographs, they’d been trying to find some kind of personal link between Fortin and Mongeau. But what if the link was professional?

  Lessard regretted not having dug deeper into the question when he had Suzanne Schmidt on the line.

  “We’ll need to do some more d
igging into the ethics complaint,” he said to Fernandez. “Call Suzanne Schmidt. I assume there’s some kind of council or committee that oversees ethics issues. Let’s talk to someone who was on the committee at the time. I want to know if Mongeau was mixed up in the complaint. There’ll be a case file. Let’s find it. And someone track down Pearson. I want him back here as soon as possible. Simone Fortin is at the heart of this thing. We need to find her before the killer does.”

  He called Ariane’s number and got her voice mail for the twentieth time.

  “It’s Victor. Call me as soon as you get this message. It’s urgent.”

  His cellphone buzzed as he was putting it down. Ariane? No. It was his ex-wife.

  “We should talk, Victor. I really respect what you did this morning. But I’m worried about our son.”

  “So am I, Marie, but can I call you back a little later?”

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “It’s just —”

  The old resentment welled up.

  “It’s always the same old story, isn’t it, Victor? Putting your work ahead of your family.”

  Marie hung up.

  Lessard threw the phone across the room.

  ------------------------

  Laurent was sitting under a tree beside the rectory.

  I approached quietly. I was hesitant to touch his shoulder. I’ve always felt that pain creates a deeply private space around a person, a space that shouldn’t be intruded upon, unless it’s with infinite care.

  I sat down next to him without a word and let him weep in silence. A man walked by, smoking a pipe. He stared at us for a moment. In the man’s eyes, I saw the conviction that he was looking at a couple of quarrelling lovers. I had a sudden urge to shout, “Mind your own business!” People can be so insensitive. Even so, it was true that we looked pitiful. Wearing a faint smile, the man continued on his way, leaving in his wake a long trail of vanilla-scented smoke.

  “When Waldorf and Gustave told me that Miles wanted to die,” Laurent said, “I didn’t really believe them. But the message I just deciphered has hit me like a gut-punch.”

  We walked back to the car without talking.

  As I opened the door, I asked, “What will you do now?”

  Had he heard the question?

  I put the treasure chest in the back seat and we drove to his house in silence.

  Hurriedly, I tossed a few items in a bag.

  I can’t remember what was said, or who suggested what, but within minutes, we were speeding along Highway 20.

  I didn’t know what Laurent was planning.

  Only that he’d be dropping me off at my apartment.

  ------------------------

  While Fernandez was making calls from her office, Lessard and Sirois went over the file from the beginning. They compared notes but were unable to come up with any fresh insights.

  Pearson arrived, hair uncombed, wrinkled shirttails hanging out of his pants. His excitement brought a brief burst of fresh energy to the team.

  “A pharmacy on Saint-Jacques Street was broken into the night before Mongeau’s murder. And guess what was stolen? Some vials of Amytal and a syringe.”

  Lessard turned over the information in his head. Something didn’t fit.

  “We’re looking for a professional who planned the murders with care. Yet the night before committing a major crime, he does this crude smash-and-grab job to steal some barbiturates? That’s one hell of a risk.”

  “Not if he absolutely needs the stuff to steady himself,” Pearson said.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Lessard said. “Why ask a pharmacist to give him the same drug the very next day? Without a prescription.”

  “Maybe he was telling the truth when he said the medication had been taken at the same time as the vehicle.”

  “In that case, we’d have found the vials in the BMW.” Lessard swore to himself. “Unless Martin and …”

  He stopped himself.

  “What?” Pearson asked. “What does Martin have to do with —”

  Lessard pretended to be thinking hard.

  “No, nothing. I have to go to the men’s room.”

  He got up and hurried out as Pearson stared after him, astonished.

  • • •

  In the men’s room, Lessard called his son’s number.

  “If you didn’t take them, is it possible that your friend Jimbo did? Write down the name. A-M-Y-T-A-L. This is very important. Call me as soon as you talk to him.”

  As he ended the call, Lessard heard a toilet flush. He stepped out of the cubicle and saw Sirois.

  “Hey, Victor. Are we getting somewhere?”

  Lessard froze, convinced that his colleague had overheard the conversation.

  “Mmm.”

  Sirois was soaping his hands compulsively, washing them with as much care as a surgeon about to enter an operating room. “Judging from appearances, I’d say the Fortin woman is trying to hide something,” he said, breaking the awkward silence. “Why else would she go to so much trouble to cover her tracks?”

  “Let’s keep digging,” Lessard muttered, splashing cold water on his face.

  A vague recollection came back to him. Fernandez had said something this morning, something that had made an impression on him. But what? Why did his memory fail him so cruelly in critical situations? In the state he was in, remembering his own address would have been a fifty-fifty proposition.

  “Sirois, would you ask Fernandez to come to the conference room?”

  The young woman arrived in her stocking feet, looking groggy, with a red patch on one side of her face. She had fallen asleep at her desk.

  “Nadja, while we were talking at Shäika Café, before I left to meet Pearson, you said something. It had to do with appearances. Do you remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Can you try to repeat what you said, word for word?”

  “Hang on …” She thought for a moment. “As I recall, I said the killer’s methods were pretty strange, considering Mongeau’s professional milieu — I mean, a milieu where appearances matter so much.”

  Lessard’s idea was becoming clearer.

  The crime scene had been marked by a brutality that was at odds with everything else.

  “Does that help?” Fernandez asked.

  “I think so.” He hesitated, unsure of which way to steer the discussion from here. “Let’s think about the killer’s methods. We’ve been assuming that he was a professional, and that the murders were related to Mongeau’s secret activities.”

  The other members of the team said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

  “But would a professional have left the BMW unattended, knowing there was a body in the trunk? Would he have taken the risk of being noticed as he was trying to get his hands on barbiturates without a prescription?”

  “Where are you going with this?” Sirois asked.

  “I’m not sure. We still don’t have enough facts to put together a clear picture, but there may be holes in our theory. Were the murders really committed in response to a blackmail attempt by Mongeau? Should we be searching for a professional, or for an individual whose actions were driven by some other motive?”

  Lessard didn’t elaborate on his doubts. But inwardly, he was torturing himself. Had he been wrong to place so much importance on the photographs?

  Had he led the investigation into a blind alley?

  ------------------------

  Kilometre 88

  The whole thing was beyond me. I wished I could have talked it over with Laurent, questioned him about it, but I respected his silence.

  I regretted not having gone back to see Miles one last time to make up for my uncontrolled weeping the previous night. But under the circumstances, I hadn’t dared to ask.

  I felt tired and empty. I had a distinct sensation of being disembodied, somewhere between reality and perception, as though my mind had been shut up in a box, which in turn had been shut up in another box, and
so on, like a succession of Russian dolls.

  Had I become a stranger inhabiting myself?

  ------------------------

  The team went on floundering for a while, unable to come up with any new ideas. The cops’ faces were sallow, distorted by fatigue. Lessard was making them work at an impossible pace, and he knew it. The table in the conference room was cluttered with disordered files and coffee cups. Sirois had given up trying to obey the no-smoking rule. An empty soda can served as his ashtray. They needed to keep working, whatever the cost. Even the smallest step forward might turn out to be decisive.

  Lessard called Constable Nguyen, who had been instructed to take up a position outside Simone Fortin’s apartment.

  “Any developments?”

  “I was held up. I’ll call as soon as I get there.”

  Moving in slow motion, Fernandez came into the room with a crumpled piece of paper. She handed it to Lessard.

  “I called Suzanne Schmidt. She gave me a number for Marcel Loranger, who’s been a member of the ethics committee at the Enfant-Jésus Hospital since 1996. I have him on hold.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “The bare minimum.”

  Lessard hit the speaker button.

  “Mr. Loranger?”

  “Hello, Detective Lessard. What can I do for you?”

  The man’s tone was frank and direct.