Without Blood

by Martin Michaud

  “I know,” she said coldly. “Your name’s on the caller ID.”

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  She didn’t answer the question.

  “I … uhh … I’m sorry about the way I behaved at Christmas dinner. I was drunk, and … I was an idiot. I’ve stopped drinking. I’m going to AA.”

  His sister began to sob. Lessard felt his own throat tighten.

  “Don’t cry, Valérie. I’m totally to blame. I apologize.”

  “It’s not that.” She sniffled. “It’s Paul. The bastard’s having an affair. With one of his students.”

  Lessard had to fight down an impulse to let out a whoop. He had never liked his brother-in-law. The guy was a literature professor who’d spent the last fifteen years telling everyone that he was about to finish a novel.

  “Are you going to leave him?”

  “I was ready to wipe the slate clean, but he’s the one who’s decided to leave. The girl is twenty-two, Victor! She has breasts like Monica Bellucci. A body that’s never been through pregnancy!” She was weeping. “He could almost be her grandfather.”

  Lessard took care not to say anything tactless, aware of his own propensity for spouting clichés.

  “I know how hard it is, Valérie. You just need to be patient. You’ll get over it eventually.”

  He was lying through his teeth. What he really believed was that there are some things you never get over. But he kept that to himself.

  “It’s good to hear your voice, Victor. When the phone rang, I was cutting up his underwear with scissors.” She laughed. “Come by anytime.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  And he meant it. But almost a year would go by before he kept his promise.

  Lessard had gotten up to go pour himself another cup of coffee when the phone rang.

  “It’s Simoneau. We’ve found him.”

  Lessard’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Where? When?”

  “Actually, it’s my partner who found him. While he was searching the house, he came across a cellphone bill. He decided to try calling the number, and …”

  “And the guy answered?” Lessard asked excitedly.

  “Not exactly. The phone was answered by a priest who was looking after the guy’s phone.”

  “A priest? What the hell are you talking about, Simoneau?”

  “No joke. A priest at the Quebec City Seminary. That’s where Pierre Delorme has been living for the past week.”

  Lessard was baffled.

  “Hang on. I’m not following you …”

  “I know it sounds weird, but according to this priest, Pierre Delorme was given permission to stay at the François-de-Laval Residence. It’s a midlife vocation centre for older men who want to enter the priesthood or who are looking for spiritual refuge. Delorme left his phone with the priest in case his wife called.”

  “Is he there now? Have you talked to him?”

  “Not yet. Since he’s on a closed retreat, I …”

  Lessard blew up. “I don’t give a shit about his closed retreat, Simoneau! This is a criminal investigation, and we need to talk to the guy right away!”

  “That’s what I told them, but they insisted that I come in person. I’m driving over now. I should be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Are you telling me the guy’s been on a closed retreat this whole time, while the murders were being committed?”

  “Sure seems like it.”

  “Would he have been able to leave for a few hours without anyone noticing?”

  “The priest said the men do get some free time. But he didn’t know anything about Delorme’s comings and goings.”

  “Could he have slipped away at night?”

  “I don’t know. I’m guessing he could.”

  “That would give the guy a perfect alibi! Call me as soon as you’re with him, Simoneau. I want to be the first person to question him.”

  “Will do.”

  Lessard unleashed a string of swears.

  ------------------------

  Over the past few hours, childhood memories that Laurent thought were lost forever had been flooding back. Driving had turned out to be beneficial. It helped him think clearly. He hadn’t wanted a drink since their stop at the service station.

  He knew he wouldn’t need to drive for days to reach a decision.

  He couldn’t go against his father’s wishes. It was true that for years, in an effort to make the situation more bearable, he’d been clinging to theoretical arguments. He’d been giving himself excuses — such as the possibility of a scientific breakthrough — for postponing the decision to end Miles’s life.

  But did he really hold out hope that science might someday cure his father, or was he just being selfish? Was he simply afraid to cut the last thread that bound him to his family?

  Even if the man on that hospital bed was a pale shadow of what Miles had once been, Laurent loved him no less.

  By now they were within thirty kilometres of Montreal.

  Every so often, he would glance at the rear-view mirror and see Simone fast asleep in the back seat.

  ------------------------

  Lessard called Sirois, who had gotten as far as Saint-Hyacinthe on the road to Quebec City, updated him on recent developments, and ordered him to proceed directly to the seminary. He hadn’t stopped thinking about his conversation with Simoneau.

  Was the whole thing too far-fetched? Even if Pierre Delorme had some free time at the residence, how could he possibly have committed a murder in Montreal and gotten back to Quebec City, a drive of more than two hours, without anyone noticing?

  By doing it at night?

  But Mongeau had been killed in the middle of the day.

  A sudden feeling of anxiety came over Lessard, an extreme level of urgency that he hadn’t felt before. Something was seriously out of place. He could feel it.

  He reread his notes. What was he overlooking? What was it that had eluded him?

  The image of the two caribou heads came back into his mind, along with the stuffed moose head on the wall of Pierre Delorme’s home.

  Why was he thinking about these things?

  What had Simoneau said? Lessard couldn’t remember the exact words, but he’d been talking about a hunting trophy.

  As simple and gruesome as the theory seemed, Lessard wondered if the severed finger might simply be a trophy.

  But that was beside the point. Something else was nagging at him. What, damn it? What? He thought of Valérie again. What had she said about her husband?

  He could almost be her grandfather.

  The grandfather. What had Loranger’s report said about him?

  The solution was there somewhere, he knew it. He had read a phrase that had caught his eye, but he hadn’t made the connection. What was it? He scanned the loose sheets on his desk.

  The newspaper clipping.

  He reread the first paragraph. Without really knowing why, he underlined a passage. “The grandfather, Robert Delorme, had brought the boy to visit the forestry school in Duchesnay, where he had formerly been an instructor …”

  He caught his breath and felt the space around him begin to contract. He lingered over one word and considered it, letter by letter.

  Forestry.

  The mental images were colliding. It was a matter of intuition rather than knowledge. In the forest, an unsuspecting deer moves among the trees. Behind it, close by, a hunter shoulders his rifle in the early morning light.

  Lessard tried to open his browser, but his trembling hands made it difficult. After several painstaking attempts, he found the website for the Duchesnay School of Forestry and Woodland Technology.

  He scanned the home page without finding what he was looking for. Under the Study Programs tab, he clicked on Protection and Exploitation of Wildlife Reserves.

  He felt faint.

  At the bottom of the page, a harmless-looking line of text was assaulting his retinas. Principal job openings: wildlife prot
ection officer; hunting, fishing, and trapping guide.

  It took Lessard a few seconds to process the information.

  The grandfather had taught at the forestry school in Duchesnay — a school where people were trained to be hunting guides.

  The detective sergeant froze.

  Now he saw clearly what he had only sensed intuitively a moment ago. There would be no need to check on Pierre Delorme’s comings and goings. He wasn’t the killer.

  Lessard shuddered.

  He was now convinced that somewhere in the streets of Montreal, a grandfather was tracking his prey, waiting for the right moment to move in for the kill.

  A hunter.

  What was the best place to lie in wait? Lessard felt the bile rise in his throat.

  A few weeks ago, on the National Geographic channel, he’d watched footage of a hibernating polar bear. A member of the production team had talked about how rare it was to film the animal in its natural habitat.

  They had tracked it to its den.

  With trembling hands, he checked his voice mail. He called Constable Nguyen three times.

  No answer.

  He grabbed his leather jacket and ran to his car.

  What if he was wrong again? No. Not this time.

  As he pulled out, he almost ran over a pedestrian. He honked his horn. The pedestrian jumped aside, and Lessard sped away.

  He didn’t register that the pedestrian was Langevin, coming to deliver the composite sketch.

  Nor did Langevin recognize the detective sergeant, whose face had gone deathly pale and whose bulging eyes seemed to be staring in all directions at once.

  Lessard’s cellphone rang, but he didn’t answer. He needed all his concentration to drive. Officer Simoneau left a message that Lessard would only hear hours later, after it was all over. The Quebec City cop was with Pierre Delorme.

  Lessard raced through the snowy streets. He never glanced in his rear-view mirror long enough to notice that an unmarked car was following him.

  34

  Sine sanguine non fit redemptio.

  (Without blood there is no redemption.)

  — Saint Paul, Epistle to the Hebrews

  When I woke up, Laurent and I were rolling across the Jacques Cartier Bridge into the city. We only exchanged a few words, as though each of us understood that the important thing now was to process our emotions, not to share them.

  We had agreed that we’d get together for a bite to eat later that evening. And I had offered to let Laurent sleep on my couch. Worn out, he had accepted my invitation. But first, he intended to visit the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. I had a feeling it was a symbolic act. Did he want to walk in the footsteps of his father’s ghost one last time before removing the feeding tube?

  He stopped the car in front of my building.

  “There’s a curry place not far from here,” I said. “We can bring our own wine.”

  I only realized the blunder after it was out of my mouth. Wine was out of the question.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking —”

  “It’s okay. Curry would be great.”

  I got out of the car and closed the door. He rolled down the window.

  “Simone!”

  I turned around.

  “Do you really think Miles wants me to let him go?”

  I nodded.

  He drove away.

  Blowing snow had begun to fall.

  I put the key in the lock, opened the door, and locked it behind me.

  The first thing I would do was get undressed and take a hot bath. Though I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I was hoping my old nemesis the cat had come in. I groped for the light switch and pressed it. Nothing happened.

  The fuse box was acting up again. This was one of the drawbacks of living in an old apartment — an antediluvian electrical system. But I was pretty sure there were some spare fuses in the kitchen.

  I took off my coat and boots. I walked up the hallway and tried another light switch.

  Nothing.

  I looked out the living-room window. Maybe there had been a local blackout. No, the lights were on in the building across the street. Damn system. This time, the owner would have to renovate. Otherwise, I’d complain to the Rental Board.

  I edged forward along the dark hallway. Suddenly, I felt something wet under my feet.

  Were the pipes leaking?

  That was all I needed!

  I bent down and touched the liquid. It was viscous. Oil? I couldn’t see a thing. I’d deal with it later.

  In the kitchen, I tried another switch. The light came on instantly.

  I screamed. What I saw would mark me for life.

  A police officer was lying dead in a puddle of blood, and … oh, my God. Ariane!

  I rushed over to my friend, knelt down, and turned her over.

  Her throat had been cut.

  Our picnics at Beaver Lake, our cross-country ski excursions on Mount Royal, our sushi dinners at home, our afternoons spent drawing pictures with Mathilde, our bike rides along the Lachine Canal, our weekend camping trips to Vermont, our evenings spent sipping wine and ogling waiters at outdoor restaurants; my confidant, my friend, my sister, my twin, my guide, the four points of my compass … shattered.

  Before I could get my bearings, a voice spoke behind me, cold and hard.

  “Hello, Simone.”

  For a moment I was unable to move, paralyzed by fear.

  Overcoming my terror, I turned slowly.

  A man was staring at me. Short, with unremarkable features and a few wrinkles. Midfifties? Early sixties? Younger? He was holding a bloody knife.

  From his calm expression, I knew I was going to die.

  Why? Who was he?

  “Don’t you remember me?” the man asked.

  I shook my head, unable to speak.

  He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. No, it was a photograph. He handed it to me.

  “What about him?”

  I looked at the photograph. A face dotted with freckles.

  It was him. Little Étienne. A knot in my throat made it difficult to speak.

  “Étienne,” I said weakly.

  “Very good, Simone. Your memory isn’t so bad, after all.”

  He stepped closer, grabbed me by the hair, and dragged me along the floor to the bedroom.

  The pain was so great, I couldn’t even cry out.

  When he opened the door, I saw Mathilde on the bed, bound and gagged. A chair had been drawn up to the bedside. A book lay on the chair.

  “Don’t worry, Mathilde. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  I tried to get up, tried to hit him with my feet and fists, but he grabbed me by the throat and cut the skin under my right eye, releasing a trickle of blood.

  He leaned in close and murmured in my ear. His fetid breath reeked of coffee. “We were reading Andersen’s fairy tales when you came in. A book I gave Étienne for his fifth birthday. If you co-operate, her life will be safe, you have my word. If you try anything, I’ll kill her.”

  He ran the knife blade along the curves of my face. Then he closed the door softly.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Try to remember, Simone. Who was in the car with Étienne? Who did you look after first, neglecting to check on the boy’s condition?”

  “The grandfather! You’re his grandfather.”

  I glanced around, panic-stricken. There was a baseball bat in the broom closet. I had to find a way to distract him. After what he’d done to Ariane, I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill Mathilde and me.

  I struggled to calm down. Panicking wouldn’t help. I needed to make him talk, to lower his guard.

  “I remember. I treated you. You had multiple fractures.”

  “That’s right. You did a first-rate job.” Yanking on my hair, he pulled me to my feet. “See? I’m fit as a fiddle. Too bad you weren’t so skillful when it came to Étienne.”

  “Medicine isn’t an exact science. I
did my best to save him. But I made a mistake. That can happen to anyone.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said, his voice rising. “Mistake. A forgotten word in our society. Why does nobody talk about fault anymore, Simone? Everyone is always going on and on about probability, statistics, risk evaluation, unfulfilled commitments. It’s not the losing driver who blundered, it’s the race car that had a glitch. It’s not the politician who lied to the public, it’s the estimates that were thrown off by the previous administration’s budget gap. Yes, Simone, mistakes can happen to anyone. The trouble is, no one takes responsibility for them anymore. Who raises a hand to say, ‘I messed up, I’m sorry, I’m prepared to face the consequences’? The worst error of all, Simone, is denying the existence of error. Lying. Continuing to live as though nothing had happened. So what if some corporation is spying on its employees? Or if some multinational is turning out products that harm people’s health? Even if the evidence is overwhelming, the executives will deny, deny, deny. They’ll appear on TV and lie through their teeth. And we, as a society, keep putting up with it. Integrity, Simone. There just isn’t enough of it anymore.”

  “What about murder? Is that any better?”

  He laughed heartily.

  “Murder in itself isn’t necessarily a mistake. As long as he’s willing to face the consequences, why shouldn’t the father of a sexually abused child punish the abuser who gets off with a laughable fourteen-month sentence, of which he’ll actually serve a third?”

  Could I somehow get to the phone and dial 911?

  I needed to play for time, to keep him talking.

  “If everyone took the law into his own hands, we’d collapse into anarchy.”

  “At first, yes. But the deterrent effect would settle things down in a hurry.”

  “And what about killing innocent human beings? How does that fit into your scheme?”

  “I grant you, it was wrong of me to kill the police officer and that lovely young woman. I’ll have to live with the consequences of my actions. But sometimes, collateral damage can’t be avoided.”

  A wave of nausea suddenly washed over me. Ariane … what had this monster done to my friend?

  “I’ve admitted to you that I made a mistake in Étienne’s case. And believe me, I’ve regretted it every day of my life since it happened. It’s why I don’t practise medicine anymore.”