by Peter Kirby
There was a silence.
“I thought I should call you. I just had a visit from Barbeau’s school, they’re looking for him.”
…
“No, I didn’t tell her anything. Just that I had no idea where he was.”
…
“Yeah, the same as I told the police.”
…
“But I was thinking. Maybe it would be a good idea to get his mother to send a note to the school. You know, to say he went to visit someone. Just something to reassure them.”
…
“No sir. Like you say, I know nothing. That’s all I’m saying to anyone. He was my client but I haven’t heard from him. End of story.”
…
“Yes, sir.”
Star heard the phone being cradled and smiled at Desportes. She was excited. Pleased that she accomplished something.
“So what do you think?” Desportes asked
“Me?” She was surprised. She hadn’t thought anything; she had just listened to the tape. Desportes waited for a response.
“He was speaking to someone called Colonel. He was reporting that someone from the school was looking for Barbeau and suggesting that the Colonel get Barbeau’s mother to send a note to the school.” Star looked up. “Why would he do that? And who is he calling?”
“Good questions. Let’s deal with the second one right now. Watch.”
He went back to the beginning of the recording, to the keypad beeps of the telephone, and opened another program on the screen. He played the beeps again and numbers appeared on the screen. Then he typed the number into Canada 411 but came up empty. So he clicked into a pay service and entered the numbers. A box on the screen showed a name and an address.
“Amazing, that’s close by. Who is he?” said Star.
“Colonel Alfonse Montpetit, leader of the Patriotes.”
“What’s the Patriotes?”
“A mix between a community organization and a pretend army. They run social programs, and some of them like to dress up like soldiers.”
“Strange.”
“Indeed.”
“Why would Dufrene … ?”
“That was your first question. And to answer that we need more information.”
Montreal’s Palais de Justice is an imposing block of granite and black metal that sits on the edge of the old town, a modernistic fist in the air for authority. It’s where all fights are finally ended, and the people who wander its hallways reflect the fact that fighting knows no barriers: husbands and wives with lifetimes of accumulated grievances, business partners fighting over the scraps of failed ideas, relatives dragging out promises made by the deceased but not kept, and, of course, the criminal accused, more dark-skinned than white, more uneducated than not, more poor than rich. Every player has their coterie of witnesses with selective memories as pliable as putty.
It’s a machine with steel-hard parts that grinds down everyone that enters, and the machinery needs its mechanics; the black-clad lawyers in flowing gowns for spectacle, the uniformed security men and women prowling for trouble, the journalist looking for sensation, and the people who push the coffee trolleys through the hallways dispensing the sugar and caffeine-laden fuel that keeps everything going. The only people who enjoy the place are the spectators with nothing better to do than watch blood sport, seeking out the juiciest combats.
And then there are the judges, invisible except when presiding over combat, who enter and leave through back entrances and private elevators out of sight of the public, living behind the walls like an infestation.
In the bowels of the Palais are interview rooms, where lawyers examine the other side’s witnesses before trial, and everything is transcribed, so that two years later, when the case eventually comes to trial, the witness can be challenged on slight difference in his story: Were you lying then or are you lying now?
Vanier and Saint-Jacques were waiting for the lawyers that had been appointed by the Detectives Association. Barbeau’s lawyer, Pierre Dufrene, was supposed to produce the kid for an examination before anyone had to file a defence to his action. They were getting two kicks at the Barbeau can. Vanier’s lawyer was going to examine Barbeau before they filed their defence; Saint-Jacques’s lawyer, and the city’s lawyer would examine him later. The lawyers were late.
Saint-Jacques and Vanier had hardly said a word to each other since they arrived. Every time he tried to start a conversation, she would give a clipped, one- or two-word response, and go silent again. She was used to being a witness, waiting to be called, and then simply telling what she knew with no embellishment. She wasn’t used to being the accused, and she was battling her doubts about what Vanier was capable of doing.
An impossibly young girl, like a student playing dress-up, approached.
“Inspector Vanier?”
Vanier looked down at her. “Yes?”
“I’m Maître Lavoie. Maître Metzler has a motion this morning, so he can’t make it. He asked me to do the examination.”
Saint-Jacques rolled her eyes.
“But he knows the case,” said Vanier.
“Don’t worry. I’ve read the file.” She wasn’t giving him a choice. She was all he was going to get, and she seemed used to handling Maître Metzler’s disappointed clients.
“So we just wait for Maître Dufrene and Barbeau?” asked Vanier.
“Yes.” She looked at her watch. “They should be here by now. I’ve got to be somewhere else in an hour.”
“That’s all it’s going to take?”
“Forty-five minutes, one hour max. I’ve got questions, but that’s as long as it should take.”
“What if it takes longer?”
“It won’t,” she said with a smile. She looked at her watch again. “The stenographer is setting up. We’ll be ready to go as soon as Barbeau shows up.”
Saint-Jacques was on the phone, leaving her name and number. She looked at Vanier. “My guy’s not answering.”
“Don’t worry. He’ll show up soon,” said Lavoie, sure of something she knew nothing about.
Vanier was getting tired of standing around. “Can we see the room?”
“Sure.”
Lavoie led them into a small partitioned cubicle with a desk and little else. Two seats on each side and a fifth at the end for the stenographer. The stenographer was fiddling with a tape machine and smiled at them as they came in. She asked for all their business cards. “It’s for the transcript. I need to spell the names correctly.”
Lavoie had her card on the table before the stenographer finished speaking. Vanier was searching his pockets. He eventually borrowed a pen and wrote his name and address on the stenographer’s notepad.
Saint-Jacques put her card on the table. “We need another seat,” she said to no one in particular. “I’ll go find one.”
Vanier checked the time on his cell phone, they were half an hour late getting started. Lavoie’s phone rang. She put it to her ear and listened, looking at Vanier with a shrug of her shoulders and a what can I do expression on her face.
“Okay. We’ll be in touch.”
She put her phone back in her bag and turned to the stenographer. “We won’t be needing you today, Madame. Maître Dufrene just cancelled. She turned to Vanier. Saint-Jacques was coming back with a chair.
“The plaintiff’s lawyer just called. He apologizes, but his client’s a no-show. He needs to reschedule.”
“So what can we do?” asked Vanier.
“Not much. We have to give them a chance to produce Barbeau. Maybe ten days. If Barbeau doesn’t submit to an examination, we file a motion to dismiss.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. If he cannot produce the Plaintiff, he can’t go forward. End of story.”
Saint-Jacques didn’t look pleased.
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” Lavoie asked, fishing her BlackBerry out of her bag.
“The best,” said Vanier.
“Maybe,” said Saint-Jacques. “Did he say why Barbeau didn’t show up?”
“He just said that he tried to locate him but hasn’t been able to. That’s all he knows.”
Lavoie was already leaving, reaching out to shake hands as she checked emails on her phone.
“Maître Meltzer will be in touch. If we don’t have the witness in ten days, we’ll move to dismiss.” They followed her out into the hallway and let her run ahead for the elevator.
Saint-Jacques said, “Where do you think he is?”
“No idea. He didn’t strike me as reliable.”
She looked at Vanier as if she had more questions but decided against them.
“Plans?” Vanier asked
“Today? Not really. But I’ve got to find something. This sitting around is killing me.” She saw it hurt him, as though he was responsible.
Vanier wanted to tell her again that he didn’t beat the kid, but didn’t see the point.
“I’m going to the psychiatrist this afternoon.”
Saint-Jacques raised an eyebrow.
“Alex’s psychiatrist. He asked me to come with Alex.”
“How’s it going?”
“I think he’s broken. Like he can’t be fixed. It’s tough, Sylvie.”
The ground in the park was sodden from melted snow and spring rain. Star was sitting on an A-frame picnic table, her feet planted on the bench, picking at paint chips peeling off the surface, trying to see how big a chip could peel before it broke off. It had been somebody’s job to put the picnic tables into storage for the winter, but nobody did it, and they spent the winter under snow.
She didn’t need a disguise to look like just another disaffected kid who didn’t give a shit about anything. But just in case, she had a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka between her feet.
Two boys approached in hoodies and jackets. A girl followed at a distance. Star had been watching them since they started to meander across the grass. She figured they had been heading for the picnic table before they saw it was occupied. Now they were trying to decide. The boys stopped just short of the table, the girl, still trailing behind them, stared up at the sky, like she was looking for something.
Star finally acknowledged them. Said, “Hey.”
The older boy said, “Hey. We usually hang here.”
“It’s a public park,” said Star, trying not to sound too aggressive.
The boys sat on the table, the same side as Star. The girl approached cautiously.
“You’re not from here,” said the older of the two boys.
“No,” said Star.
“Where you from?”
“Montreal.”
The younger boy leaned forward and turned his head to get a look at Star.
“Hochelaga’s in Montreal,” he said.
“But I’m not from here.”
Star reached for the bottle and took a swig of vodka. She screwed the top back on and then, almost as an afterthought, offered it to the older boy.
“Thanks.” He took the bottle and put it to his mouth, gulped, winced, and passed it on. “That’s good. My name’s Gaston.”
He offered his fist to Star and they touched knuckles. “Star,” she said.
The younger boy took a slug and handed the bottle back. “Theo,” he said, leaning across to brush knuckles.
“That’s Zoë,” said Gaston. “She doesn’t drink.”
Zoë moved her hand in a kind of wave and smiled at Star. “It smells like spring,” she said.
“That’s all the dog shit,” Theo said. “Look.”
They all looked down. The ground was covered in decomposing dog turds that had survived the winter covered in snow.
“That’s a lot of shit,” said Star.
“Nobody picks it up in the winter. Figure it’ll disappear under the snow.” said Theo. “Imagine, maybe thirty dogs a day taking a crap and nobody picking it up for three months. That’s … ”
He hesitated for a second.
“That’s two thousand, seven hundred shits. Let’s say an average of two turds a shit, that’s five thousand, four hundred individual turds.”
“Like I said, a lot of shit,” said Star.
They all started laughing, and Star passed the bottle around. Then they let Theo calculate how much shit was generated every day by all the people living in Montreal. It took him a few minutes to do the math, but it was a lot.
After a while, Star said, “I’ve been looking for Serge Barbeau. He lives around here somewhere. You know him?”
The laughing stopped.
“You a friend of his?” asked Gaston.
“Yeah.”
Star felt the chill. Wrong answer. She picked up the bottle took another swig. Passed it around.
“He’s a friend until I find him and get my money back. The fuck stole my money.”
“Sounds like Barbeau,” said Theo.
“I met him outside the Berri métro. I was panhandling. I’d saved $200. Shithead hung around with me all day. I couldn’t get rid of him. He was trying to make out.”
“Eugh,” said Zoë.
“No kidding,” said Star. “Anyway, I couldn’t get rid of him. There was a bunch of us sleeping in an empty building below Sainte-Catherine, and we let him stay. But I heard him leave in the middle of the night. I guess he couldn’t take the cold. In the morning, I noticed my stash was gone. He had taken my money. I remember he said he came from Hochelaga, so I came to look for him. I want my money.”
“He’s a shit. I knew him in school. The fucker doesn’t have a single friend, he burns everyone,” said Gaston.
Star started asking questions, and they answered. She did what Desportes had said, testing them with easy ones, where he lived, his mother’s name and the like. Then where he hung out. She asked all the questions she could think of, but they couldn’t help with the big one.
“We all saw him on TV when he was beaten up. But since then, nothing,” said Gaston. “Strange. You’d think now that he’s famous, he’d be everywhere.”
“But you’ll ask around?”
“Sure thing. We’ll ask around.”
It was a forty-minute drive back to Montreal from the psychiatrist at the Veterans Hospital in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. Alex had said almost nothing on the drive out. Vanier had put it down to nervousness before meeting the shrink. Now, it was Vanier’s mind that was chewing through unanswerable questions. He was disappointed that the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was confirmed, but almost relieved to be able to identify what was wrong. The biggest unknown was how Alex would take it, he had said the strict minimum in the psychiatrist’s office.
Vanier opened with, “So what do you think, Alex?”
Alex held up a fistful of paper – prescriptions for sleeping pills and anti-depressants and reading material on PTSD. “I got pills and brochures. But she hasn’t got a clue, does she?”
Vanier glanced over. “She knows enough to admit it. That’s something.”
“I suppose. They’ve got a list of symptoms as long as your arm, but not everyone has the same symptoms. And it’s not something you can cure, like a broken leg or a disease, but you’re supposed to have hope. Drugs to make you sleep, and drugs to calm you down, they won’t fix the problem, but you might feel better, maybe. Basically, she said ‘we know nothing, so here are some drugs that might work, and here’s a list of therapy groups, and here’s some reading material. Feel free, mix and match. If something works, good luck!’”
Vanier didn’t say anything. He wasn’t surprised there was no magic bullet. He had already watched psychiatry at work as his mother spiralled down into the black hole of Alzheimer’s. Nobody had a
clue what was going on inside her brain, so the psychiatrist ended up as an experimental drug-pusher, hoping something might work and measuring success in docility. In the psychiatric world, agitation is always a bad thing, so docility must be good. He turned to Alex. “And don’t forget the meditation.”
“I was wondering when you’d bring up the Hare Krishna stuff.”
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. And it’s not Hare Krishna.”
“If meditation works, why aren’t you wandering around, grinning like the Dalai Lama?”
Vanier smiled.
“I don’t practice enough. I’m a dilettante.” He made a mental note to practice more, the same mental note he had been making for five years. “I’ll give you the name of the woman who taught me. She’s a good teacher. She helped me through a tough time.”
Alex held the index finger and thumb of each hand together, closed his eyes, and let out a long Om sound.
“She teaches prisoners. Real hard bastards, in maximum security. So I wouldn’t mock it when you’re around her. I’ll give you her coordinates.”
“Sure,” said Alex.
“And the groups. The doctor wouldn’t have suggested groups if she thought they were a waste of time.”
“Sure, Dad. I’ll try a group, too.” Alex slumped back in his seat and stared out the window, as though agreeing to the meditation lady and group therapy just confirmed how screwed up he was.
Thirteen
Dufrene knew he had a problem. Barbeau’s failure to show up was just another of his idiot client’s mistakes, and from what he had heard, Barbeau had been making mistakes all his life, one of the many drawbacks of being Serge Barbeau. But if he couldn’t find his client, he had a decision to make. Vanier’s lawyer had filed a motion to dismiss the action, and the other defendants were piling on in support. He had hoped the City and the Service de Police would cut a side deal, and hang the two cops out to dry, but it hadn’t happened yet. He called the Colonel and explained the problem.
“So if we don’t produce the kid for examination, the case gets thrown? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Yes. Maybe I can get a delay, but the chances of that are slim. The court will probably say I should just file again if my client decides to cooperate. Do you have any idea where he is?”