Until the Night jc-6

by Giles Blunt

  13

  Arsenault released the brake on the hoist and the pulleys squealed as they began to turn. The body of Laura Lacroix, strapped to a pallet and shrouded in its dark plastic bag, swayed against the blue of the sky.

  Everyone inside the turret-including Cardinal, Delorme, Loach and the two ident men-had stopped working to watch. Dr. Barnhouse tore off his top sheet and handed it to Loach. “Hypothermia is my guess, based on two things. First, the lack of lividity, which you get when the muscles stiffen with cold. Second, the lack of any other obvious cause. You’re going to need the autopsy for anything more specific than that. Why Dr. Harris couldn’t tell you this is a question for the medical college.”

  “Dr. Harris,” Loach said, “never got above the first ten steps. He’s afraid of heights.”

  “Whatever happened to normal?” Barnhouse said. “There used to be normal people in this world.”

  “Luckily we have you,” Cardinal said.

  Barnhouse tipped his fur hat and set it back on his head, then took hold of the safety rail before starting his descent.

  Arsenault and Collingwood were poring over the bed where the body had been secured. They had tried and failed to get prints from the straps that had held her in place, and now they were examining the mattress. They had brought lights up on the hoist, but so far they hadn’t needed them. Looking in some directions required sunglasses.

  Loach hovered over them. “Are we locked-down, hundred percent sure we’re dealing with the Flint doer here?”

  “I’ve never come across another case where someone was deliberately frozen to death,” Cardinal said. “Now we’ve got two. And once again she’s wearing what appear to be brand-new clothes-at least some of them. Clothes that would keep her warm for a while, but not warm enough. He even broke the windows to make sure the sunlight wouldn’t raise the temperature.”

  “Not quite thorough enough on that point,” Loach said. “I’m gonna have to burn these goddam clothes.”

  “It’s the same guy,” Delorme said. “He left her food, same as Flint. He wanted her to last a while.”

  “Women are always complaining guys don’t make it last.”

  “That’s not actually funny,” Delorme said.

  “It is if you have a sense of humour.”

  “We need to figure out what these two women have in common,” Cardinal said. “We’re not dealing with crimes of opportunity-they were targeted. So far, the only thing they have in common is they fly Air Canada.”

  “I thought you liked this Leonard Priest character,” Loach said to Delorme. “Fond of the outdoors, right?”

  “Much as I’d love to put Leonard Priest behind bars, there’s no sign of sexual assault in either of these cases. He has no connection to Flint that we’re aware of, and no recent connection to Laura Lacroix or her husband, Keith Rettig.”

  “Take a look at this, guys.” Arsenault was standing between the table and the bunk, a dark, pudgy figure against the brilliant window. He pointed at one of the few unbroken windows.

  “It looks like a Volkswagen,” Loach said. “Thank you so much for pointing this out.”

  “Not the cloud, the window. You have to be at the right angle.”

  They craned their necks at different angles and squinted.

  “Call me crazy,” Arsenault said, “but that looks like a 4 and a 5 to me.”

  “Me too,” Cardinal said. “It was 25 at the tree house by the Flint residence.”

  “You think they’re related? Anybody could’ve put that here,” Loach said. “It could’ve been here for years.”

  “I know. It would be nice if we could rule out the numbers or rule them in.”

  “We’ll take a closer look,” Arsenault said.

  Cardinal took Delorme aside. “This is too good, don’t you think? Too organized.”

  “What?” Her mind seemed to be somewhere else entirely.

  “He must have done this before. It’s so well planned. And so was Flint. You don’t get this good that fast.”

  “What’s so good?” Loach said. “The vehicle’s been seen. People have glimpsed the guy himself. We’re not exactly dealing with Houdini here. He’s leaving prints everywhere, for Chrissake.”

  “Smudges,” Cardinal said, “not prints.”

  “Exactly. He’s probably got a prosthetic hand.”

  “Which didn’t pan out,” Cardinal said. “I checked, and there’ve been no recent releases of anyone with a prosthetic limb of any kind. But I agree he’s not making a huge effort to cover his tracks. It may be he’s not worried about being caught.”

  “Everybody worries about being caught-except lunatics.”

  “Definitely not a lunatic-maybe just someone with nothing left to lose.”

  Business was slow. So slow, Larry Shawm was the only salesperson on the floor. Eleven-thirty, Rachel would be coming on for the lunchtime business, but until then he was on his own, unless you counted Myla on the cash. But Myla was like having nobody at all. Myla was the phone zombie to end all phone zombies.

  Business had taken a dive since the move off Queen Street, but the lower rent at least meant he could count on a job for a while longer, which is more than you could say for a lot of retailers. These days, any store that wasn’t a chain was living on a cliff edge.

  “Please tell me I can help you,” he said when the older guy came in. “It’s a little slow today.”

  The man looked across the store and up the first aisle. The floor-to-ceiling shelves were intimidating to first-timers.

  “Maybe I can interest you in a compass, first thing. Help you find your way around?”

  “Just doing a little winter camping. Need a good short windbreaker, maybe a down vest, and a pair of boots.”

  The aisles weren’t wide enough for two people. The man followed him to the rear of the store.

  “How cold are we talking?”

  “Minus thirty, thirty-five, thereabouts.”

  “We’ve got a wide selection of parkas and climbing jackets in that range. You trekking? Skiing?”

  “Just a little hiking.”

  The man went over to the women’s gear and lifted the sleeve of a climber’s shell.

  “Those there are women’s. Is this for you?”

  “My daughter. She takes a small.”

  “Well, your key, as you may know, is flexibility. So rather than go for a heavier item, I’d recommend a fleece hoodie under maybe something like this.” He pulled out the BioFine Trekker, nice powder blue.

  “Looks the right size.”

  “It’s a small.”

  “Okay, I’ll take that.”

  “She’s going to need a thermal underneath it. This’ll only protect you down to about fifteen below, depending on wind chill, sunshine and how active you’re going to be.”

  “I’ll just take this for now.”

  “She’s already got some stuff, I take it.”

  “We’re just filling things out a little.”

  “And boots, you said?”

  “You have something that’ll work for the city as well?”

  “Here in Toronto? Kinda difficult. Anything that’ll serve you in thirty-five below is going to be way too hot down here, unless she’s just planning to wear them to get to work, then change into something else.”

  “What size are these?” He lifted up a pair of hikers.

  “Never work for any kind of snow, even with snowshoes.”

  “Do you have these in a six?”

  “Are you sure about the size? Those are gonna need double-layer socks to be any good in the kind of temperatures you’re looking at.”

  “Sixes are fine.”

  Larry went downstairs and got the boots and brought them back up. The man had already moved to the cash. Larry wouldn’t have pegged him for an outdoorsman, but then nowadays you got all kinds. Lots of hikers, even trekkers, were historians or biologists, ecology scholars of various stripes.

  Myla rang up his purchases-once Larry had
managed to glare her off the phone. Larry felt like reminiscing about his canoe trip down the Mackenzie, but no luck. The guy wasn’t rude exactly, but he wasn’t going to be engaged. He paid with crisp fifties, got his change and said thanks, shiny leather glove on his one hand the whole time.

  Priest’s car was in his driveway and Delorme could hear music from inside the house. She leaned on the doorbell a third time.

  Priest answered the door wearing nothing but a T-shirt, beneath which his penis stood at half-mast.

  “I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “I’m flattered. Please come in, you’re freezing John Thomas.” He stepped back, held the door open for her and closed it behind her.

  In the shadows beyond the dining table, a woman on a couch clutched some clothing to her chest. “For Christ sake, Leonard, what the fuck.”

  Priest called to her. “Not to worry. As you were, darlin’.”

  “Put some clothes on,” Delorme said.

  “My house, I dress as I like, thanks. Feel free to shed some clothes yourself, though.”

  “We’ve found Laura Lacroix’s body.”

  “That’s very sad, but it’s got nothing to do with me.”

  “I can see you’re all broken up about it.”

  “Take your boots off, if you don’t mind. You can take your jeans off too, while you’re at it.”

  Priest’s pale ass retreated to the living room. Delorme left her boots in the kitchen and went as far as the dining area.

  “Melanie, this is Detective Delorme. My friend, Melanie Smith. Don’t worry, she’s not after you, Mel. She thinks I killed this woman who’s missing.”

  “No, I don’t. I think you killed Regine Choquette, who took a bullet through her skull. Ms. Smith, you might not want to hear all this.”

  Ms. Smith-if Smith was her real name-shook her head. “Len and I go way back. I’ve heard it all before.”

  “Are you going to put some clothes on?” Delorme asked Priest.

  Priest put on the voice of a cross-examining attorney. “Detective Delorme, please tell the court what the defendant was wearing when you interviewed him. T-shirt and no pants, I see. And was his penis fully erect, to the best of your knowledge? Sort of half-and-half, I see. And in the course of your interview, did that change at all?”

  “We have a witness now who says you ordered Fritz Reicher to shoot Regine Choquette.”

  “Melanie, could we get back to work, please? You don’t mind if Lise watches us, do you?”

  Melanie tossed the sweater aside and got down on her knees in front of him.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes, of course.” His parody of Reicher’s voice was perfect. “The only so-called witness who might say such a thing has already been convicted.”

  “Suppose he recanted his earlier testimony. His earlier plea.”

  Melanie’s head bobbed up and down, dark curls swaying.

  “Ooh, yes, just like that. Why don’t you take your clothes off, Lise?”

  “Tell me about Darlene,” Delorme said. “Who is she, and where can I find her?”

  “I don’t know anyone named Darlene. Oooh, yeah. Oh my God. Come and join us, Lise.”

  Delorme went back to the kitchen and put on her boots.

  Although Chouinard was always in charge of the morning meetings, Loach had lately become the dominant presence. He sat beside Chouinard looking as if he had just won several million dollars and was condescending to listen to the petty concerns of those whose net worth was stuck at terrestrial levels. Stereo speakers had been placed on the table on either side of him.

  Arsenault and Collingwood talked first. Laura Lacroix, like Marjorie Flint, had been injected in the neck. They were waiting for the toxicology report from Toronto.

  As to the number scrawled on the window, all Arsenault could say was that the five was similar to the five carved into the wood in the Flint case. “Both are perfectly closed at the top. But sorry, folks, we can’t be sure when the window marks were made. Going by the other dust patterns in the tower, they could have been made any time in the past three or four months or so.”

  “Tell us about the clothes,” Chouinard said.

  “The down vest is new. But it’s a popular brand available across the country. More than a hundred different outlets.”

  “Could she have bought that herself?” Chouinard asked.

  “Possible,” Arsensault said, “but it isn’t what she wore to meet her lover. That was a medium-weight trench coat that was dumped in a Sally Ann donation box. Sharp-eyed volunteer found a credit card receipt in the pocket and recognized the name. Unfortunately, the coat hasn’t generated any more leads. No hairs, nothing we can follow up.”

  “The vest looked like the right size to me,” Cardinal said.

  “And the point of this observation?” Loach wanted to know.

  “If the killer bought it for her, it means he got very close. Possibly he was even inside her place. I think we should pursue the clothes, even if there are a hundred outlets. It’s an older man buying a woman’s item, probably somewhere not too far from here. We could get lucky.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Loach said, “why doesn’t everybody just listen up for a second and we might make some real progress.” He got up and went to the lectern that was sometimes used for seminars. He slotted a flash drive into a laptop. “This was left on my voice mail last night.”

  There was some throat clearing. Sound of a microphone being jostled, rubbing against fabric. Music playing in the background-lots of strings, something classical. Then the voice, an older man with a strong French-Canadian accent.

  Officer Loach, I saw you on da TV de udder night and now ‘ere you are again and I just gotta call and congratulate you. So you fine your second victim at last-you must be ver’ proud. I wondered ’ow long it would take you. I was worry I might ’ave ‘id her too good. Of course, it wasn’t you who discover da body. Dat would have require some intelligence. Forty-five years ol’ and nudding but a small-town cop, you’re not exactly da sharpes’ knife in da drawer. You got lucky with dat forestry guy.

  But not lucky enough, my frien’. Because me, I am not finish. I don’t know about you, but I’m ’aving a lot of fun. And I can give you twenty-five different reason you’ll never catch me, even if you live to be ninety-five. So I’m going to ’ave more fun-a lot more fun, maybe sooner dan you tink.

  The atmosphere in the room had changed. Everyone had shifted position, sitting forward now.

  “Obviously a major development,” Loach said. “Let’s listen to it one more time.”

  He fiddled with his trackpad and started the playback again. When they had listened all the way through, he shut his laptop.

  “Like I say-major.”

  “It certainly is,” Cardinal said, “assuming it’s real.”

  “Are you saying it isn’t?”

  “I’m just saying we have to be sure.”

  “He comes up with the numbers 25 and 45 by accident? Where’s he get those, if it’s not real?”

  “Well, one of them refers to your age, right?”

  “I’m forty-six, not forty-five, or ninety-five, thank you. And how’s he get the 25? I don’t think that’s coincidence, and we haven’t mentioned either of those numbers to the media.”

  “You’re forgetting your Montrose case in Toronto. You were in the news a lot with that. I’m willing to bet more than one of those stories mentioned your age.”

  “Well, that’s true,” Loach conceded. “I was forgetting about that.”

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” Chouinard snapped. “Do we think it’s real or not?”

  “We can’t know for sure,” Cardinal said.

  “Exactly,” Loach said. “Which is why I’ve already sent it to the RCMP profilers. In the meantime, we’re gonna throw everything we have at this. The caller’s French Canadian, obviously, with a strong accent-and we’re gonna go right back to the next of kin and places of employmen
t and get the names of any contacts with FC accents.”

  “People can fake accents,” Delorme pointed out, “and that one’s pretty extreme.”

  “Which doesn’t mean it’s fake,” Loach said. “Maybe you don’t hear it the way we do.”

  “French Canadians have a genetic defect? We not only talk funny, we’re born deaf too?”

  “I’m not even going to answer that,” Loach said. “This is a hot lead and we’re going to hit it with everything we’ve got.”

  Cardinal appealed directly to Chouinard. “D.S., we’re better off focusing on something more solid. The sedatives, for example-they had to come from somewhere. We’ve got to run down drugstore thefts, veterinarians, hospital inventories. And the clothes, too. Older guy buying outdoor gear for a woman-someone might remember.”

  “Excuse me,” Loach said. “We have a man’s voice. We can run that voice right by the people closest to the victims. Someone’s gonna recognize it.”

  “It’s too much of a leap,” Cardinal said. “Except for the two numbers, which could be coincidence, he doesn’t say anything that isn’t common knowledge. Also-let me finish-also, it doesn’t jibe with previous behaviour. We know the killer followed or observed these two women very closely, without being observed himself. The crimes themselves were well planned and well executed.”

  “Not true. We have a recognizable vehicle. People have seen him. We’re pretty sure he has a fake hand, for Chrissake.”

  “Point is, this is a quiet, concentrated, methodical person. Now all of a sudden he picks up the phone and calls us? Why?”

  “To taunt us, obviously. Same as with the numbers themselves.”

  “Do they really qualify as taunts?” Cardinal said. “They’re not in-your-face like the phone call.”

  “Think what you want. I’m running Lacroix, and the people on my team are going to get names-and recordings-of any French-Canadian males known to the victims. Work, relatives, professionals, I don’t care. And we’re gonna get voice prints.” He put the cap back on his flash drive and stood up. “Arsenault, see what you can do to this recording to bring up that music in the background. Those violins or whatever-I’d like to know exactly what that is.”