Then Pierre Laporte was murdered, his body left in the trunk of a car a few miles from his home.
part four
chapter
thirty-four
When Dougherty heard that Laporte had been strangled, he thought, Were his nipples bitten off, too?, but he knew he was the only one in the room thinking of other murders.
Sunday morning, October 18.
The tabloids, the Journal de Montréal and the Sunday Express, both had half their front pages taken up with headlines: “Le cadavre de Pierre Laporte retrouvé,” and “Laporte killed,” the other half featuring the same photo of the opened car trunk and the body inside.
Captain Perreault was standing in front of the cops of Station Ten, saying that with the army in town, all the cops were being pulled off emergency duties — and then he said, “babysitting,” in English — and put back on proper police work. “We now have the power to arrest whoever we want, whenever we want. We will be taking all of the suspects to Parthenais jail and keeping them there as long as we need to.”
A detective said, “No warrants?” and Perreault said, “No, no warrants needed.”
Dougherty was looking at the other cops, no one smiling, no one joking around, no gung-ho comments, nothing like the charged-up dressing room before heading out onto the ice feel it usually was before nightclub raids or strapping on the riot gear.
And Perreault didn’t finish with any kind of rousing go get-’em, boys. He just nodded towards Detective Boisjoli and said, “Claude.”
“Okay, men, we have identified two more.” He pointed at the mug shots thumbtacked to the bulletin board. “Marc Charbonneau and Paul Rose.”
Dougherty was a little surprised to see both men had short hair, although they both did have beards.
“Charbonneau is a cabbie and Rose is a teacher,” Boisjoli said. “Also, Rose has a cataract on his left eye.”
Dougherty had moved closer to the mug shots and was looking at the others on the board, most of them the usual petty crooks and pimps they were always looking for downtown. He did notice a couple of new ones wanted for selling drugs, and then he saw that the alert from the RCMP with the updated FBI Most Wanted List now included two women, Susan Edith Saxe and Katherine Ann Power, both students at Brandeis University, wanted for the killing of a Boston cop during a bank robbery.
“Yeah, we can look for them, too.”
Gagnon was standing beside him, and Dougherty said, “Don’t you think we’ll be busy?”
“Yeah, picking up radicals. He says we can pick up draft dodgers now,” he said, motioning to Boisjoli, who was talking to a couple of uniform cops. Then Gagnon looked at the FBI list and said, “They might be with the draft dodgers. Come on.”
They spent the day busting into apartments and dragging people out.
Five hundred and twenty-six people in 319 raids. Every cop in the city working double shifts. But they didn’t get Charbonneau or Rose, and no one they did get was talking or seemed to know anything.
It was after midnight when Dougherty finally got off duty, and he went straight home and changed and drove down to the Point to look for the Lincoln. He drove around for a couple of hours and parked on a few side streets, watching what little traffic there was. He had the radio on and heard a lot of talk about how they should be rounding up everybody who ever said the words Front de Libération du Quebec, and when they found the ones who killed Laporte they should put them up against a wall and shoot them.
One of the radio stations also read out Pierre Trudeau’s address to the House of Commons. It was one time when the slow, solemn voice of the news guy was probably close to the way Trudeau sounded: “With this deed the FLQ has sewn the seeds of its own destruction. It has revealed that it has no mandate but terror, no policies but violence and no solutions but murder. It is alien to all that is Canadian. It will not survive. Those men with hatred in their hearts thought they could divide us in tragedy, but they bring us together today in a same will. For the only passion that must drive us now is the passion for justice. Through justice we will get rid of the perversion of terrorism. Through justice we will find peace and freedom.”
Dougherty listened to the whole thing, unconvinced. He’d spent the day shoving people into police cars, not telling their families where they were going or when they could ever see them again, people screaming at him, calling him fascist pig. Didn’t seem like the kind of thing that was going to bring people together.
And he didn’t spot the Lincoln.
On Tuesday the whole province shut down for the funeral of Pierre Laporte. And then it was back to business. The army in the streets and double shifts for every cop. More people rounded up, more leads, thousands of tips phoned in, no sign of the Laporte kidnappers and no sign of James Cross.
The first Monday in November the governments of Canada and Quebec announced they were joining together to offer a $150,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the kidnappers.
Dougherty was in Station Ten when the phone started ringing off the hook, and after taking a few calls Delisle just let it ring. He looked at Dougherty and said, “Do you know where Cross is? He’s in the new residence at Université de Québec. No, wait, he’s already in Cuba. No, he’s in New York, being guarded by Black Panthers. God dammit.”
The bigger news that day for cops was that Ottawa had replaced the War Measures Act with something called the Public Order Temporary Measures Act. It made being a member of the FLQ or helping the kidnappers in any way punishable by five years in jail, but it allowed people who were arrested to have access to their lawyer and said they could only be held for three days. The new act also had an expiry date of April 30, 1971.
“So,” Delisle said, putting down the memo he’d been sent. “We got a lot of guys to round up before this takes effect.”
Dougherty said, “Tonight.”
“Yeah, come back after your shift on Redpath.”
“I thought the army was handling that?”
“Not Redpath,” Delisle said. “Mrs. Cross doesn’t want the army in the street, just a couple of cops, regular uniforms.”
Dougherty said okay, and Delisle said, “And try not to stand out.”
Right, Dougherty thought, try to look like a security guard.
“And come back here when you get relieved.”
Dougherty stood around all day on Redpath Crescent and nothing happened, not even a horse eating an apple. When he was finally relieved at close to seven, Dougherty grabbed a quick smoked-meat at Ben’s on his way back to Station Ten.
The place filled up through the evening as the raiding teams were put together. Delisle had a list of nightclubs they were going to hit and handed out assignments, saying, “We’re handling the downtown clubs: Danny’s Villa, the Boiler Room, Winston Churchill and the Whiskey à Go-Go.” He looked up from his list, “Hey Dog-eh-dee, you want to take the One and Two in the Point?”
“Not if I don’t have to,” and then he said, “Okay, yeah, I will.”
“Okay, and some of you guys are helping out in the west end: we got the Big Ben Pub on Côte des Neiges, the Little Old Pub, Blue Top Lounge on St. James, a few more — see the detectives.” He did a little spin in the middle of the room before stepping behind his desk.
Dougherty met up with the cops at Station Nine in the Point and the detective in charge, Kennedy, spoke English to them. “The place is a little different than last time: there are some bikers hanging out there now as well as the usual thugs. This is going to be fun.”
They hit the One and Two just after midnight, going in the front and back doors at the same time.
Kennedy yelled, “Nobody move!” but the place was already going crazy, people taking off in every direction. There were a couple of bikers who wanted to fight and a few other guys who wanted to fight and plenty of cops to make it happen.
Doug
herty saw Danny Buckley heading for the bathroom and slammed him into the wall, pressing the nightstick across his neck and shoving as hard as he could. Buck-Buck went down, grabbing Dougherty, and the two rolled around on the floor, swinging fists and even landing a few punches. Buck-Buck managed to get up and half-crawl, half-run out the back door, but Dougherty caught him in the lane and bodychecked him into the brick wall and got in a good shot with the nightstick across the back of his head. Buck-Buck went down covered in blood.
“Fuck you, Eddie.”
People were spilling out of the bar and cops were chasing them.
Buckley crawled to the garbage cans, and Dougherty said, “How much you got on you, Buck-Buck?”
“Fuck you.”
“They want you for the cigarettes, too, the truck hijacking.”
“Eat shit.”
The lane was quiet then, the bar empty except for the handcuffed bikers, the bartender and a few other people the cops would be taking back to Station Twelve.
“If there was a Higgins in there we’d take him,” Dougherty said, “but you’ll do.”
Buckley made a move and Dougherty stepped on his hand, driving his boot down hard. He heard bones break. “Is it just hash?”
“Fuck you.”
“You know the fun part,” Dougherty said. “We get to keep you locked up as long as we want.”
“Let me go.”
“You’re going away for a long time, Buck-Buck, grown-up fucking prison now. How’s your French? You’re gonna need it inside.”
“Fuck you.”
Dougherty leaned down and grabbed a handful of hair. “No, say fuck me — that’s what they’re gonna make you say.”
Buckley squirmed and Dougherty let go of the hair and stood up, the heel of his boot still on Buck-Buck’s hand. “And everybody’s gonna know you talked, Buck-Buck, everybody we pick up now.”
“I’m not saying shit.”
“That doesn’t matter, you know that. You go in tonight and everybody we pick up, every fucking Higgins brother we get is going to think you gave him up.”
Buck-Buck rolled over a little and looked up at Dougherty. “I know who’s driving the car you’re looking for, the Lincoln.”
Dougherty grabbed him, picked him up by the throat, slammed him into the wall.
“Who?”
“I don’t know his name.”
Now Dougherty had two hands on Buck-Buck’s throat, squeezing as hard as he could. “He killed Brenda Webber.”
Choking, barely getting words out, “M-maybe.”
Squeezing harder.
“Who is it?”
“G-guy w-works for F-Frank.”
Harder.
“What’s his name?”
“I-I don’t know. C-Craig, I think.”
Dougherty punched him in the face. “How do you know?”
“He w-works for a custom b-broker. F-Frank uses h-him sometimes for p-paperwork.”
“That’s all you know?”
“Yeah.”
Dougherty hit him again and let go of his neck and Buck-Buck fell to his knees, gulping air.
Dougherty said, “He fucking killed Brenda Webber.”
“Maybe.”
Dougherty kicked him in the stomach, knocking him over. “You’re fucking scum.”
Buck-Buck didn’t even look back, just crawled off, staggered to his feet and ran.
By the end of the night the cops had hit thirty bars and arrested nine guys with outstanding warrants. They also got a lot of hash, marijuana and even heroin, plus guns, hoods, handcuffs, 16 mm porno movies and some illegal hockey lottery tickets.
And Dougherty had something to tell Carpentier.
chapter
thirty-five
The next day a picture of James Cross sitting on a wooden crate full of dynamite was delivered to the Québec-Presse newspaper and ran on the front page of newspapers around the world.
Dougherty got to Station Ten first thing in the morning and told Delisle he was going to find Detective Carpentier, but Delisle said, “No, you’re not — you’re going to Redpath Crescent.”
“I need to talk to the detective.”
“He’s busy, Dougherty — all the detectives are busy.”
“This is important.”
“Tell it to me.”
“I have a lead on a murder,” Dougherty said.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, you’re a constable. Go with Gagnon, he’s going to drop you off.”
“I’m not taking a car?”
“All the cars are in use. You don’t need one standing around.”
“I don’t need to be standing around.”
“Go, Dougherty, right now.”
So Dougherty spent another morning standing in front of the house on Redpath, but in the early afternoon the reporter, Logan, came by and Dougherty asked him if he was going back to the Gazette office.
“Why, you got a story?”
“I got nothing,” Dougherty said. “But I could use a ride.”
“You don’t have a car?”
Dougherty shook his head. “They’re all out picking people up; we just stand here.”
“So don’t you have to stay?”
Dougherty pointed to the other cop in front of the house, a beat cop close to retirement. “Don’t you think he can handle anything that happens?”
In the car Logan said, “This isn’t personal time, is it?” and Dougherty said, “I told you, it’s nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
They were heading down Beaver Hall Hill, and Dougherty told him, “I can get out at the bottom here, Victoria Square.”
“How about this,” Logan said, “when whatever it is you’re working on happens, you tell me first?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“I’ve seen plenty of cops sneaking off to get laid,” Logan said. “And they don’t have that look on their faces.” He was pointing at Dougherty, his business card between his fingers. “Call me.”
Dougherty slammed the car door and walked down McGill Street towards the customs building. Past Victoria Square he crossed Craig Street and thought for a second that Buck-Buck had been shitting him. Then he remembered the real fear in his eyes. Buck-Buck was afraid of him, and Dougherty liked how it felt and wanted to feel it some more.
McGill Street, the western edge of Old Montreal, was lined with office buildings. Most of the offices were filled with custom brokers and importers, businesses that needed to be close to the port. A couple of blocks farther west were a few parking lots, probably for a couple thousand cars.
Dougherty spent an hour walking through the lots and then up and down the side streets in the area and found two white Lincolns. They were both pretty well-kept cars. He wrote down the licence plate numbers.
Then he walked to the customs building, a big old stone fortress on Place D’Youville. Dougherty watched people going in and out of the big front doors, a sign beside each one — Douanes on the left and Customs on the right. Lots of young men who could be Craig, probably runners for the brokers and importers, clearing things through customs. It seemed the Higgins Brothers were moving up from just losing the odd crate coming off a ship and doing some importing themselves.
Walking back up McGill Street, Dougherty stopped at the parking garage and looked for the attendant. The garage was about six storeys high and had an elevator that moved the cars up and down and made a hell of a noise.
After a couple of minutes, an old guy came out of the darkness of the garage, wiping his hands on his shirt, and said, “Keys,” holding out his hand.
“No, I didn’t park here,” Dougherty said. “I’m looking for a car.”
“Your car?”
“No, I’m looking for a Lincoln, you got one?”
/> “This isn’t a dealership, kid.”
“A white one, ’65 or ’66.”
The guy said, “Yeah, maybe.”
Dougherty said, “Show me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yeah, sure you can — come on.” Dougherty shoved the guy forward a little and the guy resisted for a second, then turned and took a few steps to the elevator controls. Then he motioned to the steel platform and said, “Okay.”
Dougherty stepped on the platform and lost his balance when it jerked and lunged for a few feet until it got going and the ride smoothed out. When stopped at the sixth floor, Dougherty stepped off the platform and searched up and down the rows of cars until he found the Lincoln. Close up he realized it wasn’t white, it was light blue, but the Brougham hard top was black so he wrote down the licence number anyway and went back to the elevator. He had to shout down a few times before the old guy started it up and brought him back down to street level.
Dougherty said, “Thanks,” and the old guy said, “Don’t mention it.”
A few blocks east and Dougherty was at police HQ on Bonsecours Street. He went straight to the ident office, where he found Rozovsky separating a pile of photos into three stacks.
“I’ve got three licence numbers I have to look up.”
Rozovsky looked up and was about to say something but stopped. “Give them here.” He took the notebook page from Dougherty. “It’ll take about half an hour.”
“I’ll wait.”
Closer to an hour later, Rozovsky was back and handed the paper to Dougherty saying, “This your Lincoln?”
“Maybe.” Three names and addresses. Dougherty said, “No Craig.”
“Nope. You got Rejean Roberge, Anne Connelly and Jacques Filippi.”
“Outremont, Dorval and Châteauguay.”
“Where did you find these licence plate numbers?”
“Near the customs building. Do you know where Carpentier is now?”
Black Rock Page 30