One or the Other

by John McFetridge

  “Maybe they haven’t made the drop.”

  “City and District on Notre Dame?”

  Dougherty said, “That’s right.”

  “Come on.”

  Carpentier drove. It was about ten blocks west. They stopped at a Fina gas station on the corner of Notre Dame and Atwater, and Carpentier got out and walked from there.

  Late afternoon. A beautiful day in October, the neighbourhood was busy.

  Dougherty got out of the car and walked around, got in behind the wheel. A couple of minutes later the radio jumped to life and he unclipped it from his collar. Through the static he heard Delisle say, “Carpentier says you were right, whatever that means, over.”

  “Roger, over.”

  Delisle said, “The manager left a few minutes ago, he’s going to Atwater Market. He’s walking.”

  Dougherty figured that was so Roberge and whoever was with him could see if the guy was being followed. Into the radio he said, “I’m on my way.”

  “Wait for Carpentier.”

  “Roger that.”

  “And stay out of sight, you in your uniform.”

  “Why?” Dougherty said. “The girl is already dead.”

  “But not the manager.”

  Carpentier was back then, getting into the car and saying, “Let’s go.”

  Dougherty put the car in gear and pulled out onto Atwater.

  Carpentier said, “The bank was crowded and someone gave an envelope with the manager’s name on it to a teller. There was some confusion, they aren’t sure how long it was before the manager got it.”

  “They’re not sure?”

  Dougherty pulled into the parking lot of the market. The building was almost fifty years old, a long narrow brick building with a clock tower at one end.

  “It could have been delivered hours ago. It said to put fifty thousand dollars in a briefcase and bring it here, to the market. The manager just left the bank ten minutes ago.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Like a bank manager,” Carpentier said. “Carrying a briefcase and filling his pants with shit.”

  “Should be easy to spot then.”

  Dougherty parked and they both got out of the car.

  “If they see you in the uniform it will spook them,” Carpentier said. “So stay back as far as you can.” Carpentier started towards the building.

  Dougherty followed, thinking if Carpentier thought he looked like anything other than a cop he was fooling himself, but he stayed back.

  It was getting close to lunchtime and the market was crowded. Carpentier walked past the stalls without looking at any of the fruits or vegetables or fish or any of the baked goods. He looked like a man on a mission, and Dougherty followed as far back as he could.

  In the middle of the market were tables and chairs filled with people eating lunch and drinking coffee. Carpentier turned slowly in a circle. Dougherty figured he might as well be holding up a sign.

  There were a lot of people but no middle-aged men in suits. Except for Carpentier.

  Dougherty turned around to go back to the car and he saw a young man, mid-twenties, with long hair and a beard, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and carrying a briefcase. The guy was heading for the doors so Dougherty started after him, hoping the guy wouldn’t look back and see the uniform.

  But of course he did, and he started running.

  Dougherty said, “Shit,” and started running after him, calling back over his shoulder, “This way!”

  The guy pushed through the doors, and Dougherty was right behind him in the parking lot.

  Instead of running towards the street, the guy ran through the lot towards the canal. Dougherty was gaining on him, and the guy turned a little, saw him, and threw the briefcase. Dougherty raised his arm to block it and got knocked off balance but stayed on his feet and kept running.

  The guy jumped the low fence and ran towards the footbridge over the canal but Dougherty caught up to him and got a hand on the guy’s shoulder. He turned and swung, but Dougherty ducked and kept moving forward, slamming into the guy like he was making an open-field tackle. Coach Brown would’ve been pleased.

  Dougherty’s momentum carried them and they both went over the edge and into the canal with a huge splash.

  When he came up for air the guy sputtered, “Je sais pas nager.”

  Dougherty said, “Then drown.” He let go and the guy went under, wildly waving his arms. Dougherty managed to make his way back to the stone wall of the canal and grab hold, but it was about ten feet up to the ledge.

  Carpentier was there then, and he looked down and said, “Hold on, we’ll get you out. Get him.”

  Dougherty swam back a few feet, reached under water, grabbed hold of the guy’s long hair and pulled him up. “You Stéphane Roberge?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Madeleine Dionne is dead. You killed her.”

  “No, she’s not dead.”

  Roberge was kicking his legs, trying to get away, so Dougherty let go and watched him flail and go under the water. When his head came up again, spitting water and bug-eyed, Dougherty grabbed him and held on.

  The fire truck arrived a few minutes later, and Dougherty and Roberge were pulled out of the canal.

  Carpentier was waiting and he said, “Good work, Constable.”

  “He said he didn’t mean to kill her.”

  “They always say that, don’t they?”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah.”

  Carpentier told Dougherty to get dried off and make a report and then took Roberge to Bonsecours street.

  Back at Station Ten, Dougherty changed into a dry uniform and when he walked back into the squad room Delisle said, “Hey, there he is, Mark Spitz.”

  “Funny.”

  “We picked up another guy and now the two of them are giving each other up.”

  Dougherty said, “I figured they would.”

  “And look at this,” Delisle said, “you’re still finished at the end of your shift, no working late.”

  “Yeah, that’s good.”

  Delisle laughed and said, “You got someone waiting for you at home, you bet it’s good.”

  Dougherty knew he was right. Still, as he drove back to LaSalle, he did wish he could have gone to Bonsecours Street and taken the guy into the interrogation room, get the confession out of him and charge him with murder. It would have felt good.

  It felt good going into the apartment building while it was still light out, too.

  Judy said, “I made dinner.”

  Dougherty said, “You sound surprised.”

  “I never thought I’d say that to some man coming home from work. Look at me, I’m June Cleaver.”

  “You’re not wearing pearls.”

  Judy patted her jeans and said, “Or a dress.”

  “Should we have a drink?” Dougherty said. “Is that what we’re supposed to do?”

  “That’s too much like my parents.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is. You have a good day?”

  “It’s good to be back at work.” Judy went into the kitchenette and added noodles to a big pot. “It’s goulash, it’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

  Dougherty followed her and opened the fridge. He got out a beer and said, “You want one?”

  “No.” She reached out and he handed her the bottle and she took a drink. “That’s enough. I just wish we were really back and it wasn’t work to rule.”

  “Why, were you going to coach a team?”

  She was stirring the pot and she said, “I was going to help with the school newspaper.”

  “Oh right,” Dougherty said, going back to the table. “Start a new generation of radicals.”

  “That’s the dream,” she said. “And we prefer to be called activists.”

 
; “Yeah, that’s what we call you down at the station.”

  Judy looked at him over her shoulder and smirked a little, but she wasn’t upset and she said, “Ha ha.”

  “You’ve got your work cut out for you, all the kids I see these days, all they want to do is get high.”

  “How was your day?”

  “I was at a murder scene.”

  Judy was still and she hesitated for a second. He said, “Don’t worry, I just took the call.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Look, I’m home at dinner time.”

  “And that’s nice,” Judy said. “But I’m not worried.”

  Dougherty drank some beer and said, “Couple of losers tried to rob a bank. Well, one of them was the ex-boyfriend of a teller. They went to her house and tied her up and took a note to the bank, said to give them fifty grand or they’d kill her.”

  Judy had stopped stirring and she was looking at Dougherty.

  “Turns out they tied her too tight. Or she passed out and her legs relaxed and that pulled the rope on her neck. Not rope, actually, they used electrical cord — there was no give.” He drank some more beer. “And they probably pushed the gag too deep into her mouth. Whatever they did, she suffocated. She was dead before they got to the bank.”

  Judy stood there quiet for a moment, and then she said, “I’ll be honest, I’m not going to miss this.”

  “Talking about my work?”

  “This part of your work. This awful stuff. People killed.”

  “Well, there won’t be much of that,” Dougherty said. “Don’t worry.”

  Judy got a couple of bowls out of the cupboard and said, “You want to butter some bread?”

  They ate dinner and Dougherty started to relax. He hadn’t even realized how tense he had been and he was thinking it was because he’d been afraid of sitting down to dinner and not having anything to talk about, but once he was there and doing it he realized they had plenty to talk about.

  He was starting to think it was something he could do every day.

  When they finished eating and were doing the dishes, Judy washing and Dougherty drying, she said, “My father said if the PQ win the election his company is going to move to Toronto.”

  “Might as well move to the Arctic.”

  “But I’ve been hearing a lot of that,” Judy said, “people talking about moving.”

  “Do you think anyone would really do that, move because of an election?”

  “If Quebec separates.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “My father is pretty worried about it. If the company moves he’ll have to go with them. It’s not like he could find another job here.”

  “A lot of talk for nothing,” Dougherty said.

  They finished the dishes and went into the living room and sat on the couch.

  Judy said, “You want to watch TV?”

  “What’s on?”

  Judy said, “I don’t know.” She didn’t make a move to turn on the TV. “It is good, you working days all the time.”

  “Yeah, we can sit around and watch TV every night if we want.”

  “That’s right,” Judy said. “And it would make it easier if we ever had kids.”

  Dougherty leaned back on the couch and looked at her. She was expecting something, waiting for it, almost daring him and he said, “You’d make a great mother.”

  Wasn’t what she expected and she laughed. “I doubt that.”

  “No, you would. It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” He stood up and said, “Hang on,” and went into the bedroom.

  When he came back into the living room he had a small box in his hand and he said, “Here.”

  Judy tilted her head to one side as she took the box, saying, “Is this a . . .?” She opened it and said, “Oh my God, it is? When did you get this?”

  Dougherty sat down on the couch and put his arm across the back, not quite around Judy, but ready. “Months ago, actually. When I was working the Brink’s heist, one of the guys I questioned, Fred Berger, he deals a little in jewellery.”

  “Is it stolen?”

  “Not from a person,” Dougherty said. “It wasn’t from a burglary or anything like that. It might not have passed through customs coming into the country.”

  She was laughing. Then she said, “Were you going to propose?” And then, it suddenly hit her and she pulled up her legs and turned sideways on the couch to face him and said, “Is this a proposal?”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, it is.”

  “You want to get married?”

  “Well, you’re the one talking about having kids.”

  “Yeah, but I never said anything about getting married.”

  “Well, come on, kids are a lifetime commitment. If you’re willing to do that with me, you should commit to this, too.”

  She was shaking her head but she was smiling. “Édouard James Dougherty, I never imagined you were the marrying sort.”

  “I’m pretty sure you never imagined that you were the marrying sort.”

  She turned back facing forward and leaned into him. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m the one who corrupted you. I thought I did a better job.” She was still looking at the engagement ring.

  “Well, you think about it,” he said. “We don’t need to rush into anything.”

  “That’s true, we’ve got all the time we want, don’t we.”

  She turned and leaned close to him and kissed him.

  He said, “That’s right, we can watch TV every night if we want.”

  She kissed him again and said, “Maybe later.”

  They went into the bedroom.

  Later, after they made love and then really did watch some TV, Dougherty couldn’t sleep. He was a little worried that Judy would actually want to get married, and he was just as worried that she wouldn’t want to. But then he knew it would work out, it felt too good to be together. Whatever they did, he knew they’d do it together.

  What he was really worried about was work. He wasn’t so sure about that. He knew he could take over from Delisle, he could be a perfectly good desk sergeant, run a perfectly good station house. Go in every morning and come home for dinner. Maybe he and Judy would have kids, maybe buy a house, have a backyard and a finished basement. They could go camping in the summer. It would be a good life.

  So why was he really disappointed he wouldn’t be on the homicide squad? Why did he want to do that, anyway? He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about it. He felt he could talk to Judy about anything, but he wasn’t sure about this. Maybe because he was worried that he wanted to do it for the wrong reasons. Maybe he wanted to do it for the prestige, to be a big shot on the police force.

  Because he knew it didn’t make much difference to the families of the victims, it didn’t bring anyone back or make the pain any less for the people left behind. Did he just want it to feel better about himself?

  Maybe.

  But he didn’t feel bad about himself. So maybe it was something else.

  He was thinking about the homicides he had worked, really just running Detective Carpentier’s errands, but he did see the murderers and he knew there was something about them — they were different than other people, they crossed a line. It wasn’t something just anyone could do, it was extreme. It was final. People get mad and say, “I’m going to kill you,” but they don’t do it and they don’t go home and plot it and work out the details and think about how they’re going to get away with it and actually do it. Normal people don’t.

  But the ones who do cross the line, rapists who strangle their victims, guys who kill their wives or the criminals who see it as the best way to solve a problem, if they don’t get caught, they might do it again.

  Men who throw teenagers off bridges.

  CHAPTER
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  TWENTY-FOUR

  For a while the election was all anyone could talk about. It turned into a three-party race; the Liberals said they were the only chance to keep Quebec a part of Canada, the Parti Québécois played down separatism and talked about the poor economic record of the Liberals and the Union Nationale was reborn with a charismatic young leader and made a late charge for the middle ground.

  Dougherty worked day shifts, and in addition to the usual calls, he took a lot of calls about defaced election signs and broke up a few near-brawls at all-candidate events. One of the calls, at the Hall Building of Concordia University, looked like it was going to turn into a riot — Dougherty hadn’t been to a riot at Concordia in almost ten years, since it was called Sir George Williams University, and the Hall Building was brand new — but this time there were no cops in riot gear, no smoke bombs and no one set fire to the building.

  There was a lot of shouting, and from what Dougherty could make out there was a group of English students who supported the PQ, trying to shout down another group of students who looked to Dougherty like they were Greek and Italian and Chinese and were waving Canadian flags. Dougherty got five cops in uniforms — short-sleeved blue shirts and hats, not body armour and riot helmets — to form a line between the two groups and waited it out.

  It seemed unreal to Dougherty that people in Canada, in Montreal, would come to blows over politics.

  That kind of tension was really the exception, but there was no escaping the politics. It was definitely a different kind of election.

  On Saturday night, Dougherty and Judy went downtown to see a movie. He suggested Two Minute Warning with Charlton Heston and she said, “You really want to see a terrorist in a big stadium shooting people,” and then she said, “How about All Screwed Up, the new Lina Wertmüller?”

  “You think it’ll be as good as the last Lina Wertmüller?”

  For a second Judy looked like she was going to answer that and then she said, “It’s Italian, there might be naked chicks,” so they went to the Snowdon Theatre.

  After the movie they stopped at a deli for cheesecake, and Judy said, “Did you like it?”