by John Farrow
“But this is where you come in, right, Selwyn? You’ll keep us safe from harm? Put on your Superman cape and fly around the room, do something?”
“Actually,” he whispered, “I was hoping that this might be where you come in.”
“Me?”
“You, Snoop.”
“Don’t think so, Selwyn. I have no inclination whatsoever to hang out with fat sweaty bikers.”
“Fat and sweaty is only for show these days. The upper echelon is groomed, scented, jauntily attired. They work out at sports clubs.”
“Still not interested.”
Together, they stared across the broad plateau of the city where rival gangs vied for a chunk of floating ice. In the dark of winter, the peace of the season was disrupted by the periodic detonation of dynamite in unsuspecting neighborhoods.
Norris backed out and changed gear and drove slowly through the parking lot. “Suit yourself,” he advised. “It’s your world, Jul, spread out before you. Your generation. You’ll have to live with the consequences.”
He scared her sometimes. Selwyn Norris gave off the air that he knew more than he was willing to say, that he knew how things were meant to be and how they would evolve. She hadn’t yet determined if this had to do with an acuity in him or a deficiency on her part. She hadn’t learned how to think around him. Julia knew that she was slipping, but she remained determined not to fall.
The investigating detectives rummaged through the contents of Santa’s sack, which lay on the wooden table dominating the unfurnished room. The bag contained a collection of empty shoe boxes adorned in Christmas wrapping, a light load for any erstwhile Claus. Nothing would be found, Sergeant-Detective Émile Cinq-Mars believed. The bag had been part of the uniform, part of the ruse. He leaned against the wall by the window, at times gazing idly upon the street three stories below, at other times staring off into space. The snow had stopped now, the soft powder that had cleansed the city in time for Christmas sparkling in light cast by streetlamps.
From the room, from the kitchen, from the corridor beyond the apartment the familiar sounds of investigation wandered through to him, the muted voices, the hushed commands and desultory responses. Sounds echoed in the abject emptiness of the room, off the hardwood floors and vacant walls. A sensation impressed him. He was weary of being at the scene of a crime. Ever closer, retirement loomed as an antidote to the barbarism that had occurred within these walls.
Strange that only two pieces of furniture occupied the apartment—the table, on which lay the spoils of Santa’s largesse, and the wardrobe, in which Father Christmas hung like a rack of beef. A meat hook, they’d determined, administered with high velocity and strength, had entered through the back and pierced the heart. The instrument remained embedded in the dead young man, and the round handgrip hung him from the rod across the wardrobe. Blood had run down the youth’s back to the floor of the cabinet.
Detective Bill Mathers wandered in from outside carrying two cups of coffee. He came straight through to Cinq-Mars and handed him one. “Drink up. It’ll help bring you around.”
The older man scarcely acknowledged him but received the coffee and pried open the plastic lid with expert fingers. He sipped, and gazed back into the room. “Where the”—and he swore, rare for him—“is forensics?”
“It’s Christmas Eve. We had to get them from home. Not that they’ll have much to tell us.”
“You’re the expert?”
“Get off my case, Émile. The man was killed with a meat hook.”
“When?”
“When?”
“Is there an echo in here?” Cinq-Mars chided.
“We know when he was killed, Émile. We watched Santa enter the building. We were inside within a minute and a half, two minutes. That’s when he got whacked.”
“Think so?”
“I know so,” Mathers claimed. He was frowning. The old man was treating him like a child, it seemed to him. He was sensitive about it because he often had that problem with tough city cops. The baby-face thing again. His looks caused cops, and the bad guys, too, to underestimate him.
“Good for you. I’m not so sure. I guess senility comes with old age.”
“You’re making no sense, Émile. Do dead men walk?”
“Do the dead go cold in two minutes?” Cinq-Mars asked him in return.
“Listen, after coming in here and opening that door and looking at that mess, I’m in no mood for your riddles.” Flustered, Mathers angled his back to his superior.
“Do the dead go cold in two minutes? Answer the question.”
“I was outside just now. Feel my hand. It’s still cold.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Forensics arrived at that instant, a studious young intern leading a senior colleague to the deceased. For the first time since they had opened the cabinet, Cinq-Mars emerged from his funk, moving across to watch the men work. He stood to one side of the closet to spare himself further visual discomfort.
“Time of death?” he asked.
Below a shock of untamed white hair the pathologist’s thin, angular face appeared quaintly academic. He acknowledged the policeman’s query with a nod and continued his ministrations, staying at the work for ten minutes without speaking. He examined under the Santa suit for other injuries after his junior had stepped back with nothing more to do.
“Can I see what he looks like again?”
The pathologist slipped off the fake beard and pushed back the Santa hair. Removing his gloves, the senior pathologist commanded, “Bag him. If he’s riding back to the North Pole tonight, it’s in a hearse.”
The detective raised a hand, and two uniformed officers entered from the hall with a gurney and body bag. The officers struggled with the dead man’s weight to get him down, unsure what to do about the meat hook.
“Take it out of him if you’ve a mind to,” the pathologist suggested. “Spare me the trouble.” The officers looked from one to the other, hoping the doctor was kidding. The physician let them stew before he added, “Otherwise bag him as is.” The uniforms chose the latter option.
“Can you take that sign off him?” Cinq-Mars requested. “It’s sacrilegious.” In an English scrawl, the sign, written on cardboard torn from the side of the box in the kitchen, declared, Merry Xmas, M5.
The intern held open a plastic bag, and the senior physician tossed his latex gloves inside. He looked up at Cinq-Mars. “Personal, is it?”
“Doesn’t fit the season.”
“That may be true, Émile, but the sign stays on him.”
The detective conceded to the doctor’s jurisdiction.
“You got here quickly.”
“Not quick enough,” Mathers offered.
“Marc, how long has he been dead?” Cinq-Mars wanted to know.
“Since when do you do homicide, Émile? Who’s the IO?”
“LaPierre. He’s in the crapper. Flu, he says. His partner’s in the building somewhere—what’s his name, Bill?”
“Alain Déguire.”
“That’s it. He’s talking to the other tenants. How long, Doc?”
“Three hours, three and a half, four,” the pathologist told him.
“Hey,” Mathers objected. “That’s not possible. That means he died two or three hours before we got here.”
“You have a problem with that?” the physician inquired.
“Could be. You’re telling me that this man died two, maybe three hours before I saw him walk down the street and enter the building.”
“Now that’s a feat,” the doctor marveled.
“I’d say so.”
“Thanks, Marc.” Cinq-Mars took the physician’s elbow in his hand and turned him toward the door. “You didn’t have to come out tonight. We appreciate the exception. One more favor—will you copy me the full report?”
Mathers leaned into the physician as he went by. “Here’s a tip. Death by meat hook. Natural causes won’t wash in this case.”
&nbs
p; The doctor freed his arm from the detective’s grip to take up the younger man’s challenge. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Mathers, sir.”
“I’m Dr. Wynett. I make it a point to give my students one tip a day, Detective Mathers. Here’s yours.”
“I’m not one of your students, sir.”
“Maybe you should be. Listen to what you hear, Mathers. Not to what you want or expect to hear. This man was not killed by a meat hook but by having his neck broken three to four hours ago. The neck break preceded the meat hook.”
“I saw him—”
“You saw a Santa Claus,” Cinq-Mars interrupted quietly before his partner embarrassed himself further. “Not this one.”
“Émile,” Wynett said, “I’ll copy you my report to LaPierre, but there’s something you might want to tell him right off.”
“What’s that?”
“The boy’s genitals were hot-wired. High voltage. He got burned up bad before they killed him.”
“Merde.”
“I also have good news. Before somebody snapped his neck, he was choked. The throat’s bruised. There’s tissue and blood under the boy’s fingernails—most likely the perp’s. He scratched him.”
The zipper on the body bag was done up and the corpse swung carefully onto the gurney, avoiding further damage by the hook. The officers took their time strapping him in, making certain that the body would not slip free when they descended the steep stairs.
Chastened, Mathers followed Cinq-Mars back to the window. “It makes no sense,” he whispered. “This has to be the same Santa. If not, where’s the other one now? Why were we tipped off about a deal with Santa if there was no deal? You’re the one with the contacts, Émile. You should know.”
“We were tipped off because some people wanted to deliver a Christmas present to me. There it is,” he said, nodding toward the gurney. “Now, do you want to take this up with my contact? Do you have a beef with him?” Cinq-Mars asked, suddenly turning angry.
“This is off the subject. Don’t get nasty, Émile.”
“Do you want to meet an errand boy who can take you to my source? He has good information. The prime stuff. My source has even better stuff. Would you like to meet him? Introduce yourself then.” Cinq-Mars turned back to face the room.
“What are you going on about?” Mathers asked.
“Just unzip the bag and say, ‘How do you do, pal? I’ve been looking for somebody like you most of my life. You’ve done wonders for the career of Detective Cinq-Mars, what can you do for me?’ Go ahead. There he is. He can help you along with promotions, at least lead you to someone who can. Say hello, Bill. Go ahead. Unzip the bag and say hello.”
His mouth open, Bill Mathers looked at the bag as though he might actually be tempted. He appeared to regret not having done a more careful study of the tenant. “That’s him? That’s your stoolie?”
“He was never a stoolie, Bill. Respect the dead in their presence. Don’t let me hear you call him that again. He was a conduit. An intermediary. A go-between. Everybody knows I have one great secret source. This kid’s not him. But he was on the pipeline, he was connected to him.”
“Santa Claus?” Mathers’s eyes were as wide now as his mouth. As the new partner to Émile Cinq-Mars, he had hoped to gain his trust and someday make the acquaintance of his contacts. Cops knew that he had to have extraordinary contacts to have accomplished all that he had. Mathers just never expected that an introduction would occur during his first few hours with the man. Nor had he expected the contact to be dead, which did spoil the moment.
“In the flesh,” Cinq-Mars confirmed. “So to speak. At Christmas people give one another presents. I was just delivered mine by Santa himself. Why am I so lucky, do you think?” Cinq-Mars abruptly raised his hand and called to the policeman he had spotted in the outer corridor. “Detective!”
A detective the same age as Mathers came into the room looking from side to side as though expecting someone, his partner perhaps, to jump out at him.
“Déguire, isn’t it?” Cinq-Mars asked.
“Yes, sir. Hi, Bill,” he said to Mathers, who nodded.
“Anything from the tenants?”
The detective checked through his notebook as though his memory was faulty. “Not much,” he concluded in the end. His black hair was thick, curly, and cut short. He kept it trimmed around his ears. A deep, permanent horizontal crease in the man’s brow suggested perpetual concentration, but the way his forehead protruded over his wide-set eyes gave the impression that all the concentration in the world had never helped him to arrive at a conclusion about anything, that he was constantly perturbed. “It’s a rooming house for students mostly. Half went home for the holidays. Some were out shopping during the day, visiting friends at night. One guy’s stoned. Says he saw a moving van. Stuff being hauled out of a room on this floor, could’ve been this one. Must’ve been. Another guy went to mass if you can believe that. Nobody heard a thing. Like one kid said, everybody plays their music so loud in here nobody can hear nothing. That’s a quote. That’s what he said.” He seemed nervous about addressing Cinq-Mars.
“What name on the moving van?”
“Once he got started he was on a roll. He offered around seven choices. I suggested a few more, and he agreed it could’ve been one of those, too.”
“Great. Who lived here?”
“Our victim. Everybody I spoke to gave me a positive ID off the Polaroid. Nobody knows anything about the Santa Claus routine. His name’s Hagop Artinian.”
“Hagop? That’s a name?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s Armenian,” Mathers put in.
“All right. Déguire, get in touch with the building owner in the morning. He might have plans to double his income this week. I want the apartment sealed until New Year’s.”
“I’m off tomorrow, sir,” Déguire declared. He stuffed his notebook in his pocket and faced Cinq-Mars, challenging him to repudiate his statement.
“You’re what?”
“Off,” Déguire testified. His chin was a pronounced nub, which aggressively extended forward. “It’s Christmas.”
“You won’t do this one little thing?”
His nervousness was apparent, but whether he was being defiant of Cinq-Mars’s authority or was merely intimidated by his reputation was difficult to discern. Perhaps his upset had everything to do with the disruption to his Christmas, as he had stated, and he was mad that once again a superior officer had messed up his plans. “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of that.”
“Good man,” Cinq-Mars told him, although he did not sound impressed.
Déguire lurched out of the apartment as if spooked by ghosts. Émile Cinq-Mars watched him go, trailed by the dead man, who was finally being wheeled out. Then he left also, with Bill Mathers shuffling along after him.
Behind a wall in that stark room a toilet flushed in the wake of their departure. Moments later, wiping his nose and mouth and sneezing, once, violently, the investigating officer, Sergeant-Detective André LaPierre, emerged from the bathroom. He looked around. He checked the empty closet. Then he yelled for a uniform to get the hell back in there and tell him what had happened to the body. “Where’s my corpse?” he hollered. “Who took my corpse?”
2
One A.M., Christmas Morning
Detective Émile Cinq-Mars drove west from the mountain and the Christmas lights of downtown Montreal across the broad, flat, and largely English suburbs that would yield to countryside, where he lived, where his American wife slept peaceably, where his problems followed him around as if they were doting pets at his heels, yappy and insistent, affectionate and needy. He drove his own car, a blue Taurus wagon, and set the cruise control fifteen clicks above the legal limit, his usual allowance in winter. Friends thought him foolish to undertake this drive daily. For Cinq-Mars the trip was enjoyable, the quiet time restorative, and crossing the bridge to leave the urban island behind inevitably provided a jolt o
f relief. He was headed for horse country, an area of woods and open fields and white fences, a leisure community of large homes surrounded by vast yards and farms where, on a crisp, clear winter night like this, the sky was filled with stars.
Christmas morning now, Santa would be aloft, traversing the heavens in his chariot, swinging low to rooftops to scurry down chimneys into the dreams of children. Good, Cinq-Mars thought. Good, he meant, that the world periodically returned to its fictions and fairy tales, good that those whose job it was to separate a department store Santa from a savaging meat hook were shunted aside for a while, their stubborn reality dismissed for a day. Beyond the city, across the bridge, off the island, under the stars, Émile Cinq-Mars drove, and as he drove he brooded. As any man on the downward curve toward retirement might do, he reflected upon those matters in his life that had carried him so gently to this juncture.
No one might have guessed, least of all Émile Cinq-Mars, that he would rise to become the top cop of his time and place. He had prided himself on being particular, a fusspot for detail, pragmatic and diligent by nature, artful by design. “Unremarkable overall” was how he had described the career of his newly attached partner, Bill Mathers. His own career path had made a similar impression through his early years as a police officer. He was known to be thorough, someone who got the job done, a plodder, a man of caution and integrity, unflappable, unexciting, a bore when he wasn’t drinking, an oddity and a practicing Roman Catholic. He was promoted through the ranks on the basis of his reliability and service, all in due course, nothing rushed. That’s how the job was for him, until it suddenly changed.