Never Forget

by Martin Michaud

  Jacinthe rolled her eyes, then noticed the clothes piled in a corner. “Save the touchy-feely stuff for later, girls. Was she killed here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long ago?”

  “I’d say a good forty-eight hours. Probably sometime Thursday night.”

  Victor made a mental note, then hesitated for an instant, trying to find the right words for what he was about to ask of the examiner. Berger had a touchy streak, and Lessard was eager to avoid seeming to micromanage him. “Since we don’t have a purse or ID, I’d like you to be on the lookout for anything that might help identify her — dental work, physical particulars, labels, distinctive garments, details of that sort.”

  “No problem.”

  Maybe, like him, Berger was getting softer as he aged.

  “How old would you say she was?”

  “In her sixties. I could be wrong.”

  “She left behind an impressive body of work,” Jacinthe said, laughing loudly at her own joke before turning serious. She used a fingernail to pry an orange blob from between her teeth and asked, “Cause of death?”

  “She bled out. Something went right through her throat — from back to front, I believe.”

  “Is that the hole?” Jacinthe pointed to a circular wound just above the trachea.

  Gently, Berger turned the dead woman’s head and inserted a finger into the opening. The sploosh sound made Victor queasy. He averted his eyes, close to retching. Taillon watched, fascinated, as the examiner’s expert hands moved over the corpse’s throat.

  “This is the exit wound. The object used by the killer entered the back of the neck and exited here, severing the carotid artery along the way. The vertebral arteries run through the cervical bones on their way to the brain. Hemorrhaging was massive. She was dead in minutes.”

  “The object used by the killer …” Victor paused, still struggling to hold down the contents of his stomach. “You mean that’s not a bullet wound?”

  “I could go into details, but —”

  “Forget the details,” Taillon snapped.

  “Short answer: no, that is not a bullet wound.”

  “Okay,” Taillon said, “so what was the murder weapon?”

  “I’ll know more after the autopsy, but I’d say it was a sharp object propelled by some kind of mechanism.”

  “Mechanism?” Victor asked, intrigued.

  Berger looked at him over the rims of his glasses, which wavered in precarious balance on the bridge of his nose. “It took considerable velocity to cause a wound like this. More than human strength alone could generate.”

  Their gazes met for an instant.

  “There’s something else,” Berger said.

  “Oh, yeah?” the big woman growled.

  The examiner ran his finger along two cuts, one above the sternum and the other beneath the chin, near the throat. Each wound had two distinct entry points.

  “I don’t know what made these punctures, but they’re deep.”

  The image stayed with Victor wherever he looked: the dead woman’s head and frizzy grey hair lying in a red lake, a Mona Lisa half smile clinging to her lips as though she’d been at peace when she was struck down.

  “There are abrasions on the wrists and neck.”

  “Caused by what?” Jacinthe asked.

  “On the wrists, could be handcuffs.”

  “And the neck?”

  “It looks like the murderer made her wear something extremely tight and heavy.”

  “A dog collar?” Victor suggested.

  “That,” Berger answered, “would be one very large dog collar.”

  6

  ROOM 50

  Chronicle of a marital disaster foretold: Detective Chris Pearson looked at the picture of his wife and two daughters on the corner of his desk and sighed. It was Sunday. The week hadn’t yet begun, and already Corinne would be making dinner and giving the girls their baths by herself. He would try, at least, to get home a few minutes before the children’s bedtime.

  Taking a sip of coffee, he couldn’t help recalling his motives for requesting reassignment to Station 21. The myth of downtown police work. Plenty of young detectives were hungry for the challenge, hungry to be where the action was. But only the best got the chance. Pearson was one of the best, as the recommendation letter from his former mentor, Victor Lessard, had confirmed.

  Lessard’s departure for the Major Crimes Unit had been a factor. Lessard was tortured, surly, and stubborn, but Pearson had loved working with him. He was a loyal boss who never gave up and who knew how to protect his team from the abuses of the higher-ups. After his departure, Commander Tanguay had started arbitrarily poking his nose into active investigations. The atmosphere at Station 11 had become so bad that Pearson had longed for a change of scenery. That was when he’d set his sights on Station 21.

  But the adrenalin rush of frenzied activity he’d expected to find downtown hadn’t materialized. Instead, he was deluged by petty case files that piled up faster than he could deal with them.

  Lessard had often urged his protégé to pay attention to his marriage and home life, warning him not to make the mistakes that he had made. At the time, the young man had only half listened to these warnings, convinced that he knew better. Chris Pearson wouldn’t fall into the same traps. Now he and Corinne were in counselling.

  A call during the early hours of the night had roused Pearson from his dreams. Corinne hadn’t woken up. Before leaving, he had stood for a moment in the doorway of the children’s bedroom, gazing with love at the two blond heads that emerged from the covers. Then he’d gone straight to the New York Life Building.

  André Lortie’s body was covered by a sheet, and a security perimeter had been established. A short distance away, their faces awash in the glow of the emergency lights, two attendants waited to take the body to the morgue.

  Upon arriving at the scene, Pearson had gathered the usual information. Lortie had managed to evade the night watchman’s notice and slip into the building stairwell, picking several locks before gaining access to the roof. The beat cops who had responded to the emergency call were shaken, but their accounts were clear and concise. There was no ID on the body, but a fingerprint check yielded a match.

  André Lortie was known to police on the basis of a few minor convictions. For the past little while, he’d been spending his nights in a rooming house with other vagrants. Because Lortie’s file contained no emergency contacts, Pearson had gone to the rooming house at 8:00 a.m., hoping for information that could help him locate next of kin. But neither the other roomers nor the toothless female caretaker had been able to point him toward a family member. After being let in by the caretaker, Pearson had looked through Lortie’s filthy bedroom, but he’d found nothing that connected the homeless man to anyone in the outside world. The detective had also visited the Accueil Bonneau and the Maison du Père, two shelters where Lortie occasionally made appearances. No one at either shelter knew him to have any friends.

  Those who had spent some time in his presence described a quiet, solitary man. “He wasn’t outgoing or communicative,” a caseworker at the Maison du Père told Pearson. “He slept here, but he never used our other services. He wasn’t looking for help.”

  Lortie had also stayed at the Old Brewery Mission, but he’d been banned after an incident in 2006. “He hit a volunteer,” a shift supervisor had explained concisely, unable to tell the detective anything else about the attack. Pearson had looked up the incident report on the Quebec Police Information Centre database, but the report didn’t contain the personal information he was seeking. After a stop at Tim Hortons, he’d gone back to Station 21.

  Sitting at his desk, Pearson tore open the envelope the patrol officers had given him and extracted two wallets. They’d probably been stolen, though the dead man might simply have found them. An initial database search yielded no results; neither of the two individuals in question, a man and a woman, had been reported missing, and neither one had
filed a complaint for theft. Pearson wasn’t surprised. The suicide had taken place during the night. People often went several hours before noticing that something had been stolen from them.

  The woman’s phone number appeared on a hospital card; Pearson found the man’s number using his driver’s licence. He left them both the same message: had they lost wallets or been victims of a theft? If so, they should get in touch with him to recover their possessions.

  Tucking the envelope with the two wallets under his arm, Pearson got up and headed for Room 50, where, following protocol, the items would be barcoded and stored until their owners showed up to claim them.

  On the required forms, he wrote the names of the wallets’ owners: Judith Harper and Nathan R. Lawson.

  7

  DEPOSITION

  A few cars were heading south on Saint-Denis, bound for the Ville-Marie Expressway. Victor took a drag on his cigarette and turned up the collar of his jacket, shivering. Taillon, her coat wide open, was eating a chocolate bar.

  Maintenance workers, nurses, patients wearing bathrobes over their hospital gowns and pulling their IV poles after them: the usual bestiary was out snatching a smoke along the wall next to the entrance of Saint-Luc Hospital. Victor empathized with the people huddled there, but he would willingly have turned and fled their misery for fear it might prove contagious.

  Clouds sped headlong through a sky streaked with flakes. Wind, cold, and humidity stung the skin.

  He tossed away his butt, carving a black furrow in the snow. Taillon was at his heels. It was 10:37 a.m.

  “Who’d you get for Secret Santa?” she asked with a chuckle.

  “Not telling.”

  While Victor peered at the directory near the elevator doors, trying to figure out which way to go, Jacinthe pragmatically put two fingers in her mouth and whistled to the security guard who was sitting at the counter in an open-eyed doze. Startled, the guard told them which floor their destination was on.

  “Stop being such a pussy, Lessard,” Taillon insisted as the steel doors slid shut. “Who’d you get?”

  “Gilles.”

  Gilles Lemaire had been Taillon’s partner prior to Victor’s return to the Major Crimes Unit. Apart from his work in the field, Lemaire was now responsible for the digital component of the unit’s investigations. He was a short man and a father of seven, making him a target of choice for mockery within the team.

  “Gilles? Hah! What are you giving him?”

  “None of your business.”

  “I got you.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. I was thinking I’d buy you some moisturizing cream, seeing as you’re such a retrosexual. When a man’s in his forties, he needs to start taking care of his complexion.” Her raucous laugh drew stares as they walked along the hospital corridor.

  “That’s metrosexual, Jacinthe,” Lessard said, not letting himself be provoked.

  “Same difference.”

  Victor shook his head. “Going to the gym and watching what I eat doesn’t make me a metrosexual.” He sighed. “And if you’re wondering what to give me, there’s a new biography of Muhammad Ali that looks interesting. I’ll find the title for you …”

  The long face of Robin Horowitz, the warehouse owner who had discovered the woman’s body, was the same chalky colour as the bedsheets on which he lay. His cardiac scare hadn’t, in the end, been serious, but a nurse had nevertheless asked the two detectives not to stay too long.

  Victor was sitting beside the bed, an open notebook on his knee. Horowitz had been quickly ruled out as a suspect. The warehouse was closed to customers on Fridays and weekends, but the owner had gone in that morning to catch up on some bookkeeping.

  “So,” Victor said, “you were in the habit of leaving the key on the back-door lintel?”

  “Yes,” Horowitz answered in a weak voice.

  “I didn’t see an alarm system.”

  A coughing fit shook the man as he lay on the bed. “Apart from the computer, there’s nothing of value. Nobody steals scrap metal.”

  “Who knew about the key?” the detective sergeant asked.

  “We’re a family business. My two brothers are in China, negotiating a contract. My sister-in-law helps with the accounts three times a month. The kids drop by now and then. That’s a lot of people.”

  “Well, Mr. Horowitz, we’re going to need a list of names,” Jacinthe said. She was standing at the window, hands behind her back.

  Victor shook his head to reassure the man. “We think the killer used the key to get in,” he said. “Aside from family members, did anyone else know about it? A supplier? Customer? Acquaintance?”

  Horowitz made a mental effort that seemed to drain the last of his energy.

  “I can’t think of anyone.”

  More out of habit than chivalry, Victor stepped aside to let Taillon board the elevator first. More out of manliness than habit, Taillon didn’t thank him.

  “You’ve gone soft!” she brayed. “The guy’s story doesn’t add up. He’s lying, I’m sure of it.”

  “Calm down, Jacinthe,” Lessard said, pressing the button for the ground floor. “The poor man is practically at death’s door. How about we cut him a little slack?”

  “Like I said, you’ve gone soft.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I’m getting more laid back with age.”

  “You? Laid back? Fat chance. Gimme the keys. I’m driving.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, handing them over.

  “I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.”

  Jacinthe’s foot on the accelerator was as heavy as the rest of her. Paying less attention to the traffic lights than if they were red Smarties, she kept the gas pedal down. In minutes they were at the corner of René Lévesque and Saint-Urbain, where La Maison Kam Fung offered a dim sum menu she loved.

  The noisy restaurant was full of Asian families enjoying their Sunday meal.

  “There’s no point in making a list. I’m guessing the killer observed Horowitz from the bicycle path along the canal. That’s how he knew where the key was hidden.”

  “What makesh you shay that?” Taillon gargled, slurping her noodles.

  “A hunch. I had a look around the property this morning. You can see the warehouse door from the canal.”

  “I’m still going back to the hospital tomorrow. I want that list. I’m not taking any chances.”

  Deep in thought, Victor had barely touched the food. “Why do you suppose the killer chose that place?” he asked.

  “Hmm? Fucking chopsticks … I don’t know. Because it’s isolated?”

  “He must have noted Horowitz’s comings and goings. He knew he wouldn’t have to worry about the victim’s screams.”

  Jacinthe put her hand in her bag and pulled out her buzzing cellphone. “It’s Gilles,” she said, looking at the text. “Our Jane Doe’s prints aren’t in the database, and her profile doesn’t match any missing-person reports.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Victor said, but he looked disappointed. “Let’s ask Berger to take pictures of the body to distribute to local police stations.”

  “You think a beat cop might recognize her?”

  “A beat cop, a detective, you never know.”

  Victor was already tapping out a text to the medical examiner.

  “Good idea.” Jacinthe hesitated. She pointed to a bamboo basket of steamed baozi meat buns. “You want any more?”

  “No. Help yourself.” He paused. “Maybe we should have divers drag the canal.”

  “If they find the weapon in the canal, I’ll go on a diet. The surface is frozen.”

  “It isn’t frozen everywhere. The ice is unstable. And I thought you were already on a diet.”

  Jacinthe gave him a sidelong look. They talked for another few minutes, time enough for Victor to finish his green tea, Jacinthe her apple fritters, and the waiter his bill.

  Though it was only a fifteen-metre walk from the restaurant door to the service vehicle, Victor hunched aga
inst the chill. The wind was blowing hard.

  In the passenger seat, he listened to the thrum of the engine before breaking the heavy silence. “I wonder what he’s doing right now.”

  “Who?” Jacinthe asked, not taking her eyes off the road.

  “The guy who killed Jane Doe.”

  8

  AIR BUBBLE

  Nathan Lawson tried to make out the indistinct form manipulating the air bubble, but his vision was blurred by a viscous substance, as though he had ointment in his eyes. Before lapsing back into the netherworld, as he hovered at the brink of unconsciousness, he thought he must have had too much to drink. A rapid succession of images unspooled through his cortex.

  After parking the car in the garage, he had gone into the house. Knowing the place well, he had settled in without turning on any lights. When the sun went down, he had lit a candle, placing it so that its glow wasn’t visible from outside. Later in the evening, he’d allowed himself a whisky. And then another …

  Staggering to the bedroom, he had tried to calm his fears, reminding himself that no one would look for him here. A name had risen up, floating in his memory as he slipped under the covers. Why had he suddenly thought of him? He had received assurances a lifetime ago that André Lortie was in no condition to cause problems. Nothing suggested that the situation had changed.

  Lawson had woken up in the middle of the night, hungover, urgently needing to urinate. Groping through the blackness, he’d stepped into the hall. As he looked up, he was shocked to see the outline of a person in the bathroom doorway.

  He had tried in vain to reach Peter’s hunting rifle …

  Nathan Lawson half opened his eyes. A powerful beam of light blinded him. He felt as though he’d been asleep for months. A metallic taste filled his dry mouth. Turning his head, Lawson noticed that the indistinct form had disappeared. Only the air bubble remained. His gaze focused on the bubble, which, he finally realized, was in fact a vinyl bag containing translucent liquid. Widening his eyes, Lawson saw his own milk-white body strapped to the bed, tubes connecting the solution to his veins.