Through the paper-thin wall, Victor heard occasional exclamations from the next room, where Jacinthe had taken the fugitive for questioning. “I’m leaving him with you,” Victor had said. “No rough stuff.”
“Maybe just a little,” she’d answered with a malicious smile.
“Jacinthe!” he had cautioned through his teeth.
His partner had a knack for getting under his skin.
“Relax. I was joking.”
Wearing latex gloves, Victor searched the pockets of a pair of pants extracted at random from the bundle and found nothing but cigarette butts. In a drawer of the chest, he found a Polaroid photograph: a woman in her early thirties with a generous bosom. She was gazing at the camera, unsmiling. After trying and failing to make out the faded handwriting on the photo’s white border, the detective sergeant slipped it into a plastic evidence bag.
Under the bed, he found two empty De Kuyper gin bottles.
For a moment, Victor gazed at the flowerpot on the chest of drawers. It was astonishing to think that Lortie, who had manifestly struggled to look after himself, had managed to keep a plant alive.
He suddenly realized that he was hearing nothing in the other room. Could he trust Taillon? He decided not to dwell on the question.
Overcoming his repulsion, he lifted the mattress. A pill bottle lay on the box spring. The detective picked it up, examined it briefly, then slid it into a bag.
Next he inspected the box spring, turning it over completely. Several sheets of cardboard had been inserted between the posts and the wooden frame. The detective sergeant removed them carefully and laid them out on the floor; it took him a few seconds to assemble the six eighty-by-sixty-centimetre rectangles in the right configuration.
Victor’s head spun: a complicated filigree of words had been inscribed on the cardboard sheets, some in blue or red ink, some in black felt pen. Hundreds, if not thousands, of letters and symbols were set out in a chaotic maze; a system that followed its own rules, an undefinable handwritten quilt.
Some would have called it the product of a disturbed mind. Others might have hailed it as a work of genius. Barrelling into the room, Taillon made her choice without hesitation: “Whoa … fucking whack job.”
12
NEWSPAPER CLIPPING
After studying the cardboard sheets long enough to understand they weren’t going to decipher the inscriptions on the spot, Jacinthe and Victor agreed to call forensics and have some technicians come and take photographs. Then, before Lessard could speak, his partner informed him that the man who had tried to flee was named Michael Witt. He occupied a room on the floor below. At first, he had claimed he was trying to recover a bottle opener that he’d lent Lortie a few days previously. But Witt eventually admitted that, having learned of Lortie’s death, he had sneaked into the room to steal his belongings. Jacinthe had searched him and found nothing in his possession.
Victor hardly dared wonder what she had done to make Witt talk so fast. He shook his head, tight lipped, visibly displeased. “Jacinthe, tell me you didn’t mistreat him …”
“Oh, come on, you know me!” she exclaimed, looking offended.
Nothing was more likely to increase Lessard’s worry than his partner’s assurances that there was nothing to worry about. “Okay,” he said, making an effort to stay cool. “Anything else?”
“The caretaker confirmed that Lortie would often go missing for long periods. She thinks he was sleeping outdoors or at shelters.”
“I have an idea where he was going.”
Victor showed her the plastic bag containing the pill bottle that he’d found between the mattress and the box spring.
“Pills?”
“Antipsychotics. The name of the prescribing physician is on the label.”
Taillon, who was nearsighted, held the bottle up close to read it. “Doctor Mark McNeil … How does this tell us where Lortie was going?”
“McNeil works at the Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Psychiatric Hospital. We haven’t seen Lortie’s file yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he was a patient there from time to time.”
“How do you know McNeil works at Louis-H.? Because of your father?”
Victor stiffened, his hands closing into fists, his jaw muscles tensing. “I just know,” he said abruptly and stepped out into the corridor.
There was a single bathroom on the floor, serving four bedrooms. Victor entered the filthy space and slammed the door behind him. Leaning over the sink, he splashed cold water on his crimson face, then massaged the veins bulging at his temples.
He was seething; blind anger surged uncontrollably in him. His fist shot forward, splintering the mirror into a spiderweb of cracks. The detective’s pent-up aggression then flowed out in a volley of kicks aimed at the ceramic wall.
Victor took a moment to catch his breath, then opened the window and lit a cigarette. These fits of rage had begun during his rehab and were growing more frequent. Random and overwhelming, they would come on suddenly, often triggered by some minor annoyance. Jacinthe took perverse pleasure in pushing the emotional buttons that provoked such outbursts — a dynamic that left him exhausted. This time, though, her words hadn’t been calculated to set him off. She had touched a nerve without meaning to.
Shards of glass had pierced his hand; he drew them out carefully and flushed his skin with a stream of water. Then, for want of any better bandaging, he wrapped half a roll of toilet paper around his knuckles. Drained, he sat on the edge of the grimy bathtub and took a long drag of his cigarette.
That was when he saw it: under the hail of kicks, a tile had shifted. Victor leaned forward and noticed that the grout was broken at regular intervals. Had the fragments been inserted into the space to create the impression that the joint was still intact?
Using his car key, Victor scraped out the grout entirely.
His pulse accelerated. With his thumb and forefinger, he tugged on the tile and removed it from its space. Poking his fingers through the opening, he searched the cavity and removed a cylindrical object. He held it up to the light. It was an aluminum Montecristo cigar tube. With trembling hands, Victor opened it and found a cracked, yellowed newspaper clipping inside. He unrolled it cautiously and saw that the article was dated October 11th, 1970.
At the end of the corridor, Taillon was talking to one of the roomers. She turned to Lessard. “You okay?”
He barely looked at her. “We’re going back to Versailles.”
“We haven’t finished questioning the others.”
“Call forensics,” he said sharply. “Tell them to go over every inch of the bathroom.”
“Did you find something else?”
Victor walked quickly into Lortie’s room. He took the plastic bags and the plant off the chest of drawers, then went down the stairs.
After he had instructed the patrol officers to guard Lortie’s room until the forensics team arrived, he and Jacinthe walked in silence to the car. Getting behind the wheel, Victor handed the clipping to his partner.
“What’s this?” Jacinthe asked, buckling her seat belt.
He gunned the engine. The car leaped forward. “A story on the abduction of Pierre Laporte.”
“That guy the FLQ kidnapped during the October Crisis?”
“He was a government minister, and they ended up killing him,” Lessard said.
“Fucking whack job,” Taillon murmured, referring to André Lortie.
Victor had to hit the brakes hard. Wearing a soiled parka, Michael Witt had stepped out from between two parked cars. The detective sergeant waved a hand, allowing the man to cross. Then he turned and glared at Taillon.
“I knew it.”
Witt was holding a bloodstained cloth over one eye.
13
THE BIG BOARD
After bandaging his hand, Victor watered the plant that he’d just installed on his desk. Then he went to the conference room, where Jacinthe was ordering barbecue chicken in anticipation of a long night.<
br />
On the big Plexiglas board, someone had arranged the photos of Judith Harper’s body taken by Forensic Identification and the pictures of Lortie’s body provided by Pearson.
Using adhesive gum, the detective sergeant stuck copies of the newspaper clipping and the Polaroid found in the rooming house to the panel.
After returning to the office, he had checked Lortie’s criminal record — something he hadn’t had time to do earlier, while the warrants were being hurriedly drawn up — and learned that the homeless man had been arrested a few times for vagrancy and disorderly conduct. More importantly, Lessard had confirmed his suspicion that police officers often brought Lortie to the psychiatric hospital. The most recent episode had occurred in November: Lortie had been brought to Louis-H. by patrol cops because he was having suicidal thoughts.
It was no surprise that Victor had found antipsychotics in Lortie’s room.
As he placed the bag containing the pill bottle on the table, he was reminded of something he had to do. He consulted his watch, then pulled a container of pills from his pocket. After downing two tablets, he became aware of Taillon standing in the doorway, watching him with a frown. He hastily pocketed the pill container, looking ill at ease.
“Tylenol. I have a headache.”
Jacinthe knew he was lying. And he knew that she knew.
“I ordered you a chicken leg and creamy coleslaw.”
“Great. Thanks.”
Trying to look composed, Victor sat on a chair and started reading a document summarizing the information that had been gathered, in their absence, on the subject of Nathan R. Lawson. Jacinthe went out, holding the information summary on Judith Harper.
Lawson was seventy-one years old. A native Montrealer, he had inherited a considerable fortune from his mother. The family money had been made in the import-export business. Lawson lived in a luxurious downtown condo and also owned a sumptuous country house on Lake Massawippi in the Eastern Townships and a villa on the Côte d’Azur.
Victor smiled. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth would have been the mocking reaction of his former partner, mentor, and second father, Ted Rutherford.
Single, gay, childless, Lawson was a Harvard graduate. He sat on the boards of a variety of companies, foundations, and other charitable organizations. He enjoyed a personal friendship with a former artistic director of the Montreal Symphony, held season tickets to the prestigious Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, and was often seen at highsociety galas. Naturally, he dined at the city’s best restaurants.
Victor got up and went to the kitchenette for a bottle of water. On his way back, he exchanged glances with Taillon, who had sat down at her desk to look over her summary. He wouldn’t have sworn to it, but she seemed displeased.
Resuming his reading, he skipped a few passages, but began reading with care when he came to the account of a conversation between the lawyer and his secretary, whose name Lessard wrote down in his notebook.
Cupping his hands around his mouth, he called out, “Jacinthe?”
“Mmm?”
“Any news from the patrol cops we sent to Lawson’s place?”
“Nothing. I just left them a message.”
Victor looked at a photo of Lawson printed from his firm’s website: ruddy face, thinning hair, weak chin, sleek moustache.
“Wanna trade?” Taillon was standing in front of his desk, holding out the Judith Harper summary. How had she managed to move her considerable bulk without his noticing?
“Sure. Here you go.”
Lessard looked down at the document his partner had handed him. Then he realized she hadn’t moved. He lifted his eyes.
She was gazing at him with a severe expression. “Tell me you haven’t started up again.”
“What are you talking about? I told you, it was Tylenol.”
Taillon left the room, muttering. Lessard went back to his reading.
Born in Montreal, aged seventy-six, Judith Harper was a retired medical professor at McGill University, where she had taught in the department of psychiatry for more than forty-five years. She had never treated patients, devoting herself to research instead. She had written numerous papers that, in their way, had made a mark on the discipline. Widowed, childless, she belonged to the Friends of the Canadian Centre for Architecture and did volunteer work at Fangs, an animal-rights organization.
Victor coughed and took a sip of water.
Assembled in a hurry by a researcher, the summaries were rudimentary. Still, these preliminary reports gave the investigators an overview of the situation, one that would become more detailed as the case progressed. Victor wrote a note in the margin: in Harper and Lawson, the investigators were dealing with respectable people, both advanced in years.
He heard voices in the corridor. The sound of youthful laughter alerted the detective sergeant to the fact that Gilles Lemaire and Loïc Blouin-Dubois, a tall, skinny young man in his twenties, had just arrived.
Everyone converged on the detectives’ room. Paul Delaney stepped out of his office, looking like he had the weight of the world on his sagging shoulders. “Debriefing in fifteen minutes. I ordered barbecue chicken.”
A greedy smile appeared on Jacinthe Taillon’s features. With the chicken she had already ordered, there would be no shortage of food.
The smell of grease and french fries hung in the room. Empty takeout boxes were piled on the grey rug in one corner. Taillon and Loïc were still eating, Taillon having reluctantly agreed to split one of the two extra meals with her youthful colleague.
Victor had just texted Nadja that he’d be home late, Gilles Lemaire was meticulously cleaning his fingers with moist towelettes, and at the head of the table, Paul Delaney suppressed a burp and tossed a few Rolaids into his mouth as he consulted his notes.
“The patrol cops didn’t find Lawson, but they’ve brought in a witness,” Delaney said. “Victor, you’ll deal with him. Loïc, you can sit in on the interrogation and —”
“Yesss!” the young detective said, smacking the table.
“But this time, Loïc …” Delaney left the rest unspoken.
Loïc took an elastic from his pocket, gathered the long, blond hair that fell in a disordered cascade in front of his eyes, and tied it back in a ponytail. Before starting to eat, he had pulled off his hoodie, revealing a Nirvana T-shirt and colourful, labyrinthine sleeve tattoos that ran up both his arms.
Blouin-Dubois’s contrite expression made it clear that he had understood his boss’s allusion. “There won’t be a problem, Chief.”
“Who’s the witness?” Victor asked.
“That’s still unclear,” Delaney answered. “He’s a young man who was living at Lawson’s place.”
“Lawson has no children,” the detective sergeant said.
“Then it’s not unclear at all,” Taillon said. With her tongue in one cheek, she mimed an obscene act. Slapping her thighs with amusement, she sent an inadvertent squirt of barbecue sauce onto the sleeve of Gilles Lemaire’s suit. Lemaire, who took scrupulous care with his appearance, scowled at her.
“Jacinthe, please …”
“Sorry, Chief.”
“Gilles, bring us up to speed on what you found in Judith Harper’s apartment,” Delaney said.
For the moment, the Gnome had nothing of significance to share with his colleagues. Apart from some winter clothes lying on the floor, everything seemed to be in order. A preliminary search hadn’t turned up any next of kin for Harper. Residents of the neighbouring apartments didn’t know her well, nor had they seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. A search of the dead woman’s belongings had, however, yielded the name and contact details of one Will Bennett, who seemed to be her lover. Attempts to get in touch with him had so far been unsuccessful.
“It’s important that we talk to him soon,” Delaney declared.
No one needed to ask why. Violent crimes against women were usually the work of an estranged husband or lover. Lortie was still the principal suspect, but the
longer Will Bennett remained unreachable, the more convincing his claim to the top spot would be.
“I left a message on his cell,” the Gnome said. “The ringback tone made me think he might be out of the country.”
This detail cast a shadow over the group. No one wanted to be chasing a murderer who’d fled to a foreign jurisdiction.
Lemaire finished up by noting that a Forensic Identification team had arrived at the scene and technicians were going over the place.
“Loïc …”
“Yes, Chief?”
“Wastebasket.”
It was the third time the kid had popped a Bubblicious bubble.
With his jeans precariously low on his hips, Blouin-Dubois got up, shuffled to the wastebasket, and got rid of his gum.
“Victor? Jacinthe?”
The detective sergeant described their visit to the rooming house, with Taillon occasionally filling in details. This was followed by a lively discussion on the possible existence of a link between Lawson, Lortie, and Harper.
Delaney only half listened. He was waiting for Victor to continue.
“We should concentrate on the Harper murder, Chief. For now, we have nothing solid on Lawson. It’s too early to say whether he’s even missing. He could be dead, or he could be on vacation in Costa Rica. And we risk getting caught up in pointless speculation about why Lortie had Lawson’s wallet as well as Harper’s.”
“What do you suggest?”
“While we wait to hear from Lawson, we could try to put together a timeline for Lortie. We may discover that he had an alibi at the time of the murder. In any case, it’s a way forward. At the same time, Gilles can continue his efforts to track down Bennett.”
“That works. Unless, of course, your interrogation points us in another direction.”
“We’re also going to send pictures of the hieroglyphics on the cardboard sheets to our documents expert,” Victor added. “She’ll look them over.”
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