Never Forget

by Martin Michaud

  Rubbing his eyes, he glanced at his watch.

  Why had Nadja let him sleep so late? Their arrangement was crystal clear: she was supposed to wake him up before leaving. Period. Silence reigned in the apartment. Where was she?

  The echo of her name bounced off the walls.

  Victor squeezed the bridge of his nose; the pain was harsh and throbbing. No surprise there. Both his nostrils were completely blocked. He remained immobile for a long moment. Then, straightening his back, he got off the bed.

  His feet came down into a viscous substance.

  He looked at his toes — the crumpled tissues beside the bed were now floating in water. Luckily, the glass hadn’t broken. When he bent over to pick it up, Victor realized that the pain in his lower back and buttock had returned.

  Feeling a cold coming on, he found decongestants in the medicine cabinet and swallowed them in a cocktail consisting of his antacid, an antidepressant, and some anti-inflammatories.

  In an effort to chase away his depression, he broke his usual habit and took out the package of regular coffee that he kept in the refrigerator for emergencies.

  After fetching his cellphone, he opened the kitchen window and lit a cigarette. Someone had left him a message while he was in the bathroom. Confidential number.

  Victor recognized the nasal voice of Lawson’s assistant.

  “Detective Lessard, it’s Adèle Thibault. I’m not sure this is the right thing to do, but I’m calling to let you know that Mr. Rivard left a message on my voice mail late Wednesday, cancelling all his appointments for the next day. Then, yesterday, without contacting anyone, he failed to show up at the office, even though he had several important meetings scheduled. Nobody here has been able to reach him. I thought you might want to know.”

  Victor shook his head, blew smoke out his nostrils, and saved the message.

  Given the tension that had existed between the police and Baker Lawson Watkins since the investigation opened, the detective sergeant knew that Paul Delaney would want to speak personally to one of the firm’s partners to get information about Louis-Charles Rivard’s absences.

  The chief answered on the first ring and listened without interruption as Victor told him about Thibault’s call. Victor went on to describe the previous night’s operation in a few flat sentences: they’d stayed at McNeil’s house until 5:00 a.m. and had found a pair of skis, which they’d sent to forensics to see if they matched the tracks found in Summit Woods. Patrol officers had also been posted in front of the suspect’s house with instructions to call if McNeil turned up.

  “Do you think McNeil’s on the run?” Delaney asked.

  Victor blew out a cloud of smoke as he pulled on a pair of jeans. “No idea, Paul. But it definitely isn’t a good sign that he’s gone missing at the same time as Rivard. We can talk about it shortly. I’m just getting dressed, then I’ll come to the office.”

  “Did you try to triangulate McNeil’s phone?”

  “It didn’t work. Either the phone was off, or it was in a location where there was no signal.”

  “That’s just great.” Delaney coughed and took a minute before continuing. “Listen, there’s no rush. It’s Saturday. Jacinthe and Gilles haven’t come in yet, and you’re going on less than three hours’ sleep. Let me see what I can find out about Rivard. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Victor threw his cigarette butt in the toilet, then went to the kitchen to make some breakfast and have a cup of coffee. He saw a note on the counter that he hadn’t noticed before. It made him smile for the first time:

  You got in late (or early), and you looked so peaceful, I didn’t have the heart to wake you up! Have a good day, my love.

  See you tonight :)

  N xx

  Victor dragged himself down to Versailles. The elevator, bouncing from one floor to another without ever descending to ground level, was testing his patience. The Gnome arrived, freshly shaven, wearing a sharp grey suit and looking decidedly chipper.

  At the sight of Lemaire, a sudden thought darted through the detective sergeant’s mind. But he was unable to concentrate, and the thought slipped away. It was as though someone had removed his brain during the night and replaced it with mush.

  Victor ran his hand over his days-old stubble. Looking down at his leather jacket, his frayed jeans, and his high-tops, he sighed wearily. “Hey, Gilles.”

  “Morning, Vic,” Lemaire replied cheerfully. “Short night, eh?”

  Victor nodded and closed his eyes, discouraged. “Tell me about it.”

  After a brief silence, the neural connections were re-established. “Hey, Gilles, before I forget … did I dream this, or did Jacinthe tell me yesterday that you’d found the names of the managers of Northern Industrial Textiles?”

  The Gnome smiled. “No, you didn’t dream it. With everything that was going on, I forgot to mention it to you.”

  “You ran the names through the Police Information Centre database?”

  The ground-floor indicator finally lit up and the metal doors opened. The two detectives stepped onto the elevator and their conversation continued.

  “That didn’t turn up anything, but Loïc helped me find the three managers. One of them died of cancer in 2005. Another one is in a long-term care facility — Alzheimer’s. The third one is the former president of the company, which was dissolved in 1974. I spoke to him yesterday. He doesn’t know Harper, and it took him a while to remember Lawson. He says it’s been at least thirty years since they spoke. He only dealt with Lawson’s firm on a few occasions, and he doesn’t remember any particular files that might have sparked his interest.” Silence. “That’s why I forgot to mention it. Unless I’m very much mistaken, those three managers have nothing to do with our murders.”

  “Strange,” the detective sergeant murmured, gazing vacantly into space.

  With bags under her eyes, Taillon shuffled into the conference room at 10:54 a.m. holding two Red Bulls in one hand and a box of donuts in the other. She placed her cargo on the table, seemed to consider saying something, then contented herself with a yawn. After cracking her knuckles one by one, she popped the first can and brought it to her lips. She emptied it in a few gulps and put it back on the table. She burped loudly, with a satisfied smile. “When did you get here, Lessard?”

  Frowning, Victor hit the remote control to freeze the video image on the screen. “About an hour ago,” he said, turning to his partner.

  “Want one?” Jacinthe asked, biting into a raspberry jelly donut that left a residue of icing sugar at the corners of her mouth.

  Bothered by Adèle Thibault’s phone message about Rivard’s absences, Victor had spent the last few minutes viewing the same video clip repeatedly.

  “Later, maybe. Take a look at this.”

  The clip showed Louis-Charles Rivard speaking to journalists at the unscheduled scrum he’d held with reporters after the police press conference:

  “If, for any reason, you’re afraid to speak to the police, call me directly. No matter what happened, we can find common ground. Get in touch. I have what you’re looking for.”

  Taillon took a sip from her second can of Red Bull, which she seemed determined to savour this time. She shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

  “Come on. Aren’t you struck by anything?”

  Victor replayed the end of the clip. “Listen closely …”

  Rivard’s face appeared in close-up. “Get in touch. I have what you’re looking for.”

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “You don’t find that odd? What does he mean by ‘I have what you’re looking for’?”

  “Come on, Lessard, it’s as plain as the eyes on your face. He’s willing to pay a ransom. He has money. That’s all he’s saying.”

  Victor sighed and rolled his eyes. His partner’s lack of imagination irritated him. “As plain as the nose on my face, Jacinthe,” he said through clenched teeth. “And no, I don’t think that’s all he’s saying. At a time when we were simply publici
zing Lawson’s disappearance, he was already talking about a kidnapping. It’s just hit me. He’s sending a message to someone. He’s speaking to the person who killed Lawson and Harper. He’s saying he has something the killer wants.”

  Jacinthe’s brow furrowed in puzzlement.

  Victor’s gaze strayed vacantly over the wall behind her. “We were wrong about Rivard and McNeil. They’re both dead.”

  The Red Bull came out Jacinthe’s nose, and she started coughing for all she was worth.

  53

  A QUESTION OF PROFILE

  After wiping her face with a hastily grabbed paper towel, Jacinthe had voiced her opposition to Victor’s theory about Louis-Charles Rivard’s remarks to the cameras, and she’d thrown in a mean crack about Victor jumping to conclusions. The detective sergeant had leaped to his feet, pointed a finger at his partner, and opened his mouth to spew out invective. Then, changing his mind, he’d walked away without a word.

  Striding quickly through the detectives’ room, he was heading for the exit when Jacinthe, almost at a run, caught him in the corridor. Seizing his arm, she forced him to turn around. “What? What did I say?”

  For a long time, they glared at each other in silence. One wrong word and they’d both go thermonuclear. A light that Jacinthe hadn’t seen in a long time burned in Victor’s eyes, then went out.

  “Everything I say, you contradict,” he said at last, through clenched teeth.

  “I didn’t know I had to agree with whatever came out of your mouth.”

  “It all depends on how you go about it, Jacinthe! Do you really need to be so unpleasant all the time?”

  Taillon lowered her eyes. He had a point. “Where are you going?”

  Victor took a deep breath and unclenched his fists. His anger was back under control. “To Rivard’s apartment. He hasn’t shown up at the office in two days.”

  “Another disappearance! In case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t have a warrant.”

  “Since when do we need a warrant to visit someone? Move your ass, we’ve wasted enough time.”

  An evil little smile appeared on Jacinthe’s lips. She had no idea what had stung her partner, but she liked this Lessard 2.0 just fine.

  In the car, Victor took two donuts out of the box that his partner had brought along and ate them in silence, chewing each bite with care. Jacinthe tried to make peace by asking why he thought Rivard and McNeil were dead. Victor answered that it was more a matter of intuition than certainty. He was convinced, he said again, that Rivard had sent a message to the murderer. With the lawyer now missing, it was logical to conclude that the killer had eliminated him.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Jacinthe said, “McNeil is the killer.”

  Victor shook his head. “I’d have said the same thing yesterday, but now I doubt it. Look how easily the puzzle pieces fell into place. And when you think about it, Jacinthe, some of the elements we’re working with are questionable.”

  “Which ones?”

  “The fridge magnets, for instance. Why would a brilliant, educated man like McNeil use magnets taken from his own refrigerator?”

  Taillon remarked that murderers often gave themselves away in stupid ways, through errors of judgment no sensible person would commit.

  Victor conceded the point, but observed that that was generally true of what they referred to as “little murders,” those involving alcoholism, addiction, domestic violence, etc.

  “This isn’t one of those cases,” the detective sergeant said. “And I can give you other reasons. Think about the sophistication of the murder weapon. Think about the level of planning that went into these killings. After going to all that trouble, would McNeil really drop the ball on a stupid detail like fridge magnets? I don’t think so, Jacinthe. He’s too smart to leave such an obvious piece of evidence in his wake. It doesn’t fit the profile.”

  “What about the skis?” Taillon asked.

  “We haven’t heard back from forensics, but I’ll be surprised if the snow tracks in Summit Woods match McNeil’s skis.” Silence. “We were blinded by the prospect of making a quick arrest. McNeil isn’t our killer, Jacinthe. Maybe he’s indirectly involved in the case, or maybe someone set him up so we’d suspect him, but something doesn’t fit. We’ve got to figure out what, and soon, or we’re going to find more bodies in our path.”

  Jacinthe’s heels clicked on the brick pavement. The calcium flakes that had been put down to melt the ice were crackling under her soles. The entrance to Rivard’s apartment building was located on Cours Le Royer, a pedestrian street in the heart of Old Montreal. After a knock at the door of the unit at the end of the hallway went unanswered, Jacinthe screened Victor from view as he bent over to pick the lock.

  Concealed by her bulk, he was practically invisible. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. The lock was proving trickier than he’d expected.

  “Yes, Your Honour,” Jacinthe whispered, chuckling, “we just came to pay Mr. Rivard a visit. When we saw the door ajar, we decided to step inside.”

  The lock finally turned.

  Victor released his breath and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Just a quick look, okay?” he said, handing a pair of latex gloves to his partner. “If anyone catches us here …”

  The loft was spacious and light filled, with designer furniture and a minimalist décor that featured two paintings by the same artist — portraits of distorted, agonized faces — as well as a flat-screen TV that took up the better part of one wall and a Swedish sound system.

  Or was it Finnish? Véronique, his ex, had bought the same system, but he couldn’t remember where it was made. He’d never forgotten the price she paid, though. It was nearly half his annual income.

  Jacinthe went straight to the glass-topped desk, on which there was a telephone, a computer, a fax machine, and a few papers. She poked through them with a fingertip, then emptied the contents of the recycling basket onto the bed. Victor did a quick search of the kitchen before heading to the bathroom.

  Looking over the bottles and tubes carefully arrayed on the glass shelf, he couldn’t help smiling. What would Taillon have said about Rivard’s panoply of toiletries, if she was prepared to call Victor a metrosexual just because he made an effort to stay in shape?

  Finding nothing of interest, he went back into the main space and looked around, allowing his brain to process what he was seeing.

  He was searching for something incongruous, something that might seem like it was in the right place, but wasn’t. A feeling of urgency and frustration took hold of him: they had to work fast. Yet, at first glance, everything seemed to be in order.

  “Did you try the computer?” he asked.

  His partner had sat down on the leather office chair and was tapping the telephone keypad with one hand; with the other, she scribbled on a slip of paper.

  “I can’t get into the computer; it’s password protected. I’m taking down his calls. The last one dates back to Tuesday.”

  The detective sergeant pointed at the papers spread out over the bed. Jacinthe shook her head to indicate that she hadn’t found anything noteworthy.

  With the stress forming a knot in his stomach, Victor examined the bookshelf for a moment. Apart from some automotive magazines, there were only a few law books. Rivard clearly wasn’t much of a reader.

  A pile of DVDs lay on a coffee table: Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line. Nothing but war movies. How sad.

  Victor looked anxiously at his watch. This was taking too long.

  “We should look at the fax machine, too,” he said, while rummaging through the contents of several drawers. “Some models store recent messages in memory.”

  Without looking up from her work, Taillon laughed loudly. “Get real, Lessard! Do I look like a computer geek to you?”

  Having seen Adams execute the manoeuvre on several occasions, Victor thought he might be able to pull it off himself. Examining the device, he pressed a few buttons. The interio
r purred. A sheet slid into the feeder and the rollers began to turn.

  “Some machines print the newest messages first,” the detective sergeant observed. “Others start with the oldest.”

  The ring of his cellphone made him jump. The caller ID showed that it was the Gnome. Before answering, Victor took a deep breath to calm himself.

  “Hello, Gilles …” His expression darkened. “What?! Where? … Yes, she’s with me. Hmm? … No, nothing important … I’ll explain later. We’ll meet you there, okay?”

  Victor ended the call. Jacinthe frowned. She could see that the news wasn’t good.

  “What’s going on?”

  “They’ve found another body in Parc Maisonneuve.”

  “Who is it? McNeil or Rivard?”

  “They’re not sure yet, but they think it’s McNeil.” The two cops looked at each other in silence. “What have you got?”

  Jacinthe handed him the slip of paper on which she had noted the numbers of the ten calls recorded on Rivard’s land line. Four of the calls were from the same number. The fax machine spat out a sheet. Jacinthe picked it up and saw that it was the first page of a ten-page contract.

  “Shit! We’re not finished here. I’ll go down to the car and send this to the office,” she said, referring to the numbers she’d jotted down, “so we can find out who we’re dealing with. Come down when you’re done.”

  After Jacinthe left, Victor paced back and forth as the fax machine’s steady rumble filled the room. Anxiety levels were rising inside him. He had taken this initiative without considering its consequences. Now he was coming to the realization that entering Rivard’s apartment illegally hadn’t been a brilliant move. It might even get them into serious trouble.

  The fax machine hiccuped. Victor went over to it, supposing that it had regurgitated all its contents. But a light was flashing: another printout was on its way.

  “Damn machine,” he muttered.

  Back in the Crown Victoria, Taillon used the onboard computer to send the phone numbers to the office. Then she tried to reach Lucie. Not getting an answer, she left a message on the voice mail at home. She looked at her watch. Where was Lucie?