Even after all these years, Jacinthe’s insecurity hadn’t loosened its grip. She was still convinced that without her loving companion, everything would crumble, nothing would have meaning. Lucie was the invisible thread that kept her connected to the world. If the thread broke, she’d be a broken marionette, lifeless, useless.
Jacinthe’s gaze got lost in the snowbank. The previous day’s snowfall had left several centimetres on the ground. Losing patience, she was reaching into her pocket for her phone when Lessard came out of the building with a sheaf of papers under his arm.
He walked quickly to the Crown Vic and got in.
“Well?” Jacinthe demanded, activating the emergency lights.
In his eagerness to leave Rivard’s apartment as soon as possible, the detective sergeant hadn’t yet looked at the documents he’d scooped out of the fax machine’s tray. After buckling his seat belt, he put the pile on his knees and started leafing through the pages.
“Contract … legal opinion … contract …” he said, licking his forefinger.
The Crown Vic was already racing along Notre-Dame East.
“We’ll take Pie-IX,” Jacinthe said to herself, working out the fastest route to Parc Maisonneuve.
Victor froze.
Carefully singling out one of the sheets, he removed it from the pile and examined it, holding his breath with an intensity that seemed almost religious.
“What is it? Talk to me, Lessard! Have you found something?”
“I think so.” He nodded, angling the paper toward her so she could see it.
On the sheet, a hanged man was sticking his tongue out, accompanied by an invitation to Lawson:
Good morning, Nathan. Let’s play hangman:
Next to the hanged man was a handwritten note that looked as if it had been scribbled in a hurry:
L-C, where are you?
I left a message on your cell
Will call back tonight
Need your help
This is fucking urgent
Nathan
54
GROUND SEARCH
The line was advancing in synchronized order. The movements of each officer were measured, precise, regular.
Ahead of the officers, the dogs were eagerly sniffing the ground, their snouts grazing the snow, stirring it. Having begun at the park entrance, the ground search was progressing toward the trees and the location where the body had been discovered.
Jacinthe and Victor went around the line, passing it on the right side. Constable Giguère, a few paces ahead of them on the marked-out path, spoke without turning. “This is their second pass. The first time around, they found ski tracks and matchbooks. Nothing else.”
The constable’s ears had taken on an ugly purple hue and looked like they might imminently disintegrate into powder. At the foot of the rise, he pointed to four red stakes that the forensics team had strung together with yellow plastic tape.
Those stakes, Giguère explained, marked the spot where the dogs had found the matchbooks, which had been partially covered by the previous night’s snowfall.
Despite the fact that Jacinthe, like the other cops, had put on boots adapted for conditions in the park, she was having trouble keeping her balance and following them. Reaching the top of the rise, she leaned on Victor to catch her breath. A few metres farther on, Constable Giguère held back a fir branch to let them through. The three officers stepped into a little clearing surrounded by a circle of trees. A flashbulb flared, capturing the body and the red-stained snow.
Two forensics technicians were using shovels to dig out the corpse. They were working in silence, each gesture methodical and painstaking.
While Giguère rejoined his team, the Gnome, who’d been crouching beside the dead man, stood up and came over to Victor and Jacinthe. Wearing a knitted Canadiens hat that he’d borrowed from one of his children, he looked like a twelve-year-old.
“It’s McNeil,” he said, anticipating their question. “His heart and throat have been pierced. Berger will have to confirm this, but one of the techs says the marks look like arrow wounds. He was killed a short distance away, then his body was dragged here. He was found by a man walking in the park. Or, rather, by the man’s dog.”
The psychiatrist was lying on his back. Ice crystals had accumulated on his face, shrouding his features in a translucent film.
“What’s with the matchbooks?” the detective sergeant asked. “Do they mean something?”
The Gnome shrugged. “No idea. We just found McNeil’s car parked on Rosemont Boulevard. He’d hidden a bag of cash under the driver’s seat — fifteen thousand in small bills. His cellphone was on the passenger seat. Now we know why he couldn’t be located. He’d turned it off. I went through the call log. Nothing.”
“What about the ski tracks?” Jacinthe asked. “Do they match the ones in Summit Woods?”
“They do,” Lemaire said. “One of the forensics people just gave me the confirmation. They also determined that McNeil’s skis are wider than the tracks here and in Summit Woods.”
“We kinda figured that, Gilles,” Jacinthe snapped. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here freezing my tits off.”
Victor couldn’t take his eyes off the body. He was thinking of McNeil’s wife, whom they had met the evening before, and his daughter, who would grow up without him. The little girl would bear the scars all her life, just as his own DNA had been marked, decades ago, by the death of his family. Leaving the cover of the trees, he walked a few paces.
The line of police searchers had passed the red stakes and was now approaching the base of the hill. Victor closed his eyes and tried to visualize the scene, to get a mental picture of what had happened. He imagined the psychiatrist and the skier meeting at the base of the slope.
In his head, he re-enacted McNeil’s movements. At one point, fearing for his life, McNeil had fled up the rise, trying to find safety among the trees.
The detective sergeant pictured the killer drawing his bowstring, coldly, methodically, his arrow flashing through the air under the psychiatrist’s horrified gaze. When Victor reopened his eyes, an idea had fixed itself firmly in his mind, dominating all others — an intuition he couldn’t have explained.
He was roused from his reverie by the sound of Jacinthe’s breathing as she came up behind him with the grace of a dump truck.
“McNeil and the killer knew each other,” he said without turning. “He wasn’t scared.”
While Jacinthe drove at breakneck speed through traffic, Victor, gripping the dashboard, reached Paul Delaney by phone and communicated his initial impressions on the subject of McNeil’s death. First: the ski tracks eliminated all doubts; the skier in Summit Woods was definitely linked to the case. And second: the fact that the murderer had used a different weapon from the one that had killed the first two victims was particularly intriguing to the two cops. What had motivated this change in modus operandi? The possibility of a serial killer was raised once again. Changes of method were frequent in such cases.
Then the conversation turned to the psychiatrist himself.
“The fridge-magnet numbers, the call from Harper the day she disappeared, the fact that Lawson’s firm had defended McGill … it all added up to make Mark McNeil the perfect suspect. It was too good to be true, Paul.” Annoyance and frustration filled the detective sergeant’s voice.
“Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater,” Delaney said prudently. “His death proves he was involved. We just don’t know how. Lab analysis will tell us whether the fridge magnets at McNeil’s house are from the same set as the ones found in Harper’s apartment.” Silence. “And there was surely a reason why he had fifteen grand under his car seat.”
When they finished discussing the subject, Victor decided it was time to confess. “There’s something I need to tell you, Chief. You won’t be happy about what we did, but you’ll like what we found.”
Without hesitating, Victor told his commanding officer about the ille
gal entry into Rivard’s apartment.
The admission was met with silence.
“What did you find?” Delaney finally said with a sigh, clearly irritated by his team members’ irregular methods.
Victor gave him a detailed description of the hangman drawing that had come out of Rivard’s fax machine.
Delaney erupted in a prolonged fit of coughing. “Sorry. I just choked on my own spit.” He coughed again. “Okay. This is the proof we were looking for: Lawson really did receive a threatening message. But there’s something I don’t get. Why did he turn to Rivard for help?”
Victor took some time to ponder the question before answering.
“What do we know, Paul? In response to the threat conveyed by the drawing of the hanged man, Lawson left the office with a file in his possession.”
“The Northern file.”
“Right. Now, as though by coincidence, that same file is nowhere to be found, and Rivard seems to have gone missing. I could be wrong, but it sure seems like the two men were in communication.” Silence. “So, what can we conclude?”
“That Lawson had Rivard recover the file,” Delaney said.
“I don’t see any other explanation. I’d say our top priority is to figure out what Rivard did with it.”
Victor then explained his theory about the message that Rivard had sent out during his press conference.
Get in touch. I have what you’re looking for.
“So, if I’m understanding you right,” Delaney said, “since Lawson’s dead, Rivard must be trying to get the Northern file into someone else’s hands.”
“That’s what I believe. That file is the heart of the case, Paul. The text beside the drawing of the hanged man talks about a company filled with corpses.” Silence. “But there are two details I don’t understand. One: Gilles talked to the former president of Northern Industrial Textiles. Based on what he learned, that company has nothing to do with our case. And two: I tried every way I could think of, but the name ‘Northern Industrial’ doesn’t fit the spaces for the secret word.”
There was a pregnant silence as each man reflected on all this. Finally, Victor spoke.
“We should get Baker Lawson Watkins to help us, Paul. We really need information about that company file.”
“I left a message with the managing partner. Trust me, with Rivard missing, they’ll collaborate.”
“Okay. Should we hold a press conference to announce that he’s disappeared?”
“It’s too soon. Let’s put out a press release for now, and make sure it goes out to every police force.”
“I have a feeling Rivard is dead, Paul.”
“I’ll grant you, his disappearance is suspicious. All the more so now that McNeil’s body has been found. But I’d say it’s premature to conclude that Rivard is dead. In fact, I’m wondering whether we should view him as a possible suspect. Especially if we believe the Northern file is in his possession.”
“That makes no sense, Paul. If Rivard were the killer, do you really think Lawson would have faxed him the drawing of the hanged man and asked for his help?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a victim trusted his killer,” Delaney replied.
Victor decided for diplomacy’s sake not to press the point. He changed the subject. “Any word from Berger?”
“He’s on his way to the park. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve checked your emails, but he finished Lawson’s autopsy. He confirms that death occurred Monday night, Tuesday morning at the latest.”
“The nineteenth,” Victor said, counting on his fingers.
“Right. Toxicology results won’t come in for another week.”
Before hanging up, Delaney promised to call as soon as he heard from the law firm’s managing partner. As Victor pocketed his phone, Jacinthe’s idea about a timer resurfaced in his mind. Could Lawson have gone for days without food or drink, unable to sit or lie down, with the heretic’s fork piercing his chin and breastbone? Victor put his face in his hands and sighed. The churning of his brain cells made his head feel like it was about to explode.
The hangman picture had been received by Rivard’s fax machine on Friday, December 16th, at 1:40 p.m., as indicated by the time stamp at the top of the document. The name and number of the originating fax machine were also indicated. Jacinthe and Victor had tracked it down to a business centre in the Côte-des-Neiges district.
They parked the Crown Victoria in front of the premises and went in. The place was empty, except for a clerk eating his lunch at the counter.
Putting down his sandwich, with traces of mustard clinging to his lips, the clerk looked at the photograph Victor showed him, then began bobbing his head and gesticulating so animatedly that the detective sergeant was sure he’d start talking instantly. But the clerk took an eternity to chew his mouthful.
“I remember him,” he said at last, swallowing his food. He was confirming that he’d seen Nathan Lawson.
He reached for a Thermos on the counter, poured himself a cup of coffee, and drained it in a gulp without flinching. “He came in last Friday afternoon. Had me send a fax, then left. I remember, because you’re not the first ones to ask about him.”
After looking at each other in surprise, the two detectives bombarded the clerk with questions, but all they could get from him was a vague description: a young man in his thirties had come in the day after Lawson. He’d been wearing a toque and a black coat. No accent or distinguishing features. A thoroughly ordinary guy.
“He wanted to know who the old man had sent a fax to. He also asked what was in the fax. When I told him it was none of his business, he didn’t argue.”
“Then what?” Victor asked.
“Then nothing,” the clerk said. “He walked out.”
“And you didn’t find that weird?” Jacinthe demanded.
“Listen, lady,” the clerk said, moving a forefinger in circles next to his temple, “if I started getting upset every time some oddball wandered in here …”
The clerk picked up his sandwich and bit into it. A fragment of ham and a shred of lettuce hung from his lip, but he sucked them into his mouth. With a sigh and a shake of her head, Jacinthe went to the door. She wasn’t about to wait an hour while he finished chewing.
Victor thanked the clerk and handed him a business card, asking him to call if he remembered anything else. Then he joined Jacinthe on the sidewalk. The detective sergeant gazed along the street, where the tree branches were sagging under their cotton-ball burden.
A mechanical clatter made the two cops turn. They stepped aside to let a sidewalk plow go by and watched it disappear around the corner, leaving a low furrow of snow on the curb.
“No news from the documents expert?” Taillon growled.
Victor coughed out the smoke from the cigarette he’d just lit.
Less than an hour had gone by since they’d sent her a copy of the hanged man. “Mona Vézina? How about we calm down and give her time to examine the thing.”
Jacinthe was venting her ill temper, kicking away the ice that had accumulated on the Crown Vic’s wheel wells, when “Who Let the Dogs Out” began to play. Her ringtone. She answered and had a brief, monosyllabic conversation.
Victor looked for a more suitable place than the snowbank to toss his cigarette, but failed to find one. He flicked it away.
Jacinthe’s expression had darkened.
“Something wrong?”
“It’s about the phone calls made from Rivard’s land line.”
“The four calls to the same number?”
“No. Those were to some chick he’s fucking. The others were to his dentist, his mother, and various other lawyers in the firm. None of them raise any flags. Except the last one. The one he made last Tuesday.”
“And who was that special someone?”
“Senator Daniel Tousignant.”
55
PURSE CALL
Victor took a drag on his cigarette as he watched the ice floes drifting in the c
urrent. His gaze rose to the Mercier Bridge, where a few motorists were crossing the rusted-out ruin, taking their lives in their hands.
Built on a rise overlooking the river in the district of LaSalle, Daniel Tousignant’s Tudor-style house stood a short distance from the historic Fleming windmill. In another life, Victor had accompanied his kids for rides on the bike path that ran along LaSalle Boulevard.
Senator Tousignant’s reputation preceded him. He was a distinguished lawyer who had amassed a considerable fortune through real estate investments. After liquidating his assets, he had begun the philanthropic activities that made him one of the most respected men in Quebec.
His foundation, which promoted environmental causes, was often compared to David Suzuki’s organization. Despite having no known political ties, he had been named to the Senate a few years previously.
A charismatic man renowned for his affability, Tousignant was one of those rare individuals capable of assembling diametrically opposed personalities in support of a project. He had a gift for getting sworn enemies to work together for a common cause.
Considering the man’s public image, the detectives weren’t happy to see his phone number linked to Rivard, who was now being sought by every police force in the province because of his possible involvement in three murders.
Questioning a man like Tousignant wasn’t something Victor and Jacinthe could attempt without first consulting their boss. Paul Delaney hadn’t opposed the idea, and he’d assuaged their worries by informing them that Lawson and Tousignant had been colleagues in the past. The senator was a founding partner in one of the firms that had merged to form Baker Lawson Watkins.
With that in mind, Delaney had put forward a hypothesis: maybe Rivard had simply contacted Tousignant to update him on the subject of Lawson’s disappearance, and later regarding his death.
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