“Oh yeah, great song. I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.”
As far as Victor could tell, the song in question was by Avril Lavigne. Charlotte loved it, so naturally Martin was trashing it for the pleasure of making his sister indignant. Victor’s fingers touched the volume button.
The music and the growl of the accelerating engine washed over the conversation, and he stopped listening. His smile widened.
It was 8:34 p.m. on December 24th.
Cottony clouds were sprinkling the city with snow.
Nadja found a parking space in front of the apartment building on Sir George-Étienne Cartier Square, where Albert Corneau and Ted Rutherford had lived forever. The two men had become a surrogate family for Victor after he had lost his own family under appalling circumstances. Since adoption by a same-sex couple would have been unheard of in the 1970s, Ted had convinced his secretary and her husband to adopt the lanky orphan.
Later, having inspired Victor to go to police college, Rutherford became his mentor during the early years of his career. They had even worked as partners briefly, before Ted’s retirement.
The front door opened and Albert appeared on the threshold, wearing his trademark collarless white shirt. He was in his sixties, tall and trim, unaffected by age. Ted, in his wheelchair, was watching through the living room window.
He and Victor gazed at each other for a moment.
The older man nodded his head, eyes shining, happy to be welcoming them into his home. Victor smiled and waved. Ted had been the first officer on the scene of the crime that had wiped out Victor’s family.
On that day, a lifetime ago, Ted had become his father figure.
The detective sergeant was in a kind of daze as Martin opened the trunk and helped him carry up the bags full of presents. Charlotte and Nadja were already hugging Albert.
As he crossed the threshold, Victor felt that familiar sensation, the one he always felt when he entered the apartment: nostalgia, mixed with melancholy, tightening his throat. The characteristic smell of the place filled his nostrils and carried him far into the past. He closed his eyes. An image of Raymond, his murdered younger brother, rose up in his mind.
For a moment, he wanted to scream. He felt like he was unravelling. Then the moment passed.
Nadja put a hand on the back of his neck and kissed him. “You all right, honey?”
Yes. He was all right. Everything was perfect. He put his arms around Albert. There were kisses and a few tears. This was the apartment of his youth. The place where he’d found shelter countless times after running away from the group home. Albert was already going up the hallway, his arms full of gifts, while Nadja and the kids trailed after him. At the end of the hallway, the sparkle of Christmas tree lights was visible.
Victor thought of Valérie, the sister he had gained through adoption at the age of sixteen. She had planned to join them this evening, but had decided at the last minute to spend the holidays at a sunshine resort with her kids and her new boyfriend. Victor’s adoptive parents had died a few years ago. He felt their absence keenly during these family celebrations.
Taking a deep breath, Victor went to the dining room, where Ted was waiting to greet him. It was a time for renewing old ties. At this moment, Victor regretted not coming to visit more often.
Turkey, meat pies, mashed potatoes, sugar tart: once again, Albert had prepared a mouthwatering meal. The gifts were unwrapped with delight.
Charlotte threw her arms around her father when she opened her present. Even Martin, normally so hard to impress, seemed genuinely grateful.
Victor had decided to give Nadja her lingerie from La Senza in a more intimate setting, but he’d printed up the spa getaway package that he’d booked online and inserted it into a card, adding a handwritten message of love.
Opening the card, Nadja laughed out loud.
Half amused, half insulted, Victor swore to himself that he’d never risk writing romantic poetry again. But then, when he opened the card that Nadja had handed to him, he understood the reason for her laughter. She had booked a getaway package for two at a Scandinavian spa in the Laurentians.
“We’re going to be super relaxed,” she chuckled.
Her card also contained a gift certificate from La Cordée, an outdoor equipment store.
“Now you can get yourself some boots,” Nadja said, kissing him.
Sunk into the couch in the den, Charlotte and Martin were tapping away on their iPads while everyone else sipped decaf cappuccinos. In reply to a question from Ted, Victor made the mistake of starting to talk in general terms about the investigation he was working on. This led to an energetic discussion about the role played by the police in a society where homeless people were ever more numerous. Once Ted got going on the subject, he couldn’t be stopped.
“The problem is the law,” he declared. “How many homeless people have died of exposure or been shot by cops? The new legal regime has cost vulnerable people their lives. By deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill, we’ve put all our eggs in one basket. We’ve gone from one extreme to the other. It’s gotten to the point where the people who most need custodial care are now on the streets. Victor, this Lortie guy might still be alive if they’d kept him inside.”
Albert wiped a thread of spittle from his partner’s lips. After two strokes, Ted now suffered from mild paralysis on the right side of his mouth, which slightly affected his speech.
“But Ted,” Nadja intervened, “there were abuses under the old system. People were locked up even when their conditions didn’t warrant permanent hospitalization.”
“Yes, Nadja, that was once true. But now, like I said, we’ve gone to the other extreme. You could make the same point about the labour unions, but that’s a whole other conversation …”
When it came to politics and public affairs, Victor often disagreed with Ted, who was a man of strong views. Over the years, the detective sergeant had learned to avoid useless arguments by staying out of conversations like this one.
His cellphone signalled an incoming text. Discreetly pulling the phone from his pocket, Victor looked at the message. It was from Mona Vézina:
The handwriting isn’t Lortie’s … Merry Christmas … Mona :)
He and Jacinthe had asked the documents expert to compare the handwritten message on the hangman sheet with the writing on the mosaic.
“Believe me, Nadja,” Ted was saying, “we’d be doing a lot of homeless people a favour if we locked them up. A perfect example: I’m sure Victor has spoken to you about his friend Frank …”
Nadja turned to her lover and shook him from his idle thoughts.
“You’ve never told me about Frank, honey.”
Images from the distant past bubbled up into Victor’s consciousness.
“No?” Silence. “He was my best friend at the group home. We’d run away together. After a few days on the streets, I’d generally end up here. One time, he made up his mind to stay on the streets for good. That was how he lived until his early thirties.”
After a few seconds’ silence, Nadja put a hand on Victor’s leg. “And then?”
“And then …” Victor said, his gaze drifting emptily. There was a long pause. “And then he died.”
Rutherford looked at Victor, hesitating for a moment before picking up the narrative. He was a tough old man, but he had sensitivity enough to see that his former protégé was reliving that painful time in his head. Some ghosts never stopped haunting you.
“One night in January, it was bitterly cold,” Ted finally said. “We went looking for him under his highway overpass and brought him to a shelter. He waited until we’d left, then he went back out. Frank was schizophrenic. It was Victor who found him the next day, frozen to death in his sleeping bag.”
After a vocal group countdown to the stroke of midnight, there were hugs all around, and warm Christmas wishes were exchanged. For many families, it was the moment when the real festivities began. But for this group, it marked the end
.
Ted’s condition wasn’t equal to the demands of a late-night celebration. He simply lacked the strength for it. By a quarter past twelve, Victor and his troops had said goodnight and were bound for home.
In the back of the car, Martin and Charlotte had put on headphones and were lost in their own worlds. A smile glowed on Nadja’s features.
“That was wonderful. Thank you for a lovely evening.”
Victor pressed her hand to his lips. “Thank you.”
“You haven’t forgotten that I’m spending the day with my brother tomorrow?”
The detective sergeant stiffened. Diego thought his sister deserved better. He detested Victor. The feeling was mutual.
Nadja saw Victor look at his watch for the second time since getting in the car.
“Listen, would you mind …”
She put a finger to his lips. “Shh. I know what you’re going to ask, babe. I’ll drop you off on the way.”
58
OPERATING TABLE
Sunday, December 25th
The hospital was Paul Delaney’s new world. Spending hours in the stifled silence of the corridors, watching the nurses’ unobtrusive ballet, had become as natural to him as breathing. In this waking nightmare, he saw death lurking near the rooms, hiding under the patients’ beds and dancing around the wheels of the gurneys. When daylight entered through the windows, it came to illuminate the sickness that dripped from the walls.
Victor found him where the nurse had indicated, slumped on an old vinyl bench, his head in his hands.
“Hey, Chief.”
Startled, Delaney jumped to his feet. His features were drawn, his eyes bloodshot. The two men’s handshake lasted longer than usual. Delaney clapped Victor on the shoulder several times.
“Did you guys plan this? Jacinthe came by earlier in the evening.”
Nadja had dropped Victor off at the hospital entrance. She had offered to wait for him, but he’d insisted on taking a taxi home. While Victor’s kids heckled and looked on mockingly, he and Nadja had shared a lingering kiss.
The woman transported him. She compelled him to be a better man.
The detective sergeant gave Delaney one of the two cans of Coca-Cola that he’d bought from a vending machine on the ground floor. The two aluminum tabs were pulled back, releasing near-simultaneous hisses. The open cans were clinked together.
“Merry Christmas, Chief.”
“Same to you, Victor.”
They were in an area of the hospital reserved for families. The place was deserted, but they whispered as they walked along the dark corridor. A long, festive banner, clearly made by children, had been hung on the wall, but it had come unstuck at one end. The last three letters of Happy Holidays were hanging in empty space.
Delaney’s kids had left an hour ago. His daughter would arrive to take his place in the morning. The news regarding Madeleine seemed encouraging.
The doctors had ablated three localized tumours, and there were no metastases on nearby organs. Delaney had seen Madeleine for a few minutes after she regained consciousness. She was keeping up her spirits, refusing to concede defeat.
She would never surrender.
When Victor asked how he was holding up, Paul Delaney’s eyes filled with tears. He had to pause in the middle of a sentence to fight back a sob.
Without really thinking about it, they had taken the elevator down to the ground floor. Victor left his empty soda can on top of a trash receptacle.
“I’m losing my mind in here,” Delaney said.
With Victor following him, the head of the Major Crimes Unit went to the door, pushed it open, and stepped into the cold air.
“This feels good,” he said, inhaling deeply.
Their breath came out in billows as they spoke. The chief looked at the pack of cigarettes that appeared in Victor’s hand. “Gimme one.”
“You sure, Paul? It would be dumb to fall back into the habit.”
“That’s an order,” Delaney said with a wink. He fished a cigarette from the pack and leaned toward the flame that Victor was shielding with one hand.
“What the hell’s going on with your case?” He blew smoke out his nose and coughed. “First it’s Oswald’s voice on a CD, then a hangman drawing, and now the three letters … Are we looking at a coincidence, or is that really a reference to JFK?”
“It could be a coincidence,” Victor admitted, “but the documents expert thinks it’s too explicit to be unintentional.”
Victor was gesturing with his hands, making the ember on his cigarette glow red. Delaney kicked a chunk of ice with his shoe.
“Am I imagining things, or is someone doing everything possible to convince us that our investigation also has something to do with President Kennedy?”
Victor didn’t answer right away, as he tried to put his thoughts in order.
“Project MK-ULTRA could have been authorized by the Kennedy administration. I did some searching online, but I don’t know enough about American politics. I’m going to ask Gilles for some input.”
Delaney cleared his throat and spat into the snow. “Anyway,” he said pensively, “the hangman rattled Lawson so badly that he pulled the Northern file from the archives and went on the run.” He took a drag on his cigarette. The smoke stung one eye. “What do you think scared him? The JFK in the drawing, or the secret word?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. But there’s one thing about Kennedy that I keep going back to …” Victor looked Delaney in the eye. “I get the feeling that someone wanted to turn McNeil into a scapegoat, Paul. Same as Oswald …”
The two cops considered this for a moment. The chief shrugged.
“Could be, I don’t know … In any case, initial lab results confirm that the fridge magnets seized from McNeil’s house come from the same set as the ones in Harper’s apartment.” Clearing his throat once again, the chief spat into a snowbank. “And our mystery man, the one with the toque who visited the business centre … are we sure that wasn’t Rivard?”
“Positive. The description doesn’t match. And why would Rivard have bothered? He was the one Lawson sent the fax to.”
Delaney took a last puff before stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray on the wall.
The detective sergeant held the door for his superior officer. They went back inside and stood in the hospital lobby.
“There’s one more thing that’s bugging me, Paul — the calls between Rivard and Tousignant.”
“You weren’t convinced by the senator’s explanation?”
Victor shrugged. “I don’t know. I keep coming back to the idea that Rivard has the Northern file in his possession because he wants to hand it over to someone, or he’s blackmailing someone, threatening to reveal it to the media …”
“And that someone could be Tousignant,” Delaney said. “Let’s wait until we have the call logs from their cellphones before we start tossing theories around.” Silence. “I just wish we could question Rivard …”
“He’ll have to be alive for us to do that.” Victor was lost in thought for a moment. “By the way, did you speak to the managing partner about the Northern file?”
“Yeah, I took care of it. One of the firm’s lawyers will email you the details. I think they’ve finally realized the seriousness of the situation.”
The detective sergeant steered the conversation around to Madeleine. Delaney described the phases that lay ahead. The upshot was that the next forty-eight hours were likely to be critical.
When the time came for Delaney to go back upstairs, Victor sensed him retreating into a shell. The few minutes they’d spent together had offered the chief a brief escape from reality, but now it had caught up with him again.
Cold, hard, implacable.
As Victor pushed open the door, the reflection he saw in the glass made his heart ache. Delaney had sat down on a bench. He had put a hand over his eyes, and his shoulders were shaking.
59
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Ch
ristmas Day didn’t unfold quite as planned. Victor had intended to lounge in bed with Nadja and then make breakfast for the kids — he’d thought he would surprise them with pancakes — but he was roused from sleep at 4:49 a.m. by his vibrating phone. Seeing Jacinthe’s name on the caller ID, he was fairly certain that she wasn’t calling to wish him a merry Christmas.
“I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes. We’re going for a little ride.”
“Jesus,” he whispered, “have you noticed what time it is?”
“Yeah, yeah, Lessard. You can shoot yourself later. Dress warmly, it’s kinda nippy out there.”
He sat motionless at the edge of the bed, dazed, staring at the depression in the pillow where, seconds ago, his head had lain.
Nadja was still sleeping peacefully.
Rummaging in his drawers as noiselessly as possible, trying not to step on creaky floorboards, Victor found his long underwear and put it on, then pulled on a pair of jeans and a fleece sweater over his T-shirt.
When the closet door squeaked, he froze. Nadja stirred and moaned softly, but didn’t wake up. Letting himself breathe again, Victor picked up a canvas bag and shoved in a lined tracksuit jacket and extra socks. He tiptoed out of the room, taking an eternity to close the door without making a sound.
An aroma of fresh coffee reached his nostrils before he walked into the kitchen. Martin was eating breakfast, an old newspaper spread out before him on the table.
Victor put his bag on the floor. “You’re up early.”
“Mmm.”
“What’s wrong? You don’t seem too happy.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Charlotte snores, and she keeps tossing and turning.”
Since there was only one bedroom in Victor’s apartment, the kids had to sleep on the sofa bed in the living room when they stayed over. Victor took bread and peanut butter out of the fridge and started making himself a couple of sandwiches.
Never Forget Page 27