“The set-up isn’t great here, but there’ll be a guest room in our condo. We’ll make sure you’re comfortable when you come to visit.”
Martin looked up as he took a sip of coffee. “Have you checked out any new ones lately?”
“No. We’ll get back to it after the holidays.”
Victor searched a cupboard without finding what he sought, then opened another one. It was in the fourth cupboard that he finally spotted his stainless-steel Thermos.
“Mind if I help myself?” he asked, indicating the coffee maker with his chin.
Martin waved a hand. “Finish the pot. I’ll make some more later.” He took another sip. “It’s pretty good, for decaf.”
Victor poured the coffee into his Thermos, put the pot back on its stand, and wrapped his sandwiches in aluminum foil. Then he grabbed his keychain and unlocked the safe hidden under the broom closet, where he kept his service weapon. He put on his holster and slid in his Glock.
This didn’t escape Martin’s notice. He knew that if his father was going out with his pistol at five in the morning, it wasn’t for a stroll.
“You’re working today?”
“Just for a couple of hours, I hope. What have you got lined up?”
“I’m going to hang out here for a while. I have to go see Mrs. Espinosa later.”
His son hadn’t always behaved himself, but Victor knew he was a sensitive young man. At the end of his teenage years, Martin had accosted the old lady on the metro and grabbed her purse. Then, stricken with guilt, he had gone to see her the next day and returned the purse without touching the money inside. Instead of calling the police, she had invited him into her home. The relationship that began that day had deepened into a friendship, with Mrs. Espinosa becoming the young man’s confidante, while Martin helped her with errands and odd jobs in her apartment.
Victor took the message pad off the fridge and scribbled a note to Nadja.
“Want a lift?”
“No, no, it’s too early.”
Was it something in Martin’s voice, or his evasive gaze? Victor had a sudden feeling that his son was preoccupied.
“You sure you’re okay, son?” he asked, pulling the blind aside with his fingers.
Martin opened his mouth, as though he wanted to speak.
“Shit. Jacinthe’s already here.”
Victor turned toward his son, determined not to leave without getting an answer.
Martin got up and approached his father. Uncharacteristically, he gave him a hug. “It’s all good, Dad. Thanks again for the iPad.”
Victor squeezed his son in his arms and patted him a few times on the back, which, in the emotional code of manhood, was roughly equivalent to saying, “I love you.”
“That’s fine, son. That’s fine.”
They wished each other a good day, and Victor left.
In the car, seething with impatience, Jacinthe was about to press the horn.
For her, there was no difference between five in the morning and five in the afternoon. She didn’t give a damn about bothering the neighbours.
But when she saw her partner on the sidewalk, she held back from honking.
“Is it Rivard?” Victor asked, tossing his canvas bag onto the back seat.
This time, Jacinthe waited for her partner to close the door before hitting the gas.
“His body was found a little after midnight at the Mount Royal Cemetery. A man who’d gone to visit his sister’s grave heard a phone ringing inside a locked vault.”
Having activated the emergency lights, Jacinthe was taking corners at high speed and slamming on the brakes relentlessly. Victor was wrestling with his seat belt, which he couldn’t fasten because the retractor kept locking.
“The poor guy must have been terrified.”
“I’m not so sure. Apparently he’s a bit of an oddball. I just talked to one of the techs at the scene. They found two cellphones on Rivard’s body. His iPhone was turned off. That’s why the Technological Crimes team couldn’t triangulate or find it by GPS. The second phone was a prepaid burner.”
“Any communications with Tousignant?”
“Nothing in the iPhone’s call log. Same with the burner. That was the first thing I asked them to check. The only recorded call was the one that came in on the burner during the night. I looked up the number. It was one of Rivard’s girlfriends.”
As he listened to Jacinthe with a worried expression, Victor put a finger on his right eyelid, which wouldn’t stop twitching. “The fact that the second phone was a burner confirms that Rivard was up to something and didn’t want to leave a trail. If the burner’s log is empty, that means he was clearing it as he went along.” Silence. “Why did it take so long for forensics to contact us?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, big guy, it’s Christmas. The 911 dispatcher had to send out a couple of patrol cops, who had to find a cemetery staffer, who had to get his hands on a key … and the only reason they got in touch with me is that I’d agreed to trade on-call shifts with Gilles. That’ll teach me.”
Jacinthe extracted a handful of gummies from a bag between her legs and scarfed them down, slurping as she chewed. “And the weirdest thing is, they found Rivard’s body in the Lawson family vault.”
60
R.I.P.
The forensics technicians at the scene were the same ones who had dealt with McNeil’s body in Parc Maisonneuve. One of them remarked jokingly to Victor that all this work with frozen remains would come in handy if they ever went into the food business. Another tech had already left with Rivard’s prepaid phone to see what could be extracted from it.
The technicians hadn’t yet made any significant findings, apart from noting that Rivard’s wounds were similar to those on the psychiatrist’s body. Berger had confirmed to Jacinthe that McNeil had been struck by two arrows, one of which had hit him in the heart.
So the killer was using a bow, or a crossbow.
Because of the snow that had fallen, it was impossible to say whether the killer had been wearing skis in this case. Going by appearances, the forensics techs believed Rivard’s body had been dragged a short distance before being locked in the vault, but there were no indications that allowed them to confirm the hypothesis definitively.
Clearly, the attack had taken place somewhere within the cemetery.
Powerful police lights inside the vault illuminated the corpse. Picking up the Leroux novel that lay on the altar, Victor leafed through it and found an inscription inside. Handwritten in ink that had faded over the years, the inscription was on the book’s title page:
In memory of our lovely Christmas Eves
Forever, Mother
Nathan
While Jacinthe coordinated the ongoing operation — a ground search with canine units — Victor questioned the man who had called 911.
The man was a little eccentric, but his story moved Victor deeply. He spoke with a strong Russian accent, strong enough that the detective sergeant initially had trouble understanding him. But, with occasional requests that the man repeat details that weren’t clear the first time around, Victor put the story together: the man’s younger sister had died on Christmas Eve five years ago. Every year since, he had come to visit her grave. The man’s anguish, the tears in his eyes as he remembered his dead sister, brought back the feelings of emptiness that still lingered in Victor’s heart after the deaths of his mother and brothers.
Especially Raymond.
The interrogation confirmed what Victor had already suspected: apart from calling 911 when he heard the troubling sound of a phone ringing in a cemetery vault, the man didn’t know anything that might help with the investigation.
Before letting him go, the detective sergeant assuaged the man’s worries: he wouldn’t get into any trouble for having entered the cemetery illegally.
A dog handler walked past Victor, his German shepherd sniffing the snow near the vault.
Jacinthe came over. She was bundled in the long red coa
t that she wore only in extreme cold. Uncharitable colleagues had suggested that the garment was sewn out of a boat sail. “I just spoke to Séguin,” she said, adjusting the pompom on her toque. “They didn’t find anything.”
The detectives had asked Constable Séguin, who was among the first patrol cops on the scene, to examine Rivard’s car with a forensics technician. On arriving in the cemetery parking lot, Jacinthe had noticed a snow-covered Porsche Cayenne. The vehicle was parked on the street, a hundred metres from the iron fence that blocked access to the cemetery at night.
A few swipes with a snow brush had been sufficient to clear off the windshield and reveal a parking ticket. The plate number had enabled them to confirm within minutes that the car was indeed registered in the lawyer’s name.
With a search alert having been issued, the detectives should have been advised of the Porsche’s presence much sooner. It was surprising, to say the least, that the parking officer who issued the ticket hadn’t identified the vehicle as belonging to a missing person.
Victor had shrugged. He’d been in this job long enough to know that you can wish all you like; once a mistake is made, there’s no going back to unmake it.
Victor shielded his eyes with one hand to block out the sun, which was playing hide and seek with the clouds. The dog handlers were following their animals as they sniffed around the gravestones.
The wind was blowing hard. His fingers were numb with cold. He pulled off his latex gloves, fished his mittens out of his pockets, and pulled them on.
“I’ll be surprised if they find anything,” he said. “There’s been so much snow in the last few days …”
Jacinthe had a finger in her mouth, probing between her teeth and gums. She finally succeeded in prying loose a fragment of gummy, which she examined momentarily before flicking into the snow.
“What was Rivard doing here?”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question. The only logical answer I can come up with is that he wanted to retrieve, or store, something in the vault.”
“The Northern file?” Jacinthe guessed.
Victor’s silence, as meaningful as any spoken answer, hung in the air like a snowflake dancing on the breeze.
It was nearly 11:00 a.m. The morning was dragging on, and Victor was frozen. The wait for the forensics people to complete their work was driving him crazy.
While Jacinthe was off buying food, he had drunk his Thermos of coffee, and the aluminum foil that had held his sandwiches now lay balled up at the bottom of his canvas bag. Victor roused himself; he had to move. He had to get up and do something.
Working from the assumption that Rivard had died near the vault, Victor tried to put himself in the killer’s shoes and figure out the best vantage point from which to hit his target. After considering several options, he focused on the little hill to his right that rose behind the crypt in which Nathan Lawson’s mother was buried.
Halfway up the slope, he regretted not having thought to bring snowshoes. Knee deep in the powdery snow, he was struggling to move forward. The climb turned out to be more arduous than expected. Catching his breath at the summit, he looked over the cemetery from the elevated vantage point, observing the choreographed movements of men and dogs on the snow.
As he had guessed, the top of the hill was an excellent observation point from which to track anyone approaching or leaving the vault. It also offered a view of the cemetery’s main entrance. He saw Jacinthe talking to a patrol cop as she returned from her food-buying expedition. Victor had to smile: she was holding a pizza box.
The detective sergeant stayed on the hill for another moment, scanning the expanse, trying without success to spot ski tracks. As he began to descend, the sun emerged from behind a cloud for a couple of seconds before being covered up again. But a glint caught his eye. Something had sparkled in the snow fifteen metres behind the area where the dog handlers were working. Using a tall black-marble monument as his reference point, Victor descended the slope, never taking his eyes off the spot.
Jacinthe was waiting for him at the bottom of the hill. With one hand, she was holding a slice of pizza from which several bites had been taken. With the other, she was holding the box out to him. He guessed the pizza to be at least a large, but shook his head to decline the offer.
“I spoke to Gilles. He’s received cellphone account statements for Rivard and Tousignant. No communications between them.”
Jacinthe expected Victor to react, but his only response was to step around her, still staring at the black monolith. His lips were moving, but no sound was coming out.
“Come on, Lessard, I’m not asking you to jump up and down and sing hallelujah, but you could at least speak!”
She watched him walk away, then followed, grumbling, “Goddamn men!”
Victor gestured to her with one hand. He seemed to be searching for something in the snow. He squatted down near a gravestone. Removing his mittens, he put his latex gloves back on.
“What is it?”
Jacinthe had stepped closer as the detective sergeant used his pen to clear snow away from an object that lay just beneath the surface.
“Go get one of the forensics people,” he said. “I think it’s an arrowhead.”
61
ANTI-TERRORISM UNIT
The sky had clouded over, making the temperature fall sharply. The wind was raising eddies of snow. Called over by Jacinthe, a forensics technician had carefully extracted the object that Victor had found — it was indeed an arrow. The steel tip, which didn’t appear to be bloodstained, was attached to a black shaft with pink and grey fletching. For a moment, the police officers examined the projectile in silence.
“The killer probably missed his target,” the technician explained, “and the arrow bounced off a gravestone, landing point up in the snow.”
“He must have forgotten it,” Jacinthe suggested.
“Or been unable to find it,” Victor said.
After taking a series of photographs, the technician began noting measurements that would permit an exact reconstruction of where the arrow had been found, its angle, orientation, and any other useful information. Meanwhile, Victor was explaining how he had seen the metal tip glinting from the top of the hill. The technician seemed to agree with his theory that the killer had lain in wait at the summit. They heard a ringtone. The detective sergeant pulled his phone from his pocket.
“I bet it’s your girlfriend,” Jacinthe said.
A little smile appeared on Victor’s lips when he looked at the caller ID. The smile widened as he turned to his partner. “What can I tell you? I’m a lovable guy …”
“You sound like a different person when it comes to her …”
“Different person? What are you talking about?”
Jacinthe batted her eyelids and raised her voice a couple of octaves. “Hello, my love … yes, my love … have a nice day, my love …”
“Pfff. Whatever. I never call her that.”
Victor had to make an effort not to laugh as he took the call. Not that he’d ever admit it, but Taillon was right. His voice softened when he spoke to Nadja.
“Hello, my love.”
Holding his phone to his ear, Victor had said those words on purpose to confirm Jacinthe’s comment and earn a hearty laugh from her. But his own smile quickly died on his lips.
“What’s wrong?” Jacinthe asked, seeing his expression.
After another few seconds, Victor ended the call.
He stood there, staggered. Speechless.
“Lessard! What’s the matter? Is there some kind of problem at home?”
His hand groped in his jacket and found his cigarettes and lighter. He lit up and took a long drag. His spirit was descending into a bottomless well of blackness; the surface was only visible as a tiny illuminated point, a fast-receding speck of light. Trying to stay afloat was futile; the abyss had caught him and was dragging him inexorably down.
Jacinthe’s voice pulled him out of his torpor.
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A sensation of dizziness was overwhelming him. Unable to breathe, Victor started to unzip his jacket, then lost his balance. Jacinthe caught him before he fell. Together with the technician, she lowered him onto the snow, leaning him against a gravestone.
“It’s Martin,” he whispered, his face pale. “He’s been arrested by the anti-terrorism unit.”
Jacinthe and Victor didn’t exchange a word during the drive. With his head leaning against the window, the detective sergeant watched the landscape go by without managing to get his thoughts in order.
Nadja was waiting in the police station’s reception area when they arrived. Victor saw her lips move, but her words fluttered in the air without reaching his brain.
She made another attempt to get through to him. He had an indefinite sense that she was saying things he needed to know, things they should talk about before going any further. But his capacity for absorption had reached its limit. This wasn’t the time or place to try.
Nadja was standing in front of him, impeding his progress. Though Victor was aware of her emotions and her good will, he pushed her aside with his forearm, gently but firmly. Jacinthe, realizing there was nothing to gain from forcing the issue, didn’t intervene.
Victor headed straight for the duty officer, a ginger-haired guy he recognized vaguely from the few weeks he’d spent on the Tactical Intervention Unit before realizing that SWAT work wasn’t for him.
The two men greeted each other, and the officer responded to Victor’s question by explaining that Martin and an accomplice had been arrested in possession of stolen dynamite sticks while trying to buy detonators for an apparent terrorist attack on a synagogue.
The light in Victor’s field of perception was flickering like a light bulb about to burn out, and the opaque tunnel of his vision was shrinking. He knew his son. The claims being made about him were inconceivable.
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