Reddening in spite of himself, Victor mumbled something about having tired eyes from all the documents he’d looked at and not wanting to make too many demands on Virginie, for whom this situation was very painful.
Jacinthe’s insinuations shouldn’t have bothered him, but the reality was that she’d caught him out like a teenager. She half listened to his mumbled excuses before getting down to business.
“Two things. One, I just spoke to Mona Vézina. She confirms what we suspected. The handwriting on the matchbook, the hangman drawing, and the card that came with Tousignant’s wallet all match. The three messages were written by the same person.”
Victor took note of the information, which hardly advanced their effort.
“And two?”
“The Gnome just called. Bennett is out of his coma. He’s strong enough to talk.”
“Is Gilles going to question him?”
“No, he’s on the road with Loïc.”
The detective sergeant was struck by a coughing fit. “Are they going to Joliette to look into the hunting accident?”
“Not right away. First they have to visit an archery store.”
“Right. The arrow we found in the cemetery. I’d forgotten …”
“So, Gilles wants me to go to the hospital to talk to Bennett.”
Closing his eyes, Victor nodded several times. “Of course. Go ahead.”
“Did you bring your condoms?” Jacinthe asked with a mocking grin.
Taken aback, the detective sergeant frowned, then flushed with anger. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“Victor Lessard! We both know you’ve never been able to resist a good-looking woman. Have you noticed the way she stares at you?” She smiled suggestively. “Anyway, if I were you, I wouldn’t beat around the bush. Not after what happened between you and Nadja’s brother. If you ask me, that ship has sunk.”
The reminder of the previous day’s confrontation pushed Victor over the brink.
“Go fuck yourself, Taillon!” he spat.
Jacinthe gave him another wink. “Settle down, big guy. It was a joke. Gotta go.”
With the blood pounding furiously in his temples, Victor needed some time to compose himself.
Victor pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes felt ready to burst out of their sockets. Another hour of poring over documents had convinced him that there were no clues to Tousignant’s whereabouts hidden here. If the senator had wanted to leave them a message, they would have found it by now.
Virginie was still tirelessly going through her father’s emails, taking notes as she tried to reconstruct, in the greatest possible detail, her father’s schedule over the past few days.
So far, the exercise had yielded nothing. Victor was about to suggest that they take a break and order something to eat when Virginie’s ringtone sounded: “Only Happy When It Rains,” by Garbage. She stood up and stepped into the hallway to take the call.
After briefly listening to the caller, the young woman mouthed a few platitudes intended to convey sympathy and encouragement. The detective sergeant looked back down at the papers, wearing an expression of concentration, but he couldn’t help listening. Virginie was speaking in a low voice, though not low enough to prevent him from hearing.
The caller began talking once again — Victor could tell from the voice that it was a man — but Virginie cut him off, saying yes, she was at her father’s house, and no, he shouldn’t expect her for dinner. She’d be home late.
Just before hanging up, by way of goodbye, she said, “Don’t forget to feed Woodrow Wilson.”
Not a word about the senator’s disappearance.
Clearly, she had no desire to explain the situation to the caller, nor to get into an interminable conversation on the subject. She came back into the study, rummaged in her purse, and took out a tube of lip balm. Victor kept up his show of being immersed in his reading, but curiosity eventually got the better of him.
“I don’t mean to be indiscreet,” he said, “but isn’t Woodrow Wilson the name of a former politician?”
Virginie applied the balm, then rubbed her lips together to spread it evenly.
“Yes. He was the twenty-eighth president of the United States. Served two terms from 1913 to 1921.”
The detective sergeant let out a low whistle.
“Did you take film studies or history?”
“Same thing. And for your information, in the present case, Woodrow Wilson is our dog.”
Victor looked at her wedding band, a shining bauble that, on her fine fingers, seemed as large as a Stanley Cup ring.
“You’re married?”
Virginie glanced down at her hand. “Oh, this,” she said in a disillusioned voice. “Jean-Bernard is a wonderful guy. That’s the trouble. If he were an asshole, I’d be braver, and my life would be easier.”
In other words: My husband is a good man, I’m not happy with him anymore, but I can’t make up my mind to leave him. Having no desire to step on the banana peel that she’d just laid out in front of him, Victor decided not to pursue the matter.
“Isn’t it a little long, when you call him?”
Virginie looked at him, puzzled.
“Woodrow Wilson, I mean.”
The young woman’s annoyed expression gave way to a smile. “It’s W to his friends.”
Victor hesitated momentarily, wondering, before he spoke, whether so much honesty was necessary. Then he came out with it: “My name is Victor Lessard, and I hate dogs.”
This time Virginie laughed out loud. “So do I! If you only knew.” There was an awkward silence. “Are you married?”
Victor answered too quickly for his own taste. “It’s complicated.”
A noise caught their attention: the beep of an electronic device. Frowning, Victor looked at Virginie. She nodded. She’d heard it, too.
After a few minutes of searching, they realized that the beeping was coming from a steel box equipped with an indicator light, which Victor found attached to the computer tower. With Virginie’s permission, he sat down in front of the screen, located the application after a few clicks, and launched it. A control panel appeared on the screen, along with six windows displaying real-time exterior video feeds of the house’s front door, driveway, and backyard.
“A surveillance system?” Virginie said, surprised. “Where are the cameras?”
“Hidden outside somewhere,” Victor said. He hadn’t noticed them, either. “They’ve gotten so small that you can put them just about anywhere. I’ve seen cameras in sprinklers, in ceiling lights, even in exit signs.” Victor clicked on an icon and pointed at the new window that opened. “You see? Your father configured the system to send SMS alarms to his cellphone. The beeping we heard was just a local signal.”
“So as soon as the system detects movement —” Virginie began.
Victor completed the sentence: “The images are sent to his phone.”
He clicked on a new tab. “If we’re lucky, the images are also recorded and stored.” It took Victor only a few seconds to find the folder containing the video footage.
Watching the first sequence, they realized the alarm they’d just heard had been triggered by a car pulling into the driveway in order to turn around on the street. The next three sequences were as Victor and Virginie feared. They watched the images haphazardly the first time, then replayed them in chronological order.
10:15 a.m.: An individual walked into the camera’s range. Victor recognized him instantly: it was the man in the red, white, and blue Expos cap, the man whom Victor had tried to catch at Le Confessionnal. The man came up the driveway, holding a package in his hands, and rang the doorbell. Because of the distance from the camera and the cap on his head, it was impossible to make out the man’s features. He disappeared into the house.
10:17 a.m.: The senator came out of the house, hands behind his back, as though they were bound. With one hand on Tousignant’s shoulder, the man in the cap w
alked half a step behind him, seeming to press something into the small of his back. Tousignant was offering no resistance. The pair walked out of camera range.
10:18 a.m.: The man in the cap re-entered the frame, dropped two garbage bags onto the snow beside the driveway, then walked out of the camera’s view.
Three minutes had elapsed between the arrival of the man in the cap and his departure with the captive senator. Stunned, Virginie asked if there was any footage of what had happened within the house. Victor explained that the cameras covered only the home’s exterior.
Although the events on the screen simply confirmed what they had been suspecting from the outset, the young woman was still in a state of shock. “He really has been kidnapped,” she said, her voice unsteady.
Victor replayed the last sequence several times. It showed the man in the baseball cap carrying the two garbage bags. The detective sergeant got the impression that before letting them fall, the man had actually raised the two bags in the air, as though wanting to be sure the camera caught them.
Suddenly, Victor gave Virginie an urgent look. “Is today garbage day?”
NOVEMBER 1ST, 2005
THE SPONSORSHIP SCANDAL
Judge Gomery was tasked with rummaging through the trash bins of democracy, and today the commission over which he presides published its report on the sponsorship scandal.
According to the media, the evidence seems to suggest that the program was supervised by the Prime Minister’s Office. It also shows that the public service hierarchy was subverted so the program could be more easily controlled, and that the Prime Minister’s Office had been made aware of possible problems.
Underlings and hangers-on who pocketed money will go to prison. Who cares?
Judge Gomery would have liked to wring a confession out of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, nicknamed the “Little Guy from Shawinigan,” but it was Chrétien who had the last laugh as he showed off his golf balls.
I have to admit that, though I’ve never agreed with his opinions, I admire the man’s methods. As far as he was concerned, Quebec must, at all costs, remain a part of Canada. The end justified the means.
On that specific point, I agree with him: the end justifies the means.
EVERGREEN
71
GARBAGE AND REMOVAL
Victor hurried outside to retrieve the garbage bags; then, with Virginie, laid out their contents on the broad dining room table. The first bag contained two rigid binders, each one as thick as several telephone directories. The second contained five file folders, labelled P-1 to P-5. Each item was sealed with red tape marked NEVER DESTORY.
The detective sergeant could have sworn that the seals looked like they’d been removed and carefully put back in place. “The Northern file,” Victor murmured.
He and Virginie stared at their discovery for a moment, not moving, not speaking. Victor’s gaze betrayed some uncertainty about what came next. Thinking she knew the cause of his apprehension, Virginie declared peremptorily that there was no way she would let herself be excluded from the examination of the documents.
“You don’t have a warrant, and we’re in my father’s house. You said yourself that you need my consent. Besides, I’m an investigative journalist. I can be helpful.”
Victor nodded, inhaled deeply and let the air out of his lungs in little bursts.
At this point, Victor didn’t give a damn about her consulting the documents. Contrary to what she supposed, his hesitancy had nothing to do with the fact that she might learn information related to the investigation. The detective sergeant’s concern arose, rather, from his desire to shield her from the contents of the binders. How would she react if the files proved that her father was implicated in the murders? Was she ready to face something like that?
Knowing she’d dismiss his arguments out of hand, Victor decided, after a few seconds’ consideration, to keep them to himself. “We’ll need gloves,” he said at last.
Virginie got up without a word and went upstairs, coming back down a few minutes later with a plastic box, which she placed on the table. Inside, there were numerous medical masks and latex gloves of all sizes. Seeing the astonished look on Victor’s face, Virginie felt obliged to explain.
“During the bird flu panic, my father didn’t take any chances. He followed all the safety precautions that the authorities suggested.”
After putting on a pair of gloves, Virginie opened the first of the two big binders. Victor, meanwhile, removed the seal from the file folder marked P-1 and withdrew a sheaf of documents.
As he began to read, a look of surprise appeared on his face. Nathan Lawson had scrupulously preserved part of the correspondence he’d had with Senator Tousignant during 1963 and 1964. For the most part, Victor was able to grasp the primary meaning of the paragraphs he was reading, but he also knew there was a secondary level to these communications, a hidden meaning that eluded him.
Tousignant was clearly skilled in the art of indirectness and the use of coded expressions, which meant multiple interpretations of his words were possible:
Montreal
October 12th, 1963
PRIVILEGED AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Nathan,
Would you be so kind as to make the initial payment, effective today, regarding the transaction in which we have an interest?
Cordially yours,
Daniel
Montreal
November 25th, 1963
PRIVILEGED AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Nathan,
Would you be so kind as to make the final payments, effective today, as agreed regarding the transaction in which we have an interest?
Cordially yours,
Daniel
Montreal
September 15th, 1964
PRIVILEGED AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Nathan,
I have been advised that the audit of Evergreen’s financial statements for the fiscal year ending August 31 has resulted in the identification of “anomalies” in the company’s banking transactions — specifically those dated October 12th and November 25th, 1963 — by the accounting firm that you engaged to perform the audit.
I must confess that this strikes me as a source of some concern. Didn’t you assure me that the production of audited financial statements would be a mere formality? Weren’t you supposed to secure the accounting firm’s co-operation in advance?
In any event, you are surely conscious of the fact that these “anomalies” would, if they became public knowledge, put everything at risk.
In order to nip the problem in the bud and prevent undesirable consequences, I suggest that you prepare and distribute envelopes that will ease the scruples of the individuals involved.
I count on you to take care of this “formality” with all possible speed.
Cordially yours,
Daniel
Victor straightened up and uncrossed his legs. As he was shaking the pins and needles out of his foot, the hangman drawing, the one in which Mona Vézina had spotted the hidden JFK, came into his mind. Though the sheet was back at the office, Victor was able, by closing his eyes and concentrating, to recall the letters and unfilled blank spaces beside the drawing, along with a couple of accompanying sentences:
Let’s play hangman: _ V _ _ G _ _ _ N
Hint: Company filled with corpses.
The answer to the puzzle was there, within reach, among the paragraphs he’d just read. His pulse quickened as his index finger ran eagerly up to the first sentence of the memo dated September 15th, 1964:
I have been advised that the audit …
When Victor’s eyes fell on it, the secret word exploded off the page:
EVERGREEN
His mind began to race, his thoughts spinning as his imagination assembled various hypotheses. He reread the memos, and his eye was caught by the sentence referring to payments made by Evergreen on October 12th and November 25th.
President Kennedy had bee
n assassinated on November 22nd, 1963.
But since his conjecture was inconceivable, the detective sergeant chased it out of his head and went on reading:
Montreal
September 19th, 1964
PRIVILEGED AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Nathan,
The concern that I mentioned in my most recent communication has now, regrettably, turned into serious anxiety. I am told that at least one of the individuals to whom you had an envelope delivered has returned it.
I understand from your reply that there was no way to foresee the stubborn zeal of this employee (you say he was recently hired?). Even so, I trust I don’t have to remind you of the enormous dangers that would arise from the slightest leak of information.
As we are now compelled to take more stringent measures, I am hereby advising you that this employee will shortly become the first “subject” submitted to the professional care of our mutual friend.
Given the importance of taking action as soon as possible, I would ask you to contact her and see to it that she and her facilities remain at our disposal over the next several days.
I have informed Langley about the present situation, and I have just received confirmation that a BO asset will arrive at the consulate shortly to facilitate the transition.
As always, CW will act as liaison.
I have no doubt that you are eager to help repair the consequences of your earlier misstep, and that you will make yourself fully available to our mutual friend, as well as to the asset, for all their logistical and operational needs.
Finally, I count on your entire co-operation in facilitating their work on the ground.
Cordially yours,
Daniel
Virginie put down the file that she’d begun to read. Victor lifted his gaze to her. He’d been so absorbed in his work that he had forgotten she was there. Without a word, she rose from the table and disappeared into the kitchen. Hastily, the detective sergeant scribbled a few notes before returning to his reading:
Never Forget Page 34