Never Forget

by Martin Michaud

  Silvia made him undress right there in the vestibule. Then she put his clothes directly into a garbage bag. After his shower, she brought him clean clothes, and she cut his nails and hair herself, in silence.

  Under the child’s gaze, Lortie watched with a smile, fingers interlaced across his chest, as his matted locks fell to the kitchen linoleum. Finally, Silvia trimmed his beard down to a length that was convenient for shaving.

  Lortie was affectionate with the little boy, but he didn’t ask Silvia if the child was his. She didn’t bring up the subject.

  Sitting on the bathtub rim next to the sink, little Lucian watched the razor move back and forth over the man’s cheeks. He liked the smell of the shaving soap, and he liked it when the man tickled his nose with the bristles of the shaving brush. Lortie soaked a washcloth in hot water, wrung it out, and wiped the last traces of foam from his face.

  “Feel, Lucian,” he said, guiding the boy’s hands. “Soft, eh?”

  Lucian’s small fingers touched the smooth cheeks for an instant. Then Lortie drew a smiley face on the fogged mirror, and the little boy laughed. Lortie crouched down and detached a ceramic tile from the wall at floor level. Into the space, he shoved some documents that he had concealed from Silvia by stuffing them in his underwear before she made him undress. Afterward, Lortie replaced the tile, fitting the pieces of grout back into place.

  “That’s our hiding place, Lucian.” He put a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret, just between us. Shhh …”

  “Shhh,” the child repeated, and laughed.

  André Lortie placed a gentle kiss on the little boy’s forehead.

  Silvia’s voice came through the door. “Dinner’s ready.”

  “We’ll be right there, Sylvie, honey. We’ll be right there.”

  She’d told him a thousand times that her name ended in an A, but he’d never been able to get used to it. André Lortie picked up Lucian and set him down on the floor. They stepped out into the hallway, hand in hand.

  77

  BRIEFLY REUNITED

  Wednesday, December 28th

  Victor was walking along the sidewalk with the collar of his leather jacket turned up, his hands crammed into his pockets, a black garment draped over his left arm.

  Orange NO PARKING signs had been stuck at intervals into the snowbanks. Once again, Montreal had been outsmarted by the weather. The snow-removal process was dragging on endlessly.

  Arriving across the street from the building, the detective sergeant looked left and right a couple of times. No one in sight. It was 6:07 a.m., and the street was as deserted as he had hoped it would be.

  Victor crossed the street at an unhurried pace and went through the glass door of the police station. Inside, the corridor was empty, except for one man who was waiting for him.

  A cop with ginger hair.

  Lucian Duca, the killer they’d been trying to catch for days, was dead.

  But a crucial question remained unanswered: had he killed Senator Tousignant before dying, or was Tousignant alive, in captivity somewhere, unable even to move, with a heretic’s fork piercing his flesh?

  The senator wasn’t a young man. Time was passing, and the hope of finding him alive grew fainter by the hour.

  The detectives had gone back to square one and spent the morning of the 27th in conference. Rather than treat the matter as a classic disappearance, Victor had insisted from the outset that in order to locate Tousignant, they needed to understand the motive behind Duca’s acts. And that motive was clearly rooted in the past.

  Victor’s view wasn’t shared by the other members of the investigation team, who saw Duca’s reasons as secondary. Indeed, most of them feared the same thing: that while they were trying to figure out motives, Tousignant would die.

  Not surprisingly, Jacinthe was particularly vociferous on the subject. She argued that they mustn’t waste time looking into the suspicious deaths in 1964, or continuing their research on the Evergreen files, which, as far as she was concerned, were “ancient history.” Her own plan of action had four practical components. One: look into all calls received from people who claimed to have seen the senator, follow up the most credible ones, increase forces in the field, and organize ground searches with canine units along the riverbank near Tousignant’s house. Two: since Duca had no apparent family, talk to his co-workers, sift through his bank records, create a timeline for his activities over the last few days, and find out where he spent his vacations and downtime. Had he stayed in any isolated spots recently? Three: continue the work begun by Virginie, contacting people in Tousignant’s social circle to find out if anyone remembered anything or if anyone had met Duca. And four: stop obsessing about this shit and enjoy the Christmas holiday. Or what was left of it.

  Jacinthe’s last point got a big laugh from the group. Even Victor smiled.

  Delaney had finally settled on a blend of Victor’s and Jacinthe’s approaches.

  The team had consequently spent a few hours brainstorming in an effort to figure out Duca’s motive, not because they needed to know, but because, as Victor had argued, the effort could yield information that would lead them to Senator Tousignant.

  Among the hypotheses put forward, the one that eventually became the majority consensus was that Duca had been seeking revenge for the abuses inflicted on his father, André Lortie, under Project MK-ULTRA. Duca’s quest had led him to discover the wider conspiracy orchestrated by Daniel Tousignant.

  The cops didn’t yet know what reasons had driven Duca to kidnap the senator. But they assumed the abduction was linked to Tousignant’s involvement in Evergreen.

  “The way I see it,” Gilles Lemaire said, “his last words were a cry from the heart. In effect, he was saying, I remember what my father went through, his suffering, his wrecked life.”

  A solemn silence had followed Lemaire’s comment.

  What had happened next?

  At this point, the team members were tangled in conjectures. As Jacinthe had observed, they might never know the truth. But it seemed logical to suppose that Lortie had discovered his son’s murderous intentions when he found the victims’ wallets. Knowing about the crimes that Lucian had committed, and unable to live with that burden, Lortie had ended his life by plunging from a rooftop at Place d’Armes.

  Victor pointed out to his fellow detectives that this interpretation had flaws. “If the AL mentioned in Tousignant’s correspondence with Lawson really is André Lortie, that raises serious doubts about the role he played in all this.”

  Was Lortie what he seemed to be? The detective sergeant had conceded to the other cops that “AL” could refer to a host of other things.

  But Victor had raised a question that needed to be considered: what was the link between Lortie, Evergreen, and the three deaths in 1964? Had Lortie been employed by the accounting firm in Joliette? And if, as Victor believed, the victims in 1964 had been “treated” by Judith Harper under Project MK-ULTRA before being killed, why had Lortie himself escaped death?

  “Maybe that was why he became homeless,” Gilles Lemaire suggested. “So he could disappear. Maybe the only reason he survived was that he was living on the streets and couldn’t be found.”

  The filial link between Lucian Duca and André Lortie had also been discussed. DNA tests would be done, using tissue samples taken by Jacob Berger from the two men’s bodies. But the results wouldn’t be available for weeks.

  The detectives had spent the rest of the meeting listing the pieces of information they considered likeliest to help them find Tousignant.

  Before ending the discussion, Delaney had handed out assignments. Taillon would look into Tousignant’s past, getting in touch with his daughter, loved ones, family, colleagues, and friends. Loïc would do the same with the colleagues of Lucian Duca.

  Despite Jacinthe’s protests, Victor asked the boss to let him go over the Evergreen files and explore where they might lead. Delaney struck a compromise. He gave the job to the Gnome, who would also be
responsible for gathering information about the suspicious deaths of the three accountants in Joliette and for looking at the newspaper articles on the subject, which had been ordered from the archives of the National Library.

  Victor, meanwhile, would coordinate search operations with other police forces, and he’d set up a press conference to update the media on the senator’s disappearance. It was also agreed — since he was already in the public eye as a result of his son’s arrest — that the detective sergeant would not be present at the media event.

  Delaney had asked Victor to stay in the conference room while the other detectives went back to their desks. Victor was absently turning a photograph of a buxom, dark-haired woman between his fingers. Sylvie or Silvia — regardless of the name Lortie had scribbled on the white border, the investigators now knew that the picture found in the rooming house was of Lucian Duca’s mother.

  “Do I need to explain why I’ve given you less to do than the others?” Delaney asked.

  The detective sergeant placed the Polaroid on the table among the reports, photographs, interrogation notes, and information files. Coordinating search efforts would require less than an hour’s work, and they both knew Delaney could set up the press conference by himself.

  “No, Chief. You don’t need to explain. Thank you.”

  Delaney’s reason was hardly a mystery. The news had made the rounds. The rest of the team knew that he had received a call from the chief prosecutor regarding Martin.

  “Take the time you need to deal with your personal matters, Vic,” the boss concluded. “We’ve got your back.”

  Consequently, while the rest of the team spent the afternoon and evening of December 27th doing the required investigative work, Victor had done as his superior officer suggested: he had dealt with his personal matters. He had made numerous phone calls and taken care of all the details, making sure everything would go off without a hitch the following morning.

  He had left the office with Taillon around 11:00 p.m. Loïc and the Gnome were still at their desks. Jacinthe had dropped Victor off in front of his apartment, wishing him luck. The detective sergeant had collapsed onto his bed with his clothes still on.

  Victor had been waiting in the police station corridor for a few minutes when the ginger-haired officer reappeared, accompanied by Martin.

  When the young man saw his father, his face lit up. They hugged fiercely. The ginger-haired cop stepped away to give them privacy. For several seconds, Martin sobbed on his father’s shoulder as Victor murmured comforting words in his ear.

  After Martin had regained his composure, Victor released his hug and handed over the hoodie he’d brought along. Regretfully, he had to cut short their moment together. There was no time to lose.

  “Put this on, son. And pull up the hood, just in case.”

  In the front hall, the ginger-haired cop was looking out the window. “I think we’re good,” he said, turning to them.

  The cop accompanied them to the door. Before Victor walked out, the two men looked each other in the eye. The cop gave him a nod. The detective sergeant thanked him with a slap on the shoulder, then stepped out into the morning light with his son.

  Martin’s troubles weren’t entirely over, but he was free. At least for now.

  Marc Lagacé, the legal pit bull whom Victor had engaged to represent Martin, had called with the good news late on the evening of Duca’s death.

  The lawyer had added that the release wasn’t his doing. The prosecutor’s office had called to advise him that they weren’t going to bring charges against Martin. Victor was pretty sure he knew what had happened. Nadja had interceded with her brother, and Diego had pulled strings to get Martin off, no doubt invoking his status as an RCMP informant.

  Martin’s release had come with conditions similar to those imposed during a period of probation: he was under orders to stay away from the friends and relatives of his co-accused. He was also forbidden from entering drinking establishments or possessing any kind of firearm, including legally registered weapons. Martin had also promised to ensure he could be reached at all times, and not to leave the country.

  Nevertheless, for his own safety, and in order to let the media storm abate, the young man needed to get out of town for a while. The criminal element didn’t take kindly to informants, and news of his liberation was bound to reach his former associates sooner or later. Victor had therefore taken the time to organize Martin’s departure, following Delaney’s suggestion that he deal with his personal matters. Over the course of the previous evening, Victor had spoken with his ex-wife several times, making all the necessary arrangements.

  His conversations with Marc Lagacé hadn’t given Victor a clear sense of Martin’s legal situation, which remained nebulous. Would he emerge from this without a criminal record? Only time would tell. But for the moment, the detective sergeant had far more important things to worry about. Guiding Martin by the arm, he led him across the street. A black car with tinted windows was waiting for them.

  Victor opened the rear driver-side door and looked at his son. “There’s something I need to say before you go.” The young man raised his glistening eyes to his father’s. “I love you, and I’m proud of you. I’ve always been proud of you.”

  Victor hugged his son; then, with years of experience seating people in police cars, he put a hand on Martin’s head and guided him into the back seat. As the door slammed shut, the driver’s window slid open.

  The driver was a hard-featured man with curly black hair greying at the temples. Wearing mirrored sunglasses, he gave Victor his best smile, which barely compressed his lips and made his moustache rustle. “Everything’s set, Vic. I’ll call when we get there.”

  Victor stepped closer to the window and rested his arm on the car’s roof. In the back seat, Martin was hugging his mother. Clearly emotional, she blew her nose noisily.

  “I’m grateful to you, Johnny.”

  Jean Ferland would never win a beauty contest. Some people found him a little corny, or at least old school. The big man, who had become a private detective a few years back, had formerly worked alongside Victor. And in those days, he’d been known as one of the best shots in the Montreal Police.

  Victor had absolute faith in his old colleague, even entrusting his son to him. The fact that Ferland could kill a man with his bare hands might also have had something to do with it.

  Suddenly, a van came around the corner and sped toward them. Victor knew trouble was on the way. “You’d better leave before they get here. I’ll deal with them.”

  The detective sergeant took a step back, and the car roared away. Placing himself in the middle of the street, Victor gave the media vehicle no choice but to stop. The doors flew open. A camera flashed.

  “Detective Lessard! Any comment?”

  A second voice rose: “Why was your son set free? Did he get special treatment?”

  Victor had succeeded. He had saved Martin from appearing on the front pages of the city papers. Ferland would get him safely to the ranch that his Uncle Gilbert, Marie’s brother, owned in northern Saskatchewan. Martin would stay there for as long as it took for the dust to settle back home.

  “Do you share your son’s views on immigration, Detective?”

  Victor wasn’t worried. Uncle Gilbert and his men respected the traditions of life on a ranch. They knew how to use a rifle. If any members of the neo-Nazi gang that Martin had infiltrated decided to travel west looking for payback, they ran a fair risk of ending up with a skewer up their ass and an apple in their mouth, turning slowly over a campfire.

  Without a word, the detective sergeant turned his back on the reporters and set off on foot toward the Crown Victoria, which he had left parked on a side street. Only when he looked up did he see another car stopped at the curb ahead of him. He recognized the vehicle as it rolled toward him. Through the window, a woman’s gaze met his as she went by. Nadja’s eyes were full of tears.

  Victor didn’t start walking again un
til long after the car had disappeared around the corner.

  78

  BUSINESS TRIP

  Sitting in his office, Paul Delaney had replied to Victor’s question by saying that Madeleine was doing better. The detective sergeant, for his part, had informed Delaney that Martin was safe and that Nadja still wasn’t talking to him.

  Now it was time for Victor to stop beating around the bush and tell his boss the real reason why he had come in to the office.

  Delaney took a sip of coffee. When he heard Victor’s reason, it came back out through his nostrils. Coughing, he wiped his face with a napkin and used the back of his hand to catch droplets that had fallen onto his fleece vest.

  “You gonna pull through, Paul?” Victor asked with a smile.

  “Dallas?” Delaney coughed for another long while. “You’ve got to be kidding. Why do you want to go to Dallas?”

  “It’s a quick trip. One night, two at the most, and then I’ll be back.”

  Reclining on his chair and putting his feet up on the desk, Delaney unbent a paper clip and started using one of the rounded ends to clean his ear.

  “And why do you want to go down there, exactly?”

  “To talk to the guy whose name appears in Lawson’s file — Cleveland Willis. To understand. Some details are still unclear.” The detective sergeant reprised his previous performance, repeating the arguments he’d made during their last meeting.

  Delaney waved a hand impatiently. “Okay, okay, I get all that,” he said, wiping the paper clip with a tissue. “What I mean is, why make the actual trip? Why not talk to the guy by phone, or contact the FBI or the Dallas Police? They could send a local operative to talk to Willis.”