Authors: Howard Shrier
“Sounds like you’re getting over Cara,” I said.
He turned to me, scowling, the scar on his jaw a dark red line. “I’m not over her now and I never will be. I been with that girl since I was twenty years old. But I’m not
dead
. I can still appreciate a woman who walks down the street like she owns it.”
There was indeed a line outside Schwartz’s when we got there, about five storefronts long—in the rain. We found parking around the corner a block north, just past a fenced
yard that looked abandoned except for a stack of unmarked gravestones.
We had no trouble finding a table at the back of the Main, next to a wall covered with caricatures of employees that looked so old half the people in them were probably dead. Ryan would normally have taken a seat facing the door, but we were close to the kitchen door too, through which people were moving quickly in both directions. I know Ryan: he doesn’t like people making sudden moves around him. So he sat across from me but turned his chair sideways, its back against the wall so he could see all traffic, and seemed satisfied.
Bobby strode in a few minutes later, brushing rain off the sleeves of a cream linen jacket. We shook hands and I introduced him to Ryan. He hung his jacket on the chair next to Ryan and sat down facing me, wearing a short-sleeve white dress shirt that showed off his arms, which were big and well defined. He had jet-black hair cut short and gelled up in front, and his eyes were dark too, like many Québécois whose ancestors married Cree and other Natives. I could see him taking in Ryan, about whom I’d told him nothing. I could sense Ryan doing the same. Bobby pressed his palms together, which bulged his arms bigger. Ryan didn’t have to do anything like that in return. Steel was his element, not muscle.
“So you left Beacon Security, eh?” Bobby said. “Set up your own shop?”
“A year ago.”
“Christ
,” Bobby said, pronouncing it
Kriss
. “One of these days, I’ll do the same thing, start my own place. Maybe with one or two guys from Investigations Globales. It’s working out okay for you?”
“I’m not making a fortune. But I wasn’t seeking one, so it’s a wash.”
“What do you do, mostly?”
“Background checks, missing persons, the kind of things a big shop would assign to a team. Only we’re the whole team.”
“The two of you?”
“No. My partner is a woman named Jenn. Ryan’s filling in for her on this one.”
“Well, look for me to open up next year,” Bobby said.
A waitress long past middle age took our order. On Bobby’s advice, we chose the combo platter, a smoked meat on rye, with fries, coleslaw, dill pickle spear and Cokes.
When the waitress left, I asked Bobby about the homicide detectives working Sammy’s case.
He said, “You did okay with Reynald Paquette. He’s a pretty good cop. I got that from two sources. The first is a guy I know who worked with him before he made Crimes Majeurs, when he was still a uniform in St-Léonard. Not the easiest turf to come up in.”
“Why?”
“It’s mostly Italian. And it’s heavily populated, or at least frequented, by the Mob. A lot of coffee shops the cops would love to put a wire in. My friend said Paquette was smart, worked hard, gave a shit and kept his nose clean, even in that environment. What more could you ask?”
“That he be good at homicide.”
“He is, he is. I checked that too. He has one of the best solution rates in the squad and a solid reputation. Not the fastest guy, maybe, but thorough. If there’s something to find, he’ll find it. Eventually. Unless it was a random attack, a swarming. Then all bets are off, unless someone panics, blabs or gives themselves up.”
“Someone always blabs,” Ryan said. “Especially if they didn’t have the balls to do it alone.”
“So what is Paquette thinking?” I asked. “Random attack or targeted?”
“Well, you know the area where he was found. Or maybe you don’t.”
“His grandfather told me it’s an Arab neighbourhood.”
“Right. So it could have happened that way.”
“Or someone dumped him there to throw people off,” Ryan said. “Marked him up with that star.”
“You got to keep that open,” Bobby said.
“How bad is the blood here between Jews and Muslims?”
“I don’t know what it’s like in Toronto, but some of the Arabs here, especially the North Africans, they don’t like the Jews so much. There have been firebombings in schools, threats, beatings of kids who wear the skullcap. Our firm does executive protection and uniformed security, and all the synagogues need it on their holidays.”
“The question would still be what he was doing there in the middle of the night. We know the police answered a call at his house at two-forty-five in the morning.”
“About what?”
“Supposedly a domestic disturbance. Only there wasn’t any.”
“And a few hours later,” Bobby said, “he’s found dead in Ville St-Laurent.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“No.”
“The call prompted him to leave his house?”
“Could be.”
“Maybe he knew who was behind it and went to see them.”
“The Afghan family he was interviewing,” I said. “Their store is in that area.”
“Yeah, but at a quarter to three in the morning?”
“It could also have been a cry-wolf routine,” Ryan said. “Someone calls in a false alarm so a second call gets a slower response.”
“There was no second call,” I said.
“The old Greek lady said she heard something a few minutes later,” Ryan said.
“Yes. But she looked out and didn’t see anyone.”
“Not at the front. But he had a back door too. So maybe the call was meant to give someone the opportunity to snatch him.”
“How?”
“Cops show up at your door, you open up, right? You turn off your alarm system. Then the cops go away. There’s a knock on the back door. It’s late, he’s disoriented—three, four in the morning, that’s the magic hour, the time cops love to raid a place because you’re at your most vulnerable. He answers it without thinking—boom, he’s abducted.”
The waitress picked that moment to arrive with three platters. The sandwiches were stacked high with steaming meat and I had to sneak a quick bite before we could continue, get that first mouthful of clove and other spices. Both of them followed suit. No one looked unhappy.
“Paquette might be able to tell you where the call came from,” Bobby said.
“And whether he was killed in the apartment,” Ryan said, “or where the body was found.”
“You’ll find out tomorrow. Speaking of which,” Bobby said, “there is a little bad news. Paquette’s partner, René Chênevert. Apparently he’s a miserable pain in the ass, what we’d call in French a
trou de cul
.”
“Which means?” Ryan asked.
“Asshole. From what I heard, he’s arrogant as hell and the kind of political animal who hates everybody equally, including most of his colleagues, sees them all as rungs on the ladder to the sky. Oh, my God, this is good,” Bobby said, after finishing the first half of his sandwich and wiping his hands and the corner of his lips with a thin paper napkin. “I haven’t had one in a while. I got to keep the waistline trim.”
There was enough fat in the sandwich to light an Inuit lamp, but I was savouring every bite too. There’s something about the marriage of brisket, smoke and spices that enthralls Montreal, thrills Jews and Gentiles alike. Finally, our plates
were clean, except for balled-up greasy napkins and the last burnt fries.
“Is this asshole any good at his job?” I asked.
“If he made Homicide, he’s not stupid, and if he’s working with someone like Paquette, he has to contribute something. Maybe he’s the paperwork fiend or the background checker. The bad cop in interrogations. Just don’t expect cooperation from him. Not in English and not in your French.”
“Sorry I’m going to miss it,” Ryan said.
“You’re not going?” Bobby asked him.
“He doesn’t do police,” I said.
“I haven’t been in a police station in over twenty years,” Ryan said. “I’m not starting tomorrow, not even for him.”
“You want me to come?” Bobby asked. “Translate or something?”
“My French isn’t bad,” I said.
He responded by ripping off a fast line of
joual
at me. I caught the word
français
, but that’s it.
“Sorry?”
He repeated it just as fast.
“Okay, what?”
“I asked you how your French was, more or less, the same way they’re gonna speak to you.”
“Arthur Moscoe told me Paquette speaks good English.”
“To Arthur Moscoe he does. Or his lawyers. That’s no guarantee he will to you. And Chênevert for sure won’t.”
“You free tomorrow?”
“I could be. But we’d have to go first thing, before their day in Homicide goes from bad to worse. I’ll pick you up at eight, we’ll hit them around eight-thirty. My office isn’t far from there.”
“I don’t want to make you late.”
The amount of time they’re likely to spare you, I won’t be.”
“Okay. Eight o’clock, our hotel.”
“ ’Ey, anyone want another sandwich?” he said. “Since we’re here?”
Ryan and I just looked at him.
“No?” Bobby said. “Nobody wants to split one?”
“What happened to the trim waistline?” I asked.
“It stayed outside,” Bobby said.
We got back to the hotel around seven-thirty. With the cloud cover still heavy, it seemed darker than it should have on the longest day of the year. It was time for summer to show itself, step out from behind that heavy curtain, splash a few rays our way. But the curtain wasn’t moving. All the light did was fade.
When we got to the room, I drew up a list of people we needed to speak to:
Sammy’s ex-wife, Camille
.
Aziz—son and daughter
.
Lortie—father and daughter
.
Marie-Josée Boily—adoption worker
.
Arthur Moscoe—anyone in Sammy’s family adopted?
“You need me for any of this?” Ryan asked.
I was a more adept researcher and reader than he. A glance around the room showed there were no legs to break, threats to utter or shots to fire. “I’m good.”
“Then I’ll see you later.”
“Where you going?”
“I’m antsy. Can’t just sit here. Either I start cleaning my guns or I go out for a drive.”
“Drive safely,” I said.
I started with Camille, figuring a single mother would need the most notice to arrange a meeting. She answered after two rings:
“Oui, allô?”
I had too many calls to struggle through each one in French, so I told her who I was and asked if I could continue in English.
She said, “Okay by me,” with a light accent.
I said I was helping the family with the investigation, looking for something that might have been overlooked so far.
“You mean the Moscoe family?”
“Yes.”
“How is Arthur?”
“He’s dying.”
“Oh. I see.”
“You didn’t get along with him?”
“I had nothing against him. I’m not sure the reverse was true. He didn’t really like Montreal anymore. It wasn’t the city he used to rule over and I always felt he blamed me in a way. But you want to talk about Sammy, yes? I have a few minutes now while Sophie watches animations. Is that the right word?”
“I think you mean cartoons. Look, I’d rather meet you in person, if we can.”
“Ah. You want to read my face, eh? My body language, see if I’m telling the truth?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“
Oh, mon Dieu
, I’m in trouble already.”
I liked her voice. It was husky, earthy, but still had a comic lilt.
“I pick Sophie up at school at three-thirty and if it’s nice we go to Parc Laurier. You know where that is?”
“Give me an intersection.”
“St-Gregoire and Brebeuf. Near the climbing structure. But don’t come right away. Give Sophie time to settle in, find some friends, otherwise it’ll be
Maman
this,
Maman
that, the entire time. I also don’t want you talking to her.”
I hadn’t planned to involve Sophie. Upsetting grown-ups was one thing, the victim’s child another.
We traded cell numbers and agreed to meet around four.
Next, I called Marie-Josée Boily’s office and left a brief voice mail explaining why I needed to talk to her. Left my cell number there too.
Arthur Moscoe would be at home, so I dialled his number. It went to voice mail. I asked him to call my cell at his first opportunity.
The only contact Holly had for the Afghan family was at their rug business, which would be closed now. They’d have to wait until tomorrow.
So would the Lorties. Since they were politicians in pre-election mode, I knew I might have to go through a personal assistant or press secretary. I sent an email to the address Sammy had for Laurent Lortie, requesting a meeting. I copied his daughter Lucienne, in case she was more plugged in than her father.
Getting nowhere fast. Actually, not even that fast. Just nowhere. I thought of taking a walk but a look at the rain through the hotel window put that to rest.
I propped up some pillows on the bed and stretched out with my laptop, intending to read the work files Holly Napier had copied onto a memory stick.
As soon as I thought of her, I veered off course, wondering what she was doing right now. Probably still at the office, angled over a monitor. An attractive woman. A bit like Jenn, in that she was tall—no six-footer but five-eight or -nine—and strong looking. I liked her high cheekbones and fair skin and her great red tangle of curls. Very bright eyes. Smart enough to know she was smart, relaxed enough not to have to prove it. Nice smile.
When it started to shape up like a duel between research and a cold shower, I plugged in the USB stick that contained Sammy’s notes on the stories he was working on. The folders came up alphabetically:
Aziz, Lorties, Miss Montreal
.
I started with the Aziz file. The father, Abdul, had been born in 1947 in Kabul to a Tajik family—a minority in a Pashtun-majority country. He excelled in school and was accepted to the school of medicine at University of Kabul in 1968. When the Soviets invaded in 1979, he became known as an anti-Russian speaker and pamphleteer, likening the president, Babrak Karmal, to Joseph Stalin. Accurate or not, it landed him in prison. He was married by then to a nurse, a woman who had attended university when maybe one percent of Afghan women did so. They had a son, Mehrdad, and an infant daughter named Mehri. He was beaten and tortured in custody until a sizable bribe secured his release. He emerged determined to flee at the earliest opportunity via Pakistan and India. A cousin in Canada would help him get started.