One or the Other (28 page)

Carpentier was waiting and he said, “Good work, Constable.”

“He said he didn't mean to kill her.”

“They always say that, don't they?”

Dougherty said, “Yeah.”

Carpentier told Dougherty to get dried off and make a report and then took Roberge to Bonsecours street.

Back at Station Ten, Dougherty changed into a dry uniform and when he walked back into the squad room Delisle said, “Hey, there he is, Mark Spitz.”

“Funny.”

“We picked up another guy and now the two of them are giving each other up.”

Dougherty said, “I figured they would.”

“And look at this,” Delisle said, “you're still finished at the end of your shift, no working late.”

“Yeah, that's good.”

Delisle laughed and said, “You got someone waiting for you at home, you bet it's good.”

Dougherty knew he was right. Still, as he drove back to LaSalle, he did wish he could have gone to Bonsecours Street and taken the guy into the interrogation room, get the confession out of him and charge him with murder. It would have felt good.

It felt good going into the apartment building while it was still light out, too.

Judy said, “I made dinner.”

Dougherty said, “You sound surprised.”

“I never thought I'd say that to some man coming home from work. Look at me, I'm June Cleaver.”

“You're not wearing pearls.”

Judy patted her jeans and said, “Or a dress.”

“Should we have a drink?” Dougherty said. “Is that what we're supposed to do?”

“That's too much like my parents.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. You have a good day?”

“It's good to be back at work.” Judy went into the kitchenette and added noodles to a big pot. “It's goulash, it'll be ready in ten minutes.”

Dougherty followed her and opened the fridge. He got out a beer and said, “You want one?”

“No.” She reached out and he handed her the bottle and she took a drink. “That's enough. I just wish we were really back and it wasn't work to rule.”

“Why, were you going to coach a team?”

She was stirring the pot and she said, “I was going to help with the school newspaper.”

“Oh right,” Dougherty said, going back to the table. “Start a new generation of radicals.”

“That's the dream,” she said. “And we prefer to be called activists.”

“Yeah, that's what we call you down at the station.”

Judy looked at him over her shoulder and smirked a little, but she wasn't upset and she said, “Ha ha.”

“You've got your work cut out for you, all the kids I see these days, all they want to do is get high.”

“How was your day?”

“I was at a murder scene.”

Judy was still and she hesitated for a second. He said, “Don't worry, I just took the call.”

“I'm not worried.”

“Look, I'm home at dinner time.”

“And that's nice,” Judy said. “But I'm not worried.”

Dougherty drank some beer and said, “Couple of losers tried to rob a bank. Well, one of them was the ex-boyfriend of a teller. They went to her house and tied her up and took a note to the bank, said to give them fifty grand or they'd kill her.”

Judy had stopped stirring and she was looking at Dougherty.

“Turns out they tied her too tight. Or she passed out and her legs relaxed and that pulled the rope on her neck. Not rope, actually, they used electrical cord — there was no give.” He drank some more beer. “And they probably pushed the gag too deep into her mouth. Whatever they did, she suffocated. She was dead before they got to the bank.”

Judy stood there quiet for a moment, and then she said, “I'll be honest, I'm not going to miss this.”

“Talking about my work?”

“This part of your work. This awful stuff. People killed.”

“Well, there won't be much of that,” Dougherty said. “Don't worry.”

Judy got a couple of bowls out of the cupboard and said, “You want to butter some bread?”

They ate dinner and Dougherty started to relax. He hadn't even realized how tense he had been and he was thinking it was because he'd been afraid of sitting down to dinner and not having anything to talk about, but once he was there and doing it he realized they had plenty to talk about.

He was starting to think it was something he could do every day.

When they finished eating and were doing the dishes, Judy washing and Dougherty drying, she said, “My father said if the PQ win the election his company is going to move to Toronto.”

“Might as well move to the Arctic.”

“But I've been hearing a lot of that,” Judy said, “people talking about moving.”

“Do you think anyone would really do that, move because of an election?”

“If Quebec separates.”

“That's not going to happen.”

“My father is pretty worried about it. If the company moves he'll have to go with them. It's not like he could find another job here.”

“A lot of talk for nothing,” Dougherty said.

They finished the dishes and went into the living room and sat on the couch.

Judy said, “You want to watch TV?”

“What's on?”

Judy said, “I don't know.” She didn't make a move to turn on the TV. “It is good, you working days all the time.”

“Yeah, we can sit around and watch TV every night if we want.”

“That's right,” Judy said. “And it would make it easier if we ever had kids.”

Dougherty leaned back on the couch and looked at her. She was expecting something, waiting for it, almost daring him and he said, “You'd make a great mother.”

Wasn't what she expected and she laughed. “I doubt that.”

“No, you would. It's not the worst idea I've ever heard.” He stood up and said, “Hang on,” and went into the bedroom.

When he came back into the living room he had a small box in his hand and he said, “Here.”

Judy tilted her head to one side as she took the box, saying, “Is this a . . .?” She opened it and said, “Oh my God, it is? When did you get this?”

Dougherty sat down on the couch and put his arm across the back, not quite around Judy, but ready. “Months ago, actually. When I was working the Brink's heist, one of the guys I questioned, Fred Berger, he deals a little in jewellery.”

“Is it stolen?”

“Not from a person,” Dougherty said. “It wasn't from a burglary or anything like that. It might not have passed through customs coming into the country.”

She was laughing. Then she said, “Were you going to propose?” And then, it suddenly hit her and she pulled up her legs and turned sideways on the couch to face him and said, “Is this a proposal?”

Dougherty said, “Yeah, it is.”

“You want to get married?”

“Well, you're the one talking about having kids.”

“Yeah, but I never said anything about getting married.”

“Well, come on, kids are a lifetime commitment. If you're willing to do that with me, you should commit to this, too.”

She was shaking her head but she was smiling. “Édouard James Dougherty, I never imagined you were the marrying sort.”

“I'm pretty sure you never imagined that you were the marrying sort.”

She turned back facing forward and leaned into him. “Oh yeah, that's right. I'm the one who corrupted you. I thought I did a better job.” She was still looking at the engagement ring.

“Well, you think about it,” he said. “We don't need to rush into anything.”

“That's true, we've got all the time we want, don't we.”

She turned and leaned close to him and kissed him.

He said, “That's right, we can watch TV every night if we want.”

She kissed him again and said, “Maybe later.”

They went into the bedroom.

Later, after they made love and then really did watch some TV, Dougherty couldn't sleep. He was a little worried that Judy would actually want to get married, and he was just as worried that she wouldn't want to. But then he knew it would work out, it felt too good to be together. Whatever they did, he knew they'd do it together.

What he was really worried about was work. He wasn't so sure about that. He knew he could take over from Delisle, he could be a perfectly good desk sergeant, run a perfectly good station house. Go in every morning and come home for dinner. Maybe he and Judy would have kids, maybe buy a house, have a backyard and a finished basement. They could go camping in the summer. It would be a good life.

So why was he really disappointed he wouldn't be on the homicide squad? Why did he want to do that, anyway? He lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking about it. He felt he could talk to Judy about anything, but he wasn't sure about this. Maybe because he was worried that he wanted to do it for the wrong reasons. Maybe he wanted to do it for the prestige, to be a big shot on the police force.

Because he knew it didn't make much difference to the families of the victims, it didn't bring anyone back or make the pain any less for the people left behind. Did he just want it to feel better about himself?

Maybe.

But he didn't feel bad about himself. So maybe it was something else.

He was thinking about the homicides he had worked, really just running Detective Carpentier's errands, but he did see the murderers and he knew there was something about them — they were different than other people, they crossed a line. It wasn't something just anyone could do, it was extreme. It was final. People get mad and say, “I'm going to kill you,” but they don't do it and they don't go home and plot it and work out the details and think about how they're going to get away with it and actually do it. Normal people don't.

But the ones who do cross the line, rapists who strangle their victims, guys who kill their wives or the criminals who see it as the best way to solve a problem, if they don't get caught, they might do it again.

Men who throw teenagers off bridges.

For a while the election was all anyone could talk about. It turned into a three-party race; the Liberals said they were the only chance to keep Quebec a part of Canada, the Parti Québécois played down separatism and talked about the poor economic record of the Liberals and the Union Nationale was reborn with a charismatic young leader and made a late charge for the middle ground.

Dougherty worked day shifts, and in addition to the usual calls, he took a lot of calls about defaced election signs and broke up a few near-brawls at all-candidate events. One of the calls, at the Hall Building of Concordia University, looked like it was going to turn into a riot — Dougherty hadn't been to a riot at Concordia in almost ten years, since it was called Sir George Williams University, and the Hall Building was brand new — but this time there were no cops in riot gear, no smoke bombs and no one set fire to the building.

There was a lot of shouting, and from what Dougherty could make out there was a group of English students who supported the PQ, trying to shout down another group of students who looked to Dougherty like they were Greek and Italian and Chinese and were waving Canadian flags. Dougherty got five cops in uniforms — short-sleeved blue shirts and hats, not body armour and riot helmets — to form a line between the two groups and waited it out.

It seemed unreal to Dougherty that people in Canada, in Montreal, would come to blows over politics.

That kind of tension was really the exception, but there was no escaping the politics. It was definitely a different kind of election.

On Saturday night, Dougherty and Judy went downtown to see a movie. He suggested
Two Minute Warning
with Charlton Heston and she said, “You really want to see a terrorist in a big stadium shooting people,” and then she said, “How about
All Screwed Up
, the new Lina Wertmüller?”

“You think it'll be as good as the last Lina Wertmüller?”

For a second Judy looked like she was going to answer that and then she said, “It's Italian, there might be naked chicks,” so they went to the Snowdon Theatre.

After the movie they stopped at a deli for cheesecake, and Judy said, “Did you like it?”

“You know how I love subtitles.”

“Really, did you like it?”

“It was okay. I mean, it's kind of nice to see that everybody has the same problems, trying to make a living, trying to get by.”

“Yeah, puts things in perspective.” Judy reached across the table and put her hand on Dougherty's and said, “We can appreciate what we've got.”

He squeezed her hand and said, “Yeah, it's good.”

The next morning they had a late breakfast, coffee and croissants, and read the paper. Next to the endless election coverage — too close to call — there was a story about four men who had escaped from the Leclerc medium-security prison in Laval, north of Montreal, and Judy said, “Are you going to have to work overtime on this?”

Dougherty read the article and said, “Little Johnny Wisnosky.”

“Who's that?”

“One of the Point Boys, or he wants to be. He went in for armed robbery. Remember that one, the bank in NDG? We got him downtown, in the Holiday Inn. He was beating up a hooker and some tourists in the next room called.”

“No,” Judy said, “I don't remember. Sounds like a real winner.”

Dougherty put the paper down on the table and said, “And the other geniuses, Sylvio Lamoureaux and Andre Poitras, they'll be caught before my next shift.”

“But look at that,” Judy said, “English and French working together.”

“Better tell your father.”

“What about your folks, they talking about moving?”

“They're talking about retiring. It's still five years away, four maybe, but that's what my dad's talking about.” He finished his coffee. “They might retire to New Brunswick, but it's hard to picture my dad living in the country.”

“Or your mom,” Judy said. “She talks about it like she spent her whole life there sometimes, but she's been in Montreal since she was eighteen.”

“Maybe earlier,” Dougherty said. “She's vague on exactly when she got here. During the war sometime.”

“She might be the one to have trouble moving to the country.”

Dougherty stood up, saying, “Still, hard to imagine people moving across the country for politics. Giving up their jobs and houses.” He walked to the kitchen and put his mug in the sink.

“But what if it's not the same country,” Judy said. “What if Quebec does become a country?”

“Can you really see it happening?” He leaned back against the counter. “But anyway, what would really change? I'd still have my job, you'd still have your job. What difference would it make?”

“You do need to hear my father talk about it.”

Dougherty started out of the kitchen and said, “No one needs to hear that.”

They went for Sunday dinner in Point Claire at Judy's mom's place and tried not to talk about the election but it kept coming up. There was even talk about the American election, how did a guy named Jimmy get elected president?

On the drive back to LaSalle, Judy said, “My mom seems to be adjusting to single life.”

Dougherty had no idea what she was talking about and said, “What?”

“She sounds like she's going to start sleeping with half the men in the neighbourhood.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Didn't you? The way she talks.”

Dougherty laughed. “Sorry, I didn't get that.”

Judy was shaking her head. “I don't know, it's like
Peyton Place
out there.”

“Yeah,
Peyton Place
, not
Love American Style
. It's not
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
.”

“I'm sure it is,” Judy said. “For some of them. My mom said she's making up for lost time. Did you see all the self-help books? One of them was called
Open Marriage
.”

“I think that's about the election,” Dougherty said, “that's what we're going to do about separation, Quebec can date other countries.”

Judy said, “I'm serious.”

Dougherty was laughing a little. “How can you take that seriously?”

“What about Gillian and Abby? What's it doing to them?”

Dougherty shrugged. “Your sisters are all right, you worry too much.”

“I worry just enough.” Judy turned her head away from Dougherty and looked out the side window of the car. They were pulling off the expressway and passing the big General Foods plant and the Seagram's distillery. “They're like the kids in my classes, people think they don't know what's going on but they feel everything.”

“No one knows what's going on,” Dougherty said.

“It feels like everything is falling apart.”

“But it's not really, it's business as usual. It's just a lot of talk.”

“Except my parents,” Judy said. “They're really getting a divorce.”

It was quiet for a moment and then Dougherty said, “Yeah, that's true.”

Judy was still looking out the window, and Dougherty wanted to say something reassuring but he didn't want to say something that sounded trite and that's all he could think of at the moment. So he didn't say anything.

When they got home he was surprised that Judy wanted to make out and even more surprised by how passionate it was. Like they were holding on to each other for dear life.

The next morning, Monday, Dougherty was putting on his uniform and Judy said, “You working late tonight?”

“Yeah, a double. Election day. First overtime they've approved since the Olympics. They think there could be trouble.”

“Well, someone's going to be really disappointed,” Judy said.

She was sitting up in bed, not needing to get ready for another hour. Then she just walked a few blocks to the high school.

Dougherty came over to the bed and leaned down and kissed her and said, “But not me.”

He started to stand up and she grabbed his tie and pulled him back down and said, “And not me, either. This is good.”

“I'm glad you like it.”

He started out of the room and Judy said, “So, we should get married.”

“Well, I'm working the double shift today.”

“Let's do it next spring. Just a small ceremony.”

Dougherty said, “Okay, let's do it.”

He felt good all day. There was an accident in the early afternoon, a guy in a sports car cut off a bus and got nailed, the back end of the car was banged up but no one was hurt. There was a lot of yelling, of course, the guy driving the sports car screaming about separatists and the bus driver yelling about turn signals and brakes.

Dougherty got in between them and said, “Right now you two need to separate,” and the guy driving the sports car seemed to take it personally but the bus driver started to laugh. When the bus was towed away and the sports car was loaded onto a flatbed, the bus driver said to Dougherty, “All day like this,” and Dougherty said, “It'll be over soon.”

The driver said, “You think so? Maybe it's just starting.”

Dougherty said, “Let's hope not,” but he still wasn't too concerned. He was thinking about getting married, maybe he and Judy would have kids. It was looking good.

At eight o'clock the polls closed, and the early results starting coming in.

There was a TV in the squad room, and most of the guys sat around watching.

At ten o'clock a call came in that as the hockey game was ending in the Forum a brawl broke out. There were cops on the scene, but it was getting out of hand, so Dougherty and Gagnon got into a squad car and headed down de Maisonneuve to help.

Gagnon said, “I still don't believe it,
mon Dieu
, the separatists won?”

“Don't worry about it,” Dougherty said, “it's just politics.”

As they pulled up in front of the Forum, Gagnon said, “You tell them that.”

The brawl had spilled out onto St. Catherine Street, a few dozen guys punching each other.

“It's probably because the Habs lost,” Dougherty said. “They were playing the Blues.”

Gagnon said, “I don't think they lost.”

Dougherty blasted the siren a couple of times and most of the crowd took off, but a few guys came towards the car looking like they wanted to keep fighting.

Gagnon said, “What should we do?”

“What do you mean? Get out of the car.”

Dougherty got out and was about to yell something when he stopped. He wasn't sure if he should yell in English or French. The wrong choice could turn it from a little brawl into a big riot.

One of the guys coming towards them yelled, “Fucking seppie bastards.”

Dougherty yelled, “Okay, take it easy,” and held up both his hands showing them he wasn't holding his nightstick and this could still end now. “Everybody just settle down.”

“They won! They fucking won! Can you fucking believe it!”

Another cop car pulled up, coming down St. Catherine Street the wrong way on the one way and also fired off its siren and a couple of cops got out.

Dougherty said, “Okay, time to go, come on.”

By then the crowd was breaking up anyway. There weren't really that many brawlers and the rest of the hockey fans were coming out of the Forum then and heading for the Métro and the parking lots.

Dougherty was moving into the crowd, looking for anyone who still wanted to throw a punch but those guys had moved on. As he was coming back to the car, he saw a guy getting into a four-door sedan in the parking lot across Closse Street, and he thought he recognized him.

When the car pulled out of the lot Dougherty was sure of it, and he jumped into the squad car and started after it. As he pulled away from the curb, Gagnon jumped in front and he slammed on the brakes and yelled, “Get in, quick.”

The sedan headed down the hill on Atwater and Dougherty followed.

Gagnon said, “What are you doing?”

“I've been looking for that guy.”

“How can you even tell who it is?”

“I'm pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure?”

The sedan turned onto Notre Dame and then turned again onto a street lined with three-storey row houses.

Dougherty turned the corner and saw the sedan was stopped and a guy was getting out of the driver's side. Then Dougherty was sure.

It was Martin Comptois.

Then a guy got out of the passenger seat and Dougherty said to Gagnon, “You get him,” and pressed the brakes and opened the door. Dougherty moved fast and was almost beside him before Comptois turned. Dougherty said, “
Eille, bouge pas.
”

Comptois smiled and said, “
Qu'est-ce que tu veux, man?
”

Dougherty glanced over and saw Gagnon had his hand on the other guy's arm so he said to Comptois in French, “Don't you remember me? I came to see you in Cornwall. I knew you were out.”

“You keeping tabs on me?” Comptois was still smiling, and Dougherty grabbed his arm, twisted him around and had his hands cuffed before Comptois knew what was happening.

“Another girl got raped,” Dougherty said. “So, I knew you were back in town.”

The smile was gone. Comptois said, “Fuck you.”

“No,” Dougherty said, “someone's going to fuck you. Lots of guys.”

He shoved him into the back of the squad car and saw Gagnon doing the same with the other guy.

Back at Station Ten, the place was full of cops still staring at the TV in disbelief. The three parties had split the vote and the PQ ended the night with a majority government. Most of the cops were like Dougherty, they didn't have strong feelings about it one way or the other, they still had jobs to do, but everyone knew it wasn't just an election like any other. It was big.

The cells were empty when Dougherty and Gagnon dumped in Comptois and the other guy. Dougherty hadn't even asked him if he was Marc-André Daigneault, but he was pretty sure. The thing was, he really had no evidence at all.