Asylum (7 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Monday morning I was in and out of my department in record time. Chantal waved messages at me; I grabbed them and made the calls that absolutely couldn’t be postponed. Then I called Richard into my office.

He was looking haggard. “You’re not sleeping,” I said as soon as I saw him.

He shrugged. “I’m trying.”

“Do you need time off? I should have offered before, I’m sorry.”

He leaned forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. “No. No, I’m all right.
Ne vous inquiétez pas.”
He glanced up and I saw the pain in his eyes. “It’s better if I’m working.”

I wondered if I should say anything else personal, and didn’t know what that should be. “Okay, then, if that’s the way it is, I’ve got a lot of work for you.” I handed him the telephone messages from Chantal. “I need you to take over for me for a while.”

His eyes widened in panic. “You’re not going away?”

“No,” I said quickly. “No, nothing like that. I’m just going to be assisting the police in their investigation, and I’ll probably be out of the office a lot. You can pull Catherine from public affairs if you need help, I’ll authorize it.”

Richard was staring at me. “The mayor wants you to be working on it full-time?”

“The mayor wants this man caught. None of us will have anything to do, full-time or not, unless he is. So I’m going to be doing what I can to help.”

He nodded. “
Bien, alors
.”

“I’ll be checking in with you,” I said, standing up, reaching for my jacket and purse. His look of misery was getting to me. “Richard.” I paused. “I know I already said this on Friday, but I’m truly so sorry about Danielle.”

He nodded again. “
Merci
.” His tone answered my question: clearly no trespassers allowed there, so I didn’t trespass. I could feel his sadness following me down the corridor like an unhappy wraith, and breathed the air outside with relief.

It was time to check in with my boss.

His assistant was out of the office, so I tapped on his door and let myself in. I’m more of a get-to-the-point type. “Ah, Madame LeDuc,” my boss said, for once not upset with my lack of protocol. “You have something to report already?” He sounded hopeful. Maybe his choice of pencil-pusher had come up aces after all.

There was another man with him in the room, a distinguished-looking gentleman in his mid-sixties dressed in an expensive suit, and—it seemed to me—extremely fit. All right, so I notice. As Ivan says, there’s nothing wrong with window-shopping. He stood up politely as I entered, a nicety I appreciated, one that my boss never bothered with. “I don’t believe you’ve met. Madame Martine LeDuc, Monsieur Robert Carrigan.”

I offered my hand. “
Monsieur
,” I said politely.

His eyes were amused. “Madame LeDuc. I hear such good things about you.”

Well, that would be a change, anyway. “I’m honored to hear it,” I murmured.

“So difficult, I would think,” he said, “being the publicity director for such a large city. I trust that my friend Jean-Luc is giving you as much support as you require?” There was an undertone of amusement in his voice and I found myself warming to him.

“As much as he believes I require,” I answered with a smile of my own.

The mayor snorted. “I
am
in the room, you know.”

We both ignored him. “You have been friends with the mayor for a long time,
monsieur
?”

He inclined his head, an almost royal gesture; he was very stylish. “We have known each other for some years,” he admitted. “I am the lead attorney representing a local pharmaceutical company.” A quicksilver smile. “But no need to bore you with the details. And now I should leave you to your work together. There is much to be done to keep Montréal’s publicity positive, I am sure.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who could insult my boss that elegantly was okay in my book.

The mayor clearly wasn’t sure how to take that. “We were just finishing up here. We still haven’t decided—”

The attorney’s eyes were twinkling. “My company is honored to support the mayor in his political endeavors,” he told me by way of explanation.

Ah: I had him now. Attorney and—no doubt—lobbyist. Pharmaceutical companies often have deep pockets, and in my boss’s worldview, the deeper the better. “I’m sure that he’s grateful,” I said. The joys of politics.

“We hope he is,” said Robert Carrigan smoothly, and I could swear he winked at me. He turned to the mayor. “I’ll leave you, then, Jean-Luc. And don’t forget about Friday night. Just a short speech will be fine.”

“Of course, of course,” my boss said, waving him out of the room. “Madame LeDuc, you have something to report?”

The door closed behind the lobbyist and I turned to face the mayor. “I have been doing liaison work with the SPVM,” I said smoothly. “A
détective-lieutenant
named Julian Fletcher.” I waited a moment for the name to sink in.

It did. “A police officer?” He sounded shocked. The Westmount Fletchers went in for public service, but at a rather higher level than the Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal.

“A very competent detective,” I corrected him.

“Well,” said the mayor, “then he will want this wrapped up quickly.” As if just wanting it could make it so.

“Of course he does,” I said. “As we all do,
monsieur le maire
.”

“
Alors
,” he said, picking up a random piece of paper and scowling at it, “you should shut the door on your way out.”

For once, I was happy to do exactly what my boss wanted.

*   *   *

Julian was in high spirits. “We’ve all been thinking chronologically,” he said over the phone. “Even me. ’Cause the theory, you know, the theory goes that someone like this progresses from one victim to the next, establishes a pattern, does what feels logical to them, sometimes decompensates…” His voice trailed off and I could almost feel his shrug. “So everybody looks at the timeline. But what if the timeline is for shit? What if it’s not about a pattern?” The questions were clearly rhetorical. “Let’s start where he left off. Let’s start with Danielle.”

“My deputy,” I said in a neutral voice, “was dating her.”

That was news to Julian. “I haven’t seen his statement,” he said. “They had people in all weekend, didn’t see him there.”

“I expect that he’ll go in to see them today,” I said tiredly. “He has a place he rents in the Laurentians, probably went there over the weekend.” Richard, Richard, I thought: why did you run? It didn’t look good. It didn’t look good at all.

Julian was thinking about this one. “Seriously? I mean, were they serious about each other?”

“I don’t know. Probably not, or I would’ve heard her name. But Richard is a very private person.” His office, unlike mine, was not filled with pictures of family, keepsakes, or memories. He had art, good art, original art; that was all.

“Okay. Well, anyway, getting back to what I was saying, we won’t walk all over anybody’s toes. Let’s start at work. Where she worked, I mean. You went to UQAM, didn’t you?” It was pretty clear that he hadn’t; the Fletchers were Anglophones all the way. Stretching back untold generations. “So, anyway, you know the place. Can you go check out her office?”

Pourquoi pas?

The UQAM library was less than bustling, but all the staff seemed preoccupied and busy. I waited until the worried-looking, middle-aged head of the library had time to deal with me. “We have already been talking with the police,” she said cautiously, looking at my card. “Forgive me,
madame
, but what is your interest in this situation?”

“I’m working with the police,” I said confidently, trying the expression on for size. “Trying to gather more background information.”

She handed me back the card, solemnly. “
Bien
. What can I tell you?”

“Danielle Leroux worked for you here?” I asked. Julian had given me a notebook. I opened it to the first page, virginal, waiting for whatever information might come my way. “Don’t trust yourself to remember anything,” he’d told me before we disconnected our phone conversation. “Everyone forgets. Write down everything.”

Holmes to Watson, over and out.

The head librarian cleared her throat. “Mademoiselle Leroux was our research librarian,” she corrected me. “As such, I did not supervise her directly, and our work did not often intersect. But she worked here, yes.”

I had no idea what information would be helpful, nor what the police would have already asked her over the weekend. “
Madame
, do you know anything about what she was working on? What kinds of projects?”

She shrugged. “It is not my area, you understand,
madame
. But I can show you her office if you like.”

“Very much,” I said quickly. “For whom did she do this research? For students? Professors?”

“Yes, for both,” she responded, leading me down a corridor and unlocking a door at the end of it. “
Voilà
. The office of Mademoiselle Leroux.” She gestured with a flourish. “I will leave you,
madame
. You can find me if you have any more questions.” It is Monday morning, her tone implied, and I have better things to do than talk with the
directrice de publicité
.

I was relieved to be alone. Better to snoop in private when one is unaccustomed to snooping, I thought, moving over to the desk, sitting down automatically behind it. It was a small, narrow office, with a grimy window that overlooked nothing much at all, and the kind of bookcases on the walls that are put up using strips of metal into which one fits the supports for shelves. They were filled with reference books, these shelves, most of them in French, in keeping with UQAM’s status as part of Québec’s primary French-speaking university system.

I sat behind the desk and tried to imagine Danielle here.

The laughing eyes must have turned serious while she worked, I thought; and there was more than enough work obviously taking place here to keep her feeling the weight of her job responsibilities. Piles of papers, folders, and books were scattered around the surface of the desk. I moved a pile and it slid noisily to the floor; behind it I saw what I hadn’t seen in my deputy’s office, a small framed picture of Richard and Danielle together, both of them laughing; it seemed to have been taken in the countryside, on a hot brilliant summer day.

That did it. I put my face in my hands and cried.

*   *   *

If Danielle Leroux’s office held any secrets when I arrived, it still held them when I left.

I’d dutifully taken notes, of course, copying names scrawled on folders, glancing through the contents. She had been doing historical research lately, it seemed, on behalf of two different professors; one was looking into the fur trade, the other into the history of the province’s separatist movement. The latter held my attention for a while; there was enough passion on both sides of the separatist issue to provoke violence; but this was an old argument, one that had taken place long ago over issues that were no longer even contested.

Her computer might have held more, but it was password-protected, and no one appeared to know what that password might be. “If it’s a university computer,” I asked diffidently, “surely there’s some way to override the password?”

Ah, yes, the young student at the front desk agreed. The IT department would be able to, surely. But they would not.

“Excuse me?”

“
Non, non, madame
,” she said. “It is not because of you. They are most difficult to work with, even for the smallest of problems. You would need authority before they would consent to come and do such a thing.” She shrugged. “They showed the police the password, they had the authority, I suppose.”

“Authority?” But even as I spoke the word, I knew that she was right. My own experience working within the political bureaucracy told me that the university would be no different. Better to find another way in. “Thank you,” I said to the student, and left.

“We should try and see what’s there before they decide to wipe it,” I told Julian, my only bright idea of the morning, when we met for lunch. It was unclear whether or not I’d be able to expense it, I thought ruefully as I ordered my favorite
crêpe aux champignons
at the Breton crêperie on Saint-Denis; but I’d fight that battle when I came to it.

Julian had spent the morning with Danielle’s landlady, who didn’t actually live in the same building as the apartments she rented, but had a small place near Chinatown. Communication had been difficult. “She’s ninety if she’s a day, and hard of hearing,” he pronounced, “so it would have been difficult even if she
did
want to speak English, which she made clear that she did not. Seemed disappointed that I knew how to speak French. Thought she could one-up me.”

I could just imagine his accent. “I could talk to her, if you’d like,” I offered.

“No problem. We got along well once we started talking about Danielle. Danielle was the nicest tenant you could ever hope for, and why she wasn’t married was a mystery, pretty as she was and smart, too,” he said, and I could hear the woman’s voice coming through in his. “Never forgot her landlady’s birthday, if you can believe it, and never any complaints in the building about loud music at night, not like some she could mention.”

“So Danielle was a saint,” I said, watching the server approach with our
crêpes
. I waited until she had set them down and we’d thanked her. “Who kills a saint?”

“One of those motorcycle maniacs, you want the landlady’s opinion,” said Julian, forking ham and béchamel sauce into his mouth. “She’s not that far off, though, honestly. I think some of my colleagues have been looking hard at the Angels.” He shook his head. “But they look hard at the Angels for everything, and they’re usually right.”

“And the motorcycle gang has a new affinity for middle-aged women?” I asked, thinking of Annie Desmarchais. As far as I’d been able to see, the women on the backs of the cycles were barely of legal age.