A Little More Free Read online

  As much as Dougherty could tell Buckley wanted to say fuck you and walk away, he knew he wouldn’t. Just the chance of having something on a cop, especially Dougherty, was too much for an ambitious guy like Buck-Buck to let pass, so he said, “How much is it worth to you?”

  Dougherty said, “It could be worth something.”

  “You can’t afford me, Dougherty,” Buckley said. “Not anymore.”

  “Somebody killed him on Mount Royal, last Satur­day night.”

  “Saturday? I was at the hockey game. Assholes.”

  “He was probably bringing in dope from the States, maybe he was a little competition for you.”

  “Shit, Dougherty, you don’t have any idea what’s going on, do you?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Mount Royal in the middle of the night? Probably a fag.”

  “You’d know all the hangouts,” Dougherty said, and he expected Buckley to get mad but he didn’t.

  “And you don’t know shit.”

  He pushed off the bar and put his highball glass down. “See you around.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, you will.”

  He watched Buckley walk through the club, stopping to say hi to people and people stopping him all the way to the door — handshakes, backslaps, eye contact. Buck-Buck knew almost everyone.

  And Dougherty realized there wasn’t a single person in the club he recognized.

  * * *

  “She called,” Carpentier said and Dougherty said, “Who?”

  “The mother, Mrs. Murray. She remembered the name of someone David was working with.”

  Dougherty rolled over in bed and picked up his watch from the nightstand. Eight fifteen. He said, “She just called?”

  “They’re leaving now, driving back to Wisconsin,” Carpentier said. “I think her husband was out, getting breakfast or something, I’m not sure, but she called. I’ll meet you at Station Ten in half an hour.”

  Dougherty said okay and hung up. He was showered and dressed and walking the two blocks to the station when he thought for the first time that it was his day off, a rare Saturday off, and he wouldn’t be able to put in for overtime unless Carpentier officially requested it, something Dougherty doubted would happen.

  The detective was waiting in his Bonneville, idling on de Maisonneuve outside the station house, and he rolled down the window and said, “Va chercher deux cafés.”

  “Et des beignes?”

  Dougherty didn’t wait for an answer and went into the greasy spoon on the corner and ordered two large coffees to go.

  In the car, Carpentier took his paper cup and bent back the plastic tab on the cover and then folded out the two handles. Dougherty had never seen anyone actually use those little handles, but Carpentier held the cup and drank as he put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.

  Dougherty said, “Where are we going?”

  “Just across the border.”

  “Into the U.S.?”

  “No, the Ontario border, a place called Vankleek Hill.” Carpentier motioned to a map on the seat and Dougherty picked it up.

  “Oh, Vankleek Hill. Why are we going there?”

  “Mrs. Murray said that David was staying with some people, some Americans, who have a farm near there.”

  “A commune?”

  “A what?”

  “Is it a hippie commune?”

  “Why, you’re not wearing the beads and the poncho?”

  “Did she say David was living there?”

  “She wasn’t sure. She didn’t have an address or anything, she just knew it was a farm in Ontario and she had a name, Scott Parker. I did a property search.”

  “Do you know anything about this guy?”

  “Just that he bought the property a few years ago.”

  They were on the 2-20 then, heading west out of town, passing through the suburbs, Baie-D’Urfé and Beaconsfield and then over the bridge and off the island of Montreal into Vaudreuil.

  Carpentier finished off his coffee and got out his cigarettes so Dougherty reached in his coat pocket and got out his own pack and his lighter, which he flicked on and held for Carpentier.

  “Did you see that game?” Carpentier said. “In­cr­oyable.”

  “And now Savard is coming home with a broken ankle, how much of the season will he miss?”

  “That speech Esposito gave,” Carpentier said shaking his head. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. The Russian amateurs are as good as our professionals. We knew it was coming.”

  Dougherty said, “We did?” and Carpentier said, “Yes, do you remember a few years ago when the Russian team played the Junior Canadiens?”

  “No.”

  “They lost, the Russians, by a lot, nine to two or three,” Carpentier said. “After the game the coach said, ‘We learned a lot.’”

  “They were playing patsy?”

  Carpentier looked sideways at Dougherty and said, “They were learning, like he said. This is the same team, the only difference is the goalie.”

  “Did you hear what Plante did?”

  “Jacques Plante? No, what?”

  Dougherty rolled the window down a little and exhaled smoke. “Before the first game in Montreal — seems like a long time ago now, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyway, before the game Plante took a translator and went into the Russian dressing room and talked to their goalie, went over all the Canadian players — what to expect, how they play, everything.”

  Carpentier nodded and didn’t say anything for a moment and then said, “Well, that’s Plante, eh? Cares more about the goalie than anything. And he’s a sportsman. And this series, it’s supposed to be about bringing us closer, no? Détente, or whatever the Americans are calling it.”

  “That was when we thought we’d win all eight games.”

  Carpentier laughed. “Anyway, this Russian goalie, Tretiak, he’s a teenager and he’d never seen professional hockey players in his life. C’est bien, what Plante did.”

  “Goalies have to stick together?”

  “Like cops,” Carpentier said.

  Dougherty thought he saw him wink but he wasn’t sure.

  “And the Olympics are over in Munich and we’re next,” Carpentier said. “We’ll have to be ready.”

  “You think something will happen? More kidnappings, assassinations?”

  Carpentier shrugged and said, “Anything’s possible, non?”

  “I was at the ceremony at Mackenzie King Park.”

  “Why did you go to that?”

  “Undercover assignment,” Dougherty said. “One of the museum workers went.”

  “You’re really working,” Carpentier said.

  “Yeah.”

  Carpentier smoked and flicked ash out the window. “Israel has already bombed some places in Lebanon and Syria.”

  “What?”

  “They say guerrilla bases.”

  “So this could still be going on in four years,” Dougherty said and Carpentier said, “This or something else.”

  Half an hour later they saw the sign on the Trans-Canada saying Welcome to Ontario and Carpentier slowed down. Dougherty thought he was reluctant to leave Quebec, but then Carpentier said, “Should we pick her up?”

  Dougherty said, “She looks like my sister.”

  The car ahead of them had also slowed down and pulled onto the shoulder and as they passed it Dougherty saw the girl was older than Cheryl, ­probably in her mid-twenties. She tossed a bag into the back seat and hopped into the front. It looked like a middle-aged woman was driving the car.

  “Did you see the warning,” Carpentier said, “that the QPF issued? Did you know that in May and June there were over one hundred sexual assaults on hitchhikers?”

  “No, I didn’t.�
��

  “That’s just what got reported.”

  For a second Dougherty could easily imagine his sister, Cheryl, jumping into a car with anyone who stopped but then he had to admit to himself that maybe that was a couple of years ago, maybe now she wouldn’t do something like that. Or maybe he just wanted to think that about Cheryl because now he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually had a conversation with her.

  A few minutes later, they were in the small town of Vankleek Hill and needed directions to find Dunvegan Road, passing through rolling hills and farms, past Aberdeen Road, Lochnivar Road, Fraser Road — Carpentier saying it was so Irish and Dougherty saying, “Scottish,” and then, “We passed D’Aoust, that’s French.”

  A few miles along Dunvegan Road, Carpentier slowed down, looking at the farm houses all set back off the road and the mailboxes with names on them and little flags, all down.

  Then Carpentier turned onto a tree-lined driveway and as they passed the mailbox Dougherty didn’t see a name. He said, “Are you sure this is it?” and Carpentier pointed behind the red-brick farmhouse to an old school bus painted bright red and blue and orange and green and said, “Yes, I think so.”

  He stopped the Bonneville beside the house and a woman came out of the kitchen and stood by the door.

  Carpentier got out of the car and said, “Bonjour, hello.”

  The woman said, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Dougherty was out of the passenger side then and looking over the roof of the car towards the woman, and now he realized she wasn’t much older than he was, between twenty-five and thirty for sure, her hair in a loose ponytail, wearing a plaid work shirt and jeans. She didn’t smile.

  “You’re police?”

  Carpentier said, “Yes.”

  “You can’t come here.”

  “We only want to ask you about David Murray.”

  “We don’t have to say anything. You have to leave.”

  A man came out of the house then and said, “What’s going on, Penny?”

  “They’re police.”

  “From Montreal,” Carpentier said. “We want to talk to you about David Murray.”

  “What about David?”

  “Scott, don’t.”

  She was looking at Scott, but he was looking at Carpentier. “Why do you want to talk to us?”

  “David’s mother told me that he had been spending time here.”

  The man, Scott Parker, looked doubtful. “She told you that?”

  “To be honest,” Carpentier said, “she was somewhat reluctant.”

  Dougherty noticed that Carpentier was working hard to speak English with as little accent as possible and doing a pretty good job.

  Parker said, “No one likes to talk to cops.”

  Dougherty was going to say something about how only guilty people didn’t like talking to cops, but he saw Carpentier nod a little and look serious and maybe even a little understanding, and he figured the detective was playing them.

  “We’re trying to find out who killed David,” Carpentier said. “We’re homicide detectives.”

  Parker looked at Dougherty and said, “The Mod Squad needs to let his hair grow,” and Dougherty was thinking there was no way he’d ever have long hair and a beard like this loser. But he kept his mouth shut.

  “Perhaps there is somewhere we can sit,” Carpentier said, motioning towards the house.

  Parker looked at Penny and said, “What do you think? A cup of tea with the Gestapo?”

  She said, “We don’t have to.”

  “No, that’s true. It’s up to us, isn’t it?”

  He stared at Carpentier and Carpentier nodded, agreeing it was up to them, and that seemed to be good enough.

  “All right then, come on in.”

  Parker stepped aside and Penny gave him one more angry look, though now it was more resignation, and then she went inside. Carpentier followed and Dougherty and Parker had a little stare-down before they went in.

  “The tea isn’t necessary,” Carpentier said but Penny was already putting a kettle on the stove.

  There was a big wooden table in the kitchen with almost a dozen chairs around it, and Dougherty got the feeling the place was often full of people. There was a big pot on the stove that he figured was probably always there — add more water to the soup more people are coming, that kind of place.

  But today it was quiet and felt empty.

  Parker had come in and sat down in a chair near the head of the table, across from the big stove. Dougherty thought it was likely the guy’s usual spot where no one else ever sat, not that anyone would say that. Probably the spot where the guy ran all the discussions without really acting like a guy in charge.

  Carpentier sat at the table, but Dougherty was still standing by the door and now he was wondering if he was reading too much into everything, trying too hard to be a detective.

  Parker said, “So, David’s mother told you about us?”

  “Not really,” Carpentier said. “She mentioned your name,” nodding towards Parker, “and said you had a farm where David had been working.”

  At the stove, Penny made a dismissive sound, and Dougherty looked at her. She wasn’t looking at Carpentier, she was looking at Parker, and Dougherty could tell there was something going on there, he just couldn’t tell what.

  “That’s right,” Parker said, “David was helping out.”

  “How long had he been doing that?”

  Parker looked at Penny. “What would you say, six months?”

  She stared back at Parker for a moment before she said, “On and off.”

  “We have some greenhouses, mostly tomatoes. We’ve got strawberries and some corn. There’s always a lot to do.”

  And marijuana, Dougherty figured, but he didn’t say anything.

  “When was the last time you saw David?”

  The whistle went off on the kettle and Penny turned away from them and turned off the heat.

  Parker looked at Carpentier and said, “I’m not sure exactly … a couple of weeks ago?”

  “David was killed last Saturday,” Carpentier said, “a week ago today.”

  “He wasn’t on any kind of a schedule — he came and went.”

  Penny came to the table with mugs in one hand and a teapot in the other. She looked at Dougherty and said, “Are you going to sit?”

  He said, “Thank you,” and took the mug as he sat down across from Parker.

  Carpentier said, “It could be very important — can you remember anything more specific about the last time you saw David? Anything else going on at that time?”

  Parker looked at Penny again and said, “Was David here for the get-out-the-vote meeting? When was that, the weekend before?”

  Penny shrugged and Dougherty saw Parker almost smile and then say, “We’re really trying to get the ­students out to vote for McGovern. Since the Twenty-Sixth passed, it’ll be the difference.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carpentier said, “the Twenty-Six?”

  “Lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen,” Parker said. “Twenty-Sixth amendment. We get out the vote, McGovern will win.”

  Penny said, “Nixon stole this election a long time ago.”

  “She has no faith,” Parker said. “She’s a red-­diaper baby.” He was smiling, amused with himself. “Her parents were communists.”

  She stood up and walked to the stove. “Not communists.”

  Parker looked at Carpentier and said, “She went on freedom rides in her stroller. She was a student activist, she gave speeches about desegregation and civil rights, tried to organize the other students — in her grade school.”

  Dougherty couldn’t see Penny without turning around and making it obvious, but he knew what look was on her face — he was getting good enough at being a d
etective for that.

  “She can’t stop working,” Parker said, “even when she thinks all is lost.”

  Carpentier said, “Like a homicide investigation. We have to keep working, keep trying.” He was looking past Dougherty at Penny, but she didn’t say anything so after a moment Carpentier looked at Parker and said, “David was at this meeting, about the vote?”

  “Yeah, him and about twenty other people. I’m not going to give you their names so don’t bother asking.”

  Dougherty had a feeling that was to placate Penny.

  “We’re only interested in David,” Carpentier said, “and who he was with. Did he leave here with someone? Someone must have given him a ride back to Montreal?”

  “Sometimes he went to Toronto,” Parker said.

  “Why did he go to Toronto?”

  “David worked with deserters,” Parker said. “It’s not easy. After My Lai we started getting a lot more, a lot more who had been in Vietnam. They’re lost when they get here.”

  Carpentier said, “What do you mean?”

  “They usually come here from Europe. They leave the jungle in Vietnam and manage to get to Amsterdam, something like that. Then they get here with nothing, the clothes on their backs, in terrible shape.”

  Dougherty was thinking maybe they shouldn’t run away but Parker said, “We really have no idea what they’ve been through so it’s not up to us to judge.” He looked at Penny as he said that and kept looking at her, saying, “These guys, usually they don’t have any family support. Not support, I mean they’re usually working-­class guys, or poor, it’s not that their families don’t want to help them, they just don’t have the means. A lot of these guys, they’d never been outside the USA before they got sent to Vietnam. Never been outside their home states.”

  Dougherty wanted to turn around and see how Penny was taking this, it was so clearly directed at her, but he kept looking at Parker.

  “And they’re scared, they think the CIA is after them or the FBI.”

  “Or,” Penny said, “they’re working for the CIA, we don’t know.”

  “When we put together the manual we didn’t really think there’d be these kinds of guys, we thought it’d be all college students, guys like … me.”

  Carpentier said, “What manual is this?”