One or the Other Read online

  “I spoke to his mother in Sherbrooke, she hasn’t seen him since Christmas.”

  “Did you tell her why you were calling?”

  “No, I just said he might be a witness to something. I got the feeling she didn’t like policemen very much.”

  “Hard to believe,” Carpentier said, “but not everyone likes us. He has no record?”

  “No. He’s twenty-five years old, has no job I can find and never signed a lease.”

  “Can you find anyone else in his gang?”

  Dougherty said, “I don’t know that we can really call it a gang, it seems like it was mostly kids. The guy we talked to only knew them for a couple of weeks, says he’s never seen them since.”

  “You believe him?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Carpentier was sitting at his desk, and he nodded slowly. “So you want more time to work on this?”

  “I’m on the Olympic security now,” Dougherty said. “They’ve got so many guys on it, they won’t notice if I’m not there.”

  “Olympic security is important.”

  “You think someone’s really going to hijack a plane here or kidnap some athletes?”

  Carpentier shrugged a little and said, “I think it’s possible, don’t you?”

  “Possible, I guess.”

  “It could happen,” Carpentier said. “And if something does happen during the Olympics and there’s even a hint that our security wasn’t top rate it will be a huge problem.”

  “But if this guy kills a couple more kids on their way home from a concert, that can get buried in the press,” Dougherty said, “and no one will care.”

  “Ça suffit.”

  It was quiet for a moment. Dougherty knew he should apologize, but he also knew he was right so he didn’t want to.

  Then Carpentier said, “I can make sure you have access to the records department and to ident and to the labs. The support staff here will process your requests as if you work here. That’s the best I can do.”

  “That’s more than I’m asking for,” Dougherty said.

  “No, it’s not,” Carpentier said. “But it’s the best I can do now.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “How is it going over there? Have you seen Vachon and his squad?”

  “Alpha Team,” Dougherty said. “That’s one I didn’t apply for.”

  “A lot of guys did,” Carpentier said, “more than two hundred. They only picked eighty and then only forty-eight made it through the training.”

  “They showed us around their truck, their Mobile Command Unit. They’ve been running a lot of simulations, hostage situations, that kind of thing.”

  Carpentier said, “They have no budget problems.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Especially after what happened in Africa,” Carpentier said. “You know a few of the hostages were from Montreal.”

  “I saw that, a woman from Côte Saint-Luc and a priest, I think.”

  “And a couple of others.”

  “People keep saying it could happen here,” Dougherty said, “and sometimes it sounds like they hope something will.”

  “We need to be prepared.”

  Dougherty said, “At the briefing they explained to us that a terrorist attack that includes hijacking and kidnapping is called ‘a leverage situation,’ because there is a chance for negotiation. But a lone madman with a gun is a ‘revenge situation.’”

  “So what was Entebbe,” Carpentier said, “a hijacking and kidnapping but they didn’t want to negotiate?”

  “I’m sure there are many strategy meetings going on right now,” Dougherty said.

  “Yes, that’s for sure. I guess it’s something new, the rescue situation. What would we do if Israeli commandos came to Montreal?”

  “Take them to Schwartz’s for smoked meat?”

  Carpentier nodded but he didn’t smile. Then he said, “But really, they rescue a hundred hostages and lose only one? It’s a big deal.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, I get that.”

  “So,” Carpentier said, moving on, “you can still work with Legault?”

  “Yeah, working together isn’t the problem.”

  “Sometimes it happens,” Carpentier said, “people can’t work together.”

  “No, we can, we just have to find the time.”

  “Captain Allard will leave her alone as long as the case is open,” Carpentier said.

  “Legault is worried they’ll rule it a murder-suicide and close it.”

  “That could happen.”

  “Could we keep it open because the boy, Mathieu Simard, was found in Montreal?”

  “It would be difficult,” Carpentier said, “if Longueuil has closed the case. There would be a lot of politics. If you feel you’re close to something, that would be different.”

  “I’ll know better when I talk to this Martin Comptois. He’s a little hard to find.”

  “Do the best you can,” Carpentier said, and Dougherty felt it was a dismissal. He thanked Carpentier again and walked out of the homicide office.

  Dougherty wasn’t disappointed, he got as much as he was hoping for if he was honest with himself. Which he was, sometimes.

  * * *

  At the Queen Elizabeth Hotel loading dock, Dougherty watched a uniform cop he thought was about twelve years old direct traffic so the trucks could pull in off Belmont Street across from Central Station. There was a lineup of about five trucks.

  LeBlanc was sitting on a folding chair beside the shipping office reading the paper, telling Dougherty that the peace talks in Lebanon had been postponed and the civil war continued but he wasn’t sure who exactly was fighting, “Christians and Moslems, I think, but it might be communists.”

  Dougherty said, “On which side,” and LeBlanc said, “I don’t know.”

  Then LeBlanc said, “This China thing with Taiwan won’t go away.”

  “The Olympics aren’t getting cancelled.”

  “The IOC says Taiwan is China.”

  “And a billion Chinese say otherwise.”

  LeBlanc laughed. “And Trudeau says otherwise — he won’t back down.”

  A truck honked its horn, and then another joined in. Dougherty walked over to the big garage doors that had been open all morning and said to the uniform cop, “What’s the problem?”

  “No problem, it’s just slow going.”

  The driver hung out the window of the laundry truck and said, “I’ve got four more hotels to get to today.”

  “They’ll all be like this,” Dougherty said. “What can you do?”

  “I can lose my job if I don’t make the deliveries.”

  “Sorry, boss, nothing we can do.”

  The guy threw up his arms and shook his head.

  Dougherty said, “You want a cup of coffee?”

  “Then I’ll have to piss, where’m I gonna go?”

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Dougherty walked to the next couple trucks in line and spoke to the drivers, then he pulled over the uniform cop and said, “Four coffees, two cream and sugar and two black.”

  “I’m not a gofer.”

  “Come on, not today,” Dougherty said. “We’re in this together, right?”

  The uniform cop stared at Dougherty for a moment then nodded a little and said, “Don’t make a habit of this.”

  “For sure. They’ve got a coffee machine in the hotel.”

  The kid said, “Okay.”

  Dougherty walked back to the shipping office and sat down on another folding chair beside LeBlanc.

  “Hospital strike still going.”

  “Nurses?”

  “Fifty-five hundred of them. And x-ray technicians. Says here Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont won’t be ab
le to take Olympic athletes, they’ll have to go somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “English hospitals, the General and the Jewish General, I guess.”

  “Until they go on strike.”

  “The airline strike is settled,” LeBlanc said. “But people are still mad, some cabinet minister resigned, said the settlement was —” he squinted at the newspaper “— a betrayal of the cause of bilingualism and a blow to federalism in Quebec.”

  “Who’s next to go on strike?” Dougherty said.

  He was only joking, but LeBlanc said, “Liquor store workers, might start tomorrow.”

  Dougherty stood up and said, “I’ve got to find a pay phone.”

  He walked into the hotel through the loading doors and passed the uniform cop coming out carrying Styrofoam cups on a plastic tray, and he said, “Cookies, that’s a good idea, I didn’t think of that.” There were a half-dozen packets of chocolate chip cookies on the tray.

  “It was the girl at the desk,” the cop said.

  “Hospitality is her business.”

  Dougherty walked into the lobby of the hotel, which was very quiet. It was still a week away from the Olimpic opening ceremony and the big shots weren’t in town yet. He saw a row of three pay phone booths across the lobby and went into one of them, closing the door. The whole place, the Queen E, felt like something out of the ’50s to Dougherty, all the old wood and polished marble.

  He dropped a dime and dialled and when the receptionist answered he said, “Puis-je parler avec le sergent Legault, s’il vous plaît?”

  “Un moment.”

  Dougherty was sitting on the little seat in the booth, and he looked out into the lobby, watching the two women behind the counter chatting. One of them lit a cigarette and tilted her head back to blow smoke at the ceiling and she laughed at something the other woman said.

  Legault came on the phone then and said, “Ici Sergent Legault.”

  Dougherty spoke French, saying, “Hey, it’s me, how’s it going?”

  “Well, I’m in the office.”

  “Is that good?”

  “I’ve been given another assignment, I’m writing a report about the youth centre downtown.”

  “Downtown Montreal?”

  “No,” Legault said, sounding a little impatient, “downtown Longueuil.”

  Dougherty was about to say he didn’t realize Longueuil had a downtown, but he let that go and said, “They didn’t take you off the homicide?”

  There was a pause and then Legault said, “It’s still open. I think Detective Carpentier spoke to Captain Allard.”

  Dougherty was surprised to hear that. “Can you still get away when we need to?”

  “I think so. Have you got an address on Martin Comptois?”

  “Not yet. You still have a Louise Tremblay to see, right?”

  “Yes. Maybe later today.”

  At the hotel desk a couple of men were checking in and one of them was starting to get upset, waving his arms and raising his voice. Even from behind, from across the lobby, Dougherty had a very good idea what the guy looked like and what he was upset about.

  “Okay, will you be back in the office around five? I’ll call you then.”

  “Okay.”

  Dougherty hung up and walked across the lobby towards the front desk. By the time he got there, a man had come out of the office and was talking to the guy who was upset. Dougherty hung back a little and then took a few steps to the side of the counter, just beside the second guy, who wasn’t as upset as his friend but who Dougherty figured would certainly jump in if they didn’t get everything they wanted.

  The man from the office was saying, “As Mlle. Daoust has said, there is no problem for the first two days but after that there are no rooms available.”

  “I have stayed at this hotel for years.”

  As the guy went on about how important he was, Dougherty looked at the other woman behind the counter, a little older than Mlle. Daoust, maybe thirty, and she looked back and said, “May I help you, sir?”

  Dougherty said, a little too loudly, “I’m Detective Dougherty. We’re doing the hotel security prep, one of the other cops said there was coffee around here?”

  “Oh yes,” the woman said, “this way.” Her name tag said Amalia.

  Dougherty said, “Thanks.” He walked slowly around the front desk and figured that just announcing his presence would be enough to settle these guys down. They looked like businessmen in their forties, both of them wearing suits and carrying briefcases. Dougherty didn’t see any luggage, and he wondered about that, but he kept following Amalia into the coffee room.

  She was ahead of him, saying, “Cream and sugar?”

  “Just black, thanks.”

  She poured the coffee into a Styrofoam cup and handed it to him. “It’s really just beginning.”

  “I guess so. Are you ready for it?”

  “Oh yes.” She smiled. “I started working here during Expo. We were full every day for months.”

  “At least this’ll only be a couple of weeks.”

  “Yes,” Amalia said. “But to tell you the truth, it’s different.”

  “Yeah,” Dougherty said. “It’s more tense, isn’t it?”

  Amalia nodded. She was leaning back against the table and she said, “Would you like a cookie?”

  Dougherty felt the flirting and he said, “No, thanks.” He didn’t feel like a married man, he didn’t think, but he had lost interest in flirting. He said, “I better get back to work.”

  Amalia said, “Me, too. I’m working until six o’clock,” giving it one more try.

  They walked out of the break room together and saw that the two men at the front desk had left. The younger woman came over to Amalia, and they were deep in conversation immediately.

  When Dougherty finished his shift at the hotel, he phoned the Longueuil police station for Legault and was told she was at the hospital.

  “Why?”

  “I can’t say.”

  He was in the phone booth in the lobby of the hotel, and he closed the door and said, “I’m Detective Dougherty from Montreal, I’m working with her on an investigation. What’s going on?”

  After a pause the receptionist said, “There was an incident on the bridge, the Jacques Cartier. I don’t have any details, I just know Sergeant Legault was hurt and was taken to the Hôpital Charles-LeMoyne.”

  Dougherty hung up and ran to his car.

  * * *

  “I had him,” Legault said.

  Dougherty spoke French, saying, “What happened?”

  She was lying on the bed, one arm and one foot in a cast, and she said, “I don’t know.”

  Dougherty was the only other person in the room. He was sitting on the edge of the empty bed next to Legault’s and he waited.

  She said, “I was coming back to Longueuil — I went to see Louise Tremblay.”

  Dougherty wanted to ask if she had any information, but he didn’t want to interrupt.

  “I saw him, up on the . . .” She paused and then said, “La Tour Eiffel, you know?”

  “The ironwork,” Dougherty said. “The spires.”

  “He was climbing up when I stopped. I called to him, but he didn’t hear me, he was too high, there was too much noise, the traffic, the river.”

  “Yes.”

  “When I climbed up it was so quiet.”

  Dougherty realized she must have climbed very high up the spire.

  “But then I didn’t know what to say.”

  “I know.”

  Legault turned her head and looked at Dougherty. She said, “Have you ever seen a suicide?”

  “A couple times I’ve been first on the scene,” he said. “In the Métro, a guy jumped in front of the train at Guy station. And one time, a British guy, a w
ar veteran, shot himself in the head and I was the first one into the apartment where he did it.”

  Dougherty was looking down, and when he lifted his head Legault was nodding.

  Then she looked away and said, “I spoke to him. I even tried in English.” She almost smiled.

  “Was he English?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t think so.”

  Again, Dougherty waited.

  “He stopped climbing and looked back at me. I tried to say something, I tried to get him to talk to me, just to talk. I guess I didn’t say the right thing.”

  “Maybe there was no right thing,” Dougherty said.

  “He wasn’t young,” Legault said. “He wasn’t a boy, he was a man. He was maybe forty or forty-five. He was wearing a white shirt and a tie but no jacket.”

  “You always think there’s something you can do,” Dougherty said, “that there’s something more you can do. It’s why we join, isn’t it?”

  Legault nodded and said, “I thought if I could just talk to him I could get him to climb back down, but he just looked at me.” There were tears in her eyes. “And then he just let go.” She was crying then, tears running down her cheeks. She lifted a hand to her face.

  Dougherty saw a box of tissues on the table by the bed and pulled out a handful. He said, “It’s the worst thing to see.”

  Legault took the tissues and wiped her eyes but she was really crying now, barely able to speak, the words coming out broken. “He, he . . . passed right by me . . . looked right at me . . .”

  Dougherty sat back down on the bed.

  “I tried to grab him,” Legault said. “I reached out, we were so close. Then I fell.”

  Dougherty didn’t say anything. He thought about reaching out and taking her hand but he didn’t. He figured he and Legault worked together, he wouldn’t reach out and take LeBlanc’s hand.

  But Dougherty also knew that if he’d been on the bridge and reached out as the guy fell into the river so far below he’d be crying, too. He didn’t think he’d ever admit that to anyone but he knew it was true.

  Legault’s husband walked into the room then, carrying a couple of paper bags from St-Hubert BBQ and Dougherty stood up and held out his hand, saying, “Salut, tu dois être M. Legault.”