Black Rock (16 page)

He recognized her Nova Scotian accent and wondered how long she'd been in the big city. “We'll see how long this takes.”

In the manager's office, Dougherty was surprised to see the shoplifter was a well-dressed man in his fifties. Looked just like the manager. They were sitting across the desk from each other.

“About time,” the manager said, and it looked to Dougherty like the shoplifter was about to say exactly the same thing.

There was a third man in the office, a little younger, a little more round in the middle, standing beside the manager's desk with the same indignant look on his face as the other two.

Dougherty said, “All right, what happened?” and the manager said, “What do you mean, what happened? I told the officer everything on the phone.”

“Could you tell me again?”

The manager gave an exasperated sigh, and it seemed to Dougherty the shoplifter did, too. This was nothing like the usual shoplifting call he went on, where he'd be met with a sobbing housewife begging the manager not to tell her husband.

“As I explained to the officer on the phone,” the manager said, “he stole something.”

The shoplifter said, “I did not.”

“You put the watch strap in your pocket and you walked out of the store.”

“I told you, I was looking at watch straps and hadn't decided, and I got distracted and I forget I had it in my hand.”

“It was in your pocket.”

“It was not.”

Dougherty looked at the guy standing beside the desk and figured he was the floorwalker who'd grabbed the ­shoplifter. “Was it in his hand or in his pocket?”

Before the guy could say anything, the manager said, “What difference does it make? He took it out of the store without paying for it.”

“I offered to pay.”

“Oh sure, once you got caught.”

Now Dougherty was trying not to laugh, these two guys both trying as hard as they could to be the more dignified outraged party and both of them looking pathetic. Dougherty said, “So, it was a watch strap?”

The manager picked it up off his desk and waved it around saying, “Leather.”

“Two dollars,” the shoplifter said.

The manager turned on the guy. “It doesn't matter how much it costs, two dollars or two thousand.”

“It's only two dollars.”

“Only, only, only. It doesn't matter what it only costs — you didn't pay for it!”

“I'll pay for it now.”

“It's too late now.”

Dougherty said, “Is it?”

The manager looked up at him and said, “What do you mean? Of course it is.”

“Well, as much as I'd love to spend the afternoon down at Station Ten writing up this report,” Dougherty said, “and as much as we'd all love to take a day off work and go down to the courthouse and pay some lawyers, I'm wondering if we really have to.”

The shoplifter looked like he was almost amused, but the manager wasn't cracking. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“I really thought you'd be able to tell.”

“Well, I never …”

“Yeah, sure you have. So why not now?” Dougherty looked at the shoplifter. “What do you say, Mr.…?”

“Barrett.”

“What do you say Mr. Barrett here pays you for the watch strap. And the next time he wants to spend twenty-five dollars on a watch he'll come here and not Eaton's.”

“I don't want him here.”

“I guess that's up to you.”

“If I want him charged, you'll have to charge him.”

“Yeah, I will, sure.”

That seemed to make the manager happy, or at least less angry, to know that it was still his decision. Dougherty knew then how it would go, how the manager would make a big deal about letting the guy go and the guy would refuse to admit that he'd done anything wrong and they'd both think they were the one who made the big concession and took the high road and that's exactly how it went.

Walking back out through the main floor of the store Dougherty didn't see the Nova Scotian salesgirl and he figured it was just as well. After taking down such big-time criminals he needed to get his bearings back.

Then he realized what he actually needed to do was something important, so he stopped off at his apartment, got his envelope full of pictures of big square cars and drove down the hill to the Point to find Gail Murphy.

chapter

fourteen

Gail Murphy pulled out one of the pictures. “This one.”

“You're sure?”

“Yeah, I saw it again.”

The Lincoln. The picture Dougherty had was from an accident at the St. Laurent Boulevard exit from the Ville-Marie Tunnel. The Lincoln was hit by a delivery truck turning onto Berri, but there wasn't much damage to either vehicle.

“When did you see it?”

Gail shrugged and took a drag on the cigarette Dougherty had given her, then exhaled a long stream of smoke, chewed her bottom lip and said, “On the weekend. Sunday?”

While Dougherty was at the ident office with Rozovsky getting the pictures. While the task force was up in Prévost raiding the cottage.

“Where was it? Did you see who was driving?”

Dougherty was leaning against his squad car, parked by the CN rail yard around the corner from the Boys & Girls Club, where he'd seen Gail and waved to her. They weren't really out of sight, but they were far enough away that she'd talk to a cop.

“No, I didn't see anybody in the car, it just drove by.”

“What street was it on?”

She thought for a moment. “Wellington.”

“Where on Wellington?”

“By Bridge Street.”

“Was it turning onto Wellington like it just came from the Victoria Bridge, or was it coming straight down Wellington from downtown?”

“I don't know, it might have been coming down Bridge the other way.”

Right away Dougherty thought of the Arawana, the tavern on the corner. “What time was this?”

“Eleven?”

Dougherty looked at her, raising his eyebrows, and Gail added, “Maybe midnight.”

“You're out late.”

“Who cares?”

He let that go. “But you didn't see the driver?”

“No.”

“Was there anybody else in the car?”

“I don't think so.”

“Okay, now was it just like this,” he held up the picture, “but different colours, or were they any other differences?”

“No, it was just like that, but white with a black roof.”

The Lincoln in the picture was red with a black roof, a '
66
, in pretty good shape. Dougherty said, “No rust? No scrapes or dents?”

“It just drove by — it might not even be the same car.”

Yeah, but Dougherty could tell she knew it was the same car. Maybe she wouldn't want that in an official statement, maybe it was dark and the car just drove by and she didn't know any of the details, but she knew. He said, “Okay, that's good. This car probably has nothing to do with this, but you be careful, okay?”

Gail took a last drag and flicked the cigarette onto the street, then said, “Sure, of course,” and moved away.

She got all the way around the car and looked back at Dougherty and said, “See you around,” and he said, “Oh yeah, you'll be seeing plenty of me.”

He watched her walk back up to the Boys & Girls Club and then he got into the squad car and started it up. He drove slowly through the Point, not expecting to see the Lincoln, or really having any idea what he was looking for.

After going up and down a few streets, Dougherty finally headed up the hill and punched out for the day.

Instead of walking the couple of blocks to his apartment he hopped on the Métro at Guy, took it to the Champ-de-Mars station and walked to police HQ on Bonsecours.

Rozovsky was in the ident office, and he looked up and said, “More cars?”

“Just narrowing it down now. Looks like a Lincoln.”

“You use the one from the accident in the Ville-Marie Tunnel?”

Dougherty said yeah, and then saw the photos spread out on the desk in front of Rozovsky. “This from the raid at the cottage?”

“Evidence photos. Such big plans they had: a press release, a manifesto, a list of demands.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dougherty said, “‘By the kidnapping of Consul Burgess the FLQ wishes to emphasize its revolutionary solidarity with all of the countries which struggle against the economic, cultural and social domination of the Americans in the world.' Are they serious?”

“They're going to save us all.”

“‘Harrison W. Burgess is in the hands of the Front de Libération du Québec. Here are the terms on which his life depends.' They must be going crazy upstairs.”

“It's exactly the same as the ones from last February,” Rozovsky said. “Here, look what's written in the margin:
Operation Marcil-Lanctôt
.”

“Who wrote that?”

“One of the terrorists, I guess. It was on the press release when they found it in the cottage.”

“Lanctôt, he was one of the ones from last winter?”

“Yeah, just change the name Harrison Burgess to Moshe Golan and the rest is the same. Well, except for the part about their revolutionary solidarity with the world against America.”

Dougherty said, “Lanctôt's out on bail, isn't he?”

“Yeah, him and a few others. Every cop in the city is looking for them.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Now they think he'll grab someone else and add the names of the ones we just picked up to this list of political prisoners they want freed.”

Dougherty looked at the list of names and said, “There's Geoffroy. Guy blew up the stock exchange — they expect him to be let out?”

“Maybe that's a negotiating point,” Rozovsky said. “Maybe they'll give up on him if they can get their five hundred grand in gold.”

Dougherty laughed and said, “Yeah. A half a million dollars in gold — a voluntary tax they call it. Not like they're going to spend it here — they want a flight to Cuba or Algeria. Shit, they don't even know where they're going.”

“But they know they're not staying here,” Rozovsky said.

“Well, who'd want to? There's bombs going off and people getting kidnapped — this place isn't safe,” Dougherty said. Then he read the rest of the press release. “There's really nothing here about what they want for Quebec.”

“They want the Lapalme drivers rehired.”

Dougherty said, “Yeah, the drivers don't get any of the gold? Seems like an afterthought, the guys who were fired for being on strike.”

Rozovsky said, “They shouldn't have lost their jobs,” and Dougherty said, “You sound like my dad. But you're right, they shouldn't've lost their jobs. But that's it?”

“That's it. Oh, and the one-hour broadcast on the CBC.”

Dougherty looked at the other pictures scattered over the desk. “What else did they find?”

“The money from the university robbery, or some of it, and you know about the guns?”

“The sawed-off shotguns and the revolvers?”

“And dynamite.”

“The usual.”

Rozovsky said, “Yeah, the usual.”

Dougherty didn't say anything then. What was there to say? And then Rozovsky said, “So you want more pictures of cars?”

“One of the witnesses is pretty sure it's a Lincoln.”

“Pretty sure?”

“She's sure. If the other witness is also sure then I can start looking at Lincoln drivers.”

“That's your plan?”

Dougherty shrugged and looked around the empty room. “Gotta do something.”

“How many Lincolns are there in town?”

“No idea, but first I'm going to try and narrow down the year. Have you got any pictures of a '
65
, and a '
67
or '
68
?”

“Are they that different?”

“I don't know.”

Rozovsky said, “Why don't you go to a dealer? They'll have old brochures or they'll be able to tell you what the differences are.”

“Good idea. Where is there a Lincoln dealer?”

Rozovsky said, “I don't know — Latimer's on St. Catherine?”

“That's Ford.”

“Mid-Town Motors.”

“Oh yeah, on Dorchester,” Dougherty said. “And Bishop, between Bishop and Crescent. No, wait, that's a Chrysler dealer.”

“What about a used lot?”

Dougherty said, “Yeah, maybe,” and then, “Hang on, there's one in Verdun. Cooke-something.”

“There's got to be others.”

“Cooke-Toledo Mercury-Lincoln, up where the avenues start. First Avenue, Second Avenue, near there, what's the street on the east side?”

“I'm from Côte Saint-Luc — what do I know about Verdun?”

“I think it's on Verdun Avenue.”

“If you say so.”

“All right, I'm going to try that.”

Dougherty started out and Rozovsky said, “Hey, have you seen that girl again, what was her name?”

“Ruth Garber?”

“Yeah, you still seeing her?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know?”

“Well, I don't think I will.”

“Maybe you'll get lucky, maybe there'll be another murder.”

“I hope not.”

“I'm joking.”

Dougherty said, “Oh, right,” and then, “You working nights all week?”

“Till Friday.”

“Okay. I'll probably be back.”

Riding the Métro back downtown, Dougherty was thinking about Ruth Garber, how he wanted to see her, go on another date and then back to her place again. So when the train pulled into the McGill station he got off and walked out through the
2020
Mall to de Maisonneuve Boulevard and then a couple blocks up University to the McGill campus. It was just after seven and the place was almost empty, near the end of June, not much going on. Dougherty walked through the Roddick Gates and looked around. He didn't expect to see Ruth; he didn't know what to expect. The big lawn spread out like a couple of football fields, but it was empty, no groups of students protesting anything.

Dougherty stood by the gates and could hear his father's voice, the old man talking about that “piece of paper” and how important it was. Dougherty had no doubt that that was true but it didn't make it right for him.

Over the past couple of years McGill had had a few protests but nothing like on an American campus. Dougherty figured with no draft to protest, no troops going to Vietnam, it just wasn't the same. There was the McGill Français protests, but now with the construction of UQAM starting and Université du Québec campuses going up all over the province — Chicoutimi, Trois Rivières, Rimouski — it looked like making McGill more French wouldn't be as big a deal.

But Dougherty had no idea anymore why some things became a big deal and others didn't. He watched a couple of girls cross the campus towards him and he realized he was still wearing his uniform. He thought for a moment they'd call him a pig and tell him to get off the campus, but by the time they got to him they were giggling and smiling and one of them was poking the other, and when they passed Dougherty one of them said, “Officer,” and then they rushed out through the gates to Sherbrooke Street.

Flirting.

Dougherty waited a few minutes, then walked along Sherbrooke himself. He walked all the way to Guy, passing people out on dates and store windows filled with mannequins wearing colourful summer clothes. Maybe it had something to do with the long, cold winter but to Dougherty it felt like summer in Montreal was appreciated, maybe even savoured, a little more than in other cities.

None of these people out having a good time looked at all worried a bomb might blow up a building or guys with sawed-off shotguns might rob the bank next door or kidnap someone going to dinner at the Ritz-Carlton.

Or that someone driving a Lincoln Continental might grab a girl off the street and rape and strangle her.