One or the Other (24 page)

“Yeah.”

“But you really don't know if those kids were killed.”

“No, I don't.”

“And there isn't even an investigation going on.”

“Just mine.”

“Do you really think doing exactly what they told you not to do will get you a promotion?”

“I don't know,” Dougherty said. “I don't care. I don't think I'm getting a promotion anyway.”

“Oh great, so what are you doing?”

“You know what I'm doing.”

“No, I don't. I don't have any idea what you're doing.”

Dougherty shrugged and drank more beer.

Then he said, “We talked about this.”

“We talked about doing a job. What we both have to do now.”

“Yeah well, this is it.”

“No,” Judy said, “this isn't your job.”

“I'm not going to explain it to you again.”

Judy was standing up. “Yeah, if you could.” She threw the paperback on the couch and walked out of the living room. “I'm going to bed.”

The bedroom door slammed.

Dougherty sat at the table eating the still-cold lasagna out of the glass dish. Through the living room window he could see the top of the church across the street, the round white top that looked like a rocket ship.

Then he slept on the couch and left for work before Judy got up.

All day Friday at the stadium Dougherty bought tickets and followed scalpers. He asked more of the kids about tickets to concerts and a few offered to find some for him, but he could tell it wasn't something they'd done before so it wasn't any use to him.

Inside the stadium the big excitement was an American, a guy named Bruce Jenner, winning the decathalon and becoming the world's greatest athlete. One of the young scalpers said, “He'll be on a Wheaties box before we get home,” and Dougherty said, “Where's home?”

The kid said, “You know what I mean,” but Dougherty was pretty sure the kid's accent was American, not quite Boston but somewhere in New England.

Saturday afternoon Dougherty bought tickets to the gold medal soccer game that night. The scalper really didn't know much about it, “Poland and East Germany,” the guy said, “I guess they're good.”

“Sure they are,” Dougherty said. “East Germany beat the Russians and Poland beat Brazil to get into this game.”

“Hundred bucks a ticket is a steal then.”

“Hundred for two is better.”

The guy said, “Okay,” and Dougherty made the buy. Then as he was headed into the stadium he ducked into a security office and made his report.

Galluccio was in the office and he said, “We're picking everybody up in half an hour. Looks like sixty guys.”

Dougherty said, “Holy shit.”

“Yeah, we'll be processing them all night. All this overtime, I'm going to buy a Camaro. What are you going to get?”

“I was thinking the down payment on a house.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” Galluccio said, “you're an old married man.”

“I'm not married.”

Galluccio shrugged, “You might as well be. If you were Italian you'd have the ceremony and get the down payment at the party.”

Dougherty didn't want to tell Galloosh he'd probably be living by himself again in a few days. He hadn't talked to Judy since their fight. Moving in together may have been a mistake.

Late in the afternoon they started picking up the runners and the next level up, the guy Dougherty had spotted in the tavern on Hochelaga and a couple of other guys like him. They used the whole twenty-one-man scalper squad and twenty more uniform cops. The entire force was working the final weekend of the Olympics, and from what Dougherty saw of the young guys he figured Galloosh better get his Camaro quick before they sold out and there wouldn't be one on a lot for a hundred miles around Montreal.

Almost sixty guys were taken into custody, and when the processing started Dougherty realized he still had the two tickets to the gold medal game in his pocket so he slipped away and found a pay phone and called his father.

“It's short notice, but would you like to go see the gold medal soccer game?”

“You got tickets?”

“A bonus for all the overtime. We can meet at the stadium.” Dougherty looked at the tickets and said, “Gate twelve, it's on the east side.”

Dougherty knew his father wouldn't take the Métro. He'd been driving that phone company van all over the city for thirty years, he knew every street and every lane and every parking spot there was. Sure enough, half an hour after he got off the phone with him, Dougherty was standing outside Olympic Stadium and his father came walking up from Viau Street.

They got a couple of beers and found their seats. Dougherty was glad he hadn't really paid a hundred dollars for them, they were pretty high up and in a corner, but once they were sitting he looked around and said, “This place actually looks pretty good.”

“It's worth a billion dollars, easy,” his father said and they laughed.

The place was packed, seventy-one thousand people according to the notice on the big scoreboard, and loud.

The game was East Germany; they hit the post in the first minute, scored in the seventh minute and again in the fourteenth.

Dougherty's dad said, “Looks like a rout. And Poland won the gold last time.”

In the second half the Germans took their foot off the gas and Poland scored but the Germans pulled themselves together and started using long passes over the top to keep the ball in the Polish end. Germany scored one more and that was it, 3–1 final and another gold medal for East Germany.

“It's been good for the commies,” Dougherty said when the medal ceremony ended and people starting filing out of the stadium. “The Soviets and East Germany, one and two in the medals.”

“West Germany won a lot of medals, too,” his father said. “If they were one country they would've finished first.”

“Lucky for us that'll never happen.”

They stopped for one more beer at a tavern a couple of blocks from the stadium.

Dougherty's father said, “Are you working tomorrow?”

“I thought I was but we made all the scalper arrests today. Turns out the ring was from Boston, or near there, someplace called Somerville, Massachusetts. Guy running it is a travel agent and he had a connection in the organizing committee, got a few thousand tickets two years ago.”

“Thinking ahead.”

“Back then we didn't think the stadium would be finished or the Games would really happen.”

“Now Bourassa's a hero for saving the day.”

“I wouldn't call him a hero,” Dougherty said, and his father smiled. The premier of Quebec was sure trying to take the credit since his government had stepped in and taken over the Olympics from the city. “But he might call an early election.”

“That's the rumour. Quick before the separatists get ahead in the polls.”

The tavern was full but Dougherty felt it was oddly quiet for the end of the Olympics.

His father said, “So, tomorrow, you and Judy want to come over for dinner? Even though you're living in sin, your mother still likes Judy.”

Dougherty said, “We got the same invitation from her mother, but I said I couldn't make it.”

“But now you can?”

“I don't think so, not the way we left it.”

“You have a fight?”

“Yeah.”

Dougherty's father leaned back in the small wooden tavern chair and drank some beer. Then he said, “It's none of my business, but you two have a lot going on.”

“We do?”

“You moved in together, you're working all the time, Judy starts a new job in a couple of weeks.”

“She was in a classroom for months last year as a student-teacher, it's not like she's never done it before.”

“It's a new job in a new school,” his father said. “And before she even starts they're talking about going on strike. It's got to be getting to her.”

“Why?”

“And her parents splitting up, that's got to be tough.”

“That doesn't have anything to do with Judy.”

“Nothing?”

Dougherty finished off his glass of draught and said, “Yeah, okay, I didn't think about it like that.”

“Usually when you fight it's not about what it's really about.”

Dougherty nodded. “Maybe you're not just a pretty face.”

His dad finished off his own beer and put the empty glass on the table.

It was just after eleven when Dougherty got to the apartment in LaSalle.

Judy was sitting at the dining room table with a bunch of textbooks spread out, making notes. She looked up when he came in the door and then went back to the books.

Dougherty said, “Look, I'm sorry.”

Without looking up Judy said, “I thought love meant never having to say you're sorry.”

Dougherty said, “You thought that movie was as stupid as I did.”

He opened the fridge and got out a beer. “You want one?”

She looked at him and said, “That's it, that's your whole apology?”

He got another beer and brought them both to the table. “Are we really mad at each other?”

“I'm really mad at you.”

“Okay, but not because I'm still working the homicide, because I was acting like that's the only thing that's important.”

“If you say the words ‘self-actualized' or anything else out of my mother's stupid self-help books I swear I'll hit you with this bottle.” She picked up the beer and took a drink.

Dougherty said, “I'm not working tomorrow, you want to go to your mother's?”

“No, I don't want to, but we're going to.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

They went to bed and made out.

And Sunday night when they got home from Judy's mother's house the phone was ringing. Dougherty answered it and Legault said, “I found Louise Tremblay. Marc-André found her first.”

Legault got into Dougherty's car and he said, “When do you get the casts off?”

“Two more weeks.”

Dougherty backed out of the driveway and said, “So, we're going to Sorel?”

“Yes, I have directions, it should take about an hour.”

If it wasn't police business it would have been a nice summer drive along the St. Lawrence River passing through some beautiful countryside. Another month or so and people would be doing it to see the spectacular fall colours.

As they approached the town of Sorel, Legault said, “Do you know it at all?”

Dougherty said, “No. I played hockey here a few times, but I don't think I could even find the arena.”

Legault gave directions that took them through the centre of the city and over the bridge where the Richelieu River joined the St. Lawrence. There were a couple of big ships docked at a steel foundry that looked to Dougherty like it was a hundred years old.

On the other side of the river was the town of Tracy. Legault said, “Turn right here,” and they drove past some old industrial buildings, and after a couple more turns they were on Adélaide, and she said, “This is it, number forty-nine.” The house was one in a row of two-storey clapboard houses. Number forty-nine, in Quebec style, had a wrought iron staircase winding down the front. “Top floor.”

Dougherty said, “Of course it is,” and followed Legault as she made her way up the stairs, the cast on her foot banging on the iron steps. She knocked on the door and it opened right away.

“Entrez.”

Legault went in and Dougherty followed, nodding at the young woman who quickly closed the door. He figured she was Louise Tremblay. The black eye and bruises on her face a real giveaway.

In the small kitchen she said, “
Voulez-vous un café?
”

Legault said no, but Dougherty had the feeling that Louise wanted to be doing something so he said, “
Oui, merci.
”

Louise filled a kettle with water and put it on the stove. Then she said, still speaking French, “My mother is out, she won't be back until this afternoon.”

“We thank you for talking to us,” Legault said.

Louise shrugged.

Dougherty sat down at the table with his back to the wall, trying to take up as little space as possible.

Legault said, “Are you okay?”

Louise put a couple of fingers to her face and said, “Yes.” Then she shrugged and said, “It's happened before.”

“That's why your mother is upset?”

“She didn't know that I was back with Marc-André. She didn't approve.”

Dougherty said, “No kidding.”

Legault gave him a look, then said to Louise, “You knew Marc-André before he went to jail?”

“Yes. He wasn't like that, he wasn't . . .”

Dougherty exhaled a little too loudly. He'd seen this so many times since he'd become a cop, so many women who said the man wasn't really like that. The man was always like that.

The kettle whistled and Louise turned off the heat and said over her shoulder to Legault, “You don't want one?”

“No, thanks.”

Louise got two mugs from the drying rack next to the sink and a jar of instant coffee from the cupboard. She made two cups and brought one to Dougherty saying, “Would you like milk and sugar?”

“No, thanks, this is fine.”

Louise got the milk out of the fridge and poured some into her mug then added a generous spoonful of sugar. She sat at the table holding the mug in both hands and said, “He was different when he came out of jail.”

“His mother told us she didn't see much of him then.”

“No? I don't know about that,” Louise said. “I don't know where he went. He wasn't . . . perfect, before he went to jail, you know?”

Dougherty said, “Yeah,” and Legault looked at him again, making a motion for him to be quiet.

Then she looked back at Louise and said, “I know, but jail is hard.”

Louise nodded.

“Was Marc-André involved with drugs before he went to jail?”

Louise was looking down at her mug and she nodded. She spoke quietly, saying, “Yes, we both were.”

“You were both selling drugs?”

“A little. We were both using drugs.”

“He was selling drugs?”

“Yes. That's why he went to jail.”

“Do you know where Marc-André is now?”

Louise shook her head. Still staring at the mug.

“There is no way he will ever find out that we talked to you,” Legault said. “You don't have to worry about that.”

“I don't know where he is.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“On the day . . . the day I was supposed to see you.” She looked at Legault.

Dougherty squeezed his mug and took a drink to keep from saying anything.

Legault said, “What happened?”

“I was leaving for work, going to the bus stop. A car stopped and Marc-André got out.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Here I am.'”

“Why would he say that?”

“Because!” Louise slammed the mug down on the table, spilling coffee. “Because I was looking for him. Because you asked me to!”

Dougherty was still and so was Legault. The yelling and the banging was startling but the silence that followed was, too.

After a moment Legault said, “I'm sorry, Louise.”

“I . . . I wanted to see him, but I didn't think . . .”

“What happened?”

“He told me to get in the car.”

“Was he driving?”

“No, it was someone else I don't know, I never saw him before.”

“You got in the car?”

“Yes. We drove somewhere, I don't know where. Behind a warehouse.”

“And he hit you?”

Louise nodded. She put a hand on her throat and said, “He choked me. He told me to stop looking for him, stop asking people about him.”

Legault said, “I'm sorry, Louise.”

“We're going to catch him,” Dougherty said. “You can make a complaint against him.”

“Oh, no,” Louise said, “I don't want to do that.”

Dougherty said, “Course not.”

Legault turned on him and said in English, “Enough.” She looked back to Louise and spoke French, “We really appreciate you trying to help us. And we will arrest him. It's for something else, you don't have to make a complaint if you don't want to.”

“Thank you.”

Dougherty shook his head, sighed heavily.

Legault said, “Do you have any idea who he would be with?”

“No.”

Dougherty said, “Do you know Martin Comptois?”

“No.”

“You sure? He lives downtown, near the Lucien-L'Allier Métro station.”

Louise was looking into her coffee mug, she hadn't drank any of it. “No.”

Legault said, “That's okay, Louise.”

“What about the car,” Dougherty said. “What kind was it?”

Louise shrugged. “I don't know.”

“Was it a four-door or a two-door?” Dougherty asked. “When you got in the back, was there a back door or did they push the seat forward?”

Louise looked up and stared at Dougherty and said, “I didn't get in, he pushed me in. He grabbed me by the throat and pushed me onto the back seat, pushed my face into the seat. I thought he was going to kill me.”

“So a four-door,” Dougherty said.

Legault turned to Dougherty and said, “Would you be quiet.” Then she turned back to Louise and said, “When you and I spoke on the phone, and you agreed to meet with me after work at UPS, at the Lafleur Hot Dog, do you remember?”

Louise nodded.

“What were you going to tell me then?”

It took a moment and then Louise said, “It doesn't matter now. That was before I saw Marc-André.”

Legault spoke like she was just making conversation, like it wasn't important, saying, “I'm just curious, what were you going to tell me?”

“Not much, I had been asking around about Marc-André, calling some people we knew. No one knew where he was, he was gone.” She shrugged and drank some coffee. “He always talked about going out west, maybe to California.”

Legault nodded and waited for Louise to continue.

Dougherty wanted to jump in and say something but he didn't. He realized where Legault was going: Louise wouldn't have agreed to meet if she had nothing to say and now she was even more scared. He waited.

Legault said, “Did he go to California?”

Louise shook her head no. “I think he went to Toronto. I think he took drugs to sell there.”

“Is that what you were going to tell me, that he'd gone to Toronto?”

“Yes.”

“Is that all you were going to tell me?”

It took another minute and then Louise said, “I was going to tell you that Marc-André was not a bad guy.”

Dougherty leaned forward and almost said something but stopped himself.

Legault said, “But now?”

“I don't know now.” Louise stood up and paced in the small kitchen. “He wasn't . . . like this. His mother threw him out when he was young, a kid. He had no father, you know?” She looked at Dougherty and he managed to nod. He thought it looked sympathetic.

Louise said, “It's hard, you know, there's no work. He met some guys.”

Legault said, “In jail?”

“He sold a little hash,” Louise said. “It was nothing. But then he went to jail. When he got out he was different.”

Dougherty said, “And he had new friends?”

“Yes.” Louise looked at him. She wasn't angry, she was hoping he understood and she looked doubtful.

Dougherty said, “I've seen it before.”

“I was going to tell you that, I was going to tell you he wasn't bad.”

Legault said, “I understand. Did you know where he was?”

Louise shook her head. “Some people I talked to said they had seen him so I knew he was back. I thought if you found him you should know.”

“Thank you.” Legault stood up and was close to Louise. “We're still going to find him so this is good to know for when we talk to him.”

Louise was nodding. “I don't think he's here,” she said. “I think he went back to Toronto or out west.”

Dougherty said, “Who did you talk to that had seen him?”

Louise looked up sharply and said, “I don't know exactly, just some people.”

“You don't know their names?”

“I spoke to a lot of people.” She looked at Legault, glared at her and then at Dougherty. “I don't remember who said what.”

Legault said, “Okay, Louise, thank you.”

As they were walking out the front door and starting down the stairs to the street Dougherty turned back and said, “If you do hear from him again, call us right away, okay?”

Louise was looking down at him and she said, “Yes.”

“Or if you remember who you talked to who saw him.”

Louise nodded and Legault pulled Dougherty by the arm and said, “Come on.”

In the car on the way back to Montreal, Legault said, “You pushed her too hard.”

“You didn't push her hard enough.”

“Now she won't tell us anything.”

“She will if we keep asking.”

“She doesn't know anything.”

“She knows he's a good guy.”

Legault lit a cigarette and rolled down the window a little.

Dougherty said, “He'll get picked up again, we'll get him.”

“How will we know?” Legault said. “This case is closed, remember? If he gets picked up he'll get processed and we'll never know, you and me.”

The highway was flat and straight along the St. Lawrence River and Dougherty drove too fast. He said, “You think the other guy was Martin Comptois?”

Legault shrugged. “Could be anybody.”

“Yeah, but what do you think? They met in jail?”

“Is Comptois in jail now?”

“He's out on bail,” Dougherty said. “I have the address he gave the cops in Cornwall, you want to go see?”

“Sure, why not?”

Dougherty was thinking, Because we could both get fired for it, but he didn't say anything, he just drove even faster. He took the Jacques Cartier Bridge into the city and they were both quiet driving past the exit to Île Sainte-Hélène, both of them looking at the spot where Mathieu and Manon probably went over the guardrail.

In the city Dougherty took Dorchester Boulevard and headed towards downtown, past the big office buildings of Hydro-Québec and Place Ville Marie. Overdale Avenue was a one-block street wedged in between Dorchester and the Ville-Marie Expressway. At one end was the Guaranteed Milk building, with a big milk bottle on the roof, and at the other end an old hotel that Dougherty had been to plenty of times breaking up fights and throwing out drunks since it'd become a gay bathhouse. The owners were decent guys.

One side of Overdale was taken up by a few old solid stone apartment buildings, and on the corner of Lucien L'Allier was the Lafontaine mansion, once a stately home, now divided into a dozen or more units, not very well kept. The other side of the street had a row of two-storey homes and a big warehouse building. Dougherty parked in front of the warehouse.

Legault said, “How did you even find this street?”

“Yeah, it's a little hidden,” Dougherty said. “But it's on my beat.”

They walked along the row of houses to 1388, and when Dougherty knocked on the front door it pushed open a little. He said, “Okay,” and pushed the door wide open. Directly ahead was a short hallway with two doors on the right and on the left were stairs going up to the second floor.

Dougherty knocked on the first door but the second one opened. A young guy, maybe twenty years old, stuck his head into the hall and said, “Yeah?”

Dougherty took a couple steps towards the guy and said, “I'm looking for a guy named Martin Comptois.”