“Are your parents here?” I asked.
“Dad’s at the club, I guess. Mum’s at school.” He looked at his watch, a bulky thing that resembled my old dive watch, lost, along with the rest of my gear, on a flight from Cape Town. “She should be home soon, though. Dad, too. Why? What’s wrong?”
“We need to get in touch with Terry,” Nina said. “It looks like she’s taken Rebecca on a trip, but we don’t know where and we can’t reach her on her cellphone. Do you know if your parents have heard from her since Sunday evening?”
“I only got home this morning from a business trip,” he said. He stepped back from the doorway. “Come in.”
Nina and I went into the house. Zach shut the door behind us and led us into the living room. It was a cozy room in which, to my eye, nothing much had changed in twenty years, except that an airtight stove had been fitted into the fireplace and the floor, once polished hardwood, was carpeted in beige broadloom.
“If it’s urgent,” Zach said, “we could call Dad on his cellphone.”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” I said.
“No problem.” Outside, there was the sound of a car door closing. Zach peered through the living room window. “That’s him now.”
He went to the front door and escorted his father into the living room. Ron Jardine was a straight and spare seventy-something, with a cap of fine white hair, a bristle of white beard, and bright blue eyes that crinkled when he smiled at Nina.
“You remember Riley, don’t you?” Zach said. “Terry’s old boyfriend?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Ron Jardine said.
“It was a long time ago,” I said, shaking hands with him.
“I’m relieved to hear it. Wouldn’t want to think I’d forgotten one of Terry’s recent boyfriends. Not that she’s had any, um, since, well … ” He petered out, smile collapsing.
“Have you or Mum spoken to her since Sunday?” Zach asked his father.
“I haven’t. Can’t for sure say if Mother has, but I don’t think so.” He looked at Nina and me. “Why?”
Nina explained the situation. “We were hoping she told you where she was going.”
“She wouldn’t have gone away without telling me or Mother where,” Ron Jardine said. “What about Lionel Keynes? Didn’t she tell him?”
“Apparently not,” Nina said.
“Did she tell you she’d been contacted by Marie-Claire Cloutier?” I asked.
“Christ, no,” Ron said.
“What the hell did she want?” Zach asked.
Nina told them.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Zach said, with what sounded like awe—at her audacity perhaps.
“Do either of you know Lawrence Thomason?” I asked.
Zach shook his head. Ron said, “No. Who is he?”
“He’s a friend of Terry’s,” Nina said. I noticed a slight emphasis on the word “friend.” So did Ron Jardine.
“What kind of friend?” he said. “Boyfriend?”
“Apparently not,” I said.
“Excuse me,” he said. “But what’s your interest here? When were you Terry’s boyfriend?”
“We lived together for a while when she was at
McGill,” I said. “Twenty years ago.”
“Have we met?”
“I had dinner with your family a couple of times.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I do,” Zach said. I looked at him, but didn’t get the impression he was angry or resentful. “You told me I needed to change my attitude.”
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“Don’t be,” he said. “You were right. I didn’t realize it at the time, though. Took getting fired a couple of times to wake me up. I might not be where I am today if it weren’t for you.”
“I think I remember you now,” Ron said. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Why are you here?”
“Riley is an investigator with Roche-Desjardins,” Nina said. Ron looked blank. “Terry’s lawyers,” she added.
“I see,” Ron said. “So who is this Thomason person?”
“He claims to be Terry’s friend,” I said. “But we have reason to believe he isn’t quite the person she thinks he is.”
“What does that mean?” Ron asked. “You think he’s some kind of con artist. Like Chaz. Is that it?”
“He has no fixed abode that we can find,” I said. “Nor any visible means of support. He embezzled thousands of dollars from his previous employer with questionable invoices and inflated expense reports. And he somehow convinced Terry to lease a BMW for him.”
“Christ,” Ron Jardine said.
“It’s possible he’s treating Terry and Rebecca to a vacation out of gratitude for leasing the car, but it doesn’t seem in character, given what we do know about him.”
“Is he dangerous?” Zach asked.
“I wish we could tell you he wasn’t,” I said, as Terry’s mother came into the living room.
When I was a callow youth, the rule of thumb was that if you wanted to know how a girl would turn out as she got older, look at her mother. Clare Jardine was slim and fit and still lovely in her sixties, with wide blue eyes and, as I recalled, a gentle disposition. Ron Jardine was a fortunate man, I thought. I hoped he appreciated what he had. From the loving look he exchanged with her as she came into the room, I reckoned he did.
“Hello, Nina,” Clare said, but she was looking at me. “Riley? Good lord. Does Terry know you’re back?”
“Hello, Mrs. Jardine,” I said. “Yes, she knows I’m back.”
“What’s going on? You all look so serious.”
“They’re trying to get in touch with Terry,” Ron Jardine said. “But it seems she’s gone away and is not answering her cellphone. Neither is Rebecca. Did Terry tell you she was taking a holiday with Rebecca?”
“Well, she did send me an email.”
“Do you still have it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“She has it,” her husband said. “She never empties her inbox. Which is why her email program crashes all the time.”
Zach, Nina and I followed Terry’s parents into a small study off the living room, where Clare woke up her computer and found the email in her inbox. The message was nearly identical to the one Lionel Keynes had received, down to the missing apostrophe and the misuse of “awhile.”
“Lionel Keynes doesn’t think Terry wrote this,” I said, and explained why.
“For god’s sake,” Zach said. “Just because she made a couple of grammar mistakes.”
“She also left her house without setting the alarm, which Lionel says she never does.”
“What are you saying?” Clare said. “That you think she’s been abducted?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said.
“Why else would you suggest that someone sent an email purporting to be from her?” Ron said.
“Have you spoken to her friend Lawrence?” Clare asked.
“We have no way of contacting him,” Nina said. “Do you?”
“No,” Clare said.
“Have you contacted the police?” Ron asked. “To report her missing?”
“Not yet,” Nina said. “It hasn’t quite been a full forty-eight hours. And they would likely take the emails at face value and refuse to investigate until more time had gone by.”
“Terry has no reason to trust the police or the justice system,” Clare said. “They made her life hell after Chaz absconded. But can you be sure of that?”
“They might also think,” I said, “that she’s gone off to join Brandt. Particularly if we tell them that Marie-Claire Cloutier may have contacted her.”
“She was Chaz’s accomplice, wasn’t she?”
“That’s right.”
“Wha
t did she want?”
I told her.
“You said ‘may have,’” she said. “Does that mean you don’t think she really did?”
“We can’t think of a reason why Terry would lie about it,” I said. “But we have no proof that Cloutier actually contacted her.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“We’re hoping we can get a court order for her landline and cellphone usage records,” Nina said. “Marie-Claire initially called Terry’s landline, we think, but the caller ID was blocked, so we don’t know where the call originated. It might take some time, though.”
“It may also be possible,” I added, “that when Marie-Claire Cloutier called back, Thomason convinced Terry to let him deal with her.”
“Oh, god,” Clare said, growing pale and turning to her husband, who took her in his arms.
“We’ll be in touch,” I said.
On the way downtown, Nina called the dealer from which Terry had leased Thomason’s BMW and asked to speak to the manager, whose name, the receptionist told her, was Édouard Guillaume. When he came on the line, Nina put the phone on speaker. I identified myself and asked him if their lease cars were equipped with GPS tracking systems.
“Some are,” he said. “It’s part of the BMW Assist option.”
“If we gave you the VIN or the lessor’s name, could you tell us if the car had one?”
Guillaume said he could. Nina gave him Terry’s name and the Vehicle Identification Number Louise Desjardins had got from the Société de l’assurance automobile, Quebec’s motor vehicle bureau. We heard the tap of a computer keyboard. After a moment Guillaume confirmed that the car Terry had leased did in fact include the GPS tracking option. “Has the vehicle been reported stolen?” he asked.
“Not officially,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Guillaume said, switching to English.
“Ms. Jardine leased the vehicle for a third party. It’s possible that he may be holding Ms. Jardine and her daughter against their wills and that their lives may be in danger.”
“Oh, dear,” Guillaume said. “I’d like to help, but the tracking centre cannot activate the locator system without a specific request from the police, the lessor, or the lessor’s insurance carrier.”
“Would a request from Ms. Jardine’s attorney be sufficient?”
“It might,” Guillaume said. “Yes, probably.”
“Thank you,” I said. “One more thing. How easy would it be to disable the GPS system?”
“Not easy at all,” Guillaume said. “It’s integrated into the vehicle’s onboard computer system. Any attempt to disable it would render the vehicle inoperable.”
I dropped Nina off at the Cathcart entrance to Place Ville-Marie, then drove to Frank Gendron’s office on Sainte-Catherine, a block west of the old Forum. He shared the space and a secretary/receptionist with two other lawyers.
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” I said when I was seated in front of Gendron’s desk, which was half buried in file folders. Gendron, it appeared, was old-school.
“What can I do for you, Atticus?”
His manner was guarded. I got right to the point.
“Do you know a former Montreal fraud squad detective named Marc Lefebvre? He’s currently working as a private investigator.”
“May I ask what is the purpose of your inquiry?” Gendron said.
“Lefebvre claims he works for a lawyer representing a group of Charles Pearson Brandt’s victims.”
“I’m not the only lawyer representing Brandt’s
victims.”
“That’s a no, then.”
“What is your interest in Monsieur Lefebvre?”
“He was surveilling Terry Jardine. I’m hoping that he, or his employer, may be able to assist in our investigation into her apparent disappearance.”
“You’re working for Roche-Desjardins?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I see.”
“So does he? Work for you?”
“What do you mean by Madame Jardine’s ‘apparent disappearance’?”
“Just that,” I said, growing impatient with Gendron’s evasiveness. “She’s disappeared, along with her daughter. It’s possible that she’s just taken a few days off work, but we need to get in touch with her, and she isn’t answering her cellphone. Neither is her daughter. She didn’t tell Louise Desjardins she was going away, even though Madame Desjardins was waiting to hear from her on a matter the nature of which I’m not at liberty to reveal.”
“To do with her husband, I presume.”
I practised my poker face. “Maybe you could answer my question.”
“Very well,” Gendron said. “Yes, Monsieur Lefebvre is in my employ as a private investigator, much as I suppose you are employed by Roche-Desjardins.”
“He was surveilling Ms. Jardine on your instructions?”
“He was,” Gendron said. “However, to the best of my knowledge, he hasn’t had her under observation since his encounter with you and Madame Jardine the other day.”
“He told you about that, did he?”
“Of course.”
“And you called him off.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
Gendron shrugged, turning his palms up. “Some of my clients are growing impatient at the lack of progress in the case and may have engaged Monsieur Lefebvre’s services directly. Can you blame them? Also, he lost his job as a result of his alleged harassment of Madame Jardine and so may have a personal agenda.”
“Can you give me his contact information?”
“I can do that.” He flipped through the pages of a fat card wallet the size of a document binder. Finding the card he wanted, he scribbled on a pink sticky note and handed the note to me. An address in the off-island community of Saint-Jérôme, about sixty kilometres north of Montreal, and a Montreal area code cellphone number. “Do me a favour, Atticus. Don’t tell him I gave that to you. He isn’t the most agreeable of people.”
“He won’t learn it from me,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said, standing. “How’s Grace?”
“As well as can be expected,” I said.
“Please give her and Rocky my regards,” he said, walking me past the reception desk to the door.
After leaving Gendron’s office, I returned to Roche-Desjardins, where Nina and I gathered with Louise Desjardins in her office. Nina had spoken to the principal of Rebecca’s school. The woman had refused to answer any questions until she’d checked with Terry’s mother, who was listed as an emergency contact. Once Nina’s bona fides had been verified, the principal told Nina that she’d been trying to reach Terry for two days. It was exam week, and Terry had not informed the school that Rebecca would be absent.
“It is now simply a matter of waiting,” Louise Desjardins said. “And hoping that something develops.”
Unwilling to just sit around, I spent half an hour talking to Thomason’s former neighbours without learning a thing except that none who knew him liked him. I then drove to the Côte-des-Neiges address associated with the landline number in Thomason’s file. The middle-aged woman who answered the door knew nothing of anyone named Lawrence Thomason and didn’t understand why he would have given his employer her telephone number, which she’d had for twenty years. It did explain some of the calls she’d received, though.
On my way to my mother’s house, while stuck in rush hour traffic made worse by Montreal’s endemic roadwork, I risked being ticketed for distracted driving and called Marc Lefebvre’s cellphone number. After half a dozen rings the call went to voicemail. I didn’t leave a message, but I hadn’t blocked the caller ID, so he’d know who the call had come from. The traffic was barely moving, and the Volvo began to overheat. I turned the heat to maximum and set the fan to high. It helped cool the
engine, but even with the windows and the sunroof open, and the air directed at the windshield, it wasn’t long before it felt as though my shoes were melting.
Chapter 22
Friday morning, a week and a day after my return to Montreal, I was sitting on the sidewalk terrasse of the café on Monkland where Nina and I had met with the real estate agent, drinking cooled coffee and trying to read The Gazette. After reading for the third time the lead paragraphs of a story about a public inquiry into municipal corruption without absorbing any of it, I gave it up as a lost cause. It had been three days since anyone had heard from Terry. I didn’t believe for a minute that she’d gone on vacation with Rebecca without informing her parents, Lionel Keynes or Louise Desjardins. I badly wanted to, tried hard to, but couldn’t manage it, and I was becoming increasingly concerned for her and her daughter’s safety.
I took out the iPhone and for the umpteenth time called her cellphone. And for the umpteenth time my call went straight to voicemail. I disconnected without leaving a message. Then, with nothing better to do, I called Gil Maxwell.
“Riley?” he said. “What’s up, my man?”
“I have a hypothetical question for you.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Is there any way to remotely hack into a cellphone and access the call history?”
“You’ve been watching too much TV,” he said.
“What about that News of the World phone hacking scandal a few years ago? How did those journalists do it?”
“As I recall, they hacked into voicemail accounts, not the cellphones themselves.”
“So they didn’t listen in on actual calls?”
“I don’t think so. It’s possible, but you need some pretty specialized knowledge and gear to do it. There’s a thing called a wireless network extender, which is essentially a low-power cellular base station that service providers use to extend cellphone coverage at locations where the tower signal is weak. They can be pretty easily hacked, evidently, letting you listen in on nearby cellphone calls. But the thing has to be within forty or fifty feet of the phone and programmed with the appropriate service provider’s signal decryption algorithm.”
“What about tracking a cellphone to determine its physical location?”
The Evil That Men Do Page 17
