A Little More Free

by John McFetridge

  “That’s what the call said, yeah.”

  “On the stairs?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, I’ll check it out.”

  He got into his squad car and was amazed that eighteen thousand unhappy people could disperse so easily and quickly. The bars had filled up, no doubt, and the Métro would probably be crowded for a while, but the streets were surprisingly empty.

  Dougherty drove up Atwater to Pine, halfway up Mount Royal. He parked at Peel and stood for a moment looking at the cobblestone path leading to the stairs, the black iron railings on either side cutting through dark forest all the way up. He figured if it was an office building, the stairs would probably go up ten or fifteen storeys — the lookout at the top higher than any of the big downtown buildings, higher than the nearly fifty storeys of Place Ville Marie, and then there was the huge cross on top of that.

  It was almost midnight by then and the area was dark and quiet so Dougherty turned on his flashlight and lit up the first section of stairs as far as the landing — maybe twenty stairs.

  Nothing suspicious.

  As he started up the stairs, trees on either side, he was hoping he wouldn’t have to go all the way to the top, and then he realized he wouldn’t.

  Right there in the trees beside the first landing was the something suspicious.

  Dougherty got out his radio and called in, saying, “I found it.”

  The sergeant said, “It is suspicious?”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, it’s suspicious.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a dead body.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  “Male, white, mid-twenties.”

  “You sure it’s a male, with that hair?”

  “Yeah,” Dougherty said, “he’s got a beard.”

  “Of course.”

  Dougherty was standing on the landing looking down at Detective Carpentier. They were waiting for the assistant coroner and one of the other cops now on the scene to get the stretcher out of the black station wagon.

  Carpentier said, “There’s no blood.”

  “Not that I can see,” Dougherty said. “Maybe on his back?”

  Another flash went off, lighting up the area for a second, and the photographer, Rozovsky, said, “Maybe he broke his neck, maybe he fell.”

  The assistant coroner, LaPointe, was coming up the first set of stairs then, pushing past Carpentier and carrying one end of the stretcher, and he said, “Is that your expert opinion?”

  “Oh no,” Rozovsky said, “we’ll have to wait days or weeks for an expert opinion.”

  LaPointe said, “Have you got enough pictures for Allo Police?”

  Rozovsky climbed up a few steps and took a picture of the two police cars, Carpentier’s unmarked car and the coroner’s station wagon, and said, “Not much of a crime scene, Allo will only pay if this guy turns out to be famous.”

  LaPointe was at the body then and he looked up at Rozovsky, not sure if the police photographer was serious about selling pictures to the tabloid or not.

  Dougherty said, “Maybe he was drunk.”

  “We’ll find out,” LaPointe said, “in a couple of weeks.”

  Carpentier said, “Bien.” Then he said, “Is Dr. Michaelchuk still at the morgue?”

  “There was one more death,” LaPointe said. “A woman who was crushed under the fire escape, she died today in hospital. That’s thirty-seven.”

  Carpentier shook his head. There was nothing to say, it was overwhelming.

  LaPointe and the other cop worked in the light from Dougherty’s flashlight to get the body onto the stretcher and down the stairs.

  Rozovsky said, “Here comes the press,” and Dougherty looked down to see a man with curly red hair down to his shoulders and a beard getting out of an old Ford.

  “Logan,” Dougherty said, “he’s all right.”

  From the landing Dougherty watched the reporter, Keith Logan, look at the body on the stretcher and maybe recognize the guy but then maybe not. Dougherty looked out at the city. Even halfway up Mount Royal he was looking down on the top of a lot of buildings, the big black towers of Westmount Square, Alexis Nihon Plaza and the Forum, the searchlight on top of Place Ville Marie making its slow turn around downtown.

  Logan climbed the stairs and said, “The call said something suspicious, I thought maybe it was a bomb.”

  Dougherty said, “We haven’t had a bomb in this city in two years,” and Logan said, “Last month, at the Forum, the Rolling Stones equipment truck?”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot that,” Dougherty said.

  Rozovsky was packing up his camera and he said, “It didn’t do much damage.”

  “We had a quote,” Logan said, “somebody called the guy the world’s dumbest bomber.”

  Dougherty shrugged. He watched Carpentier standing by the station wagon talking to LaPointe.

  “We used the Mick Jagger quote, ‘Why didn’t that cat leave a note?’”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, that would’ve been good.” and Logan said, “But now you have more info.”

  Dougherty shrugged again and said, “Not really.”

  “But something, what?”

  “It’s nothing you can put in the paper.”

  Rozovsky said, “Not in the Gazette, anyway.”

  Logan said, “I don’t write for Midnight or Allo Police or any of them.”

  “Okay.” Rozovsky started down the stairs.

  Logan looked at Dougherty and said, “But I’d still like to know, I’m going to the Forum on Monday, what are the chances of another bomb?”

  “What show is that?” Rozovsky said, “Alice Cooper?”

  “And Dr. John,” Logan said. Then he looked at Dougherty and said, “So what do you know about the bomb?”

  “No one will care,” Dougherty said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the Rolling Stones.”

  “The Forum?”

  Dougherty turned and looked at Logan and said, “It’s just a rumour, but it could be something to do with the trucking company they were using.”

  “Oh,” Logan said, “union stuff?”

  “Maybe, but not here. Company’s based in Philadelphia. Anyway, it’s just a rumour.”

  Logan nodded and said okay. He looked tired. “Wasn’t even that big a deal on their tour, when they left here they got arrested in Rhode Island.”

  Dougherty said, “You don’t know that guy, do you?”

  Logan glanced at the stretcher being loaded into the station wagon and said, “I thought maybe I did, I thought I’d seen him around. Who is he?”

  “Don’t know yet, there was nothing on him.”

  “You think he got mugged?”

  “No idea.”

  Logan said okay and turned to walk back down the stairs, saying, “I just stopped by because the call said suspicious. I’m still talking to people about the fire.” He stopped on the bottom step and looked back up at Dougherty and said, “Any word on the other two arsonists?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay, well, see you around.” Logan got in his car and drove away and the coroner’s station wagon left a few seconds later.

  Dougherty came down the stairs and stood beside Detective Carpentier.

  “It didn’t work out with the Morality Squad?”

  Dougherty said, “You heard? Yeah, I don’t know, they’re just a little too …”

  “Moral?”

  “Something like that.”

  Carpentier nodded a little and said, “Well, it’s serious business, it seems like there is a new topless joint every week in this city.”

  “Gotta check them all,” Dougherty said.

  “Yes.” Carpentier let it go then and Dougherty was glad. Joking around was all well and fine but D
ougherty, only five years on the force, was feeling his career stall. Not that he’d had any idea about a career when he signed up — all he wanted then was to drive fast and get a little action in — but here he was, overnight shift driving a squad car and every time it looked like he might get a promotion something screwed it up.

  Now Dougherty was starting to feel he screwed it up himself. He just wasn’t sure how.

  A couple of years before, when bombs were going off in Montreal every couple of weeks and when the British Trade Commissioner was kidnapped and the Deputy Premier of the province was kidnapped and murdered, Dougherty had worked pretty closely with Carpentier trying to catch a man they thought had killed five women. After that, Dougherty thought he’d get promoted to detective right away but instead he was sent back to driving patrols.

  Now Carpentier was saying, “If this turns into something, I’ll give you a call,” and Dougherty said, “Thanks.”

  Carpentier got in his car and drove away. Dougherty stood there for a few minutes looking down at the city, the strange mix of shiny new fifty-storey office towers and two-hundred-year-old stone buildings, the three bridges crossing the wide St. Lawrence River and the South Shore suburbs beyond where Dougherty’s parents had bought a duplex and settled in.

  He figured it was after three a.m., checked his watch and saw it was three twenty, figured he could head back to Station Ten and by the time he wrote up his report it would be close to six, end of shift. He could get some sleep and then drive over the Champlain Bridge, have an early Sunday dinner with his folks before two days off and then days for a couple of weeks.

  Or he could finish his shift and sleep until the next one started.

  Dougherty got into his squad car and started it up and before he even put it in gear there was a call on the radio, a robbery at the Museum of Fine Arts.

  “Is anybody else available?” Dougherty said. “I’m still at the crime scene on the mountain.”

  “Why are you still there, the body is long gone. Anyway you’re three blocks away, you can be at the musée in two minutes.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah, all right, on my way,” and clipped the handset back to the big radio on the dash.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was on the north side of Sherbrooke between Bishop and Crescent, a fifty-year-old granite building about three storeys high. Dougherty drove around, past the big marble pillars in front of the doors, some architectural style he thought he should know but didn’t, to the loading doors in the back.

  A security guard was standing by the open garage door. Dougherty parked, got out of his squad car and said, “Are you all right?”

  “Bastards tied us up, took us an hour to get free.”

  “How many?”

  The guard spoke English with no accent, saying, “Three. I saw two of them, long hair, ski masks. One was French and the other one was English.”

  “And the third?”

  “I’m not sure, I heard them talking but it was too far away to make out. I was doing my rounds on the second floor and then there they were. I have no idea where they came from.”

  “Two of them?”

  “That’s right, they told me to lie on my stomach and when I refused they fired two shots into the ceiling.”

  “You’re okay?”

  “I’m mad as hell.”

  “Are you working alone tonight?”

  “No, Sam and Hughey are here, they were on the first floor, they heard the shots and came upstairs. The bastard thieves brought us all down here and tied us up.”

  “How did they get in?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dougherty heard a car and turned to see another squad car. Behind it a big sedan pulled in and a man got out.

  “That’s Mr. Bantey,” the security guard said. “Everybody else is out of town.”

  Another squad car pulled up then and Duclos got out. He looked at Dougherty and said, “Hey Eddie, long time no see,” and Dougherty said, “That game seems like a long time ago. There was no trouble at the Forum?”

  “No, but since the bars closed we’ve been getting more calls.”

  Constable Gagnon and a rookie Dougherty didn’t recognize got out of the other squad car.

  The guy who’d pulled up in the sedan, Bantey, came up to Dougherty and the security guard saying, “George, are you all right? How are Sam and Hugh?”

  The security guard said, “Same as me, mad as hell.”

  “But they’re not hurt?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good.”

  Dougherty said, “When did the alarm go off?”

  The security guard, George, said, “After they tied us up they went and got some paintings and some jewellery, they were stacking it by the loading dock and one of them opened the side door, over there,” and he pointed to a door beside the garage door. “The alarm went off then and they took off, maybe an hour ago.”

  “Why didn’t we get the call then?”

  Bantey said, “That door is just on an internal alarm, it only rings in the building.”

  Dougherty said, “So how did they get in?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Another car pulled up then, and two detectives got out. Dougherty recognized them as a couple of guys from the Night Patrol, the squad of detectives that worked all over the city, not connected to any particular station and not specializing in homicide or armed robbery or anything like that, just any crime that happened overnight. A couple of decades before, when they were cleaning up the city after the war, taking down the gamblers and bootleggers and pimps that had moved in to supply the soldiers and sailors on their way to Europe, the Night Patrol was legendary, like something out of a Hollywood movie.

  Now Dougherty was thinking they were still like something out of a Hollywood movie but there’s a new Hollywood — Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces and The French Connection — and there hadn’t been a new detective added to the Night Patrol in a long time.

  As Dougherty watched the two detectives walk up and start talking to the museum guy, Bantey, he figured the way his career was going, he might end up on the Night Patrol.

  After a quick conversation Bantey turned and started towards the museum and the Night Patrol detectives motioned for Gagnon and the other rookie to follow them.

  When they were out of earshot Duclos said, “How did you get put in with the old guys so soon?” and Dougherty said, “I don’t know.”

  Duclos leaned back against the squad car and got out his cigarettes, offered one to Dougherty and they both lit up. Duclos blew smoke at the night sky and said, “Burglar alarms changed everything, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “We used to walk the streets, the beat, you know?”

  “I walked a beat.”

  “Sure, for a parade or some special occasion. We used to walk all the time, we talked to people, we knew them all. Eyes and ears on the street.”

  “Then we got cars,” Dougherty said.

  “No, then we got burglar alarms. Wired right into the station houses. The alarms would go off and we’d have to check it out right away. Almost always it was nothing, a strong wind would shake the doors and set off the alarm. But we’d have to check.”

  Dougherty took a drag on his smoke and thought he was glad to be driving around in a squad car instead of walking a beat, but he didn’t say anything.

  “At first it was just the big buildings, you know, and the big houses, rich people. But then everybody started getting the alarms. The insurance companies sold them, you know.”

  “I guess so.”

  “So now we drive around in cars and check burglar alarms and we don’t know any of the people. Do you know any cab drivers?”

  “Just the ones I arrest.”

  �
�My first arrest,” Duclos said, and Dougherty noticed he was smiling, “was in the Point, you know it?”

  “I grew up there.”

  “No kidding? Well, my first arrest, the first night I was walking my beat by myself, you know that casse-croûte on Rue Charlevoix?”

  “Corner of Colerain, yeah, Paul’s.”

  Duclos was nodding then, still smiling, “A cab driver called to me, said somebody was breaking into the store so I ran. There was a guy, older than a teenager but not much, climbing out the window from the basement. He had cartons of cigarettes, as many as he could carry. I grabbed him by the collar and I said, ‘You’re under arrest.’ And then we just stood there, the two of us, and then the guy said, ‘What are you going to do?’ and I didn’t know.” Duclos laughed.

  “Then,” he said, “I saw the cab and I waved him over and I said, ‘Drive us to the station house,’ and we got in.”

  “Oh yeah,” Dougherty said, “that’s better than a squad car.”

  Duclos inhaled on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. “Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. I’m getting too old for this.”

  Dougherty said, “Me too,” and wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not.

  Another car pulled up then, a Volkswagen Beetle, and a middle-aged woman got out. She walked up to Dougherty and Duclos and said, “I’m one of the museum curators of decorative arts. Mr. Bantey called me — there was a robbery?”

  Dougherty said, “That’s right, Mr. Bantey is inside with the detectives. What’s your name?”

  “Dorothy McIntosh.”

  “Okay Mrs. McIntosh,” Dougherty said, “come on, I’ll take you in.”

  “Miss McIntosh.”

  As soon as they walked into the big room on the main floor of the museum, Miss McIntosh stopped and said, “Oh my God.”

  The place was torn apart: there were broken frames and backings all over the floor, the display cases had all been smashed.

  Dougherty and Miss McIntosh walked through the museum — every room had paintings missing, cut out of frames that were scattered on the floor — until they found Bantey and the detectives on the top floor and Miss McIntosh said, “Oh my God, Bill, it’s devastation, they’ve completely cleaned it out.”