Miss Montreal

by Howard Shrier

  I checked off numbers for Camille Fortin, the Lortie campaign office and Les Tapis Kabul. Noted calls made to and from his cell, which only confirmed he was speaking to Mehri more often and at odder hours than a strict journalistic relationship would have required.

  I also recognized the office number for Marie-Josée Boily. And right below it, dialled just a minute afterward, a number with a 438 area code. Holly thought it was probably a cell. I called it and got a message recorded by a woman who sounded like Marie-Josée. I left a brief message saying I was sorry we had missed each other at the restaurant—no blame assigned—and that I still wanted to speak to her, if only for a moment.

  When I hung up, Holly was highlighting a dozen or more calls made to Toronto.

  “That’s his grandfather’s number,” I said.

  “There’s a lot of calls to him. Especially the month before Sammy died.”

  “Long ones too. Look at this one, forty-four minutes.”

  “And this one was more than an hour.”

  “Arthur told me Sammy liked his old-time stories. But you’d think he’d heard most of them by now. What was he working on then, do you remember?”

  “He hadn’t started the Lortie profile yet. Or the Afghan one. Let me think a second. There was the one about the halal food …”

  “The agriculture critic he roasted? I loved that piece. First one of his I read.”

  “I know, it was great, but I doubt his grandfather knew anything about it. There was another one on the jazz festival, how everyone comes out to that in July but ignores good jazz the rest of the year. Honestly, I can’t think of anything his grandfather or his memories would have helped with.”

  “I’ve called the old man a couple of times about another thing. I’ll ask him.”

  “Something to do with adoption?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re still wondering why Marie-Josée never showed up?”

  “I always wonder why someone doesn’t show up. It usually means they’re hiding something.”

  “Good thing I showed up. Otherwise you’d be investigating me.”

  We set the phone records aside and I used my thumbnail to split the tape with which the box had been sealed. I pulled the flaps open.

  “Phew,” she said, waving her hand over the top. “That’s been sealed a long time. Maybe we should do it on the floor.”

  There were a few ways I could have responded to that. I wisely chose none. We sat opposite each other, cross-legged, and I started pulling out envelopes full of photos and negatives, the kind everyone got from labs before cameras went digital. Each pack commemorated an event in the family’s life: weddings, graduations, reunions, bar and bat mitzvahs. I saw Sammy at different stages in his life, from childhood through the years I knew him at Camp Arrowhead to his university graduation. I saw him with his parents in some, with his grandparents in others, Arthur Moscoe easy to spot with his great height and prominent ears.

  “Look at him,” Holly Napier said, pointing at an image of Sammy in a suit, maybe sixteen or seventeen, smiling for the camera at some formal event. “So young. So skinny.”

  I saw her eyes turning glassy with tears and asked if she was okay.

  “Fine. It’s just the dust on these things. Keep going.”

  I pulled out more photos, a set of silver candlesticks with blackened tops, a Crown Royal bag filled with old silver dollars. Letters Sammy had written to his grandfather from camp, from Europe—those thin blue airmail letters that became their own envelope when you licked the sides. The deeper we went into the box, the older the materials looked. There were photos of older generations, sepia-toned images of people looking stiffly into cameras. Men with thick moustaches and trimmed beards, children in sailor outfits, women in dresses that blossomed out at the hips. Images of old Europe, of communities that had been wiped from the map in this war or that. None of it told us a thing about Sammy or why he died.

  When we thought the box was empty, I found one more photo that wasn’t in an envelope. It was stuck to the top flap of the box. I’d missed when I’d opened it. A small image, three inches by two, black-and-white with scalloped edges. At the bottom, stamped in fading ink, was the date it was taken: July 18, 1950.

  There were two figures in the photo: a tall young man of about twenty who had to be Arthur. Dapper looking in a light-coloured suit and a straw fedora on his head, his arm around a lovely young woman who in no way resembled the woman he married later that year. We had seen his bride in photos. And this woman had a small cross dangling from a chain around her neck.

  Holly was gone when Ryan got back, home to her place to get some sleep before another long day at Montreal Moment. I had told her I’d keep her posted on any new developments, especially anything Arthur Moscoe told me about the photo once I reached him.

  “Any luck with the files?” Ryan said.

  “Some. I got Marie-Josée’s cell number, which might help pin her down. And there’s this.” I showed him the long list of calls between Arthur Moscoe and Sammy Adler.

  “An old man, dying,” Ryan said. “Might just have been reminiscing.”

  “Maybe. But such a cluster of them, all at once. I’m wondering if there’s more to it.”

  “Get hold of him.”

  “I’ve been trying. I keep getting voice mail. He probably sleeps a lot.”

  “Next time pass me the phone,” he said. “I’ll wake him the fuck up.”

  “I know you would.” I looked away, thinking of something, wondering whether it was worth a try.

  “What?” Ryan said.

  “What time is it now?”

  “A little after ten. Why?”

  “Just an idea I had.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Maybe both.”

  I excused myself and went into the bathroom, where the hotel had thoughtfully placed a phone on the wall next to the toilet. I didn’t need the bathroom, just the privacy. I sat on the toilet, took a deep breath, and dialled a number I knew so well, it could have been my own.

  I’ve known Sierra Lyons almost as long as I’ve known Jenn. They’ve been together five years, and Jenn introduced us soon after we became friends. They love each other completely and are fiercely protective of each other. I always thought that if anyone harmed Sierra, even spoke rudely to her, Jenn would exact a short, sharp vengeance.

  So it was no surprise that Sierra didn’t want to call Jenn to the phone. She said Jenn had gone to bed but I knew it wasn’t true, not at ten-fifteen. “I just need to ask her one favour,” I said.

  “Does it have anything to do with work?” Sierra asked. She’s always been warm and welcoming, but there was something in her voice now that brought to mind an iron gate clanging shut.

  “Yes, but—”

  “You can’t be serious. You know what she’s been going through.”

  “There’s nothing dangerous in it. If there were, I wouldn’t ask.”

  “Everything is dangerous where you’re concerned. Look at what happened in Boston.”

  “There’s an old man in Toronto,” I said. “He’s eighty-three years old and dying and he lost his grandson. I just need Jenn to ask him something. It would only take a few minutes.”

  “Ask him yourself.”

  “I’ve tried. Repeatedly. I can’t reach him.”

  “Ask Colin to do it.”

  “I would, but …”

  “But what?”

  “Colin was a patrol cop, not an investigator. I don’t know that the old man would open up to him.”

  “Why not?”

  “It might be a sensitive topic.”

  “Sensitive. Kind of the opposite of what you’re being now.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Isn’t it? She is the love of my life, Jonah. There is no one I’ve ever loved as much as Jenn and I almost lost her because of you. Do not drag her into this.”

  She went silent and I thought she was going to hang up on me. Then I heard Jenn’s
voice in the background, asking who was on the phone. Sierra’s reply was distant, muffled. Probably covering the receiver with her hand.

  The next thing I heard was Jenn’s voice saying hey into the phone and Sierra’s heels stomping away.

  THURSDAY, JUNE 23

  CHAPTER 12

  I awoke the next morning to a head buzzing like a beehive busted open by a bear paw. Thinking of so many different things, I couldn’t light on any one long enough to make sense of it. An appointment with a social worker that evaporated soon after it was made. A Syrian following us from an Afghan rug store. Two Syrians showing up at the Jean-Talon Market to bust up our meeting with Mehri.

  Had she set us up? She’d seemed genuinely shaken by their sudden appearance, by whatever connection they had to her brother.

  Then there were thoughts of Sammy and his grandfather, their long conversations over the phone—about what? And that lone black-and-white photo in a box of memorabilia. Thoughts of Holly Napier—I realized I had dreamed about her, that I had come into my hotel room to find her sitting at the desk, her feet up on the polished surface. No shoes on, her feet bare and delicate.

  Thoughts of Jenn and the brief conversation we’d had last night. Wondering whether I had been right to ask her to pay Arthur Moscoe a visit and find out whether there was anything to the adoption angle. If there was, I knew she’d get it. She is so open, so trusting herself, that people have a hard time keeping secrets from her. They pull their cards away from the vest and lay them on the table.

  I stood under the shower, adjusting it from steaming hot to cool, then cold, until I could focus on the first meeting of the day, with la famille Lortie. Ryan was up when I got out, sitting on the bed in boxers. His muscles were lean and hard-looking and he had more scars than a fighting dog, including one puckered dent above his right hip. I didn’t ask about it and he didn’t tell.

  “You gonna have breakfast before this meeting?”

  “Just coffee,” I said.

  “I’ll drive you?”

  “I can take a cab. No point in you sitting around.”

  “Sit around here, sit around there. What difference does it make? At least if you need me, I’ll be close.”

  We took Park Avenue up and around the southern flank of the mountain. Something had changed since the last time I’d been in Montreal and I couldn’t put my finger on it right away. Then I realized the ugly old cloverleaf where Park met Pine had been torn down. Everything was open to view now. All that crumbling grey concrete gone and nothing but a wide vista of green—the mountain on the west side, Jeanne-Mance Park on the east. Like someone had come along with a mop and bucket and scrubbed away something grimy.

  Better not put the bucket away just yet, I thought. This was Montreal. There was plenty more fixing to do.

  We turned onto Mont-Royal, lined on both sides with cafés, pâtisseries, clothing boutiques, small bookstores and second-hand record shops. Most were still closed, except for the cafés. Near St-Hubert was a storefront papered with posters for Québec aux Québécois, showing Laurent Lortie with his arm around his daughter’s shoulder, each waving with one arm to an unseen crowd.

  Ryan left me outside the front door and went to find a meter. The door was locked. I rapped on it and waited. After half a minute, I rapped again. Just a few seconds later, a young man opened the door and ushered me in. “I’m Gabriel Archambault,” he said, extending a fine bony hand. He was losing his hair and kept it cut very short, little more than a bristle. A neatly trimmed beard of the same length framed his chin.

  Both sides of the room were lined with desks that had computers, phones and printouts, where staff or volunteers would spend the day calling voters. “It is quiet now,” he said, “but by eight o’clock we will be very busy, so you must keep your interview brief.”

  “No problem,” I said. After dealing with Detective Paquette and Mehrdad Aziz, I was getting used to people having little or no time for me.

  “Kindly wait here a moment. Will you take a coffee?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Merci.”

  “De rien,” he said and off he went.

  According to Sammy’s notes, Laurent Lortie had been born into an old-stock family, what the Québécois themselves call pure laine. The Lorties had been among the first settlers to sail from Brittany—one of the few places in France where French sounds like Québécois. They had originally settled in the north coast of the Gaspé Peninsula, where for generations they farmed, fished for salmon or worked in forestry. His great-grandfather moved to Montreal, where he worked as a customs clerk in a shipping company. His grandfather finished high school and obtained a post in the civil service, eventually becoming assistant to the deputy minister of finance. His father, Lucien, was the first Lortie to graduate from university and outdid his own father by winning a seat in the provincial parliament, the Assemblée Nationale, serving in the Liberal government of Jean Lesage at the onset of the Quiet Revolution.

  Born in 1951, Laurent was educated at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. According to Sammy, it was the school where the elite sent their children for a good Jesuit education and grounding in Quebec nationalism. He studied history and political science at the Université de Montréal, graduating with top marks, and went on to the London School of Economics, where he honed his already keen mind and perfected his English.

  On his return to Montreal, he’d been expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and prepare for a life in politics. He surprised his parents by going into business instead, working for Power Corporation of Canada, a global media and finance giant owned and run by French-Canadians, often cited as one of the powers pulling the federal government’s strings. When CEO Paul Desmarais told prime ministers to jump, they grabbed their pogo sticks. At thirty, Laurent married his secretary, Dorothée Rivest. Lucienne was born in 1982, Luc in 1985. At age forty, he was named senior vice-president of Power Corp.’s financial services division. It was only when he took early retirement at sixty that he began taking a direct interest in politics.

  After a ten-minute wait, Gabriel returned and led me to an office at the back of the store. There were two desks, both neat as a pin, neat as Gabriel himself. They formed an ell: one desk backed against the rear window, the other at a right angle to it. He pointed to a seat opposite the desk that backed onto the wall. I took it. A moment later, I smelled something light and floral snaking past me in the air. I heard footsteps coming, two sets, one with harder heels than the other, and the fragrance grew stronger as a tall blonde woman came in. Gabriel followed, carrying a tray with two mugs of coffee, both emblazoned with the blue QAQ symbol.

  “I forgot to ask how you take yours,” he said.

  “I am guessing black,” the woman said. “Isn’t that how detectives like their coffee? Strong and simple?”

  “I usually take milk,” I said.

  “Not even cream but milk?” she smiled. “Now you are shattering all my illusions. I am Lucienne Lortie, by the way.”

  “Jonah Geller.”

  “Yes, I know.” We shook; her grip was stronger than Gabriel’s. I wondered if she used a strengthener like mine. By any reasonable standard she was stunning: about five-nine, slender, wearing a tight cream-coloured pencil skirt and jacket over a pale coral blouse. Her jewellery was simple but expensive looking: a pearl choker and pearl earrings, a slim gold watch. No rings. Her hair was blonde—very blonde—but short, neatly parted and gelled with something to fit her head as tight as a legionnaire’s helmet. Beautiful, but not in Holly Napier’s natural way. Too highly processed for my taste. Holly struck me as the kind of woman who’d roll out of bed looking great; Lucienne Lortie looked like she’d need a gaggle of stylists.

  “My father will join us in a moment,” she said. “In the meantime, please sit. Enjoy your coffee.”

  “Thank you.”

  She sat behind the desk and told Gabriel in French that he could return to his work. Her accent was easy to understand: not the joual of the streets but the
clearly enunciated tongue I had learned in school.

  “So,” she said. “You have come all the way from Toronto to see us.”

  “Among other people.”

  “Ah. And how are you liking Montreal so far? Are you familiar with it?”

  “Parts,” I said.

  “West of St-Laurent? The English areas?”

  “Mostly.”

  “If I know my history, that was a largely Jewish area for many years. You are Jewish yourself, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Now most of our Jewish citizens have moved farther west, to Hampstead, Côte St-Luc, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, except for those ultra-Orthodox in Outremont. And in some cases they have gone all the way to Ontario. Which is a pity. Previous generations viewed the Jews as a necessary evil. To me, those who assimilate make up one of the more successful immigrant groups in Montreal.”

  “Unlike the Muslims.”

  “You don’t approve of our platform?”

  “I don’t vote here.”

  “Nonetheless, there is a note of—what?—disdain in your voice?”

  “I don’t know enough about it.”

  “Then let me spell it out for you.”

  “I’m really here to talk about Sam Adler.”

  “And this is what we talked about, he and I. And my father, of course.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait for him?”

  “I am not sure how long his call will take. But we speak with one voice, he and I.”

  “Go on then.”

  “It’s rather simple,” she said. “There were two founding peoples in Quebec, the French and the English. The English won at the Plains of Abraham and for more than two centuries after, we were strangers in our own land. The workers, never the owners or managers. Yes, the Catholic Church was complicit in keeping things that way, denying us a good education, a greater view of things. But more than that was the contempt, the arrogance, of the English, the Scots and, yes, the Jews, who kept us in the menial and clerical classes.”

  I had heard this before, dozens of times, through two referendums that had almost split the country. The laments of French-Canadians, how the English had humiliated them, stymied their ambitions at every turn. Who could forget the second referendum in 1995, which the sovereigntists lost by a whisker, hearing the leader of their camp blame the loss on money and ethnic voters—code for Jews and other immigrants who had voted massively against separation.