Death on the St. Lawrence

by Agnès Ruiz

  “Continue. Don’t let such a minor thing bother you,” Jeff replied.

  “They weren’t gambling debts. Marcal had been making investments for quite some time. Very profitable ones. At least that’s what he told me when he encouraged me to invest, to ensure a cozier retirement for myself. And a better life for my mother.”

  “And so naturally you followed his advice,” Detective Toury said as she nodded.

  “The majority of my savings,” Luc said. “I didn’t touch my mother’s widow’s pension, though. Just in case. Believe me, I’m so glad I didn’t. The whole thing turned out to be a huge scam. They took everything, those assholes. Down to the last penny.”

  “Who do you mean by ‘they’?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “I have no idea. The group that handled the so-called winning stocks. Marcal swore on his life that our investment would triple within a year. It was irresistible, naturally. One morning, he came looking for me. His account statement showed a zero balance. And his contact had disappeared into thin air. Impossible to reach. Marcal panicked. He said he couldn’t tell his wife about such a catastrophe. It would kill her. He had even mortgaged their home without telling her.”

  The detective was reminded of a snippet of her conversation with Marc-Alexandre’s widow. It was the reason for the couple’s heated argument. What she had refused to reveal unless she were forced to open up about it ... that her husband had confessed he had lost all their savings and that they risked losing their house.

  “After that, he asked you for your gun. He couldn’t handle it anymore. Suicide seemed like the only way out,” Jeff said.

  “Absolutely not! What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “Continue, then. Don’t make us beg you, Mr. Mongrain. The day is getting long for everyone, you know.”

  Jeff acted impatient. Rachel admired his technique. The chief mate was now on his feet. He wanted to be done with all this mess. If only that had been the case.

  “Me too, I lost a good deal of money. After all, don’t forget we’re the victims, Marcal and me.”

  “Of course. We don’t doubt it.”

  He scrutinized Jeff’s reaction as if he didn’t believe a word of the feigned compassion, though he didn’t challenge it.

  “Every day when I went to work, I would go after him about it. Marcal had pulled me into the mess. It was his job to get me out of it.”

  “Yes, in the spirit of friendship,” Detective Toury said.

  “When money’s involved, it’s no longer about friendship, you know. I’m not talking about ten dollars! Marcal, he didn’t have a single strategy. All he did was whine. I was beginning to think that ... well, nothing at all. Might as well consider the money gone. Period.”

  “Could you spare us the details, Mr. Mongrain? Just stick to the facts.”

  Jeff’s voice sounded bored. He was tapping his pen on his notepad. The sound seemed to irritate the chief mate. His jaw muscles flinched as he stared at the pen. He gripped the edge of the table as if trying to hold himself back from stopping the repetitive motion.

  “Jeff, I think you’re bothering Mr. Mongrain. Would you mind putting down your pen?”

  Rachel’s voice sounded protective. The investigator made a big show of apologizing, too kind to be believable. He stood up and went back to leaning against the wall, facing the suspect.

  “We received our cargo list. Marcal came to see me one evening. I suspected he’d had too much to drink. I’m not sure. He didn’t seem like himself. We went for a walk, and then he told me a guy had contacted him.”

  “A guy?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t have any more details than that, you have to believe me. Anyway, the guy seemed to know quite a bit about our job. And even more about Marcal’s disastrous financial situation. He proposed removing something from one of the containers, just like that. Sight unseen, no harm done. No one would ever know. And Marcal would be richly rewarded.”

  “Why did he come see you about it?”

  “Do you think him capable of keeping it all for himself? That wasn’t how Marcal operated.”

  Detective Toury was beginning to have her doubts. Particularly considering the inextricable situation the captain was in. However, she chose to keep the thought to herself.

  Chapter 16

  “He wanted to know what I thought about it,” Luc Mongrain said. “Then, what were the risks if he accepted. I told him that we were already in deep trouble, so it couldn’t get any worse. And that I wanted in, and I was straightforward about it. That we would share the payment. Marcal agreed. Almost seemed reassured. That’s when he asked me if I still had my revolver.”

  “He wanted you to bring it on board the ship in case something went wrong, I suppose,” Rachel said.

  He nodded.

  “Yeah, something like that. I never would’ve imagined how bad a decision it would be. We had no idea there was even anything particularly valuable in any of the containers. Our company doesn’t transport high-dollar goods.”

  “Your employer was unaware?”

  “I’m sure of it! He would’ve had a fit if he’d known.”

  “What was in the cargo that was so valuable?” Jeff drew closer, placing his palms on the table and leaning over the suspect to intimidate him.

  “Drugs. A fairly large bag, well hidden among ordinary goods. Office equipment, paper supplies, and things like that.”

  The detective wondered how the container had successfully cleared customs. A stroke of luck or more likely with the help of accomplices. According to Guillermo Voily, the Interpol agent, this gang was formidable and elusive. And what Luc Mongrain had described corresponded to their modus operandi. First, the investment scam to bankrupt the person, then obligate him to commit an act by dangling a means of recouping his losses. Of course, victims weren’t picked out of the clear blue sky. The job of captain had been in their cross hairs from the very beginning. And even better, a cargo ship. How they had gotten wind of trafficking was another story. Rachel had already alerted the narcotics division. Her colleagues would dig deeper into this case to scrutinize the office supplies company that had shipped the so-called goods, which were mostly drugs. A small and profitable business. How long had it been going on and who was really involved?

  Rachel remained dumbfounded by the extreme manipulation of which Captain Blanchette had been a victim. Scams happened all the time. Thwarting them proved to be rather easy. Other times, the scheme was so insidious and meticulously planned that it was almost impossible to resist, particularly when initiated by a smooth talker. The detective always got a bitter taste in her mouth from such a scene. And murder made it even nastier.

  “And Marc-Alexandre Blanchette believed this stranger was telling the truth?” she asked.

  “He received an advance right before the ship’s departure.”

  Jeff held out a sheet of paper. A bank statement deposit that he had circled in red.

  “I guess you’re referring to this amount?”

  He craned his neck to check the number and nodded glumly.

  “Indeed, that’s quite a nice sum,” Jeff said.

  “It was only a fourth of what we were to receive. No one would ever know about it.”

  Jeff let out a long whistle of amazement.

  “Ah! Easy money and from out of nowhere. Only in fairy tales, Mr. Mongrain,” the detective said in a sharp tone.

  “We found exactly the same amount in your captain’s personal account,” Jeff said.

  “It should have been so simple. But once we were aboard the ship, Marcal realized we’d make a terrible mistake. He was already picturing us in prison and wanted to pull out of the deal. He threatened to contact the police.”

  “Not a bad idea,” said Jeff.

  “You’ve taken a close look at the bank statement?”

  Rachel nodded that they were aware of what he meant. The same amount of money had been withdrawn from their accounts as soon as they wer
e aboard the ship and headed out to sea.

  “The money was sent from an account in the Cayman Islands. Hard to trace. But it pointed to you and your captain. All you had was your word to absolve you, and the infamous goods to incriminate you...”

  “It’s true. We were rats caught in a trap. So I told Marcal he’d lost his mind. No one would fall for such a story. We had no other choice. We had to carry through with the plan. That’s when he asked me to give him my gun. I didn’t want to. He would do something stupid. But he did everything he could to convince me. He promised that it was for our protection, and so on. So I gave in. Afterwards ... one thing led to another. That same night, some guys took control of the ship. I’m not sure how it happened.”

  “They’re very well organized,” said Rachel.

  Guillermo Voily had been an excellent source of information. These ruthless criminals operated using brutal measures to cover up their tracks. Dead bodies always trailed in their wake, like an indelible signature.”

  “The crew were corralled to certain areas of the vessel and then locked up.”

  “And you?”

  He lowered his head, overwhelmed with shame. He clinched his fists and lips as if refusing to utter a single word.

  “You’ll feel better if you get if off your chest, Mr. Mongrain.”

  “I’ll never be able to forgive myself! Do you understand?”

  The man had become agitated. It was helpful only in that he found the nerve to speak.

  “I hid. Just like a coward! I was so scared.”

  “I’m sure that hadn’t been your plan. Tell us what happened next.”

  Rachel wondered if he would comply. He seemed so far away and lost in thought. The ticking of the clock’s hands measured the time with its characteristic precision. Without thinking, Detective Toury had counted twenty seconds. That’s how long it took Luc Mongrain to make up his mind.

  “I’d gone to a quiet spot at the stern to smoke. When I came back, it was eerily calm. Even at night there’s always activity on a boat. I’m talking about the crew. Suddenly I heard a gunshot. My mind went straight to Marcal. And to the Luger. The shot, I had a feeling it had come from my gun. Yet I wasn’t sure of anything—your imagination can get so carried away in the dark. I crept towards the direction of the gunshot. I saw the captain and a guy standing in front of him. Two thugs were holding up Marcal, one on either side of him. The guy who seemed to be the head honcho had my gun in his hand. I realized he’d shot Marcal in the leg. From the way Marcal was screaming, it must’ve hurt like hell. The guy then held the gun to Marcal’s temple. He wanted to know where the goods were, saying he wasn’t about to search every single container. They shoved Marcal onto his knees, onto to his injury. And pulled the trigger, those bastards. I was there, I saw it all...”

  “There was nothing you could have done, Mr. Mongrain,” Jeff said.

  “How do you know about it? Were you there?”

  His voice cracked as he uttered the painful words.

  “I imagine your captain was incapable of resisting them,” said the detective.

  “Marcal broke down. He was crying as he pointed to the container on the cargo map. He begged them to not kill him. That he wouldn’t tell anybody. Those guys, they’re worse than scumbags. The absolute worst of their kind. A second later, they fired the shot.”

  At that point, Luc Mongrain held his hands to his ears as if trying to block hearing again and again the sound of the bullet exploding in his friend’s skull. He was crying, his chest shaking from the sobs, the regret, and the anger.

  “They took out Marcal with a bullet to the head! Like that. Even though he’d told them what they wanted. And—”

  Teary eyed, the man went silent as he relived the unbearable scene.

  “—And then they threw Marc-Alexandre Blanchette’s body overboard.” Detective Toury completed his sentence.

  He took a moment to reply, still shaken from revealing what had happened.

  “I couldn’t move—I was in such a state of shock. My brain became fuzzy, and I struggled to think clearly. Then it dawned on me that they would do the same thing to me. I knew too much. So ... I stayed hidden. Until they left.”

  “They seized what they had come for?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes. I watched them go below deck. Then I saw them jump aboard a yacht.”

  Rachel asked Jeff to take care of the paperwork to arrest Luc Mongrain. Her colleagues in the narcotics division would need to question him. He had become a key witness. The Interpol agent would also want to hear his testimony.

  Detective Toury completed her report and sent an email to Guillermo Voily updating him on the lasted development.

  Jessica walked through the door just as Rachel received his reply. Something to read later. This next stage of the investigation was no longer under her jurisdiction.

  “I’m happy to see you again, Jessica. I could really use a break.”

  “What? Just when I got here to help?” said the girl.

  “The case is closed on our end. If you’d like, I’ll give you all the details, along with a pizza. My treat.”

  The teen perked up, disappointment fading away, as she listened to her aunt’s retelling of the day’s events.

  “You’re going to explain everything to the captain’s widow?”

  “I don’t have any choice. I’ll try to tell it as simply as possible, sparing her as much as I can. That’s all I can do. She needs to know, though. As a part of the grieving process—so she can move forward.”

  “That’s incredible. I love your job!”

  Rachel laughed at Jessica’s enthusiasm.

  “Me too, I like my job. Especially when we nab the bad guys.”

  “But here, that’s not really the case,” Jessica said.

  “Right. These pirates are likely to cause a lot more harm.”

  “But Interpol is on the alert,” Jessica said with resolve.

  “You’re right! That Guillermo Voily seemed really good. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to meet him one day...”

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