One or the Other

by John McFetridge

  “You think that’s important?”

  Dougherty said, “I don’t know,” and he didn’t. “But if she’s not telling the truth about one thing how do we know she’s telling the truth about anything?”

  “She is.”

  “How do you know?”

  Legault said, “In youth services I have talked to many teenagers, many girls.”

  “Are they all the same?”

  “When the girls talk about how they were raped, I can tell if it’s true.”

  Dougherty didn’t think that would go over well with Carpentier and the other homicide detectives, and he didn’t even want to imagine taking that to the prosecutors, but he could see how serious Legault was so he didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he said, “That’s what happened?”

  “Yes.”

  They were taking the on-ramp to the bridge then, passing over a huge ship in the seaway.

  “Two men?” Dougherty said.

  “Yes. At first she only saw one man, standing by a car. He’s young, maybe twenty-five, long hair, not much of a beard.”

  “Of course.”

  “He offered Kim some drugs.”

  “Cocaine?”

  “No, just marijuana. She said he held out the joint.”

  “He speak English?”

  “Yes. But he had an accent.”

  They were going over the crest of the bridge, the skyline of Montreal off to the right.

  Dougherty said, “And the other one?”

  “He didn’t speak. Kim took the joint from the first one and he offered her a ride. She said no. The other one grabbed her from behind and forced her into the car, the back seat.”

  “Did they do it there?”

  “No. They drove somewhere. The one who pushed Kim into the car, the one who didn’t speak, he held her down, pushed her face into the seat.”

  Dougherty changed lanes, jerking the steering wheel, and the car behind them honked. He said, “Where did they drive to?”

  “She doesn’t know. They drove to the south shore.”

  “How does she know that?”

  Legault said, “It’s where they left her,” with an edge to her voice. She took a moment and then continued in the almost monotone she’d been using. “They drove for a while and when they stopped they pulled her halfway out of the car but kept her face pushed into the seat. They took turns. Then they left her and drove off.”

  Dougherty drove along Taschereau, still lined with a lot of motels that had been thrown up for Expo, past La Belle Province hot dog place, the Greenfield Park Shopping Centre and pulled into the parking lot of the Champion Lanes bowling alley.

  “Where did they leave her?”

  “Not far from where we just were. The train yards across Boulevard Wilfrid Laurier.”

  “How did she get home?”

  “She walked.”

  Dougherty said, “And she didn’t tell anyone? She got home in the middle of the night and no one noticed?”

  “No, no one. She said there is trouble at home, her parents are separated, they may have to sell the house.”

  “So she didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Not until today. But you heard rumours, your brother did.”

  “He really had no idea, I was just guessing.”

  “You guessed right.”

  Dougherty said, “Are you going to make a report?”

  “She won’t.”

  “What?”

  “The vice-principal is going to arrange for something, some kind of counsellor, but Kim, she doesn’t want any police.”

  “She talked to you?”

  Legault said, “Yes.”

  Dougherty turned and looked at Legault. “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “They never want to involve the police.”

  Dougherty said, “Why not?”

  “She thinks it was her fault.”

  “It wasn’t her fault.”

  “People will say that. She’ll be treated like the criminal, not the victim. She was walking by herself after midnight, she took drugs, she was a . . .” Legault searched for the word and then said in English, “a groupie.”

  “Elle a seize ans,” Dougherty said.

  Legault looked at him.

  “Okay, maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe that’s what would happen.”

  It was quiet for a minute, and then Legault said, “Do you think it was the same guys?”

  Dougherty was angry. “Of course it was, it’s Comptois and Daigneault.”

  “Maybe.”

  “How many guys you think are raping girls on Île Sainte-Hélène?”

  “More than you know.”

  Dougherty slammed the steering wheel. “We know these two.”

  “This case is closed,” Legault said.

  “We’ll reopen it.”

  “Who, you and me?”

  “You don’t want to?”

  “Câlisse, of course I do.” Legault paused and then said, “But you know we can’t.”

  Dougherty balled his hands into fists and tapped the steering wheel. “We can keep doing what we’re doing.”

  “What are we doing? We’re getting nothing.”

  “We know who did it.”

  “You have any evidence? Eh? Do you?” She didn’t wait for an answer that wasn’t coming. “We have nothing, nothing we can use. You want to go to your chef des homicides, what’s his name, the friend of Captain Allard?”

  “Carpentier.”

  “You want to go to him with this? These girls, Louise Tremblay, tabarnak, what happened to her was my fault!”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Be quiet! These girls, Louise and this one today, Kim, you think we can help them? We can’t help them any more than we can help Manon.”

  “You want to give up? Just let them go?”

  “I want to kill these fucking bastards!” She slammed her fist into the dashboard and then it was suddenly quiet in the car.

  Dougherty realized he was squeezing the steering wheel and he loosened his grip. He knew Legault was right, everything she had said and everything she hadn’t. There were no more official channels to go through, she was back on youth services, lucky to still have a job, and Dougherty was sitting at a desk at Station Ten or driving patrol.

  He said, “I’ll drive you home.”

  Legault opened the car door and said, “It’s okay. It’s not far, I’ll call my husband. We have to go grocery shopping anyway.” She got out of the car, and before she closed the door she leaned back in and said, “They’re criminals, they’ll do something else, you’ll catch them.”

  Dougherty said, “Yeah.”

  Legault slammed the door and walked towards the pay phones by the door of the bowling alley.

  Dougherty waited a moment then pulled out of the parking lot. He drove back the way he’d come, along Taschereau, not thinking about it but avoiding the Jacques Cartier Bridge and taking the Champlain. Not passing the scene of the crime.

  One of the crimes.

  He knew Legault was right, he knew criminals. They’d do something else to someone else. There’d be another victim, maybe a lot more victims, but they’d get caught. But maybe not for years, maybe not even in Montreal, maybe in Calgary like Wayne Boden, the guy who had killed three women in 1970 who Dougherty had chased around the city. Seemed so long ago now, but it was only six years. Dougherty had spent that whole time thinking he’d get promoted, make detective, it was only a matter of time.

  Now it seemed like it would never happen.

  By the time he pulled into the parking lot behind the apartment building, he was feeling okay, glad to be coming home to Judy.

  As soon as he walked in she said, “We’re on strike.”

 
“You’ve only been on the job a month, you won’t even get strike pay, will you?”

  “No.” She stood up from the couch and said, “It could be long, we’re really dug in.”

  “That’s what it looks like?”

  “Yeah. How’d it go?”

  “Not good.” Dougherty opened the fridge and got out a beer. “You want one?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I have a job.”

  Judy said, “Yeah.”

  They started making dinner and Dougherty was thinking he was lucky to have a job.

  A couple weeks later, the government ordered the teachers back to work and the next day called an election.

  And then, shocking a lot of people, the PQ, the party that wanted Quebec to separate from Canada, really started to gain a lot of traction.

  Dougherty kept his head down and did his job, but he also kept an eye out for Martin Comptois and Marc-André Daigneault.

  He might spend the rest of his career driving patrol, but he’d always be working these murders, Manon Houle and Mathieu Simard.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  The call came in the morning, just after ten. Dougherty was in the squad room looking at arrest reports from the past week, pulling out anything that mentioned narcotics or rape.

  Delisle hung up the phone and said, “Hey, Dougherty, take a drive. Woman says her daughter is dead.”

  Dougherty paused for a second and then stood up, saying, “How old is the daughter?”

  Delisle held out a piece of paper and said, “She’s hysterical, that’s all we got.”

  “Is there anybody else here I can take?” Dougherty took the paper, glancing at the address, and headed out the back door of the station.

  Delisle called after him, “I’ll send Gagnon as soon as I find him and Bernier when he finishes the call he’s on.”

  In the car on the way down the hill, Dougherty was thinking he hadn’t planned on leaving the station all day, but when Delisle said the daughter was dead he hopped on it. He was hoping she wasn’t just a baby.

  He drove fast but didn’t put on the siren. There wasn’t much traffic. A couple of minutes later he pulled up in front of the row of houses on Coursol Street and saw a woman standing on the sidewalk looking like she had no idea where she was.

  “Madame, avez-vous appelé la police?”

  “L’ambulance.”

  Dougherty was standing beside the woman then, and he realized she was older than he expected, in her forties or fifties, not a young mother at all.

  He continued in French, “Is it your daughter?”

  “Inside.”

  She pointed vaguely, and Dougherty saw the door to the ground-floor apartment was open. He walked towards it.

  Inside the door was a long hallway. Dougherty took a step in, looking into the living room but not seeing anyone. He moved farther into the apartment and came to the bathroom. It was empty. The kitchen was at the very back of the apartment, but before he got there Dougherty looked into the bedroom and saw the girl on the bed. It wasn’t what he’d expected.

  The call had said the daughter was dead so Dougherty had thought it was a baby or very young child, the kind of call he’d seen a couple of times, the baby just didn’t wake up, stopped breathing. Later, sometimes, they found evidence of shaking or sometimes they never found anything and the tragedy went on forever.

  This daughter looked to be in her twenties. And she was tied up. Hands behind her back, electrical wire wrapped tight and then wound around her ankles and back up to her neck. There was a gag in her mouth.

  Her eyes were open. Ringed in blood. Dougherty touched her neck but he knew she was dead.

  He unclipped his radio and called it in, told Delisle the victim was in her twenties and had been murdered. Something seemed off in the room, strange, and it took Dougherty a moment to realize it was that the room was so neat. Nothing had been disturbed. There were bottles of perfume and make-up on the dresser in front of the mirror and clothes neatly folded. There hadn’t been a struggle at all. And she was dressed for work, a dark skirt and a blouse, buttoned up all the way. Dougherty lifted the skirt and saw white panties. She probably hadn’t been raped.

  As he was walking out of the room, he stepped on something that made a rustling sound and he saw it was a large empty bag of Humpty Dumpty salt and vinegar chips. He picked it up and it wasn’t empty. He reached in carefully and pulled out what he thought was a dark blue tuque but when he had it in his hand he realized it was a ski mask. He put it back in the chip bag and put that on the dresser.

  Then he closed the door to the bedroom and went back outside.

  The ambulance had arrived and Dougherty told the two guys that the girl was in the bedroom and asked them not to disturb too much, it was a crime scene.

  One guy said, “We do what we have to,” and they went inside with their gear.

  Dougherty took the mother aside and asked her what her name was.

  “Yvette Dionne.”

  “Do you live here?”

  She shook her head no. “In Verdun. She didn’t go to work, my daughter. She didn’t phone me. I came to see if she was sick.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Madeleine Dionne.”

  “Do you have a key?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was the door locked when you got here?”

  Mme. Dionne thought for a moment and then said, “Yes.”

  “Who else has a key?”

  “No one.”

  “Is there anyone she would let in? Is she married?”

  Mme. Dionne shook her head again. She was crying and holding a tissue to her face, but she was holding it together.

  “A boyfriend maybe?”

  “No, they broke up.”

  “When?”

  “A couple of weeks ago, I think. He’s useless, a bum.”

  “He’s not working.”

  Mme. Dionne shook her head, “He never works, he’s too lazy.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Stéphane Roberge.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “No, I think downtown.”

  “You said your daughter didn’t go to work today, where is that?”

  “At the bank, the City and District. She works hard.”

  “On St. Catherine?”

  “No,” she thought for a moment and said, “on Notre Dame, past Atwater.”

  A crowd had started to gather on the sidewalk, neighbours coming out of their apartments, and a couple more cop cars arrived.

  Dougherty saw Gagnon and waved him over, saying, “Keep people out of the apartment. The tech guys will be here soon, it’s a homicide.”

  An unmarked police car pulled up and a woman got out. She was wearing a suit jacket and a skirt and said, “I’m Constable Benoît with Family Services.”

  Dougherty stepped closer and explained the situation, and Benoît said, “I’ll talk to Mme. Dionne.”

  “The homicide detectives will probably want to talk to her,” Dougherty said, “but I have a preliminary statement so she doesn’t have to stay and watch all this.”

  “I’ll see if she wants to go to a hospital,” Benoît said. “Or I’ll take her home.” She walked over to Mme. Dionne and Dougherty watched her take charge, dealing with a grieving parent, something she’d probably done dozens of times before.

  Dougherty unclipped the radio handset from his collar and asked Delisle which homicide detectives were on the way and Delisle said, “What do you care?”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Carpentier.”

  Dougherty said great under his breath and heard a voice say, “Doesn’t sound great.”

  “Rozovsky, how you doing?”

  �
��Better than you.”

  “Wait till you get inside.”

  “Is it bad?” Rozovsky asked. He had one camera bag in his hand and another over his shoulder. “I heard the mother called it in.”

  “It’s not a baby,” Dougherty said. “She looks to be in her twenties.”

  “Is she a mess?”

  Dougherty shook his head and said, “No, she’s tied up, you’ll see. The place is clean.”

  “No robbery?”

  “No, and no rape.”

  “So what was it?”

  Dougherty said, “I don’t know. The mother said she didn’t go to work today.”

  “Where does she work?”

  “Not far from here, the City and District on Notre Dame.”

  “A bank?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rozovsky said, “Remember the extortion last year, that bank manager was tied up?”

  “No, where was that?”

  “North end, maybe you don’t know. Couple of guys broke into the bank manager’s house, tied him up. They called the bank, got them to hand over fifty grand.”

  “They didn’t kill him.”

  Rozovsky shrugged. “They said they would.”

  “They get caught?”

  “Yeah, I think they did. They both bought cars right away.”

  “So, it’s not them.”

  “No.” Rozovsky said and started into the apartment. “Maybe it’s someone smarter.”

  Dougherty doubted that but thought it could be someone who heard the story.

  A couple of minutes later, a grey four-door sedan pulled up and Detective Carpentier got out. He saw Dougherty and said, “Constable.”

  Dougherty quickly briefed him, giving him all the information he had, and when he finished Carpentier said, “You think it’s an extortion?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “But that was the manager they had, she’s not the manager.”

  “No.” Dougherty paused, then said, “But it wasn’t a rape and it wasn’t a robbery. No one broke in.”

  “Yes, so maybe she’s the one they could get,” Carpentier said. “Have you called the bank?”

  “No.”

  Carpentier looked around and said, “Well, if they’ve contacted the bank they won’t come back here.” He motioned at all the cop cars and the ambulance. “Not now.”