Open Season (Luc Vanier)

by Peter Kirby

  “My name’s Luc. I told you that, didn’t I? What’s your name?

  “Yes. You said.”

  “You speak English?”

  “Some. Not much.”

  “So what’s your name?”

  She sipped at her coffee, head down. Stole a glance at Vanier. Vanier was resting his head against the wall, his eyes closed. He was exhausted. After a few minutes he reached for the coffee, took the lid off and sipped.

  “Good coffee.”

  She looked him in the eye for the first time, like she had made a decision.

  “Katya. Katya Babyak.”

  “What were you doing on the boat?”

  Her eyes flickered. Vanier recognized fear.

  “The others. How are they?” she said.

  “What others?”

  “We were five. Me, three women and a boy. They made us leave the boat.”

  “I’m sorry. You were the only person. Only you.”

  “They kill the others.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Two men. One, he drives the boat. The other, he makes us go in the water. There was a helicopter and he said to go in the small boat. He killed them.”

  “They have not found any bodies. Maybe they survived. Did you have life vests?”

  “What is that?”

  “You know.” Vanier made like he was putting on a life vest. “Orange vest. You put it on to help you float in the water.”

  “Oh.” Then she shook her head. “No.”

  “Look, Katya, let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what happened.”

  “Food. I need food. It is long story.”

  “Okay. I’ll order food. Then you tell me the story.”

  Vanier got to his feet and rapped on the door again. When it opened, he gave $20 to the officer. “I know. It’s not your job. But we’re both starving. Can you see if you can find us something to eat? Anything, doughnuts, muffins, McDonald’s breakfast. Just get something, okay?”

  The officer took the money and closed the door without smiling. Vanier slid back down the wall to his place on the floor.

  “I am prostitute. I did not start out to be prostitute. They forced me. In Ukraine, I pay money to come to Canada. Only half, but lots of money. They say there is a job for me in Canada. Nanny. They say when I start to work, I pay the rest of money. But when I come to Canada they say they own me. They give me this.” She rolled her sleeve up and held out her arm to show the tattoo. “It means I am property until all money is paid. But it is not true. I am property forever.”

  She rolled her sleeve back down.

  “I must work to pay money. And they made me prostitute. But I am no good for this job so they sell me for men who like to beat women, who like to rape. This is my job. To be raped. Yesterday—no, maybe before yesterday. Two men in uniform came to place. Pavlov, he said not to talk, not say anything. So we say nothing. When they leave, we go to our rooms and are locked in there. But no work that night. Usually, there is work every night. But this night, nothing. After many hours we go downstairs into back of truck.”

  “So we drive for a long time. Then we stop and go to boat. We are on boat maybe thirty minutes and then we hear helicopter. The man, he is scared. He says for us to get in small boat. The others. They die, no?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Yes. They are probably dead.”

  Katya nodded.

  Vanier stood up and passed her a photograph of Sophia Luna. “Did you ever see this woman?”

  She looked at the photo and shook her head. “She is beautiful. But I never see this person.”

  He took the photograph back and handed her one of Oksana Kedrov. “You know this person?”

  Katya shuddered, made a grunt-like sound. “This is lady who owns me. This is lady who made me tattoo. She is boss, Mrs. Kedrov. Pavlov is her son. Very bad people.”

  She gave the photograph back to Vanier. “What happens to me?”

  “I don’t know, Katya, but I’ll find out.”

  Twenty-six

  Sylvie Saint Jacques was leaning on her crutches in front of the reception desk in Google’s Montreal offices. The company had taken a couple of floors of a stately building on the corner of McGill College and Sainte-Catherine and transformed the space into a cross between a kindergarten and an upscale frat house.

  Saint Jacques had dressed for the part, less cop and more woman, playing for sympathy with the crutches.

  She heard a whooshing sound, and turned to see a guy in jeans and a T-shirt emerge feet first from a green and red plastic chute. An alternative to taking the stairs. He stood up and raised his hands in the air like a circus performer signalling the end of a trick.

  “Sergeant Saint Jacques?”

  She nodded and reached out her hand, balancing forward on the crutches.

  “I’m Khartapuka Khalsa. You can call me Kharta.” He shook her hand, smiling all the time, her squeeze harder than his.

  “I heard you had a problem,” he said.

  “I was hoping you could help us.”

  “That’s what Google does. Come with me,” he said.

  He led her down the hall to a fishbowl conference room. What wasn’t glass was painted in playroom green and yellow. A laptop was open and ready on the glass table. Saint Jacques leaned her crutches against the wall and limped to a seat. She explained the problem: a lost document attached to an email. She had the email address of the sender and the receiver, and the approximate date it would have been sent.

  “Big problem,” he said.

  “No. I’ve got the sender’s permission. It’s his document.” She was fishing in her bag for the email from Lepage.

  “No. No. That’s not what I meant. I assume you’re not asking me to do anything illegal. You wouldn’t do that, would you?” He gave her a wide smile.

  “Of course not. It’s perfectly legal. The sender consented,” Saint Jacques said. “I know it’s difficult. But we’re investigating the murder of the recipient.” She pushed a sheet of paper across the table with the details.

  “Exactly. What I meant is that it’s more work to find individual documents. Imagine a warehouse filled with paper. No, imagine six warehouses, all of them filled with documents, and you want me to find one page in all that paper. The big agencies, CSIS and the RCMP, those kind of guys, they don’t ask for individual documents. They get the metadata. That’s like asking for the keys to the warehouse so they can go looking themselves. That’s a lot easier. We just do a massive download over to them and that’s the end of it. Let them go searching through the warehouse.”

  “I didn’t realize it would be so difficult. I really appreciate the effort.”

  He smiled at her again. “Not a problem. We have a shortcut. Why don’t you wander down the hall and get a coffee. I should have something when you get back.”

  Saint Jacques got to her feet and reached for the crutches. “Can I get something for you?”

  “That would be wonderful.” He beamed at her. “I’ll have a tea.”

  Saint Jacques followed his directions to the kitchen, resisting the temptation of the pinball machine. Two guys were playing foosball. The pool table was free. She wondered how anybody got work done.

  In the kitchen, she didn’t even have to make the coffee. Another techie, who introduced himself as Kevin, showed her how the machines worked. He insisted on carrying her coffee and Kharta’s tea back to the boardroom for her.

  Kevin settled in like he was part of the meeting. “Did you know Kharta is still looking for a wife? He’s getting worried. If he doesn’t find one soon, his family has lined one up for him. Right Kharta?”

  Kharta ignored his colleague and turned to Saint Jacques. “Is there anything wrong with trying to meet your soul partner? Call me a romantic, but I know there is someone out there for me. I just have
to find her. What do you think, Sylvie?”

  He had stopped what he was doing and looked at Saint Jacques, waiting for an answer.

  “Great coffee.” She held the cup up for emphasis. Then she relented. “I suppose so, yes. There’s nothing wrong in believing.”

  Khalsa smiled again.

  “There you go, Kharta,” Kevin said. “Keep trying.”

  Kharta turned back to the screen, punched the keyboard and a huge screen on the wall lit up. Saint Jacques saw an email from Antoine Lepage to Sophia Luna.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  “Wow. That was fast. Is there an attachment?”

  Kharta was grinning. “Two attachments. This.” A Word document flashed on the screen. “And this.” An Excel spreadsheet popped up. “Should I email them to you?”

  Saint Jacques was distracted, trying to take in what she was seeing: a contract and some sort of schedule. “Sure. Email’s great.” She gave him her card. “I’m impressed.”

  Kharta typed in her email address, sent the documents and closed the laptop. He sat back in the chair, beaming. “Done.”

  His smile was contagious. “I’m impressed.” Saint Jacques said. “Really.”

  “Now that your business is done, tell me, how did you injure your leg? It’s not the season for skiing accidents.”

  Saint Jacques leaned forward. “Gunshot wound.”

  Kharta’s eyes opened wide. “Wow.”

  “No way,” said Kevin. It wasn’t a denial, more an amazed approval.

  “Just a flesh wound. Nothing serious.”

  “You are a very brave woman.” Kharta said.

  “In the line of duty?” said Kevin.

  “In the line of duty. Took one for the team.”

  Both men were in awe.

  “And speaking of duty, I have to go,” she said. She stood up and grabbed the crutches. Kharta walked with her to the elevator.

  “It was very nice to meet you, Sylvie.” He reached over. “Here is my card. Call me. Maybe we can have coffee together sometime.”

  Saint Jacques smiled and took the card. “Thank you. It was really great coffee.”

  “I mean it. Really.”

  “Me too.”

  If you want to know what’s going on in a police station, you talk to the desk sergeant. They are the gatekeepers, watching who comes in and who leaves. They have the pulse of the station. Vanier had been talking to the desk sergeant every time he passed him, cultivating the relationship.

  Three RCMP officers from the human trafficking task force had arrived to question Katya, and now the sergeant gave Vanier directions to the boardroom where they were setting up.

  Vanier found the Mounties arranging recording equipment on the table. It didn’t take much to figure out who was in charge. He was wearing a grey suit, white shirt, and blue tie. His suit was the cheap, off-the-shelf kind that showed he hadn’t made it yet, but it was pressed and clean—like he was still trying. He looked up and shot Vanier a questioning look. “Can I help you? I’m Inspector Robert Brown. This is Sergeant Bob Kaminski and Corporal Julian Carter.” He didn’t offer a handshake.

  Vanier said nothing, taking in the three officers.

  “What’s your business here?”

  “Detective Inspector Vanier, Major Crimes, in Montreal. I was following the van that took them here. I heard about the operation and I wanted to question the survivors.”

  “Survivor. There’s only one. If you leave me your card, I’ll send you a copy of my report.”

  “I already talked to her. Do you want a copy of my report?”

  “You don’t have any authority here. You shouldn’t have interfered with the witness.”

  Vanier walked across the room until he was within touching distance of Brown. “If I find a potential witness in a murder investigation, I’ll ask them any questions I want.”

  Brown had been bending over the table, pulling papers out of a briefcase. He stepped back from the table and straightened up. “You listen to me. I’m leading a national task force. The woman is likely involved in human trafficking, and she’s my witness. Get that straight. I want to know what she’s been up to.”

  “Mind if I sit in on the interview?” Vanier asked.

  Brown hesitated, exchanged glances with the two others. “If you do, you can’t say anything. Not to her, not to us. We won’t acknowledge your presence on the tape, and I don’t want you to appear on the transcript.”

  “I’ll be a fly on the wall.”

  “Seriously. I don’t want your shadow on the transcript.”

  Brown picked up the phone and punched some numbers. “You can bring her up now. We’re ready. And send up some coffee.” There was a pause while Brown listened to the voice at the other end. “No, I don’t think this is a fucking hotel. Fine, we’ll get our own damn coffee.” He paused again, listening. “Yeah, I got it. Turn right outside and there’s a Tim Horton’s on the next block.”

  Brown slammed the phone into the cradle. “Asshole.” He turned to Carter.

  “Julian. Go get us some coffee, will you.” He looked at Vanier. “I suppose you want one too.”

  “That would be great. But, Julian, turn left outside. Two blocks down there’s a decent coffee shop. They roast their own beans.”

  “What, Tim Hortons isn’t good enough?” Brown pulled a twenty from his pocket and handed it to Carter.

  “Get five,” said Vanier. “One for our guest.”

  Julius hesitated, looked at the boss. “Okay,” Brown said. “Get her a coffee too.”

  Five minutes later, the door opened and a female constable led Katya into the room. Brown gestured to a chair, and Katya sat down, turning to watch the constable leave. Then she looked at Vanier and managed a thin smile. He was sitting at the far end of the table, out of the witness’s sightline while she was being questioned. Brown and Kaminski sat directly opposite Katya. She leaned forward and folded her arms on the table.

  Brown got straight down to business. He put a small microphone in the middle of the desk, switched on the recorder and did a sound test. He played it back, heard himself, and was satisfied. He held his hand in the air and switched on the recorder.

  “This is Inspector Robert Brown, and I am in conference room 2 at the Gananoque police station in Gananoque, Ontario. It is 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 8, 2014. With me is Sergeant Bob Kaminski. Corporal Julian Carter is part of the team but is not present at the moment. He will be joining us later. Also present is an unidentified female who was rescued from the St. Lawrence River eight miles from here at 3 a.m. this morning. She was picked up in the water after having apparently abandoned a larger boat that had come under coastguard surveillance. The dingy she was in was apparently defective and had sunk.”

  Brown looked up from his notes and stared at Katya like a headmaster wondering where to start with a troublesome student. Katya looked over to Vanier. He gave a shrug and a closed-mouth smile.

  “What is your name?” said Brown.

  “My name? Katya Babyak.”

  “Date and place of birth?”

  Katya was twenty-six. Born in Poltava, in Ukraine. She had come to Canada in January or February, she wasn’t sure of the exact date.

  Brown led her through her odyssey from Kiev to Montreal, sucking facts out of her in a way that made her sound like she was reading from a ship’s log: places, dates, times, and modes of transport. Vanier listened as closely to Brown as to the girl. Brown was stripping Katya’s narrative of meaning, turning it into something that had as much human content as a railway timetable.

  The door opened, and Carter walked in, balancing four coffees in a tray in one hand and clutching a fifth and a brown paper bag in the other. Brown held up his hand. “It is now 12:15 p.m., and we are pausing for a break.” Then he switched off the recorder as though
he were conducting some kind of ceremony.

  Carter handed out the coffees and tipped the bag to spill a pile of small plastic creamers and sachets of sugar onto the table.

  “For our guests,” Brown said, “there will be no talking during the break. Inspector Vanier, do you understand?”

  “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Yes. Many thanks,” Katya said.

  Brown rolled his eyes. “I said no talking. I do not want to undermine this interview.”

  Brown and his two helpers huddled while Brown brought Carter up to date on the timeline of Katya’s journey to Canada. When he had finished, he took the lid off his coffee and hunted through the creamers scattered on the table. They were all empty. He looked at Carter. “You didn’t get enough creamers.”

  He raised his arm again. “Ready?”

  Nobody responded.

  “We’re going back to the transcript. Three, two, one.” He switched on the recorder.

  Vanier resisted the temptation to applaud the switch-flicking ceremony.

  “We are resuming at 12:30 p.m. Constable Carter has joined us, and I have briefed him on the earlier part of the interview. Ms. Babyak, for the next part of the interview, Sergeant Kaminski will ask you questions in Russian, and I want you to respond in Russian.”

  “Da.”

  “What?”

  “Yes,” said Kaminski.

  “So you understand. Constable Kaminski will ask questions in Russian, and you will respond in Russian. Okay?”

  “Yes. Okay.”

  Kaminski started hesitatingly, but in seconds he and Katya were talking back and forth like old friends, as if Katya had been waiting for the opportunity to tell her story in her own language, and was in a hurry to get everything out. Brown made an effort to look like he was following the conversation but his expression quickly faded to blank.

  Vanier could barely pick up even the normal pattern of sentences, but he could see the change. Katya became animated, sitting forward in the chair and gesturing wildly with her hands. Her confidence had increased a couple of notches, and she seemed to be explaining rather than just answering questions, talking in paragraphs instead of stunted phrases. Her rising anger was unmistakable.