Open Season (Luc Vanier)

by Peter Kirby

  “So no hard feelings?”

  “If I had to choose between a cop and an Ottawa pencil pusher, there’s no choice. I’ll send you a copy of my report in the morning. Okay? And you write yours, back me up, okay? This is Brown’s problem, not ours.”

  “If you put it that way, I’ll take the rest of the day off.”

  “You do that.”

  Vanier’s next call was to David Reynolds. “I need your help.”

  “Inspector Vanier?”

  “The same. I have someone who needs your services. Somewhere to stay for a few days. I’ll pay the rent.”

  Reynolds hesitated. “That’s a problem.”

  Too many people were looking for space, and nobody was leaving. Always more people arrived than left. When you were illegal, your options were limited. Reynolds promised to see what he could do. “In a few days, maybe we can find a spot for her.”

  Vanier had no choice but to accept.

  “Call me in two days about your friend.”

  While Katya slept, Vanier pondered his options. There weren’t many. The first thing Brown would do would be to send someone to check Vanier’s place. Then there was Kedrov to think about. She would want her girl back, and it wouldn’t take much to figure out that Vanier had been the last person to see her. He thought about asking Anjili if she could put Katya up for a few days, toyed with the idea of testing her, of seeing how she’d react. Instead he called Alex.

  “Yo!”

  “Yo yourself. Alex, I have a favour to ask.”

  Alex had been a basket case when he had returned from Afghanistan. He had spent the first year living with his dad, trying to pull himself together. Then he got a job at the Botanical Gardens. A simple job, he liked to say, low-stress, outdoors, manual labour in a setting that calmed his spirit. He spent his days digging, weeding, clearing brush, clipping trees, deadheading flowers. He spent his days watching things grow. Every night he got home exhausted, and most nights he slept as peacefully as a ditch digger; the dreams that had haunted him couldn’t seem to break through the exhaustion of a day of hard physical work. Six months earlier, he had said it was time to find his own place, and within two weeks he had moved out of his father’s apartment. Vanier worried, but it had been time.

  Alex’s place was in Verdun. The rent was cheap because the building was old and hadn’t been renovated in fifty years. The landlord was waiting for the first reasonable offer from a developer, and figured there was no point in throwing money at a building that was going to be knocked down for condos. Each of the three floors was divided into two apartments. Alex was on the third. He kept a spare room with a mattress on the floor for when his sister visited from Toronto.

  Vanier made the introductions at the door and Alex and Katya exchanged a tentative handshake and even more tentative smiles. It was late at night but the apartment was still steaming hot after baking all day under the flat tar roof. All the windows were open, but the air was thick and sticky.

  “It’s just for a few days, Alex.”

  “Sure, Dad. Not a problem.” He turned to Katya. “Consider this Hotel Vanier.”

  “I can cook and I can clean,” she said.

  “Me too,” Alex said, smiling.

  “Katya’s a witness. I need to keep her off the streets for a few days. She’s had a hard time, Alex. She needs to rest.”

  Then he turned to Katya. “This is very important. You need to stay inside. If you want anything, ask Alex and he can call me. I’ll come by every day.”

  She nodded. Alex grabbed the Walmart bags and led her down the corridor. “This is Elise’s room. She’s my sister. She’s in Toronto.”

  Katya looked inside and started. The room was bare except for a small dresser and the mattress. There were signs of the previous occupant: a woman’s toiletry bag, small hair elastics, and a hairbrush.

  “What’s the matter?” Vanier said.

  “Nothing.” She paused. “Yes, something. It reminds me of the place before, small room. Nothing but to wait for next man.”

  “It’s not that.” Vanier said. “You’re safe here. And it’s only a few days.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get some sheets.” Alex turned and walked down the hallway.

  “Alex is a good man. You can trust him.”

  “Yes. Alex is a good son, no?”

  Katya walked into the room, dropped her Walmart bags on the floor against the wall. Alex came back with sheets and a towel. “It cools down at night,” he said, acknowledging the oppressive heat as he dropped the sheets on the mattress. “Back in a second.”

  Katya leaned against the wall. Looked up at Vanier. “It is nice. Thank you.”

  Alex came back in with a large fan, plugged it in and showed Katya how to operate it. He pointed it at the bed and pushed some buttons. It oscillated side to side, pushing hot air up and back along the top of the mattress.

  Vanier followed as Alex gave Katya a tour of the apartment. They ended up in the kitchen, and Katya accepted Alex’s offer of tea. “It’s decided, Dad. We’re ordering pizza for supper.”

  “I wish. But no, I have to go. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Alex walked him to the door. “She’s fragile, Alex, like you were,” Vanier told his son. “She’s been through a lot.”

  “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll look after her.”

  Twenty-seven

  “When does an accident become a disaster?”

  “What?”

  Vanier was reading the documents Saint Jacques had gotten from Google, the one entitled Memorandum of Understanding: Compensation Fund – Chajul. He spread the four pages on the table in front of him. The other document was a schedule.

  He had read through the contract three times. It was simple. There were five preambles giving the background and identifying three parties—Essence and the governments of Guatemala and Canada. The rest was about what each party was to do. Essence was to pay fifty million in the compensation fund, but only if the Canadian government pitched in another fifty. The Guatemalans were to distribute the funds in accordance with the agreed-upon schedule, and they also had to pass a law prohibiting any of the victims from filing lawsuits against Essence or any of its employees. At the end, there was a clause whereby Essence insisted that there was nothing in the agreement to be taken as an admission of liability. The last page had lines for three signatures. Richard Susskind was to sign for Essence. The names of those signing for Guatemala and Canada hadn’t been filled in.

  “How many people died?” Vanier asked.

  Saint Jacques didn’t have to consult her notes. “One hundred and twelve. Thirty were children. Over two hundred families lost their homes.”

  “That’s a disaster in my books, not an accident.”

  “‘Accident’ has better optics,” said Saint Jacques.

  “And this is how they’re going to make it right? Canada pays fifty million, Essence pays another fifty million. And that’s it. Everything is okay?”

  “There’s no admission of liability.”

  “Essence cuts corners to save money, and a lake of polluted water from the mine causes a mudslide that destroys a village. They pay fifty million and get to start up the mine again. Looks like a good deal for Essence. How much were they making from the mine?”

  “Thirty-five million a year.”

  “I can see why they wanted to keep the deal quiet. There’s more. Only half of the money is actually going to the compensation fund. Section 4 says the money is to be distributed in accordance with the schedule.” Vanier pointed to the schedule. “The compensation fund only gets fifty and five individuals divide up the other fifty. Who are these people?”

  The names meant nothing to Vanier. There were four Spanish names, and one English, Lindon Hastings. “See what you can dig up. Then we go back to Susskind. The bastard told us
he knew nothing, and he’s the one signing for Essence.”

  Two hours later, Vanier and Saint Jacques were on the way to Essence. They had decided that Saint Jacques would ask the questions, and Vanier would sit back and watch. He had a theory on nonverbal communication: there were no rules. You could tell a lot from how people acted and reacted, but everyone was different. You just had to watch carefully to see if you picked up anything.

  Every couple of years, the department would pay for the latest expert to teach detectives how to read physical cues to tell when people were lying. The only problem was, the latest expert always contradicted the previous expert. The only thing all the experts agreed on was that police interrogators didn’t have a clue. The courses always started with a bunch of studies of what cops believed and what the empirical research showed, and the two were always worlds apart.

  Vanier preferred to observe carefully, and to think about what he was seeing and hearing. Too many people had lost the ability to do either, looking without seeing and only listening for gaps in conversation so they could start talking themselves.

  This time, Vanier and Saint Jacques were put in a boardroom, designed to impress, with tasteful, expensive furniture, and a view over the golf-course-green lawn with its pond and large fountain. The walls were lined with black and white aerial photographs of Essence’s mines, roads, and bridges.

  Susskind was five minutes late. The same two acolytes were with him, Sylvie Nadeau and Adriana Menendez. The two women sat down directly across from Vanier and Saint Jacques. Susskind remained standing, resting his hands on an empty chair to support his bulky frame.

  “Don’t mind if I stand for a while? I do my best thinking when I stand up.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting in twenty-five minutes, so I hope this won’t take too long.”

  “We’re trying to get some clarification, sir,” Saint Jacques said. “You know, to make things clear.”

  “Sure. Whatever. I mean whatever I can do to help.” He leaned forward, and started doing calf stretches, like he was getting ready for a jog.

  “The kidnapping inquiry has turned into a murder inquiry.”

  “I heard. And you still haven’t found the guy?”

  “We’re following a number of leads, sir.”

  “I don’t know where we come in.” He was low to the table, stretching the muscles in his calf. Menendez was scribbling everything down. Nadeau, the lawyer, was listening intently.

  “You remember, we had asked about some translation work Sophia Luna was doing for Essence?”

  “I seem to remember she was not doing work for us. I recall you asked about a particular contract but we had no record of it.”

  “That’s right. Just to clarify, did you find out anything more about the contract?”

  Susskind looked to Nadeau. She looked Saint Jacques in the eye. “We promised to see if we could find any record of a document sent to ALT for translation around the time you mentioned. We couldn’t.”

  “And I can’t think of what it might have been. Must have been a mistake,” Susskind said.

  “Again, just to be clear, you do not know what, if any, document was sent to ALT for translation into Spanish? Job number 14-0629?”

  “Like Sylvie said, we came up negative,” Susskind replied, “and I know nothing about it. So, no.” Susskind was having trouble working his quadriceps, pulling his left foot up behind him. It would have looked odd if Susskind had been anywhere near in shape, but with Susskind’s weight, it looked like a circus performance, by a clown, not an acrobat.

  “Thank you,” said Saint Jacques. “Now I am going to read you a list of names and I would like you to tell me if you recognize them.”

  “Sure.”

  Saint Jacques pulled out the draft schedule to the contract and started reading.

  “Juan Arbenz?”

  The name caught Susskind balancing on his left leg, his right foot clutched in his hand. Putting on the warm-up display had become a high-wire act, and the smallest misstep was amplified. He was tottering on one leg, his knuckles turning white on the chair back. He made a show of thinking. “It kind of rings a bell. But I’m not sure. You know how it is, I meet people all the time.”

  He dropped his foot to the floor and shifted his weight from one leg to the other, like a boxer waiting for the bell. “If you have other names, why don’t you give them to Adriana and she’ll get back to you.”

  “Why don’t I just continue?” Saint Jacques picked up the schedule, pushed her chair back from the table and crossed her legs. “You tell me if you recognize the names. If you don’t, you can check your address book and get back to us.”

  Susskind looked like he was going to sit down. He reconsidered. “Okay, go on.”

  Nadeau wasn’t looking at Saint Jacques anymore. She had turned to look up at Susskind.

  “Héctor Sandarti?”

  “Nope. Maybe. Put that down as the same as the first. I’ll have to check.”

  “How do you spell that?” Menendez asked. Saint Jacques spelled the name and the assistant wrote it down carefully.

  “Otto Rosales?”

  “Same thing.”

  “For the record, you don’t recognize the name.”

  “That’s not what I said.” He was beginning to sweat, small beads appearing on his forehead. “Maybe they are familiar. Maybe. Look. I do know someone called Otto Rosales. He’s in the Guatemalan government.”

  “So, you do know him?”

  “If it’s the same person.”

  “Would you provide me with his coordinates?”

  “Well, wait a second,” Nadeau intervened. “I think you need more than a name. Mr. Susskind can’t simply give you someone’s personal contact information from his address book just because you’ve asked for it. Next name?”

  Saint Jacques looked back to Susskind. He had stopped rocking on his feet. “Mr. Susskind, are we talking about the same person?”

  “I don’t know. I told you. The Otto Rosales I know is a minister in the government in Guatemala.” Susskind pulled out a chair and sat down. There was a damp sheen on his face.

  “Minister of what?” Saint Jacques asked.

  “Justice.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Of course I do. He’s leading the file from Guatemala on the incident. He was their point man on the negotiations for compensation.”

  Saint Jacques had been making a point of writing out his answers, like she was ticking boxes on a checklist. She took it slow. She looked up. “The incident?”

  “Yes, the Chajul incident. There was an accident there.”

  She waited for more. There was only silence.

  “Okay. Last name. Lindon Hastings. Do you know a Lindon Hastings?”

  Susskind looked worn out. “The only Lindon Hastings I know is the Canadian Minister of International Development.”

  “Is he involved in the Chajul negotiations?”

  “Was. The negotiations are finished. Essence and Canada contributed to the compensation fund. Minister Hastings was involved with the Canadian side of the negotiations. He’s the one who approved the payment.”

  “Any idea what these names might have in common?”

  Susskind opened his mouth to speak. Nadeau beat him to it. “You’re asking him to speculate on something he knows nothing about and for which has no context. I don’t think he should do that.”

  Susskind was looking at his watch. “I have another meeting starting now.”

  “We won’t be much longer, sir.”

  Vanier pushed an envelope along the table to Saint Jacques. She pulled the memorandum out and slipped it across the table to Susskind. “Do you recognize this document?”

  Susskind did a perfunctory flip through the pages, thought for a few seconds and said, in a low voice, “I’ve never s
een it before.”

  Saint Jacques waited.

  Susskind couldn’t help himself. A salesman hates silence. “It’s probably… No, I’m not going to speculate. I don’t recognize this document. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Even though you’re the one who’s supposed to be signing it?”

  “I didn’t sign it, if that’s your question. It could be anything. It’s only a draft. A thing like this means nothing until it’s signed. Listen. I’ve got to go.” He got to his feet again.

  “We’re finished here,” Saint Jacques said.

  Susskind was walking to the door before she’d finished talking.

  Vanier stood up and spoke to Susskind’s back. “Oh, Mr. Susskind.”

  Susskind stopped and looked back.

  “You know when you said you’d never seen the draft memorandum before?”

  “I haven’t. I don’t see every document.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it. And you know what that means?”

  Now he turned around to face Vanier. “That you’re calling me a liar?”

  “That now is a good time for you to start worrying. Sleep on it. You want to talk, you call me.”

  Susskind left without saying a word.

  Twenty-eight

  There are good crime scenes and bad ones. The best kind is where the victim is dead at home, and the simple questions can usually be answered just by looking around. When the body is lying on the living room carpet, most of the important questions are straightforward. Who was he? Did he know the perpetrator? Was there a struggle? Was it a robbery?

  The worst crime scenes are the body drops, where the body has been transported somewhere else and dumped. Garbage dumps are the worst of all.

  All there was to connect Camara to where he had been killed was the body, the carpet, and the route taken by the dump truck. They still needed to find where he had been killed.

  Vanier and Saint Jacques drove along the route the dump truck had taken. It was clear that guesswork wasn’t going to do it. The truck had started out on Jean-Talon and followed Côte-des-Neiges on its long slow ascent up the western flank of the mountain. Côte-des-Neiges was a densely packed immigrant neighbourhood divided by a wide street lined with stores, banks, and restaurants. The side streets were lined with aging apartment buildings that made public housing projects look appealing—homes for immigrants, where landlords did nothing but collect the rent for rodent-infested apartments with broken toilets. The area was a magnet for newly arrived immigrants, and for those who had been in Canada for years but couldn’t make the dream work. Anyone who needed a cheap place to live.