A Deadly Divide

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  Khattak opened the windows and shut off the engine. Warm air filled the car, wrapping around them both.

  “They’re not mutually exclusive, are they? A Wolf Allegiance member like Max has a personal animus against Amadou as well.”

  Rachel turned to face him. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “He’s jealous of Amadou’s closeness with Alizah.”

  Rachel nodded. “I’m worried about the way she ends up at the center of things.”

  Khattak surprised her by saying bitterly, “Maybe she makes herself the center.”

  At his unexpected burst of anger, Rachel felt like apologizing for Alizah.

  “They think they’re indestructible at that age.”

  Khattak’s hands gripped the wheel. Rachel could nearly hear him thinking.

  “She isn’t,” he offered at last.

  “It might not be about her, either,” Rachel said doubtfully. “I know she’s been a catalyst here—with her radio program and the way she challenges Thibault.” She shuddered. “God, what a little creep. But this could be about the Lilies of Anjou; they seem to be everywhere, too. And it was their involvement with Youssef and Amadou that seemed to rile everyone up. Again, it could tie in to the Allegiance—they’d hate that more than anything else.”

  Fatigued, Khattak rested his head on the wheel.

  “Except Muslims,” he said quietly.

  Rachel wondered if she should pat his back. Her hand hovered awkwardly before it dropped to her side. She looked up at the doors to the station and thought of Lemaire’s press conference on the stairs.

  “We’ve been thinking the leak has to be highly placed, but maybe that’s not the case.”

  Khattak raised his head and looked at her. “Who else would have that kind of information? When and where a raid’s going down?”

  Rachel mulled the answer aloud. “It could be someone with an ear to the ground. The same someone who bugged Lemaire’s office. Someone we think of as invisible.”

  At the flash of unease on Khattak’s face, Rachel knew he’d come to the same conclusion.

  “Christ,” she said. “He does have the necessary tech skills. And we invited him in.”

  “I sent him off with Alizah.”

  Khattak turned on the car. “See what Gaffney wants. Then get Lemaire and meet me at the campus. Let’s pray Alizah and Amadou made it to their show.”

  69

  Despite the lateness of the hour, the station was crowded with cops. Moving quickly, Rachel grabbed a can of pop from one of the vending machines before she found Gaff at the cubicle he shared with Philippe Benoit.

  “You figure out who the leak was yet? Because I have a theory I don’t think you’re going to like.”

  Gaff frowned at her. Team members were everywhere. He pulled her into the closest office, his laptop tucked under his arm. Rachel flicked on the light. She perched at the edge of the desk, which turned out to be Clément’s. Luckily, Her Royal Uptightness had clocked out for the night.

  “Is Dr. Sandston still here?”

  Gaff shook his head. “She left a while ago. Lemaire dismissed all personnel who weren’t involved with the raids. I think cleaning house is his priority.”

  Rachel nodded. “I’m worried about the boss going off on his own. Does your evidence point to Benoit?”

  Gaffney opened his laptop to show her a single white page.

  “This is what I’ve collected from a number of different online sources. There’s a name that seems to recur. I noticed it because on one of these platforms there was direct engagement with Alizah Siddiqui.”

  Her heart racing, Rachel scanned the page. The first two references were from the blog of a woman based in Montreal by the name of Élise Doucet.

  * * *

  FLAGGED:

  [Translated from the French]

  EDITH SAUCIER: They are decent French boys who have been shamefully maligned.

  ABEAUTIFULMERCY: Decent French girls, too.

  ÉLISE DOUCET: In the new Québec, everyone’s a racist.

  CANDLELIGHTVIGIL: We need to change that. We need to change the way they talk about us.

  ABEAUTIFULMERCY: The change has already come.

  FLAGGED:

  [Translated from the French]

  EDITH SAUCIER: I heard the black boy was after our girls.

  ABEAUTIFULMERCY: It’s not just him. It’s all of them. We should be taking action.

  ROY GRENIER: I don’t care if that makes me sound racist, that’s not something we need. There’s such a thing as too much assimilation.

  CANDLELIGHTVIGIL: I don’t care what religion someone chooses to believe in. No one should have to die while they’re peacefully praying.

  ÉLISE DOUCET: All the more reason why they should have stayed out of our church. And out of Saint-Isidore.

  ABEAUTIFULMERCY: They’ll figure it out too late.

  * * *

  Rachel read the first two entries and looked at Gaff.

  “Okay. They’re talking about Amadou. But it doesn’t seem all that different from the rest of the commentary. I don’t see Alizah’s name.”

  She also didn’t see Benoit, and she breathed a little easier, though she was itching to be on her way.

  “Keep reading. I’ve cut and pasted another section from the replies to the Town Council’s statement on the shooting. I think ABM and ABeautifulMercy are probably the same person, given their preoccupation.”

  Rachel scrolled down the page, squinting closely at the screen.

  * * *

  FLAGGED:

  [Translated from the French]

  ABM: Nothing is the same in Québec. What we were, what we held dear, all of that is gone. One of us had to fight back.

  ABM: Does not cry for our sons. Will not look after our daughters.

  ABM: No one’s ever cared about our humanity before. If we don’t stand up for who we are as Québécois, if we don’t think about the future of our daughters, we’ll vanish from the pages of history.

  AlizahS: Does murdering innocent people in a mosque count as standing up for Québécois identity? Should that be recorded in our history?

  ABM: Who said they were innocent?

  AlizahS: Your comments are appalling. What crime were they guilty of?

  ABM: The same one you are with Max. I shouldn’t have to say it.

  * * *

  Rachel didn’t get it. She looked at Gaffney, perplexed.

  “I don’t see a theme.”

  He snorted. “I thought you were some kind of prodigy. ABM is obsessed with the daughters of Québec. She keeps talking about protecting them.”

  Rachel paused, fitting the facts together.

  “You think this is about the women who were killed in the basement?”

  Exasperated, he said, “That’s not who she means. Given the online chatter about Amadou, I think she means Amadou and that girl—Émilie Péladeau. You mentioned her when you told me about the Lilies of Anjou. Have you spoken to her about the shooting?”

  No, Rachel realized. A huge oversight on her part. She’d talked to Chloé and Réjeanne, but she’d dismissed Émilie because Amadou had dismissed her.

  The lanterns on the lake that had led them to the gun.

  She swallowed noisily.

  “You think this is some kind of revenge on her part? And that’s why she engaged with Alizah? Because she was jealous of her?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought it was interesting. Also, I don’t think Benoit is your leak. I tracked the calls that were made to the press and they didn’t come from the station or from any of the phones registered to Lemaire’s team.”

  “You can’t rule them out. They may have used a burner phone.”

  “They didn’t. They came from an actual number I was able to trace.”

  “Wow,” Rachel commented. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  Gaff’s weathered face broke into a grin. “No one ever said these guys were smart.”

  “Max?” she gues
sed. “Maxime Thibault was the one?”

  Which, if true, would raise additional questions. Max had no insight into their investigation. Or into Lemaire’s raids. They were still missing a connection. She took a sip from her drink and tried to think.

  “Wrong again. The number is from the switchboard at Pascal Richard’s studio.”

  “What?”

  In her excitement, Rachel spilled her drink on Clément’s aggressively tidy desk. Grinning broadly, Gaff fished out a pack of tissues and handed it over. She mopped up the mess with great care, drying off the bottom of a framed photograph of a group of young people, curtailing the spill before it could reach Clément’s keyboard.

  “He did have a swastika tattoo.”

  But would Richard have been so negligent as to leak information from his own phone line? She studied the photograph of Lemaire handing Pascal the key to the city with a sense of unease.

  “So?” Gaff asked her. “Does that help?”

  Rachel gnawed at her lower lip.

  “I think so. At least I should let Khattak know, so he can check out for the night. He went after Benoit.”

  Gaffney nodded and signaled for her to call.

  She got Khattak on the first ring.

  “It’s not Benoit,” she told him. “Alizah and Amadou are safe.”

  Khattak wasn’t in his car. He sounded like he was walking through a large and empty building, his footsteps echoing on stone.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Still on the campus. Alizah and Amadou weren’t at the radio station. I’m checking the MSA office now.”

  Rachel remembered the long empty hallway lined with mahogany doors. This late at night, the building would be deserted. But if Alizah and Amadou weren’t doing their broadcast from the campus—

  She made the connection quickly, her heart plummeting to her feet. She snapped her fingers at Gaffney.

  “Can you get Richard’s broadcast on your laptop?”

  Gaff didn’t ask why. He reached over to scoop his laptop from the desk.

  “Rachel, what’s going on?” Khattak’s voice sounded in her ear, terse and afraid.

  Rachel quickly filled him in.

  The sound of Richard’s program filled the room. Rachel put her phone on speaker.

  But it wasn’t Richard she heard debating the outcome of the raids.

  The voice she heard was Alizah’s.

  * * *

  Khattak swore and checked his footsteps. He’d stopped moving, but Rachel heard an echo down the hall.

  “Sir. I don’t think you’re alone there.”

  There was a long pause before Khattak spoke, lowering his voice.

  “Get over to Richard. I’ll meet you there.”

  “I’m heading over to you.”

  The footsteps sounded louder.

  “It’s just Père Étienne, Rachel. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  Before she could object, Khattak cut off the call.

  She stared at Gaffney, wordless. “Call him back,” she said. “And get Lemaire and anyone else you trust. Meet me in the parking lot.”

  He left at once, forgetting his laptop on the desk.

  Frowning, Rachel reached over to grab it. When she spun it around, the page he’d saved leapt up at her from the screen. She read the transcript again. Khattak’s bitter words whispered into her mind.

  She makes herself the center of things.”

  But was Alizah at the center of this crime?

  Almost idly, she read the words she’d failed to notice before.

  [Translated from the French]

  But if the transcript had been translated into English …

  She read it again, puzzled. Something niggled at the corner of her mind. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, shifting pieces of the case around.

  She’d gone to the hospital with Khattak to interview Amadou Duchon.

  The lounge had been crowded with people she didn’t know waiting for news on the fate of their loved ones, among them the Lilies of Anjou. But in that chaos, there had also been many officers of the Sûreté—men and women whom Khattak had called to account for failing to stand at their posts. Or to control the scene.

  And others, including Alizah.

  The names on the page danced up in her mind.

  And then not a name but a word. A carefully chosen word.

  Rachel’s eyes snapped open. She glanced around the office almost blindly. She focused on the word and then she knew.

  She knew it all. She knew who the target at the mosque had been and why.

  She knew who had carried out the shooting.

  It made a dreadful kind of sense.

  Swallowing a cry of fear, she grabbed Gaffney’s laptop and ran.

  70

  “What are you doing here, P“ère Étienne?”

  The priest was wearing his collar under a long black jacket. A bulging notecase was gripped tightly under his arm. He gestured at the row of offices, his eyes deep set and dark.

  “I have a chaplaincy office here. I sometimes come here to work. I caught sight of you.”

  Khattak studied the other man’s face. The past few days had not worn well on him. He seemed smaller, shrunken, gravely uncertain, harrowed by the experience at the church and by the murders themselves.

  Khattak hesitated. He couldn’t afford to wait, but he wanted to hear what the priest had to say.

  “Are you prepared to help me, Father?”

  Père Étienne glanced back at the MSA office door. It was still sealed off, this time by professional police tape. Though without a guard at the door, anyone could slip under it to tamper with the scene. The faint scruff of Père Étienne’s tonsure was disheveled, his beard roughly overgrown, his eyes red rimmed. The secrets of the confessional had taken a toll.

  He couldn’t seem to look away from the swastika on the MSA door.

  “Père Étienne?” Esa prompted.

  The priest’s eyes slid to his. Measuring. Judging. Praying for absolution.

  Esa gave up. “I can’t wait, I’m sorry. Alizah and Amadou are in danger.”

  He started down the long corridor, filled with regret. Anything Père Étienne could have told him would have helped. But as with Alizah, the gruesome realities of the shooting had sheared off a layer of his restraint.

  “Wait!”

  He heard a sudden thump. Père Étienne’s notecase had slipped from his hands, spilling his papers on the floor. Esa strode back to him, a pulse flickering at the corner of his mouth.

  Père Étienne bent to gather up the contents of the notecase. “My son—”

  Esa handed back the pages of a hastily written sermon. “Père Étienne, what is it?”

  “You asked me about confession—”

  The silence stretched out in the hall. Père Étienne gave him a name.

  And the name he spoke made Esa turn and run.

  * * *

  The building in which Richard’s studio was housed was dark. Esa raced up the steps to the door. He tested the handles. Locked. He’d called for backup. Still minutes away. Rachel was en route, accompanied by Lemaire. His phone rang just as a text buzzed through.

  He took the call and ignored the text. As Rachel’s terrified voice sounded in his ear, he noticed several shards of tempered glass scattered across the pavement. He looked up above the door. The outdoor lights had been shattered. As recently as this evening.

  He looked back the way he’d come. The parking lot was empty except for a handful of cars. One was his; the other was Benoit’s patrol car. From its license plate, he was able to identify the third as Richard’s. And that was it. If Richard was airing his broadcast, he was doing it with a skeleton staff.

  Rachel’s panic was bleeding into him.

  He hoped he’d been right to place his faith in Benoit. They had nothing on Richard, who wore his sympathies openly. More important, from the breakdown of the image of the figure fleeing the mosque Richard’s height wasn’t a mat
ch. Richard was simply too tall.

  Esa tried the door again, rattling the glass, Rachel’s voice still chattering in his ear.

  “Slow down, Rachel. I can’t understand your French.”

  Rachel said it again. Her words froze him in place.

  Carefully, he raised his head and looked around the lot. With his free hand, he reached for his gun. But the lot was still deserted. There was no figure clad in a long dark jacket as there had been outside the prayer at the church.

  He used the butt of his gun to break the glass and opened the door. He tried the elevators first. Locked for the night. He ran to the stairwell that led to the third floor.

  “Get here,” he said to Rachel.

  He heard her say, “Two minutes,” before he shut off his phone.

  * * *

  On the third floor, Amadou’s voice filled his ears. He passed the abandoned reception desk, the hallways dark, the soft light pooled on the floor coming from the studio itself. His hand reached for a light switch. The hallway lights stayed dark.

  Listeners were calling in to the show. Amadou and Alizah took turns fielding the calls. At the sound of Alizah’s voice, relief swamped him like a wave. And then he listened more closely, edging toward the studio in the dark. He didn’t hear Richard. And he didn’t think Richard would have given his broadcast into Amadou’s hands. Or into Alizah’s—even with her experience.

  His hands were slick with sweat. He adjusted his grip on his gun, wishing he’d brought a flashlight. Nothing stirred in the hallway. He could make out the shapes of desks and chairs and on one side a bank of cabinets. He checked quickly, but no one was hiding on the far side. He moved forward a step and tripped over something he hadn’t noticed. He looked down at his feet. A faceless mass was huddled there. He turned it over with his foot, bringing out his cell phone and using its light to see.