Le Rouge idéal
Jacques Côté
(Excerpt: p. 93-102)
Louis first took the news to be a joke and burst out laughing. Then his face became clouded.
"How can I keep up in my wheel box? I have trouble enough walking ten feet on crutches."
He put his hand back into his box of Cracker Jacks, with a falsely gruff expression.
Standing in front of him, Duval raised his hands like a preacher, exhorting him to follow.
"We'll do as before. Sometimes you'll go your way, at your own pace, and other times you'll follow mine. You will also do some research at your desk."
Louis took the pouch out of the Cracker Jack box, and some popcorn rolled over the scores on the sport pages. He examined the pouch for a moment: it contained the toy prize, a miniature catapult made of plastic. He stuffed another handful of popcorn in his mouth and spoke as he chewed:
"You sure?"
"Dallaire is even enthusiastic about it," Duval lied.
Louis made a face and shook his head.
"Claudette won't like it. I already know what she's going to say. Danny, I'm afraid to come back."
"It's normal.
With his forefinger, Loulou picked some popcorn out of a molar; he clapped his tongue against his palate before licking his upper teeth. His big ursine paws flattened the empty candy box , and sent it gliding into the waste paper basket. He muttered some incomprehensible words, and opened the drawer of his desk where a Bible and a .38 in a holster formed an odd couple. He first took the Bible out, then his gun. Duval thought that only Louis could put God's word and Smith & Wesson's side by side. And only he could go from a striptease artist to a devout adept of the charismatic faith. Louis opened the book at random and placed his fat finger on the page at random. He found a passage in the eighteenth Psalm and his face shone as he was suddenly enlightened.
"Fantastic, listen to Him, listen to Him speaking to me. It's Thanksgiving. We just spent it together."
"You have made a wide path for my feet to keep them from slipping. I chased my enemies and caught them; I did not stop until they were conquered."
"Isn't that great?"
A long silence. Louis closed the bible. Duval kept a respectful semblance of meditation, but he felt like laughing.
"I'm coming," Louis said. "But there's a condition."
"Which is?"
"You'll make a speech about the necessity for forgiveness at the Police mass."
Duval was not going to tell him he had already accepted the chaplain's offer.
"Louis, I've never felt like thinking about this."
"Well, then, it's about time!"
Louis respectfully placed the Bible back in the drawer and hanged hooked his holster on the peg. Bad Louis was back.*** Louis's presence among them filled his colleagues with enthusiasm. A few jokes burst forth to salute the Big Man's return after his long absence. Duval was the author of the best one:
"Louis' return should ensure the suburban Marie-Antoinettes won't go bankrupt.
Frankie wanted to say: "Loulou, thou shalt not kill," but he was afraid Louis would not take it well. In the past, Francis had brought upon himself the Big Man's reprimands because of his dark humour.
Duval closed the drapes and turned the lights off. He switched on the overhead projector and positioned the transparency. The pictures were shocking. Between a coffee and a doughnut, each man offered suggestions. The hunt for the madman has begun.
"No fingerprints. The guy uses gloves," Daniel said.
Louis, scratching his scalp, offered his idea:
"Couldn't it have been done during the students' yearly hazing at Laval University?"
Louis's come-back was not getting off to a good start. Discouraged, Duval took his head between his hands.
"Louis, be serious, will you? Who would want to brag about such an act? A disembowelled dog, a stolen hand... It's not the festival of horrors."
"No, but today, the kids don't respect nothing anymore. And Halloween is coming, too."
Francis raised a finger. The projector's lamp accentuated the long scar on his face.
"If the hand had been in formaldehyde, we might be dealing with a medical student or a thanatologist..."
"Why?" Prince asked, slowly exhaling the smoke of his cigarette.
"Medical students have to work on cadavers. Not always fresh ones, thanatologists too. Maybe someone cut the hand off a corpse, especially since the guy seems to use precision tools. We should ask Doctor Villemure who's in his pathology class. I know that thanatologists also do internships at the forensic lab."
Duval took a note and nervously scratched his scalp.
"Interesting, Francis. Go to Laval University, meet with the Dean of the Medicine. Prince will take care of the morgue."
Loulou chuckled:
"Use the opportunity to ask François to bring you a moose roast. He has great meat."
Prince stubbed out his cigarette and blew a thick smoke out of his nostrils.
"Where do the remains of corpses donated to science end up?"
Duval rubbed a hand over his face.
"Government burial in Côte-des-Neiges Cemetery."
"And biomedical waste?"
"I think some company burns it. I'd have to ask Laurence.
"Someone could have taken the hand and applied make-up as a hoax."
"It's a pro job."
Francis's fingers drummed on the table; he rocked on the two back legs of his chair, his face alternately going from light to shadow.
"These are our two first leads. But as long as we don't know whose hand it is, we're still in the dark. The security people at the university are as lost as we are."
"We have to find the owner, or owners, of the dog," Louis remarked.
"Yes. Could you check if the SPCA got a notice for a missing poodle? Duval asked."
"I can take care of the veterinary column."
"Prince will help you. Go to where the dog was found. Then walk around the streets of Sillery, check out the neighbourhood and look for pictures of lost doggies. I'll take care of the cemetery."
Duval moved the transparency on the bed of the projector and adjusted the focus. Like a good schoolmaster, he stood up and directed his pointer to the screen.
"Here is what we have:
1. A woman's hand
2. A female dog, disembowelled.
3. Misogynistic messages (one written in the dog's blood): "All blood lost, female" and "My decomposed loves" (found wrapped around a finger).
4. A bloody sponge."
Duval passed in front of the screen, lightly striking his palm with the pointer.
"Some of these elements, apparently unconnected , are, in fact, linked. A woman's hand, a butchered female animal whose blood was used to write hate graffiti. The female is associated with an animal, a female dog no less."
The tip of the pointer struck point 3.
"The message is coming from an individual who identifies with pain and death. Psychosis? Neurosis? Both messages link love and hate, death and revenge. In my opinion, we're dealing with a single-minded individual. A marked obsession with cadavers, which we should worry about, and an aversion for women, which should worry us even more. I'm also quite disturbed by the disembowelled dog. It has been noted that some psychopaths begin by hurting and killing animals. They have extremely strong sadistic impulses. They take pleasure in the pain of others and in self-inflicted pain. They also leave a signature. The "Son of Sam," two years ago, in New York, sent letters, some of which were directly addressed to Detective Borelli, who led the investigation."
"At a certain time in my life, I would have liked a nympho to write me dirty letters," Louis chortled, and everybody laughed with him, except Daniel, who had always hated that kind of double entendre.
Prince was going to speak when Duval got a call from the switchboard operator. A crime reporter wanted to ask him a few questions about the Fournier-Émond case, which had made headlines in the Journal de Quebec. Duval checked his schedule.
"I have ten minutes at 4 o'clock. In my office."
He hung up.
"Let's meet again at 1 in my office to evaluate the situation. Good hunting!"
As Louis was opening the door of the conference room, a row could be heard at the other end of the corridor. It was Madden, giving a piece of his mind to Pouliot, the deputy sergeant. Tension was rising like a crescendo exploding in a clash of cymbals and brass instruments. Duval glanced at Louis.
"The exam didn't go well."
Madden was seething, his arms making strange arabesques in the air.
"No, Pouliot! Hell, you don't get it! As usual! You see only what you want to see. All of you, the only thing you see, it's this small speck of dirt in my file. What about the lives I saved? What about the risk I've taken to help someone in danger? After the searches, the families I had to give comfort to? Where is that, in my file? No, you always have to go back to that damned instance of this citizen I roughed up a little. You're just a son of a bitch, Pouliot, and you, Malo, you're his ass-kisser, everybody knows it."
The tension went up another notch. Madden grabbed Pouliot and shook him like an apple tree. Malo jumped on the police dog handler's back, which did not surprise Duval. The lieutenant and his colleagues strode forward into the corridor before the fight got worse, their heels pounding on twenty meters of waxed linoleum.
A yard behind, Louis was charging ahead in his wheelchair, his arms moving like the pistons of an old locomotive.
Duval forcefully pulled Malo from Madden, while Prince stepped in between Pouliot and Madden who was yelling at him, spitting mad.
"Take it easy now!"
Duval's order was received by Pouliot like the visit of an unexpected traveling salesman after a domestic dispute.
"You stay out of this."
Samuel tried to hit Pouliot with a right hook. Worse had come to worst. Louis, righteous pacifier that he was, wheeled himself between them
"Come on, Sammy."
"No."
"What's the matter?"
"I'm being flunked for some stupid bullshit trick question, it's not fair!" the young man shouted.
Louis looked irately at Pouliot and Malo. He would never have thought they had the gall to flunk Madden, whose exemplary work was often noticed. Hadn't his effectiveness as a dog handler just been commended?
"Why don't you give him his damned promotion already?" he said.
"Harel, that's beyond your jurisdiction," Malo spit at him.
Louis had often had altercations with Malo and Pouliot in the past. His face turned scarlet. He might have preached tolerance, but you had better not pick a fight with him, even in a wheelchair.
"You, Pouliot, and you, Malo, you're a couple of phoneys , both damned hypocrites. You see the mote in your neighbour's eye and not the telephone poles in your own eyes."
"Harel, don't go bothering us with your mumbo-jumbo. Leave little baby Jesus out of this."
One shoulder rotation and Louis moved forward, crushing Malo's foot under the wheel of his chair, deliberately or not, and the big blond man groaned loudly.
"Keep your damned wheelchair off my foot!"
"Sorry, I didn't see you there."
Three years before Louis had hit Malo in the face after Malo had called him a faggot, which had touched off the hostilities.
During this brawl, Madden had entered a nearby office. He'd locked the door and begun trashing the furniture: glass breaking, shelves upended, wood splitting, the sounds of rage and fury.
Bewildered, the officers didn't know how to intervene. The racket went on at least for a minute.
Then, Madden ran out of steam. No more words, not a sound.
"Sam, open the door," Louis asked." "Open it for me. We'll talk.""..."
Louis turned to Malo and Pouliot, who were standing there stupidly as if they were going to make an arrest. Duval stepped between them.
"You two, go away. You've done enough. Your day is done, once again. Get out of my sight."
"I'm going to report this, you'll see!"
Duval positioned himself six inches from the face of Malo -his sworn enemy - getting a good view of the man's deeply crevassed skin.
"Malo, if you ever report this, I will leak your blunders, yours and Pouliot's in the Hurtubise case, to the media. The wasted time, the murdered scarecrow... It will be hell for you two. You hear me: nothing will be reported about this. You too, Pouliot, you get it?"
"You're speaking to a superior officer, Duval."
"That's a question of point of view."
Coming from Duval, all this was out of the ordinary. But old resentments were smouldering at the Major Crime Division.
Malo, whose florid, pockmarked skin was sweating profusely, became as tight as a strung bow at the thought of the reporters having a field day with his bungling. He walked away with Pouliot, two whipped dogs, once again the target of a consensus of opinions.
Louis told Duval he would stay with Madden. They heard the dog handler feverishly pounding on a typewriter in the locked room, which got everybody worried.
"Sammy, open up, it's me, Louis."
But for a long time the door in front of him stayed closed...
© 2002 Éditions Alire & Jacques Côté
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