Sur le seuil
Patrick Senécal
(Excerpt: p. 22-25)
Twenty minutes later, I park in front of a luxury building. From the sidewalk, looking up, I can see a broken window: the window of Roy's condo. Then I look down at the asphalt, roughly where the writer would have smashed himself if he had gone completely through the window. That would have killed him for sure.
I go into the building. On the small, well-maintained staircase, I meet two police officers coming down, talking. I deduce that the police are still investigating in the apartment and Jeanne came to see how the investigation was going. I sigh wearily. I can imagine her introducing herself to the police officers: "I'm Thomas Roy's shrink and I've come to find out what happened." Ridiculous!
I come to door number 3241. It's open. I go into the living room: charming, in good taste and lavishly decorated. Two men in suits and ties are talking. I go over and introduce myself. They give me a long stare. Two psychiatrists the same day. We're going to give them a heart attack! I feel ludicrous and my anger towards Jeanne is increased tenfold.
"Your colleague is in the office, there... Hey, this is new, shrinks who make house calls?"
I ignore the remark and go into the room at the far end.
While the living room of the apartment is clean and tidy, the office looks like a tornado has gone through it. The floor is strewn with paper, knick-knacks, and all kinds of debris. On the walls, the picture frames are all crooked. In one corner, the bookshelves had been ransacked and almost all the books are scattered pathetically on the floor. Against one of the side walls, the desk was covered with sheets of paper, pencils and books, all in an awful jumble. In the middle of this mess stands the computer, miraculously spared. It is still on and, from a distance, I can see text on the screen. There are four other people in the office. Two of them are picking up the debris from the floor and putting it into bags. A third man, in his forties, wearing a three-piece suit, is talking with Jeanne. I approach as discreetly as possible, take my colleague by the arm and whisper:
"Okay. We've seen enough, haven't we Dr. Marcoux? How about coming back to the hospital with me, and waiting for the police to send us their report?"
"Paul!" Jeanne exclaims. "You've come to join me!" (I make a face. Enough with being discreet...) I introduce myself to Detective Sergeant Goulet. He's the one in charge of the investigation. "Sergeant, may I introduce my colleague, Dr. Lacasse."
Goulet offers his hand, which I shake reluctantly, while shooting a dark glare at Jeanne.
"Investigation is saying a lot," Goulet remarks. "In fact, I have the impression that this case is going to be closed today and that the rest is going to be something for you to discover."
His remark intrigues me and, almost regretfully, I ask:
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for the past two days, we have been taking prints almost everywhere. The only ones we've found are his. No others. Plus there's a video camera in the entrance of the building. We looked at the tape. Nobody came in or left the building between midnight and six o'clock in the morning the night of Sunday to Monday. Except for the police, of course. Sergeant Caron was the one who broke down Mr. Roy's door. It was locked from the inside, and it had a door chain. Same thing for the French door leading to the balcony. How could an attacker have locked both doors from the inside after leaving the apartment?"
"So, sergeant, your conclusion...?" Jeanne asks, looking at me.
Clearly she knows the answer, but she wants Goulet to repeat it for me. There's no point, though. I have already understood perfectly. Nevertheless, Goulet shrugs - and says:
"Well, everything points to Roy having attempted suicide."
"And the fingers?" asks my colleague.
"He cut them off before throwing himself against the window."
"You're sure?"
"Come and see..."
He walks over to the work table, followed by Jeanne. I follow suit, sighing to myself. At this point, we might as well hear out Goulet... but as soon as we get back to the hospital, Jeanne is going to listen to me!
Beside the computer, he shows us the guillotine paper trimmer. The big blade is in the down position; there is a lot of blood all around. Goulet points to the front of the table, where there is the most blood.
"We found the ten fingers here, right by the blade, neatly lined up.
Then, he points to the blade handle.
"On the handle, there are a few prints from Roy's right hand. Plus a few drops of blood. However, there is no reason why the blood would have spattered the lever, which is behind.
Goulet puts his hands in his pockets and explains with the same offhand expression:
"First Roy cut off the fingers of his left hand using his right hand. Then, he cut off the fingers of the right hand using his mangled left hand to push down the lever."
We look at the sergeant for a long time, Jeanne and I. We must have looked a little stunned. Even though I've seen many self-mutilations before, Goulet's interpretation disturbs me a little.
"That's the only explanation," the policeman adds.
My eyes turn back to the paper trimmer. I try to imagine Roy placing the fingers of his left hand under the blade, and sharply bringing down the lever... then, after that terrible mutilation, placing his other hand under the blade and using his bloody, painful stumps to repeat the horrible act. I can't help shivering.
"And it's certain that he cut off his fingers after trashing the room, otherwise we would have found blood on the walls and the books. We found a certain quantity on the floor in front of his computer, but not on the machine itself."
Goulet crosses his arms and, methodically enumerates the facts:
"So, in order, what happened is essentially this: Roy was writing on his computer, he went crazy, smashing everything in sight, he then cut off his fingers, he went back in front of his computer (to do what, I don't know) and finally, he threw himself against the window, intending, I imagine, to go through it. But he got stuck in it and he passed out. And since then, according to what you've told me, Dr. Marcoux, he hasn't said a word."
"Not one."
© 1998 Éditions Alire & Patrick Senécal
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