Blackfly Season

49

“WE LIVE AND DIE BY contacts,” Chief Kendall liked to say, and Cardinal was now putting that maxim to the test. He had spent ten years on the Toronto force, and he now tapped every source and called in every favour he could think of.

Delorme, on the other hand, had spent as little time in Toronto as possible. But one of the central realities of a cop’s life is continuing education—investigative techniques, developments in the collection of evidence, the latest in forensics, criminal psychology, agency liaison—there’s no end to the ingenuity of the people who arrange such things, and cops don’t mind going because they’re a prime source of new contacts.

Between the two of them, Cardinal and Delorme managed to put together a considerable file on a person whose name, just a few hours previously, had been utterly unknown to them.

Tony Glaser, probation officer: “Raymond Beltran? I came across Raymond Beltran fifteen, sixteen years ago. He was sixteen or seventeen, on probe for bashing some kid over the head with a shovel. In some ways, he was the ideal probation customer. Punctual, neat, followed all the rules. Part of the order was that he had to go back to school full time, and he did. Went every day at nine, left at 3:30 with everyone else. Perfect attendance for two years.

“He was quiet, polite, always told you what you wanted to know. Gave no signs whatsoever of hostility. The only negative was he wouldn’t talk. Not really talk. He’d answer questions with a single syllable if he could get away with it. A shake of the head, maybe, if he was feeling demonstrative.

“And he behaved himself, at least on my watch. No further incidents. But a couple of things he did gave me pause. One example: We’re out for a walk one afternoon and we see this woman walking with a cat on her shoulder. I happen to mention that I have a cat at home. And Raymond asked me, ‘Have you ever seen the inside of a cat?’ Naturally I said no, and he said, ‘I have.’ I don’t know about you, but I find that remark a little unsettling.

“When I asked him how it came about that he had seen the inside of a cat, he said they’d dissected one in biology class. I didn’t believe it. In the first place, they always use frogs or fetal pigs for that. In the second place, he was only in grade eleven. He wasn’t taking biology.

“Another time, I was pointing out to him that his two years were nearly up. ‘Two years,’ he says. ‘I don’t know why they gave me two years for bashing Bobby Blackmore over the head. I’ve done way worse things than that, and nobody seemed upset.’ ‘Like what?’ I said. But he clammed up the way he always did and you knew there was just no getting anything more out of him. He was one of those guys you just know on first sight there’s something wrong with them. Something missing. You watch your back with Raymond Beltran, that’s all I can say. You want more background, try the Catholic Children’s Aid. The mother was a nightmare.”

Delorme had met a protection worker named Sandra Mayhew when they had both served on a panel at a Women and Criminal Law conference in the nineties. Mayhew had been on the front lines of Toronto social work for ten years and had seen just about everything.

Thus Sandra Mayhew on Gloria Beltran and son: “You can’t use any of this, Lise. Not for anything other than background. You can’t call me as a witness.”

“I know that,” Delorme said. “We’re working against the clock, here. We’re looking for anything we can get.”

“Let me tell you about Gloria, first. Cuban immigrant, no skills, only visible means of support a drug dealer who got himself killed shortly after she arrived in the country.

“One day, I pay her a surprise visit the way we’re supposed to and she answers the door and there’s this guy leaving in a hurry, doing up his pants. It’s absolutely clear she’s been screwing him, and Raymond is sitting there in the corner of the living room, watching television like there’s nothing going on. I mean, Gloria is so out of touch she doesn’t even realize that what she’s doing is deeply disturbed.

“Raymond didn’t seem to think anything of it, either. I talked to him alone the next day and he didn’t know what I was concerned about. We already had a supervision order and, believe me, we talked about going for Crown wardship. But the fact was, Raymond was fifteen going on sixteen. There would have been no benefit to bringing him into care for a few months.

“The neighbours complained about both of them. Their apartment was filthy—I mean disgusting, and after ten years in this business, believe me, I don’t disgust easily. And Raymond was violent—not like some kids who are out of control, constantly getting into fights and so on. He was a brooder. When he bashed that kid over the head with the shovel, it was over some slight that had happened months previously.

“I tried to talk to him a couple of times, but there was no getting through to that kid. No response whatsoever. Partly, I sensed an extreme hostility to women—not surprising, given that his mother was fucking strangers all the time. But it was more than that. He was only hauled up on charges a couple of times, but that isn’t because he wasn’t a suspect in a lot of things. This is Regent Park we’re talking about. Anyone who wants to find trouble will find it.

“Talk to the Juvie Squad at 51 Division. They’ll tell you. They never nailed him for much, but ask them who they suspect for Molly Davis—teenage girl who disappeared from his building. Ask them who they suspect for—just a second, here, let me look it up—for Richard Lee, twenty-year-old guy out walking his dog one night in Allan Gardens.

“The long and short of it, Lise, I didn’t have much to do with Raymond Beltran. He was close to being outside my jurisdiction under the Child Welfare Act, and I had an apocalyptic caseload. Only thing I ever managed to do for him was get him into a summer camp—it was his first time outside the big city and he absolutely loved it. But I’ll tell you, every other contact I had with him, he scared the hell out of me. Creepy eyes. He could be quite charming when he wanted to be, but it was so obviously an act that you just wanted to get away from him.

“Bottom line, Lise. Raymond Beltran is one of nature’s mutants. You ever get close enough to interview him, you don’t do it alone.”

A few more phone calls, a few more faxes, a lot more e-mail. When Delorme had pretty much exhausted her ingenuity, she went to the lunchroom and brewed up a fresh pot of coffee. She found Cardinal in the boardroom, where he had spread out the results of his own investigations. He was staring at the pages like Napoleon examining his maps, but there was a sag to his shoulders even now, when he was on the chase.

“Thought you could use this,” Delorme said, handing him a decaf.

Cardinal turned, and she read grief in his eyes for the split second it took him to tuck it away wherever he kept such things.

Delorme outlined what she had learned. Cardinal listened intently, staring into his coffee, stirring it slowly.

When she was done, he said, “I’ve been working out a timeline. April 1999, Toronto cops head over to Beltran’s apartment to discuss a case of forcible confinement involving a fifteen-year-old girl. Out of the country, his mama says.”

“Let me guess,” Delorme said. “Cuba.”

“Close. Miami. Apparently Mama has relatives there. Anyway, he stays in Miami for the next four years, comes back to Toronto August ’03 and gets nicked on a gun charge—which is still outstanding, by the way. Toronto cops believe he’s ‘up north’ somewhere, which could mean here, could mean anywhere. But I just got off the phone with Miami.”

Delorme set down her coffee cup. “What does Miami say?”

“Turns out Miami has a string of unsolveds: missing heads, extremities removed while the victim was alive, Palo Mayombe signs nearby. Freaked hell out of the Cuban community down there. Killer became known as El Brujo, which I gather means witch.”

“And the dates of the killings?”

“First one is December 2000, last one is August 2003.”

“When he comes back to Toronto. He’s our guy, John.”

“I know it. You know it. Now, all we gotta do is find him.”