The Dead of Winter

FOURTEEN

JANUARY 13

6 AM

Vanier had been dreaming of chasing someone past fountains and sculptures through crowded Italian backstreets. No matter how fast he ran, he could never catch up with them. He kept slowing down, distracted by stone warriors and enormous horses pulling chariots. The ringing of his cell phone shook him awake.

“Vanier.”

“Inspector, this is Ouellette of the RCMP at Dorval. Sergeant Carchetti asked that someone call you as soon as we had news from Italy.”

Vanier swung his legs out of the bed and planted his feet on the floor. “And?”

“We’ve just heard back from Italian immigration. The passengers from the Montreal flight were given special attention, but there was nobody even remotely matching our guy.”

“Shit. Thanks anyway.”

“No problem. Hope you find the bastard.”

“Don’t worry, we will.”

Vanier’s day didn’t get any better. At ten o’clock, the Justice lawyer called to tell him that the request for a warrant to search Monsignor Forlini’s chalet had been refused. The judge had decided that the affidavit didn’t disclose sufficient grounds to justify the invasion of the privacy of a senior member of the Catholic Church. They had nothing, and he wasn’t surprised. Normally, getting a search warrant was as easy as buying a lottery ticket, but getting a warrant to search the house of a priest was a different matter. The judge knew what he was doing; the Church still had clout in Quebec, especially in the legal system. Every September, the new court season was inaugurated by the Red Mass at the Cathedral, and the senior judges and the Church’s hierarchy got to wear their best red costumes. You would think the place would be as empty as a Prime Minister’s promise, but it was always packed with the top judges and lawyers and those who had helped them move up through the system. After the Mass, there was a lunch with the Archbishop and the Chief Justice as joint guests of honour. If you wanted to go against a member of the Church, you had to choose your battles carefully and get solid support in advance; Vanier had done neither and hit a wall. Now he was sitting across from Chief Inspector Bedard.

“So, you’re back to square one. Any suggestions?”

“We don’t know for sure that he left the country, sir,” said Vanier, “so we keep looking.”

“If he decided to lose himself, he could be anywhere on the planet by now.”

“I know, sir. But we can’t give up.”

“I’m not talking about giving up, Luc. I’m talking about using our resources efficiently. If he left the country, he’s someone else’s problem. I can go through the channels to get a warrant and picture to Interpol. We have a picture, at least?”

“Yes, sir. From a summer picnic at Xeon Pesticides. It’s five years old, but it’s the best we have.”

“Good, I’ll have it sent to Interpol, and you can get it circulated in Quebec, to the rest of Canada too. Then we wait, he can’t hide forever, can he?”

“No, sir, but he can go on killing people until we find him.”

“Luc, unless you can tell me that you have some active leads to follow, I’m going to have to close this down. We can tell the press that we have a suspect and that suspect has left town. Who knows, the papers might pick up on an international manhunt and track him down for us. And even if they don’t, as long as the deaths stop, people will move on. Believe me, Luc.”

“We do have a good lead, sir. Monseignor Forlini. He’s Collins’s father.”

“That’s not a lead. It’s the ranting of a deranged woman. We can’t go on that.”

“What if it’s true?”

“I’m not ordering you to drop that line of inquiry. I’m saying that what you have given me so far is nothing. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But if anything comes of it, you let me know.”

That was why Bedard had become Chief Inspector and Vanier was still a Detective Inspector. It made sense. Evidence that was good enough to arrest the average Joe wasn’t nearly enough for anyone who would fight back. At some point, you had to admit defeat and move on. Vanier had trouble giving up, but he also knew you didn’t find people by tracking them down the way they did in The Fugitive. You waited for them to make a mistake and get themselves caught. The best you could do was to make sure that their names, aliases, credit card, photos, and anything else you could think of were on as many databases as you could load them into. The average criminal is a criminal wherever he is, and eventually the red light glows on someone’s monitor, and they’ll place a call to Montreal.

“How long do I have? How long can I keep up the active investigation?”

“Luc, this morning I had a call from the Mayor. He wants this thing shut down as quickly as possible. If we have a good suspect and he’s disappeared, he doesn’t want the force wasting valuable manpower looking for someone who isn’t there.”

“Since when did the Mayor run investigations?” He was pushing Bedard, who was walking a fine political line.

If Bedard was angry, he didn’t show it. “He doesn’t, Luc. But he made his point forcefully, and I have to give it some weight. He also told me he’d had a call from the Archbishop about your visit to Monsignor Forlini. He tells me Monsignor Forlini is very well respected in the Church. Not just in Quebec, in Rome too. Apparently, great things are expected of him. He has friends.”

“That’s why they want to shut down the investigation, to protect the Monsignor from embarrassment?”

“Luc, the Church has nothing to do with this investigation, apart from their normal interest in making sure you don’t bully its priests.”

“Fuck the Church. You think I’m bullying Forlini? I’m flattered. No, the church wants this shut down because it’s worried about looking bad, not about me bullying one of their holy men. Jesus, one of its own is dead, and the suspect is the bastard son of a nun and a priest. A nun who was hung out to dry when she got pregnant. Maybe that’s what caused young John to flip, a regular churchgoer who answers the prayers of the faithful by relieving some innocent poor bastard of his suffering. God’s holy messenger, a son of the clergy, operating his killing venture out of the church’s head office. And you wonder what interest the church has in closing down this investigation?”

“Luc, give me something solid, and I can help you.”

“I have nothing solid, give me a few days to wrap up.”

“Take a few days to wrap up. But I want it wrapped up, hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Vanier rose to leave, and Chief Inspector Bedard reached for his phone.