The Dead of Winter

TWO

DECEMBER 24

11.45 PM

Patsy Cline was singing in the dark of loss and despair while Vanier sat half-listening, his thoughts wandering off on long tangents and then returning to the song. The ring-tone shook him, and he had to focus to find out where it was coming from. He saw the blinking green light of the cell phone on the floor, rose from the armchair, and picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Sorry to disturb you this time of night, sir, but they’re collecting bodies down here.”

Vanier reached for the glass of Jameson and listened to the familiar voice. He didn’t tell Detective Sergeant Laurent that he had been awake, sort of, or that he was glad to have some contact on Christmas Eve.

“Explain.”

“They’ve found five bodies tonight. That beats all the averages. Street people by the look of it, all sleeping rough. Two at Atwater, one at McGill, and they just found the last two at Berri. That’s where I am now. I think you should come down here. If you can get away, that is, sir.”

Crime doesn’t take a holiday. It changes costume for the season, and Christmas is the season for domestic violence. Too much pressure to deliver the perfect gift, and not enough money. Too little to say, and too much alcohol encouraging confessions. Never enough love or imagination to deliver the dream. Christmas murders are usually a simple matter; the victim lying in a pool of blood, stabbed, shot, or bludgeoned with whatever comes to hand, the assailant not far away, sitting under the tree crying and sobering up, or in a bar trying not to. They’re easy cases, and good ones for a new officer to cut his teeth on. Even the non-domestics were supposed to be easy. Street people die all the time in Montreal’s brutal winter, but randomly and alone in the long nights of January and February, and not five a night.

“No, no. It’s not a problem, Laurent. I can be there in fifteen minutes. Berri, you said?”

“Yes, sir. When you get to the entrance, one of the uniforms will tell you where I am.”

Vanier was happy to get out of his apartment. He had been holed up too long pretending the festive season didn’t exist. Patsy Cline, whiskey, and Christmas are a depressing combination.

He drove slowly out of the garage into the Montreal night. Winter had come early, and the second storm of the season had just drifted east after dropping twenty centimetres of snow on the city. A large winter moon hung low in the clear sky. The car was warm, one of the luxuries of parking inside, and the window lowered at the touch of a button, letting in a flood of cold fresh air.

He turned right out of the garage to descend Redpath, a steep street running down to the city from a high ridge on the mountain that dominates the Montreal skyline. The snow-covered pavements were deserted except for the occasional parka-bundled figures leaning forward into the cold as they staggered home from late night reveillons.

At the Berri Metro, the snow had been plowed and piled in high banks on both sides of the street by city crews and contractors earning triple time for working Christmas Eve. They were already beginning the long job of clearing it. Vanier parked opposite the station entrance, but had to walk to the corner to find a spot to cross the snow bank. Uniformed officers who were milling around the station entrance looked up as he approached, their breath making clouds in the frigid air. One went to stop him before another, recognizing Vanier, held him back.

“Bonsoir, Inspecteur, et Joyeux Noel!” said one of the officers, touching the peak of his cap.

“Joyeux Noel, les gars,” said Vanier, without stopping.

He pulled open the heavy door and made for the escalator. It was shut off, so he took the stairs down to the main concourse. At the bottom, a uniformed officer pointed to the motionless escalator that led down to the westbound Green Line platform, and Vanier took the stairs again; the risers on a stopped escalator are higher than on ordinary stairs. He went down slowly, facing the 500-foot wall of white tile opposite. Like much of the metro system, Berri had been dug rather than tunneled. Engineers blasted a cathedral-sized hole in the rock and built the station in the hole, encasing it in walls of concrete when they had finished. Then the hole was filled in, enclosing a complex of massive internal galleries inside an underground concrete box.

Vanier was breathing hard at the bottom of the stairs.

About two-thirds of the way down the westbound platform, three uniformed police officers and a metro security officer were gathered around Laurent, looking up at him. At six foot four, with a shaved head and the build of a defensive linebacker, Laurent towered over the group. The three police officers were dressed for the outdoors, holding their fur hats in their hands; Laurent was talking to the security officer. They all turned as Vanier approached down the platform.

“Thanks for coming, sir. What a night. I thought it would be a quiet shift. Instead we get this shit. She’s behind the grill,” said Laurent, gesturing to a large hole in the wall covered by a steel grill.

Vanier moved over to it. The grill was hinged at the top, and the metro officer pulled from the bottom and lifted it up, exposing a massive ventilation shaft that sucked air from the street into the station. Vanier peered in. The shaft went in flat for eight feet and then rose up like a chimney. On the flat surface, two small feet protruded from a pile of blankets and coats. Cold air from the street wafted down through the shaft carrying the smell of the sleeper, a grimy mix of smoke, damp, greasy food, booze, and human leakage.

Laurent was behind Vanier, looking over his shoulder. “After they found the first body at McGill, word went out to check all the stations, and apparently this is a usual sleeping spot. Easy entry and warm enough to spend the night. This officer found her and tried to wake her,” said Laurent, gesturing to the officer. “He climbed inside when she wouldn’t move. We’re waiting for the Coroner’s people before we pull her out.”

Vanier turned to the metro officer. “How often do you find bodies in the system?”

“Often enough that we have a policy. If there’s no sign of violence, we call in an ambulance, and they get a medic to confirm death. Normally, a thing like this would be natural causes, and the Coroner wouldn’t be involved; we’d just hand her off to the funeral home for her last car trip. Only tonight we found three in the system, two here and one at the McGill Metro. Your guys found another two outside at Atwater.”

“That’s a big number, sir. That’s why I thought I should call you,” said Laurent.

“You were right,” said Vanier, touching the young officer’s elbow. “Make sure the crime scene people take it seriously, have them go over the spot thoroughly.”

Vanier turned back to stare into the shaft, looking beyond the feet, the bundled body, and several bags at her head. There was no blood, no sign of a struggle. She looked like she was asleep.

“You’re sure she’s dead?”

“Yes, sir. Checked her myself.”

Vanier nodded to the officer that he could lower the grill. “She wasn’t in a sleeping bag?”

“No, sir, it looks like blankets rolled around her body.”

Vanier looked up at Laurent. “You said there were two here?”

“The other one’s down on the Orange Line, northbound. The trains were running until half an hour ago, and then the whole system shut down because of some electrical fault,” said Laurent.

“Lead on.” The pair walked off in the direction of the Orange Line, another level down.

“Good thing they did have to shut it all down,” said Laurent, “or we’d have the Mayor’s office breathing down our necks for holding up traffic. The other body’s in a utility room at the far end of the platform. Someone gummed up the lock, and since then it only looks like it’s locked. Same situation as here, bedded down for the night and never woke up.”

A small area of the Orange Line platform was yellow-taped off, and a metro officer was standing guard, leaning against the wall. He straightened up as the two detectives ducked under the yellow tape. The door of the utility room was open, and inside, below the sink, another bundle lay up against the wall. This one had been peeled open to reveal an old, bearded man, his head resting on gloved hands. His face was peaceful despite deep wrinkles, and his eyes were closed as though in sleep.

Vanier held the doorjamb and surveyed the small room. Again, there were no obvious signs of violence, no blood, not even bruising, just the normal wear and tear of a life on the street. It was like looking at a moment captured in a photograph. A yellow bucket on wheels supported a mop leaning upside-down on the wall, an extra-wide broom was propped against the opposite wall under a shelf full of jars of industrial cleaning fluids, and two half-filled garbage bags stood next to the broom. Vanier felt that if he were only to yell loud enough, the sleeping man would wake. But he knew there was nothing to do. The crime scene guys would do more. That was their job. His was to look and to remember, to notice anything strange or out of place. But all he saw was a homeless man finding shelter in a utility closet.

He turned back to Laurent. “So what do we know?”

“Not much. We’ve had five similar deaths tonight. All older street people sleeping wherever they could find a spot, all bedded down for the night, only they don’t wake up. Two women, three men. No signs of violence, and none of them froze to death. The first was found at the McGill Metro, just after ten o’clock, and they were all found in the last two hours. You’ve got these two here, two more at Atwater, and the McGill guy. The Atwater bodies weren’t inside the station, one was at the entrance in Cabot Park, and the other was sleeping on a ledge outside a parking garage. The way this is going, there may be more, sir. Maybe we haven’t found them all yet.”

Vanier looked up at Laurent, “Well, for the moment, we treat them all as suspicious. Forget natural causes unless the autopsy results tell us something different. In the meantime, let’s do what we can to place these people, put names on them. Have someone collect their possessions and bring them to headquarters. Get someone to look at the CC footage. There are cameras all over the metro as well as outside. When did they come in tonight? Did they talk to anyone? I want everything. Also, get photos of each of them, and have someone shop them around the hostels and shelters, the Old Brewery Mission, the Sally Ann, Dans La Rue, the drop-in centres, all the places street people go. Someone knows these people. Someone saw them tonight. Let’s find out who they were.”

Laurent was busy taking notes, but hardly needed to. In three years with Vanier he had learned the drill. Vanier’s mantra was connections and history. Know the victim, find the paths he walked, and you will cross paths with the murderer. He had seen Vanier go through the same drill countless times.

“Chief, you think they were killed?”

“Laurent, I haven’t got a clue. But until we know differently, let’s assume they didn’t just slip away peacefully. Let’s get them identified and as much history as possible. These people have families that need to know what happened, even if their families don’t give a shit. I want everything we can find on them.”

“Oh, and this one,” Vanier said, pointing into the cleaning closet at the bearded corpse. “I gave him five dollars last week outside the Sherbrooke Metro. He grinned at me and said, Merci monsieur, merci. I want to know who he was. Now, I’m going home. Call me anytime after six tomorrow morning.”

He turned to leave and caught a fleeting look in Laurent’s eyes and realized his mistake.

“Oh yeah, you’re off tomorrow. Find out who’s on duty in the morning and leave your notes with him. Enjoy Christmas, and we can talk later. And give my best wishes to your wife and those beautiful children. This is a time for family, Laurent. Enjoy it.”

Laurent was taken aback, “Merci, patron, and a Merry Christmas to you too, and to your family.”

Vanier turned and walked away, thinking of the flights of stairs that he would have to climb to get out of the station and of Laurent’s Christmas wishes. He had told few people that there was no longer any family. Marianne had left two weeks before Christmas last year, and Elise had followed her mother. Alex hadn’t lived at home for three years.

Leaving the station, he could see the top of his car over a wall of snow but had to walk to the corner and double back along the road to reach it. The crime scene people might still be at Atwater or McGill, he thought, no harm in trying. He decided to drive by and take a look.

1.30 AM

The drive was slow because he had to manoeuvre around the massed armies of snow removal crews along de Maisonneuve. While snowstorms envelop the city, crews fight to keep the roads open by plowing the snow to the sides of the streets. It is only when the snow stops falling that the focus shifts to getting rid of it with tractors, plows, snow-blowers and front-end loaders working day and night to fill eight-wheeler dump trucks. First they clear the main thoroughfares, one side of the street, then the other, then the smaller streets, then the side streets and alleys. The snow is pushed back into the middle of the street to feed giant snow-blowers that are shadowed by long lines of dump trucks fitted with towering wood panels to accommodate extra snow. When a truck is full, it pulls away and is replaced by the next in line. Within days, thousands of tons of snow are lifted off the streets and deposited in dumps all over the island. In the past, the snow was dumped into the St. Lawrence, but snow scraped from the street is toxic with salt, gasoline, chemicals, and garbage, and someone noticed the dead fish in the spring. Now they have to dump the snow in lost corners of the city where it sits in vast landscapes of dirty grey hillocks until early summer when it’s all finally melted.

A cruiser was parked at the University Street entrance to the McGill Metro with its motor running for heat; the snow under the exhaust was black with the crap spewing out. Vanier parked in front of the cruiser and got out. Police officers get very nervous when you approach them from behind. He pulled out his badge and held it in front of him as he walked towards the cruiser. Two officers were dozing in the front seat, and he was disturbing them. They both looked at the badge, and the driver got out of the car. The passenger went back to snoozing. Vanier smelled pizza and wondered if the constable could smell whiskey.

“Yes, Inspector. What can I do for you?”

“Have they finished with the body here, Constable Desjardins?” said Vanier, reading the officer’s name badge.

“Yeah. Everyone cleared out about half an hour ago,” he said, wiping his sleeve across his mouth to get rid of the food stains. “They brought the stiff to the morgue about an hour ago, but the crime scene people were dragging their asses inside. Christ, you’d think the fucking Premier had died. If you ask me, I think it’s the double time they get for the holidays. Anyway, they just left.”

“I guess they have their jobs to do.”

“Maybe that’s it, Inspector. But if we put in this effort for every homeless asshole that turns up stiff, we’d blow the budget in six months. Know what I mean?” He was grinning, inviting Vanier to share his insight. “Nobody cares if we treat them like the shit they are when they’re alive, but Christ, all of a sudden they’re dead and they’ve got status. We’re all falling over ourselves to find out how they died. But who the fuck cares? You know what I’m saying?”

“So there’s no use for me here,” said Vanier.

“It’s all over, Inspector. And a waste of time if you ask me.”

Vanier turned to leave. “Merry Christmas, Constable Desjardins, and the same to your colleague when he wakes up.”

“Thank you, Inspector. And the same to yourself.”

Vanier walked back to his car. As he drove off, he looked in the mirror and saw the Constable standing in the street looking after him. Vanier wondered what kind of horror it would be to be arrested by Constable Desjardins.

The Atwater Metro station was 12 blocks west, and Vanier circled the Alexis Nihon high-rise that stood over the station complex until he spotted a cruiser and a crime scene van parked by the entrance to the garage. Two officers were stamping their feet next to the cruiser, their breath billowing white in the cold. Vanier got out of the car and walked towards them, badge in hand. They seemed relieved to have some activity.

“Vanier, Major Crimes,” he said, shaking cold hands.

He turned to look up at the ledge overlooking the garage entrance where a crime scene technician was on his hands and knees.

The technician looked down and smiled.

“Inspector Vanier, good to see you again. I’m almost finished here. The body was just taken away, and there’s not much else. She must have stashed her bags somewhere before settling down for the night. Your people will probably find her stuff in the morning.”

“Mr. Neilson, isn’t it? Good to see you again. So you found nothing?” asked Vanier.

“Except this.” He held up a Second Cup coffee thermos. “Don’t even know if it’s hers. We’ll do the prints, but she was wearing gloves. Maybe she took off her gloves to drink her eggnog; you know, some people never lose their manners.”

“Eggnog?”

“Yes, sir, eggnog, with a healthy dose of rum by the smell of it. I was tempted to try it myself.” Neilson lowered himself to the ground and walked over to Vanier.

“You’d be amazed how warm it is up there. Every few minutes, the garage vents hot air that seems to just hang there. If I had to sleep outside in the middle of winter, this would be the spot. You don’t even have to climb up. You can go up the steps by the building doors and walk along the ledge.”

“How did they find her?” asked Vanier.

“One of the tenants was returning home at 8:30 p.m. and noticed her settling in for the night. She called security to have them move her on. Nice, eh? Like Merry Christmas now fuck off. The security guard didn’t go for it at first, says he was alone and couldn’t leave the desk. Anyway, the tenant called back at about 10 p.m. and had a fit when she was told that nothing had been done. She called the building manager at home and the security guard finally went out a little after 11 p.m. He couldn’t wake her, so he called 911. So we have a time of death between 8:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.”

“Any signs of violence?”

“Nothing. She died in her sleep looking real peaceful.”

“There’s another body?”

“Yes, Inspector. Just down the street in Cabot Park. I’m going there now. Why don’t you follow me? It’s in the south entrance to the Metro.”

“Let’s go.”

Vanier turned to the uniforms who were still clapping their hands together and stamping their feet in the cold. “You can close this up. We’ve finished here.”

“That’s good news, sir. I hear my bed calling me.”

“Enjoy your Christmas, officers,” said Vanier.

He got into his car and waited for the crime scene van to pull out. Cabot Park took up a city block in front of the Children’s Hospital but, despite its location, it was a lost space, a watering hole for the city’s destitute. Every time he passed it, Vanier wondered why some places are shunned by the majority of the citizens and become a gathering point for the outcasts. Were transients simply claiming an unwanted patch of land, or was their presence scaring off everyone else? It was one of the ugliest parks in Montreal. In summer, too many trees choked off light, so that, instead of grass, the ground was hard- packed clay. In fall, mud made it impassable. In winter, the gloom of the bare, black trees darkened even the freshest snowfall. And every day, buses lined up in a circle around the park waiting to start their routes, running their engines, and filling the air with the stink of exhaust fumes.

A squat, ugly building of glass and prison-grey concrete that housed an entrance to the Metro and a control room for bus traffic sat on the northwest corner, an architectural marriage of bunker and telephone booth with less charm than either. When it was freezing, people sheltered inside the bunker waiting for their bus to arrive and uneasily shared space with clutches of drinking and arguing street people.

Neilson parked close to a snow bank on St. Catherine Street, and Vanier pulled in behind him, leaving room for access to the back doors. Flashes of light from the police photographer lit up the bunker as they approached. Neilson was first to the building and pulled open the heavy door for Vanier. It was cold inside. The waiting area was unheated and, even though it was sheltered, the concrete floor and walls radiated damp cold as the wind howled through the doors. But, despite the constant circulation of cold air, the place still stank of alcohol and urine.

The body was tucked under a concrete bench with an empty bottle of wine at its head. Another cocoon wrapped against the elements, hoping to preserve some warmth at the centre. Vanier nodded at the two officers protecting the scene. The photographer was repacking his equipment, getting ready to leave.

“We’ll have head shots of all of the victims ready first thing in the morning,” he said to Vanier, lifting the strap of his shoulder bag.

“That’s great. Much appreciated,” said Vanier.

Neilson knelt down to begin his work, peeling the blankets away. Another weather-beaten face lined by deep wrinkles. A man, perhaps in his forties, perhaps younger, the street ages people quickly. Vanier looked at the body and wondered how you could retain heat on the concrete floor in the freezing Montreal night. Even with all the layers, the newspapers closest to the skin, covered by a shirt and pants, a sweater and an overcoat, all wrapped in dirty blankets, eventually the cold would seep into the core of the body. How long could you sleep like that, without the cold waking you? Alcohol might buy you some time, but after a few hours the cold would take over, forcing you to wake up or die.

Neilson talked into a hand-held recorder. Vanier looked around but could see nothing unusual, just another victim who went to sleep and never woke up. He turned away. There was nothing he could do.

“Unless you need me, Mr. Neilson, I’ll be off. When you’ve finished, tell these men they can close up the scene.”

As he turned to leave, Vanier had a thought. “Mr. Neilson, did you see the body at the McGill Metro?”

“Yes, Inspector. That was my first stop tonight.”

“And?”

“There’s not much to say. Much the same as this situation, Inspector. A man sleeping rough. No signs of violence, looks like a peaceful end to a hard life. Nothing suspicious, except for the number of them. Could be a bad coincidence. Maybe they all realized it was Christmas Eve and couldn’t take it anymore, but that’s unlikely. I don’t suppose you survive on the streets by being sentimental. Hopefully, the autopsies will tell us something.”

“Maybe,” said Vanier, almost to himself as he turned to leave.

“Have a good Christmas, Inspector.”

“You too, Mr. Neilson. Merry Christmas.”

Vanier walked out of the death-cold building into the colder night, got into his car and headed home.

Twenty minutes later he stood at the window in his living room looking down over the city with a fresh glass of Jameson in his hand. Hot air from heating systems rose straight up from rooftop vents to condense into white vapour in the cold, like the smoke from so many campfires. He took in the city below him down to the river and beyond, to the endless blanket of white and grey stretching to the horizon. It would be cold again tomorrow. Yesterday’s snow had given way to clear skies that were expected to last for several days and the temperature would fall to a punishing deep freeze. There would be sunlight without heat. Montreal winters are unforgiving, a relentless cold tempered by snowstorms that allow the temperature to rise by a few degrees, then clear skies, and cold again.

He wondered how many people slept outside in weather like this, and what madness drove them to it? And if someone was killing them, why stop at five?