Asylum Read online

  “I guess so,” I said. I was thinking that I didn’t have much to complain about in the grand scheme of things. I wasn’t in a hospital, recovering from an unexpected operation. I wasn’t dead.

  “You need to work this weekend?” His tone was neutral; both Ivan and I have jobs that often demand irregular hours, and we were used to it, used to coordinating fluctuating schedules.

  “No,” I said, and then amended it. “Probably not, unless something comes up. I’ll find out on Monday what’s going on with the investigation, and talk to the mayor.”

  “So he’s using you as a sort of glorified go-between?”

  I sighed. “Something like that,” I said. “I make fun of him, I know, but I think maybe he’s hoping that someone outside the establishment might see something that everybody else is too close to the investigation to see. And it’s possible.”

  Ivan thought about it. “Do you think you can?”

  I shrugged and nestled in more comfortably to his shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ve gotten closer than I thought I would, and it’s … well, it’s not easy. I’m working with one of the detectives on the case—an Anglo, Ivan, you’d like him—and so far all I’ve done is see an overview. I don’t know what on earth I can come up with that the professionals aren’t seeing, but I’ll keep at it as long as monsieur le maire wants me to.”

  “Just stay safe.”

  “Of course I will. I’m not in any danger,” I said, before remembering Julian’s driving. Well, not in any danger from the criminal element, anyway.

  The telephone rang on Sunday afternoon, the most comfortable time of the weekend for us all: the kids had settled in, we’d done something reasonably fun together on Saturday, I’d been to Sunday mass while Ivan made pancakes at home, and by now we were all relaxed; the preflight jitters prior to leaving again for Boston hadn’t started yet.

  It was Julian. “Martine? Sorry to bother you at home.”

  “It’s fine,” I said automatically. “Has anything—?”

  “No, no,” he said quickly. “Nothing’s happened, nothing like that. Just wanted to see if you’d like to grab a coffee together.”

  I glanced into the living room, where Ivan, Lukas, and Claudia were all bent over the game of Trivial Pursuit that I’d just left. “Julian—”

  “Hey, I know you’re probably busy, but this isn’t just a social thing.” His voice got lower. “I just wanted to run something by you, outside of—well, you know.” He cleared his throat.

  I looked back at the group huddled around the board: my family. “It’s okay, Julian,” I said. “I’ll meet you in an hour and a half, does that work?” Compromise: the story of my life.

  “Sure,” he said, sounding relieved. “I’ll be at Café Zanetti. See you then, Martine.”

  “See you then,” I echoed, and hung up the telephone, my eyes on my family in the living room. Someone was going to have to win this game, and quickly.

  * * *

  “Okay, here’s the thing,” Julian was saying, two hours later. Ivan had left to take the kids to the airport; I was still in my weekend uniform of jeans and a comfortable cotton shirt. Julian had a five o’clock shadow and was wearing a leather jacket. My very own voyou. “You know, everyone thinks this is a sex crime. I mean, everything points to that, right? Rape and murder, sex crimes, right?”

  “Right,” I said cautiously. As if I knew that much about sex crimes. Or any crimes, come to think of it.

  Julian leaned forward, his espresso forgotten. If his energy level was anything to go by, he could do with one fewer. “So, here’s the thing: what if that’s what he wants us to think? You know, the park benches, the way the bodies are displayed on them: Isabelle and Danielle lying down, Annie and Caroline sitting up—something doesn’t feel right to me. It’s way too in-your-face.”

  I took a sip of my own cappuccino before answering. “Isn’t that what some killers do? Taunt the police?” I thought I’d read that somewhere.

  He nodded impatiently. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. That’s what the profile says. That’s what everybody at SPVM thinks, too. But I’m not so sure.” He glanced around, lowered his voice again. “I’m thinking, everyone’s out there looking for a sex killer. The whole damned police force. We’ve got a profiler, we’ve got a shrink, everyone’s going down that path. And what if—just what if it isn’t? What if the killer wants us to think that it’s all about sex? What if we’re not seeing anything else because we’re not looking for anything else?”

  “What else could it be?” I countered. “Julian, you said yourself, on Friday, that there isn’t much connecting the women who were killed. They all had different professions, and all they had in common was that they were single and female. That’s not much of a connection.”

  “I know, I know.” He took another quick sip of coffee, grimaced, and reached for an additional sugar cube. “And some shrinks would argue that that’s enough, that men have been doing that kind of thing to women since the beginning of time.” He shook his head. “But hear me out, maybe that’s exactly it: there’s nothing about the way they look that connects these women—and all the literature says that a sex killer would want his women to look the same.” He stirred the coffee, his movements jerky, then took another quick sip. This time it passed muster. “I think that you and I,” Julian said, his head bent low as he gestured between us, “we should try another tack.”

  “Me?” I exclaimed. “Julian, I’m not an investigator. I’m here strictly in the capacity of nanny, because your boss pisses the hell out of my boss.”

  “I know.” There was a gleam in his eyes. “And I’m supposed to be babysitting the nanny, which is calculated to keep us both out of the way of any serious investigation. So who better to go off on a tangent?”

  “You’re not getting the point,” I said. “I don’t do this for a living. I don’t even watch crime shows on TV, Julian. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re lucky, because I do. You can be Watson to my Holmes.” He glanced at me from under fair eyelashes. “You do know about—”

  I cut him off. “Yes, thanks very much,” I said sarcastically. “Okay, so you want us to go off on our own because you’re starting to develop an unpopular theory and for me to keep my mouth shut about what we’re doing.”

  “In a nutshell,” he confirmed.

  It seemed as good a plan as any.

  Ivan, of course, was of a different opinion. “You’re doing what?”

  “Just following up on some ideas,” I said soothingly. “Probably nothing, chéri. All the people who know about these things think it’s a serial sex killer, so chances are good that they’re probably right. But it beats me hanging out with the director and making him even more defensive than he is…”

  He glared at me. “And there’s no way you’re getting hurt, right? This guy Julian, he knows what he’s doing?”

  I was in no way confident of that one, but why not? “Of course he does,” I said, making my voice sound as reassuring as I could.

  “Just be careful, babe,” Ivan said finally, pulling me close, tipping my chin up so he could kiss me. And that was all that we said for a very long time.

  There were some very scary people in our new home. It wasn’t just a different orphanage, as it turned out: it was something they called an asylum, a place where people went if they heard voices that weren’t there, or screamed all day at nothing at all, or sat in the corners of rooms, talking to themselves.

  What I couldn’t figure out was what we were doing there.

  We weren’t mad. We weren’t dangerous. We were just children. But very quickly we began to learn that being a child was no protection.

  The inevitable happened—sometime during that first week, I think. Dinner was a particularly noisy time I’d very quickly come to dread, when some inmates threw food on the walls and floors and each other, others howled, clanged the tin plates against each other, danced
and sang and screamed. How anyone was expected to eat with that going on was beyond me.

  And I said so.

  “Enough of your impertinence,” snapped the sister to whom I’d voiced my complaint.

  “I’m not being impertinent,” I said. “I’m just asking if I can eat somewhere else.”

  “Oh, well, yes, then, you can eat somewhere else,” she said, her voice cold. She grabbed me by my collar and propelled me out of the room, down a staircase, and through a locked door onto a long corridor with doors every few feet. One of these was open. “Emil!” she called, and one of the orderlies appeared, dressed in a dirty white uniform. “Help me here.”

  I struggled; of course I struggled. But I wasn’t nearly as strong as they were, and even though I bit them and kicked them and screamed at the top of my lungs, they lifted me onto a bed of sorts and strapped me down with metal restraints at my wrists and ankles, and another one across my chest.

  “That should hold you for a while,” the sister said, scarcely out of breath.

  “Let me out!” I screamed. “You can’t put me here, I’m not crazy!”

  “You may not be now,” said the orderly, leering at me as he closed the door behind himself, leaving the corollary to his sentence hanging in the air: yet.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Monday morning I was in and out of my department in record time. Chantal waved messages at me; I grabbed them and made the calls that absolutely couldn’t be postponed. Then I called Richard into my office.

  He was looking haggard. “You’re not sleeping,” I said as soon as I saw him.

  He shrugged. “I’m trying.”

  “Do you need time off? I should have offered before, I’m sorry.”

  He leaned forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. “No. No, I’m all right. Ne vous inquiétez pas.” He glanced up and I saw the pain in his eyes. “It’s better if I’m working.”

  I wondered if I should say anything else personal, and didn’t know what that should be. “Okay, then, if that’s the way it is, I’ve got a lot of work for you.” I handed him the telephone messages from Chantal. “I need you to take over for me for a while.”

  His eyes widened in panic. “You’re not going away?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “No, nothing like that. I’m just going to be assisting the police in their investigation, and I’ll probably be out of the office a lot. You can pull Catherine from public affairs if you need help, I’ll authorize it.”

  Richard was staring at me. “The mayor wants you to be working on it full-time?”

  “The mayor wants this man caught. None of us will have anything to do, full-time or not, unless he is. So I’m going to be doing what I can to help.”

  He nodded. “Bien, alors.”

  “I’ll be checking in with you,” I said, standing up, reaching for my jacket and purse. His look of misery was getting to me. “Richard.” I paused. “I know I already said this on Friday, but I’m truly so sorry about Danielle.”

  He nodded again. “Merci.” His tone answered my question: clearly no trespassers allowed there, so I didn’t trespass. I could feel his sadness following me down the corridor like an unhappy wraith, and breathed the air outside with relief.

  It was time to check in with my boss.

  His assistant was out of the office, so I tapped on his door and let myself in. I’m more of a get-to-the-point type. “Ah, Madame LeDuc,” my boss said, for once not upset with my lack of protocol. “You have something to report already?” He sounded hopeful. Maybe his choice of pencil-pusher had come up aces after all.

  There was another man with him in the room, a distinguished-looking gentleman in his mid-sixties dressed in an expensive suit, and—it seemed to me—extremely fit. All right, so I notice. As Ivan says, there’s nothing wrong with window-shopping. He stood up politely as I entered, a nicety I appreciated, one that my boss never bothered with. “I don’t believe you’ve met. Madame Martine LeDuc, Monsieur Robert Carrigan.”

  I offered my hand. “Monsieur,” I said politely.

  His eyes were amused. “Madame LeDuc. I hear such good things about you.”

  Well, that would be a change, anyway. “I’m honored to hear it,” I murmured.

  “So difficult, I would think,” he said, “being the publicity director for such a large city. I trust that my friend Jean-Luc is giving you as much support as you require?” There was an undertone of amusement in his voice and I found myself warming to him.

  “As much as he believes I require,” I answered with a smile of my own.

  The mayor snorted. “I am in the room, you know.”

  We both ignored him. “You have been friends with the mayor for a long time, monsieur?”

  He inclined his head, an almost royal gesture; he was very stylish. “We have known each other for some years,” he admitted. “I am the lead attorney representing a local pharmaceutical company.” A quicksilver smile. “But no need to bore you with the details. And now I should leave you to your work together. There is much to be done to keep Montréal’s publicity positive, I am sure.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Anyone who could insult my boss that elegantly was okay in my book.

  The mayor clearly wasn’t sure how to take that. “We were just finishing up here. We still haven’t decided—”

  The attorney’s eyes were twinkling. “My company is honored to support the mayor in his political endeavors,” he told me by way of explanation.

  Ah: I had him now. Attorney and—no doubt—lobbyist. Pharmaceutical companies often have deep pockets, and in my boss’s worldview, the deeper the better. “I’m sure that he’s grateful,” I said. The joys of politics.

  “We hope he is,” said Robert Carrigan smoothly, and I could swear he winked at me. He turned to the mayor. “I’ll leave you, then, Jean-Luc. And don’t forget about Friday night. Just a short speech will be fine.”

  “Of course, of course,” my boss said, waving him out of the room. “Madame LeDuc, you have something to report?”

  The door closed behind the lobbyist and I turned to face the mayor. “I have been doing liaison work with the SPVM,” I said smoothly. “A détective-lieutenant named Julian Fletcher.” I waited a moment for the name to sink in.

  It did. “A police officer?” He sounded shocked. The Westmount Fletchers went in for public service, but at a rather higher level than the Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal.

  “A very competent detective,” I corrected him.

  “Well,” said the mayor, “then he will want this wrapped up quickly.” As if just wanting it could make it so.

  “Of course he does,” I said. “As we all do, monsieur le maire.”

  “Alors,” he said, picking up a random piece of paper and scowling at it, “you should shut the door on your way out.”

  For once, I was happy to do exactly what my boss wanted.

  * * *

  Julian was in high spirits. “We’ve all been thinking chronologically,” he said over the phone. “Even me. ’Cause the theory, you know, the theory goes that someone like this progresses from one victim to the next, establishes a pattern, does what feels logical to them, sometimes decompensates…” His voice trailed off and I could almost feel his shrug. “So everybody looks at the timeline. But what if the timeline is for shit? What if it’s not about a pattern?” The questions were clearly rhetorical. “Let’s start where he left off. Let’s start with Danielle.”

  “My deputy,” I said in a neutral voice, “was dating her.”

  That was news to Julian. “I haven’t seen his statement,” he said. “They had people in all weekend, didn’t see him there.”

  “I expect that he’ll go in to see them today,” I said tiredly. “He has a place he rents in the Laurentians, probably went there over the weekend.” Richard, Richard, I thought: why did you run? It didn’t look good. It didn’t look good at all.

  Julian was thinking ab
out this one. “Seriously? I mean, were they serious about each other?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not, or I would’ve heard her name. But Richard is a very private person.” His office, unlike mine, was not filled with pictures of family, keepsakes, or memories. He had art, good art, original art; that was all.

  “Okay. Well, anyway, getting back to what I was saying, we won’t walk all over anybody’s toes. Let’s start at work. Where she worked, I mean. You went to UQAM, didn’t you?” It was pretty clear that he hadn’t; the Fletchers were Anglophones all the way. Stretching back untold generations. “So, anyway, you know the place. Can you go check out her office?”

  Pourquoi pas?

  The UQAM library was less than bustling, but all the staff seemed preoccupied and busy. I waited until the worried-looking, middle-aged head of the library had time to deal with me. “We have already been talking with the police,” she said cautiously, looking at my card. “Forgive me, madame, but what is your interest in this situation?”

  “I’m working with the police,” I said confidently, trying the expression on for size. “Trying to gather more background information.”

  She handed me back the card, solemnly. “Bien. What can I tell you?”

  “Danielle Leroux worked for you here?” I asked. Julian had given me a notebook. I opened it to the first page, virginal, waiting for whatever information might come my way. “Don’t trust yourself to remember anything,” he’d told me before we disconnected our phone conversation. “Everyone forgets. Write down everything.”

  Holmes to Watson, over and out.

  The head librarian cleared her throat. “Mademoiselle Leroux was our research librarian,” she corrected me. “As such, I did not supervise her directly, and our work did not often intersect. But she worked here, yes.”

  I had no idea what information would be helpful, nor what the police would have already asked her over the weekend. “Madame, do you know anything about what she was working on? What kinds of projects?”

  She shrugged. “It is not my area, you understand, madame. But I can show you her office if you like.”