(Touton’s punk)
Sergeant-Detective Yves Giroux thought it a hoot when Cinq-Mars explained that his exit from the Night Patrol accounted for his inebriation and rank scent. Kept busy and feeling miserable through the morning and into the afternoon, Cinq-Mars was relieved when his new boss cut him some slack and sent him home early.
A small mercy, for which the younger detective was grateful, although Giroux made things clear as he went out the door. ‘You owe me now.’ A mercy, then, that would cost him.
He was suffering in the throes of a recent romantic breakup. Not utterly brokenhearted, yet his hopes for a better outcome had been dashed. He never told Armand Touton about being dumped, not wanting him to know that it played a part in his transfer. The Night Patrol had been a tremendous springboard to his career. The guys were tough, often ruthless, yet they defended the moral high ground with their lives. In a city of corrupt cops, no one on the Night Patrol accepted an illicit dime, not if he valued the existing contours of his bone structure. A farm boy, Cinq-Mars was tall and physically powerful – no martial arts training, only strength to burn and an inherent calmness amid chaos. Yet he wouldn’t have wanted to take on Touton, certainly not when the man was younger and, out of respect, not at his retirement age, either. A tabloid’s front cover, framed and signed, hung in the old man’s office: a photograph of two fists side-by-side, Touton’s and Rocky Marciano’s. Ring rats agreed that the heavyweight champ’s undefeated record might have been in jeopardy if he’d been up against the captain in a dark alley. A debate never to be resolved. Had they fought, one man or the other might have lost a legendary reputation.
Although Cinq-Mars thrived as Touton’s protégé on the Night Patrol, a truth sailed home: working nights and sleeping days gave him little opportunity to meet the women he’d like to meet, as opposed to the ones he’d rather not. He needed to work the day shift to give his non-existent love life a chance. To Touton, he called it a career move. If the Old Man saw through the fib, he didn’t mention it.
He moved into new digs in Park Extension, an area known to him when he first arrived in the city. The bedroom was cramped, the living room constricted his limbs. The kitchen was fitted out in miniature, and the bathroom had been constructed for elves. Technically, he had a tub. If he stooped, it could be used as a shower. Something he did not want to admit: the monkishness of the space appealed, as if, having failed lately at romantic love, he’d been thrown back into the cloister.
Cinq-Mars showered when he arrived home. Refreshed, he lay down nude upon his bed. The window behind the blind was open, but not a whiff of breeze stirred. Much later, half-dead to the world, he struggled to pull a sheet over himself.
The time of day conspired to deprive him of a lengthy snooze. Light shone around the edges of the blind, kids were noisily at play, and cars were on the move. Three hours after lying down, he sprung up again.
Partly, he was hungry. He also wanted a smoke. Quitting did not come without challenges.
Cinq-Mars alleviated his hunger pangs by reheating meat loaf. The sort of meal that was easy when coming off a 6:00 a.m. shift. He was counting on the essential aspects of his life – sleeping, eating, dating – to take on a measure of normalcy once he was ensconced on the day shift. Day One, he was chowing down leftovers and sleeping at a ridiculous hour, fitfully at best. Like always.
He went down the block to buy smokes.
He planned to stay in for the night. The evening air and the toxic energy that zapped through him when he bore away from buying cigarettes conspired to undermine the notion. His brain stirred. Thoughts buzzed like the itch in his bloodstream and started coming together. He focused on the robbery, the murder. Outside his flat, he shoehorned himself into his Volkswagen Beetle and drove to his new poste in the Town of Mount Royal.
The affluent suburb was situated within the confines of the larger city, a short hop from downtown and surrounded by poorer, congested districts. His new station reflected its location. A fire hall took up most of the building, next door to hockey and curling rinks. At its back shone a baseball diamond, and beyond that the high school’s football and track field. The school itself stood south of these playgrounds, with City Hall to the north. Open air, open sky. The interior augmented the theme: more office space than he’d ever known as a cop, the desks sitting wide apart. The privileged few with offices of their own enjoyed spacious rooms. In the shank of the evening, his impression was of a clubhouse exhibiting the serenity of a library.
Murder within the Town of Mount Royal was colossal news. The homicide contingent stationed there would idly twiddle their thumbs most days were it not that they served a significantly broader territory. Usually, the Town’s troubles pertained to a socially advantaged class rather than a criminal element. The kids had access to drugs, cars, money and alcohol, in that order, with a penchant for raising Cain. Cinq-Mars expected that he might have to be a glorified babysitter. Compared to what he’d been through on the Night Patrol, when the whole of the city had been his turf between dusk and dawn, this new posting struck him as being a walk through a nicely shaded park.
To begin with a robbery and a murder put the kibosh on that expectation.
Which pleased him.
The night-shift captain was chewing an unlit cigar in the common room.
‘Captain Honoré, sir, I’m Émile Cinq-Mars, the new guy, days.’
‘Touton’s punk.’
His reputation could be a problem.
‘Not anymore,’ Cinq-Mars replied.
‘Are you confused, Cinq-Mars? Can’t break the habit?’
‘Sir?’
‘It’s night. You work days now.’
‘Just came in to access information.’
‘Like what?’
‘Fingerprint analysis for the robbery I’m working on with Sergeant-Detective Giroux. It might’ve come in by now. I’d like to check.’
‘Planning to book overtime? Don’t.’
‘I wasn’t thinking that way, sir. I booked off early. I owe hours.’
‘No sweat up my crack. Do you know where to look?’
‘Giroux’s desk. I didn’t want you to come across a stranger shuffling through his papers.’
‘Usually I shoot those people. No, wait. I ignore them. No, wait, nobody’s done that before. I don’t know what I’d do. Good plan, talking to me first.’
Maybe he was trying to be funny, or maybe he thought he was being savvy. Cinq-Mars felt stymied in the man’s company and waited to be dismissed.
‘What?’ The captain barked with the unlit stogie still wedged in his mouth. ‘Do you require a guide to get lost?’
‘I’m good,’ Cinq-Mars said.
‘Will miracles never cease?’ He seemed to demand an answer to his question, then waved at Cinq-Mars with the back of his hand. ‘Shoo,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking.’
Something he did not encounter at his previous station: a cop publicly admitting to being thoughtful. Cinq-Mars doubted that the rumination related to police work.
In the detectives’ main room, he scouted around. No one present. The contingent pulling the night shift was small and, save for the captain, out on the job. The uniforms who briefly appeared were pushing paper. No one interviewed a witness or hauled in a suspect. Cinq-Mars identified Giroux’s desk but did not head there. Finding out about the fingerprints at the scene of the robbery could have waited until morning, and there was nothing he could do with the information that night. In the morning, however, he would not have access to the vacant desk of homicide Sergeant-Detective Frigault. At night, he did.
In this suburban precinct, senior sergeant-detectives merited an office that had large windows to the interior, none looking outside, which made Cinq-Mars conspicuous going where he did not belong. He elected to brave it. As a newcomer, he could plead ignorance or error. The fingerprint evidence with respect to the murder interested him, and the file would have landed on Frigault’s desk. If it arrived late in the day, he might be the first to have a peek. He easily found the document. Different sets of prints from the dead boy’s car had been examined: None provided a positive ID beyond that of the victim.
Hearing footsteps, Cinq-Mars dashed through his reading. The cigar-chomping captain rambled down the hall. Unable to flee the office elegantly, Cinq-Mars stayed put. The captain remarked on his trespass. ‘Touton’s punk boy. Touton’s boy,’ he said, half under his breath, as if that held dire meaning. What he was seeing finally registered, and he turned on his heels. ‘What’re you doing in there?’
Nabbed, he chose to broach the truth.
‘I’m comparing the fingerprints from the robbery with those from the murder. See if there’s a connection.’
‘Is there?’ the cigar chomper demanded.
‘Not here. Let me check Giroux’s files.’
The captain kept a keen eye on him as Cinq-Mars hustled across the room, found the file he wanted on top of Giroux’s IN tray, and gave it a quick study.
‘Well?’ Honoré asked when the new guy returned.
‘No connection’s been made,’ Cinq-Mars informed the man.
‘All right then,’ the captain said.
‘All right then, what?’ Cinq-Mars asked.
‘Get out of here. You’re bothering me. Touton’s punk is pissing me off.’
Cinq-Mars gave the captain an offhand, secretly discourteous, salute and decamped. He knew now that any plans for the evening were shot, for he had picked up an interesting tidbit. No connection had been made between the two crime scenes because none had been ordered. The files had been processed separately, not jointly. If a fingerprint in the murder case matched one from the robbery, that was unknown to all investigators. As well, an anomaly snagged his attention. He needed to run that down before returning to his flat and bed.
He was coping on adrenalin.
He planned to add a heavy dose of caffeine to the mix soon.
Cinq-Mars drove downtown to visit his old stomping ground.