(Hands in tills)
As his partner was putting in time on a case two months old – the theft of a painting from an octogenarian’s parlor – Cinq-Mars took the opportunity to visit his young thief, now that she was officially under his supervision.
Home alone, she admitted him.
‘I’m surprised to find you in,’ he mentioned.
‘You rang my doorbell. How surprised can you be?’
‘Nice day out. Why be cooped up indoors?’
‘Why ring my bell if you think I’m not here?’
‘A starting point. Did you think of that? If you weren’t home, I’d hunt you down.’ He wanted to keep things light before getting serious. ‘Why not be outside?’
‘Maybe I’m grounded,’ Quinn said, then repeated his phrase back to him. ‘Did you think of that?’
‘Are you?’
He caught a quick smile. ‘According to my dad, yeah.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He didn’t think it through. I told him, “You’re at work. How do you know if I’m in or out?” He’s never tried this before. He has no clue how.’
Cinq-Mars weighed in with another concern. ‘Is it wise to be here alone? What if there’s another Molotov cocktail?’
Quinn tried a dismissive shrug. Cinq-Mars mimicked her motion, mocking the attitude. She ceded ground. ‘My dad was worried, OK, but where do I go? If somebody’s looking for me, who? If I don’t know, I could walk right into him. Besides, my dad might be thinking it’s not about me.’
About him, then. Cinq-Mars had wondered that himself.
‘You take care of yourself, is that the deal?’
‘Pretty much. We made an arrangement. When I go out, I write down where.’ With a painted big toe, she indicated a blank sheet of paper on the coffee table between them. ‘Coming home, I write down where I’ve been. Our version of me being grounded.’
They shared a laugh. ‘I guess that works. Otherwise, you’re a free bird. The only constraint is to be honest.’
‘Not exactly a restriction. My dad tries. He means well.’
‘If you ask me,’ Cinq-Mars suggested, ‘it’s more effective than you admit.’
‘Was I asking?’ Quinn challenged. Her underlying distrust leaked out. ‘Why think that way?’
‘Yesterday,’ Cinq-Mars reminded her.
The day before, he and Sergeant-Detective Yves Giroux had brought her in for questioning, her dad in tow. The father waited in the detectives’ room while Quinn sat in the interrogation chamber which normally received tough punks or rowdy youths. Not many women had entered, and when they did, it was usually for hit-and-runs or shoplifting. The neighborhood notched upscale white-collar crimes, rarely anything down-and-dirty where the prime suspect was female.
Cinq-Mars fingerprinted Quinn himself, rolling each digit to make a clear impression.
‘Cool,’ she said, when they were done. ‘I hope it was good for you.’
He handed her a wet cloth to clean off the ink.
In the interrogation room, Giroux started in on her. ‘About the break-and-entry.’
‘I don’t break,’ she insisted. Then more quietly, with pride: ‘I only enter.’
‘Not true. You cut the screens. Do you want to play smart with me?’
‘I can play dumb. Should I?’
‘Really? Are you too stupid to know the trouble you’re in?’
‘Are you too stupid to know that I don’t give a flying fuck?’
Giroux’s temperature was rising. When a juvenile came into custody, the captive was usually a boy and on the verge of wetting himself. His hands would shake, his voice quaver. The kid was wary about what came next, such as the arrival of parents, or being roughed up, or spending a night in jail with degenerates.
‘Shall I pick up the phone, Miss Tanner?’ Giroux taunted. ‘Turn your ass over to youth protection? The neighborhood you live in, you’ve talked to kids. You know what it means.’
‘I talked to boys about it. Girls? The only trouble they know is getting knocked up. The Boys’ Farm, yeah, I heard about it. Is there a Girls’ Farm? Oh, never mind. I’ll go to the Boys’ Farm. I don’t have to worry about the counsellors there. They prefer dicks to chicks, I hear.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘If you don’t know, I’m not telling. You’re probably one of them.’
‘If you’re saying what I think you’re saying …’
‘No biggie if you’re queer. My best friends are. Helps me out in a way.’
‘Cinq-Mars,’ Giroux stated, ‘should we haul her downtown? Lose track of her for a couple of nights? We can slip her in with the drunks and lunatics. I’ll send you to pick up whatever bones are left.’
Quinn responded with a smirk.
‘What?’ Giroux pressed her. ‘You don’t think I’m serious?’
‘With my dad outside? I know you’re not. I think you’re so full of shit there’s probably nothing left of you after a dump. Be careful when you sit down on the can, Mr Detective. You might flush yourself away.’
‘Girl, you need to smarten up in a hurry.’
‘I like to take things slow in life. My motto.’
‘I’m making that call.’
‘Hang on,’ Cinq-Mars advised him.
He got up and left the room. He returned with Quinn’s father. Jim Tanner sat quietly in a corner. Quinn now had to speak her sass in his presence or mind her manners.
‘Let me talk to her,’ Cinq-Mars offered.
‘Be my guest. I’ve got a sour taste.’
He sat opposite Quinn. He let her stew under his gaze down the lengthy line of his hawk-like beak. She began to squirm.
‘What?’ she said. She could not protest more than that, or hurl insults, not with her father ensconced in the corner.
‘I was wondering,’ Cinq-Mars said, ‘if Dietmar Ferstel had girlfriends before you? What about you, did you have boyfriends before Dietmar? Were any of them, the girls or the boys, upset when you two got together?’
Quinn was twice defeated. In the first instance, her dad was in the room. She could not misbehave in his presence. Then the question took the focus off her onto the curious matter of the dead boy. The query motivated her to participate in the discovery of what happened to Dietmar. She was up for that, and Cinq-Mars hoped to ease her into helping him and helping herself. Her culpability could still be drawn out, perhaps without her noticing.
Giroux remained quiet, observing the new guy’s progress. He kept an eye on the clock, though, and after fifty minutes wrapped up the discussion to send everyone home. He and Cinq-Mars were working voluntary hours and he’d predetermined a limit.
In her home the next day, Cinq-Mars again caught her off-guard. ‘Yesterday,’ he reminded her. Her father, in concocting a scheme where she filled out a sheet of paper to record her whereabouts, had created a restraint as effective as any. Quinn would avoid abusing his trust if she could help it. Jim Tanner knew that, and Cinq-Mars had learned that that was true. Quinn couldn’t step around it.
‘What do you want to talk about?’ she asked. The question lacked her customary impertinence. ‘I thought we covered the whole gamut yesterday.’
‘We barely got started. Your life as a thief, Quinn. We’ll begin there.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘Dead serious. I’ll give you immunity so long as nobody died. Spill the beans.’
He could tell, as she spoke, that despite her outward reluctance, she was proud to do so. Her rundown was brief and to the point, although he noticed that she was careful to blur incriminating details.
‘Any idea why somebody tried to burn your house down?’
That kept her onside as well, as she’d wrestled with the question on her own.
‘Maybe my dad’s in trouble. I don’t know.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘With his union, maybe.’
‘I see. Quinn, here’s the deal. I’m officially overseeing your situation. I am now the only person who can send you into youth protection, and the only one who can keep you out. Obviously, your cooperation is necessary for me to keep you out. You want that, whether you know it or not. Why do you think that is?’
She wasn’t sure. She broached a different issue, her defiance rising to the fore again. ‘If you want to do something bad to me, you can’t scare me with youth protection. I’ll go to youth protection if you try anything.’
He was pleased. She’d need that layer of armor in this world, especially with how she contended with society. ‘Fair point. If anyone tries something with you, tell your dad. He’ll defend you like a mother bear defends a cub. I’ve seen it in him.’
She conceded that that was true.
Which left an open question. ‘What am I supposed to cooperate about?’
He laid out the simplest plan. ‘Yesterday, I brought up the matter of your previous boyfriends and Dietmar’s former girlfriends. You know nothing about the latter, you said. I want you to find out. Talk to his old friends. Draw out that kind of information. As well, check what your ex-boyfriends have been up to. Make sure they’re acting normally, not covering up any big grievance. While you’re at it, keep your ears to the ground. You and Dietmar weren’t together long. He agreed to be your getaway driver a little too easily, I think. I’m sure you possess powers of persuasion, but still. We might find out he wasn’t squeaky clean. Or not. Nothing’s certain yet. Also, he may have had friends who are less than law-abiding. He may have had a few nefarious contacts. Follow me so far?’
‘I’m supposed to, like, what? Do your job for you?’
‘Yes. Help out. Police work. Can you dig it?’
Put that way, she seemed both reluctant and pleased. ‘I’m cool with it.’
‘Keep your head up and your eyes open. Why were you firebombed? Anything you learn about that, even a suspicion, tell me. Your dad has enough on his plate. He doesn’t need to see his house burned down.’
She agreed.
‘I’m going to give you a name. Tell me if you know it, or if you’ve heard it before. Doesn’t matter what context. OK?’
Secretly, she was curious. She nodded.
‘Arturo Maletti.’
Judging by her reaction, she didn’t know the man.
‘Probably, he was in the house the night of the robbery.’
‘My naked guy?’ She was excited. ‘You figured that out already?’
‘He has his hands in a few tills. When you’re asking around about Dietmar, let me know if his name surfaces. Keep your distance. He may have a score to settle with you. You saw him where he was not supposed to be.’
‘I didn’t see him. Only his – you know – privates, and his pistol.’
‘I’m not saying it definitely was him, either. But likely. If him, he doesn’t know what you saw or didn’t see. He’s not going to take your word if you try to explain. So don’t. Are you hearing this? Stay clear if he ever comes around. Anything you hear, pass it onto me. That helps me, it helps us find justice for Dietmar, and it helps you stay out of more trouble than you can handle.’
Cinq-Mars counted on the assumption that to build trust meant keeping her involved. She was the type to break chains, bound over walls if confined, and dismiss anyone trying to help her if she felt belittled.
His pager went off. He gave it a glance.
‘Where do you hang out?’ he asked.
‘Hang out?’ She’d heard the question. He didn’t repeat it and waited patiently. ‘I don’t know. Hill’s. That’s a snack-bar-type place.’
‘I know it.’
‘Friday and Saturday nights, sometimes I go to a dance hall on Jean Talon.’
‘Where else? I won’t follow you around. I just want to know.’
‘Why?’
He stood and moved toward the telephone sitting on a small cabinet.
‘Where you hang out tells me who you’re hanging out with. A boy is dead, Quinn. If you didn’t kill him, who did? We have a lead, but no stone can go unturned. You agree with that, right?’
‘Yeah, but I don’t want you hassling my friends.’
‘What I do is my business. If it’s police business, it’s warranted. A boy is dead, Quinn. Where do you hang out in the daytime? In the evenings?’
A defensive shrug preceded her reply. ‘In the summer, Ball Park. Know it?’
‘Very close to where I live.’
‘Really? You live in Park Ex?’
‘Everybody has to live somewhere. Why not Park Ex?’
‘Mostly its immigrants here.’
‘You’re not an immigrant.’
‘True.’ When in trouble in a talk, he noticed, she quickly dove into a different topic. ‘Do you have a girlfriend? A wife? I see no ring.’
‘Nope. Recent breakup.’
‘Sorry about that.’
‘Me, too. Do you mind if I make a phone call? I was paged.’
‘Go for it.’
He said very little during the call. When he turned back to face her, he maintained a nonchalant voice. ‘I’ll be in touch. Call the station if you need me. They can page me if it’s urgent. Do you have the number?’
She’d kept it, and his partner’s card. A good sign.
Cinq-Mars fell into thought. He had more questions yet wanted to avoid an overload. His approach was two-pronged – put her on the spot while giving her sufficient room to come around on her own. A variation of the carrot-and-stick. He’d just learned, during his call, that Giroux’s suspicion about having previously encountered the father held merit. Jim Tanner had a record. Cinq-Mars needed to check the man’s background himself, to see what that divulged.
Quinn was the first to turn restless. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said.
‘Just waiting.’
‘For what?’
‘Are you worried?’
‘I’m good. Checking that you weren’t having a stroke or nothing.’
‘I’m waiting on my team, Quinn. Uniforms. They’ll be piling in here shortly.’
She went as still as stone.
‘Don’t be alarmed. Everything will be put back in place. They’re only looking for stolen property. Is there anything you want to show me before they arrive? Save us the trouble?’
He could tell that she was thinking. ‘What,’ she asked, ‘would I show you?’
‘You tell me.’ He hoped she might suggest a baseball. She didn’t, and when his officers arrived, they did not find one that was signed. She was more professional than he gave her credit for, and Cinq-Mars realized that she might be a more difficult nut to crack than expected. As he departed her home, it occurred to him that she might have help, someone to teach her how to deal with loot, and to guide her. Such as how to deal with the police. The father? He had experience. If not the father – and based on his observations, he doubted it was him – then who?