The parking spot Sergeant-Detective Émile Cinq-Mars had snagged previously was free again, around the corner from the United Church. He crossed the street just as kids on bicycles raced past him, hooting away. To be that free, that delighted with the world.
He rang the bell on the vestry door.
A diminutive, olive-skinned gentleman answered. Gripping a mop in one hand, he nodded with great vigor, as though he had news of essential importance. Cinq-Mars introduced himself in French. The fellow kept nodding. He tried in English. When the minister came down the stairs, she explained that the janitor was stone deaf.
‘He reads lips, but only if you speak Portuguese. We communicate in gestures. Apart from that difficulty, we’re glad he gives us a few hours. We couldn’t manage without him.’
That gave Cinq-Mars an idea. ‘Does he do apartments?’
‘Maybe, but how do I ask?’
She went to sit behind her vestry desk. Cinq-Mars took the chair facing her. To his left, the window was dull opaque glass shaded by a maple. Precious light filtered through. Cinq-Mars stared out anyway, feeling glum. A mood the minister shared.
‘Are you here to berate me?’ she asked. ‘Johnny’s death is my fault.’
He had not come to scold. Too late for that. He did feel a need to augment her thinking. ‘The police officer Bondar killed was my partner.’
Reverend Montour believed that she deserved his rebuke. She summoned her reserves to both commiserate with him and apologize. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Sergeant-Detective. I can’t express how sorry I am. Especially for my part in it. I’m ashamed.’
Cinq-Mars let her off the hook. ‘I’m more to blame than you are. I failed to convince you, then sent my partner to follow Bondar. I sent him to his grave.’
He saw that she was about to assail his personal sense of guilt, or of self-pity, if it was that. He put a hand up to stymie the impulse.
‘Colleagues remind me that I didn’t pull the trigger. Blame belongs with the young man who fired the gun. I’ll say the same to you, Reverend Montour. Let’s admit that it’s true. We didn’t shoot anybody. We’re not responsible.’
‘I appreciate …’ she searched for the right word, ‘your generosity, Sergeant-Detective.’
‘Émile,’ he said. ‘And I will call you Alex.’
‘Forgiveness is a virtue,’ she remarked. ‘Thank you, Émile.’
‘It’s an ever-flowing stream. I’ll let you in on this. For me to stay in the Church has not been easy. It means I must forgive the church for appalling wrong-doing, both down through the centuries and presently. I know the rhetoric: blame the people responsible, not the whole of the realm or the grand notion behind the realm. I try. Also, it hasn’t been easy for the Church to keep me, either. In my way, I’m a heretic. Forgiveness all around, then, on both sides. I could talk the same way about the Police Department. Good works and wrong-doing walk hand in hand. As in any human enterprise, except that cops are sunk in the mire early.’
She was struck by the depth of his malaise. Various upsets drawn from different quarters flowed into the distress of losing a partner. Delivering the order that precipitated a death intensified his anguish. He might be dealing with it, but it was not a simple thing.
She asked about Norville Geoffrion and his family. He told her what he could. Good to talk. The story of the newborn grandchild cast both a pall and a restorative note. She caught a slight, sly smile on his face. ‘What?’
‘You’re trying to quit,’ he said.
She cocked her chin to question his meaning.
‘No ashtrays. The scent of fresh smoke. You smoke out the window to hide it.’
‘Guilty as charged, Detective.’
‘Me too. That’s how I know. This time around, I’ve extended my time off the weed. Not easily done. I’m quick to anger. Slow to kick off an unnecessary mood when one comes over me. With what’s going on, I’ll probably start again. You?’
‘I haven’t quit, as you’ve detected, Detective. I may have let a few people think I have.’
‘A spouse?’
‘My girlfriend. She’s on my case.’
He wasn’t sure how to take that. She noticed.
‘Baby steps, Émile. First, let’s get you accustomed to the idea of female clergy.’
They laughed.
‘You’re talking to someone who gave up on the priesthood partly because of celibacy. Look at me now.’
‘What do I see?’ she asked.
‘I’m celibate anyway. I haven’t had a girlfriend in a dog’s age.’ They laughed. ‘Yet you do. How is that fair? I might as well be a monk. My apartment is no larger than a monk’s cell. Look, I’m sorry. Not smoking. Maybe that brought this on.’
‘It didn’t. You know that. Good on you for quitting, Émile. Hold onto the victory. Be my inspiration.’
‘If you offer me one now, Alex, I’ll accept.’
They exchanged a long look.
‘Nice try,’ she said.
‘Damn,’ he said.
They broke off their staring contest.
The minister swept a touch of dust from her desk with her pinkie.
‘I’m glad you came by,’ she mentioned. ‘Not only for this talk. There’s something else, but first, why are you here, if not to condemn me to wherever Johnny Bondar’s soul has traveled? You didn’t come to bum a smoke, either.’
He grimaced. She was right. ‘I have a few questions. Alex, my partner was following Johnny Bondar. To see what he might be up to. He was outside Bondar’s apartment during his welcome home party.’
‘He saw me there.’
He liked that she was straightforward with him. ‘Norville recorded your arrival in his notebook, yes. At least, the arrival of a woman with a clerical collar. You helped spring Johnny Bondar. Perfectly natural to go to the party. Did anything occur that I should know?’
‘Occur?’
‘Did he say where he was going when he left? Did he threaten anyone? What was his mood like? Was he drinking heavily?’
She spoke with evident care. ‘I spent remarkably little time with Johnny. That made sense, with all the young people around him. His parents had invited me over. I talked to his mom. She was crying half the time. Crying because he was home and crying because he was always in trouble. Since birth, she said. We discussed how he might start over from scratch, which is how Johnny put it when I visited him in prison. Such a tough guy, but when I visited he cried. That sorrow felt real. Once out, he was surrounded by his rough crowd again. They bucked him up, I guess. Perhaps because you spoke to me, I worried.’
‘Did you notice two men arrive during the party? The music went quiet when they did.’
‘Your partner kept detailed notes.’
‘He did.’
‘Everybody noticed them. I can’t say I liked the cut of their jib. Somebody said they were hoodlums. Somebody else said policemen. The whole apartment went silent. It made more sense they were police.’ The way the fingers on her left hand wrestled with those on her right indicated an itch for a smoke. ‘Johnny was out on the back balcony. The two men walked past me to go there. Everybody turned to look. The music was switched off, like you say. I think people were hoping to eavesdrop on the conversation. My impression.’
‘They spoke to Bondar?’
‘Out of earshot. They came back soon afterwards. Really, it was shocking how everyone stayed so quiet. I didn’t understand it. They left. The music came back on. Way too loud, of course. Everything returned the way it was. A few minutes later, maybe five, ten, Johnny races back through the apartment and leaves. His mother’s in tears. The party fizzled out after that. Sorry, Émile, that I can’t be of help.’
Cinq-Mars shook off her apology. ‘You can never tell what helps. There was something you wanted to bring up?’
The minister looked to the side, as though she’d rather not broach the matter. ‘Another tragedy in the making, I suspect. A young woman, twenty years old. She doesn’t live nearby; her parents do. She’s gone missing. Right out of the blue. The parents filed a missing person’s report, but they don’t think her disappearance is being taken seriously. She’s twenty, after all, not ten. Her folks are going round the bend. I have little hope given how I let you down, but could you look into it? You’re the only policeman I know. I want to help the parents.’
Cinq-Mars wrote down the particulars, which were scant.
He had one more box to check off. ‘Will you be going to the funeral, Alex? Bondar’s?’
‘Going? I’ll be conducting the service. In church and at the gravesite.’
Not expecting that, he realized that he should have. ‘I’m not asking you to compromise any professional or ecclesiastical oath—’
‘Then why do I feel you will?’
He smiled. She was right again.
‘If, in the course of the day, you hear anything that might aid our understanding of what happened, leading to Bondar’s death and the deaths of his victims, even if you don’t think it significant, I’m all ears. Really, I’m hoping you’ll share whatever gossip falls your way.’
The minister wore the coy smile this time. ‘Protestants don’t do confession well. We confess our lives as sinners – a generalized admission of wrong-doing. We accept God’s forgiveness as if it’s our due. The specifics? We keep those narratives to ourselves. On the other hand, we’re quite excellent at gossip! Other people’s sins and foibles fascinate us no end. I’ll let you know if anything arises, Émile. Does this make me your secret snitch?’
In a way, it did. She was teasing, but Cinq-Mars left it at that.
‘I’ll see about your missing girl,’ he said. A gentle reminder that this was not only friendly but also tit-for-tat.
Leaving, the cop bumped into the janitor sweeping up day-old confetti from the sidewalk. He tried to ask if he’d be interested in cleaning up his apartment from time to time but failed to make the request comprehensible to the deaf Portuguese man. The janitor kept nodding happily, as if to confirm a shared agreement, despite not comprehending a word and being totally flummoxed by the detective’s crazed gestures.
A passing pedestrian, though, walked on, feeling entertained.