Saturday morning belongs to me in that I don’t rush to get to work. The day starts with a run up the mountain, to the cross on its top if I’m feeling energetic. On this particular Saturday, I was bursting with energy and I made the eight-mile round trip in record time: about ninety minutes. Once back home, I showered and shaved and headed down to the store.
I carried the Gazette with me as I intended to stop for breakfast and read the newspaper before actually getting in to work. From the large variety of restaurants serving breakfast in downtown Montreal, I chose the Universel on Peel Street. After a very pleasant hour of undisturbed eating and newspaper reading, I headed the three or so blocks east, arriving at the store just shy of 10.00. One of the things I like best about working on Saturdays is that our suppliers do not call looking for payments. The quiet gives me a chance to catch up on paperwork and spend a good part of the day doing what I love best: talking to our customers and selling books.
At about 10.30, I received a call from one of the booksellers working on the sales floor telling me that Josh was here to see me. When I’d called Josh the evening before to ask him to drop by the store, I had left the time vague, figuring that he would get to the store in his own good time.
‘Hey, Sam,’ he said by way of a greeting. ‘What’s up?’ He was carrying a coffee in a take-out cup and saluted me with it.
‘Come on in and sit down,’ I invited. ‘I need your help with something.’
Josh made himself comfortable in the single visitor’s chair and took a sip of his coffee. He didn’t say anything but he looked at me expectantly.
‘Here’s the thing,’ I explained. ‘I’m sort of unofficially helping Gaston, the police really, with their investigation into the murders of Elias Dornal and Agnes Baker.’
‘ “Sort of, unofficially” ’, Josh mimicked. ‘I was very much shocked – distressed I think is a better word – when you told me that Agnes had been murdered. I had barely come to terms with Elias’s death and now this. It is very, very, upsetting to say the least.’
He became silent again and it looked like he might break down and cry. I gave him some time to get himself under control before continuing. ‘Awful doesn’t begin to describe it. I was with the police when they found Agnes; I found her body, in fact. I thought I would lose it. But if it’s okay with you there is something I want to ask you.’
Josh shifted in his chair, took another slug of coffee and shrugged. I took this to mean he acquiesced to my request and so I continued. ‘To be very blunt, we went to Agnes’s house because we thought that she had murdered Elias.’
‘What? Are you guys fucking nuts? Agnes a murderer?’ Josh was truly shocked by the notion.
‘Let me finish,’ I explained. I was not about to tell him everything we had discovered but I did feel it was important to let him know why I – we – suspected Agnes in the first place. ‘There was something in your recent drawings that ran in Reflection that aroused our suspicions.’
‘Really?’ Josh said, eyebrows raised quizzically. ‘Do tell.’
Before I could get on with my question I got another call from Monique on the sales floor telling me that Nick Crowne was here to see me. I didn’t see any harm in having him join the conversation I was having with Josh so I asked Monique to send him up.
Nick did not seem all that surprised to find Josh in my office and I suspected that they had spoken to one another after I called them and had arranged to get to the store around the same time. Nick also had a coffee with him and he slipped into Jennifer’s chair so that he was at her desk, facing me. I brought Nick up to date and continued my question to Josh.
‘In a couple of your recent drawings you make a visual joke based on the children’s rhyme, “a butcher, a baker, a candlestick-maker”. And you seem to have emphasised the baker, like she was up to something. Were you saying something about Agnes and Elias?’
A laugh burst out of Josh before he could stifle it. ‘Christ, Sam, is that why you thought that Agnes had something to do with Elias’s death?’
‘Well, yeah, that and other things I can’t talk about.’
‘Fuck, man, characters in a cartoon drawing are pretty flimsy things to base a suspicion of murder on,’ Josh explained. ‘But you were right about one thing. The use of the baker was for Agnes’s benefit, but it was done to tease her, not accuse her.’
‘Huh?’ I asked. I had no idea what he was trying to tell me.
Nick had a big smile on his face. It was obvious that they knew something I didn’t, and they thought that my ignorance was a joke.
‘What’s funny?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ Nick said. ‘It’s just that we’ve been depressed about the deaths of Elias and Agnes, and then your question, as you’ll see – right, Josh? – is pretty funny. Sort of a tension-breaker.’
‘Look, Sam,’ Josh continued. ‘The baker in the drawing was a joke on Agnes but not in the way you think. The baker refers to a boulanger, the French word for baker. Specifically, Antoine Boulanger; the city councillor, who was Agnes’s steady boyfriend. They were doing their best to keep it a secret and this was my way of teasing her without blowing her secret. The drawing also had a lot to do with city politics and the series we were running, but nothing to do with Elias and murder.’
I was disappointed that I had jumped to a false conclusion, but also satisfied that the mystery of the drawings had been explained. Now that that avenue of inquiry had been closed I had to find another one.
‘Can either of you think of anyone who might want to harm Elias and Agnes?’ I asked. ‘As far as the police are concerned, the murders are connected. It is too much of a coincidence to think otherwise.’
No one said anything for a couple of minutes.
I had learned many years ago that if I wanted someone to talk, it was best if I remained silent and let the pressure to end the silence force the other person, people in this case, to speak.
Finally, Nick cleared his throat and said, ‘Elias was pretty good at pissing people off. But Agnes? She could be a pain in the ass as we were getting close to deadline, and she was a total mess and worried too much, but no, there was no one who would want to harm her.’
‘Not physically, at any rate,’ Josh interjected.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Well, Alain Boisvert from Tempo wanted to buy us or put us out of business, but I can’t believe he would resort to violence. That’s nuts.’
‘Yeah, no kidding,’ I agreed. I already had Boisvert on my list of suspects and this had just confirmed his place there. I intended to see him on Monday and see if there was any real reason to suspect him. ‘Anyone else?’ I enquired.
‘Nah,’ Nick said.
‘Not that I can think of,’ Josh agreed.
After Nick and Josh left, I spent an additional hour or so on paperwork and then a couple of hours on the sales floor.
I left the store at about 3.30 and headed home. I had a date that evening with Gisèle Lemieux and I wanted to have a nap before I got ready.
A few years ago Gisèle was my date at Ben’s wedding and it was at that time that our relationship had taken an erotic and romantic leap forward.
I met her through her brother, Gaston. She is tall, beautiful and intelligent. I fell for her the first time I met her.
We have been dating for about three years now. The problem is that she is a very busy lawyer and spends an inordinate amount of time travelling on business, so our relationship is as much off as it is on. Just when I am about ready to give up the pursuit, she surprises me by accepting my invitation. I know she is fickle, and it is not clear whether our relationship will have a future, but I am not all that much more into commitment than she is. I must admit that I had asked her to accompany me to Ben’s wedding with very little hope that she would accept.
‘A wedding, Sam?’ she said when I asked her. ‘Isn’t that moving a bit fast?’ She had a tendency to see the humorous side of things that were not necessarily funny. It was part of her charm and it kept me on my toes.
‘I’m not asking you to marry me, just to be my date for my best friend’s wedding,’ I said a little more defensively than I intended. I should have played along with the joke and said something about going to Las Vegas so that if the mood struck us . . .
‘When is it again?’ she asked.
I repeated the date, in the early part of last September, and was happy and surprised when she told me that she would be in Montreal and would love to accompany me to the festivities.
I shall never know if it was because I cut such a dashing figure in my rented tuxedo, if I danced divinely, if Gisèle was so moved by the romance of the evening, or if it was just because I let slip the fact that, as a member of the wedding party, I had taken a room at the hotel, but after a long night of drinking and dancing we retired to my room. Nothing was said, but as we left the reception Gisèle smiled, took my hand and allowed me to lead her to the elevators.
We awoke the next morning in the same way we had fallen asleep – tangled up in one another.
I looked her in the eyes with what I hoped was a deep, romantic look; I took both her hands in mine and said, ‘You are so beautiful.’
She leaned forward and kissed me on the neck. ‘Sam,’ she said. ‘You do say things, don’t you?’ She stroked my cheek and I went off to the bathroom to shower.
We ordered room service, but as much as I wanted to I could not make breakfast last more than an hour, even with second and third cups of coffee.
‘That was wonderful, Sam,’ Gisèle said. ‘I won’t have to eat again until tomorrow.’
We dressed and I checked out of the hotel. We jumped into a cab and she dropped me off on Sherbrooke, near to my store. We kissed goodbye and I watched her taxi disappear into traffic.
In the year or so after the wedding Gisèle’s and my relationship advanced to the level where we would see one another on a fairly regular basis. She never said that I was her exclusive romantic interest but I sensed that she was not seeing anyone else and I know that I had no other romantic involvements.
Still, that did not mean that Gisèle travelled less or worked less hard or that she had more free time. It did mean that when we were able to go out together we spent more time with one another. A Saturday date would often stretch into Sunday.
On this evening we decided to try a new restaurant that had opened on Notre-Dame in the South-West Borough, which was fast becoming the street for new restaurants. I didn’t have a car so we used Gisèle’s, but I preferred to meet her at her condo as it didn’t feel right for her to have to pick me up. Old fashioned of me, but it just seemed right.
Gisèle lived in one of the new developments on Sherbrooke Street in the area known as the Golden Square Mile, not far from the Musée des Beaux Arts. I presented myself to the doorman at 7.00 and took it as a compliment when he greeted me by name and waved me to the elevator before calling up to Gisèle to tell her that I was on my way.
It meant that I had arrived in more ways than one.
The high-speed elevator whisked me up to the fifteenth floor. Only two apartments were served by this elevator, one of which was Gisèle’s. She had left the door slightly ajar for me, but I still knocked so she would know I was coming in. I called out a greeting and closed the door behind me.
‘Make yourself comfortable, Sam,’ she called from her bedroom. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’
I walked down the long hallway decorated with Cartier-Bresson prints. There was a long, narrow marble-top table, about waist high, along one of the walls, which held a bowl for her keys and was the place where she left her briefcase and the other accoutrements of a busy lawyer. Her living room was large and furnished with soft, comfortable furniture in warm beiges and browns with touches of colour here and there. Her floor-to-ceiling windows afforded a view of the mountain. ‘Pour me a drink, please,’ she requested, still in her bedroom.
‘What would you like?’ I asked. ‘White wine?’
‘You’re a dear. There’s a bottle in the fridge.’
I went through the dining room to the kitchen. It was furnished with all the latest appliances, which was odd as she did not do much cooking. I could see through the glass door of her refrigerator that there were a couple of bottles of wine. I took the one that felt the coldest and searched the drawer under the counter for the corkscrew. I found a glass and poured her a generous serving and carried it back to the living room. Gisèle emerged from the hallway that led to her bedroom just as I got there. She slid her arm around my shoulders and I circled her waist with my free arm. We kissed on both cheeks and then on the lips, our bodies just touching.
Gisèle took the offered drink and said, ‘Nothing for you, Sam? We’re in no hurry, let’s have a drink before we leave. You can catch me up on your exciting life.’
‘I’ll have a Scotch,’ I agreed. She motioned her free arm in the direction of the bar, smiled and sat down on the sofa.
I poured myself a Scotch, added ice and a little water from the pitcher on the bar and joined her. We were sitting a couple of feet or so apart and I twisted so that I could look at her while we talked. I lay my arm on the back of the sofa and she did the same, her hand on top of mine.
I am not by nature a gossip, excluding, that is, about the people I know in the book business. I am especially careful when I am working with Gaston. The murder of Elias Dornal had elements that existed in both parts of my life; the book business and the crime business, and part of me wanted to tell Gisèle the whole story, but I knew better than to do this. Part of the reason was that, as I learned from time spent with Gaston, it is best not to talk about an investigation due to the speed in which things change: an innocent comment today could be a disaster for the investigation tomorrow. The other part of the reason was that I didn’t talk about the things I did with Gaston to his sister any more than I told him about my relationship with Gisèle. He knew I was seeing her and he wouldn’t have been much of an investigator if he had not been able to tell how strongly I felt about her. Gisèle was free to tell her brother whatever she wanted but my lips were sealed on the subject. And when it came to one of Gaston’s investigations I was equally discreet.
‘My life is not all that exciting,’ I responded to her earlier invitation. ‘I buy books from publishers and sell them to customers – hardly all that thrilling.’
Gisèle smiled and said, ‘Come on, Sam. We both know that you lead a very exciting life, running around after murderers with my brother.’
A change of subject was called for.
‘Talking about exciting, have you been doing a lot of travelling? It must be exhilarating to be negotiating deals all over Europe, not to mention the United States,’ I said.
‘Now, Sam, you know I can’t talk about my clients.’ Gisèle said this without losing her smile so I knew that I had not crossed a line with her. ‘But I’ve spent time in Paris since the last time I saw you and have discovered some really nice restaurants in areas that are newly fashionable. Do you think you’ll ever be able to come to Paris with me?’
‘You know I’d love to. But I think we travel in different circles – literally and figuratively.’ I gave her hand an affectionate squeeze and got up from the sofa. ‘I think we’d better go. We have a reservation.’
Gisèle put her glass down on a table next to the sofa and got up. She moved in close and put her arms around me. I put my arms around her and pulled her close so we could share a kiss; a long and meaningful kiss.
Without breaking our embrace, her cheek next to mine, she said, ‘Let me get my purse and we’re off.’
I stood aside and she walked to the front door with me close behind. She picked up her keys from the bowl in the hallway and set the burglar alarm as we left her condo. In the garage we found her Lexus and we set off. The journey was not a long one under any circumstances, pretty much straight downhill from where Gisèle lived, and it was made fast by the speed at which she drove. We pulled up in front of the restaurant within fifteen minutes of leaving her place.
I had made the reservation, but as soon as the maître d’ saw Gisèle he upgraded our table from the back to the front of the establishment. She has that kind of effect on people. She does it effortlessly and I’ve never been one hundred per cent certain whether she knows how she affects people, especially men.
We ordered our meal and wine, and once we started talking we had no trouble finding topics of conversation. Gisèle reads a lot of books while she travels; she keeps up to date on current events and also manages to attend a lot of cultural events. In spite of the fact that there were a couple of subjects that we could not talk about, we never had any trouble communicating with one another. When I first met her I was a little intimidated by her intelligence and sophistication. Over time, as we became more intimate, I concluded that the reason we had such a good relationship was because, on the whole, I had broader interests than the lawyers and businessmen she interacted with on a daily basis. I may not have been what Tom Wolfe called a ‘master of the universe’ but I was well informed, interesting and not without a certain wit when it came to conversation. Gisèle didn’t care that I didn’t have a lot of money. She did care that I was fun to be with.
By the time the waiter appeared with the dessert menus we realised that we had been at the table for almost two hours. We declined dessert but ordered espressos. After I paid the bill we decided to take a walk around the area before heading back to Gisèle’s place where, as was our tradition, we would have brandies and move the evening to a more romantic level.
Once back at Gisèle’s condo we made ourselves comfortable on the sofa. Gisèle curled up against me, her knees bent. I rested my hand on her thigh and we chatted aimlessly for a while. We sat silently for a couple of moments and then slowly, slowly we let our passion get the better of us. There is something exceptional about Gisèle and I feel the excitement of a first-time lover when I am with her. And so we made our way into the bedroom, shedding clothes as we went.
*
I cannot think of anything more special than waking up on Sunday morning with Gisèle fast asleep beside me in bed. She must have sensed that I was awake because she moved her naked body closer to mine, her head on my shoulder.
It was close to noon when we finally got out of bed. Gisèle opted to make omelettes for breakfast and I helped by making the coffee using her expensive espresso machine. We enjoyed the rest of the day and she suggested that I spend another night at her place. I knew that she was a different person when she had to get up early and get into full lawyer mode in order to be one of the first to arrive at the office, so I politely declined her offer.
In any event, on Monday morning I definitely wanted to somehow arrange to meet Alain Boisvert to see if he knew anything about the murders of Elias and Agnes.