Peter Kirby - The Dead of Winter

There were no questions.

4 PM

The squelch of Vanier’s wet boots on the stone floor echoed off the walls of the Cathedral as he made his way up a side aisle towards a clot of people milling around the confessional box. He had stayed out of churches for over two decades and was amazed at how deeply familiar it all still seemed. Janvier advanced to meet him.

“It’s Father Drouin, Chief. They found him an hour ago. He’s dead. Sitting in the confessional booth. Dr. Segal is looking at the body. There was an envelope, we bagged it but it looks like a suicide note, and a confession.”

Segal emerged from the confessional box and caught Vanier’s eye. “He’s been dead for a few hours. No obvious signs of violence, but I want to do a full autopsy. We’ll get the body out of here in a few minutes, and your people can take over. They’ve already taken photos. And there’s this,” she said, holding up an empty plastic bottle with a small amount of liquid at the bottom. Looks and smells like orange juice. We’ll test it.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Any ideas?”

“As I said, no obvious signs of violence, and an envelope that I am told contains a suicide note. Maybe he drank his own Kool-Aid.”

“Maybe. When can you do an autopsy?”

“Tomorrow morning, first thing. I’ll call with the results.”

Vanier sat down on a bench, running his hand through his hair and staring into the open booth where Drouin was slouched. Maybe Drouin was the killer. And maybe it was a suicide. But if it wasn’t, it would be a convenient way for the killer to get away, providing he stopped killing. If he were smart, he’d stop and walk away, or wait a year or two before starting again.

Vanier walked over to one of the CS Officers.

“Who has the envelope?”

“It’s in the bag, sir.”

“Well, get it, and let me see.”

The officer came back with the envelope in a zip-lock bag and reached for it with his gloved hand. It was in a Cathedral envelope, complete with the coat of arms of Mother Church over the address. The officer pulled the letter from the envelope and held it up for Vanier to read:

December 30

What I did, I did in the name on Our Lord and Saviour. What I did, I did to bring peace to poor souls that have known no peace for too long. I crossed the boundary of man’s law to do God’s work, and I do not regret that. But I realize the consequences. You do not understand, you cannot fathom the joy that comes from being an instrument of His divine mercy.

Perhaps if I had been more thoughtful, I could have released more unfortunates from this hell, but I made mistakes. It will not serve the Lord for me to be condemned as a common criminal, for His work to be sullied by my mistakes. So I am ending it here and going to my eternal rest in joy.

Henri Drouin

“Jesus,” Vanier mumbled to himself.

Janvier had been reading over Vanier’s shoulder. “It sounds convincing.”

“It gives us a motive. And it ties in with St. Jude. But it’s typed, and where’s Pious John?” Drouin doesn’t look anything like the sketch.”

“So what do you think, sir?”

“I don’t know. This is too easy. Let’s nail it down. Check the times again. Get the last appearance of Santa on the closed circuit cameras in the Metro and get the time of Drouin’s appearance back in the Cathedral. I want to know for certain if he had time to get back here. And if he didn’t have time, then he’s not our guy, he’s another victim and John is covering his tracks. This isn’t some end-of-the-road homeless destitute who was on his way out anyway. This wasn’t about putting anyone out of their misery.”

“Yes, sir.”

Janvier opened his cell phone and began making calls.

7 PM

Twenty officers, armed with the sketch of Pious John, were trolling homeless shelters, drop-in centres, and hiding places under highways and in back alleys. Others were accosting the faithful outside the Cathedral, mixed in with the panhandlers hoping to turn Catholic guilt into coins. The rest were calling on the owners of companies that stored potassium cyanide. Vanier was in the war room pretending to be busy and waiting. He wanted desperately to find Pious John, and all he could do was wait and hope that the sketch wasn’t picked up by the media. If it was, they would be inundated with useless calls, and John would disappear.

The phone rang. He recognized Bedard’s number and thought of ignoring it again, but answering one in five calls from the boss was a good ratio.

“Yes, sir.”

“Inspector Vanier, what the fuck are you doing to me?”

“Sir?”

“Where are you?”

“In the Squad Room, first floor.”

“My office. Now.”

The phone clicked off, and Vanier took the stairs up.

The Chief was sitting watching the door, probably counting how many seconds it took Vanier to mount the stairs. Vanier took a seat.

“So explain to me, we have a written confession from a suspect, but you still have close to 30 officers scouring the city looking for some guy who placed ads thanking St. Jude? Does that make sense, Luc?”

Vanier tried not to stare at the sweat that had accumulated in the fat jiggling over the Chief Inspector’s collar.

“I don’t think the priest killed himself, sir. I think he was murdered, like the others. It’s premature to name Drouin as the culprit. We don’t know that, we’d be guessing. I think we should wait.”

“Do you have any idea the pressure that I’m under? And the journalists are ahead of us at every step. What if the suicide note leaks out? What do we do then?”

“We tell the truth.” As he said it, he realized how stupid it must sound to Bedard, who dealt in messaging, not truth. If the message happened to be true, that was a bonus.

“The truth?”

“We tell them that we are not certain that the note is genuine.”

“Well if it wasn’t suicide, it was murder, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. But we can’t announce it as murder if we don’t know. We do what we always do; we tell the press that we are investigating the circumstances.”

“Jesus, if the homeless didn’t set the city in a panic, a dead priest in a confessional box will. And in the Cathedral, of all places.”

“All I’m saying, sir, is that we still don’t know what’s going on, and we don’t want to put ourselves into a position where we have to backtrack. Can’t you just stall the press for a few days? At least till we get the results of the autopsy. We don’t have to mention the note.”

“All right, Sergeant Laflamme is doing a press conference. She’s good. I’ll tell her not to go any further than confirming the death of a priest. Because of the other deaths, and his work with the homeless, we are investigating it. She may be able to get away with that for a while.”

“I think that’s best, sir. We’ll have something concrete soon.”

“All right, get to it, Luc.”

Vanier rose to leave.

“And, Luc, and I’m telling you this as a friend, we go back a long time.”

“Yes, sir?”

“It wouldn’t hurt to make an effort. That suit, it looks like you slept in it, and it looks like you’ve been wearing that shirt for days. Luc, don’t let yourself go, you’ll lose the respect of your team.”

“Yes, sir.” Vanier felt like lashing out. His defenses were strong but sometimes, the occasional grenade managed to make it over the wall and cause damage inside. Fuck you, you fat bastard was all he could think of, but he said, “Yes, sir. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Luc, that’s from a friend, not your boss.”

Vanier was out the door before he finished. He had forgotten to tell Bedard that he had a sketch of John. If Bedard didn’t know there was a sketch, there wouldn’t be pressure to release it to the media.