Peter Kirby - The Dead of Winter

They continued for twenty minutes, and Vanier’s phone rang. He started digging into his jacket pocket to find it.

“Please,” said St. Jacques, “Let me. Just concentrate on the driving. You’ll get us killed.” She reached into his pocket and removed the phone.

“This is Sergeant St. Jacques, Inspector Vanier is busy at the moment. You can speak to me.”

She listened for a few moments

“Just a second,” she said, taking the phone away from her ear. “Sir, they’ve found a girl abandoned at the McDonald’s at Exit 105, La Porte du Nord. A car is on its way.”

“Get the kid’s name. What’s her name?”

St. Jacques spoke into the phone. “Captain DuMoulin, do we have a name for the child?”

She listened again, then turned to Vanier.

“Sir, they don’t have a name yet, but we’ll be at the exit in a few minutes at this speed. We should stop there and see.”

“OK. We’ll stop. But tell DuMoulin that we need a name as soon as possible. Oh, and get onto the SQ to tell Sparky up front that we’re getting off at exit 105.”

In minutes, the SQ escort indicated he was pulling off, and they followed. Vanier slammed on the brakes in the tight exit ramp leading to a service stop dominated by an Esso Station and a McDonald’s. He braked hard in front of the McDonald’s and ran in, leaving the driver’s door open. There was a knot of people standing around, trying not to gawk too obviously at a distraught girl, maybe eight years old, sitting with an older girl in a McDonald’s uniform. They were holding hands. The younger girl’s face was red from crying and her cheeks shiny with tears. Vanier squatted down in front of her, an attempt at a smile on his face.

“Stephanie?”

She lit up at the sound of the familiar.

“Are you the daughter of Pascal Beaudoin?”

“Oui, ou est Papa?”

“Why don’t we get him on the phone, Stephanie.”

Vanier dialed.

“Pascal, I have someone who wants to talk to you,” he said, handing the phone to the child.

“Papa?”

Vanier stood up, smiling.

St. Jacques approached. “She’s the one?”

“Thank God.”

Beaudoin arrived fifteen minutes later with his wife and a small boy in tow, walking like a toy soldier in his one-piece snowsuit. In the meantime, Vanier had made friends with Stephanie, both of them drawing pictures on the back of McDonald’s placemats and asking each other to guess what they had drawn. Caroline ignored him and grabbed her daughter as though she was still in danger. She pushed her face into the girl’s neck and wept with heaving shoulders. Stephanie looked at Vanier over her mother’s head and smiled. He winked at her.

Beaudoin was holding his son’s hand. He turned to Vanier, “Somebody took her?”

“It looks that way. We need to get her to a hospital. She needs to be checked out.”

“You don’t think…?”

“Pascal, I don’t think anything. But we have to be sure. We also have to speak to her, find out what she can tell us.” Before Beaudoin could object, he added, “We have people who are trained to do these kinds of things. Anyway, let’s get her to a hospital and get it over with as soon as possible. The ambulance will take her to St. Jerome, that’s the closest.”

“Ambulance, what ambulance?” Beaudoin was beginning to realize that finding his daughter safe wasn’t the end of it.

“Pascal, I’m sorry, but that’s the procedure. Your wife and Sergeant St. Jacques can go with her. You follow the ambulance, and I’ll follow you.”

Beaudoin went over to his wife, knowing he wouldn’t be able to pry Stephanie from her arms.

“Papa.”

“Yes, my love?”

“The man told me to give this to you.” She pulled a crumpled pink telephone message slip from her pocket and handed it to him. There was a scrawled message on it: Hey lawyer man, chill.

Beaudoin turned to Vanier.

“Can I have it? It’s evidence”

Vanier took the pink slip and put it in a plastic sandwich bag he had in his pocket.

Two men from Urgences-sante pulled up a stretcher on wheels, and Stephanie’s mother laid her gently onto it. One of the ambulance men covered her with a blanket and pulled the belts close around her. Caroline walked beside the stretcher, holding Stephanie by the hand. She seemed in a daze as they went to the ambulance, not even looking at Beaudoin.

In the parking lot, Vanier turned to Beaudoin.

“Pascal, this was a warning. This isn’t your fight. What’s happening at the Shelter shouldn’t involve your family. Leave it alone. You can just walk away.”

“Inspector, I wish I could. I’ll do what I need to do. But we need to talk about how to protect my family.”

As Stephanie was raised into the ambulance, Caroline turned to watch the two men, as though seeing them for the first time. She walked over to them and reached down to pick up her son, who was still holding his dad’s hand. With the boy in her arms, she looked at Vanier.

“Inspector, I need to protect my children. We’re going away for a few weeks. I want the children to be safe. But make no mistake,” she said, turning back to face Beaudoin, “I support Pascal in what he is doing. If I could stay with him I would, but my job is to look after the children. Please look after him for me.”

She turned and left before Vanier could respond. Pascal looked at Vanier with a bemused expression.

“She’s something, isn’t she?”

“You’re a lucky man, Maitre Beaudoin. Let’s see what we can do together.”

“I’ll call you,” Beaudoin said as he moved to his car.

“I’ll be pissed if you don’t,” said Vanier.

For a few moments Vanier was happy, but he was already moving past happy into clenched-fist anger. He remembered what Markov had said to him back in Blackrock’s office. Hey, policeman, chill.

JANUARY 2

7 AM

The kidnapping had changed things. What had been a minor nuisance, in which Vanier could play at influencing the outcome — but wouldn’t lose sleep if he didn’t — had now become a street fight. He decided to draw on his deposits of favours owed for past services. His first call was to an old friend in the RCMP. Detective Sergeant Ian Peterson was a drug investigator with the Mounties who had worked undercover for years before slowly moving up the ranks. Years ago Vanier had learned that Peterson was being set up for a frame by Rolf Cracken, a mid-sized dealer with ambition and an oversized grudge against Peterson. It came out in a conversation with an informant who was trying to impress Vanier with his connections and knowledge, and it didn’t amount to much at first, only that Cracken was getting ready to stitch up a cop. Vanier could have ignored it as someone else’s problem, but he didn’t. He spent four days putting it all together and convincing himself Peterson was clean. When he was sure, it was simple enough to deal with. Craken’s plan was to dump a brick of cocaine and a couple of thousand dollars in Peterson’s apartment, start a small sofa fire to get some smoke going, and call the firemen to put out the fire. They wouldn’t be able to ignore the pile of cocaine and cash, and Peterson would be finished in the force.

One morning in July, Peterson let Vanier into the apartment and left for work as usual. Just in case anyone missed him leaving, he stopped as he drove out of the parking garage and got out of the car to check his tires before driving off. Fifteen minutes later, he walked back into the apartment building in a baseball cap and a different coat. Vanier and Peterson waited 40 minutes until the lock in the apartment door was picked and the planter walked in with the drugs and money. Vanier still laughs at the pitiful I’m fucked expression on the planter’s face when he saw the two cops waiting for him.