felt like an idiot. What was she doing at Montreal Police Headquarters? Shouldn’t she be holed up at her place, veiled with black lace instead?
“It wasn’t his intention to go after your husband. I mean, Morency and Al-Qaeda are not exactly in the same ballpark, are they?”
Still …
He was right, Al-Qaeda and Rodger were worlds apart. Rodger’s file was that of a petty delinquent with a monotonous train of police reports that nevertheless became weightier as time went on. He’d woken up one morning as a child who decided he didn’t want to be an astronaut or a star hockey player, just a public pain in the ass. His special talent was an alarming ability to get himself into trouble with the justice system, the kind that spared no effort to get nailed by the police: Getting caught at the wheel of a stolen car with a six-months’-expired licence, for instance: “I was just on my way to get it renewed, Your Honour.” Then an arrest for being found in the basement of an underground parking lot in the company of a minor: “She showed me her papers. I was sure everything was okay, Judge.” There was also a failed attempt at loan-sharking with Haitian drivers at Lasalle Taxi: “Honest, I’m not racist, Your Honour.” Little jobs and misdemeanours here and there, none of them worth bothering about.
A very small-time crook with small-time ambitions: corner stores, service stations, metro wickets … and what about the hospital? Well, sure, he was there to do the rooms, and he admitted it freely: “Cardiology, now, that’s my fetish floor.”
Something didn’t sit right in this story for Juliette, but what? The admission was weird coming from someone who always had an excuse for everything, but none for this. He was practically glad to confess for once: “Sure, I went there to steal.”
“Can we talk to this Rodger Morency?” she asked.
“Between now and his trial in July …” Demers shaped his fingers to form a bird in flight.
“I thought he was in jail.”
“Out on bail, angel that he is.”
“But …”
“His mother came to the rescue, as usual.”
Without a word to Béatrice, and especially not to Patterson, Juliette rented a car, crossed the Champlain Bridge, took the highway through the Montérégie, and had no trouble finding the farm belonging to Morency’s mother in Marieville. The father had left the family when Rodger was still young, as she would find out later. For now, she was headed out there to question Rodger, though she had no clue what she would ask him. Mostly she wanted to confirm he was not the mindless idiot that Sergeant Demers depicted: a small-time thug out to rob patients despite the top security.
The other possibility was that Juliette was on the wrong trail, and that was why she’d said nothing to Béatrice or Patterson, though she had mentioned it to Max when he’d phoned the day before. He wasn’t convinced either, and Juliette was beginning to doubt her theory. She had to be wrong. A trip to the South Shore would just confirm it.
Born and raised on Chambord Street in the east end, Juliette’s only experiences of the countryside were the greenhouse at the Botanical Gardens and pedal-boat rides on Beaver Lake. Outside Montreal lay a hostile world of shady puppy mills, septic ditches, and an anachronistic universe of drunk drivers, incest, and Ski-Doo races. Never mind. A first glance told her Madeleine Morency didn’t earn her living from farm produce. The buildings were tumble-down, the fields had gone to seed, and there was a rusted-out truck with no wheels in the yard. In the back, she found the usual bric-a-brac country-dwellers couldn’t do without, apparently: mismatched furniture, abandoned tools, an old bike, and two water heaters.
Juliette parked her rental car near a plastic mailbox. Next came a streaking, barking dog trained to eat mailmen. She was confused. Here in this backwater, she felt even more lost than in the alleyways of Old Delhi. How could she let someone know she was here? Yell, maybe, and alert the whole neighbourhood? Suddenly, a woman appeared at the door.
“Brutus, Brutus, here, Brutus!”
Juliette wished she’d prepared them for her visit, and now she was bound to be sent away. The woman — she had to be Madeleine Morency — was already stepping toward the gate. Close up, she looked a lot less hardened than her surroundings. One couldn’t tell her age — sixties, maybe — erect and dignified, not the kind to give ground easily. Most fascinating was the long grey hair that fell to her waist. Once blond, she refused to dye it. An aging hippie, maybe?
Without opening the gate, she called across, “What do you want?”
“I’d like to see Rodger.” No point beating about the bush. I guess I should have been cooler, Juliette thought. Invented some waterproof pretext, maybe. Well, too late now.
Madeleine thoroughly examined the visitor’s clothes, more curious than aggressive. Perhaps this was the country way. First impressions were everything.
“He’s not here.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
Madeleine Morency sighed and opened the gate. Brutus put up some more barking, which she silenced with a wave of her hand. Juliette followed her to the house, mindful of where she stepped. The kitchen was immense and modern, nothing like the outside of the house.
“He promised me he’d get in touch with you,” Madeleine said, taking off her shoes.
Juliette wondered if she should do the same, but she hadn’t brought anything else.
“No, it’s okay, keep them on,” Madeleine said, signalling her to sit down at the table. “You prefer coffee, or is it tea, like your partner?”
“Excuse me?”
“Aren’t you with the police?”
“No.”
Her face hardened at once, and the respect, or rather deference she showed to the authorities was no longer called for.
“What do you want Rodger for?” Madeleine asked aggressively.
“I need to talk to him, ask him some questions.” Juliette was getting in over her head, and she knew it.
“What kind of questions?”
Time to think fast. “Oh, questions about his life … you see … I work at the university … in criminology … on what happens to delinquents … that is …”
“You’re here to help him?”
Juliette was on the point of saying, “No, I just want to get to know him, that’s all,” but it sounded desperate, so she said, “Yes.” Now, where to go from here? She had no idea. “Just putting him back in prison every time won’t solve anything.”
“Exactly what I’ve been saying for years,” replied Madeleine, “but the police aren’t interested. All they care about is filling their quota of arrests each month, period.”
Juliette was relieved. “At the university, we think there’s another way.”
“The cops don’t care.”
“But I’m not them, Mrs. Morency.”
“Rodger
