Lacombe, Paul Spraiger, and I were lined up on folding chairs like spectators at a private viewing, Paul’s shoulder almost touching mine as he translated throughout the conversation.
“You are Christophe Alphonse Bossard,” recited Labatt, “born on January fifth, 1973, in Compton, Québec?”
Bossard stared at them both, hesitated, and finally nodded.
“Speak up for the record, please.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Bossard, you have already been explained your rights under the law and have agreed to this conversation. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Let’s start with last night, around eleven-thirty. You were seen entering the apartment of Jean-Luc Tessier on Galt Street-”
“That’s a lie,” Bossard interrupted.
Labatt wordlessly slid a photograph across to him. He stared at it a moment.
Labatt resumed, “You were seen entering the apartment, as it shows in that photo. You stayed there about five minutes and then left in a hurry. The next people to visit Mr. Tessier were the police, and they found him dead with a bullet in the head-a bullet which came from the gun we found this morning in your apartment, in the pocket of the coat you are wearing in that picture. Would you like to tell us what happened in that apartment?”
Bossard swallowed hard. “He was already dead.”
Another long silence filled the room. Over the speaker above the one-way mirror, I could just hear Bossard’s labored breathing. I imagined the two cops facing him were also smelling his sweat.
“The apartment was under surveillance, Christophe,” Labatt said almost gently. “Had been for hours.”
But Bossard remained adamant. “He was dead. The blood was still running out of him.”
“Your fingerprints were found in every room.”
The fat man scowled and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I looked around a little. He wasn’t going to miss anything.”
“You ransacked the place while he was bleeding to death? Looking for what?”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
“When you left, you were shoving something into your pocket.”
“That was the gun. It was the only thing worth a shit.”
“You should know. You used it to kill him.”
Bossard’s face reddened. “I did not,” he shouted. “I found the goddamned thing. It was lying on the floor next to him. You think I’m going to leave something like that behind? You stupid or what?”
Labatt declined debating who was most stupid in the room. “Why’d you go there in the first place, Christophe, if it wasn’t to kill him?”
“He called me. Said he wanted to talk.”
“What about?”
Bossard looked scornful. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have had to visit him, right?”
We all heard the incredulity in Labatt’s voice. “So you just wandered over to visit Jean-Luc Tessier for a casual chat-with his reputation?”
Now the fat man moved his shoulders back, swelling the stained Harley logo across his chest. “I wasn’t scared of Tessier. Besides, we’d worked together before. He knew I was honorable.”
“Why did you work together?”
Again, Bossard looked like he was talking to the village idiot. “I represent the Hell’s Angels. He represented the Deschamps. Of course we would meet-iron out the wrinkles that competitors sometimes run into.”
Labatt maintained his composure, even sounding solicitous. “Important job. Had the Angels been having trouble with Deschamps?”
Bossard scratched his neck thoughtfully-the consultant hard at work. “Nothing that couldn’t be sorted out. You have to keep on top of the situation, of course. Not let things slide.”
“Of course,” Rick echoed. “Nevertheless, all this has put you in an awkward spot.”
The other man’s face closed up. “I didn’t kill him.”
“You better help us prove that, because you’re the best candidate we’ve got. Was the television on when you got there?”
“Yeah.”
“Loud?”
“No. It was normal.”
“You turn it up to hide the gunshot?”
Bossard’s voice rose. “There was no goddamned gunshot-not from me.”
“It was loud when we got there, Christophe.”
Bossard worked his mouth soundlessly a couple of times and then admitted, “I heard it as I was leaving-going down the hall… I mean, I heard it somewhere. I didn’t know it was his.” He paused, looking troubled for the first time. “You saying it was turned up after I left? By who?”
“What did you do afterward, Christophe? You must’ve been concerned, going to a meeting with a Deschamps bigwig and finding him dead. Weren’t you worried you’d be pegged with the killing?”
“I didn’t do it. Why should I worry?”
“Did you call anyone? Meet anyone?”
“I wandered around a bit, like usual. Saw a few people, but not about Tessier. I ended up at the Lennoxville house to sleep a little. Then I went home. That was it. That’s where you assholes busted me.”
“Were the guys at the Lennoxville house happy with what you’d done?”
He scowled. “I told you, they didn’t know nothing about it.”
“Christophe, didn’t it cross your mind to tell them? They would’ve liked to have known that a major Deschamps player had been executed, don’t you think? It might’ve even earned you some brownie points.”
Bossard began shifting in his seat, as if feeling it heat up. “Maybe I didn’t think it was a good idea,” he murmured.
“What? Speak up.”
He seemed stung by Labatt’s harsh tone. “I said I was thinking it maybe wasn’t such a great idea.”
“Because you might be blamed. Because the Angels would think you’d taken the law into your own hands and upset the applecart. Maybe, Christophe, you started to think that your grand plan of killing the Deschamps negotiator for extra credit wasn’t such a great idea after all, eh?”
This time, he yelled so loudly his neck veins bulged. “I didn’t kill him.”
We were in a small room lined with vending machines, extracting coffee from one of them-Lacombe, Labatt, Paul, and I.
“I double-checked with the surveillance team,” Labatt was saying. “They’d stepped back a little to avoid being seen directly from Tessier’s door. They heard the TV suddenly blare, and then they saw Bossard. But they can’t swear he was still inside when the volume went up.”
“Meaning that if you believe Bossard,” Paul said, “someone was watching and waiting the whole time-maybe even inside the apartment.”
“Or out on the balcony,” I suggested. “Bossard said he tossed the place looking for loot. Do the crime scene photos show the door leading out there?”
Rick Labatt still had them with him in a manila envelope. He poured them out onto a nearby table and began pawing through them. “Yes-here.”
We all leaned in to study what he’d found. Not only was the balcony door deadbolt snapped open, but there appeared to be a damp spot on the rug before it, like a faint, slushy footprint.
Lacombe straightened first. “It has possibilities. But the best murderer looks like Christophe Bossard.”
“And that’ll be what’s told to the press?” I asked.
Lacombe looked faintly apologetic. “I have bosses, also, and they like to show the people we are hard at work.”
It wasn’t my place to argue. Not only did I have no viable alternatives, but my political position was exactly the same.
Chapter 12
Sammie Martens was waiting for me in the lobby of the Commodore Inn when I arrived from Sherbrooke the next day. It had been snowing the whole way down-not much wind, but fat, heavy flakes that turned the view beyond the windshield into a constant mesmerizing vortex of white static. I was tired, and my eyes felt like they’d been turned inside out.
“Joe,” she said, poorly suppressing her excitement. “Thanks for coming down. You won’t be disappointed.”
“That’s good. I’m not up for that right now.”
I walked stiffly down the hallway, groping for my key. “You said on the phone you’d struck gold. Mind telling me about it now?”