“Is January sixteenth, 1947,” I interrupted, unable to stop myself.
There was stunned silence at the other end, followed by “How do you know this?”
“We came at it another way, at least I think we did,” I answered. “We got an educated guess from a local old-timer about where a fancy guy like Deschamps might spend the night. It was the Snow Dancer. We not only found the place, but the old register and Deschamps’s abandoned suitcase, complete with a letter from Marcel inviting his father down for the weekend. It’s looking more likely that Jean was killed down here.”
“This is extraordinary,” Lacombe blurted. “After all this time?”
“Willy was wondering if it was enough for a search warrant.”
I could almost hear Lacombe’s brain turning that over. “It might be. We would have to discuss the specifics. I would like to know that Marcel was either in Stowe then or at least not in Sherbrooke, but that is not likely information to get. I will talk to our procureur.”
“I’ll bring you everything we collected from down here for a show-and-tell. Gilles, we also found out that Gaston Picard was in Stowe a few days before Deschamps appeared on the mountain. He got a parking ticket. You might want to lean on him and find out what he was doing here.”
Lacombe’s voice betrayed his interest. “I will do that.”
“By the way,” I asked him, “how did you get hold of that confirmation letter?”
“It was from all the newspaper stories about Deschamps. From being a bad thing we feared, it became a good one. An old woman who worked for Jean Deschamps called us after the news. She never believed what they were telling about a religious retreat, so when she stopped working for the family-after Marcel came in-she stole the letter because she thought it might be a hot item, but she didn’t do anything with it because she was frightened, and then she forgot. The publicity made her remember and call us.”
“Was there anything besides the letter?”
“I am sorry, no. Nothing that she gave us.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll see you soon.”
I hung up and watched the others silently, waiting for someone to voice my own misgivings.
Tom Shanklin spoke first. “I’ve had cases a week old that didn’t fall together this fast.”
“Me, too,” Willy said.
“It’s the belt-and-suspenders aspect to it that bugs me,” Sammie added. “I could buy the stomach contents leading to the waiter and then to the old hotel and the suitcase, but it’s a little weird having a little old lady pop out of nowhere with the same information just in case we screwed up.”
“None of what we found was bogus, though,” I countered, more for argument’s sake. “Not as far as we can tell. We all dug through the contents of that barn-it was real dirt, real cobwebs, real mildew coating the suitcase. Does anyone here think any or all of that was recently planted?”
No one responded.
“It feels wrong,” Willy finally said.
“No argument,” I told him. “But I can’t see what choice we’ve got-not yet. It looks like Marcel knocked off his father. We’ve heard two different stories so far: that he was wet behind the ears but set to inherit the throne, and that he was blindly ambitious and didn’t trust his father’s intentions after his brother died. Whatever the truth, he did take over, did prove himself a good manager, and did make a bundle over the next five decades. In retrospect, all good, old-fashioned motives for murder. What bugs me is what’s happening now. If we are being used to frame him for a piece of ancient history, why now?”
“Same reason he actually might’ve killed his own father,” Auerbach suggested. “Only now it’s someone else wanting access to the throne.”
“I’d agree with you if he didn’t have terminal cancer. Jean Deschamps might’ve lived for years, which could’ve made a young heir impatient. But Marcel is counting the days. Why an elaborate frame when Mother Nature’s almost done all the dirty work?”
Sammie suddenly leaned forward in her chair. “Because it’s a different script this time,” she suggested. “We’ve been thinking it’s somebody inside the Deschamps camp doing this, just like it was fifty years ago. What if the pressure’s coming from outside? Could be the Hell’s Angels or the Rock Machine are behind it all, trying to destabilize the passing of the torch by using us to bust Marcel and destroy his inner circle, killing Tessier as extra insurance in the meantime. I know they weren’t around when Marcel’s dad was murdered, but it’s not impossible they got in cahoots with whoever’s been keeping Jean Deschamps on ice.”
“Too fancy,” Willy said shortly. With anyone else, he would have driven the point home more sarcastically. I was struck by his delicacy.
I also agreed with him. “It makes more sense that somebody inside is pulling the strings,” I said. “I don’t know how, why, or if Tessier’s death ties in, but I’m inclined to keep that separate for the time being. Both Picard and Guidry are old enough to have played as big a role in Jean’s disappearance as Marcel. How ’bout pinning this on one of them?”
But Shanklin shook his head. “That puts you right back where you started. Marcel’s about to die. Assuming his son Michel does wind up in his seat, he’ll need both those guys to learn the ropes-they’re guaranteed jobs for life. Why mess that up? Plus, Tessier was killed by an Angel after years of peaceful coexistence-just before the Angels are slated to go to war. That can’t be a coincidence.”
I ran my fingers through my hair and stretched. “Okay. So we have no idea what’s going on. But we have leads, evidence, and a trail to follow. Let’s at least follow it and see where it goes. Could be we’re making ourselves nuts here for no reason.”
But I didn’t believe that for a minute. Nor, I thought, did anyone else. Something wasn’t right about all this.
Gilles Lacombe was on the phone when I was escorted into his office the following day. He smiled and waved me to a seat, still rapidly talking in Joual to whoever was at the other end.
Then he hung up, leaned back, and locked his fingers behind his head. “Joe. It is good to see you again. I have been talking to the procureur, and it looks okay for the warrant. We made a list of enough specific items that we should be able to search the whole house. Thank you for faxing me what you found in Stowe. It is incredible that we both were told about the valise of Jean Deschamps, no?”
“Incredible might be the right word. Could be we’re being led around by the nose.”
Lacombe was unperturbed. “Perhaps. But do we care? It cannot be so bad to put a spoon in the soup and move it around a little. It might be a good time to invite your own procureur up here to meet ours. I think we will put the fire under Marcel Deschamps and see what happens.”
Surveillance reports had told us what to expect. For days, the comings and goings at Marcel’s home had been recorded on tape and logged. When we finally had all the paperwork and people we needed, including Kathy Bartlett and her Canadian counterpart, we waited until the middle of the night and then hit the house without fanfare, surrounding it before politely ringing the doorbell.
It was a Sûreté operation. Paul Spraiger, Gary Smith, Kathy, and I all stood back while the initial contact was made and only entered the building after the all-clear had been given.
There’d been no reason to expect violence or resistance, as there might have been at the Angels’ compound, but as I walked down the familiar hallway, heading toward the library, I could tell we hadn’t been admitted with grace-several Deschamps bodyguards were being pinned facedown on the carpeting, at least two of them exhibiting bruised or bloody faces.
The scene in the library was similarly ruffled. In place of the icy charm we’d been exposed to before, there was now turmoil and rage. Shouting at Gilles Lacombe were Pierre Guidry and a young man whose resemblance to Marcel stamped him as Michel, the family’s heir apparent. Lacombe stood looking like a man suffering the mildest of discomforts, a polite smile on his face.