The Last Witness (8 page)

  Jean-Paul nodded. They’d pushed hard the last six months to get a stronger inside track at the RCMP. But their only contact was in Vice, and Chenouda’s group handling the investigation against them was tight-knit and secretive. Little of any value leaked out.

  ‘And what’s Roman’s view?’ Larsen asked.

  ‘I only spoke to him briefly on the phone, but he’s pretty sure Cacchione’s behind it.’ Jean-Paul tilted his head and shrugged. ‘Apparently, after the mess with Leduc, Savard confided in him that he was concerned that as a friend of Leduc’s, Cacchione might worry that Savard had been privy to secrets about Cacchione’s drugs network. That wasn’t the case, but Savard feared that Cacchione might believe it to be so.’

  Larsen asked: ‘Do you think Cacchione might have been also responsible for Steve Tremblay’s death?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jean-Paul conceded. Until now, they’d had no reason to believe that the death of the car driver that night was anything other than what it appeared: a boating accident. Now he was beginning to wonder.

  Georges looked down for a second. Was it just family allegiances and respect for Jean-Paul that stopped anyone airing the other possible option: that with the increasing RCMP investigation, Roman might be keen to bury all traces to that fateful night. Or was it simply because of what he knew about that night that nobody else at this table knew? He could hardly scorn those allegiances, when it was exactly that which had made him shy away from telling all to Jean-Paul in the first place. Yet now that one lie – or at least not telling
all
the truth – was becoming dangerously compounded.

  Jean-Paul misread his look of concern. ‘If it’s Cacchione’s intention to target others from that night, you and Roman will have to be extra vigilant. I’ll talk to Roman about stepping up security.’

  Great, thought Georges. So now his future health would rest in Roman’s hands, yet he’d cut himself off from being able to tell anyone why he didn’t feel entirely comfortable about that. ‘Okay,’ he said meekly.

  ‘This whole affair with Leduc has been messy, and unfortunately could get messier still,’ Jean-Paul said with resignation. ‘But I’m determined that it not be allowed to drag us back or in any way affect our new direction. I think the two of you appreciate more than most how important that is to me.’

  As Jean-Paul came onto discussing with Jon Larsen their most recent problem of fresh licensing pressure with two clubs – which they feared was all part of the general RCMP Lacaille-family purge – Georges suddenly felt strangely remote, cut-off from their conversation; the stranger perhaps he’d always been. The weight and grandeur of the room pressed in as it had done at that first meeting with Jean-Paul and Jon Larsen: the rococo-edged ceilings and pillars, the rich red drapes tied with gold brocade, the high-backed Louis XIV chairs, the collection of family photos on a long side table with priceless ormolu clocks interspersed – an altar to time-family continuum; the ornate cherub ‘Houdon’ statue at the far end, who apparently had also made statues of Voltaire and George Washington. Struck as he’d first walked in the room with the feeling that Jean-Paul might see himself as a modern-day Napoleon.

  But over those first few meetings, Georges started to see the other side of Jean-Paul: a warm, caring family man with noble – if venturesome and foolish – hopes and aims. An image that was keenly massaged by Jon Larsen in heart-to-hearts straight after those meetings:
‘No doubt you’ve read and heard all the dark stories – rumoured or otherwise. But don’t worry – I’ll be first to make sure that Jean-Paul keeps to his promise that all that side of the Lacaille family is now history. Jean-Paul’s one of the fairest men I’ve worked for, and I’ve worked for a few in my time. Otherwise I just wouldn’t have stayed around this long.’

  A hard-bitten corporate lawyer for thirteen years before joining Jean-Paul, Jon Larsen perhaps saw in Georges a kindred spirit: a fellow exile from the business world. But whether through that or not, he did find himself bonding closer with Larsen than anyone else in the extended Lacaille family. Now late-fifties with a strong resemblance to Mr Magoo – except that what little ring of hair Larsen had left was kept brush-cut short – all too often Georges found they shared the same thoughts and views. Over the past three years, they’d swapped many truths and confidences. Except one.

  But it wasn’t Larsen’s pep talks that had finally convinced him to join the fold; nor Jean-Paul’s firm compliance with his request that all the money be cleaned before he started work with it; nor their offer of almost double his existing $280,000 p.a. earnings with Banque du Quebec, with additional share bonuses in the Lacaille’s many businesses.

  What finally decided him was that Jean-Paul’s quest touched his heart. After their fifth or sixth meeting, Georges didn’t remember now, Jean-Paul sat him down with a large brandy and told him the family background that had finally forged in his heart and soul this new direction: of how Pascal’s death had destroyed their father; of him and Pascal playing together as children and Pascal in his teenage years talking about becoming a musician or writer; of how Jean-Paul himself had strongly related to that, because secretly he’d dreamed of becoming an architect or designer before the family business sucked him in. Jean-Paul had then pointed to the picture of his son Raphael on the side table. ‘He’s only twelve now, and perhaps his dreams aren’t fully formed yet and he’s still talking about being a train driver or an astronaut – but I don’t want him to end up the same as Pascal.’

  In that moment, Georges hadn’t seen a crime don, but the frightened teenager who’d buried his dreams, then later his younger brother, both in the name of familial duty – yet now was frantically grappling with whether he’d be able to turn back the tide before it claimed another generation.

  Georges phoned back within the week to tell Jean-Paul that he’d join him. And from that point the quest rapidly became a crusade: not just for Jean-Paul to prove to himself that it could be done, nor the challenge to Georges as a money-man to be able to match the sort of high returns previously notched up from crime – but because their aims had started to attract keen outside interest. Four other leading crime families – most notable among them Jean-Paul’s close friends and past crime allies, the Giacomelli family of Chicago – were eager to see Jean-Paul fair well: after all, if he succeeded it could provide a useful blueprint for them to follow. Others were more sceptical, saying that it had never been done before simply because it
couldn’t
be done. Lacaille was trying for the impossible.

Suddenly their quest had become a cause celébrè. Bets were being taken each side on whether they won or lost. And it hit Georges then just how monumental the stakes were: succeed, and he not only provided the salvation Jean-Paul so badly craved, but they also might show the path for countless crime families to follow; fail, and it was back to the dark ages.

  And now Roman’s rash action that one night compounded by his own lie could bring down the whole deck of cards. The crushing weight of it all was almost too much to bear.

  Georges laid his right hand flat and firm on the refractory table to stop it from trembling. His attention was pulled sharply back by the mention of Roman.

  ‘…We could go around in circles speculating how this whole mess might have been avoided if Roman had just grappled Leduc’s gun away or pushed his gun arm to one side. But it could just as easily have backfired.’ Jean-Paul turned one palm towards Georges, his eyes softening. ‘Either yourself or Roman could have been shot. Regardless of the unfortunate repercussions now, it was self-defence. So we have to stick together on this.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Jon Larsen agreed; a tone of resigned compliance.

  But Georges noted that Jon Larsen’s eyes stayed fixed mostly on him, perhaps picking up on his consternation or his slight flinch at the mention of ‘self-defence’. Georges wondered how much longer he could hold out alone bearing the burden of his knowledge; or whether simply too much had flowed beneath the bridge for him now to be able to tell anyone.

Michel Chenouda knew that he shouldn’t have risked the lie practically as soon as the words were out.

  ‘How long before they have firm identification?’ Chief Inspector Pelletier asked.

  ‘Nine or ten hours is their best estimate. But it could take as long as twenty-four hours.’ Michel fought to keep any hesitancy out of his voice. ‘The quality on CCTV photos is low, so there’s a lot of gaps for them to fill in. I’ll check with them as soon as we’re finished.’

  ‘And they’re pretty confident of being able to lift something positive?’ Maitland confirmed.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Michel doodled absently on a pad. ‘So they told me at last count.’ The truth was far removed: the department dealing with photo enhancement, T104, adjoining forensics, had told him the shadows looked too heavy for a decent identity lift. They’d do their best, ‘But don’t hold your breath.’ But with every other lead dead and Pelletier and Maitland not in the least enlivened by his hopes of getting Georges Donatiens to testify, despite his efforts to play up the option – he felt as if everything was rapidly closing in on him. That Pelletier and Maitland had practically decided beforehand that they’d be presiding over the case’s funeral, and Michel’s explanations and defences were treated merely as eulogies. There was much head shaking from Pelletier about the manpower and cost of the case so far, with Maitland throwing in his bit about the difficulty of resurrecting any workable legal structure: ‘Even if Donatiens might be as hopeful an option as you make out, don’t forget he’s your
last
possible witness. There’s no possibility of his testimony being corroborated. With Savard, at least there was the hope that Donatiens – facing a likely heavy sentence for being an accomplice to murder – might well have turned Crown evidence and corroborated Savard’s story.’

  Michel sensed that if he didn’t come up with something dramatic, fast, they might close the file there and then. Although late last night he’d come up with the idea of checking CCTV cameras on likely routes from the dockside, they hadn’t hit on any possible matches until just an hour before the meeting. Michel painted it as brightly as he could and threw it into the impatient jaws of Pelletier and Maitland to hopefully stop them in their tracks. It appeared to be working. So far.

  ‘Which camera did you catch them on?’ Pelletier asked.

‘Heading south over Jaques Cartier Bridge. They’d fooled us that they’d headed downtown, in which case we might have caught them on some of the larger building cameras. But we suspected they’d headed straight over Jaques Cartier. The camera picks up them practically flat on when they’re about fifty yards away.’

‘Any possibles that spring to mind from what you can see now on the photo?’ Pelletier asked.

  ‘No, nothing yet. The shadows are too heavy, but hopefully when they’re lifted features will become clearer.’

  The room fell silent again. Michel felt the same tension return as when he’d first realized everything was fast slipping away and Pelletier was ready to close the case. But everything was still hanging by a thread; Pelletier looked only partially swayed.

  The table they sat around accommodated eight and had been carved from one single piece of teak, according to Pelletier. The ‘chopping board’ as it was known in the squad room. Casual day to day progress meetings took place in Pelletier’s adjoining office. But if you were asked into the meeting room annexe, inevitably it was for something serious: a reprimand, an internal enquiry, a suspension and a badge that had to be handed over, a case file to be closed. The conference table became necessary because Pelletier was never alone for such meetings: he would always have a witness or supporter to his executions, sometimes two, depending on its nature. As Crown Attorney, Maitland was usually present when a final nod was needed on the legal guillotine, and the two made a strange contrast: Pelletier was heavy set and bullish with a ruddy complexion, as if his blood pressure was threatening to erupt. Maitland was slim, tall and angular, and with his long nose and thinning hair had a hawkish air, with the final dash of contrast from his pale, wan complexion. Combined with his reputation for killing cases on often annoyingly small points of law, this had given him the nickname ‘the undertaker’. 

Pelletier was at the head of the table with Maitland in the next place down, with then a seat gap between him and Michel. Suitable distance. The muted drone of traffic from twelve floors down on Boulevard Dorchester strained to rise through the thick plate windows and be heard above the faint swish from the air vents and the flicking of papers, the only sounds at that moment.

Pelletier was distracted for a moment by Maitland looking back through his file for something. ‘So either late tonight or at the latest by midday tomorrow before we know for sure if we’ve got something that will give us a positive ID?’ Pelletier confirmed, glancing towards Maitland as if his approval was also needed for any delay. But Maitland was still head down in his file.

  ‘Yes,’ Michel said, looking expectantly between the two of them. He tapped one finger lightly on the table to ease tension as Maitland continued flicking through, until he realized the tapping was almost in time with his pulse, and stopped.

  Maitland kept one finger in place as a marker in the file as he finally looked up. Pronounced freckles or the early onset of liver spots showed on the back of Maitland’s hands. ‘I see from your notes that Donatiens’ marriage to Simone Lacaille is planned for early July.’