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‘Interfering? ’stie, I’m no pervert.’
‘I just mean you disposed of the damn thing. You fed it to the bears, right?’
‘Okay, I fed it to the bears. But I don’t want no stories getting around I interfered with it.’
‘Depending what you can give us on Petrucci, I’m prepared to ask the Crown to push for protective custody. And I’ll talk to Musgrave about witness protection.’
Bressard stared down at the floor and cursed. ‘Like I say, I didn’t kill nobody. Last Sunday, it’s nine in the morning, me and the wife are having breakfast. The doorbell rings. My wife goes to answer it and there’s no one there, just a fat envelope stuck between the doors. The envelope is marked Personal for me, nothing else on it. I open it up and there’s five thousand dollars cash, along with a note.’
‘What’d the note say?’
‘The note says, “At your shack you’ll find a fresh supply of bait. There’s another five thousand when the bears have had their dinner.”’
‘Was it signed?’
‘Just P. Initial P. Petrucci, he has to write everything. He’s got no voice box.’
‘I know that. Was it handwritten or typed?’
‘Typed. First I was gonna toss it, but you never know how things are gonna turn out. I thought maybe I might need it.’ Bressard reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet.
‘Wait,’ Cardinal said. ‘Don’t touch it any more than you have to. Just dump it on the table there.’
Bressard held his wallet upside down so that a square-folded piece of paper fell to the table, along with some coins and half a dozen Lotto tickets.
Carefully, using just his fingernails, Cardinal unfolded the paper without smoothing it out. The wording was pretty much as Bressard had said: There’s a fresh supply of bait at your old shack. There’s another five when the bears have had their dinner. It was signed simply P. It looked like it was from a computer printer; they wouldn’t be tracing any typewriters here.
‘It could be from anybody,’ Cardinal observed. ‘And the last I heard, Leon Petrucci moved down to Toronto to be close to Mount Sinai Hospital.’
‘Yeah, sure. And you think that’s gonna get in the way of business? Not too many people are gonna drop five grand in my mailbox and leave me a dead fucking body to get rid of. I told you. Petrucci don’t talk. He’s got no goddam voice box. Who the fuck else you think it’s going to be from?’
‘How do I know you didn’t type this up to cover your ass?’
‘Jesus, Cardinal. You’re so fucking skeptical.’
‘I’m paid to be skeptical.’
‘How do you get on in life? How do you cross the street? I mean, how do you know the street isn’t going to cave in the minute you step on it? Some things you just got to believe, you know what I mean, or there’s no point in living.’
‘Fine. So what did you do?’
‘I go out to my shack – the old one that I haven’t used for like seven, eight years. That’s how I met Petrucci years ago, by the way; I took him on a bear hunt, must be ten years ago. Anyways, I find this big sack on the ground outside. Like a duffle bag. Right away I knew what was in it. I didn’t even have to open it. It’s a dead guy, right? This is the first I know for sure it’s a body. So what am I gonna do, call the sanitation department?’
‘You could have called the police department.’
‘Obviously you know Leon Petrucci really well. Besides, I figured the guy’s already dead, I’m not hurting him any.’
‘We know you took the body into your shack. Did Ferand help you?’
‘No.’
‘Was he involved in this in any way? You’re not helping yourself if he was and you don’t mention it.’
‘Thierry had nothing to do with this. I never told him about it till after.’ It was true the ident guys hadn’t found any evidence linking Ferand to the crime.
‘Did you cut the body up yourself, or did you have help?’
‘Myself. There was quite a bit of blood. To tell you the truth, the first thing I did when I got in there was throw up. I don’t know, I’ve seen a million dead animals, doesn’t bother me, but there’s something about a dead person, even if you don’t know them. Know what I mean?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Anyway, I didn’t want to get blood all over me. I bundled up the pieces and attached a rope so I could drag it to the bear trail. I knew they were awake and I knew they’d be hungry. I didn’t figure there’d be too much left of the guy.’
‘Was the body stripped when you found it?’
‘No, I did that. Didn’t want to be sawing through clothes. Didn’t figure the bears’d be interested in polyester or whatever, either.’
‘We found some material in the stove. Was there anything else with the body – any kind of ID or personal effects you might have kept?’
‘I didn’t keep nothing. There was nothing to keep. I slung everything into the stove.’
‘Did you recognize the victim?’
‘Never seen him before in my life.’
‘Frankly, I’m still a long way from buying the godfather angle. Do you have any idea why Petrucci would have wanted this guy dead?’
‘No. And I wasn’t about to ask, either.’
‘You have a good business, Paul. A wife. Nice house. Why’d you do this to a guy you didn’t even know?’
‘Why?’ Bressard looked away at the far wall of the interview room. After a few moments of reflection he turned back to Cardinal. ‘Two reasons. One: Leon Petrucci. And two: Leon Petrucci. What do you think he’s going to do if I tell him thanks but I can’t do it? You think he’s just going to let me walk away from this? I don’t think so.’
‘And there was the ten thousand.’
‘Five. I’m still waiting for the other five.’
Cardinal had Bressard sign a brief statement, then led him back to the cells. He would be formally charged that afternoon and let go on his own recognizance, mostly so he could be watched.
Cardinal called Musgrave, who was still on the road.
‘You think it’s the mob?’ Musgrave said. ‘You think that note means the order came from Petrucci?’
‘Well, Bressard has worked for Petrucci before. I think the case was before your time – about eight years ago?’
‘Yeah, I was in Montreal back then.’
‘We had a case where Bressard beat a guy pretty bad on orders from Petrucci. We could never nail Petrucci for it because Bressard was too scared to involve him. But when we were making the case, lots of characters did mention him – and one of them had a note, initialled P. We knew Petrucci had his larynx out years ago – it wasn’t unusual for him to write notes. On the other hand, Bressard could be lying through his teeth.’
‘I’m impressed that you got him to talk at all, considering. But you know Leon Petrucci moved down to Toronto.’
‘Yeah, I heard.’
‘Which leaves it barely in the realm of the possible. Tell you what – why don’t you let me handle the Petrucci angle? I’ll get someone from our Toronto detachment on it. They work organized crime all the time.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
Musgrave let out a curse.
‘What’s the matter? You all right?’
‘Goddam truck driver just cut me off. I’m telling you, there’s never any cops around when you need one.’
9 (#ulink_7ff83c6a-fdb9-548b-924c-2de12bd634e2)
The Crown attorney’s office was on MacIntosh Street in an aggressively ugly building of poured concrete that also housed local offices for the Ministry of Community and Social Services. It was right across the street from the Algonquin Lode, a location that came in handy when Reginald Rose, QC, wanted to make his opinions known to the public, which he often did.
Everything about Reginald Rose was long. He was tall and thin, with a slight stoop that gave him the look of a scholar. He had long fingers that handled documents and evidence and even the knot of his tie with grace. He was given to red neckties and starched white shirts and red suspenders that – when he wasn’t wearing his habitual blue blazer – gave him the look of a crisp new Canadian flag.
He was just now addressing himself to a group gathered around a long oak table – an odd-looking group, Cardinal thought. Aside from the elongated Rose himself, there was Robert Henry Hewitt, a.k.a. Wudky, who kept drooping over the table like a dormouse. There was Bob Brackett, his pro bono attorney – deceptively plump and harmless-looking, but a lethal criminal lawyer. And there was Cardinal himself, who was sure he must look as uncomfortable as he felt, because although he was usually perfectly clear about what side he was on, just now he had his doubts.
‘I must tell you right from the start,’ Rose said, ‘that I am not of a mind to make a deal in this case. Why should I? According to all the evidence – and there’s a mountain of evidence – Robert Henry Hewitt is guilty of armed robbery. And not just a little guilty, but absolutely, positively, deadbang guilty. We have his admission of guilt—’
‘Of course you do. Obtained without benefit of counsel.’
‘Mr Brackett, let me finish. We have your client’s admission of guilt. We have the cash from his knapsack. We have the plaid scarf he wore over his face. We have the holdup note written in his appalling but distinctive penmanship – written on the back of his previous arrest warrant, which coincidentally provides his name and address. Why should we make any deal?’
Bob Brackett leaned forward against the conference table. He was dressed in impeccable pinstripes; he always was – perhaps because it lent an edge to his portly figure that otherwise had no edges at all. Pinstripes were nothing unusual in the legal trade, of course, but the gold hoop gleaming in Bob Brackett’s left earlobe most definitely was – especially on a half bald, tubby man in his mid-fifties. He had never married, and in a place the size of Algonquin Bay that alone was enough to feed rumours. Toss in one gold earring and the whispers rose a good deal higher in volume. Not that it mattered; as far as his clients were concerned, Bob Brackett could show up in a tutu as long as he was in their corner.
‘Come now, Mr Rose,’ he said. His voice was soft, reasonable, friendly. ‘Don’t you take any pride in your work? Are you really so desperate for victories that you have to corner a mentally impaired young man and put him away for fifteen years?’
‘Have him plead guilty – I’ll ask for ten.’
Brackett turned to Cardinal. Cardinal was ready to give his views on the Matlock case and how Wudky had tried to help them out. Unfortunately, Brackett had something else in mind. ‘Detective Cardinal, I believe you have a nickname for my client down at police headquarters.’
Cardinal coughed, partly from surprise, partly as a stall. ‘I don’t think we need to go into that, do we? I thought we were just going to—’
‘Do you or do you not have a nickname for my client down at headquarters?’ Brackett’s voice never wavered from its note of pleasant inquiry.
‘Detective Cardinal is not in the witness box,’ Rose said. ‘You don’t get to cross-examine him.’
‘I’m not cross-examining him. He’ll know when I’m cross-examining him. I’m asking a simple question.’
‘We have nicknames for a lot of our customers,’ Cardinal said. ‘They’re not intended for public consumption.’
‘I’m not interested in your other customers, as you call them. What is my client’s nickname, please?’
‘Wudky.’
‘Wudky. An unusual cognomen. Could you spell that for us, please?’
‘W, D, C.’
‘W, D, C. An unusual spelling, too. What do the letters stand for?’
‘I’d really rather not say with Robert in the room.’
Brackett smiled. It was a smile of great benevolence and gave not one inch of ground. ‘Nevertheless, Detective, we await your answer.’
‘It stands for World’s Dumbest Criminal. Sorry, Robert.’
‘That’s okay.’ Hewitt was slumped over the conference table, his chin resting on both folded hands. Speech made his head bob up and down.
‘World’s Dumbest Criminal. And you call him that why, exactly?’ Brackett’s round face was devoid of guile, just asking for information, please.
‘I thought we were going to discuss this just the three of us.’
‘Oh, no, that was never on the table,’ Brackett said. ‘Please tell us why you call my client the World’s Dumbest Criminal.’
‘Because he’s just not competent. He makes dumb mistakes.’
‘Well, yes. Mr Rose has the holdup note as Exhibit A.’
Rose tapped his legal pad with the eraser end of his pencil. ‘Your client has been found in previous trials to be mentally competent to contribute to his legal defence and to understand the nature of his crimes. Do you expect that to suddenly change?’
Brackett’s smile was cherubic. ‘You’re so ferocious in the pursuit of the retarded, Mr Rose. Perhaps you’d prefer to ship my client to the United States. They execute them down there.’
‘Not for robbery, last I heard.’
‘May I continue?’
‘I wish you would.’
‘Detective Cardinal, despite my client’s intellectual limitations, I believe he has recently been extremely helpful to the police. Is that correct?’
At last, Cardinal thought. ‘He was a little off on the details. He told us of a conversation he’d had with a known felon named Thierry Ferand. And Ferand told him that a man from down south somewhere had killed Paul Bressard and got rid of the body in the woods.’
The Crown tossed his pencil onto his pad so hard it bounced onto the floor. ‘Paul Bressard is alive and kicking. I saw him this morning. You can’t miss him in that raccoon coat, for God’s sake.’
‘Like I say, Robert was wrong on the details.’
‘The details? It’s a completely false statement.’
Mr Brackett twiddled pudgy fingers in the air. ‘Stop. Could we stop, please, and just move on to how much of Mr Hewitt’s information turned out to be correct?’
‘Well, once we figured out that he had some names mixed up, it turned out he was right. That is to say, Paul Bressard wasn’t murdered and buried in the woods, but Bressard does admit to disposing of a body in the woods. And the body is indeed from down south – an American named Howard Matlock. So you see, Robert just kind of had things reversed.’
‘Thank you, Detective. That’s extraordinarily helpful.’ Brackett removed his glasses and polished them with the back of his tie, another gesture that emphasized his pure harmlessness. ‘Would it also be fair to say you wouldn’t have known about this murder without my client’s help?’
