Free River City by John Farrow

laughed under his breath as Sloan gave the young cop a second glance. He might have to alter his initial opinion on the young man in uniform.
    With the street blocked off due to the riot, they didn’t have to look for traffic as they stepped off the curb and crossed to the park and a crowd of cops. Dominion Square occupied a short city block, a park with the usual complement of trees, open spaces and benches to provide a measure of rest amid thehaste of the city. Grass showed through here and there, but snow had been ploughed into piles to keep the walkways clear, and these drifts, hard packed and dirty, would be the last to melt.
    The Sun Life was a building associated particularly with the English, and to a degree the park possessed an English motif as well. The Frenchman Laurier, who had been one of the fledgling country’s early prime ministers, had a statue here, but another monument paid homage to the fallen heroes of the South African War, which held no interest at all among the French—and not much among the English, either, as it harked back to British colonial rule. The poet chosen to be honoured was Robbie Burns, a Scot who had never set foot in the country. On the steps below the Burns statue, the poet’s back to him, lay the sprawled, inert body of the murdered victim.
    Cops had driven onto the walkways, and the area was lit by the headlights of their cars. Touton was quickly able to spot the coroner, Claude Racine. A small, wiry man, around fifty-five, with a salt-and-pepper moustache and greying temples, he was wearing a Montreal Canadiens jacket with Richard’s famous number 9 across the biceps, perhaps a deliberate ploy to manage his way through the crowds on this night. His trip to the crime scene had been slower than usual, given the ruckus in the streets.
    “Claude,” Touton said, both to acknowledge the man’s presence and to announce his own.
    “Armand.”
    “What do we have here?”
    “Go look for yourself. It’s not a pretty sight.”
    Touton was about to do so when the coroner thought twice, put a hand to his chest and stopped him. “Wait.” He addressed Sloan. “Does he know yet?”
    “Know what?” Sloan asked him back.
    “Do you even know?”
    Sloan was befuddled. “What am I supposed to know?”
    “What is it, Claude?” Touton asked him gently, for something told him that matters in this place might be serious. All he could see from his current vantage point was the dead man’s boots.
    “Prepare yourself, Armand. You’re not going to like it. He’s not your best friend or nothing like that, but you know the victim.”
    Touton stepped around the coroner and moved cops aside to get a proper view of the corpse. He knelt down beside the dead man, and tipped his fedora back from his brow, his sadness palpable to all who could see his face. The coroner crouched next to him. The dead man was square-shouldered and square-jawed, with a boxer’s big chest and a drinker’s swollen paunch.
    “I’m right, aren’t I?”
    “Roger Clément,” Touton acknowledged. “How do you know him?”
    “Coincidence. We’ve been witnesses at the same trials a couple of times.”
    “He wasn’t the accused?”
    “A defence witness. Paid to lie. But I’m right? You’ve been friends?”
    “Acquaintances. More or less. I’ve busted him a few times. We respected each other—that’s probably fair to say. He could punch, this guy. A strong man, but I never knew him to really hurt anybody. Even though he was hired to do so, from time to time.” Touton glanced over his shoulder at Sloan, standing behind him. “Do you know him?”
    “No, sir. He has a record?”
    Touton stood up. “He was still a decent guy. Shit. I’ll have to tell his family.”
    “We could send someone,” Sloan suggested. “He’s only a hood, right?”
    Touton was looking up at the highest level of the columns on the Sun Life.
    “He was never only a hood. I just told you, he was a decent guy. It wouldn’t take much