Free Miss Montreal by Howard Shrier Page A

last burnt fries.
    “Is this asshole any good at his job?” I asked.
    “If he made Homicide, he’s not stupid, and if he’s working with someone like Paquette, he has to contribute something. Maybe he’s the paperwork fiend or the background checker. The bad cop in interrogations. Just don’t expect cooperation from him. Not in English and not in your French.”
    “Sorry I’m going to miss it,” Ryan said.
    “You’re not going?” Bobby asked him.
    “He doesn’t do police,” I said.
    “I haven’t been in a police station in over twenty years,” Ryan said. “I’m not starting tomorrow, not even for him.”
    “You want me to come?” Bobby asked. “Translate or something?”
    “My French isn’t bad,” I said.
    He responded by ripping off a fast line of
joual
at me. I caught the word
français
, but that’s it.
    “Sorry?”
    He repeated it just as fast.
    “Okay, what?”
    “I asked you how your French was, more or less, the same way they’re gonna speak to you.”
    “Arthur Moscoe told me Paquette speaks good English.”
    “To Arthur Moscoe he does. Or his lawyers. That’s no guarantee he will to you. And Chênevert for sure won’t.”
    “You free tomorrow?”
    “I could be. But we’d have to go first thing, before their day in Homicide goes from bad to worse. I’ll pick you up at eight, we’ll hit them around eight-thirty. My office isn’t far from there.”
    “I don’t want to make you late.”
    The amount of time they’re likely to spare you, I won’t be.”
    “Okay. Eight o’clock, our hotel.”
    “ ’Ey, anyone want another sandwich?” he said. “Since we’re here?”
    Ryan and I just looked at him.
    “No?” Bobby said. “Nobody wants to split one?”
    “What happened to the trim waistline?” I asked.
    “It stayed outside,” Bobby said.
    We got back to the hotel around seven-thirty. With the cloud cover still heavy, it seemed darker than it should have on the longest day of the year. It was time for summer to show itself, step out from behind that heavy curtain, splash a few rays our way. But the curtain wasn’t moving. All the light did was fade.
    When we got to the room, I drew up a list of people we needed to speak to:
    Sammy’s ex-wife, Camille
.
    Aziz—son and daughter
.
    Lortie—father and daughter
.
    Marie-Josée Boily—adoption worker
.
    Arthur Moscoe—anyone in Sammy’s family adopted?
    “You need me for any of this?” Ryan asked.
    I was a more adept researcher and reader than he. A glance around the room showed there were no legs to break, threats to utter or shots to fire. “I’m good.”
    “Then I’ll see you later.”
    “Where you going?”
    “I’m antsy. Can’t just sit here. Either I start cleaning my guns or I go out for a drive.”
    “Drive safely,” I said.
    I started with Camille, figuring a single mother would need the most notice to arrange a meeting. She answered after two rings:
    “Oui, allô?”
    I had too many calls to struggle through each one in French, so I told her who I was and asked if I could continue in English.
    She said, “Okay by me,” with a light accent.
    I said I was helping the family with the investigation, looking for something that might have been overlooked so far.
    “You mean the Moscoe family?”
    “Yes.”
    “How is Arthur?”
    “He’s dying.”
    “Oh. I see.”
    “You didn’t get along with him?”
    “I had nothing against him. I’m not sure the reverse was true. He didn’t really like Montreal anymore. It wasn’t the city he used to rule over and I always felt he blamed me in a way. But you want to talk about Sammy, yes? I have a few minutes now while Sophie watches animations. Is that the right word?”
    “I think you mean cartoons. Look, I’d rather meet you in person, if we can.”
    “Ah. You want to read my face, eh? My body language, see if I’m telling the truth?”
    “Why wouldn’t you?”
    “
Oh, mon Dieu
, I’m in trouble already.”
    I liked her voice. It was husky,