Free The First Sixteen: A Vigilante Series crime thriller novella - The Prequel by Claude Bouchard Page B

the guy and wished I could help him. In fact, I was, in my own way,
though he obviously didn’t share my opinion. I’m sure he would have preferred
that I turn myself in or, at the very least, cease my activities but I had my
things to do with an established schedule to respect. As they say, you can’t
please everyone.
    Next
on my ‘to do’ list was Ghislain Blouin .
I had mentioned earlier that among the more horrendous crimes was home
invasion. However, there are few crimes, if any, more despicable than those
which involve the abuse or exploitation of children. For an adult to take
advantage or prey on others incapable of defending themselves because of their
lesser size, physical and mental capabilities makes me sick to the core with
anger. Anyone who seeks to personally benefit at the expense of children, for
personal gratification or any type of gain, deserves a punishment more severe than
death itself.
    Succinctly
stated, fifty-two year old Blouin was a pedophile, a
child pornographer and a killer. Not only had he satisfied his sick thrills on
countless occasions, he had also filmed some of these activities and
subsequently distributed them for financial gain as technology had permitted
him to do so. Though he had been arrested and even served six months of prison
time for indecent exposure and soliciting juveniles, the authorities and the
courts had never succeeded in proving his guilt for his more serious, hideous
aberrations of human life.
    The
molestations he was responsible for which he himself had documented in video
format, their distribution through illegal networks of child porn, the
sickening harm and trauma he had instigated… he had never had to pay for. At
least four of these children had gone missing, never found, which acquaintances
had sworn had been videotaped in his home, based on decor, wall colors,
furniture and so on… Walls had been repainted, even wallpapered, furniture
changed, paintings discarded and replaced… Just to hide what had happened.
    The
court’s decision had been one of ‘not guilty’, due to lack of sufficient
evidence. Some of his neighbours, seated in the courtroom audience, had
screamed revolt… They had seen these children on several occasions, two girls
and two boys, aged from seven to ten, at Blouin’s previous home in the North Shore town of Legardeur ,
before their disappearance. The judge, a man encompassed by the letter of the
law, had threatened to clear the court and arrest all malfeasants at this
outcry then dismissed the case.
    I
had seen those four children… countless times on milk cartons on our breakfast
table every morning… My wife, bless her heart to this day, had even offered to
empty the milk cartons into a plastic pitcher so I wouldn’t have to see them
daily, but I had said no, those photos were there for a reason… She had understood
and told me she agreed, then never brought it up again.
    As
a registered pedophile without employment, a bit of difficulty had ensued at first
to find himself lodgings upon leaving prison for his lesser wrongdoings.
However, with the help of the law and a government subsidy, Blouin had managed to rent himself living quarters in the form of an upper duplex
townhouse in an east-end sector of Montreal, at the end of a cul-de-sac along
the train tracks. It worked for him, a relatively comfortable apartment with
government assistance, away from the limelight and the media. In terms of
location, it definitely worked for me.
    Access
to information via computer systems, thanks to my day job, was a big help. Just
as I could get into police and court records to conduct required research, I
could also find other bits of useful information. For example, thanks to postal
records, I knew that the lower level of the duplex Blouin lived in was currently unoccupied because all mail to its occupants was being
forwarded to another address until early June. A couple of visits, for
additional confirmation, had resulted in no answers