Did you? Like you’re trembling now?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Struggling to break free of Ryan’s grasp.
Ryan shoved Adamski’s face down until his nose was inches from the tabletop.
“We’ve got you at Jurmain’s auberge. We’ve got you at Keiser’s cabin. We’ve got you at the Villejoin house. We’ve got you running your mouth to Florian Grellier.”
Adamski kicked out his feet and twisted from side to side. Ryan ignored his writhing.
“We’re requesting surveillance photos from the ATM where you used the Villejoins’ bank card. We’re talking to everyone who ever set foot in Pointe-Calumet. We’re talking to everyone who ever so much as walked past Jurmain’s auberge.
“Know what’s happening in Moncton right now? Cousin Denton’s having a nice little chat with the cops. Think he’ll rat you out on that big score you bragged about? Maybe roll on the money you stashed at his place?”
“Jesus Christ, back him off,” Adamski croaked.
“For God’s sake, Ryan.” Claudel was on his feet. “Let the guy breathe.”
Freeing Adamski, Ryan took an angry step back.
Adamski brought his head up and rubbed his scalp with a trembling hand.
Ryan nodded at Claudel ever so slightly.
Claudel resumed his seat and spoke in a calming voice.
“I’m not going to scam you, Sam. It looks bad. These ladies were old. Juries don’t like that. They’ve got mamas, grannies, aunties. The physical evidence is piling up. Witnesses are going to come forward. Jurmain was an American.” True but irrelevant. “If you come clean, maybe you can help yourself. Maybe we can help you.”
“I never heard of no Rose Jurmain.” Adamski’s eyes were now clamped to the tabletop.
“We can talk about that.”
Silence buzzed through the speaker. A minute. Two.
Above Adamski’s sight line, the detectives exchanged anxious glances.
I held my breath. Like Claudel and Ryan, I knew Adamski’s next utterance would signal thumbs up or down on the good-bad cop performance. I want a lawyer? I didn’t mean to do it?
Slowly, Adamski lifted his head. When he spoke, it was to Claudel.
“I don’t say shit while this lunatic’s in my face.”
35
IT WAS A NIGHT OF BAD COFFEE DOWNED WHILE SITTING ON BUTT-numbing chairs. Ryan and I watched Adamski/Keith/O’Keefe by monitor as Claudel spun his magic two doors down.
The story came out slowly, with Claudel doing empathetic, Adamski veering between boastful and whiny.
By two he’d owned Marilyn Keiser. By four he’d rolled on the Villejoins.
This was the creep’s story.
Adamski’s boating mishap was real. After capsizing, he managed to drag himself ashore. Lying soaked and exhausted, he’d had an epiphany. His current life sucked. Loathing lawyers and paperwork, he decided to turn the mishap to his advantage.
After seeding the lake with belongings, Adamski hitched a ride to Nova Scotia. In Halifax, he looked up a fellow businessman, invested in a new identity, and set out for greener pastures south of the border.
Life in America wasn’t the dream Adamski had envisioned and, in 2006, he returned to Quebec. Using an old alias, Bud Keith, he got a kitchen job at the auberge near Sainte-Marguerite. During his tenure at the inn, an alcoholic old lady wandered off and vanished.
Eventually bored with scraping plates and scouring pans, Adamski headed for the bright lights of Montreal. Still living as Bud Keith, he met a waitress named Poppy from Saint-Eustache. Soon they were living together.
At first things were dandy. In due course, Poppy began nagging Adamski to contribute to the cost of their cohabitation. Offering use of her Honda, she suggested door- to-dooring for handyman jobs.
Adamski spent the early part of May 4 in a bar, drinking beer and debating the merits of personal freedom versus a free roof and steady pussy. Pumped on Moosehead and self-pity, he then followed route 344 into Pointe-Calumet, and picked a house with a dead pine in the yard. Anne-Isabelle, his first mark, agreed to his tree-removal proposal, then paid from an oatmeal tin dug from her pantry.
Angry that the job had taken longer than anticipated, Adamski asked for more than the agreed-upon sum. Anne-Isabelle refused. An argument ensued, was concluded by Adamski grabbing the old woman’s cane and clubbing her to death.
Hearing the commotion, Christelle came to investigate. Out of control with rage, Adamski demanded more cash. When Christelle produced a bank card, Adamski shoved her into Poppy’s Honda, drove into the city, and forced her to make a withdrawal.
But time behind the wheel had a sobering effect. Afraid to hit other ATMs as he’d initially intended, and afraid to return to Pointe-Calumet, Adamski stopped to purchase a garden spade. He then killed and buried Christelle in Oka.
Adamski then ditched the Villejoins’ bank card, scrubbed the Honda, and hightailed it to Poppy’s condo in Saint-Eustache. For several months he worked odd jobs, followed coverage of the Villejoin investigation, and lay low.
As time passed and Johnny Law failed to come knocking, Adamski grew increasingly confident he’d gotten away with murder. As was his pattern, he also grew increasingly disenchanted with his living arrangement.
During this period, Adamski logged a lot of couch time with Poppy’s TV. And bless her, she had cable. Along with hockey and reruns of
Adamski began thinking about the old lady who’d disappeared from L’Auberge des Neiges. About the Villejoins. Though it had been years since he’d seen his former wife, he thought of her, too. He remembered Keiser’s threats to pull her money from the bank, wondered if she’d followed through.
He’d married Keiser for financial gain. But the old lady was nuts, still wanted sex. Living with her was intolerable. As with everything in his life, the plan hadn’t worked out. Like Poppy wasn’t working out.
Adamski did some calculation. Marilyn Keiser would be seventy-two. He’d killed the Villejoins and skated. The women were feeble, provided little challenge.
Adamski established that Keiser still lived in the same building. For weeks he sat in Poppy’s Honda on Edouard-Montpetit, watching his former wife’s comings and goings. He followed her to a synagogue, a market, a community center, a yoga studio.
