“We’ll find him, Father. And when we do, we’ll find everyone who put obstacles in my path, or who failed to raise their hand and point him out. If there’s anything on your mind, Father, call me,” he said, handing him a business card and turning to leave. “Laurent will wait for you and take you to the station.”
11 AM
Vanier was running the engine to keep the car warm. He pulled St. Jacques’s note from the envelope and scanned the list of numbers, names and comments. One name stood out, Rene Gauthier, a journalist with the
“Oui?”
“M. Gauthier?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Detective Inspector Vanier.”
There was a brief pause, then, “Detective Inspector, I’m honoured. What can I do for you?”
“I just wanted to congratulate you on your coverage of the homeless deaths. You must be working very hard on the story.”
“Very kind of you, Inspector. I do what I can.”
“You seem to be in front of the pack on this one. You always know more that your competitors.”
“I work harder than them. Simple as that.”
“Tell me, do you know my colleague, Detective Sergeant Fletcher?”
Another pause. “Of course I do. He’s my brother-in-law.”
Vanier looked at St. Jacques’ list again. Fletcher had been calling two Gauthiers, the list said: the other was Marie-Chantal Gauthier, Wife. “Marie-Chantal is your sister?”
“Correct.”
“And what are you going to tell Marie-Chantal when her husband gets his ass kicked off the force?”
“What?”
“Simple question.”
“Listen, Inspector, if you think that David is my source, you’ve got it dead wrong. In fact, he’s been pissed at me for the last few days. Every time I do a story that’s a bit too accurate he’s on my case wanting to know where I’m getting my information. He was worried. He knew someone would make the connection soon enough.”
“So what did you tell him?”
“What I told you; that I work harder than the others.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe whatever you like, Inspector. I have a job to do, and just because my brother-in-law is on the investigation doesn’t mean I stop working. But don’t think that he’s feeding me information. He’s not.”
“Just so we’re clear, M. Gauthier. If you have a source in my division, he or she is finished. Understand?”
“Good day, Inspector.”
3 PM
Vanier was sitting with his back to a wall in Magnan’s Tavern, his attention divided between watching the door and watching highlights of last night’s hockey game on the big screen. Magnan’s was almost empty, the lunch crowd long gone and the evening crowd not yet arrived. Only the serious drinkers were bridging the gap. Beaudoin walked in and quickly spotted Vanier. As he sat down, a waitress close to retirement age appeared behind Vanier with a tray in one hand, the other resting on Vanier’s shoulder. Beaudoin ordered a beer and Vanier a refill.
“I wanted to follow up on our conversation. We were interrupted,” said Beaudoin.
“Yes, I noticed. It must be hard.”
“What?”
“Becoming a professional, and then finding that you’re not in charge. You’re still taking orders.”
“Are you in charge, Inspector?”
“Ha,” Vanier’s eyes brightened. “Good question. Can we ever be independent?”
“Win the lottery, I suppose.”
“No. Not even then. So what else is there?”
“What?”
“The Shelter. What should I know?”
The waitress put two frosted drafts on the table and walked off, and Beaudoin started talking. There was a company, Blackrock Investments, and they were interested in acquiring the Holy Land property. Not acquiring exactly, because acquiring implied buying it, it implied a cost. They were interested in having the Shelter’s land and a lot less interested in paying for it. Henderson got wind of it somehow and, all of a sudden, Blackrock became a client. Henderson concocted a plan. It was a land swap. Blackrock owned land on the fringe of the fringe of the lower island under the expressway, a worthless patch of land good for nothing but low-rent warehouses and chop- shops. It was known as The Stables, because people had once kept horses there, maybe a hundred years ago, but it was now one of those useless, polluted urban islands, rendered inaccessible by highways and train tracks. The plan was to swap the Holy Land property for The Stables, along with a promise to build a state-of-the-art refuge for the homeless. Because promises and plans are cheap, no expense was spared. It would be a comfortable home for the destitute, designed for rehabilitation, retraining and reintegration; an ambitious plan to bring the homeless back into society instead of just warehousing them for a night.
Beaudoin explained that he didn’t grasp the swindle immediately. He thought it was a great idea to upgrade the shelter. But within weeks, he realized it was all bullshit. The Stables was owned by a shell company, an empty shell that was ready to fold as soon as the swap was done. Everything was planned, even the excuses: the land was polluted, they couldn’t get planning permission, financing didn’t come through, it wasn’t the ideal place to house the vulnerable. Nothing mattered, not even the excuses. There would be no new building, no new shelter. Blackrock would get the Holy Land property and make a fortune. The homeless would lose what little they had and end up, well, homeless. It would be tragic, hands would be wrung, but in the end, nobody would care. It was a brilliant plan.
But to get the swap accepted, they didn’t just need the approval of the Board of Directors of the Shelter; they had to get the Holy Land Foundation to approve it. The Board ran the Shelter’s day-to-day operations, but the Foundation owned the Shelter and the land underneath. It was run by a group of solid citizens whose job was to look after the Holy Land’s core assets.
“The Foundation’s members are all getting on in years, the average age must be 85,” said Beaudoin. “It’s easy to flood the Board of Directors with hand-picked yes men, but you can’t do that with the Foundation. The way it’s set up, the members of the Foundation choose their own members. To serve on the Foundation, you have to be asked by the current members of the Foundation. So that was a major problem. The current members of the Foundation would never agree to the deal without the kinds of guarantees Blackrock was not prepared to offer.
“So, brilliant as it was, the plan had a major problem: the Foundation. That’s where I came in. After years on the Board, I knew the members of the Foundation, and they trusted me.”
“So you went along?” asked Vanier.
Beaudoin looked down at the table and continued, trying to leave himself with some excuses. He couldn’t.
“More than that, I became the key to the whole plan. Henderson told me to start courting the members of the Foundation and to start collecting proxies, the right to vote on behalf of the Foundation members. So I did. I took them out to dinner, to the hockey game, and then things started to happen. At first, it was only proxies for easy decisions at single meetings. But gradually I built up trust. I would call the members before meetings to get their instructions on how to vote on specific issues. After a while, they started asking me how they should vote. Eventually, some members were offering me general proxies. Like I said, they trusted me. They thought I was doing them a personal favour. To make matters worse, the proxies were always in the name of Henderson, my boss. I told them, well, I told them what I was told to tell them, that it was to preserve independence. So now Henderson’s
