Part 20 (2/2)
”I can't speak with f.u.c.k-all while this moron Claudel is squeezing my nuts.”
”Excuse me?”
”This a.s.s wipe has aspirations to higher rank, so I sit here sucking s.h.i.+t.”
For a moment no one spoke. The call sounded like it was coming from a bathysphere.
”He's probably putting something together for CNN.”
I was growing impatient, but didn't want to risk losing information that might be useful.
”Are you calling about the skeletons unearthed in St-Basile?”
I heard choking noises, then, ”s.h.i.+t, no.”
It was then that my brain locked on to the name.
George Dorsey was the suspect Claudel had locked up.
”Have you been charged, Mr. Dorsey?”
”f.u.c.k, no.”
”Why are they holding you?”
”When they popped me I was holding six b.u.mps of meth.”
”Why are you calling me?”
”Because none of these other f.u.c.ks will listen. I didn't whack Cherokee. That was unskilled labor.”
I felt my pulse increase.
”What do you mean?”
”That ain't how brothers take care of business.”
”Are you saying Cherokee's murder wasn't gang-related?”
”f.u.c.kin' A.”
”Then who killed him?”
”Get your a.s.s over here and I'll lay it all out.”
I said nothing. Dorsey's breath was loud in the silence.
”But this ain't going to be a one-sided shuck.”
”I've got no reason to trust you.”
”And you ain't my choice for Woman of the Year, but none of these jag-offs will listen. They've launched the D day of police f.u.c.k-ups and parked me right on Omaha Beach.”
”I'm impressed with your knowledge of history, Mr. Dorsey, but why should I believe you?”
”Got a better lead?”
I let the question dangle a moment. Loser though he was, George Dorsey had a point. And no one else appeared inclined to talk to me today.
I looked at my watch. Eleven-twenty.
”I'll be there in an hour.”
21.
FOR POLICING PURPOSES, THE C COMMUNAUTe U URBAINE DE M MONTReAL is divided into four sections, each with a headquarters housing intervention, a.n.a.lysis and investigation divisions, and a detention center. Suspects arrested for murder or s.e.xual a.s.sault are held at a facility near place Versailles, in the far eastern end of the city. All others await arraignment at one of the four sectional jails. For possession of methamphetamine, Dorsey went to his local facility, Op South. is divided into four sections, each with a headquarters housing intervention, a.n.a.lysis and investigation divisions, and a detention center. Suspects arrested for murder or s.e.xual a.s.sault are held at a facility near place Versailles, in the far eastern end of the city. All others await arraignment at one of the four sectional jails. For possession of methamphetamine, Dorsey went to his local facility, Op South.
The Op South headquarters is located at rue Guy and boulevard Rene Levesque, on the outskirts of Centre-ville. This section is predominantly French and English, but it is also Mandarin, Estonian, Arabic, and Greek. It is separatist and federalist. It holds the vagrant and the affluent, the student and the stockbroker, the immigrant and the ”pur laine” ”pur laine” quebecois. quebecois.
The Op South is churches and bars, boutiques and s.e.x shops, sprawling homes and walk-up flats. The murders of Emily Anne Toussaint and Yves Cherokee Desjardins had taken place within its borders.
As I turned off Guy into the lot, I pa.s.sed through a group carrying placards and wearing signs. They'd spread down the sidewalk from the building next door, blue-collar workers picketing for higher pay. Good luck, I thought. Perhaps it was the political instability, perhaps the Canadian economy in general, but Quebec Province was in a financial squeeze. Budgets were being cut, services curtailed. I hadn't had a raise in seven years.
I entered at the main door and stepped to a counter to my right.
”I'm here to see George Dorsey,” I said to the guard on duty. She put down her snack cake and eyed me with boredom.
”Are you on the list?”
”Temperance Brennan. The prisoner asked to see me.”
She brushed chubby hands together, checked for crumbs, then entered something into a keyboard. Light reflected off her gla.s.ses as she leaned forward to read the monitor. Text scrolled down each lens, froze, then she spoke again without raising her eyes.
”Carcajou?” Ralph Nader couldn't have sounded more dubious.
”Mm.” Le Journal Le Journal thought so. thought so.
”Got an ID?”
She looked up and I showed her my security pa.s.s for the SQ building.
”No badge?”
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