Twice Dead: A Lieutenant Beaudry Novel

By Michael Kent

A serial killer on the loose in Montreal's gay village and a deadly blend of ecstasy put Beaudry and his narcotics squad buddy on the same trail and on the same bratva hi list.

Filled with twisty plotting and Lt Beaudry's snarky hallmark comments, this is another of Kent's can't put down novels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Kent
• Release date: Jan 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9780993713194

Michael Kent

Born 1958, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, writer, artist, musician, published Les Maléfices du fardeau d'Atlas—his first book of poetry was published in 1985. He has written five novels, including The Big Jiggety (Xlibris, 2005) and Pop the Plug (Xlibris 2012). Also his verse has been published in The Poet's Domain. His short stories and, on occasion, art work, have found a niche in Happy, Kinesis, The Quill, The Urban Age, Voie Express USA, The Threshold, The Writer's Round Table and Moscow's renowned Inostrania Literatura (next to T. C. Boyle). Writing in both English and French, his works have been translated into Spanish and Russian. Aside from selling books and the occasional painting (see Flickr/TheBigJiggety), he currently earns a living in Washington, DC, as a French-English interpreter/translator and likes to sing and play old rock and roll with a few friends (see YouTube: BigJiggety).

Book preview

ONE

I woke naked and freezing. I looked to my left; Crackers, my oversized cat, was busy tugging the blanket off me.

Stop that, you crazy Maine Coon, I muttered.

I tried to pull the blanket back to my side. It didn’t work; he had the advantage of good claw purchase and feline stubbornness.

I didn’t want him to rip Patricia’s bedclothes, and still languid and in the glow of wake-up-sex, I didn’t try very hard. She had left an hour ago, headed to Québec City for meetings with her UPAC team. Québec’s new anti-corruption squad was created to fight the last decade’s bribery and collusion in the awarding of municipal and provincial construction contracts. She would be gone for the week, and I’d miss her every minute until her return.

––––––––

Crackers, you’re a selfish blanket hoarder. You’ve just screwed yourself out of a cat treat, I growled.

He ignored my comment and continued to circle and stomp on the mound of accumulated blanket.

I pushed myself out of bed to hunt for my clothes along the trail of my, and Pat’s, discarded garments scattered on the bedroom floor. Remnants of our romantic first anniversary celebration. We met last spring when her uncle, my boss, Captain Jean O’Neil, had assigned her as my partner on a high-profile murder case. Her detective smarts and computer skills had since earned her a transfer to UPAC.

I had a week off and promised Pat I'd complete the renovations on her master bathroom. We were living together, apart. We would spend time at my condo in Old Montreal or more often at the West Island home that was part of her recent divorce settlement. Our work schedules were crazy, and the living arrangements worked.  As a bonus, Crackers loved her large backyard, where squirrel, field mouse, and bird hunting were way better than at my downtown apartment.

I fed Crackers his dry food, which he snubbed until I hid a few cat treats in the mix. On my last sip of coffee, my phone played the drum roll dedicated to my boss’ number.

Robert Beaudry’s day off. Leave a message, I answered.

I know, I know, but your CSI friend Dobson insisted I call you.

What’s up? Where are you guys?

On a windy rooftop in the gay village. A tenant found what looked like two, maybe three, bodies piled into an old, unused air-conditioning tower.

Two or three?

Stuffed tight, Jean said. Top one still thawing out. It’s covering some decomposed parts, maybe from a year or more ago. Dobson doesn’t want to displace anything until you get here. Said you like to get the feel of the scene before the techs move the victims.

I like to start exactly where the murderer left off. Gives me an insight as to how the criminal was thinking and how the victim’s story ended.

I heard shuffling noises, and Dobson came on the captain’s phone.

Sorry to disturb you, Lieutenant, but it looks like we have a serial killer loose in the village. It’s giving me very bad vibes. I don’t want to work with just anybody on this one.

I’ll take that as a lopsided compliment, Tristan. I heard Jean in the background yell, just tell him to get his ass down here.

Dobson gave me the street address.

Give me an hour or so, I said.

I wondered if the captain knew that Dobson, his best crime scene technician, had married last summer and now lived with his husband just one street east of the crime scene. Whether he did or not, I’d never know. My boss was a six-foot six stoic statue. The only hint of an emotional tell was a slight curl up or down of his little, gray caterpillar mustache. He ran the department with an iron fist clenched over the rulebook. In favor of more flexibility, I had discarded my copy years ago. It gave me the highest ratio of solved homicide cases, but at the cost of regular run-ins with Jean.

I trotted to the washroom. A seventeen-minute speed-shave and shower later, I was on the road headed for a triple murder on a rooftop in the village.

Dobson had fast ended my planned vacation. Between his words and tense voice, I understood him saying, Get here quick. This is a bad one.

TWO

I met the captain and Dobson on the windy rooftop. The cool spring breeze spoiled by the sickly rancid smell of a decaying body.

You said an hour, Jean said, both sides of his mustache turned down.

I shrugged, Montreal traffic. Everybody in a rush to get to work on a Monday to see if they still have a job.

Jean unfolded an immaculate handkerchief from the pocket of his equally immaculate raincoat. He put it over his nose as he walked me over to the chest-high air-conditioning unit.

"Well, you still have a job, and this is it. Get to work. I have to drive to headquarters. I’m stuck with a meeting with some fools from city hall."

My condolences, I said, as he turned away from the stench.

I pulled a tube of mentholated lip balm from my leather jacket and spread it under my offended nostrils.

Dobson looked like a surgeon straight out of the operating room. Gloves, mask over nose and mouth, and a clear plastic face protector.

The large rooftop sheet metal box was divided into two compartments. The first contained four dirty mesh air filters stacked together vertically. The second section, a naked male body stooped over as if he was reaching for something at his feet. I couldn’t see his face. 

He’s folded like a big human staple, hiding what I think are two more corpses under him, Dobson said. Hands and feet still frozen to the inside metal work. Today’s not warm enough to cancel last night’s below zero.

Tight, tight fit. To squish him into that space had to be a strong person or maybe two.

Dobson pointed to the left side of the box. Hid him here immediately after death, There’s only a little blood trace on the inner wall, rubbed off from the body.

Another technician came toward us dragging a portable butane heater; he started setting it up. 

You took all the pix?

Eh, yes. Time to pull him—them out.

The heater’ll increase the smell, won’t it?

Afraid so, Lieutenant. Eh, the janitor who found the body lives in apartment eleven. Mister Ashur.

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I think the time is right for me to get a change of air before my clothes reek of death. Call me when you have them out. I’m down interviewing.

*  *  *

I sat facing the janitor across his kitchen table, each of us with a cup of Turkish coffee in hand.

I looked at my notes. So, Mister Marks, one of the top floor tenants, complained about the smell coming from his bathroom vent, and you went up to the roof to check it out. Walk me through what you did and saw. In sequence, if you can.

"I’m try to not to see again. Bad picture. Axra min kida mafiib."

"Apart from marhaba, and shukran, I don’t speak a word of Arabic, but from your facial expression, it didn’t look like a happy sight."

Smell coming from filter box. I open, maybe a dead animal. Not animal, dead man, not good, many lot of shit today.

A shitty start to your day. I get it. Is there a tenant that’s gone missing from the building in the last few months? Did you recognize the dead man?

The janitor’s face contorted in an expression of anger and disgust.

"No, no not know tezoh, not khaneeth. No, no bad worse sin."

Whoa, don’t get upset. You lost me. The victim’s name was Tezoo?

The Syrian janitor, obviously upset, jerked up from his chair. He did a strange upward snap of his head and made a clicking sound with his tongue. I was out of my depth. I didn’t understand his verbal or body language. It took me five minutes of charades to figure out that "tezoh" meant butt, ass. He had opened the cover to see only the man’s rear. I guess I had insulted him when I asked if he recognized the victim. I now understood that he wasn’t too pleased to be working around gays. He signaled me to follow him out from his kitchen, and we went to the second floor, where he knocked on the door of apartment twenty-one.  

A short, stocky woman of many years cracked the door open a foot and squinted at us from over gold and pearl bifocals. She had a pasty complexion debossed with the craggy wrinkles that only a hard life can give.

Ashur, the janitor, a worried look in his eyes, spoke to her in a long string of Arabic.

The old matron nodded at him and, with a brush-away motion of her hand, told him to get back to work.

She opened the door wider, Please come in, Detective.

What did Mister Ashur tell you? I asked.

Not important. What can I do for you?

From your instructions to him, I deduce that you’re his boss. I think that I offended your janitor when I asked him if he recognized the dead man. As I spoke, I raised my eyebrows, my opened hand, palm up toward her, French body language for I don’t know.

She looked at my outstretched hand, probably unsure if I wanted to shake hands.

I pulled my hand back, remembering that Arab women do not shake hands with men.

I’m Lieutenant Robert Beaudry. I’ll be in charge of the investigation.

Yes, the poor man on the roof. I’m Elena Benchimol. I own this building and a few others down the street.

Smart move. This area’s now very trendy.

She turned, exhaled loudly, then plopped herself down into a well-used, paisley wing chair.

Ehhhh.

You okay?

Getting old is a bitch. She rubbed her knee. My joints hurt all the time.

Speaking of hurt, did you have a tenant who disappeared without paying his rent perhaps?

She looked down. It’s about the money, isn’t it?

Ah, what money?

Mister Marcel’s, we haven’t seen him since late October.

I pushed a faded, scarred leather ottoman closer to her.

Put your feet up, I said. It’ll help with the circulation.

You a policeman or a doctor?

Detective. What about Mister Marcel and the money?

I left everything as is, even the gym bag. I just take out my rent money every month.

You left his apartment as is, there’s a bag of money, and you take the rent from it. After seven months, you didn’t rent it out or ask yourself any questions. Didn’t report him missing? You could be in a lot of trouble.

It’s hard to find good tenants. I’m an old lady. I’ve learnt to keep my mouth shut and ask no questions. Tears started flowing down the canyons of her face.

Ho boy. I better sit down, I said. Tell me everything.

I should have chosen my words more carefully.

She rattled off most of her life story. From her birth in Rabat Morocco, a time and city where the Arabs and everyone else snubbed the Jews. Where she learned to speak Arabic, Hebrew, and French. Her emigration to Israel where again she felt discrimination with the Sephardim under the majority of Ashkenazim. Her marriage to Dayan, his calm and good business sense. They owned close to a hundred doors, she had said proudly of him.

Then, taking care of him for his last three years until the cancer won.

I listened in silence, nodding once in a while. I was in no hurry to go back to the smelly rooftop. We finally made it to the chapter of the phantom tenant in apartment thirty-four, André Marcel. I asked, and she gave me the passkey.

THREE

Apartment thirty-four had been shut tight for seven months and smelled that stale. A fine coating of dust covered the tops of furniture, and dust bunnies roamed free along the baseboards. I’ve never figured out how filth accumulates when no one is home and doors and windows are shut.  With my irregular work schedule and the time I spend over at Pat’s place, I now need a twice monthly cleaning lady to fight the battle for me. 

The building was old style, wide millwork of red oak and foot high sculpted baseboards. André, the tenant, had skillfully managed to blend in a nice mix of traditional and modern furniture. I put my latex gloves on and started my search in the living room.

The bedroom doubled as a home office. André had a large screen Apple computer on a corner desk. Books on Adobe Illustrator, Flash CS3, and Dreamweaver, as well as other design and web software titles were stacked on a shelf high over the desk.  I’d leave Dobson to dig in the computer files, e-mails, and browsing history to find out more on our victim’s work, hobby and friends.

On the floor of the bedroom closet, I found the leather gym bag that landlady Benchimol said she was pulling her rent money out of. I dumped the contents onto the rumpled bedspread.

Not-so-fresh underwear, socks, high-top flame-red Converse Chuck Taylors, a soiled towel, two large zip bags of pills, three smaller glassine bags of white powder and a thick roll of cash spilled out. I said to myself, My buddy Nico is going to be interested in this.

There was nothing else of detectable value in the apartment.

My phone broke the silence with its Someone is calling you. tune.

Dobson spoke before I could. You better get back up here before we wrap them up.

Okay, showtime.

*  *  *

The unmistakable odor of decay now permeated the rooftop. Pushed around by every minor breeze or by someone merely walking by, the