Deadly Storm: A Lieutenant Beaudry Novel

By Michael Kent

A street gang murder is the snowflake that sets off an avalanche of tortures, assassinations, and a horrific hostage situation.

As usual,Lieutenant Beaudry is at the center of the mayhem, and of difficult explanations to his significant other of a prior romance.

It's a double jeopardy adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Kent
• Release date: Nov 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781777131425

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

Deadly Storm

A Lieutenant Beaudry novel

MEZZO PUBLICATIONS Inc.

Montreal Canada

Copyright © 2021 All rights reserved.

BOOK ISBN-13: 978-1-7771314-1-8

ELECTRONIC BOOK ISBN-13: 978-1-7771314-2-5

Cover art Mary60-Design

DEDICATED TO

My life partner Louise, who puts up with my lengthy disappearances into my writing cave.

And to all the workers and volunteers who help homeless and victimized women across the globe.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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My thanks to my Beta readers and supporters, Judith Leaper, Hank Sherrard, Charles Robitaille, and Sin De Barnwell for their continued support. And to fellow authors, Jim Napier, Randall Krzak, and Del Chatterson for their insights, suggestions, and reviews. 

© Michael Kent, 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not take part in or encourage piracy of copyrighted material in violation of the author’s rights.

Deadly Storm is a work of fiction. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but the events portrayed, characters involved, and the incidents are products of the author’s imagination.

The frost stings sweetly with a burning kiss. As intimate as love, as cold as death.

~ Roy Campbell

ONE

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On the first week of September, I was glad to be back on the street doing what I do best, hunting down murderers. It was the end of a temporary desk assignment for me, and back to classes for Pat, my freckled, Irish redhead, more-than-significant-other.

We were having a late supper at one of our favorite French bistros.

The chief wasn’t pleased when I gave him the doctor’s paper stating I was okay to resume my regular duties. I said.

I’m not at ease myself, if truth be told, Pat said. I share my uncle’s concerns. You’re after getting back from being shot. It seems only a fortnight ago.

I reassured Jean that it was a minor scrape on my thigh, I said.

Pat lowered her fork in mid-bite. You had a gash the size of this butter dish in your arse.

It was my upper thigh. Bullets go in small and angry and come out big and ugly. At least it didn’t hit an artery or a bone. A mere flesh wound.

Pat pointed her fork at me like a menacing weapon.

I worry about you, and you take it lightly.

I made googly eyes at her. Didn’t I prove to you last evening that I was back to my normal, virile self?

Your man is just boasting. You seduced me with a home-cooked meal and plied me with wine. It has nothing to do with why I get the shivers up my bones every time I hear about a shootout in town.

I’m a homicide detective. Gun play is sometimes part of my job. It’s not like chasing pickpockets. One murder or two, it’s the same life sentence for the bad guy. You know that my priority is coming home to the one I love. Your uncle, on the other hand, was more concerned about the city budget than the state of my health. The chief loves the fact that I have the best solved case statistics in the department—ever. But it sometimes comes with a cost, damaged police cars, the occasional stray bullet or property damage. It’s not my fault that criminals never want to go quietly.

Robert, you’re a right chancer. You’ve shot more people than I have fingers on my hand. And speaking of damages, I met another policewoman taking the same law course as I. We talked about the job and about ourselves. I told her I was living with a lieutenant from the major crimes division. She asked me your name, and when I said Robert, she made a funny face, ‘Not Robert Beaudry, the cowboy that once stole a snowplow,’ she said.

While Pat spoke, Antonio, the restaurant owner, sidled up to our table.

How are my favorite customers doing this evening? More wine perhaps?

Thank you, kind sir. But I’ve had just enough to thin the blood. And your man is driving tonight, Pat said.

He signaled the waiter, Then it’ll be coffee and a cappuccino on the house.

He pulled out a chair and sat next to Pat. So, I hear you’re leaving the fraud squad and studying to be a lawyer.

Antonio was a close friend from the reverse face of the badge. I had rarely seen him smile. He usually had the serious look of a banker on the other side of the desk from a man asking for an unsecured loan.

He had been an enforcer for a New York crime family. Piecing dark eyes, a hint of graying fuzz on his head and a body build as hard and solid as a fire hydrant. He’d fit in well as the typical Hollywood movie hit man. When the Feds put most of the Big Apple crime leaders in prison, a younger hot-headed second in command took over. Antonio wisely opted for early retirement and headed to Montreal.

He had invested his ill-gotten savings into a downtown gym, a catering service, and this French bistro.

You were saying that Lieutenant Beaudry once stole a snowplow. I’ve never heard that story. Was that the winter that you were dating the two nurses? he said.

Pat plunked her coffee cup on the table, spilling a drop on the tablecloth. Apparently, there are a few stories that I’ve not heard at all, at all.

She gave me a look that could have frosted my wine glass.

Pat’s hair color hinted at her fiery temperament. I knew that this was not something to be brushed off with a nonchalant comment. I’d have to come clean on my past peccadillo.

I sighed, took a last sip of a fine ninety-six-point Barbaresco, and started the tale of my snowplow misadventure from some twelve years ago.

TWO

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After the police academy, I had spent four years on patrol in uptown Montreal. That winter was my first year with a gold badge. The Chief had paired  me with an old-timer as my coach and mentor. My first nine months with the soft talking seasoned officer had gone well. I listened and dutifully applied his teachings. Sergeant Tony Tondino was a lanky six feet two detective with the nickname, Three ‘T’ for Tall Tony Tondino. My coach was happy with me. We were solving the shooting of a jewelry store clerk in a North-end store. My familiarity with the area, the players, and the criminal middlemen that would buy the stolen goods gave us the edge in finding the robber. It had also moved me to the driver’s seat in our unmarked car.

Marco is the only fence that’ll touch jewels this side of Sherbrooke Street. I know him from my investigations into some small-time home robberies, I said.

You know him well enough to tell me which arm to twist? Tony said.

He won’t rat out his sources, ‘I didn’t know it was stolen, and I don’t remember who brought it in.’ are his usual replies. I’m not enamored with paperwork. In my past dealings with him, I ignored his complicity and simply brought the goods back to their rightful owner. No further questions were asked. I’m certain he doesn’t know someone was killed during the heist. He’s allergic to cops breathing down his neck—bad for business. A murder will put him in the limelight, that will not sit well with him. I’m counting on the fact that he owes me one. It should give us a break.

It did.

Marco’s ruddy complexion dropped two shades of pale when Tony announced Marco was liable to be cited as an accessory after the fact in a homicide investigation. I jumped in as the nice partner in the bad cop, good cop scenario.

I pointed my thumb upward at Tony. I told my boss that you’re not the type of guy that condones a murder, but he’s having none of it, I said with a distressed look on my kisser.

Tony bent over and faced Marco.

We have a lot of pressure to find the murderer. The Jewish community is up in arms. I promise you’re going to share the burden.

Tony moved in close, nose to nose, he said,

The poor man had a wife and four kids. The sawed-off shotgun blew half his face off.

Marco went another half tone paler and seemed to shrink two inches shorter.

We’ve worked together before, I exaggerated. Any way we can get around this amicably?

He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. From behind it, Marco mumbled, Albert brought in some jewelry on consignment day before yesterday.

Albert Legault? I said.

He nodded as he stuffed his hanky into his back pocket.

Tony said, I need to use your washroom. He shuffled to the back of the building and left me alone with Marco.

Legault has moved up from home robbery to jewelry stores? I said.

"I think he owes some heavy vig on an old loan borrowed from some people." Marco volunteered.

If I had his current address, maybe it would be best if we could find the loot in his apartment. If he doesn’t pay the loan, he may be safer off the streets anyhow.

Is your partner going to let me off the hook?

They’ve promoted me to homicide detective. I’m interested in violent crimes. If something doesn’t slap me in the face, I can forget you in our report. Keep a low profile, and don’t forget you owe me big time.

We left the store with Albert’s address, a box filled with the stolen jewelry, and I had created a useful resource.

As I drove to our suspect, Tony had a strange, sad look on his face.

You upset about my deal with Marco?

No, I think you did well. We’re not in burglary. We stick to our homicide job, period. I’m not a fan of complicating my life with useless paperwork, either. I’ve got enough of my own problems.

You talking about your bladder problem? Piss-breaks happen more and more often. It’s probably an infection. I’ve been telling you for the past two weeks to get yourself to a doctor.

I hate doctors, Tony said. I’ll take a day off. It’ll say to bring my wife for a test because of her menopause. Don’t tell anyone it’s for me.

You don’t have to ask. What made you change your mind about doctors?

I’m pissing blood.

A four-letter word was my only comment. We drove the rest of the trip in silence.

Our suspect’s address was in the ten thousand block on Tolhurst Street. It was about as far North as you could go on the Island without running off into the river.

His door was on the bottom floor of a triplex.

I rang the doorbell. When he opened a half-minute later, I flipped my new badge in his face. I said, Albert, we have to talk.

To my surprise, he seemed relieved. He made a follow me hand sign and led us right into the living room. He plunked down into an abused La-Z-Boy. 

He sat, crooked and shrunken, as if he was a punctured blow-up doll. In the following second, tears started dribbling down his unshaven cheeks.

It was, was, an, an accident. At the end of his staccato statement, the faucet turned on full. I pulled up the heavy coffee table, plunked the box of stolen goods next to me, and sat close to him.

I let him cry for several minutes while Tony searched the house.

Three ‘T’ came back with a pillowcase in hand. The end of a shotgun protruded from the white fabric.

Truncated Savage double barrel twelve gauge, he said.

I spoke to our blubbering suspect. First, there’s no death penalty since nineteen-seventy-six so you don’t have to worry about that.

Tell us what happened, Tony said.

"Fukn’ gun went off as, as