A Very Tranquil Murder

Chapter 11 - Jovenal Toussaint

Why was it, Sgt. Jovenal Toussaint wondered, that when the first winter storm hit, half the population of Quebec forgot how to drive in bad weather?

He had spent a miserable night mopping up after car accidents, including a particularly nasty pileup on highway 15 involving four cars and an 18-wheeler, that had left two people dead and two others in critical care. He wanted nothing more than to go home to bed, but there were two hours left in his shift. Two hours of dreary paperwork.

The radio on his desk, tuned to a Montreal classical music station, let out a soothing trickle of piano notes. Saint-Saëns, if he wasn't mistaken. The music served to remind him that there was more to life than crime and traffic fatals. On the counter of the kitchenette in the corner of the room, a small coffee-pot gurgled, brewing the last pot of decaf before the end of the night shift.

He was about to get up and walk over, when he noticed a young constable making her way toward the kitchenette. Normally, this would be a chance to socialize, make some small talk, get to know a fellow officer. But with the pandemic, everyone had been instructed to stay two meters away from each other whenever possible. If he headed toward the kitchen now, it would surely be perceived as an act of rudeness, an assertion of his higher rank. The young constable would be forced to back away, while he staked his superior claim on the coffee-pot. 

Sgt. Toussaint turned back to his paperwork with a sigh, regretting the missed social connection far more than the delay in obtaining his cup of joe. Perhaps he should learn to enjoy his solitude. After all, he had only come to Val-Saint-Ambroise for a two-year secondment from the Montreal police force. Something about turning 50 had made him apply for the position. That, and the fact that his K-9 partner, a German Shepherd named Bastille, had retired after 10 years of service. It seemed fitting to offer the dog a retirement in the country, a place to chase squirrels and roam off-leash. As for Jovenal, he wasn't ready to train a new puppy yet. A two-year break would be a chance to slow things down, re-evaluate, get some perspective on his life. With the pandemic putting the whole world on hold, he'd had plenty of time to think; although, sadly, it hadn't led to any brilliant existential insights. Instead, it had shut down many of the small pleasures in life: the chance to get together with colleagues for a beer after work; the bonding that accompanied each new NHL season, with its endless discussions of great plays, boneheaded general managers, and various teams' prospects of making the playoffs; the simple act of sharing a cup of coffee.

Toussaint opened the folder containing the paperwork on Jerry Monk's drowning. A young constable had been out to interview Mr. and Mrs. Monk at the hospital. He read over their statements: nothing terribly out of the ordinary. Mr. Monk had gone to bed early and slept through the night. Mrs. Monk had spent a restless night.  According to her statement, at some point during the night she'd glimpsed two figures on the stairs leading down to the lower terraces, in the fleeting illumination of a motion-detector lamp. But without any identification of who or when, it was junk evidence that added nothing to the case.

There is no case. There is only an accidental death in a hot tub. Let it go.

Early on in his career, Toussaint had worked under a legendary inspector by the name of Beaudoin. Beaudoin could never let anything go. He would send his rookie constables off chasing leads that, to all others, seemed obscure and far-fetched. Ninety percent of the time, they were dead ends. But the other ten percent of the time, they would lead somewhere, which led somewhere else, which eventually helped to solve the crime. Toussaint admired that kind of tenacity. Maybe it was what had steered him into handling police dogs: a line of work where his natural stubborness — some would say pig-headedness — became an asset instead of a character flaw. It occurred to him that Beaudoin would have wanted to know more about the victim. In fact, had a young Toussaint returned to the station on the day of the incident without having investigated the victim's hotel room, Beaudoin no doubt would have turned him around and sent him back — not because he had any reason to believe there was anything suspicious about Jerry Monk, but simply because he could never, ever, leave a loose end untied.

It was in that spirit that Jovenal Toussaint opened the Quebec provincial criminal database on his computer and ran a search for Jerry Monk, date of birth August 12, 2000.

Jerry's rapsheet proved only mildly interesting. He had a juvenile record of petty crime: vandalism, shoplifting, joyriding. Although he'd managed to escape jailtime, he'd done more community service than the average boy-scout leader. Then, at the age of 18, he'd been charged in connection with a carjacking ring that stole expensive vehicles and shipped them to Eastern Europe out of the port of Montreal. Charged, but not convicted. Although it was impossible to know without looking at the court records, Toussaint could imagine a clever, expensive lawyer, arguing that young Jerry had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in a police dragnet. Maybe it was even true. In any case, it seemed that experience in an adult court had scared Jerry into going straight. That 2018 acquittal was the last thing on his record. He'd never been charged with a crime as an adult in Quebec. A quick check of the New Brunswick database, where Jerry was now living, also came up blank.

Feeling better for having tied off that loose end, Jovenal Toussaint shut down his computer. Sure, Jerry had a bit of a wild past, and according to his friends he still hadn't quite found his way in life. But there was nothing in Jerry's recent history to suggest that anyone had a reason for wanting him dead.

The night's sleet had softened into gently-falling powder snow as Toussaint pulled out of the police station parking lot at the end of his shift. The drive home took him past La Tranquilité Spa/B&B. The old house, its front porch decorated with festive evergreen boughs, looked quaint and inviting. He recalled the flowered wallpaper, the soft classical music, and the smell of the breakfast that he had been forced to refuse while on duty. The owner of the spa, Miss Clyde, was a newcomer to town, like himself. It might be a neighbourly gesture to drop by and say hello, although not while dressed in his police uniform, as he was now. Tomorrow morning he would finish his last overnight shift, then he'd have a three-day break before beginning a block of day shifts. Perhaps that would be an appropriate time to drop by, and see if the offer of breakfast might be renewed.

Yes, perhaps he'd visit Miss Clyde tomorrow.