“Very well, Inspector. Here is your warrant,” she said, signing three copies and pushing them across the table. “Go make your search.”
The men stood, wanting to be gone.
“Don’t stand on formalities. Why don’t you just turn and run. You have work to do, I suppose.”
“Thank you, Madame Justice,” said Giroux.
Vanier was on the phone to his good friend Leroux, a Detective Inspector in the Fraud Squad, before they were in the car. “We’re ready to roll. Get the gang down there, and we’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
They made it in fifteen. Vanier recognized the two unmarked cars and a black van by their occupants, ten officers in all, all of them itching to get out. He got out of the car and gestured to the others to follow. It was fifty minutes since Letarte had been thrown out into the snow, close to a world record for a search warrant. Vanier entered the building and waved the search warrant at the camera with a broad grin before leading six officers and Letarte down the hallway. Giroux tagged along just for the fun of it. Four officers stayed outside to watch the exits. Audet was sitting at his computer and looked up, open-mouthed, as they burst into the room. He started to type quickly, Vanier was already behind him, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pulling him over the chair and away from the keyboard. The chair fell, and Audet hung in mid-air until Vanier released his grip, letting him fall to the floor on his back. Audet knew better than to fight back, storing the anger.
“Fuck,” was all he could say.
“I did as you said, M. Audet. I went and got a warrant,” said Letarte with newfound courage. Vanier handed a copy of the warrant to Audet.
“Wait. Don’t touch anything. I want to call my lawyers. Don’t touch anything till I speak to the lawyers.” Audet was losing his authority, and he knew it, as he watched officers rooting through the filing cabinets.
“That’s not how it works,” said Vanier. “Call your lawyers, but we’re carrying on. Search warrant, remember? Now, where’s M. Nolet?”
“How the fuck do I know? Go find him yourself.”
“Why don’t we go find him together?” Vanier grabbed Audet and walked him to the door. “We won’t be long, gentlemen. Carry on.”
“Wait, before he goes,” asked Sergeant Filion, the computer geek. “Any passwords I should know about?”
“Fuck you,” said Audet. “Want me to spell that for you?”
“Oh, that’s OK. I love a challenge.”
Vanier pushed Audet out the door in front of him and walked him down the hallway and through the doors leading to the stairwell. It was deserted, and Audet went to climb the staircase. Vanier pulled him back and swung him against the wall, following with a punch to his gut. Audet doubled over, his knees buckling. Before he could think of reacting, Vanier pulled him up and landed another. Audet went down on his knees. Vanier pulled him up again and delivered a third punch to the gut. Audet fell back down on his knees, gasping for breath.
“OK, that should do it. Now, M. Audet, where is M. Nolet?”
“Dining room. Supervising the scumbags. It’s suppertime.”
“Right, let’s go back to the office and you can sit down.”
“I want to call my lawyer.”
“You can do that back in the office. Might be safer there.”
In the office, boxes were being packed with file folders, and the computer was being disconnected. Everything that was being removed was logged on to a sheet.
“Janvier, could you have someone get M. Nolet. He’s in the dining room.”
While he was waiting, Vanier began to go through Audet’s pockets. “Maitre Giroux, does the warrant cover things found on the premises?”
“Yes Inspector, it says, any other things found on the premises that might provide evidence relating to the receipt of funds from the Ministere de l’emploi et de la solidarite sociale.”
“And is a telephone a thing?” he said, holding up Audet’s phone.
“Yeah, that’s a thing.”
“And what are these?” asked Vanier, holding up two USB sticks that he found on Audet.
“Those things are data sticks. Used to store data,” said Filion. “Those are definitely things.”
Audet looked defeated. Nolet appeared, looking frightened.
“What’s all this about? We’re a homeless shelter. What in God’s name are you doing?”
“M. Nolet, good to see you again. Just routine work supporting the Ministere de l’emploi et de la solidarite sociale. I believe it’s a simple audit of the books. Things got a bit out of hand because of your M. Audet here, but they’re under control now. We’ll be taking M. Audet off your hands for a while. Seems he assaulted M. Letarte. But you can go on with your work. We should be finished in a few hours, and then we’ll be out of here. Oh, by the way, do you have a cell phone?”
“Yes,” said Nolet, fishing it out of his pocket. “Why?”
“Seized,” said Vanier, pocketing the phone.
Nolet looked from Vanier to Audet, who continued to look at his shoes.
Laurent called for a squad car to take Audet to the nearest station, with instructions to book him for assault. Given the holidays, Vanier hoped he wouldn’t get a bail hearing for a couple of days. The seized documents and computers were to be sent to the offices of M. Letarte, with a promise that they would be copied and sent to Leroux’s squad. Vanier had given the data sticks to Sergeant Filion and had pocketed Nolet’s and Audet’s cell phones. He looked at Laurent, “So I can leave you to close up once they’ve finished.”
“Of course, sir.”
With that, Vanier shook hands through the crowd of officers, thanked Leroux for the favour, and left.
9.30 PM
The office cleaners had finished for the night at Henderson and Associates, and Beaudoin had worked late often enough to know that Henderson never came back to the office after nine o’clock. Even so, he was nervous, and the sweat was staining his shirt. He could feel his heart beating as he sat in front of the computer on Henderson’s desk scrolling through files. He decided that the safest and quickest thing to do was to copy everything that was even slightly relevant to the Holy Land Shelter on to the data stick. He could go through it all later. He did a search for all the emails between Vladimir Markov and Henderson, and copied them. He was surprised there were so many. He then turned to Henderson’s files on the Shelter. Most of them he recognized as his own memos and draft documents, but he copied them anyway.
While he was scanning through the files, he came across one marked, “Overseas Billings” and copied everything in it. After an hour, he pulled the data stick out of the computer and began shutting down the computer. As he pressed the “Shut Down” command, he heard the electronic ping that announced the front door to the office opening. He pocketed the data stick and picked up the December issue of Canadian Bar Association Journal on Henderson’s desk. The cover article was on electronic discovery. He almost crashed into Henderson as he left his office, and Henderson’s face creased into its habitual broad smile, an unnatural curving of the lips without any sign of joy.
“Pascal. Working late I see. What were you looking for in my office?”
“Just this article on electronic discovery. I knew that we had received it, and it wasn’t in the library. I figured it might be sitting on your desk. Don’t mind if I borrow it for a while, do you?”
“Not at all, Pascal.”
Beaudoin walked quickly back to his office, cradling the data stick in his fist and hoping the computer had shut down.
Henderson scanned his desk for signs that things had been disturbed. Even though the desktop looked like a disorganized litter of files, loose paper and magazines, he knew its contours and could find anything in seconds. It didn’t seem to have been disturbed. But when he sat down, he reached under the desk and touched the computer. It was warm to the touch. He picked up the phone and dialed. He let it ring five times before it picked up.