The Madness of Crowds

The prearranged video call from Nanaimo came through for Isabelle, and she excused herself. Returning to her desk and putting on her headset, she answered.

“Inspector Lacoste?” A middle-aged man in plain clothes appeared. “It’s Sergeant Fillmore. Barry.”

“Salut, Barry. It’s Isabelle. Thank you for doing this.”

“No worries. Should we begin?”

The Nanaimo investigators had already been through Debbie Schneider’s house once, but Isabelle wanted to see it for herself.

She always found it interesting, and often revealing, to see the private space of a victim, or a suspect. Actually, she just liked looking at people’s homes, often going for walks with the kids around their neighborhood in the evening, hoping to get a peek into lighted living rooms.

Now she hit record and watched as Sergeant Fillmore took her through the modest bungalow in Nanaimo. Two bedrooms. Galley kitchen. There was a TV in the living room and what looked like good, but dated, furniture. Probably inherited from parents. Framed photographs sat on side tables and bookcases.

The home was tidy. Comfortable. Left by someone expecting to return.

The final stop was what Isabelle really wanted to see. The second bedroom had been made into an office. That was less tidy.

Fillmore panned around, then turned to the desk. “The top drawer was locked when we found it. We had to break in.”

“But there wasn’t much in it, from what I remember.”

“No. We emptied it onto the top of the desk.” He pointed his phone at the collection of items.

There were birthday cards, assorted office supplies. An agenda sat on top of a partially obscured photograph.

“Can you get a clearer picture of the photograph, please?”

He pulled it out and Isabelle’s face softened. There, unexpectedly, was Maria.

And not just Maria. There was young Debbie and Abby and a man who could only be Paul Robinson. All gathered around the wheelchair. Smiling.

“Can you box up the things from her desk and send them to me, express?”

“Fine.” Though he sounded less than pleased.

“Merci.”

After hanging up, Isabelle went back over the video, pausing at the photograph. She took a screenshot and printed out copies. Then she contemplated it.

The picture was taken at the oceanfront, one sunny summer’s day.

Isabelle guessed that Abigail and Debbie were about fifteen and Maria would have been nine.

Lacoste looked closely at the little girl with the huge brown eyes and twisted body. Was this the last year of her life? The last month? Week? She’d died on August 27th, the coroner’s report said. On a sunny summer’s day?

Isabelle sat back in her chair and stared. Now why, she asked herself, was this photograph hidden away and not up with the others? It seemed innocuous enough. It looked pretty much like any family photograph. The very pedestrian nature of it fascinated her.

Paul Robinson was bending down, his face close to Maria’s. Smiling. This was not, Isabelle thought, a man on the verge of nervous collapse. He didn’t look exhausted and spent. And contemplating the unthinkable.

He looked happy, carefree even. Though Isabelle knew that while a picture might be worth a thousand words, many of them were lies. Or at least misleading.

She’d smiled in pictures but had been seething inside. Or sad. Or bored. People were programmed to smile for pictures. To say “Cheeeeeze.” It meant next to nothing.

But still, there was an ease about this image.

Paul Robinson had one hand resting casually on the back of Maria’s wheelchair, the other on Abigail’s shoulder. Protectively.

Three of the four people in the photograph were now dead. One apparently accidental death, one perhaps by his own hand, and one had been murdered not two days ago.

One thing Inspector Lacoste did not doubt was that everything had begun with two people not in this picture.

The tragedies had started with the mind control, the mind-boggling experiments conducted in full view at one of the continent’s great universities. By a prominent madman. And by an intern who’d go on to become one of the nation’s leading academics. A healer. A humanitarian.

And when she found among her father’s things the old letter from the Allan Memorial signed by Vincent Gilbert, Abigail Robinson knew it too. And while she couldn’t get at Cameron, she could get at Gilbert.

And had he, with one swing of his arm, attempted to rid himself of that threat?

Isabelle got up and started to pace.