by Giles Blunt
“Corporal Simmons, I have a few more questions for you.”
“She’s dead. I heard on the news. I really don’t feel like talking to you right now.”
“You’re a Mountie. You know I have to do this. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.”
Simmons looked at her with disgust. He dropped his screwdriver into a tool box with a clatter and headed up toward the house.
Delorme followed him inside. The place smelled of coffee. Simmons poured a cup and offered it to Delorme. When she declined, he took it into the living room, where he sat on the edge of a recamier couch and buried his face in his hands. Delorme tensed for another explosion. But when the corporal pulled his hands away, he just stared at them as if they held an open book. “I knew she was dead, right from the start. As soon as she went missing. Winter’s just not the type to go missing.”
“You seem to be taking it pretty calmly.”
“Calm? No, I wouldn’t say calm.”
Delorme sat on the edge of a wing chair. “Certainly calmer than the other day.”
“You think I killed Winter. And you think I’m calm because I killed her.”
Delorme shrugged. “If the shoe fits …”
“You don’t think it’s possible to be calm and yet in a great deal of pain?” Simmons sipped coffee from a delicate floral cup, an absurd cup for so muscular a man. “Can’t you understand that knowing for sure Winter’s dead is less stressful than wondering where she is? Wondering if she’s lying somewhere injured or in pain? I’m sitting here devastated, but at the same time, yes, I’m feeling less … stress, for lack of a better word.”
“I would’ve thought you’d be feeling a lot more, considering you don’t have an alibi—other than the hockey game you say you watched Monday night.”
“But I know I’m innocent, don’t I. So that’ll be bothering you more than it does me. Ever since I met Winter—that was over ten years ago now, back when we were in high school—I’ve wanted nothing more than to be with her. But it was never the same for her. Oh, she was fond of me. There were things about me she liked. But I wanted to marry her, and she would never agree. It was excruciating.”
Simmons contemplated the steam rising from his coffee. He smoothed back his fringe of pale hair. He would have been attractive, Delorme thought, if he wasn’t such a fake, such an actor.
“From the time we met, it was like I had this motor going inside me—gotta have her, gotta have her, gotta have her.” He ran the words together like a revving engine. “Day after day, year after year, my entire focus was on trying to get Winter to love me. I would do anything. When I was at the training depot out in Regina, I would sometimes fly all the way to Ottawa—it cost me a fortune!—just to be with her for one day. One day!
“And letters. I wrote her endless letters, telling her how much I loved her. I even started reading about medicine, because that’s what she was studying. Can you imagine?”
“Look, Corporal Simmons, it’s no news to me that you were hung up on Dr. Cates. That was obvious from your phone messages.”
“You know what it was like?” Simmons looked at her, and Delorme saw he didn’t really want an answer. “It was like running on high revs for ten years. More. And you know what? It’s over now. So even though I’m devastated that Winter’s gone, it’s also as if this weight has been lifted. I don’t have to try anymore. It’s over. There’s nothing I can do about it, and I don’t have to win her over anymore, and so in some weird way it’s kind of a relief.”
“Well, that’s nice for you,” Delorme said. “I’m sure Dr. Cates wouldn’t have minded dying if she knew how good it was going to make you feel. She probably would have done it a lot sooner.”
“You can’t really suspect me, Detective. I’m being more honest than most people would be in this situation.”
“Of course you are. Me, I’m very impressed. And besides, you were here watching the hockey game when she was killed, no? That’s what you said.”
“That’s what I said. And it’s the truth.”
“Then why was your Jeep Wrangler, licence number PAL 474, spotted at the Northtown Mini-mall in Algonquin Bay Monday night? Shortly before Dr. Cates was killed.”
Simmons lowered his coffee cup to the table, so slowly that it made no sound. All the colour drained from his face. Then he leaned forward and put his face once more in his hands.
“A court of law is going to have a hard time appreciating your so-called honesty, Corporal Simmons. You said you were here when Winter was murdered, but you weren’t. You were in Algonquin Bay.”
“Oh, God,” Simmons said into his hands. “Oh, merciful God.”
16
EVEN THE ICE COULDN’T KEEP THE teenagers from hanging around the Northtown Mini-mall. The Cosmic Arcade had at least a half-dozen kids standing under the awning, smoking cigarettes and jostling one another and belching and generally being obnoxious in all the ways teenagers have perfected.
You have to wonder how they can stand it, Delorme was thinking. I sure wouldn’t want to be standing out there this time of year with my navel exposed. Then again, I wouldn’t be doing that in midsummer either.
Delorme and Craig Simmons had driven here in their separate vehicles, and now he was sitting beside her on the front seat of the unmarked. Their attention was not on the games arcade. The Northtown Mini-mall also housed an electronics parts store, several empty storefronts and Fantasy XXX Video.
It was the video store that Delorme and Simmons were watching. The neon sign flashed blurry rubies on the windshield, where ice had melted. Delorme flicked on the wipers and the shop came once again into focus.
“You can’t tell anybody about this,” Simmons said. “Ever. Obviously, I’d be finished on the force.”
“Assuming it turns out to be true.”
“I’m very careful. I never do this in Sudbury or Mattawa, places where I’m known.”
“Careful? When you don’t even know who you’re … I wouldn’t exactly call that careful.”
Simmons drew a face in the mist on the passenger window. “It’s a kink, all right? It’s nothing to get sanctimonious about. A lot of people do it.”
“A lot of men, you mean.”
“All right, a lot of men.”
Delorme looked at her watch. “It’s going on eleven-thirty now. There’s no reason to think this guy’s going to show. If he exists.”
“He said he comes by three or four nights a week. He said if I wanted to meet up again, he’d probably be here.”
“Three or four nights a week. You must not give much of a damn about your health if you—”
“There he is,” Simmons said. “That’s him.”
He pointed to a middle-aged man in a tan raincoat who was locking the door of a battered Caprice. The man looked briefly around the parking lot and headed toward the video store.
“Wait here,” Delorme said. She got out of the car and came up behind the man before he reached the store.
“Excuse me, sir. I need to talk to you.” The man turned, frowning.
“Is this your glove?” Delorme held up a brown leather glove, brand new.
The man felt in his pockets, pulled out one glove. “Why, yes, I guess it is.”
He reached for the glove, but Delorme pulled out her badge. “I have a few questions for you. It’ll only take a minute.”
The man stepped back. “What’s going on? Why should I answer any questions?”
“Because you happen to be a witness in a murder case.”
“Murder? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He stepped past Delorme, back toward his car.
“I’m sure you don’t. But you saw a young man right here in this parking lot on Saturday night. You were in his car. The Jeep Wrangler, remember?”
“You have no right to ask me anything. You can’t harass me like this,” he said, and opened his car door. “I have a very good lawyer.”
“You also have a wife, I notice from that ring on you
r hand. You’d probably prefer to answer questions here than at your house, no?”
The man folded his arms. He looked at the ground and shook his head. “I don’t believe this.”
Delorme came closer. “Listen. I have less than no interest in your sex life. All I need you to do is confirm a few things.”
“Great. Like I have nothing better to do.”
“Right at this moment, that’s probably true.” Delorme signalled to Simmons. He got out of the car and walked round to stand on the driver’s side. He was about twenty yards away. “Do you recognize him?”
“Yes. All right? It’s called consenting adults. Can I go now?”
“What time were you with him on Saturday night?”
“I don’t know. Around midnight.”
“We’re talking about a murder. Be more specific.”
“I first noticed him about eleven-thirty, when I went into the store. I looked around for a while. When I came out, he was still there. A little while later we, uh, spent some time together in his Jeep.”
“From when until when? I need you to be specific.”
“From about twelve-thirty, maybe till one o’clock. I went straight home after, and the clock on the mantel said one-thirty.”
“So, you left here about one. Did he leave too?”
“He was still here.”
“I’ll need to see some ID, in case we need to call you about any of this.”
“I don’t see why you need my—”
“Just show me the ID, will you?”
The man produced a driver’s licence and Delorme took down the information. She handed it back to him.
“I’d like my glove back, please.”
“No, we’ll have to hang on to that. But thanks for your co-operation.”
“As if I had any choice.”
The man got into his car and slammed the door and was out of the parking lot in ten seconds flat.
“He corroborated my statement, didn’t he?” Simmons said. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Once you’ve had a Mountie, you never go back.’”
“It’s just lucky he lost that glove in my car. He probably wouldn’t have admitted a thing, otherwise.”
“Corporal Simmons, listen to me. I won’t be telling anyone about this incident unless it’s absolutely necessary. Right now, I don’t see why it would be. But my advice to you is find yourself a line of work where it doesn’t matter if you’re gay.”
“That’s brilliant, Detective. I’d love being a hairdresser.”
“Think of how confusing it must have been for Dr. Cates. All this time you’re clinging to her—she didn’t know she was just cover. Although she must’ve suspected you were gay.”
“You don’t seem to get it, Detective. Winter wasn’t just cover. I really loved her. And I don’t think of myself as gay.”
Delorme watched him drive away. It was raining again; even the teenagers had decided to pack it in. Delorme let the fat, icy drops fall on her for a few moments as she tried to absorb the day’s work. But all she could really think was that no matter how long she stayed on this job, and no matter how long she lived, she would never—and she mentally italicized the word never—understand men.
17
CARDINAL HAD MANAGED TO CATCH the last flight leaving Toronto that Wednesday for Algonquin Bay. “Thank God, you’re back,” Catherine said the moment he stepped off the tarmac. She looked pale, the lines on her face deeper.
“How is he?”
“Stable. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but they say he’s stable.”
They drove down a glistening Airport Hill toward City Hospital, Cardinal fighting an uprush of panic.
“He was having trouble breathing,” Catherine told him. “I’d dropped him at home, and he was putting groceries away when suddenly he was feeling like he couldn’t breathe. Anyway, he called his cardiologist—who called an ambulance, thank God—and now he’s in the ICU.”
His father seemed in many ways an indestructible man, but Cardinal suddenly feared that he might become incapacitated, that he would have to live with Cardinal and Catherine and they’d oversee his final months or years, wheeling him about, changing his diaper. Then Cardinal’s Catholic conscience rounded on him and threatened centuries of hellfire for that selfish thought.
At the intensive care unit they were informed that Stan Cardinal had been moved to cardiac care, on the fourth floor. The nurse told Cardinal his father was resting comfortably. “We’ve adjusted his medication, and he seems to be responding well. I suspect he’ll be discharged tomorrow.”
“Can I see him?”
“Keep it to five minutes. We don’t want to tire him out.”
“Which room is he in?”
“He’s in one of the ‘Mantis’ suites, I’m afraid—one of the curtained-off areas down the hall.”
“Wait a minute. My father’s having heart failure, and you’re telling me you’ve got him parked in the hall?”
“I’m sorry. Cutbacks courtesy of the government. A bed in the hall is the best we can do right now.”
“I saw him already,” Catherine said gently. “Why don’t I just wait here for you?”
There were three so-called Mantis suites. Cardinal’s father was in the last one, his curtain pulled back so he got some light from a window that looked out across railway tracks and the schoolyard of Algonquin High. The glass was blurry with rain.
The bed was cranked upward at a thirty-degree angle. Stan Cardinal lay sunken against the pillows, his head drooping to one side as if the weight of the clear plastic tube taped to his nostril was too much to bear. His eyes were closed, but as Cardinal approached, they fluttered open.
“Look who’s here.” His father’s voice sounded much stronger than he looked. “The forces of law and order.”
“How you feeling?”
“Like an elephant’s sitting on my chest. It’s better, though. Earlier, it was two elephants and a rhinoceros.”
“The nurse says they’ll probably send you home tomorrow.”
“I wish they’d send me home right now.”
“Well, they seem pleased with how you’re doing.” Cardinal could hear the false note of optimism in his own voice.
“I feel fine. I really do. I only called the cardiologist to see about my prescription. I didn’t expect him to haul off and call an ambulance.”
“Well, you must have needed it.”
His father shrugged and winced. His skin was grey and papery, his eyes watery.
“Are you all right? Do you need the nurse?”
“I’m fine, for God’s sake. I just want to go home. How the hell do they expect you to get better in a hospital? What you really need is to be surrounded by your own things, watch your own television, make tea in your own pot. This place, you’re at the mercy of everybody. Stuck in the hall like a sideshow. You ring and ring and they just wander by whenever they please. At home I can fix what I want, when I want. I don’t have to rely on these little Dairy Queen dollies to bring it to me.”
“I better go. They told me not to stay long.”
“Yeah, get outa here. I’ll call you as soon as they give me my walking papers.”
Driving home, Catherine reached over and touched Cardinal’s shoulder. “Maybe your dad should come and live with us for a while. You know, if the doctors say he needs to have someone around all the time, he can stay with us. I’m fine with that, if you are. I wouldn’t say so if I wasn’t.”
“I don’t think he’d stay with us anyway,” Cardinal said. “You know, when Mom died, I wasn’t sure he was going to make it, he was so … shipwrecked. But he pulled it together and got himself that little house, and there he was at the age of seventy-one, living on his own for the first time since he was twenty-something. He’s never said so, but he’s really proud of that. Self-sufficiency. Independence. It’s everything to him.”
“I know, sweetheart. I’m just saying, if he needs to have people around him, we
can have him with us.”
Cardinal nodded. He found it hard to look into Catherine’s eyes—she, who had suffered so much, offering her helping hand.
She asked him about work.
He gave her a brief rundown of his New York trip.
“Did you get a chance to call Kelly?”
“There wasn’t time,” Cardinal said. “I had to get back here. The problem with this case is that the luck is all running one way—against us and for whoever it is we’re after. I’m just not getting anywhere.”
Cardinal went inside the house with Catherine, but only long enough to see that everything was all right. Trying not to be too obvious about it, he checked the doors and windows for signs of tampering. There were none.
“It’s ten o’clock at night and you’ve still got your coat on,” Catherine said. “You’re not going back to work at this hour, I hope.”
“Afraid so. Shouldn’t be long, though.”
Cardinal’s next stop was the Hilltop Motel, a red brick oblong located, as the name suggested, at the top of Algonquin. He parked in an unobtrusive corner. There were only three cars in the lot, and the asphalt gleamed with black ice. Cardinal had already checked to see if Squier was still registered, but the slot in front of number eleven was empty.
While he was waiting, Cardinal listened to the news. The provincial election was gearing up. Premier Mantis had announced he would indeed run again: it was time to stay the course, not to rock the boat. His Liberal opponent, not to be outdone in clichés, thought it was time for a new dawn.
A few minutes later Calvin Squier pulled in.
Cardinal jumped out of the car and called across the lot, “Hey, Squier!”
Squier turned at the doorway of room eleven, key in hand. “Hiya, John. How’ve you been?”
“Fine. Been travelling.”
Cardinal had one hand thrust out to shake. When Squier reached out, he slapped the cuffs on him. On the slick pavement, it was beautiful: Cardinal pulled down and sideways, and Squier went down like a bagged moose, his cellphone skittering across the ice. Cardinal had the other cuff on him before he had time to catch his breath.