The Delicate Storm (10 page)

Delorme stepped up onto a lilac veranda of scrolled woodwork. Musgrave had called the Simmons cottage a dollhouse, and Musgrave was dead-on. There was a cast-iron bootscraper at the top of the steps, and on the front door a brass lion’s-head knocker. The door opened and a young man in T-shirt and jeans looked her over. Muscly, as Ms. Gale had said, a man who spent a lot of time in the gym.

“Can I help you?”

His hair was longer than in the photo at Dr. Cates’s house; it hung in a wheat-coloured fringe over his brow. And he looked much smaller out of the Mountie uniform. But despite the casual dress, he was neat, contained: the jeans and the T-shirt were pressed.

“Craig Simmons?” Delorme held up her shield. “I’m Detective Lise Delorme, Algonquin Bay police.”

“You’re a little far out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”

“Mind if I come in for a minute? It’s kind of damp out here.”

Simmons held the door open.

Northern Ontario has two schools of cottage owners. The first uses the cottage as a sort of attic and fills it with castoffs—spavined sofas, cat-shredded armchairs, VCRs past their prime, any item no longer wanted at home. The second school sees the cottage as an alternate house and does everything to make it handsome, comfortable and inviting, sometimes spending more money than on their principal residence.

To these two schools Delorme now added a third: dwellers in the realm of fantasy. The Simmons place was dedicated to the preservation of a Victorian era that never was. It called out from the brass candlesticks, the etched-glass cupboards, the lace curtains. It winked and shone from the beaded lampshades, the silver sugar bowl and the grandfather clock that was off by a good half-hour. Above a massive oak dining table, a foxed photograph of Queen Victoria brooded in a bevelled frame.

“My mother’s place,” Simmons said, gesturing at the frippery. “And someday, I swear, it’s all going to change. Have a seat.” He indicated a set of dining chairs, each one elaborately flounced.

Delorme chose not to waste time cozying up. “Corporal Simmons, I know you’re with the Sudbury
RCMP
detachment. What are you doing down here in Mattawa this time of year?”

“I got a call from the OPP there was a break-in. They had a whole series of them out here.”

“But the place looks in great shape.”

“They broke into the boathouse. Took a pair of twin 95 Merc outboards.”

“And where were you last night?”

“Last night? I was here the whole time. Why?”

“The whole time? What were you doing?”

“I was painting the bedroom. I thought, since I was out here, I may as well take care of it. That took most of the night. Then I watched the end of the hockey game. Is this in reference to an investigation?”

“Who won?” Delorme asked.

As a Mountie, the corporal was no doubt more used to asking questions than answering them. He seemed thrown by the question, opening his mouth for a moment, then closing it, then looking away.

“The game,” Delorme added. “You said you watched the hockey game.”

“Detroit won. Five-four.”

True, Delorme knew, but it was the sort of alibi guilty people cooked up all the time. “You sure you weren’t visiting Winter Cates?”

“Visiting Winter? No, I wasn’t, as a matter of fact. I saw her earlier in the day.”

“Yes, I know. And you had words with her.”

“I had a conversation with her. Look, Detective, this is my private life you’re prying into. How do you even know about me and Winter? What’s this all about?”

“At least one witness says your voices were raised. Angry. Are you saying that’s not the case?”

“Winter was annoyed that I showed up at her office.”

“But you had to, didn’t you? She didn’t give you any choice. She wasn’t answering your calls.”

Simmons’s face changed, his features shifting from budding anger to fear. “Has something happened to Winter? Has she been hurt?”

“You tell me, Mr. Simmons.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just tell me, is Winter all right?”

“Winter Cates hasn’t been seen since last night. Not by the hospital, not by her patients, not by her parents.”

“She is a doctor, you know. She could’ve been called away on some emergency.”

“What type of emergency would that be? Her car is still at home.”

Simmons seemed to flinch, registering this fact.

“‘You make me feel like I’m begging,’” Delorme quoted from memory. “‘You treat me worse than I would treat a stranger.’ Pretty strong words, no?”

Simmons’s face was turning scarlet. Delorme had a feeling it wasn’t from embarrassment.

“You’re implying that I would hurt Winter?”

“Where is she, Corporal Simmons? I’m thinking maybe you showed up unannounced again. It seems to be a habit of yours. She wasn’t answering your phone calls, she tossed you out of her office and you were going to make her listen. It’s over for her, and you just can’t accept it.”

“Who do you think you are?” Simmons said. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Where is she, Mr. Simmons?”

He was a small man who must have only just made it past the
RCMP
height restrictions, but he gripped the edge of the oak table and with a sudden motion flipped it so hard that it landed not on its side but completely upside down, lion’s-paw feet clawing the air.

“Take it easy,” Delorme said, more rattled than she tried to let on. “Just answer the question.”

“Who do you think you are?” Simmons said again. “Some little frog bitch fresh off the farm. That’s how you got your job, right? The old bilingual free pass? Tell me something: how’d you do in hand-to-hand down at Aylmer?”

“We’re not talking about me, Mr. Simmons. It’s your girlfriend who’s missing. Former girlfriend. And you don’t have an alibi.”

The truth was, Delorme had had to repeat the hand-to-hand training, and even then she’d only squeaked by. Since then she had spent a lot of hours with a personal trainer, but she was not in a rush to take on an enraged Mountie. She wondered whether to pull her gun. Is this guy faking it? Or is he really going berserk?

“Corporal Simmons,” she said, “a simple yes or no will do. Do you know where Winter Cates is right now?”

Simmons took a step closer.

“Just answer the question. You can leave out the macho theatrics.”

“Maybe I’m an emotional person,” Simmons said. His voice had gone very quiet. “A passionate person.”

“Maybe a violent person,” Delorme said. “Maybe homicidal.”

Simmons glared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “You don’t know anything about me,” he said. “And frankly, I’m pretty disgusted that you don’t give a fellow officer the benefit of the doubt.”

He went over to the door and held it open. “I don’t have any idea where Winter might be. You may not like that answer, Detective, but it’s the truth. If she’s really missing, then I’m far more worried about her than you’ll ever be. And if you have any more questions, you’re going to have to wait until I get a lawyer.”

“Corporal, we have your messages on Winter’s phone machine, we have a one-sided love affair, we have your explosive temperament and we have your uncorroborated alibi. If Dr. Cates doesn’t show up very soon, for sure you will need a lawyer.”

Simmons held the door wider.

Delorme nodded at the overturned table. “Might be a good time to redecorate, too.”

Melissa Gale was right, she thought, back in the car: the guy’s an actor.
Oh, I’m so tough. So passionate
. Give me a break.

As she drove back toward the highway—the dim green forest passing by, rain blurring the hills—she began to have second thoughts. What if Simmons was a genuine berserker? Would it matter either way? If he was faking, it looked like he was covering up a guilty conscience. If he wasn’t faking, then it made him look capable of—well, she hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be murder.

12

D
ELORME TOLD
C
ARDINAL
about her missing doctor the next morning. They were in the squad room, sipping coffee from Tim Hortons.

“She can’t have been gone long,” Cardinal said. “I just saw her on Monday.”

“You know Winter Cates?” Delorme said. “I wish you’d told me that yesterday.”

“You didn’t ask,” Cardinal said. “I hope she’s all right.”

“It’s not looking good, unfortunately. She’s been gone nearly thirty-six hours, but her car’s still at home.”

Cardinal recalled the young woman’s brisk manner, the way she had handled his father, stern but friendly. He remembered the dark eyes, the barely controlled hair. “I only met her for the first time on Monday,” he said, “when she was treating my dad. But there was a guy in her office—young guy with blond hair who seemed to be having an argument with her.”

“Craig Simmons. I’ve already talked to him. He’s an ex-boyfriend, not to mention a Mountie.”

Cardinal snapped his fingers. “That’s where I’ve seen him before. He works for Musgrave, right? What’s his story?”

“Let’s just say, if Cates doesn’t show up, I’ll be talking to Corporal Simmons again soon. This guy’s all attitude and no alibi.”

Delorme put down her coffee, wandered over to Chouinard’s office and rapped on the door.

Cardinal’s phone rang. He picked it up, and the voice on the other end eradicated all thoughts of the missing doctor.

Few men can say exactly what is the worst thing they have ever done, but Cardinal knew to the hour. It had been almost thirteen years ago, his last year on the Toronto narcotics squad. The squad had raided the house of one of Ontario’s top three drug dealers, a violent pig named Rick Bouchard. While Cardinal’s fellow officers had been dealing with Bouchard and his henchmen—including a malevolent troll named Kiki B.—Cardinal had found a gym bag full of cash in a bedroom closet. To his everlasting shame he had walked off with nearly two hundred grand of it. The other five hundred thousand was used as evidence, and the cash, along with the drugs, had been enough to convict everyone they hauled in.

Kiki B. was on the line now.

“I hope you got Rick’s card. I wouldn’t want you to think we’d forgotten about you.”

“Kiki, I’m only going to say this once: if you—or anybody connected with you—ever shows up at my home, I will make you pay for the rest of your life. Do you understand that?”

“Twelve years, Cardinal. Do you understand
that?
Bouchard’s been in Kingston Pen for twelve years. He’s got another six months to go and then he’s out, and he wants his money now. He sees it as a nest egg you’ve been holding for him.”

“Tell him not to expect interest. The market’s been bad lately.”

“He wants his two hundred grand, Cardinal. He knows you took it and he’s going to get it back or you may as well start making out your will.”

“I don’t have his money, Kiki. This may be hard for you to imagine, but it’s the truth.” Cardinal wished he felt as calm as he managed to sound.

“Uh-huh. What’d you do—give it to charity?”

“Actually, did you ever hear of Sunrise?”

“The Sunrise Foundation? You gave it to a drug rehab outfit? Oh, man, Rick’s gonna really appreciate the humour in that one, Cardinal. He’s gonna laugh really hard.”

It was true that was where the last of the money had gone, but before that Cardinal had used it to cover Catherine’s hospital bills in the States, where her parents had insisted she get treatment, and Kelly’s tuition at Yale. He had revealed the whole story to his wife and daughter the previous year, when he could no longer live with his conscience. With her tuition pulled out from under her, Kelly had been forced to leave Yale before her final semester, and Cardinal was certain she had not forgiven him. He had even attempted to resign from the force, but Delorme had intercepted his resignation letter on its way to the chief. “You’re a good cop,” she had said to him. “Why damage the department by quitting?” Cardinal had been in hospital with two bullet wounds at the time and hadn’t had the strength to resist.

“Kiki, why don’t you find yourself a new employer?” he said now. “Put a resumé together. You’re not getting any younger.”

“This is your last warning, Cardinal. You think Bouchard’s gonna come out of prison broke? He won’t stand for it.”

“Oh, he won’t stand for it. Well, in that case—”

“Okay, I’ve tried to help you here. You choose not to be a good listener, that’s your problem. And don’t think Bouchard can’t have you dealt with from prison—he can. Next time it won’t be a card or a phone call.”

Cardinal hung up. He held his hand out above his desk and watched it tremble. Shame welled up inside him, that something he had done—even though it had been so long ago—could jeopardize his home. For the thousandth time he cursed his own stupidity.

His intercom buzzed, Mary Flower telling him that Calvin Squier had arrived. Cardinal went out to the desk area.

“Great to see you again, John,” Squier said, putting out a hand to shake. “How you doing?” Only Americans shake hands that much, Cardinal thought. Americans and con men and Calvin Squier of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

“You’re back from New York already? You just left yesterday.”

“Couldn’t wait to get back. New York’s not a town I want to spend a lot of time in.”

Cardinal brought him back into the CID area. The squad room was a considerable improvement over the previous headquarters, with its dented file cabinets and smells of smoke and sweat and other, less palatable odours. But Cardinal was sure that Squier, with his Boy Scout smile and his too many teeth, worked in the finest office a federal budget—and a hidden budget at that—could buy.

“Hey, nice space you have here,” Squier said. He made a sweeping gesture at the desks and dividers, the wall of windows, the sheets of plastic sagging overhead. Delorme was just coming in from somewhere. She glanced at them a moment, then went over to her own desk. Squier’s head turned.

Cardinal pulled a chair out from McLeod’s cubicle. McLeod was still on vacation in Florida.

“Have a seat.”

“New York, I’m telling you,” Squier said. “Too big, too dirty and just too darn American. I fully understand they had that awful 9/11 thing, but I wasn’t even near that area. There’s no trees in that city. Nothing green. No air. Mind you, it’s kind of impressive to look at. It’s Toronto times a hundred. You ever been?”

Cardinal shook his head. “You spoke to Matlock’s next of kin?”

Squier nodded. “Spoke to the wife. She was pretty broken up, of course.”

“What did you find out?”

“According to her, Howard Matlock didn’t have a single enemy in the world.”

“That’s what she told you?”

“Oh, not just the wife. I spoke to neighbours, local church, couple of clients—he was a chartered accountant, remember. Clients had nothing but good things to say about him: thorough, saves you money, but honest. That’s not what I get from the FBI, however.”

“Really? What did the feds have to say?”

“They’re keeping very close tabs on a homegrown anti-government outfit called
WARR
—short for Waco and Ruby Ridge, two places where the FBI killed American citizens. Anyway,
WARR
is a bunch of angry white men whose first priority, it seems, is what they call ‘blinding the enemy.’ They want to hamper America’s ability to surveil its own people. So they’ve been sending pipe bombs to the NSA, that kind of thing.”

“Which would explain an interest in the
CADS
base, but not who killed him.”

“The Bureau had connected Matlock to an explosive device that got sent to their Washington headquarters. Luckily, it didn’t explode. Anyway, Matlock was working out a deal to turn state’s evidence, and apparently his fellow members of
WARR
got wind of it.”

“Solid motive for murder, in other words.”

A high-speed drill started up overhead, and they had to shout at each other to be heard.

“Very solid.”

“And what about the wife? She a member of this nut-group?”

“Nope, strictly Matlock’s personal hobby, far as we can tell.”

“How’d they get along?”

“About average, I’d say. His own folks’re dead, but I talked to his in-laws. In-laws say they had their ups and downs like anybody, but no knock-down, drag-out fights. Neighbours never heard them screaming at each other or anything like that. Why, you think the wife wanted him done for?”

The drilling stopped, and the sudden quiet seemed exaggerated.

“I only know what you tell me.”

“Well, I can tell you there was no huge insurance policy on him, if that’s what you’re thinking. I checked that out first thing. Besides, I think this
WARR
angle looks a lot more promising, don’t you?”

“Maybe. But tell me this, Squier: why would they kill him in Canada?”

“Because it would be that much harder to make the connection to them. And, please, call me Calvin.”

“But I like Squier. It has a knights-in-armour ring to it.”

Squier regarded him thoughtfully. Then he leaned forward in his chair and spoke confidentially. “You’re not still upset about the other night, are you? I must be nearly twenty years younger than you and I had the advantage of surprise, big time.”

“Squier, did anyone ever tell you you talk too much?”

Squier nodded. “People have told me that. I have to be honest—not a good thing in my game, either.”

“No, indeed,” Cardinal said solemnly. “Loose lips sink ships.”

Squier looked around at the squad room, his gaze settling a little longer than necessary on Delorme. “So, did you and Musgrave make any headway?”

Cardinal told him the tale of Bressard and the bears. Squier took notes on a palmtop device with a tiny metal pencil.

“And who does he say paid him to get rid of the body?”

“A gangster named Leon Petrucci.”

Squier noted the name on his palmtop. “Why would a local Mafia guy have any interest in an American terrorist? I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. You asked where we’d got to; that’s where we are.”

“I suppose they could have just contracted it out.”

“Petrucci’s not Al Capone. I’d be surprised if anyone in the States had ever heard of him.”

“In any case, there may not be much more for you to do. All the answers are going to come from the American end and this
WARR
angle. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you fully informed.” Squier fitted his palmtop into a smart leather case and put it in his pocket. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do. I’ve already spoken to the Forensic Centre about arrangements to ship the remains back to the U.S. In the meantime, you can find me at the Hilltop.”

“Well, you’ve certainly been busy. If I can ever return the favour, I hope you’ll let me know.”

“Oh, you can count on that, John.” Squier reinforced his all-Canadian grin with a thumbs-up. “You can take that to the bank.”

As Cardinal was showing him out, Squier said, “Was that Lise Delorme? That woman a couple of desks over?”

“Detective Delorme. She’ll break your arm for you, Squier.”

“Why would she do that? She’s not wearing a wedding ring.”

“She’s a very serious person.”

“Well, so am I, John. So am I.”

When he was gone, Cardinal went straight back to his desk and dialed New York information. They gave him the phone number for Howard Matlock at 312 East Ninety-first Street. Cardinal began to think what he would say to the bereaved wife, if she was at home.

“Hello?” It was a man who answered.

“Hello, is this the residence of Howard Matlock?”

“Yes.”

A relative, Cardinal thought. An in-law come to comfort the wife.

But then the voice said, “I’m Howard Matlock.”

Detective Sergeant Daniel Chouinard was looking for something under a stack of yet-to-be-installed shelves and banged his head when Cardinal announced that he wanted to go to New York.

“There’s no reason to go to New York.
CSIS
is going to New York.”

“
CSIS
has already come back. Calvin Squier just laid out a very plausible scenario for Matlock’s murder. According to Squier, Howard Matlock was caught spying on the
CADS
base, right?”

“Right. So?”

“I just called the
CADS
base. Their head of security has never heard of Howard Matlock. He has no record of any such incident.”

“Well, maybe
CSIS
told him to deep-six the records of it for some reason.”

“Calvin Squier also neglected to mention another little detail.” He told Chouinard about his call to New York.

“You’re telling me Howard Matlock is alive?”

“Howard Matlock is alive, and Howard Matlock has never heard of Algonquin Bay.”

“Meaning we have no idea who the dead man is.”

“Not a clue.”

Chouinard retrieved a Sony Walkman from under the shelves and dropped it into his briefcase.

“Well, you have to go to New York. No question. We won’t have any trouble selling R.J. on this one.”