Blackfly Season

46

THEY WERE WAITING FOR the light to change. Normally, Cardinal was a patient driver, but now he was hunched in the driver’s seat, cursing under his breath.

“Maybe you should go home,” Delorme said. “You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine. I’m just a little tired.”

Delorme had seen Cardinal tired, but not like this. His face was pale and drawn, the circles under his eyes deep, and there was a bitter edge in his manner that she couldn’t place. She didn’t think it had anything to do with work.

“Is it Catherine?” she said.

Cardinal let out a deep sigh. All he said was, “Yeah.”

“She’s in hospital again?”

The light changed, and Cardinal gunned it. Not his style at all.

“You’ve been through these times before, John. She’ll be okay, don’t you think?”

“I never know how Catherine’s going to be. Nearly two years, now, she’s been okay. Somehow I managed to convince myself that this time it was for good.”

It was the most he had ever said about his wife’s illness. Lines of pain radiated across his face like stress fractures in a pane of glass. Delorme wanted to say something—she’ll get better, it won’t last long, try not to worry too much—but nothing was adequate, and so she went silent and that didn’t seem adequate, either.

At the Crisis Centre, Ned Fellowes left them in the office while he went to get Terri. Leaning against the disused fireplace, Cardinal looked like he was going to fall asleep standing up.

“Wonder what’s taking him so long,” Delorme said.

Cardinal just closed his eyes.

Fellowes came back a few moments later. “It appears our young friend has gone out,” he said. “She’s not answering her door, she’s not in the TV room, not in the dining room. And nobody’s seen her for the past half-hour. I told her explicitly she should not leave the building.”

“So did we,” Cardinal said. “And she knew we were coming.”

“Of course, she wouldn’t be the first person to avoid the police.”

“No, but she called us. She wanted us to come.”

Fellowes pulled a ring of keys out of his desk and led them upstairs. Delorme knew the Crisis Centre well. As the only female in Criminal Investigations, she always got to escort the bruised and frightened victims of domestic quarrels to this place. The familiar smells of the carpeting and the old wood made her stomach tense up.

“As I pointed out when Terri arrived,” he said, “we’re not a jail. I can’t keep people here against their will.”

He put a key in the lock and opened the door.

“Her jacket’s gone,” Fellowes said.

“I think something’s happened to her,” Cardinal said. “She was very definite about wanting to talk to us. She knew we were coming.”

Fellowes started to close the door. Cardinal held it open.

“Not without a warrant,” Fellowes said. “I can’t allow that.”

“Ned,” Delorme said, “this young woman is in danger. Somebody tried to kill her and we have every reason to think they’ll try again. We can go ask for a warrant, but that’s going to take half a day. That’s time she may not have.”

Fellowes looked at Delorme, then over at Cardinal. Delorme silently urged him to come through.

“Look,” he said to Cardinal. “Why don’t you and I go downstairs and discuss it. Say, for about five minutes?”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Cardinal said.

He and Fellowes headed back toward the stairs, and Delorme shut the door after them.

There wasn’t much of Terri Tait in this room. It was an old-fashioned place, still with much of its oak wainscot-ting and heavy cornices. The walls looked like they had been papered half a dozen times before being painted their current shade of off-white. There were no clothes hanging in the closet.

Near the window, a large notebook lay on the floor. Delorme opened it and found that it wasn’t a notebook; it was a sketch pad. The girl had been drawing something. Doodling bird shapes.

She opened a drawer in a small dresser. A lonely pair of socks rolled in a semicircle. There were several pairs of underwear and a bra in another, newly purchased, probably courtesy of the Crisis Centre.

On top of the dresser were a brush, a package of bandages, a nail file and a small plastic bag containing sundry toiletries, also new.

Delorme got down on her knees and checked under the bed. Nothing.

I’m striking out, Delorme thought. We need to find this girl and I’m coming up empty here. Another minute and Ned Fellowes would be hauling her out of there and she would have nothing to show for her furtive little search.

She checked the wastebasket. An old bandage, a candy bar wrapper, an empty Coke can and a folded piece of paper. Delorme spread it out on the dresser. It was another version of the doodles in the sketch pad. This one was much more detailed. It showed an eagle, with huge talons, about to lift off from a branch. It looked like the sort of thing that might decorate the wall of a hunting lodge. Why had Terri taken so much time with this? The highlighting, the cross-hatching, the detailed beak and feathers. Surely she must have other things on her mind.

Delorme tucked it into her inside pocket and went back downstairs. She shook her head at Cardinal as she entered the office. No need to mention her removal of the drawing to Fellowes.

“A one-time-only occurrence, you two,” Fellowes said. “Last thing I need is to get a reputation for letting the cops snoop through people’s rooms.”

“It’s unusual circumstances,” Delorme said. “You have to admit.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better. Anyway, if she shows up here I’ll let you know right away.”

As he started the car, Cardinal said, “Did you really come up empty?”

“It’s not like she had any luggage with her. There were just some things the Crisis Centre must’ve got for her. But I did find this.”

Delorme pulled the drawing from her jacket pocket.

Cardinal frowned at the bird for a few seconds. “Okay, so she can draw a bird. That’s all you got?”

“That’s it.”

“All right. We’ll put out an all-points. We could get lucky—she’s only been gone a short time.”

Cardinal stepped on the gas, and Delorme reached for her seat belt.