By the Time You Read This

12

ONE OF THE ASPECTS of small-city police work that makes it both more interesting than big-city stuff and more frustrating is that a detective has to deal with all sorts of crimes. He or she is not a vice cop, or a homicide cop, or a bunko specialist; they take whatever gets assigned to them by their detective sergeant. With Cardinal on bereavement leave and McLeod and Burke on their days off, that meant Lise Delorme was now, in addition to her new hunt for a child molester, covering another suicide—this time in a laundromat that smelled of lint and hot metal and soapy water.

But Delorme could also smell the blood. The spray had hit the ceiling along with a good deal of brain matter, and there were streaks and blotches and scarlet smears where he had fallen against the washers. The pool on the floor was already dark and congealing.

“Gee,” Szelagy said. “What do you suppose could be the cause of death?”

Standing next to Ken Szelagy was like standing next to the Empire State; he was six-four and always made Delorme feel puny, which she was not. She tended to compensate by being gruff with him, which was unnecessary, since Szelagy was the easiest-going member of CID.

They were hanging back a little so the coroner could go about his work. It was Dr. Claybourne again, reflections of fluorescent lights gleaming on his head.

Delorme flipped through the dead man’s wallet. It was hard to pull out the individual cards and papers wearing latex gloves, but she finally managed to extract a driver’s licence, not that the stern, somewhat lopsided face in the licence bore any resemblance to the carmine wreckage on the floor.

“Perry Wallace Dorn,” she read. “Lives on Woodruff, if this address is still current.”

“Kinda far from here,” Szelagy said. “You’d think he’d at least pick his own laundromat. Maybe a machine ate his quarter.”

Delorme bypassed several credit cards, Algonquin Bay library card, medical insurance card, Chapters bookstore discount card, Northern University student card, expired.

“Here we go,” she said. “Birth certificate.”

She turned it over. Unfortunately, it was the short-form certificate that did not give parents’ names. She handed the card to Szelagy. “Call the Registrar General and get the parents’ names, and see if Perry was ever married.”

Szelagy flipped open his cellphone, and Delorme reached down to take a piece of paper that Dr. Claybourne was handing to her.

“It was in his jacket pocket,” he said. Dr. Claybourne’s face was bright red. A matter of his complexion, Delorme reminded herself, whatever McLeod might say. McLeod was always wrong about everything; it was amazing he ever managed to make detective.

The note had been crumpled up in a tight ball at some point, then smoothed out and folded up again more neatly. In any case, it would not be going down in the history of great romantic letters.

Dear Margaret, it said. Then that had been crossed out and rewritten several times in different spots on the page. Dear Margaret, Dear Margaret, Dear …

No points for eloquence there, Perry. But then Delorme reconsidered. Perhaps that was all that needed to be said when you were going to quit the scene. No thanks. I’ve had enough. You guys go on without me. Maybe Perry Dorn had distilled the suicide note to its essence: Dear …

You’d think it would be just losers, Delorme thought, complete failures or people with no prospects at all. But she had seen enough by now to know that suicide was an equal-opportunity exit. Smart or stupid, ugly or beautiful, anyone could walk out at any time. But why this particular time? Why October? Delorme knew enough about suicide to know that the myth was wrong: there was no Christmas rush, not in Ontario. The numbers were worst in the month of February. Which made sense, because by February you were so sick of snow and cold that suicide could look like a reasonable option. Which was why, come February, virtually the entire population of Algonquin Bay transposed itself to Florida or the Caribbean.

Why kill yourself in the fall? It was so beautiful, the hills heartbreaking swells of colour. The fall was the time Delorme felt happiest. It was always autumn, not New Year’s, when she made her resolutions. Maybe it was just a legacy of the educational system; the fall was when you bought bright new notebooks, their fresh clean pages inviting you to write neat, comprehensive notes. Later in the year, your notes deteriorated into ambiguous little blurts that jogged the memory inconclusively if at all. But those first few days, when the air carried the first crisp notes of winter and the sky burned blowtorch blue, it was impossible, at least for Delorme, not to be happy. Even though every summer seemed to bring a new romantic reversal, each fall made her heart expand with hope.

Outside, the sun was so bright, the parking lot looked overexposed. Inside, everything that wasn’t bloody was grey and drained of colour, like clothing that has been through the wash too many times.

The door slammed on its springs and Burke came in, notebook in fist. “Checked his car. Back seat’s full of new books and binders and crap.”

Burke was trying to sound gruff, but his face was white and his hand was shaking.

“We have his student card,” Delorme said. “Listen, Larry, why don’t you go home and lie down for a while? Guy blows his head off in front of you, it’s not something you’re going to get over in five minutes.”

“Look at this, though.”

He handed her a sheet of paper, expensive letterhead with a red crest. Dated early April.

“‘Dear Mr. Dorn,’” she read. “‘I am delighted to inform you that McGill University has accepted you into its graduate program in Mathematics. In view of your extremely impressive record at Northern, I think I am safe in saying that this acceptance will come with a substantial grant. Subject to confirmation from the student awards department, your expenses will probably be limited to rent and other living expenses. We look forward to meeting you in the fall.’ School year started ages ago. If he’s accepted at McGill, why isn’t he in Montreal?”

“Clearly the guy didn’t have all his marbles,” Burke said. “Jerk,” he added, but he was not a convincing hard-ass.

“Really, Larry,” Delorme said, “go home and lie down. You’re not in shape to be working. Go ahead. No one’s going to think badly of you.”

“I’m all right. Kinda thing’s all in a day’s work. Kinda shit we deal with, right?”

“No, it isn’t. I’ve never seen anyone shoot themselves, and I don’t ever want to. What’s that in your hand?”

“Huh?” Burke held up a PalmPilot and stared at it as if it had just been beamed into his hand. “Oh, yeah. Was in his car. Figured you might want it.”

“Good thinking. Now, go home.”

“Maybe I’ll just go sit outside for a few minutes,” Burke said.

Szelagy snapped his cellphone shut. “Registrar’s gonna call me back.”

“Might not need them,” Delorme said. She was poking the stylus at the Palm, scrolling up and down through addresses. Not under D for Dorn, not under P for parents. “Here we go. Under M for mom.”