By the Time You Read This

37

NORMALLY DELORME LOVED THE morning meetings. All six CID detectives would assemble in the boardroom with their coffee and muffins and discuss the status of their various cases with the whole team. What with Ident and the two street-crime guys, the intelligence officer, the joint forces officer and the Crime Stoppers coordinator, some days there could be as many as sixteen people in the room, although today there would just be seven.

The point of these meetings was to focus the day’s tactics and assign various tasks to individuals. It was always interesting, and sometimes appalling, to hear how other detectives handled their cases, and there was usually a lot of humour. If there were going to be any laughs in the course of a day, this was where they would come. McLeod might go into one of his patented full-tilt rants, or Szelagy would come up with some earnest observation that just cracked everybody up. And Cardinal could be funny too, though his humour tended to be quiet and self-deprecating.

But today Cardinal’s presence was casting a pall. While they were waiting for Chouinard, everyone just kept to themselves, pretending to read over their notes or look at documents. McLeod was reading the Toronto Sun sports pages. Cardinal himself just sat quietly, his notebook open to a clean page on the table before him. He must have been aware of his effect on the room, and Delorme’s heart went out to him.

Chouinard breezed in, carrying a giant Tim Hortons mug in one hand and a thin file folder in the other. If oatmeal could be a person, Ian McLeod liked to say, it would be Daniel Chouinard. The detective sergeant was dull but dependable, bland but reasonable, solemn but solid.

“Don’t get up,” he said. He always said that, because of course no one ever did get up.

“See, that’s why I want to be detective sergeant someday.” McLeod snatched Chouinard’s thin file and held it up. “We’re all lugging fifty-pound briefcases and he’s carrying a lunch menu.”

“It’s the natural order of things,” Chouinard said. “Didn’t you study the divine right of kings?”

“I musta been out that day.”

“All right.” Chouinard took a huge sip from his coffee and found it good. He opened his file to the single typed sheet he always carried into the meetings. “Sergeant Delorme, ladies first, why don’t you enlighten us on what’s happening with your little boat girl?”

“I’ve found the cabin cruiser where at least one sexual assault took place. It’s currently in storage at Four Mile Marine. I searched it with the permission of the owners, the Ferriers, but I have not informed them of the finding yet. The little we can see of the perpetrator isn’t enough to absolutely rule out Mr. Ferrier. Also, he’s got a daughter who is blond and thirteen, but I haven’t been able to interview her yet. It’s possible she is the victim, maybe by a friend of the family or an acquaintance.”

“So we have a crime scene. You didn’t make any effort to preserve it?”

“It’s years old—the girl’s about eleven in those pictures—and it’s been in wind and water and storage since the crime took place. I don’t think we’re going to get anything off that boat. Even so, I’d like a watch to be put on the storage facility to make sure no one tampers with it.”

“That’s easy enough. We’ll get that right away.”

Delorme opened a manila envelope containing two more pictures Toronto had sent. There was another one of the boat. In this one the girl was dressed, smiling, and in the background there was the hill they now knew to be the hill beside Trout Lake. Part of Highway 63 was visible, snaking off into the trees. The other picture showed her as a much younger girl, naked this time, giggling at the camera, lying on a rug. There was a section of blue sofa in the background.

“That’s her home, we figure,” Delorme said. “That blue sofa appears in a lot of the shots.”

“That’s Highway 63 in the background?” Chouinard said.

“Right. Toronto thinks this one is about two years old. Some of the others show her that age. So we’re looking for a thirteen-year-old girl, blond, green eyes.

“Toronto thinks this picture is two years old?”

Everyone looked at Cardinal. Delorme could feel the relief in the room that he had spoken. Spoken about business, something day-to-day.

“I’m not sure what they’re basing that on,” Delorme said. “Other than the fact that we have no pictures showing her older than about thirteen.”

“You’re not looking for a thirteen-year-old,” Cardinal said. “She’s going to be eighteen or thereabouts.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at the highway lights. Those are the old sodium lights. Don’t you remember when they replaced those with the new white ones?”

“You’re the only one who lives out that way,” Chouinard said. “Why don’t you remind us?”

“I can tell you exactly, because I’d just bought my car, and it’s a 1999 model. Day I got it, I’m driving home and this rookie OPP pulls me over for driving too fast for conditions. The lights were all out. He was giving me a lecture about how I should be more careful, nice brand new car and all. I could’ve killed him.”

“He actually gave you the ticket?” McLeod said.

“He did.”

“See, that’s the problem with the OPP,” McLeod said.

“They train ‘em all wrong right from the beginning. They see the rules, they don’t see reality, they don’t see the situation. Gimme two weeks in Orillia, man—I’d turn that place around.”

“Upside down is more like it,” Chouinard said.

“So, if she was eleven or twelve in 1999,” Cardinal said, “she’s got to be seventeen or eighteen now.”

Delorme was still trying to process what Cardinal had given her. It was like having a bone reset, and it would take her a while to get used to it. She was no longer looking for a thirteen-year-old. She was looking for an eighteen-year-old.

“I asked Toronto to send me more pictures,” Delorme said. “They say I should have them today. Apparently they’ve just hauled in about a hundred discs from some perv and our girl appears in a lot of the images. I’m hoping the backgrounds in the new shots might be useful.”

“All right,” Chouinard said. “Cardinal, you work with Delorme on this. I really want to nail this bastard, but I’m not sure we need the whole department on it. It’s not like we’re dealing with a major porn ring here. As far as we know, it’s one guy victimizing one girl. That’s bad enough, but I don’t want to squander resources. And Delorme, please let’s treat these pictures with serious security. Strictly a need-to-see basis, all right?”

“Of course.”

“What about the people at the marina? Nobody remembers anything suspicious?”

“Nothing. It’s a pretty peaceful spot. I’ve just been telling them I’m investigating an assault, so they’re not thinking child rape. Only violence anyone’s mentioned wasn’t actually at the marina. Some guy tried to punch out Frederick Bell outside the restaurant next door.”

Cardinal looked up.

“The psychiatrist?” Chouinard said.

“Right. This was a little over a year ago. A distraught father. Bell had been treating his son, who committed suicide.” Delorme couldn’t bear to look at Cardinal as she said the word, but she could feel his eyes on her.

“I know how that goes,” Burke said ruefully, and made things worse by adding, “Some people really don’t want to live.”

“You did all you could. I told Mrs. Dorn that,” Delorme said. Then, praying could they please, God, get off the subject of suicide, she turned to Chouinard. “D.S., I know Perry Dorn’s older sister. I think I should have another word with her.”

He shook his head. “It’s not an open case, and the family is threatening legal action.”

“I could talk to her informally. We’re good enough friends for that. As it happens, her brother’s shrink was also Dr. Bell.”

“Fine. But do not discuss it on police property or using a police telephone. What’s next?”

Delorme had to sit through Arsenault’s list of suspects on the Zellers break-in. And McLeod had a series of assaults he was working where none of the witnesses would talk. Naturally, this was McLeod’s cue for a detailed rant on the multicoloured wall of silence.

Cardinal spoke to her the moment they were back at their desks.

“This guy that attacked Dr. Bell,” he said quietly, “what was his name?”

“Burnside,” Delorme said. “William Burnside. His son’s name was Jonathan.”

“I remember that case. Did you know Bell was Catherine’s psychiatrist too?”

“It was in the coroner’s report.”

Cardinal was looking at her with an intensity she found unnerving. Usually he was such an even-tempered guy, a little morose sometimes, but mostly calm and good-natured.

“Jonathan Burnside, Perry Dorn and Catherine. Don’t you think that’s a lot of suicides for one guy’s caseload? What are the odds of three suicides in that amount of time?”

“Four,” Delorme said. “I was going over our previous child porn cases yesterday.”

“Of course,” Cardinal said. “Keswick.”

“Leonard Keswick. Shot himself when he was out on bail. Which was pretty surprising, since it was a relatively minor charge: a few pictures on his computer, mostly teenagers, and it wasn’t like he was taking them himself, he was just looking at them.”

“I remember. Apparently the shame was too much for him.”

“Losing your job doesn’t help.”

“Remind me,” Cardinal said. “How did we get on to Keswick initially? If he wasn’t selling child porn or trading it or even buying it, why did we even know about him?”

“It was an anonymous tip. Somebody just phoned it in. Maybe one of those computer vigilantes you hear about.”

“Yeah,” Cardinal said. “Maybe.”