Crime Machine

19

CARDINAL HAD BEEN IN BED BUT NOT asleep when the call came. He got out of bed and got dressed and drove up the hill to City Hospital. The shock of moving from the warmth of his bed to the cold of a December night was still reverberating in his bones when he found the patrol officer waiting for him outside a recovery room.

“Girl claims he’s the guy did the murders out at Trout Lake. He denies it up the wazoo, of course.”

“Where’s the girl now?”

“Down in emerge with PC Gifford. Bad cut on her knee, but you know how it is with emerge—if you’re not dying, you’re there for eternity.”

Cardinal had to get by the nurse on duty in the recovery room.

“This man has just come out of surgery,” she said. “You can’t be cross-examining him.”

“Just a couple of questions,” Cardinal said.

She led him past a row of beds, all but two of them empty. “Five minutes,” she said. “I’ll be timing you.”

The man on the bed was hooked up to an IV and a pulse monitor, but other than that, he looked in pretty good shape. His blond hair needed a wash, but his powerful shoulders, where they emerged from beneath the sheet, looked wider than the pillow he slept on.

“Troy Campbell,” Cardinal said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you again.”

Campbell opened his eyes and contemplated Cardinal with medicated calm. After a while he said, “I didn’t touch that girl.” His speech was slow but clear. “And she shot me with an arrow. She perforated my spleen. I plan to press charges.”

“Troy, you want to tell me again where you were Thursday night? Keep in mind that we already know where Randalll Wishart was.”

Campbell’s features maintained their contemplative cast. “I was at work that night. Ask my supervisor. We have a time clock that’ll show I clocked in.”

“So you weren’t in fact at home with your buddy Randall.”

Campbell shook his head, making the pillow rustle. “We have a TV at work.” He lifted his hand and encountered the handcuff that secured him to the bed frame. He squinted at it for a good thirty seconds. “You’re kidding, right?”

PC Gifford, standing outside Exam Room 3, gave Cardinal the particulars. “Samantha Doucette. Eighteen years old. Art student up at Algonquin. Her mother and brother are in the exam room with her. Mother won’t let her out of her sight. Got a pretty tall tale, if you ask me.”

“The doctor in there with her?”

“Yeah, they must be about done by now.”

The doctor came out and Cardinal identified himself. “How’s she doing?”

“She has a deep laceration to her left knee. Wouldn’t have been so bad except she didn’t get it treated for so long.”

“So it didn’t happen tonight.”

“No, no. Days ago. But she’ll be fine. I stitched her up and gave her a scrip for ampicillin.”

Cardinal went in and identified himself to Sam and her mother. The girl had put on a fresh pair of jeans and was shoving the others into a shopping bag. Her brother was entranced by an iPod or some other cyber-drug.

“I want to stay,” Mrs. Doucette said.

“Your daughter’s eighteen,” Cardinal said. “I need to talk to her in private.”

“She should have a lawyer.”

“Officers at the scene are satisfied that she was responding to an attack. I don’t anticipate charging her with anything—provided she tells me the truth.”

“Of course she’ll tell you the truth. Why would she do anything else? Don’t worry, honey, I’ll be right outside.”

When her mother and brother were gone, the girl sat on the edge of the exam table. “She doesn’t know the real story. She just thinks I was attacked by a complete stranger out of the blue.”

“And that’s not what happened, is it?”

The girl folded her arms across her chest and stared at the floor, shaking her head.

“You were coming home from work, is that right? Where do you work?”

“A restaurant. Part-time. I’m a cook.”

“Don’t tell me,” Cardinal said. “Bistro Champlain.”

“That’s right.” A puzzled look crossed her face. Her features were small, perfectly formed, and she had a dark-eyed intensity that without too much effort on her part might cause a married man to lose his head.

“Okay,” Cardinal said. “Why did this man attack you?”

“Because of what I saw. In the Trout Lake house. Not saw—heard.”

“You’re talking about the couple that was murdered.”

“Look, I admit I was in the house, okay? I steal stuff once in a while and the place looked empty. But I didn’t have anything to do with any killing. I didn’t know any of those people. I was checking the place out when I heard voices, and I hid.”

“Where’d you hide?”

“Under a bed.”

“How’d you break in?”

“What?”

“How’d you break in, Samantha?”

“The back door. I used a credit card. So I heard these voices and I hid under the bed. It sounded like the guy was trying to sell them the house, pointing out all the good points and stuff. I figured they’d be there a few minutes and then go, but then there were gunshots. I thought, That’s it, I’m outta here. So I smashed the window and climbed out.”

“How’d you smash the window?”

“I used a chair. I swung it as hard as I could.”

“Which is how you cut your knee. Climbing out.”

She nodded. “I jumped out and ran. He came after me. My car was a little ways up the road.”

“At the hydro turnoff?”

“Yeah. I got to it and he actually shot at me. He hit the car a couple of times and I took off. I don’t know if he got my licence plate or what. I lost my phone when I jumped and I’m pretty sure he has it. I’ve been getting calls.”

“What kind of calls? Threatening?”

“Hang-ups. He stays on the line awhile but doesn’t say anything.”

“Do you know for a fact these were from your cellphone?”

“The number was blocked. But who cares what phone he used? You’ve got him locked up, right? You better. He cuts people’s heads off, for God’s sake.”

“The man who attacked you is under guard and handcuffed to a hospital bed—you don’t have to worry about him right now. But listen, Samantha, only part of what you’re telling me is true. I know you hid under the bed, and you ran like you said. And damage to your car matches our findings at the scene. But I also know about Randall Wishart, so you don’t have to hold anything back in order to protect him.”

Her eyebrows went up, her dark eyes went perfectly round. “I’m not protecting anybody.”

“Samantha, I know you’re not a thief. And I know you didn’t break into that house with a credit card. You went out there with Randall, who of course has a key.”

The innocent expression vanished. She looked at him with dark, implacable eyes.

“Wishart got a friend to cover for him, in case his wife found out. Troy Campbell? To say they were watching the game together. But it turns out Troy was actually at work that night.”

Cardinal waited. Eventually she said, “We didn’t have anyplace else to go. We didn’t take anything or hurt anything. Randall was super careful about stuff like that. Even the bed—we put a blanket over it so it wouldn’t get messed up.”

“I know you did. A blue blanket.”

“It sounds bad. I know it sounds bad. But it isn’t like that. Do you know what it’s like to be in love and not be able to see each other?”

“Why don’t you tell me.”

“It’s horrible. It’s agony. I hate it. Everybody else gets to go places together, do things together. Kiss. Hold hands in public. Whatever they want. Even couples that aren’t that happy together. But here we are, crazy about each other, and we have to skulk around like criminals and wait until some special opportunity comes up. We get to see each other like every three weeks or so. I can’t even call him hardly. And he can’t call me too often either.”

“You ever wonder why Randall doesn’t leave his wife?”

“He’s going to. He just doesn’t want to hurt her, and he’s waiting for a good moment. He has to be careful—I mean, he works for her father and all. It’s not like it’s something he can do right away.”

“Samantha, you’ve been through a lot, but I’m afraid I have to tell you something that’s going to upset your life even more.”

The dark eyes lost their implacability. The black eyebrows went up again, and suddenly she was a kid and Cardinal wished he could protect her from what he was about to say.

“You’re right that the man who attacked you wasn’t a complete stranger. It wasn’t out of the blue. But it wasn’t the man who chased you out at Trout Lake.”

“It was. He kept saying, ‘You didn’t see anything! You don’t know anything!’ Who else is going to come after me with a crowbar, for God’s sake?”

“Well, you’re right—it was definitely because someone doesn’t want you to testify. Someone who knows where you live. Someone who knows what time you got off work. Someone who knew you’d be taking the bus home.”

“I told you—the guy has my cellphone.”

“Which might give him your name and address.”

“The other stuff too. Champlain’s number is on there.”

“What’s it listed as? ‘Where I work on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, from six to ten p.m.’?”

“What are you getting at? I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Will you please just tell me?”

Cardinal could hear the rising panic in her voice, the same panic he had heard in her phone message. She gripped the edges of the exam table, and her mouth opened as if she would say more—something that might stop this horrible cop from ruining her life. But some other emotion—perhaps her sense, not yet acknowledged, that dread was about to be transformed into grief—made her lower lip tremble and the dark eyes fill, and Cardinal could not remember the last time he had seen a human being so vulnerable.