Forty Words for Sorrow

59

THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT AT St. Francis Hospital is much stricter than the one at City Hospital, where Keith London was confined. St. Francis has a firm rule: no visitors except close relatives.

How then, Cardinal wondered—even stupefied by painkillers, he turned this over in his mind—how then did it happen that Arsenault and Collingwood had been standing in this room? Arsenault and Collingwood, yes, and then Delorme had shown up, arm once again cradled in a sling. Cardinal would have to upbraid her for not using the proper stance, for not cradling the revolver properly. That should get a rise.

Delorme had shown him—with earnestness and a great show of secrecy—a sealed envelope. He knew this was full of meaning, but treading his anodyne ebb and swell, he could not piece it together. That was definitely his handwriting on the envelope. Why had he been writing to the chief?

And how on earth had McLeod come to be here? Wasn’t McLeod laid up in traction? He had come hopping in, loomed beside the bed with crutches jammed in either armpit, displaying the filthy sock over his cast, or whatever they called those plastic things they used instead of casts. McLeod had upset some other visitors with his language. Head nurse had been summoned. Head nurse not pleased.

Karen Steen had come. Lovely, gentle Karen Steen, bearing thanks and solicitude like balm. She had brought Cardinal a teddy bear dressed in a cop’s hat; he could smell her perfume on it still. From Miss Steen’s visit he retained this much: Keith London was out of intensive care. The doctors at City Hospital proclaimed Keith London was on the mend. He was conscious now, and speaking slowly, Miss Steen had said, but Keith remembered nothing of the events surrounding his injury, and she hoped he never would.

Or was it Delorme who’d brought the bear? Sometimes, when the Demerol kicked in, he fancied the bear was speaking to him, but he knew that wasn’t real. No, no, Miss Steen had brought the bear. Delorme was analytical, no friend to sentimentality.

“You come from a big family, Mr. Cardinal.” This from the young nurse who came in to give him a shot. She was a stolid thing, with a gap tooth and a storm of freckles.

“My family? My family’s not that—Ow!”

“Sorry. All done. If you just stay turned a minute, I’ll straighten up a little.” She was doing things to the bed, snapping sheets like flags. “Boy, that red-haired fellow sure has a mouth on him,” she chattered on. “It’s a good thing he sent the head nurse some flowers. He may even be allowed back.” She flipped Cardinal the other way, then hoisted him up, then sat him back, all with the careless force of a professional. It hurt like hell. “He doesn’t look much like you, though, with that red hair. I would never have thought you were brothers.”

The drugs blotted up his pain like ink. He fell into a sleep that was soupy with dreams and awoke feeling cheerful. Beneath this he was aware of a lurking anxiety, a shadow taking shape in a fog. He slipped back into sleep. He dreamed that Catherine was out of her own hospital and visiting him in his. She was watching over him like a guardian angel, but when he woke in the middle of the night, there was no one, just the beep of the machines and the throbbing in his guts, and from down the hall, someone giggling.

“I just never expected it to be a woman,” Delorme kept saying. “Okay, everybody knows someday you might have to shoot someone. Everybody knows you might have to shoot to save a life. Everybody knows that. But how many cops kill a woman, John? I keep telling myself she was a killer, but I still feel sick. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat.”

Delorme rambled for a while, and he let her; he was glad she was there. She told him who the woman was and where she lived. Told him how they found the grandmother half starved in the upstairs bedroom. Told him how she then realized where she had seen Edie Soames before—when she’d followed up on the library CD lead. Near tears then, she lamented how, if she’d only been a little smarter, she would have hauled Edie Soames in for questioning.

Even drugged, Cardinal recalled that that lead had been wafer-thin. But Delorme would not be consoled: they might have saved Woody’s life, that baby’s father.

Cardinal asked about the search of the Soames house. “They killed Katie Pine with Granny sitting right upstairs. It’s the house on the audio tape. First thing I heard when we went in? A clock on a mantle just like the one on the tape.”

“No kidding. I wish I could have been there for that.”

She told him what they’d found—a gun, a list, and Edie Soames’s diary.

“A diary. I’ll have to take a look at that.”

“It’s strange,” Delorme said. “I mean, what’s strange is how normal it is. It could be any girl, this diary—full of makeup and haircuts and how crazy she is about her boyfriend. But she talks about Billy LaBelle in it, too. They killed him too.”

“Does it say what they did with the body?”

“No, but we found something else. A camera—along with some pictures they took in front of the house where Todd Curry was killed. And another with Windigo Island in the background. And this one, near the reservoir.” She pulled it out to show him: a shot of Edie Soames making an angel in the snow.

Cardinal had a little trouble focusing.

“It’s near where they found Woody’s body. Half a mile or so. Close to the pumphouse, too.”

“How can you tell? It could be anywhere.”

“I thought so too, but look at the hydro pole in the corner.”

“Is that a number on it? It’s hardly visible.”

“It’s a number. Hydro gave us the exact location.”

She gripped his shoulder. “I think it’s where they buried Billy LaBelle.”

“We should get a digging team up there right away.”

“They’re already up there. It’s my next stop.”

“That’s right,” Cardinal said, fighting sleep. “I forgot how good you are.” He turned on his side and saw the teddy bear with the cop’s hat. “Thanks for the bear, Lise.”

“I didn’t give you the bear.”

Delorme came back later. It might have been the same day, it might have been the next, he wasn’t sure. She looked tired and pale, having just come from telling Billy LaBelle’s parents that their son’s body had been found. “It was awful,” she said. “I don’t know if I’m cut out for homicide after all.”

“Yes, you are. Another cop might not have found the body. Then the LaBelles would be wondering the rest of their lives what happened to their boy. Horrible as it is, at least now they can put it to rest.”

Delorme went silent for a few seconds. Then she got up and went to the door, checked the corridor and came back. She pulled an envelope from her purse. “Before, you didn’t understand. You were too stoned.”

“My letter to R.J. Jesus, Delorme. How’d you know about that?”

“I searched your computer. Sorry, but that day you figured out about Katie Pine’s bracelet I got a look at what you were typing on your computer. I mean, I saw it was addressed to the chief. He never saw it, John. He’s moving into Dyson’s office temporarily, and his mail—well, I got to his mail first. He’ll be in to see you later. He’s worried about you.”

“You shouldn’t have done it, Lise. If any of it comes out at trial—”

“There isn’t any trial. They’re both dead, remember?”

“Lise, you’re risking your career.”

“I don’t want a good cop to lose his job. It was a one-time thing. You were under incredible pressure. It’s not like you were part of some corrupt squad, terrorizing the streets. I’ve thought about it, John. Bringing you down would do more harm than good, that’s the simple truth. Besides, Toronto’s not my jurisdiction, remember? Nobody asked me to investigate Toronto.”

“But now I have to go through it all again.”

“You don’t have to. You don’t ever have to think about it again.”

But he knew he would—when the drugs wore off, when he was back at home, when he woke in the middle of the night. When he could think about something other than the hole in his hand and the holes in his guts, he would have to think about his own distant crime. It would never go away. That was the shape looming in the fog. And besides, R.J. was not the only one he had written to.

Next morning, Cardinal woke in a different room on a different ward. Sunlight poured in the windows; he could feel it before he even opened his eyes. Magnified by panes of glass, the light felt hot on his arm. It felt good; it felt like health. He would lie there like a cat and soak it up. He started to stretch, but the stitches in his stomach changed his mind. Sometime later he became aware that someone was holding his hand. A small hand, smooth and warm.

“How’s my sleepyhead?”

“Catherine?”

“I’m afraid so, darling. They let me out.”

Catherine sat on the edge of his bed, not at all like a guardian angel. Her eyes were not serene pools of certainty; they were shy and worried. He could see the slight droop of her left eyelid where the medication refused to loosen its grip. But her agitation had subsided—there were no restless movements; the hands that held his own remained still.

“No, I’m not deranged anymore. I’m running on lithium, like the Starship Enterprise. Sorry. That has intergalactic overtones, doesn’t it.”

She was wearing the beret he had given her. Such a small gesture, and yet he couldn’t find the words to say how much it moved him. “You look great,” was all he could manage.

“You don’t look bad either. Especially for someone who near drowned and was shot twice.”

There was a silence while they held hands and tried to think of words that would help start them on the road to knowing one another again.

“There’ve been a lot of flowers sent to the house. Cards too.”

“Yeah. People have been great.”

“There was one delivery, the fellow had a patch over one eye. Big. He seemed quite concerned about you. I brought the card along.” She pulled a large, floral Hallmark from her shoulder bag. Inscribed beneath the sentimental verse: Be seeing you. Rick.

“Very thoughtful guy, Rick.” After a pause, Cardinal said, “I guess you didn’t get my letter.”

“I got your letter. So did Kelly. We don’t have to talk about it now.”

“How’d Kelly take it?”

“Ask her yourself. She’s on her way home.”

“She’s angry, right?”

“She’s more worried about you right now. But I expect she’ll be angry, yes.”

“I’ve really done it, Catherine. I’m so sorry.”

“I am too. Yes, of course I am.” She looked away from him, thinking how to phrase it. Outside, sparrows scattered like thrown seed across a blazing blue sky. “I’m sad that you did something wrong, John. It’s not how I think of you, of course. And I’m sad for the pain it must cause you. But part of me—I know it sounds strange, John—John! It’s so wonderful to say your name again and have it not just be in my head. To be beside you! … But even aside from that happiness, part of me is happy about the other too. Happy that you did something wrong.”

“Catherine, you don’t mean that. What are you talking about?”

“You’ve never understood, have you? What you don’t understand—how could you?—what you can’t understand is that no matter how hard it is for you to be encumbered with me, to have to watch over me like a child, to have to worry about hospitals and accidents and where is she this time; no matter how hard all of that is—I think it’s far harder to be the one who is always looked after. To be the one who is the burden. To feel like a net drain on the economy, so to speak.”

“Oh, Catherine …”

“So, you see, to have you do something wrong—something very wrong—to have you actually wreak potential havoc on our lives is … Well, I’m taking a very long time just to say it’s nice to be needed. To get a chance to be the strong one, for a change.”

Cardinal’s doctor came in noisily, blaring greetings and questions. “No, no, you can stay,” he said when Catherine started to leave. He shone a light in Cardinal’s pupils. Asked him to sit up. Even had him walk a few steps, holding on to the bedrail like a little old man, his gut in agony.

“Fuck you, Doc. I’m going back to bed.”

The doctor was scribbling on the chart. “I didn’t really need you to walk. Just wanted to see if it hurt as much as I thought it would. You’re doing great. Going to take four to six weeks for your innards to heal, though. Bullets really whizzed around in there.”

“Six weeks!”

“Do you good.” For Catherine’s benefit the doctor jerked a thumb and said, “Big dumb hero, eh?” Then he let the chart drop with a clatter against the bed, and left as noisily as he had come in.

“Christ. He could be a cop with that sense of humour,” Cardinal said. Sweat was cooling on his brow.

“I better go,” Catherine said. “You’re whiter than the sheet.”

“Don’t go, Catherine. Please stay.”

So Catherine Cardinal stayed. Stayed and watched over him as she had in his dream.

Cardinal closed his eyes. He wanted to ask if she would stay with him, despite what he had done, if she could still live with him, be happy with him. But the painkillers were a soft plump pillow in his skull, and Cardinal felt sleep settle softly on his arms and legs and brow. He opened his eyes and saw Catherine beside him, wearing glasses now, reading a book she had brought to pass the time. Fringed by the flutter of his eyelids, the pale green walls turned into pale green trees. The voices in the hall became the sounds of hidden animals, and the door swung open wider on a swiftly flowing stream.

Cardinal dreamed that they were travelling. He dreamed that he and Catherine were travelling on a river—a leafy, southern river he had never seen before. Catherine paddled in the front of the canoe, and Cardinal steered badly in the back. The sun was the bright yellow of children’s drawings. The canoe was bottle green, and they were laughing.