The Delicate Storm

11

THE HEALING ARTS BUILDING is a yellow brick box of the sort favoured in the 1960s. It sits at the top of Algonquin Avenue just beyond the Highway 11 bypass. The biggest thing on the ground floor is the Shoppers Drug Mart, surrounded by a laundromat, a dry cleaner and several other small stores. Above this there are five floors of doctors, dentists and chiropractors.

Delorme had often visited the place as a little girl. Her parents had taken her to a dentist whom she later recognized, when all her fillings had to be replaced, as incompetence personified.

The building directory listed Dr. W. Cates on the second floor.

A sign taped to the door said CLOSED DUE TO EMERGENCY. PLEASE CALL TO RESCHEDULE YOUR APPOINTMENT. Delorme knocked sharply, and was admitted by a small woman with blond hair cut boyishly short and five earrings in each ear. This was Melissa Gale, Dr. Cates’s assistant.

“Are you the detective I spoke to on the phone?” There was a quaver in the soft voice.

“Yes, I’m Detective Delorme.”

“Come in and let me shut the door. I can’t face any more patients. I’ve been turning them away since lunchtime.”

“What time did you expect Dr. Cates to show up?”

“Her first appointment was for eleven o’clock. By eleven-thirty I was starting to get worried. I mean, she’s never late. I called her place a couple of times. I even called the hospital. When they said she hadn’t shown up there either, I began to panic. That’s when I called you.”

“Did you see her yesterday?”

“Yes, she was here all day. We finished up about seven o’clock.”

“That was the last time you spoke with her?”

“Last night. Yes.”

“How was she then? Did she seem worried or under any abnormal amount of stress?”

“Not at all. But then, Winter is a very cheerful person. People can do stuff that makes me scream and she’s just totally unruffled. She seemed fine. This is so unlike her. I just don’t know where she can be.”

“Were there any calls out of the ordinary?”

Ms. Gale tipped her head to one side and thought for a moment. “Nothing.”

“And what about this morning, when you opened up? Were there any messages that seemed—”

“There were half a dozen or so. You know, just people calling to make appointments or find out about lab results, that kind of thing.”

Delorme looked around. The waiting room was a small, plain space, somewhat enlivened by an old leather couch and some large, leafy plants. The empty chairs looked in order, the magazines were stacked neatly on the end tables. “When you opened up, did you notice anything unusual about the office? Anything out of place?”

“No, it’s always the same. I closed up last night, and when I came in this morning, everything was exactly as I left it.”

Delorme nodded toward Ms. Gale’s computer, where an insurance form flickered on the screen. “What about the computer? Any weird e-mail?”

“Nothing. Just the usual medicare stuff, ads from drug companies and insurance people. We get tons of junk mail.”

“You mind if I look around?”

“No. Please—this way.”

Adjoining the waiting room was a consulting room: large oak desk, glassed-in bookshelves and an oriental rug. Delorme examined the desktop: telephone, scratch pad, yellow legal pad, pen and pencil set, Rolodex, no photographs. The neatness was quite a contrast to Dr. Cates’s apartment.

“Her desk is always this neat?” Delorme pointed to the notepads. “Not even any notes out? Lists of things to do?”

“Winter’s the kind of person who doesn’t go home until everything’s done. Also, she likes to start fresh in the morning—so, when we close up, this is pretty much how it looks.”

The door to the adjoining treatment room was open.

“Now that I think of it,” Ms. Gale said, “there was one thing unusual. In the examining room.”

“Show me. Don’t touch anything, though.”

“Oh, God. This isn’t a murder investigation, is it?”

“Just a precaution.”

Ms. Gale led her into the treatment room, which looked the same as doctors’ treatment rooms everywhere: bright fluorescent lights, jars of cotton swabs and tongue depressors, a nutrition poster on one wall, an anatomy chart on another, and a little brass clock labelled PROZAC.

Ms. Gale pointed at the examining table. “You see the paper covering on that? After each patient Winter rolls down the paper and tears it off and stuffs it in the trash. That way each new patient gets a fresh, clean surface.”

“That’s how it looks now,” Delorme said.

“It wasn’t like that when I came in this morning. It was crumpled, and actually quite torn. So I rolled it down and tore it off and put it in the trash.”

“This trash?” Delorme indicated a tall, open garbage can under the counter.

“Uh-huh. That’s it there.”

“And there was nothing else out of place?” Delorme gestured at the jars of cotton swabs and tongue depressors.

“Well, just tiny things. There was a bandage roll on the counter that would normally be in a cupboard, and a jar of disinfectant.”

“And they weren’t out when you closed up last night?”

Ms. Gale winced a little. “Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure. Mondays tend to run pretty long, and sometimes I just want to get out of here as fast as possible. Sorry.”

Delorme went over to a small chrome wastebasket and depressed the pedal with her foot. “When does this get emptied?”

“Every evening. Sometimes during the day as well.”

“And the stuff that’s in here now?”

“There shouldn’t be anything in there now.” Ms. Gale stepped closer and squinted at the canister. It contained a bandage wrapper. “That wasn’t in there last night, I’m sure of it.”

“How sure? Do you remember emptying this last night?”

“Yes, I do. I was carrying it out the door when Winter said good night.”

“What if a patient had some kind of emergency later at night? Around midnight, say. What would happen then?”

“If they contacted Winter, you mean? She would just tell them to go to emerge. A doctor’s office isn’t set up for emergencies.”

“Suppose someone calls her and says they’ve run out of their medication—something like that.”

“Well, they wouldn’t call her at home, because her number’s unlisted. And if they called here, they’d get a message telling them to go to emerge.”

“All right,” Delorme said. “Let’s just step back to the waiting room. We don’t want to disturb things too much.”

“So you do think something happened to her.”

“It might turn out to be nothing. But I’m going to ask our crime scene people to come in here and take a look. Is there another office you can wait in until they get here?”

“Sure, I can sit in Dr. Bisson’s office, next door.”

Delorme led her out into the hallway and watched her lock up.

“Were any of her patients upset with Dr. Cates, do you know?”

“Oh, there’s always patients upset. People have no idea how many wackos there are out there. Winter says they’re just lonely and the moment they have someone’s attention, they can’t bear to let it go, even if it means acting like a jerk. You know, like they’ll take twice as much medication as they’re supposed to, then get angry when the doctor doesn’t want to refill the prescription every five days or whatever. Or they want the doctor to sign a form saying they can’t work—you know, to cheat on workmen’s comp? I mean, I saw one guy go bananas about that. He was yelling and pounding the desk, and he even kicked over a plant. I thought we were going to have to call the police.”

“What was his name?”

“Glenn Freemont.” Melissa’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, I’m gonna get in trouble for telling you. This stuff’s confidential.”

“When did this happen?”

“A couple of weeks ago. I can look it up for you.”

“Was there anyone else who was a problem for the doctor? Friend? Relative?”

“Well, she does have an old boyfriend. Craig Simmons. He’s not violent or anything, far as I know. But he calls here all the time. Mostly I have to tell him she’s with a patient and she’ll call him back. But she doesn’t always have time to get back to him, and then he gets pretty hyper. Sometimes he even shows up here. He did that yesterday, in fact. Winter was pretty steamed. I could hear them yelling at each other.”

Delorme showed her the picture of Dr. Cates and the young Mountie. “Is this the guy?”

“That’s him. I would’ve never known he was a Mountie, though. He’s more like an actor or something.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. He’s smallish, and kinda muscly the way actors are these days. And so high-strung.”

Delorme left Ms. Gale in the doctor’s office next door with instructions to wait there for the ident team. She called Arsenault and Collingwood on her cellphone, then went down to her car to put in two more calls. The first was to Dr. Cates’s parents. Delorme insisted the call was just routine, no evidence of foul play. She kept it brisk and to the point: Who would Dr. Cates be likely to visit suddenly, out of the blue? (No one.) Did she have any friends or associates who worried them? (Yes, Craig Simmons.) She tried to reassure them, but Mr. and Mrs. Cates knew that a detective would not be calling them unless there were grounds for concern, and by the time she hung up, both parents were distraught.

Her next call was to Malcolm Musgrave.

“Craig Simmons,” he informed her, “is one of the best damn cops I have ever known, and I have been in this business for longer than you care to know.”

“I’m sure he is. But I have a missing doctor here—a doctor who is his former girlfriend—and I have reason to believe he was upset with her.”

Musgrave’s tone changed. “That wouldn’t be Winter Cates, would it?”

“Yes, it would. Why? Were you already worried about her?”

“Naw. But Simmons has been talking about her for as long as I can remember. When he first joined our detachment, I figured they were going to get married. Didn’t take long to figure out that was all in his head. You see them together, it’s obvious she sees him as a friend, or maybe as a brother.”

“And he sees her … ?”

“Not as a friend and not as a sister.”

“Are you going to give me his address, then?”

“Yeah, I’ll give you his address. He’s not at home right now, though, he’s out at the family cottage in Mattawa. You won’t believe this place—looks like a dollhouse. But the fishing is great.”

“Why’s he at the cottage in the middle of winter?”

“Because that’s when cottages get broken into. You got a pen?”

Musgrave gave her detailed directions. “But listen,” he said. “You’re barking up the wrong tree with Simmons. Go to Mattawa if it’s going to satisfy your curiosity. Interview him all you want. But the sooner you clear him off your list, the better.”

The old town of Mattawa is about forty miles east of Algonquin Bay, at the junction of the Mattawa and Ottawa rivers. That location made it a prime canoe route in the days of Samuel de Champlain, and it still is; the July canoe race is a popular event, and as for fishing, the bass practically jump out of the water and beg to be taken home. It’s a small community, mostly devoted to serving the thousands of tourists who head there in summer to enjoy the rivers, the high hills and the tiny log cabins tucked among the streams and forests. Prime cottage country.

Delorme was not all that sensitive to scenery, but she had to admit the surroundings had a certain atmospheric power. The green hills loomed through the rain, and the smell of pine was thick in the car. Scarves of mist trailed from the spruce and jack pine close to the road, and the highway gleamed like a ribbon of black silk.

On the way, she listened to the news. The new mayor was talking up the winter Carnival even though it was still a month away and the warm spell had dissolved all the snow; Geoff Mantis was denouncing a Liberal proposal to raise the capital gains tax; and there was a profile of the new leader of the Parti Québécois, along with a not too subtle analysis of “the Quebec problem.” For as long as Delorme could remember, Quebec had been the central issue in her country, and the papers and pundits never tired of discussing this weather pattern that refused to lift, the delicate storm of French–English relations.

“You don’t actually go into the town,” Musgrave had told her. “You want to make a right on LaFramboise. Just past the Chevy dealership.”

“If I could see the Chevy dealership,” Delorme said to herself now. It appeared half a mile later, on the right.

Delorme made the turn and passed a lumberyard, a siding warehouse and a dog kennel—prosaic, ugly places, made even drearier by the rain. A Jiffy Lube came up on the left, and then beyond it a battered sign for Sandy Point with an arrow. Delorme squinted into the rain, trying to catch glimpses of the cottages among the pines.

A few minutes later she came to what looked like the end of the road and pulled to a stop. A few yards on she saw a mailbox marked Simmons. She inched the car down the driveway. There was a Jeep Wrangler at the bottom of the slope; Delorme made a note of the licence number. The Jeep was parked beside a cottage that looked like something out of Hansel and Gretel, a miniaturized Victorian gingerbread composed predominantly of mauve vinyl siding. A steeply pitched roof gleamed with the damp, and the upper half of each window was stained glass. The chimney emitted picturesque curlicues of fragrant smoke.

Delorme stepped up onto a lilac veranda of scrolled woodwork. Musgrave had called the Simmons cottage a dollhouse, and Musgrave was dead-on. There was a cast-iron bootscraper at the top of the steps, and on the front door a brass lion’s-head knocker. The door opened and a young man in T-shirt and jeans looked her over. Muscly, as Ms. Gale had said, a man who spent a lot of time in the gym.

“Can I help you?”

His hair was longer than in the photo at Dr. Cates’s house; it hung in a wheat-coloured fringe over his brow. And he looked much smaller out of the Mountie uniform. But despite the casual dress, he was neat, contained: the jeans and the T-shirt were pressed.

“Craig Simmons?” Delorme held up her shield. “I’m Detective Lise Delorme, Algonquin Bay police.”

“You’re a little far out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”

“Mind if I come in for a minute? It’s kind of damp out here.”

Simmons held the door open.

Northern Ontario has two schools of cottage owners. The first uses the cottage as a sort of attic and fills it with castoffs—spavined sofas, cat-shredded armchairs, VCRs past their prime, any item no longer wanted at home. The second school sees the cottage as an alternate house and does everything to make it handsome, comfortable and inviting, sometimes spending more money than on their principal residence.

To these two schools Delorme now added a third: dwellers in the realm of fantasy. The Simmons place was dedicated to the preservation of a Victorian era that never was. It called out from the brass candlesticks, the etched-glass cupboards, the lace curtains. It winked and shone from the beaded lampshades, the silver sugar bowl and the grandfather clock that was off by a good half-hour. Above a massive oak dining table, a foxed photograph of Queen Victoria brooded in a bevelled frame.

“My mother’s place,” Simmons said, gesturing at the frippery. “And someday, I swear, it’s all going to change. Have a seat.” He indicated a set of dining chairs, each one elaborately flounced.

Delorme chose not to waste time cozying up. “Corporal Simmons, I know you’re with the Sudbury RCMP detachment. What are you doing down here in Mattawa this time of year?”

“I got a call from the OPP there was a break-in. They had a whole series of them out here.”

“But the place looks in great shape.”

“They broke into the boathouse. Took a pair of twin 95 Merc outboards.”

“And where were you last night?”

“Last night? I was here the whole time. Why?”

“The whole time? What were you doing?”

“I was painting the bedroom. I thought, since I was out here, I may as well take care of it. That took most of the night. Then I watched the end of the hockey game. Is this in reference to an investigation?”

“Who won?” Delorme asked.

As a Mountie, the corporal was no doubt more used to asking questions than answering them. He seemed thrown by the question, opening his mouth for a moment, then closing it, then looking away.

“The game,” Delorme added. “You said you watched the hockey game.”

“Detroit won. Five-four.”

True, Delorme knew, but it was the sort of alibi guilty people cooked up all the time. “You sure you weren’t visiting Winter Cates?”

“Visiting Winter? No, I wasn’t, as a matter of fact. I saw her earlier in the day.”

“Yes, I know. And you had words with her.”

“I had a conversation with her. Look, Detective, this is my private life you’re prying into. How do you even know about me and Winter? What’s this all about?”

“At least one witness says your voices were raised. Angry. Are you saying that’s not the case?”

“Winter was annoyed that I showed up at her office.”

“But you had to, didn’t you? She didn’t give you any choice. She wasn’t answering your calls.”

Simmons’s face changed, his features shifting from budding anger to fear. “Has something happened to Winter? Has she been hurt?”

“You tell me, Mr. Simmons.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just tell me, is Winter all right?”

“Winter Cates hasn’t been seen since last night. Not by the hospital, not by her patients, not by her parents.”

“She is a doctor, you know. She could’ve been called away on some emergency.”

“What type of emergency would that be? Her car is still at home.”

Simmons seemed to flinch, registering this fact.

“‘You make me feel like I’m begging,’” Delorme quoted from memory. “‘You treat me worse than I would treat a stranger.’ Pretty strong words, no?”

Simmons’s face was turning scarlet. Delorme had a feeling it wasn’t from embarrassment.

“You’re implying that I would hurt Winter?”

“Where is she, Corporal Simmons? I’m thinking maybe you showed up unannounced again. It seems to be a habit of yours. She wasn’t answering your phone calls, she tossed you out of her office and you were going to make her listen. It’s over for her, and you just can’t accept it.”

“Who do you think you are?” Simmons said. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Where is she, Mr. Simmons?”

He was a small man who must have only just made it past the RCMP height restrictions, but he gripped the edge of the oak table and with a sudden motion flipped it so hard that it landed not on its side but completely upside down, lion’s-paw feet clawing the air.

“Take it easy,” Delorme said, more rattled than she tried to let on. “Just answer the question.”

“Who do you think you are?” Simmons said again. “Some little frog bitch fresh off the farm. That’s how you got your job, right? The old bilingual free pass? Tell me something: how’d you do in hand-to-hand down at Aylmer?”

“We’re not talking about me, Mr. Simmons. It’s your girlfriend who’s missing. Former girlfriend. And you don’t have an alibi.”

The truth was, Delorme had had to repeat the hand-to-hand training, and even then she’d only squeaked by. Since then she had spent a lot of hours with a personal trainer, but she was not in a rush to take on an enraged Mountie. She wondered whether to pull her gun. Is this guy faking it? Or is he really going berserk?

“Corporal Simmons,” she said, “a simple yes or no will do. Do you know where Winter Cates is right now?”

Simmons took a step closer.

“Just answer the question. You can leave out the macho theatrics.”

“Maybe I’m an emotional person,” Simmons said. His voice had gone very quiet. “A passionate person.”

“Maybe a violent person,” Delorme said. “Maybe homicidal.”

Simmons glared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “You don’t know anything about me,” he said. “And frankly, I’m pretty disgusted that you don’t give a fellow officer the benefit of the doubt.”

He went over to the door and held it open. “I don’t have any idea where Winter might be. You may not like that answer, Detective, but it’s the truth. If she’s really missing, then I’m far more worried about her than you’ll ever be. And if you have any more questions, you’re going to have to wait until I get a lawyer.”

“Corporal, we have your messages on Winter’s phone machine, we have a one-sided love affair, we have your explosive temperament and we have your uncorroborated alibi. If Dr. Cates doesn’t show up very soon, for sure you will need a lawyer.”

Simmons held the door wider.

Delorme nodded at the overturned table. “Might be a good time to redecorate, too.”

Melissa Gale was right, she thought, back in the car: the guy’s an actor. Oh, I’m so tough. So passionate. Give me a break.

As she drove back toward the highway—the dim green forest passing by, rain blurring the hills—she began to have second thoughts. What if Simmons was a genuine berserker? Would it matter either way? If he was faking, it looked like he was covering up a guilty conscience. If he wasn’t faking, then it made him look capable of—well, she hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be murder.