The Delicate Storm

1

FIRST CAME THE WARMTH. Three weeks after New Year’s and the thermometer did what it never does in January in Algonquin Bay: it rose above the freezing mark. Within a matter of hours the streets were shiny and black with melted snow.

There wasn’t a trace of sun. A ceiling of cloud installed itself above the cathedral spire and gave every appearance of permanence. The warm days that followed passed in an oppressive twilight that lasted from breakfast to late afternoon. Everywhere there were dark mutterings about global warming.

Then came the fog.

At first it moved in fine tendrils among the trees and forests that surround Algonquin Bay. By Saturday afternoon it was rolling in thick clouds along the highways. The wide expanse of Lake Nipissing dwindled to a faint outline, then vanished utterly. Slowly the fog squeezed its way into town and pressed itself up against the stores and the churches. One by one the red brick houses retired behind the grubby grey curtain.

By Monday morning Ivan Bergeron couldn’t even see his own hand. He had slept late, having drunk an unwise amount of beer while watching the hockey game the night before. Now he was making his way from the house to his garage, which was less than twenty yards away but totally obscured by fog. The stuff clung in webs to Bergeron’s face and hands; he could feel it trailing through his fingers. And it played tricks with sound. The yellow bloom of headlights glided by, dead slow, followed—after an otherworldly delay—by the sound of tires on wet road.

Somewhere his dog was barking. Normally, Shep was a quiet, self-sufficient kind of mutt. But for some reason—maybe the fog—he was out in the woods and barking maniacally. The sound pierced Bergeron’s hungover skull like needles.

“Shep! Come here, Shep!” He waited for a few moments in the murk, but the dog didn’t come.

Bergeron opened up the garage and went to work on the battered Ski-Doo he had promised to fix by last Thursday. The owner was coming for it at noon, and the thing was still in bits and pieces around the shop.

He switched on the radio, and the voices of the CBC filled the garage. Usually, when it was warm enough, he worked with the garage door open, but the fog lay in the driveway like some creature out of a nightmare and he found it depressing. He was just about to pull the door down when the dog’s barking got louder, sounding like it was coming from the backyard now.

“Shep!” Bergeron waded through the fog, one hand out before him like a blind man. “Shep! For God’s sake, can it, willya?”

The barking changed to growling, interrupted by peculiar canine whines. A tremor of unease passed through Bergeron’s outsize frame. Last time this had happened, the dog had been playing with a snake.

“Shep. Take it easy, boy. I’m coming.”

Bergeron moved with small steps now, edging his way forward like a man on a ledge. He squinted into the fog.

“Shep?”

He could just make the dog out, six feet away, down on his forepaws, clawing at something on the ground. Bergeron edged closer and took hold of the dog’s collar.

“Easy, boy.”

The dog whined a little and licked his hand. Bergeron bent lower to see what was on the ground.

“Oh my God.”

It lay there, fishbelly white, hair curling along one side. Toward the wrist end, the flesh still bore the zigzag impression of a watch with an expandable bracelet. Even though there was no hand attached, there was no doubt that the thing lying in Ivan Bergeron’s backyard was a human arm.

If it hadn’t been for Ray Choquette’s decision to retire, John Cardinal would not have been sitting in the waiting room with his father when he could have been down at headquarters catching up on phone calls, or—better yet—out on the street making life a misery for one of Algonquin Bay’s bad guys. But no. Here he was, stuck with his father, waiting to see a doctor neither of them had ever met. A female doctor at that—as if Stan Cardinal was going to take advice from a woman. Ray Choquette, Cardinal thought, I could wring your lazy, inconsiderate neck.

The senior Cardinal was eighty-three—physically. The hair on his forearms was white now, and he had the watery eyes of a very old man. In other ways, his son was thinking, the guy never got past the age of four.

“How much longer is she gonna make us wait?” Stan asked for the third time. “Forty-five minutes we’ve been sitting here. What kind of respect does that show for other people’s time? How can she possibly be a good doctor?”

“It’s like anything else, Dad. A good doctor’s a busy doctor.”

“Nonsense. It’s greed. A hundred percent pure capitalist greed. You know, I was happy making thirty-five thousand dollars a year on the railroad. We had to fight like hell to get that kind of money, and by God we fought for it. But nobody goes to medical school because they want to make thirty-five thousand dollars.”

Here we go, Cardinal thought. Rant number 27D. It was like his father’s brain consisted of a collection of cassettes.

“And then you’ve got the government playing Scrooge with these guys,” Stan went on. “So they become stockbrokers or lawyers, where they can make the kind of money they want. And then we end up with no damn doctors.”

“Talk to Geoff Mantis. He’s the one who took the chainsaw to medicare.”

“They’d make you wait, anyways, no matter how many of them there were,” Stan said. “It’s a class thing. Class not only must exist, it must be seen to exist. Making you wait is their way of saying, ‘I’m important and you’re not.’”

“Dad, there’s a shortage of doctors. That’s why we have to wait.”

“What I want to know is, what kind of young woman spends her day looking down people’s throats and up their anuses? I’d never do it.”

“Mr. Cardinal?”

Stan got to his feet with difficulty. The young receptionist came round from behind her desk, clutching a file folder.

“Do you need some help?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Stan turned to his son. “You coming, or what?”

“I don’t need to go in with you,” Cardinal said.

“No, you come too. I want you to hear this. You think I’m not fit to drive, I want you to hear the truth.”

The receptionist opened the door to the consulting room and they went in.

“Mr. Cardinal? Winter Cates.” The doctor couldn’t have been much more than thirty, but she rose from behind her desk and came round to shake hands with the brisk efficiency of an old pro. She had fine, pale skin that contrasted sharply with her black hair. Dark eyebrows knit themselves in a quizzical look now, aimed at Cardinal.

“I’m his son. He asked me to come in with him.”

“He thinks I can’t drive,” Stan said. “But I know my feet are better, and I want him to hear it from the horse’s mouth. How old are you, anyway?”

“I’m thirty-two. How old are you?”

Stan emitted a quack of surprise. “I’m eighty-three.”

Dr. Cates gestured at a chair facing the desk.

“That’s okay. I’ll stand for now.”

The three of them stood there in the middle of the room, Dr. Cates flipping through Stan’s chart. Her hair was held in place by a clip; without it, it would be springing out all over the place, wild and black. She radiated a sense of enormous vitality, barely held in check by the seriousness of her profession.

“Well, you’ve been a healthy guy up until recently,” the doctor said.

“Never smoked. Never drank more than a beer with dinner.”

“Smart guy, too, then.”

“Some people might not think so.” Stan shot a glance at his son that Cardinal ignored.

“And you have diabetes, which you keep under control with Glucophage. You’re self-monitoring?”

“Oh, yeah. Can’t say I enjoy pricking my finger every five minutes, but yeah. I keep my blood sugar right in the normal range. You’re welcome to check it.”

“I plan to.”

Stan looked at Cardinal. His expression said, “Is this woman being rude to me? By God, if this woman’s being rude to me …”

“And Dr. Choquette notes you had considerable neuropathy in your feet.”

“Had. It’s better now.”

“You were having trouble walking. Standing, even. Driving must have been out of the question, right?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that. My feet just felt—not numb, exactly—but like they had sponges on ’em. It didn’t slow me up much.”

Please don’t let him drive, Cardinal was thinking. He’ll kill himself or somebody else, and I don’t want to get that phone call.

Dr. Cates led Stan to a door off to the right. “Just take a seat in the examining room. Remove your shoes and socks and shirt.”

“My shirt?”

“I want to listen to your heart. Dr. Choquette noted some arrhythmia and referred you to a cardiologist. That was six months ago, but I don’t see any results here.”

“Yeah, well, I never got to see that cardiologist.”

“That’s not good,” Dr. Cates said. There was a note of flint in her voice.

“He was busy, I was busy. You know how it is. It just never happened.”

“You have heart failure in your family history, Mr. Cardinal. That is not something you ignore.” She turned to Cardinal. She had the kind of cool gaze he found sexy in a woman, no doubt because it was meant not to be. “I think you’d better wait out here.”

“Fine with me.” Cardinal took a seat.

There was a rap on the door and the receptionist came in. “Sorry. Craig Simmons is here. He insists I tell you he’s still waiting.”

“Melissa, I’m with a patient. I have patients lined up all day. He can’t just drop in like this.”

“I know that. I keep telling him. I’ve told him fifty times. He won’t listen.”

“All right. Tell him I can see him for five minutes after this patient. But this is the last time…. Sorry about that,” Dr. Cates said when her receptionist had gone, her dark eyes no longer cool. “Some people can’t take no for an answer.”

She went into the examining room and closed the door. Cardinal could hear their voices but not what they said. He looked around at the consulting room. In Ray Choquette’s day it had been all chrome and vinyl. Now there were leather chairs, a ceiling fan and two glass-fronted bookcases crammed with medical texts. A deep red Persian rug gave the place a warm, inviting feel, more like a study than an office.

Fifteen minutes later Dr. Cates came out of the examining room, followed by his father, who was looking thunderous.

She pulled out her pad and spoke while she wrote. “I’m giving you two prescriptions. The first one is a diuretic; that should help keep your chest clear. And the other one is a blood thinner, to keep your blood pressure down.” She tore off the scrips and handed them to Stan. “I’m going to call the cardiologist myself. That way we’ll be sure to get you in. My assistant will call you to let you know what time.”

“What about the driving?” Cardinal said.

Dr. Cates shook her head. A strand of black hair came loose and curled around her neck. “No driving.”

That did it for Stan. “Goddammit. How would you like it if you had to call someone every time you wanted to go out? Thirty years old, what do you know about anything? How do you know what I can or can’t feel—in my feet or any other damn place? I was driving twenty years before you were born. Never had an accident. Never had so much as a speeding ticket. And now you’re telling me I can’t drive? What am I supposed to do? Call him every five minutes?”

“I know it’s upsetting, Mr. Cardinal. And you’re right: I wouldn’t like it at all. But there’s a couple of things you might want to keep in mind.”

“Oh, sure. Now you can tell me what to think, too.”

“Let me finish.”

“What did you say to me?”

“I said let me finish.”

Good for you, Cardinal thought. A lot of people were cowed by Stan’s bluster—including his own son some-times—but this young woman was holding her own.

“A couple of things to keep in mind. First, this neuropathy will probably get better. You’ve been looking after your blood sugar, and that’s the best thing you can do. Three or four more months might make all the difference. Second, everybody depends on other people. We all have to learn to ask for what we need.”

“It’s like being crippled, for God’s sake.”

“It’s not the end of the world. Frankly, I’m far more worried about your heart. I’m hearing a lot of fluid in your chest. Let’s get that looked after and then we’ll worry about your driving, all right?”

When Cardinal and his father stepped back into the waiting room, a man got out of his chair and brushed by them. Something about him was familiar—the combination of blond hair and the gym-rat physique—but he entered the consulting room and closed the door before Cardinal could place him.

Cardinal waited while the receptionist explained a referral form to his father. Angry voices issued from the consulting room.

“Dr. Cates get many patients like that?” Cardinal said to the receptionist.

“He’s not a patient. He’s a—well, I don’t know what you’d call him.”

“Can we please get out of here?” said Stan. “Believe it or not, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a doctor’s office.”

Cardinal had to take it slow up Algonquin. The fog that had been blanketing the region for the past few days was thickest at the bottom of Airport Hill. The end of January and it was as warm as April. Normally this time of year you’d expect blinding blue skies and temperatures so far below zero it didn’t bear thinking about. But the fog was beginning to have a permanent look.

“Of course, there’s no such thing as global warming,” Cardinal said, trying to shake his father out of his mood.

“She talked to me like I was six years old,” Stan said.

“She told you the truth. Telling someone the truth is a mark of respect.”

“Like you don’t have better things to do than drive me all over hell’s half acre.”

“Well, you’re always telling me I’m in a lousy line of work.”

“Which is true. Why you want to spend your time chasing lunatics and vagabonds is beyond me. Or those domestics you get? Husbands so drunk they can’t stand up? You and I both know the only reason anyone ever gets caught is because the crooks are even dumber than the—Where are you going, John? That was my driveway back there.”

“Sorry. Can’t see a thing with this fog.”

“Look, you can just make out the squirrel there.”

Stan Cardinal had a huge copper squirrel in his front yard, an ancient weather vane he’d salvaged years ago. The fog lent it a nightmarish cast. Cardinal made a careful U-turn and pulled into the drive.

“Give me a call tomorrow and we’ll get you to the cardiologist. If I can’t do it, Catherine will be happy to—Hold on.” His cellphone was buzzing.

“Cardinal, where are you?” It was Duty Sergeant Mary Flower. “We got a 10-47 at Main and MacPherson and we need everyone we’ve got.”

“I’m on it.” He clicked off the phone. “Gotta run,” he said to Stan. “Call Catherine later and let her know what time tomorrow.”

“Major crisis, is it? Another one of your domestics, I bet.”

“Actually, it’s a bank robbery.”

The Federal Trust was right downtown, on Main Street—a low, red brick structure that made no attempt to blend in with the century-old buildings that surrounded it. Cardinal didn’t bank there, but he remembered going inside with his father as a kid. By the time he pulled up in front, there were already three black-and-whites parked at crazy angles in the street and on the sidewalk.

Ken Szelagy, the size of a grizzly bear and by his own description a mad Hungarian, was at the door, jabbering into his cellphone. He raised a hand as Cardinal approached. “Guy’s long gone. We’re trying to get access to the security tape right now. Gonna be fun looking for him in this pea soup, eh?”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Nope. Shaken up some, though.”

“Delorme inside?”

“Yeah. She’s got things pretty much under control.”

Lise Delorme, in addition to being a first-class detective, had a calm, reasonable manner that was a real asset in dealing with the public. She had compelling physical qualities, too, but right now it was that reasonable manner that counted. Cardinal had handled several bank robberies, and usually it meant a scene of excitement verging on hysteria. But Delorme had got all the employees sitting quietly at their desks, waiting to be interviewed. Cardinal found her talking to the manager in his glass-fronted office.

The manager himself hadn’t seen anything of the robbery but led them to the young teller who just minutes before had been looking at the barrel of a gun. Cardinal let Delorme ask the questions.

“He was wearing a scarf over his face,” the teller said. “A plaid scarf. He had it pulled up like an outlaw, you know, in a western. It all happened so fast.”

“What about his voice?” Delorme said. “What did he sound like?”

“I never heard his voice. He didn’t say anything—at least, I don’t think so. He just stood there staring at me and passed a note over the counter. It was terrifying.”

“Do you still have that note?”

She shook her head. “He took it with him.”

Cardinal glanced around. There was a balled-up piece of paper at his feet. He picked it up and opened it by the edges, trying to preserve any fingerprints. There was typing on one side, and on the other, printed in pencil with idiosyncratic spelling: Don’t make a sound or I’ll shot. Don’t press any alarms or I’ll shot. Hand over all the money in your droor.

“I emptied the top drawer and put it in a manila envelope. That’s what we’re supposed to do in this situation, we’re just supposed to do what they ask. He shoved the money in his knapsack.”

“What colour was the knapsack?”

“Red.”

“Are you sure he said nothing at all?” Delorme said. “I’m sure it happened very quickly, but try and think back.”

“He said, ‘Just do it.’ Something like that. Oh, and ‘Hurry up.’”

“Did he have an accent?” Delorme asked. “English? French Canadian?” Her own accent was light French Canadian. The only time Cardinal noticed it was when she was angry.

“I was so terrified he was going to shoot me, I didn’t notice.”

“Oh my God,” Cardinal said, staring at the other side of the note. “It’s Wudky.” He stepped away from the counter and gestured for Delorme to follow.

“What the hell is a Wudky?” she wanted to know. Delorme had worked the mostly white-collar arena of Special Investigations for six years before moving to CID. There were gaps in her knowledge of the local fauna.

“WDC—or Wudky—short for World’s Dumbest Criminal. Wudky is Robert Henry Hewitt.”

“You’re saying you know this Hewitt’s the guy?”

Cardinal handed her the note. “Hold it by the edge, there.”

Delorme peered at both sides of the note, then caught her breath. “It’s an old arrest warrant. The guy writes a holdup note on the back of his own arrest warrant? I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t win the title of World’s Dumbest Criminal by half-measures. Robert Henry Hewitt is a real champ, and I happen to know where he lives.”

“Well, so do I. It’s right here on his holdup note.”

Robert Henry Hewitt lived in the basement apartment of a miniature, rundown house tucked into the crevasse of a rock cut behind Ojibwa Secondary School. Cardinal stopped the car in a grey swirl of fog. They could just make out the row of dented garbage cans at the end of the driveway. “Looks like we beat him home.”

“If he isn’t home by now, what makes you think he’s coming?”

Cardinal shrugged. “It’s the dumbest thing I can think of.”

“What kind of car does he drive?”

“Orange Toyota, about a hundred years old. Even the spackling is rusty.”

They heard the car approach before they saw it—a disembodied collection of sound effects for the Tin Man. Then it clattered past them, a dangling exhaust pipe scraping the sidewalk as it pulled into the driveway.

“Open your door,” Cardinal said. “Let’s be ready to move.”

“But he’s armed,” Delorme said. “Shouldn’t we call for backup?” She looked at him, those earnest brown eyes sizing him up. Cardinal thought about Delorme’s eyes more often than he would have liked.

“Technically, yes. On the other hand, I know Robert. We’re not in a hell of a lot of danger.”

The Toyota’s one good tail light dimmed and went out.

Cardinal and Delorme got out of the car and left the doors open so as not to make a sound. Stepping carefully on the wet pavement, they moved in on the Toyota.

The driver, a small man with frizzy ginger hair and a plaid scarf around his neck, got out and opened the trunk. He pulled out a bulging plastic FoodMart bag, slung a red knapsack over his shoulder and slammed the trunk shut with his elbow.

“Robert Henry Hewitt?”

He dropped the knapsack and the groceries and started to run, but Cardinal caught hold of his jacket and the two of them fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Then Cardinal hauled him up, and Algonquin Bay’s master thief found himself face down against the trunk of the Toyota, feet spread wide behind him.

“If he moves, spank him,” Cardinal said, and patted him down. He pulled a pistol from a jacket pocket. “Goodness me. A firearm.”

“That there is a toy,” Hewitt said. “I wasn’t gonna hurt nobody.”

“Wasn’t gonna hurt nobody where?”

“At the bank, for Chrissake.”

“Robert, what do I say to you every time I see you?”

Wudky turned to look over his shoulder. When he recognized Cardinal, he grinned, showing splayed front teeth in appalling condition. “Oh, hi! How you doing? I was just thinking about you, eh?”

“Robert? What do I say to you? Every time I see you.”

Wudky thought for a moment. “You say, ‘Stay out of trouble, Robert.’”

“Nobody listens to me, Sergeant Delorme,” Cardinal said. “It’s a real problem. Check the knapsack there. I’d say we have probable cause.”

Delorme unzipped the knapsack and pulled out a plump manila envelope with Federal Trust stencilled in one corner. She opened it wide and showed the contents to Cardinal.

Cardinal gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Quite a haul there, Robert. Why, it looks like you made off with tens of dollars.”