Until the Night

14

AT LUNCHTIME, CARDINAL WENT OVER to D’Anunzio’s and ordered a sandwich and a coffee. The place was a fruit store in addition to being a coffee shop, and while he was waiting he bought a half-dozen oranges and set them on the counter. Tony D’Anunzio was as chatty as usual, but Cardinal just grunted in reply. His ham and cheese sandwich came and he ate it in silence. He had looked for Delorme to see if she wanted to join him, but she had already headed out somewhere else. In thinking about her now, his mind went into split-screen mode. On one side, the image of her as she looked that night of the party—an image that reawakened the desire to kiss her. On the other, the image of her sitting on his couch with a bowl of popcorn on her lap as they watched a movie together. He missed the easiness of their friendship—missed it so much that he could not have said at that moment which side of the split screen he wanted to become the whole story.

He reached for a Toronto Star someone had left on the stool next to him. Half of page five was devoted to the Flint–Lacroix case. The article was accompanied by a still of their most likely suspect from the Broadview Motel’s security camera footage. Beside it, they had reproduced the Identi-Kit composite. Have you seen this man?

Silver hair, regular features, large nose. Whether or not anyone had actually seen him, a lot of people were going to think they had. The calls would be many, time would be wasted, and they would be no closer to the killer.

Tony D’Anunzio refilled his coffee cup without asking.

“Thanks, Tony,” Cardinal said. “What do I owe you?”

His cellphone rang. Jerry Commanda, detective sergeant at the OPP and a former city cop.

“Tell me something good, Jerry.”

“You’re not dead.”

“Always a ray of sunshine.”

“I’ve been cogitating.” It was Jerry’s habit to employ words that, while not exactly obscure, were not common conversational tender. “Pondering your question about possible similars.”

“You said you didn’t have anything.”

“Which was correct at the time. I don’t personally have anything similar, nor does anyone in the detachment—or on the reserve, before you ask.”

“I already did ask.”

“That’s true, you did.”

“I wasn’t talking murders necessarily.”

“I know. We don’t have any attacks or attempts that might have been the work of the same guy. But …”

Jerry started flirting with one of his colleagues in the background, telling Deandra Couchie she was looking dangerously provocative today. Deandra was a good-looking woman old enough to be Jerry’s mother, or nearly. Cardinal used to think it was just Jerry, but he had come to realize that First Nations people were not squeamish about proper office behaviour, at least among themselves. If Cardinal had ever suggested to Sergeant Flower that she was looking too sexy in her new jacket, he’d have to endure a lecture from the chief, if not a written reprimand.

“Leave her alone,” he told Jerry. “She can beat you up.”

“I know it—I was her kick-boxing instructor. Listen, I just heard back from the Parry Sound detachment. They had a thing, fifty-eight-year-old female, Brenda Gauthier, froze to death last February—record snow, remember? And near-record lows. Anyways, she suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s and had lately become peripatetic. Went AWOL a couple of times, way they do. So when she turned up frozen to death in the middle of the bush, it maybe didn’t get the attention it deserved.”

“What makes you think it deserved more?”

“Well, the age would fit, obviously. But here’s what struck me in reading the report: when Brenda Gauthier was found, she was wearing clothes that didn’t belong to her.”

“I need to speak to the husband,” Cardinal said. “How do I contact him?”

“You can’t—and that’s another reason I thought you’d be interested. He killed himself two days ago.”

A stack of call slips was waiting for Cardinal on his desk. He tossed them on top of his bag of oranges and dialed the number Jerry had given him, the cellphone of Timothy Gauthier, home from his job in London’s City district to bury his father.

He took the phone messages to Chouinard. “Why are all these call-ins coming to me?”

“That’s exactly one-fifth of what’s come in since this morning. Don’t look like that. I’m not going to second-guess anyone at this stage, and it’s Loach’s case.”

“I’m running Flint.”

“So clearly the reasonable thing to do is for you to decide which of those messages relate to Flint and which to Lacroix and divide them up accordingly. Of course, in order to do that, you’d have to answer them.”

Cardinal felt the anger rising in him and pushed it down. “I have to go to Parry Sound. I think we’ve got a third victim.”

It was a two-hour drive to Parry Sound. Cardinal had lots of time to think about the reports Jerry had faxed. To the Parry Sound OPP, Brenda Gauthier was not a homicide but a case of unexpected death, and the case summary was accordingly laconic.

Missing person, female 58 years of age and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, last seen 1 pm, Friday, February 15, 2010. LSW: cream blouse, navy blue cardigan, dark slacks.

Husband Frank Gauthier reports leaving for just over an hour for doctor’s appointment. Upon return, wife missing. Has wandered off on prior occasions.

All-units alert and other obvious efforts unsuccessful. Grid search mounted the following day without result. Search expanded Feb 17 and body discovered 4:30 pm bottom of ravine 20 kilometres distant (near West Line Rd.). Foot of rocky outcropping, in heavy bush. Multiple injuries include broken leg, severe trauma to head.

Husband several times expressed concern/bewilderment that some clothes wife was found wearing not her own, specifically boots and blue down jacket, both new-looking. Accepts given victim’s increasing dementia there are several possible explanations for this.

Coroner on scene found no evidence foul play. Autopsy also negative. Reports on file. Cleared: Death by misadventure.

The autopsy report found injuries consistent with a fall at the scene and put cause of death as intracranial bleeding. Toxicology showed high levels of donepezil and other medications for dementia but was otherwise negative.

Cardinal thought about that twenty kilometres. A long way for a woman to wander on her own, unseen, in heavy snow. And he thought about the clothes.

Five kilometres outside Parry Sound, a snow squall hit and he had to concentrate on driving.

“I’m going to ask you straight out, Mr. Gauthier. Did you find anything suspicious about your mother’s death?”

“I certainly didn’t. I’ve been living in England the past three years. I’d been painfully aware of my mother’s illness, mostly from a distance. My father sent me anguished e-mails about it. It was horrible for him, as you can imagine. I knew she’d wandered off several times before. Typical for Alzheimer’s, as I’m sure you know. Of course, I felt like shit for not coming home like a dutiful son and helping out.”

“What about your father? Was he satisfied with the investigation?”

“Oh, Dad had a few questions, definitely.”

“What sort of questions?”

“He said that after the first few times my mother wandered away, she became afraid to go out at all. She hadn’t even left the house for a couple of months. So why would she take off all of a sudden? Personally, I didn’t think it sounded all that strange. Horrible, but not exceptional, given the circumstances.” He gave a deep sigh and rubbed a hand over his face.

“Do you need to sit down?”

“I’m pretty jet-lagged. Let’s go sit in the kitchen. You want a coffee or something?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.”

They went to the kitchen, where Gauthier poured himself a glass of water and drank it straight down. He put the glass in the sink and leaned against the fridge. Cardinal remained standing by the door.

“What about the clothes your mother was wearing when she was found?”

“That did sound weird. Apparently she went out wearing her regular boots and coat, but when she was found she was wearing a brand-new down jacket—bright blue—and a pair of hiking boots my father had never seen before.

“He got quite obsessed about it in his e-mails. ‘Blue! She never owned a blue coat in her life! And these heavy-duty boots, like she was some kind of bushwhacker.’ That kind of thing. It’s mysterious, for sure, but once you put Alzheimer’s in the mix, I imagine anything’s possible.”

“How much did any of this have to do with your father taking his own life?”

“Oh, I don’t think it was about that. Those weird details were just a bee in his bonnet. Something he couldn’t explain. My father was a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy, very scientific, didn’t like mysteries. No, he just got more and more despondent—it was something I’d worried about before. My parents were very close, always together, especially after Dad retired, which was a long time ago now. They were each other’s world, you know, and …”

Gauthier turned his back and faced the bright window. He reached for a Kleenex and blew his nose. Cardinal gave him a minute.

“Mr. Gauthier, I have to tell you something that is not public knowledge, and it’s very important that it stay that way.”

Gauthier turned to face him, dabbing at his eyes.

Cardinal told him about the other two dead women, how they were dressed. When he was finished, Gauthier went very still.

“And they were murdered?”

“Yes, they were. No question. Which is why I’m hoping you’ll let me look around a little. We need to know if there is anything else that connects your mother’s death to these others.”

Gauthier showed him to a large, sunny room. Neat rows of books on shelves, L-shaped work table that ran the width and breadth of the room. Wide-screen computer. Windows overlooking the white expanse of the sound, its evergreen shores and rocky islands.

“Looks like a serious computer,” Cardinal said.

“My dad worked in medical tech, but my mother was pretty savvy too—this is hers. People think librarians are Luddites, but they have to keep up with information technology. You can see she was in the middle of a big project here, digitizing all the old family photographs. I don’t think she’d done anything on it for a while. Even her long-term memory got quite impaired toward the end. I’m amazed Dad never even put this stuff away. I really underestimated …” Gauthier’s voice broke and he had to stop for a moment. “Sorry. I’m still kind of in shock here.”

“Take as long as you need.”

Gauthier blew his nose again, sat at the keyboard and powered up the computer. A few Ouija moves with the mouse and he pulled up his mother’s calendar, address book and e-mail programme.

“You said your father was in medical technology. MRIs and those kind of things?”

“Robotics. For robot-assisted surgery mostly. Also some prosthetic applications. He was super successful, but you’d never know it from his demeanour. He was not a flashy guy. Eventually he sold the company and moved up here from Montreal. My mother was from this area originally.” He stood up. “I’ll be in the living room if you need me. I’ve got a ton of arrangements to make.”

“Thanks. I’ll try to be quick.”

Gauthier paused at the door. “I’m giving you access because if my mother was murdered I want to know. But I expect you to respect my parents’ privacy in every way possible.”

Cardinal looked around the room. Yellow note squares were stuck to drawers and cupboards: Paper, Folders, Envelopes, Pens and pencils. The books were all hardbacks and seemed to be evenly divided between fiction and non-fiction. Many of the authors were names Cardinal recognized but had not read: Richler, Shields, Munro.

The office furniture was all modern—pale wood, clean lines—but Brenda Gauthier’s reading chair was plump and overstuffed, with a colourful blanket draped over the back. On a windowsill, a small plant hung, exhausted, over the edge of a pot that sat on a plate. The plate had a crest, blue on white, of a beaver, a tree, and books. Cardinal had a vivid memory of university, cheap meals dished out in the Great Hall of Hart House, the long-ago days before he had decided to become a cop.

He expanded the address book and scrolled down. After a few minutes he pulled out his cellphone and dialed Delorme. She didn’t pick up.

“I’m sending you the address book of Brenda Gauthier,” he told her voice mail. “She froze to death in Parry Sound. Nothing’s jumping out at me, but maybe you could do a quick scan-and-compare with Flint and Lacroix and get back to me.” He thought about saying he hoped she wasn’t still mad at him but figured if she was, mentioning it wasn’t going to help.

The woman’s e-mails seemed to consist mostly to receipts from the Teaching Company, audible.com and online bookstores. In her Sent file, the only messages of any size were chatty e-mails to her son. They stopped some four months prior to her death.

Cardinal sat back in the chair and thought about Mrs. Gauthier’s line of work. Librarian didn’t seem to connect with either of the other cases. Her husband had been in high tech, as had Senator Flint quite a while back, though not medical like Gauthier. Laura Lacroix had been a hospital administrator, which might have some faint connection, but her former husband, Keith Rettig, was a CPA.

He dialed Delorme again and left another message. “Something else. We requested a CV on Keith Rettig. Did we ever get that? Let me know when you call back. Hope Loach isn’t driving you nuts.” He disconnected, thinking he wished Delorme was here to help him go through this room. She had a laser-like eye when it came to reading people’s personal environments. Then again, he just wished she was here.

He started the web browser and opened bookmarks. Gardening sites, libraries, weight loss, and several folders devoted to Alzheimer’s disease—patient forums, family forums, sites of famous clinics and universities. Mrs. Gauthier had subscribed to many listservs and newsfeeds and kept bookmarks for newspapers worldwide.

A folder called “Frank” caught his eye. He opened it and found sites for MRG Robotics, her husband’s former company, and URLs for articles about it. One of these was a corporate profile of her husband that went right back to his childhood in Quebec and his education at Laval and later the University of Toronto, where he had done graduate work in engineering.

His cellphone rang. Delorme in her all-business mode. “I’ve checked, and there are no matches between Marjorie Flint and Brenda Gauthier. Laura Lacroix either. You sure Gauthier is related? She froze, but was she confined? Was she drugged?”

“Not according to the reports, but she was found wearing new clothes that weren’t hers. What’s going on there? It sounds noisy.”

Delorme lowered her voice. “A bunch of us are balking at interviewing every French-Canadian male over the age of fifty in Algonquin Bay. You wouldn’t believe the calls we’re getting. Chouinard’s yelling at everyone to stop yelling.”

“Did Loach add ‘French-Canadian’ to the flyers?”

“Are you kidding? He gave the recording to the radio station. They’ve played it, like, five times already. The phones won’t stop. Everybody knows someone who sounds like that caller. Loach wants us to check out every tip—he can’t get it in his head that we are not Toronto.”

As they talked, Cardinal was examining the boxes and albums of photographs that were stacked in neat piles, each one labelled with a yellow square: History, Friends, Work, several labelled Vacation and one Ancient History, her term for baby pictures, birthday pictures, Christmases. The Gauthiers, like Cardinal himself, were of the last generation whose childhood had been recorded in black-and-white.

“What I’m thinking,” he said to Delorme, “is Lacroix and Flint were not our guy’s first run at this. I think he went after Brenda Gauthier first and it didn’t go the way he planned.”

“What—she didn’t end up dead enough?”

“Didn’t look murdered enough. Clearly he wanted the others to look exactly like what they were. This one doesn’t, it looks like an accident. So he changed his MO.

Did we get Keith Rettig’s CV? If Laura Lacroix wasn’t connected to these people, maybe her ex-husband was.”

“Brunswick Geo swear they couriered it over the day we asked. They’re going to fax it again this afternoon. I have to go. Get back here. This place is a circus.”

Cardinal opened the box labelled History. High school graduation pictures, sports triumphs, the Laval lacrosse team—a muddied and big-haired Gauthier holding the trophy. Brenda Gauthier, svelte hippie in headband and bell-bottoms, clutching her books in front of the University of Toronto’s School of Library Science. Gauthier on the field in King’s College Circle, yellow hard hat over wild hair, clutching a Molson in one hand and an ungainly electronic device in the other.

And then there it was. Not a photograph, but a photocopy of an article from the Varsity, the university’s student newspaper. Cardinal recognized the steps of the Sandford Fleming Building, where three grinning students stood behind what looked like a metal spider on wheels. Except for the colour of his hair, the senator had not changed much over the years. For the other two, Cardinal had to rely on the caption. David Flint and fellow School of Engineering postgrads Keith Rettig and Frank Gauthier crushed the competition at RoboRama, held last month at MIT.