I don’t want to die.
He ran his hand up and down the wall, feeling for vibrations. The wall felt like painted drywall, nothing more. He rapped a knuckle against it in various places and sat back on his heels.
The voice came again, but this time it was weeping. The woman, whoever she was, sobbed and shivered and it was hard to tell where the sound was coming from. He felt up and down the wall.
“Fuck you,” he said, and grabbed the bedside lamp and laid it on the floor again. He lay down on his back and pulled himself under the bed. When he reached for the lamp to bring it after him, he banged his head on the box spring and cursed again.
The undirected light from the lamp made it difficult to see. He put one hand out to shade it and with the other felt along the edge of the box spring.
Please…
Her voice louder now, directly above him.
Dear God, don’t let this happen.
An audio clip from a movie. He could hear the sound effects now-the howling wind, the flapping canvas-tinny and miniaturized.
He found a gap in the seam and pulled the fabric away, closing his eyes against the dust. His fingers travelled along first one slat then another, until they dislodged a small object that landed on his chest and slithered to the floor. He got out from under the bed, set the lamp on the table and looked at the thing in his hand.
A cellphone.
It hurts, the woman said, and Babstock hurled it against the wall.
Not even light out and there was someone at the door. Delorme finished drying off and put on her bathrobe. Then she went to the living room and made a small part in the curtains to peer out.
Cardinal pounded the door with the flat of his hand and leaned on the bell.
Delorme went to the door and opened it without taking the chain off.
“What the hell are you doing, John? It’s six-thirty in the morning.”
“Why haven’t you been coming in to work, Lise?”
“I’m sick.”
“You’re not sick, and in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got several murders to clear.”
“I’m sick. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She started to close the door, but Cardinal stopped it with his foot.
“I’m freezing, John. Get your foot out of my door.”
“Why aren’t you returning my calls?”
“You have work questions, I’ll answer them-when I’m at work. But I’m not at work now and I have nothing for you. You wanted to cool things off, I’m cooling them off.”
“Not like this. I just-Jesus, this is new territory, Lise. Can’t you have a little patience?”
“We work together, John. End of story. That’s the way you wanted it, that’s the way it is.”
“If you’re so sick, why were you at Leonard Priest’s last night?”
Delorme looked at him. “You followed me?”
“I was worried about you. This isn’t like you, not showing up, being evasive, being cold to me-”
“You followed me. I don’t believe it.”
“I didn’t follow you, Lise. Yes, I was looking for you, but I was not tailing you. We need you at work and I need your help with Flint and-What were you doing at Priest’s, anyway?”
“Why-do you think I’m fucking him or something?”
Cardinal let out a gasp. “Uh, no, Lise. That had not occurred to me.”
“What else could she be doing-right? She’s such a half-assed investigator, it couldn’t be anything work related. She must be fucking the guy.”
“Lise, truly. Let’s get past this and get back to work. You can’t call in sick when we’ve got all this work to do. You know it’s wrong. It isn’t like you.”
“Get your foot out of the way.”
“Lise, come on.”
“Move it!”
He removed his foot and she shut the door and locked it. She stood there, breathing hard. When she heard him drive away, she went to the bedroom and pulled her suitcase out of the closet.
After his fight with Delorme, Cardinal promptly had a fight, via telephone, with Chouinard. This was in order to avoid a fight with Loach. “D.S., he’s got five guys from OPP to check out every French Canadian in the district-he doesn’t need me for that. You don’t need me for that. And you know I think it should not be our priority. I’ve been tracking down the history between the three husbands, and there’s a lead I need to follow up. It’s in Gravenhurst.”
“What the hell’s in Gravenhurst?”
“More connections, I hope.”
Chouinard gave him a list of reasons why he had to come in for the morning meeting, the most compelling of which was: we’re already down one man with Delorme being out sick-had he heard anything, by the way? Cardinal insisted he had not. The D.S. stopped just short of ordering him to come in.
The sooner I get to Gravenhurst, Cardinal had said, the sooner et cetera. But he hadn’t even got to the highway when his cellphone rang and Jerry Commanda came on the line.
“John, I am nonplussed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Have you tried Metamucil?”
“What is the story with this Lacroix case? We’ve got five guys on loan to you and they don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. Interviewing people because of their accents?”
“No, no, it’s much more fine-tuned than that, Jerry. It’s only males, for example. And they have to be fifty years old or so.”
“It’s not funny, John. Seriously, you have to do something about this guy, it’s imperative.”
When he hung up, Cardinal thought about calling some of his old colleagues on the Toronto force. One or two of them would be bound to know Loach. Maybe someone would have some ideas on how to work with him.
The previous night’s snow was melting in the morning sun. The highway was black and gleaming so that it looked brand new, as parts of it were, and Cardinal took it fast, all the way to Gravenhurst without stopping, arriving in under two hours.
Gravenhurst was the kind of town that quadrupled in size during the summer. In winter it made Algonquin Bay look like Manhattan. The snow was deeper here, the old-style parking meters buried up to their necks. Cardinal used the GPS to find the address he was looking for. He had been expecting a small office building, but it was a ranch-style house of cedar and pale brick in a sixties-era development that had somehow managed to avoid proximity to any of the numberless lakes in the region.
He was about to ring the doorbell when he noticed the hand-lettered sign that said Side Door for Good Monkey Enterprises, the final s squeezed in like the last passenger on a crowded bus.
The young man who answered his knock looked about thirty-five, with dark, almost black hair that fell dead straight past his shoulders. He wore a white T-shirt, much stained, that said I Just Like New York as a Friend.
“You must be Detective Cardinal.”
“That’s right.”
“Only other visitor we’re expecting is coming to pick up a Yoda doll, and you don’t fit the demographic, among other things. I’m Jackalope-Jack, when I’m offline.”
Cardinal followed him downstairs. Good Monkey Enterprises turned out to be a finished basement lined floor to ceiling with industrial shelving.
“This is my brother, Wally.”
“Hi, Wally.”
Wally, wearing a headset, was staring at a computer screen. He raised a pale hand by way of greeting. Cardinal had met a few identical twins in his time, but the matched proprietors of Good Monkey Enterprises took identical to whole new levels. When Wally yanked off his headset and stood up, he was exactly the same height as his brother, his dark hair was exactly the same length, and he even spoke with his brother’s voice. Luckily, they were not dressed identically’ Wally’s T-shirt just said Deadwood. He shook Cardinal’s hand and sat back down.
