By the Time You Read This (25 page)

37

N
ORMALLY
D
ELORME LOVED THE
morning meetings. All six CID detectives would assemble in the boardroom with their coffee and muffins and discuss the status of their various cases with the whole team. What with Ident and the two street-crime guys, the intelligence officer, the joint forces officer and the Crime Stoppers coordinator, some days there could be as many as sixteen people in the room, although today there would just be seven.

The point of these meetings was to focus the day’s tactics and assign various tasks to individuals. It was always interesting, and sometimes appalling, to hear how other detectives handled their cases, and there was usually a lot of humour. If there were going to be any laughs in the course of a day, this was where they would come. McLeod might go into one of his patented full-tilt rants, or Szelagy would come up with some earnest observation that just cracked everybody up. And Cardinal could be funny too, though his humour tended to be quiet and self-deprecating.

But today Cardinal’s presence was casting a pall. While they were waiting for Chouinard, everyone just kept to themselves, pretending to read over their notes or look at documents. McLeod was reading the
Toronto Sun
sports pages. Cardinal himself just sat quietly, his notebook open to a clean page on the table before him. He must have been aware of his effect on the room, and Delorme’s heart went out to him.

Chouinard breezed in, carrying a giant Tim Hortons mug in one hand and a thin file folder in the other. If oatmeal could be a person, Ian McLeod liked to say, it would be Daniel Chouinard. The detective sergeant was dull but dependable, bland but reasonable, solemn but solid.

“Don’t get up,” he said. He always said that, because of course no one ever did get up.

“See, that’s why I want to be detective sergeant someday.” McLeod snatched Chouinard’s thin file and held it up. “We’re all lugging fifty-pound briefcases and he’s carrying a lunch menu.”

“It’s the natural order of things,” Chouinard said. “Didn’t you study the divine right of kings?”

“I musta been out that day.”

“All right.” Chouinard took a huge sip from his coffee and found it good. He opened his file to the single typed sheet he always carried into the meetings. “Sergeant Delorme, ladies first, why don’t you enlighten us on what’s happening with your little boat girl?”

“I’ve found the cabin cruiser where at least one sexual assault took place. It’s currently in storage at Four Mile Marine. I searched it with the permission of the owners, the Ferriers, but I have not informed them of the finding yet. The little we can see of the perpetrator isn’t enough to absolutely rule out Mr. Ferrier. Also, he’s got a daughter who is blond and thirteen, but I haven’t been able to interview her yet. It’s possible she is the victim, maybe by a friend of the family or an acquaintance.”

“So we have a crime scene. You didn’t make any effort to preserve it?”

“It’s years old—the girl’s about eleven in those pictures—and it’s been in wind and water and storage since the crime took place. I don’t think we’re going to get anything off that boat. Even so, I’d like a watch to be put on the storage facility to make sure no one tampers with it.”

“That’s easy enough. We’ll get that right away.”

Delorme opened a manila envelope containing two more pictures Toronto had sent. There was another one of the boat. In this one the girl was dressed, smiling, and in the background there was the hill they now knew to be the hill beside Trout Lake. Part of Highway 63 was visible, snaking off into the trees. The other picture showed her as a much younger girl, naked this time, giggling at the camera, lying on a rug. There was a section of blue sofa in the background.

“That’s her home, we figure,” Delorme said. “That blue sofa appears in a lot of the shots.”

“That’s Highway 63 in the background?” Chouinard said.

“Right. Toronto thinks this one is about two years old. Some of the others show her that age. So we’re looking for a thirteen-year-old girl, blond, green eyes.

“Toronto thinks this picture is two years old?”

Everyone looked at Cardinal. Delorme could feel the relief in the room that he had spoken. Spoken about business, something day-to-day.

“I’m not sure what they’re basing that on,” Delorme said. “Other than the fact that we have no pictures showing her older than about thirteen.”

“You’re not looking for a thirteen-year-old,” Cardinal said. “She’s going to be eighteen or thereabouts.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Look at the highway lights. Those are the old sodium lights. Don’t you remember when they replaced those with the new white ones?”

“You’re the only one who lives out that way,” Chouinard said. “Why don’t you remind us?”

“I can tell you exactly, because I’d just bought my car, and it’s a 1999 model. Day I got it, I’m driving home and this rookie OPP pulls me over for driving too fast for conditions. The lights were all out. He was giving me a lecture about how I should be more careful, nice brand new car and all. I could’ve killed him.”

“He actually gave you the ticket?” McLeod said.

“He did.”

“See, that’s the problem with the OPP,” McLeod said.

“They train ‘em all wrong right from the beginning. They see the
rules
, they don’t see
reality
, they don’t see the
situation
. Gimme two weeks in Orillia, man—I’d turn that place around.”

“Upside down is more like it,” Chouinard said.

“So, if she was eleven or twelve in 1999,” Cardinal said, “she’s got to be seventeen or eighteen now.”

Delorme was still trying to process what Cardinal had given her. It was like having a bone reset, and it would take her a while to get used to it. She was no longer looking for a thirteen-year-old. She was looking for an eighteen-year-old.

“I asked Toronto to send me more pictures,” Delorme said. “They say I should have them today. Apparently they’ve just hauled in about a hundred discs from some perv and our girl appears in a lot of the images. I’m hoping the backgrounds in the new shots might be useful.”

“All right,” Chouinard said. “Cardinal, you work with Delorme on this. I really want to nail this bastard, but I’m not sure we need the whole department on it. It’s not like we’re dealing with a major porn ring here. As far as we know, it’s one guy victimizing one girl. That’s bad enough, but I don’t want to squander resources. And Delorme, please let’s treat these pictures with serious security. Strictly a need-to-see basis, all right?”

“Of course.”

“What about the people at the marina? Nobody remembers anything suspicious?”

“Nothing. It’s a pretty peaceful spot. I’ve just been telling them I’m investigating an assault, so they’re not thinking child rape. Only violence anyone’s mentioned wasn’t actually at the marina. Some guy tried to punch out Frederick Bell outside the restaurant next door.”

Cardinal looked up.

“The psychiatrist?” Chouinard said.

“Right. This was a little over a year ago. A distraught father. Bell had been treating his son, who committed suicide.” Delorme couldn’t bear to look at Cardinal as she said the word, but she could feel his eyes on her.

“I know how that goes,” Burke said ruefully, and made things worse by adding, “Some people really don’t want to live.”

“You did all you could. I told Mrs. Dorn that,” Delorme said. Then, praying could they please, God, get off the subject of suicide, she turned to Chouinard. “D.S., I know Perry Dorn’s older sister. I think I should have another word with her.”

He shook his head. “It’s not an open case, and the family is threatening legal action.”

“I could talk to her informally. We’re good enough friends for that. As it happens, her brother’s shrink was also Dr. Bell.”

“Fine. But do not discuss it on police property or using a police telephone. What’s next?”

Delorme had to sit through Arsenault’s list of suspects on the Zellers break-in. And McLeod had a series of assaults he was working where none of the witnesses would talk. Naturally, this was McLeod’s cue for a detailed rant on the multicoloured wall of silence.

Cardinal spoke to her the moment they were back at their desks.

“This guy that attacked Dr. Bell,” he said quietly, “what was his name?”

“Burnside,” Delorme said. “William Burnside. His son’s name was Jonathan.”

“I remember that case. Did you know Bell was Catherine’s psychiatrist too?”

“It was in the coroner’s report.”

Cardinal was looking at her with an intensity she found unnerving. Usually he was such an even-tempered guy, a little morose sometimes, but mostly calm and good-natured.

“Jonathan Burnside, Perry Dorn and Catherine. Don’t you think that’s a lot of suicides for one guy’s caseload? What are the odds of three suicides in that amount of time?”

“Four,” Delorme said. “I was going over our previous child porn cases yesterday.”

“Of course,” Cardinal said. “Keswick.”

“Leonard Keswick. Shot himself when he was out on bail. Which was pretty surprising, since it was a relatively minor charge: a few pictures on his computer, mostly teenagers, and it wasn’t like he was taking them himself, he was just looking at them.”

“I remember. Apparently the shame was too much for him.”

“Losing your job doesn’t help.”

“Remind me,” Cardinal said. “How did we get on to Keswick initially? If he wasn’t selling child porn or trading it or even buying it, why did we even know about him?”

“It was an anonymous tip. Somebody just phoned it in. Maybe one of those computer vigilantes you hear about.”

“Yeah,” Cardinal said. “Maybe.”

38

C
ARDINAL HELPED
D
ELORME WITH
her child porn case that morning and afternoon, but thoughts of Dr. Bell kept running through his mind like a persistent radio signal. Several times he had to ask Delorme to repeat something she had just said. Even so, the investigative work brought him some relief—relief enough that he found himself dreading going home.

For Cardinal, home had turned into a house made of knives; there was nowhere he could move that did not hurt. That night he lay in bed, but sleep was out of the question. After a while he got up and hauled the television into the bedroom and set it on top of the chest of drawers. It was a bad viewing angle, and he didn’t much like the idea of a TV in the bedroom, but he had a faint hope of perhaps watching an old movie until he fell asleep.

He flipped through all forty channels before he gave up. He went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of milk, and stood in bathrobe and slippers contemplating Catherine’s computer, a slim silver laptop that sat on a little desk beside the telephone. She was much more computer savvy than Cardinal, and used her Mac for everything from paying bills to making travel arrangements to buying camera equipment.

But a computer was private, and Cardinal had never touched Catherine’s. He didn’t like to use computers at home, anyway. Whenever he needed to check e-mail on a weekend, he logged on to a dial-up network on a clunky old PC in the basement.

But now he sat down and opened the laptop, and it came right up with Catherine’s desktop screen, a dreamy turquoise. He clicked on the Web browser icon, which opened to Catherine’s home page, a photographers’ site that offered a button for today’s “hot shots.” Cardinal ignored this and clicked on the pull-down menu of bookmarked sites. She had everything neatly sorted into folders. He clicked on one labelled Health. He knew there was an online support group she liked, for people who suffered from bipolar disorder.

He found something labelled bipolar.org and clicked on that. A window opened up asking for a log-in name and password. The log-in slot filled itself in with the name
IceFire
, but the password field was blank. He knew Catherine used the word
Nikon
as a password on some of her accounts, but when he typed it in, the site informed him in red type that it was incorrect. He tried to remember the make of her digital camera. He typed in
Cannon
, and was once again scolded. He retyped it, this time omitting one
n
, all lower case.

The screen flashed and took him to a list of threads. There were themes of medication (“Why I hate/love lithium;” “Suicidal reactions to SSRIs”), themes of resolution (“High Goodbye: Saying yes to sanity”) and finally one that looked more promising: “Shrink Raps.”

He opened the thread and scrolled down for postings bearing Catherine’s log-in. The first one he found was a reply to someone else’s thread.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Cardinal whispered, and clicked on the message.

If you’re not comfortable with your therapist after six sessions or so, I’d look for someone else
, she had written.
You don’t want to give up too soon, because it takes a while to establish rapport. On the other hand, if the relationship isn’t productive by then, there’s a good chance it may never be
.

That was Catherine: cool and deliberate and decisive about the things that mattered. She had written this just three days before she died.

Cardinal read a few more of her messages. None was about Dr. Bell. Mostly they were replies to queries, telling people where to turn for referrals or recommending books she had found helpful.

He clicked on a New Message button and wrote the following:

Urgent: I need to hear from anyone who has had experience with Dr. Frederick Bell, currently in practice in Algonquin Bay, Ontario, formerly in Toronto and before that in England. Any comments, positive or negative, gratefully received
.

He read the message over, hit Enter and closed the computer.

When he woke the next morning, he went straight to the kitchen and logged on. The website informed him there were three replies.

IceFire, I saw Dr. Bell for about six months in Toronto, just before I moved back to Nova Scotia. I found him to be sensitive and intelligent and I was sorry to lose him. I was coming off a manic binge at the time, so mostly our meetings were around medication that would keep me grounded. Can’t say how he’d be with someone whose difficulties were more to do with depression. Hope this helps
.

Hey
, the next one began,
thought you loved your shrink. What gives?

The third was from England.

IceFire, if you are considering seeing Frederick Bell for bipolar disorder, or depression, I would STRONGLY advise against it. There’s no denying the guy is intelligent—he’s very well respected in his field—and he may keep you from flying
off into the outer limits of mania, but I saw him for close to three years after I tried to kill myself with a bottle of sleeping pills (BAD IDEA!). In those three years, I would say that not only did I not improve, I was getting steadily, but quite subtly, WORSE. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I began to feel that he did not want me to get better. Think about that. He did not want me to get better. In case you’re wondering, paranoia is not one of my problems. In fact, I tend to be too trusting and it has got me into trouble many times in life. But I was treading suicidal waters the whole time I was seeing Bell, and his interest seemed to me, frankly, morbid. Once or twice I even got the feeling he was encouraging me to view suicide as a viable option. One example: I’m a struggling writer, poetry mostly, and one day he brought up Sylvia Plath. And he was subtle about it, but he was kind of leaning on the idea that her suicide had made her famous. A small thing, you might say, but if you were a psychiatrist treating a struggling writer for suicidal tendencies, would YOU bring up Sylvia Plath?

There were lots of things like this—in themselves, maybe nothing much, but cumulatively I think they had an extremely negative effect on me. I now see
a psychologist for therapy and a psychiatrist for prescriptions, and the difference is night and day. My therapist really reflects back at me my negative thought patterns, but in such a way that I see them for what they are, which is LETHAL! The result is my thoughts tend far less in that direction now. I’m no Sunshine Sally, but suicidal thoughts are definitely gone and I’m far more productive than I ever was. Maybe other people had a good experience with Bell, but frankly I doubt it
.

By the way. The clincher that made me dump Bell? When I was in a really black period—I’d just been rejected for a grant, my dog had died, and my husband was having an affair (ARRRGH!)—he suggested I write out a suicide note. Actually write one out. Nice, huh? Why not hand me a .45 while you’re at it?

Cardinal closed the computer and reached for the phone. The number for Dr. Carl Jonas at the Clarke Institute was still on the list of frequently dialed numbers on the fridge. There were several numbers for Dr. Jonas, including his cell; he was that kind of doctor. It was eight-thirty in the morning. Cardinal dialed his cellphone, not really expecting to get hold of him.

“Hello! Jonas!” the doctor yelled. It was always the way he answered the phone. Forty years in Canada, he still sounded as Hungarian as goulash.

“Dr. Jonas, it’s John Cardinal calling.”

“John Cardinal. Hold on a moment, you’ve just caught me trying to avoid being decimated by a lady parking her sport-futility vehicle. I could drive right inside this machine and still have room to turn around. Hah! She’s given up. Looking for a landing strip to park in, I suppose. Such monsters they are, it’s an incredible. What I can do for you? Catherine is all right?”

When would he get used to this question? Even knowing it was going to come was no defence.

“No,” was all he could manage.

“No? What means this ‘no’? What’s going on with Catherine?”

“She’s dead, Doctor. Catherine is dead.”

There was a long pause.

“Doctor, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. I’m just so—If you’re calling me, I’m thinking she did not die by accidental means.”

“She went off a nine-storey building. Leaving a suicide note.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. What a sad, sad thing. I don’t have what to say, Detective. Such a brave, creative woman. It’s too sad. I was very fond of her.”

“Well, you meant a lot to her, I hope you realize. She could never say enough good things about you. In fact, she referred someone to you just the other day. Really, you would blush to read the things she had to say about you.”

“You make my heart glow,” the doctor said quietly. “Tell me, Detective, if you don’t mind, was Catherine hospitalized?”

“No. Out for a year now.”

“But she was seeing the Englishman, was she not? Dr. Bell?”

“Yes, and frankly, she seemed to like him okay.”

“Naturally, you believe he failed her. Perhaps you believe the same of me.”

“Not at all. You hadn’t seen her for a long time.”

“Was she despondent before she died?”

“No. I thought she was in good shape. You know, busy, working on a project.”

“Sadly, this is often the way. They make up their minds and—boom, they leave the rest of us to cry. I never expected this of Catherine, though, I must say. She loved too much to do this, I always thought. That’s why, despite the severity of her problems, she always managed to get to the hospital in time. She wanted to survive, and above all she did not want to hurt you or your daughter. Ach, so sad it is. Was there something I can do for you, John?”

“I just have one question. And since you treated Catherine for many years, I hope that you’ll be able to give me a clear, solid answer.”

“I’ll do my best. Though things, as you know, are not so often black and white. What is your question?”

“Would you ever ask a manic-depressive to write a suicide note? Or a depressive of any kind?”

“Never. Absolutely not.”

“Not even as part of therapy? Maybe to get their suicidal thoughts out on the table?”

“Never. The first question one asks of a depressed patient is, Have you ever considered suicide? And if the answer is yes, there are two follow-up questions: How often? and Have you taken any concrete steps? That is how you gauge the seriousness of suicidal ideation, if they have taken steps. By getting them to write out a note, you are making real what was previously only fantasy. They are taking a concrete step.”

“Put that in context for me. Is that your personal view, or is that general practice?”

“No, no, it’s basic, basic, basic. Anyone trained in psychotherapy will tell you the same. A suicidal patient is seeking help with such thoughts. Asking them to write a suicide note would be sending the message that writing suicide notes is a healthy thing to do. It is not. Suicide notes are intended either to accompany the patient’s extinction or they are meant as a cry for help. Since in the first place we don’t want the patient to become extinct and in the second place they are already crying for help, such a note would serve neither of these purposes.

“Look, a terminal cancer patient in terrible pain, no quality of life, a few weeks left to live, by all means, if you want to end your pain, that’s a legitimate choice, maybe a positive choice, so practise a few notes, say exactly what you want to say. But as therapy for suicide? Please. It’s like suggesting to a pedophile, why don’t you draw me a few pictures of your fantasies. Or to a serial killer, why don’t you write out a nice description of your ideal victim and we’ll talk about it. I’m sorry, I make depressed people sound like criminals now, and I don’t mean to, but you get my point. Perhaps it’s more like saying to someone killing themselves with anorexia, why don’t you bring me in some pictures of the models and actresses you’d most like to look like. They already suffer from extreme negative self-image, extreme body dysmorphia, and you’re going to help them by such an enterprise? No, no, it’s an incredible.”

“All right, well, that’s clear. But isn’t it possible another therapist would see it as a way of clarifying a patient’s negative feelings?”

“I sincerely hope not. It’s completely irresponsible. Are you saying Bell asked this of Catherine?”

“Her suicide note had his thumbprint on it. He admits seeing it before she died, but he says she brought it in on her own. It was her idea.”

“Well, that’s totally different. Obviously—”

“The thing is, I’m not sure I believe him. Another patient told me he
asked
her to bring in a suicide note. She was extremely depressed at the time and he
asked
her to write one out—for therapy—and to bring it in. She dumped him because of it.”