Cold Comfort (8 page)

“So you said no,” said Gilbert.

Latham gave him a rough defiant nod. “That’s right. I said no. And we fought. We argued. And she had that spatula covered with molten grease in her hand. And she always moves her hands a lot when she argues. But I honestly think, even to this day, that she flung that grease at me on purpose.” He pointed to two whitish spots on his cheek. “You can still see the scars. And…I don’t know…I lashed out. It was more reflex. When something physically hurts you like that—and let me tell you, detective, that grease hurt like hell—you instinctively…” Latham fumbled for words.

“You hit her?” asked Gilbert.

Latham’s defiance disappeared like air out of a balloon. He looked suddenly overcome with guilt. “I didn’t mean to,” he said. “I never hit anyone in my life. And to hit my wife…I don’t know how it happened. Like the pressure built up, and the grease just set it free, and I didn’t really hit her that hard, just gave her a kind of a light cuff across the top of the head, it didn’t do much more than mess up her hair. But as far as Cheryl was concerned, that was it. I’d crossed a line. I begged her. I pleaded with her. I dragged the table away from the nook right there and then, but she kept on screaming at me. She flipped. I’d never seen her like that. From then on, I was completely despicable to Cheryl.” Latham leaned forward and stared at the detective intently. “I’m only human, detective. I lost my temper. It’s the first and only time I’ve ever lashed out at anyone. I told her it would never happen again. But as far as she was concerned, I didn’t exist anymore. At least not as her husband. One lapse, Detective Gilbert, that’s all it took. One isolated incident. You think she would be able to forgive me. I’m not perfect. But you think she would have given me a second chance. It was just a light tap. It didn’t even hurt. And it was completely out of character for me. She knew I would never do it again.”

Gilbert stared at Latham; and he recalled Blackstein’s autopsy report. All the distant fractures, the missing teeth, the scarred spleen. Beaten badly as a child. Under those circumstances, was Cheryl’s reaction so bizarre? He wondered if Latham knew. Probably not. Child-abuse victims usually buried things. And this didn’t sound too good for Latham from a suspect standpoint. He’d already placed himself at the Glenarden on the night of the murder. Now he was explaining to Gilbert how unfairly, how cruelly he had been treated by his wife. He had a cut on his hand and they had unidentified blood in the kitchen sink. He had no provable alibi. Plus no forced entry at the Glenarden, which meant Cheryl knew her killer.

“And that’s when she left you?” said Gilbert.

Latham nodded morosely. “The very next day. She stayed with a friend from work at first. I grew obsessed with knowing where she was. I still am. That’s what you have to understand about Tuesday. I always have to know where she is. When she left me, Dorothy was dead and Cheryl didn’t want to impose on Tom. The following month she moved into the Glenarden. Of course I tried desperately to win her back.”

“But she refused to see you.”

“At first she did. But after a month or two, we started seeing each other for coffee occasionally. She helped me with some business now and again. There’s a Starbucks up there. I didn’t press her immediately. I felt I had to give it the velvet glove. If I could show her that I was really a nice man, that I was truly sorry, even remorseful for clipping her on the head like that, I thought she might take me back. In May she helped me plant the annuals. I thought things were going well. But then she started asking me for money again.” Latham paused. “Five hundred dollars. Sometimes a thousand. I was only too happy to give it to her. I didn’t even ask her what she wanted it for. I really didn’t care. I thought I was making headway. I was always phoning her, always dropping in at her work. I just wanted to know where she was.” He shook his head, and he looked ripped apart again, and guilty as could be. “That’s what happened Tuesday morning. I guess I panicked. I phoned and phoned. I was worried about the message she’d left. She wasn’t at home and she wasn’t at work. I thought something might have happened to her. I started thinking about the money. I had to know where she was. My old habit. I simply had to know that. I didn’t intentionally phone Missing Persons but that’s who they put me through to.” He shrugged. “I wanted to find her. I wanted to make sure she was safe. And I was willing to try anything.” He looked at Gilbert quizzically. “Is there anything so strange about that?”

Gilbert arrived at Mount Joseph General Hospital a little after one that same afternoon. A hundred hospital workers—nurses, technicians, housekeeping staff—marched with pickets in front of the admitting drive-through, not a strike, just a one-day protest, with many of the placards featuring Tom Webb’s name; the hospitals faced the same eighteen-percent cut. He parked the car, grabbed his briefcase, and entered the hospital, his mind still half on the things Charles Latham had told him this morning.

The hospital, built in the 1950s, was a study in institutional gloom; dour portraits of past presidents hung one after the other in the lobby, the wood panelling had faded to the color of potato skins, and the small lights hanging from the ceiling did little but cast anemic pools of light into the general dimness. He turned left past the volunteer office and continued down the hall. Glass cabinets displayed the handicrafts of rehab-therapy patients; there was nothing handy or crafty about these small paintings and clay sculptures; they were malformed, accidental, and spoke of the tragedy of mangled bodies trying to rebuild themselves.

He passed the Urology Department and finally came to the Social Work Department. He entered a small reception area. The receptionist, a fragile-looking woman with wispy black hair pulled into a severe bun, peered up from her computer.

“Yes?” she said.

Gilbert pulled out his shield. “I’m Detective Barry Gilbert,” he said. “I have an appointment to see Susan Allen.”

The receptionist looked at Gilbert with a perplexed frown, then buzzed Susan Allen’s office, lifting the receiver to her ear. “You have a Detective Barry Gilbert to see you,” she said.

The receptionist listened to Susan Allen’s reply, put the receiver down, then looked up at Gilbert.

“She’ll be out in a minute,” she said. “You can have a seat over there.”

“Thanks.”

Gilbert sat down. He stared at the receptionist, trying to figure her out. Before he could ponder further, Susan Allen’s door opened and a man, his face red, his eyes set in barely suppressed fury, well-dressed in a suit and tie, marched from the office, and, without looking once to the left or right, or even so much as acknowledging the beleaguered receptionist, left the Social Work office and disappeared down the hall.

Susan Allen appeared at her door. She stared after the man, her face strained, obviously upset about the encounter, and turned to the receptionist.

“Liz,” she said. “Liz, he’s usually not like this…he usually…”

Liz stared at Susan forlornly. “Did you get it settled?” she asked.

Susan turned around, seeming to see Detective Gilbert for the first time. She looked at Gilbert as if she didn’t know who he was. Then her memory jogged. “Detective…” She struggled to remember his name.

Gilbert rose, extended his hand. “Gilbert,” he said. “Barry Gilbert. I came to talk to you about Wesley Rowe.”

“Oh!” she said, as if she’d been jabbed by a pin.

Gilbert glanced toward the door. “But I see I came at a bad time.” He let his hand fall to his side. “If you want me to come back some other—”

“No,” she said. She looked at the door again. “No, not at all, I’m sorry, I…” She forced a smile. “Come this way.” She tried to shoehorn some enthusiasm into her voice, putting it on for Liz’s sake. “Please,” she said. “Liz, hold my calls until we’re done.”

He followed the social worker into her office. She was a tall woman, about forty-five, wore a light brown blazer with padded shoulders and a matching skirt, had a slim build, too slim, as if she had a problem. She looked harried. Her eyes narrowed, and she concentrated on Gilbert, her silvery irises squeezing against her pupils.

“I thought we had this cleared up,” she said, her voice now devoid of enthusiasm. Her voice was hard, flat, demanding. “Someone else was here yesterday to pick up the records.”

Gilbert opened his briefcase and pulled out the badly typed social work report on Wesley Rowe; then he pulled out a sample social work report from Marion Rowe’s chart, one typed by a transcriptionist in Medical Records and printed on the Lasotec.

“That’s what I want to talk about,” he said. “I’m just wondering about the difference in these reports. I was wondering why one was done on a laser printer while the other was done on some kind of typewriter.”

She stared at the reports; and she became so still Gilbert thought she was never going to move again. Gilbert hated this. He hated making Susan Allen squirm like this. She wasn’t a criminal. But because of her negligence, or maybe because she was overworked, Wesley Rowe was up on a first-degree murder charge.

“Look, give me a break, will you?” she said.

Gilbert stared at her. He held the stare for close to ten seconds as he watched her hands come together, her head bow, her streaky blonde hair fall over her face; she picked at the nail polish on one of her nails. Quietly, he put the reports back in his briefcase.

“Susan, Wesley Rowe’s going to be arrested for first-degree murder on Monday,” he said.

She stopped picking at her nail polish; she kept her head bowed but he knew she was listening.

“You know what he’s like,” continued Gilbert. “He’s got the mental aptitude of a nine-year-old. You shouldn’t have rubber-stamped him as his mother’s primary caregiver.”

“He seemed perfectly fine to me.”

“Susan, he’s lived with his mother his whole life. He can hardly look after himself let alone a sick mother with bladder cancer. I’ve read the chart. First the bladder, then the lungs, and finally into the liver. Here’s a man-child who can barely spell his own name, and he’s faced with watching his own mother die, not to mention suffer, and he’s expected to ease her suffering.” Gilbert shook his head. “Well, he eased her suffering all right. In the only way he knew how.”

“What do you want me to do?” said Susan. Her voice was thick. But Gilbert wasn’t about to stop.

“How many times did you meet with them? How carefully did you assess the situation?”

“We have a form. I filled out the form.”

“I checked the chart. You met with them five times. The staff doctor indicated palliative care.”

“Wesley said he wanted to look after his mother at home.”

“He’s incapable of making decisions for himself.” Gilbert shook his head. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. The doctor doesn’t assess the patient’s social situation, he assesses only their medical condition. It’s up to the Social Work Department to deal with the social issues facing a patient, including the family situation, especially in regard to palliative care. Should you not have drawn up placement papers for Marion Rowe? Should she not have been placed in a palliative care institution? Was it really the proper decision to leave her at home with Wesley?”

“At the time, it seemed like the best decision.”

“You typed this report and stuck an old date on it afterward. To cover your tracks. It’s obvious. I don’t know how you thought you could get away with it. I’m not blaming you. We all make mistakes. But now we have to figure out what we’re going to do about it.”

Susan Allen stared at him. The corners of her lips tightened, drawing into an unintentional pout. Her eyes grew misty. She looked quickly away, sniffled, as if she had a cold. Her mouth opened, like she was about to say something, but then she shut it, as if she knew no matter how many explanations she came up with, none could be satisfactory, none could ever bring Marion Rowe back, or entirely spare Wesley Rowe the consequences of his actions. She finally sat back, pressing her shoulders deep into the worn upholstery of her office chair, and stared at him, the hard edge coming back to her eyes.

“The Marion Rowe file was dumped on me with fifty others,” she said. “We lost two staff in here this December, and the rest of us had to take up the slack. Cutbacks.” Her brow creased in silent appeal. “We work twelve-hour days around here,” she said. “We get paid for eight. We work the free overtime because we’re afraid we’ll lose our jobs if we don’t. Wesley seemed a little rough, but nothing marked him as overtly handicapped. So I filled out the form. I saved myself the placement report.” She took a deep breath. “If this case gets to the College of Physicians for review, I’m history.”

She sat back and put her palms flat on her desk.

“And what if Wesley Rowe goes to prison for first-degree murder?”

She shrugged. “He killed her, didn’t he?” She gestured toward the chart. “I’ve read the coroner’s report. He axed her seven times. The first officer at the scene found the axe embedded in her head. That seems like murder to me.”

“Ms. Allen, you don’t seem to understand. What I’m asking is simple. Appear as a witness at Wesley Rowe’s murder trial. Tell the judge what happened. It’s going to affect the sentencing.”

She again seemed to freeze. Her eyes took on a stark quality.

“The RMT would have me out the door the next day,” she said.

“I’m just asking for help. Wesley doesn’t deserve this.”

She looked angry. “And I don’t deserve to lose my job.”

“I don’t want to force your hand, Ms. Allen,” he said. “I want you to do it willingly.”

Gilbert held her gaze; the mist in her eyes thickened. She yanked a tissue from the box and dabbed her lower lids. A hard one, this. She was right. She was probably going to lose her job.

“You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?” she said.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Allen. But I’m not going to see Wesley Rowe go to jail for twenty-five years when I know for a fact this homicide should have never happened in the first place.”

As he left the Mount Joseph General Hospital, he saw the evening edition of the
Toronto Star
inside the vending box beside the revolving door. He read the half-inch headline. CABINET MINISTER’S STEPDAUGHTER FOUND SLAIN. Ronald Roffey had the byline. Gilbert didn’t bother to read the details. As far as he was concerned, there were no details. No details, just a lot of pressure, thanks to Roffey.