Flashback (18 page)

I led Sam back into the bedroom and let him sniff around the rug and the end of the bedclothes, then turned him loose with the command 'Track'. He ran to the front door and when I let him out he went directly to the point where I had last seen her car parked. Then he stopped and began casting around. I watched, wondering if he would find the man's arrival track. If he had come out of the woods I would follow him back to see where he had come from, probably the place he had spent the night. There might be something there that was useful. But he only went a few yards further down the driveway and then doubled back to the front porch.
 

I put him over it again and he repeated the performance, step for step. It meant that the man's track began and ended on the driveway, which meant he had come in a car, which again meant that he had not been alone, someone must have driven off after leaving him here. In my eyes that meant that Kershaw had not been the guy.
 

As I stood there I heard the wail of the ambulance siren coming up the road and I waited and waved them in. The paramedics jumped out and got their gurney and a board. One of them was a big serious-looking woman and she led the way, bossing the other one with a succession of curt commands. He was an older man, around fifty, and he followed her without a word, rolling his eyes at me helplessly.
 

'In the bedroom,' I told them and they trotted in and took over from Mrs McQuaig.

'Did you find her?' the woman asked her.

'No, Chief Bennett did.' Mrs McQuaig narrowed her eyes. She was used to respect and this woman wasn't giving any out.

'Was she like this?' The woman asked as she strapped an oxygen mask on Ms Tracy's face.

'I wrapped her up and wiped her face. I have the swab here.'

The woman unwrapped Ms Tracy and she and her assistant carefully got the board in place, supporting Ms Tracy's neck and wrapping her carefully in their own blankets.
 

'Are you coming with us?' the woman asked. So far her assistant hadn't uttered a word.

'Yes. I'll follow in the police car. Use your siren and get her up there pronto.'

'We'll do our job. Just do yours,' she said.

I picked up the swab, a bundle of paper towels I had used to wipe Ms Tracy's face with, and went into the kitchen for a plastic bag. 'You won't need that,' the woman said bossily.
 

'You do your job and leave mine to me,' I said.

She snorted. 'Come on, George, we haven't got all day.' She led the way with the gurney.

I turned to Mrs McQuaig. 'I want to be there when she comes around. Could you do me a favour please and wait here until I get back? I want to fingerprint this place later and I don't want anyone else in here.'
 

'What if the guy comes back?' She asked the question without fear, the way she might have asked for a weather forecast.

'Wait in your car on the road. If anyone drives in, get the licence number and drive to Pickerel Point and call me on the phone. Same thing if anyone goes into the bush behind the house. If there's no answer, call the Parry Sound OPP. I'll be back in about an hour. It's a lot to ask, but could you take it on, please? I don't have anybody else.'
 

'Sure,' she said grimly.

'Thank you, Alice.' I touched her on the shoulder and left with my plastic bag in my hand, and took off after the ambulance.

The man was driving, taking out his frustration, I guessed, wailing his siren and winding the ambulance up pretty good for such a narrow road. But speed was important, I had a lot to do once I'd spoken to the doctors and installed an OPP man at the hospital to speak to Ms Tracy when she came to.
 

We sped up the highway and reached the hospital within twenty minutes, faster than I'd driven it with Fred on her way to Emergency. There was a doctor waiting for us and he took charge at once. I followed him into the examining room, carrying my plastic bag.
 

He worked quickly, checking her vital signs, then sending her in for a head X-ray. While we waited for the plate I had a chance to speak to him. 'These are the paper towels I used to wash her face. If the man who did this cut his knuckles, his blood may be here as well. Is there any way of checking the group?'
 

He was young and had the oddly cropped beard that you usually see only on Mennonites, an earnest guy. He took the bag in one hand and looked at the bloody mess inside. 'It won't be simple but I'll try. I'll only use part of it for my test. If I don't get anything we can send the rest to the forensics place in Toronto.'
 

'Thank you, Doctor. Also, I want to speak to her as soon as she comes to.'

'Right.' The X-ray technician brought in the plate she had just exposed and he nodded thanks and clipped it on to a light board. He looked at it for a long time, then shook his head, puzzled. 'I'm not a neurologist but I can't see anything wrong, structurally.'
 

'What does that mean?'

He looked at me, tapping his teeth with his right thumbnail. 'It means that the wounds are superficial. And in every case like that I've ever seen that means she should be conscious by now.'
 

'You think she should be able to talk to us now?'

He nodded thoughtfully. 'I think maybe there's something else, like, say, she's ingested something that's anaesthetized her.'

'Like what?'

He pondered some more. 'It's impossible to say. She doesn't smell of alcohol but other than that it could be any kind of depressant, an illegal drug of some kind, maybe heroin.'
 

I thought about that for a moment, remembering how reluctant she had been to talk to me. 'Is there a chance that she's just acting unconcious so I can't talk to her?'
 

'Is that likely?' He frowned now. In a rural hospital like this he wouldn't have treated many crime victims, he wouldn't know how suspicious a cop can be.
 

'It's a possibility. There's a lot going on down on my patch, her ex-husband was murdered there and she's involved in a couple of things that make me suspicious.'
 

'Well then—' he straightened up and flicked off the light on the panel—'we'd better check that out.'

 

 

 

CHAPTER 10

 

 

As a former hockey player I'd thought the doctor might have used smelling salts under her nose to bring her around, but he wasn't about to do anything so rough and ready. Instead he went back to her and leaned over, close to her ear, and said loudly, 'Can you hear me?' He repeated it a couple of times, then glanced up at me and said, 'I don't think she's conscious,' and to her, 'I'm going to take a sample of your blood to test for drugs. You'll feel a little jab.' He swabbed her arm and took a vial of blood, wiped her arm again and put a Band-Aid on the mark.
 

A nurse came in and took the blood sample away. I told him, 'There were signs of a scuffle at the scene, Doctor. I think she might have been sexually assaulted. Can you examine her for that, please?'
 

'If you like. Turn your back,' he said primly. When the nurse returned he told her, 'Betty, I have to make a test to see if this woman has been assaulted. Get a swab, will you, please. In fact, get three of them, we'll do this right.'
 

I turned and stared at a blood pressure machine on the wall until he said, 'All right, Officer.'

I turned back and he nodded. 'There are signs of recent sexual activity. It doesn't necessarily signify violence but it may.'

'Can you label the swabs for me, please? I'll have to send them to forensics.'

'Right.' He sent the nurse for plastic bags and he marked each swab and I initialled and sealed them in his presence and hung on to them. He said, 'I'm sure she would never have allowed me to take those swabs if she were conscious. That's good enough for me.'
 

I held up one hand. 'You're the expert, Doctor. I'll ask the Parry Sound guys to leave a policeman with her. When she comes around she can talk to him.'
 

'Good. In that case I'll get her assigned a bed. She'll probably be in the intensive care unit if you want to leave now.'

'A detective from the Parry Sound unit is going to meet me here. I'll stay with her until then.'

There was a tap at the door and he called, 'Come in.'

Holland came in. ' 'Morning, Dr Baer, 'mornin', Betty. I'm here to talk to Chief Bennett, can I take him away a while?'

'Of course.' The doctor seemed relieved.

The nurse smiled and said, 'Chief Bennett. You're our new father, aren't you?'

'Yes. I'd like to visit my wife after I've spoken to Sergeant Holland, if that's OK.'

'I'm sure it will be.' She didn't seem hung up about visiting hours.

Holland led me outside. 'Let me get this straight. That woman's the ex-wife of this Waites guy?'

'Right. Someone beat her up, raped her probably, then locked her place and took the car.'

'Could be this Kershaw guy who's on the lam from Joyceville. He's not been picked up yet.'

'If it is, he's with someone else. Sam tracked him to the driveway and lost him. He must have arrived by car.'

He scratched his chin, making a rasping noise where he'd missed a few whiskers that morning. 'You sure set a lot of store by that dog's nose.'
 

'He does a good job, never been wrong yet.'

'Yeah, well. We've got the car on the air. When'd you think this happened?'

'She'd had breakfast but hadn't washed up yet. So the guy hasn't had more than a couple of hours.'

'That's a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty miles. Hell, he could be half way to the States now.'

'The guys at the border would find him if he tries to cross. I specified that in my call. Also I've mentioned that her credit cards are missing.'
 

'Have you reported that?'

'No. I came right up here as soon as the ambulance arrived. I'll take a minute and do it next.'

'Good. That could get us somewhere. If the guy's dumb enough to use the card.'

We talked a little longer and he promised to have a uniformed man detailed to sit with Ms Tracy and take a statement when she came around. In the meantime there was nothing else to do but notify the credit card companies that her cards had been stolen by a man we wanted on a major felony charge. With their computer working for us we would soon have a location if the thief tried to use one of the cards.
 

The companies were easier to deal with than the government. But not by much. I wasn't sure which cards she had and I was forced to do some bullying before the clerks at the other end of the line would tell me whether she was a customer. And then I had to speak to supervisors before I could get them to promise cooperation if the cards were used. It took half an hour before I was free to go upstairs to visit Fred.
 

She was dozing when I got to the room and I sat by her bed for about ten minutes before she opened her eyes with a start and saw me. She wasn't so limber today but she was just as cheerful as ever and we went around to the nursery and looked at the baby, who was asleep. It was pleasant, feeling like a civilian for a few minutes, and I tried to keep my mind off the case I was working on but Fred soon saw through me.
 

'You've got a lot on your mind, haven't you?' she said as I took her back to her room.

'Yes, there's a whole complicated case going on right now at the Harbour and I'm up to my rear end,' I admitted.

'First things first,' she said. 'Why don't you go back down there and get on with your job? I'm fine here. I'll be out tomorrow and we can take it from there.'
 

I found out what time I could pick her up and she kissed me gently and I left, dropping in on Ms Tracy's room on the way out. She was still unconscious but there was a policeman with her, reading a paperback book. He had a tape-recorder with him and he seemed a capable guy. I chatted with him for a minute, giving him a few details that would help him to talk to her, then left and drove back to the Tracy place to relieve Mrs McQuaig.
 

She was sitting in her car across the road from the Tracy place, listening to classical music. Nobody had come back, she told me and I thanked her and she left.
 

I took the fingerprint kit out of my car and went inside, leaving Sam to 'keep' outside. He picked himself a shady spot under a tree and sat there, watchfully.
 

Now I had time I examined the house properly, seeking anything I might have missed in my haste to get Ms Tracy to hospital. First I checked the kitchen. She had probably been here when the man arrived, eating her grapefruit. I tried to put myself in her place. She had been alone, otherwise two coffee cups would have been in use, so she must have heard the car drive up and gone to the front door. Then she must have recognized the caller. Otherwise she would not have let him in. She was alone, in her housecoat. After the things that had happened at Murphy's Harbour in the last couple of days most women would either have ignored a stranger until they had got dressed or else spoken to him through the closed door. That meant her attacker was no stranger to her.
 

That much was good news. When she recovered consciousness she could give us a name. Dandy. I could issue a warrant for the guy and when we got him it might even help in my search for Waites' killer, or the man who had beaned Mrs Jeffries and stuffed her into the trunk of the Waites Honda. Maybe.
 

In the meantime I did the job thoroughly. First I examined her housecoat and nightgown for blood traces. There were none. So the attacker had stripped her first, possibly raped her first, before he beat her up. On that thought I examined the bedding. There was blood on the pillows and the top of the sheet but it was only smears, there was no spotting as there might have been if the attack had taken place as she lay there. So I looked all around the room, and then I found bloodstains on the wall beside the door. I checked the height, remembering how tall Ms Tracy was, about five-eight. The marks were an inch or two lower, as if someone had rammed her head into the wall.