The Delicate Storm

by Giles Blunt

  “Oh, no. Winter’s a real night owl, like me. I don’t think I’d call her after one A.M., but any time up to then. We often speak late at night. We were joking about ‘going to the farm’—that’s our code for watching TV and scarfing down a bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies. Winter was just opening the bag when I called.”

  “When did you first become concerned about her?”

  “This morning. We had a procedure scheduled for eight o’clock, and she didn’t show. That would make you worry about anyone, but particularly someone as conscientious as Winter. She’s just someone you can count on—the way you can’t count on most people.” A shadow crossed Dr. Perry’s vividly blue eyes, as if she were recalling the myriad people who couldn’t be counted on. “And Winter and I have become good friends, you know. Close friends. It’s just totally out of character for her not to let me know what’s up. I phoned a couple of times, but she hasn’t called back. She hasn’t even picked up the messages, as far as I can tell. Also out of character.”

  “Have you made any other efforts to find her?”

  “After the surgery I called her office, but her assistant hadn’t heard from her. And I called her parents. They live in Sudbury, and Winter often goes to see them on weekends, but they hadn’t heard from her either. I didn’t know who else to contact. She’s only been in town about six months. She doesn’t know a lot of people here. I was going to call her office again, but I didn’t want to be a pest.”

  “Actually, her assistant called us just after you.”

  “Oh, no.” Dr. Perry covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Let’s not get too worked up just yet. So far there’s no reason to suspect foul play.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what really scares me,” Dr. Perry said. “I drove over to her place at lunchtime, and her car’s still there. So if she isn’t at home, where did she go? And how did she get there? And why didn’t she let anyone know?”

  “Do you have any reason to suspect anyone would harm her? Did she have any enemies that you know of?”

  “I can’t believe anyone would want to hurt Winter. She didn’t have an enemy in the world. She’s just the nicest person you could hope to meet. Smart, funny, dependable—terrific doctor. Ask anybody who works with her. There’s just no one you’d rather have in the O.R. with you.”

  “We’ll certainly talk to her other colleagues,” Delorme said. “But what about boyfriends? Is she seeing anyone that you know of?”

  Dr. Perry looked down at the floor. Her surgical cap began to slip, and she pulled it back absently. “Winter does have an old boyfriend who is, um, problematic. From Sudbury. Craig something. I met him once. I don’t think she ever told me his last name. I was over at her place one night—we were on our way out to dinner and a movie—and this Craig character shows up at her door. ‘I can’t see you now,’ Winter tells him. ‘I’m going out.’ ‘That’s okay,’ he says, ‘I’ll drive you!’ She had a hard time getting rid of him.”

  “Did he seem dangerous to you?”

  “Oh, no. I just thought his showing up like that was a little weird. Winter said it was typical. Apparently she told him long ago that it was all over, but he insists on acting like nothing has happened. He always expected her to come back to Sudbury after she finished med school, but she really didn’t want to go back there.”

  “Because of him?” Delorme asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to make the guy out to be a villain. I think she just didn’t want to stay in her hometown. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  Actually, Delorme had never wanted to live anywhere other than her hometown. Even when she went away to university in Ottawa—and later at the police academy in Aylmer—she had missed Algonquin Bay. There was something about living in the place that formed you—the sense of comfort and continuity—that no other town, no matter how charming or cosmopolitan, could replace. But she also knew that other people didn’t feel that way.

  “Is there anyone else Dr. Cates is having problems with? Did she mention anything?”

  “Well, she was having some sort of dispute with Dr. Choquette, but nothing serious.”

  “What kind of dispute? Over what?”

  “Winter took over Ray Choquette’s practice when he retired, and there was some kind of misunderstanding over the arrangements.”

  “He sold his practice to her?”

  “No. You can’t sell a medical practice—not in Ontario. It was probably over equipment or something like that. Anyway, she was upset about it.” Dr. Perry looked at her watch and stood up. “I’ve really got to go. Listen, Winter is a good person. I mean, really special. She makes people happy. I couldn’t stand it if anything’s happened to her.”

  “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours,” Delorme said in her best bedside manner. “Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet.”

  Dr. Cates’s apartment was in Twickenham Mews, an expensive group of low-rises at the end of a short street behind the Algonquin Mall. Delorme still remembered the row of whitewashed bungalows that had been razed a dozen years ago to make way for it. With its red brick and cedar trim, Twickenham Mews was one of the most attractive places in the neighbourhood. It looked homey—for an apartment building—and made you want to step inside, particularly now as the fog turned to rain again.

  Delorme rang the super’s bell, a Mrs. Yvonne Lefebvre. She appeared—a spindly woman in her forties with red-rimmed eyes, clutching a handkerchief to her face. “Allergies,” she said. “Winter, summer, spring and fall. I don’t know if it’s mould or what. I just know they never stop.” She concluded with a sneeze.

  When Delorme had explained who she was and why she was there, it took Mrs. Lefebvre a good two minutes, stopping twice to sneeze and blow her nose, to make the journey to the end of her hallway, where she dug out a set of keys, and back to the door where Delorme waited—an excursion that left her leaning against the wall, exhausted.

  “How do you manage such a large building on your own?” Delorme asked.

  “Oh, I don’t, dear. My brother does all the repairs and maintenance. I just collect the rent. Listen, do you mind if I don’t come upstairs with you? I’m not exactly feeling a hundred percent.”

  “Sorry, I need you to come with me. If Dr. Cates returns and there’s something missing, I don’t want her to think the police took it.”

  Walking down the hall, getting into the elevator and reaching the doctor’s apartment took about five times longer than it should have. For much of it Mrs. Lefebvre supported herself against the wall.

  “What kind of car does Dr. Cates drive?”

  “A PT Cruiser. Normally I wouldn’t know that off the top of my head. Only reason I do is that it’s just such a cute little thing, I asked her one day when I saw her hauling groceries out of it. It’s still in her space out back.”

  Mrs. Lefebvre, red-faced and puffing, leaned against the door frame as she opened the apartment. She sat on a wooden chair just inside the door. “I’m going to plunk myself down right here. Just let me know when you’re done.”

  The lights were on, Delorme noted the moment she stepped inside. The curtains weren’t drawn, either. A vast plate glass window looked out over Lake Nipissing, a sombre grey presence under the slanting rain.

  The apartment had an overall look of comfortable mess. The furniture was new, the kind of country style that Delorme had seen mostly in catalogues. A colourful afghan lay in a tangled heap at one end of the couch. Stacks of movie videos tottered on the coffee table. Magazines—The New Yorker, Maclean’s, Scientific American—fell out of an overstuffed basket. The bookshelves were jammed, mostly with paperback thrillers shoved in at all angles. Half-empty coffee cups and wineglasses were scattered about, and extraneous objects were everywhere—an iron on the coffee table, a squash racquet in the dining area, a bra hanging over the back of a chair.

  Not exactly a neat freak, Delorme thought. The essential point was, there was nothing broken, nothing overturned, no s
ign of a struggle.

  She moved slowly around the living room, hands in pockets to avoid touching anything. She paused over the coffee table. Mel Gibson stared up at her from the cover of a video: Conspiracy Theory. There were two remotes, one for the television and one for the VCR, on the couch. The TV screen was dark, but the power light was on.

  There was a plate of cookies on the table, two cookies to be exact, next to an almost full mug of tea.

  In the kitchen, the sink was a rickety mountain of pots and pans. Delorme lifted the lid from a small brown teapot. The pot was half full. There was a bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies, nearby, the first section of four cookies missing. Delorme herself had a similar ritual: video, glass of milk, plate of cookies—the perfect tranquillizer. Apparently, the doctor was in mid-snack when something or someone called her away. A patient? Relative? Boyfriend?

  “Did you see any strangers in the building over the past few days?”

  “Nope. Just the usual. Not that I keep tabs. Truth is, I’m the least nosy person I know—not to mention the fact that my unit’s in the middle of the building. Doesn’t look out on the front or the parking lot.”

  “Who were Dr. Cates’s regular visitors?”

  Mrs. Lefebvre sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “Couldn’t tell you. She’s only been here a few months. Pays her rent on time, doesn’t complain. That’s all I care about. Don’t get me wrong—I care about my tenants. But generally I only get to know the ones on my floor. You know, bump into them getting their mail and so on.”

  “Did you ever see her with anyone at all?”

  “Her parents came to visit one time. And I saw her a couple of times with a woman with red hair.”

  “Short woman? Bright blue eyes?”

  “Could be.”

  That would be Dr. Perry.

  “Did you ever see her with any man?”

  “I did, now that you mention it. Not a big guy. Real short hair and very polite. Held the door open for me. I remember because I figured, Honey, you should marry this guy. She’s so pretty I wondered why she didn’t have a fella. Of course, doctors are so busy …”

  Delorme went into the bedroom. There was a phone on the nightstand, and an answering machine flashing a bright red numeral four. Delorme pressed the play button with the tip of a ballpoint pen. The wheezy electronic voice of a computer chip announced the first message, 10:15 that morning. It was followed by the voice of Dr. Perry, asking Winter where she was and if she’d somehow forgotten about her O.R. schedule.

  Second message, also Dr. Perry.

  Third message, someone named Melissa—presumably Dr. Cates’s assistant—wanting to know where she was, the waiting room was filling up. The fourth message was also Melissa.

  Delorme hit the button for old messages. These were not date- or time-stamped. The voice of a young man came on: Winter, it’s me. I’m sorry for the way I was the other day, I was just so upset. I need to see you. I can’t go for month after month the way you can. Weekends are the worst. Please call—God, I sound like I’m begging. I am begging. Please call me. I love you.

  Next message, same voice: I know you’re there, Winter. I know you’re screening your calls. Why can’t you just call me back? You know, sometimes I get twenty or thirty calls in a single afternoon—a lot of them from strangers—and I return all of them. You treat me worse than I would treat a stranger. I wouldn’t treat anyone the way you treat me.

  Third message. A note of despair in the voice now: I don’t know what to say, Winter. I’m going crazy here. I’m just going out of my mind. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t eat, I can’t think, I can hardly breathe. That’s what you do to me. I just—I don’t know what to say. Please call. Use the cell number.

  Dr. Perry had mentioned the ex-boyfriend’s name, Craig something. “Sounds like Craig Something’s got it bad,” Delorme muttered to herself. “Sounds like Craig Something’s losing it.”

  But why would any woman keep such messages? Why not just erase them? Was she keeping them for evidence of some kind of harassment? Stalking? Then again, sometimes you just didn’t bother.

  The bed was a tangled heap of duvet, pillows and quilt. Delorme gingerly lifted them aside; there were no signs of sex.

  She turned to the closet. The doctor was no clothes horse. Half the items on hangers seemed to be jeans, and the shelves were full of sweaters. There was a pleasant scent of some light perfume and shoe leather.

  She pulled a framed photograph from underneath the sweaters. It showed a young couple—a younger version of Dr. Cates in the arms of a young man. She was wearing a formal dress, but it was the man’s outfit that made Delorme catch her breath: the high collar, the epaulettes, the tunic of red serge.

  Delorme went into the living room and showed the picture to Mrs. Lefebvre. “Is this the man you saw with Dr. Cates?”

  “Jeepers,” Mrs. Lefebvre said, and paused to blow her nose. “That’s him all right. But I would never have guessed he was a Mountie.”

  11

  THE HEALING ARTS BUILDING is a yellow brick box of the sort favoured in the 1960s. It sits at the top of Algonquin Avenue just beyond the Highway 11 bypass. The biggest thing on the ground floor is the Shoppers Drug Mart, surrounded by a laundromat, a dry cleaner and several other small stores. Above this there are five floors of doctors, dentists and chiropractors.

  Delorme had often visited the place as a little girl. Her parents had taken her to a dentist whom she later recognized, when all her fillings had to be replaced, as incompetence personified.

  The building directory listed Dr. W. Cates on the second floor.

  A sign taped to the door said CLOSED DUE TO EMERGENCY. PLEASE CALL TO RESCHEDULE YOUR APPOINTMENT. Delorme knocked sharply, and was admitted by a small woman with blond hair cut boyishly short and five earrings in each ear. This was Melissa Gale, Dr. Cates’s assistant.

  “Are you the detective I spoke to on the phone?” There was a quaver in the soft voice.

  “Yes, I’m Detective Delorme.”

  “Come in and let me shut the door. I can’t face any more patients. I’ve been turning them away since lunchtime.”

  “What time did you expect Dr. Cates to show up?”

  “Her first appointment was for eleven o’clock. By eleven-thirty I was starting to get worried. I mean, she’s never late. I called her place a couple of times. I even called the hospital. When they said she hadn’t shown up there either, I began to panic. That’s when I called you.”

  “Did you see her yesterday?”

  “Yes, she was here all day. We finished up about seven o’clock.”

  “That was the last time you spoke with her?”

  “Last night. Yes.”

  “How was she then? Did she seem worried or under any abnormal amount of stress?”

  “Not at all. But then, Winter is a very cheerful person. People can do stuff that makes me scream and she’s just totally unruffled. She seemed fine. This is so unlike her. I just don’t know where she can be.”

  “Were there any calls out of the ordinary?”

  Ms. Gale tipped her head to one side and thought for a moment. “Nothing.”

  “And what about this morning, when you opened up? Were there any messages that seemed—”

  “There were half a dozen or so. You know, just people calling to make appointments or find out about lab results, that kind of thing.”

  Delorme looked around. The waiting room was a small, plain space, somewhat enlivened by an old leather couch and some large, leafy plants. The empty chairs looked in order, the magazines were stacked neatly on the end tables. “When you opened up, did you notice anything unusual about the office? Anything out of place?”

  “No, it’s always the same. I closed up last night, and when I came in this morning, everything was exactly as I left it.”

  Delorme nodded toward Ms. Gale’s computer, where an insurance form flickered on the screen. “What about the computer? Any weird e-mail?”

&nb
sp; “Nothing. Just the usual medicare stuff, ads from drug companies and insurance people. We get tons of junk mail.”

  “You mind if I look around?”

  “No. Please—this way.”

  Adjoining the waiting room was a consulting room: large oak desk, glassed-in bookshelves and an oriental rug. Delorme examined the desktop: telephone, scratch pad, yellow legal pad, pen and pencil set, Rolodex, no photographs. The neatness was quite a contrast to Dr. Cates’s apartment.

  “Her desk is always this neat?” Delorme pointed to the notepads. “Not even any notes out? Lists of things to do?”

  “Winter’s the kind of person who doesn’t go home until everything’s done. Also, she likes to start fresh in the morning—so, when we close up, this is pretty much how it looks.”

  The door to the adjoining treatment room was open.

  “Now that I think of it,” Ms. Gale said, “there was one thing unusual. In the examining room.”

  “Show me. Don’t touch anything, though.”

  “Oh, God. This isn’t a murder investigation, is it?”

  “Just a precaution.”

  Ms. Gale led her into the treatment room, which looked the same as doctors’ treatment rooms everywhere: bright fluorescent lights, jars of cotton swabs and tongue depressors, a nutrition poster on one wall, an anatomy chart on another, and a little brass clock labelled PROZAC.

  Ms. Gale pointed at the examining table. “You see the paper covering on that? After each patient Winter rolls down the paper and tears it off and stuffs it in the trash. That way each new patient gets a fresh, clean surface.”

  “That’s how it looks now,” Delorme said.

  “It wasn’t like that when I came in this morning. It was crumpled, and actually quite torn. So I rolled it down and tore it off and put it in the trash.”

  “This trash?” Delorme indicated a tall, open garbage can under the counter.

  “Uh-huh. That’s it there.”

  “And there was nothing else out of place?” Delorme gestured at the jars of cotton swabs and tongue depressors.