Venn spoke into his microscope, his voice tinny. “Six left-hand grooves.”
“Do you have enough bullet to measure them?” Delorme said.
“Your impatience will do nothing to enhance my performance, Detective.”
“It was just a question, Mr. Venn.”
He glanced up at her, the microscope’s light forming twin reflections in his glasses. “It was a question designed to put me on the defensive.”
“Actually, it was a request for information.”
“Yes, it was. Implying that I’m not intelligent enough to realize that information is what you are here for.”
Delorme glanced at Cardinal, but he gave her no help.
Venn returned to his microscope. “I’m getting a land-to-groove ratio of one-to-one-plus. Grooves are zero point five-six; lands are zero point six-oh.”
He gave no sign that any of this information was familiar.
“Colt Police Positive, right?” Cardinal said.
Venn swivelled around in his chair as if noticing Cardinal for the first time. “Among other possibilities.”
“Well, why don’t we cut to the chase and just compare it to the bullet they took out of our Jane Doe last week. Can you do that?”
“Did you bring the case number?”
Cardinal opened his briefcase and pulled out a form. He read the number and Venn went over to a shelf full of little plastic drawers, the kind home handymen use to store doodads. He pulled one out, extracted the bullet that had been taken from Terri Tait’s skull and stuck it under the left-hand lens of his microscope with a bit of beeswax.
“As you know, Detective, it could also be from a J.C. Higgins model 80.”
“Thank you for informing me,” Delorme said. “What I really want to know, though, whenever you’re ready to tell us—and don’t let me rush you or anything—is whether it’s the same gun. The lands and grooves and even the twist aren’t going to tell you that on their own, right?”
“Oh, my. Go to the top of the class,” Venn said. He adjusted the left bullet, then the right. After a moment, he said, “The thing about the Colts is, they have distinctive skid marks, the marks made when the round is chambered. In any case, I can tell you right now it’s the same gun. Take a look for yourself.”
He rolled his chair aside and Delorme bent over the eyepiece.
“Focus,” he said. His damp fingers pressed her hand on the knob. Delorme tweaked it and the image went from soft to crystal clear. The incisions and scallops in both pieces of lead lined up perfectly.
“Nice,” Delorme said. “Very nice. Thank you, Mr. Venn.”
“Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No thanks,” Delorme said. She couldn’t help smiling, even if he was a jerk. “I think that’s it.”
“Then thank you for using the Centre of Forensic Sciences and you have a wonderful evening.”
Later, when they were back on Highway 400 heading north, Delorme said, “What’s with that Venn guy? It’s like he studied all his life to be a dork.”
“I don’t know what it is that happens to ballistics guys,” Cardinal said. “But it sure happens fast.”
People claim to do the long drive back to Algonquin Bay in under three and a half hours, but they’re lying. To get from downtown Toronto to Algonquin Bay takes four hours minimum. By the time Cardinal was heading up Trout Lake Road toward home, he was thinking he would allow himself exactly one beer before bed; he didn’t like to have more than that when Catherine was away, as it tended to depress him.
When he and Delorme had finished with ballistics, he had badly wanted to drop over to Catherine’s hotel; the Delta Chelsea was not far from the forensic centre. But he had been faced with a conundrum. If Catherine were at her best, of course, it would be no problem for him to show up. But she was treading rocky terrain, just now, feeling his protectiveness as persecution, and his showing up unannounced might be exactly the wrong move. In the end, he had decided against it, but now he wondered where she was and what she was doing. In her hotel room, he hoped, watching TV. Or on-line with her laptop, trolling eBay for bargain lenses.
His cellphone rang, and it was Larry Burke; he was on guard duty at the hospital. His voice was tight, full of nerves.
“I think you’d better get up here,” he said. “Seems our redhead friend has disappeared.”
28
BURKE WAS WAITING AT the front door of the hospital, looking glum, when Cardinal arrived.
“How did this happen, Burke? For God’s sake, this girl is in danger.”
“I know that. But nobody told me she was a flight risk. I was supposed to be careful about who I let in, not worried about her getting out. It’s not like she’s being held here on a charge or anything.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing happened. She’s had the run of the ward since she got here. Everybody loves her. She comes and goes as she pleases. The first couple of times I was a little nervous, but she always told me where she was going and she always came right back.”
“Where did she say she was going this time?”
“She said she was going to visit one of the other girls on the ward. She’s done that before. Girl named Cindy in 348.”
“And you didn’t go with her?”
“She didn’t want me to. Bad enough she has to be in here when she’s not really sick, I figured give her some privacy. Like I say, nobody told me she was a flight risk. There was no reason to worry about her taking off.”
“If she has taken off. How do we know she hasn’t been kidnapped by whoever tried to kill her?”
“Nobody saw zip. If she was taken against her will, there would have been a commotion.”
“Did she have any visitors?”
“Nope. Not one.”
“Let me borrow your radio.”
Burke handed it over. Cardinal buzzed the station and told the dispatcher to put out an all-points on Terri Tait. He gave a description and switched off.
“Did you ask everyone on duty? You’re sure no one saw her leave?”
“I asked everyone. Nobody saw her.”
“At least she’ll be easy to spot with that flaming red hair. Did you talk to the girl in 348?”
“Yeah. Name’s Cindy Peele. Didn’t get much.”
“I’ll talk to her again. Why don’t you book off now.”
“You blame me she’s gone AWOL?”
“I blame myself. I should have warned everyone to stay close.”
Cardinal went up to Terri’s room. The bed was rumpled, but didn’t look slept in. He opened the closet. Her few clothes were missing.
Cardinal went down the hall to room 348. A girl wearing headphones sat listlessly propped against her pillows, watching TV. Her dirty blond hair needed washing, and there was a small white cuff of bandage on her left wrist. She didn’t look away from the TV when Cardinal entered; he walked in front of the screen and pointed to her headphones.
“What!” She snapped at him as if he had been plaguing her for weeks.
“Would you take the headphones off, please, Cindy?”
She pulled the headphones down so that they hung around her neck. Her face was an exaggerated sketch of annoyance.
Cardinal introduced himself.
“This is so bogus. Why can’t people just leave me alone?”
“This isn’t about you. I just have a few questions concerning the young woman down the hall.”
“Like I’m her twin sister or something.”
“She visited you a few times, didn’t she?”
“So what? Are you going to arrest me?”
Anger radiated from the girl in hot waves. Cardinal was reminded of Kelly’s teenage years. Catherine had been in hospital for most of them, and he had had to suffer his daughter’s virtuoso command of the negative emotions on his own.