Woman Chased By Crows Part 4

"You have children come up here for lessons." Pimple again. "You don't care about them?"

"You see any children?"

"This is a workplace, there's a law against smoking in a workplace."

"Today the place is closed. Today it is my private place. I am beside an open window, see? I blow my smoke outside with the car smoke. You going to arrest me for a cigarette?"

"I think you should put it out." This time from Toothbrush.

"You, with the ugly moustache, you smoke, too, I can smell it on your clothing. You want one but you cannot have one because your partner with the pimple in his eyebrow would not like it." She blew smoke in their direction. "You are just jealous." She smiled.

"Maybe we should take you into the station and question you there."

She smiled again. "You have badges, you have guns, you have authority. You can do what you want."

"Did you see him?"

"He was walking on the street." She looked down at Vankleek. The newspaperman, the overcoat with the black beard, was talking to a pair of OPP officers on the opposite sidewalk. "I saw him from this window."

"You recognized him?"

"Of course I recognized him. Who could forget a man like that?" She squashed her cigarette on the brick sill outside the window. The sill was black with burn marks.

"He didn't come up here? Come to your house?"

"He did not visit me. I was hoping he would."

"Why?"

"He was an attractive man. He had beautiful hands." She clenched hers.

"Where were you last night?"

"At home."

"Alone?"

"All alone," she said. "That's how I live."

"What time did you leave here?"

"Nine o'clock. Later than usual. The evening cla.s.s was over at eight. I stayed for a while. I was dancing. Alone. Giselle. You know Giselle?"

"Anybody see you leave?"

"My driver."

"Who's that?"

"Ed. He drives a taxi. He picks me up every night. He took me home."

"Where would we find him?"

"I would try the taxi company," she said. "There is only one taxi company in this town."

"You know his last name?"

"Yes, it is on his license, on the back of the pa.s.senger seat. His picture and his name and his cab number. His name is Edwin Kewell. With a K and two Ls. His middle name is Arthur, it is not on his license. We talk a lot. He likes hockey. He does not like parsnips."

"Enough about Mr. Kewell," Toothbrush said. "We'll talk to him. He drove you home?"

"That is correct. He picked me up at five minutes after nine o'clock. I smoked a cigarette in the doorway while I waited for him."

"He pick you up all the time?"

"For a year now. I like to know who drives me places. Sometimes when people take you for a ride you do not know where you will wind up, you know?"

"What time did you get home?"

"About half past nine."

"You live that far away?"

"Not that far. Six or seven blocks. We took the long way."

"Why?"

"We were talking."

The Pimple liked that. "Just talking? Do you and Mr. Ed have more than a Driving Miss Daisy relations.h.i.+p?"

"Mr. Kewell has never been inappropriate."

"Depends on what you consider appropriate. Half an hour to drive six blocks? Sure you didn't park somewhere? Fool around?"

"Or plan to meet up later? Maybe go out and shoot somebody?"

"Being a policeman must be hard. Only ever thinking the worst. Poisons the heart, does it not?"

In the end they didn't take her anywhere for further questioning, but they promised her they would be back. She said she looked forward to it.

At first glance they seemed an unlikely pair - Stacy: cool, stylish, athletic; Adele: gangly, fiery, herky-jerky, no discernible fas.h.i.+on sense whatsoever. Adele wore basic black cop shoes, crepe soles, possibly steel-toed. Anyone getting a kick in the s.h.i.+ns would know about it. Stacy preferred high boots and jeans with a bit of stretch. Stacy had black belts in three disciplines. She kicked higher than s.h.i.+ns. Orwell was pleased with his matchmaking. He gave himself a reflex chastis.e.m.e.nt - there you go again, being Big Daddy - but it didn't diminish his pleasure in looking at the two women standing in front of him. A hawk and a heron. Both alert, fully engaged in what they did best.

"Sit down, detectives. What have you got?"

Stacy started. "Del thinks Delisle was up here seeing a woman."

"Or he found one when he got here," Adele said. "He moved pretty fast."

"There was definitely s.e.x involved," Stacy said. "Maybe a married woman. Somebody he was careful didn't get spotted."

"We checked with the guys about the dance teacher." Adele consulted her notes. "Home alone, from 21:30 on. Her only confirmation is the cab driver who took her home, and he's taking the week off. Cab company says he went to Guelph to see his sister. They're trying to track him down."

"Anya Daniel have a car?" Orwell asked.

"No, Chief," Stacy said.

"Lives where?"

"Behind the hospital. River Street."

"His car was still in the parking lot, right?"

"Yes, sir. They checked it out. No evidence anyone else was in it."

"To get to the motel and back she'd need a ride. How'd she get back?"

"We figure he hooked up," Adele said. "Wouldn't be the first time. Someone with their own car."

"And if it was a spur-of-the-moment thing they might have had a drink somewhere," Orwell threw in.

"Dr. Ruth says he left her office around four," said Stacy. "Didn't see him again, but . . ."

A sharp knock on the door. "Come ahead," Orwell said.

Dutch Scheider half-opened the door, took brief note of the two detectives. "The Metro guys want to take me back to the motel," he said. "Walk me around back or something."

"Sounds sinister," said Orwell.

"That's how we do it downtown," said Adele.

"Well, we'll know where to start the search if you turn up missing," Orwell said. "Wait a sec. Tell me, Dutch, if you were going to have a drink and didn't want it to become public knowledge, with a married woman, say, where would you go?"

"Never given it much thought, Chief, seeing as how my loving wife would strangle me with my own shorts."

"Sure sure, I know, but think about it for a minute. Is there any place within driving distance where you'd feel reasonably safe?"

"Not in this town. Maybe Omemee. There's a nice little place just opened. Lemongra.s.s, I think it's called. Supposed to be good. And there's that Italian place in Port Perry. Couple of places there, come to think of it."

"Thanks, Dutch. Off you go. Take your own car. Stay in touch."

"Will do, Chief." He looked back. "I'd start with the Omemee place," he said.

Orwell turned to the detectives. "Why don't you two take a drive over there and see if anyone had a discreet rendezvous late last night."

It was one thing to be cool in front of policemen, she was good at that. It was better to be resolute and unafraid with them, they were like dogs, if you cowered they bit you. Alone was different. After she locked the studio door she started to shake. Why would they kill him? Because of her? Her hand was trembling, holding the cordless phone while she paced the wooden floor. "The police were here," she said. The receiver was damp where she clutched it. "You believe me now? He found me. Sooner or later they always find me." She watched herself pa.s.sing in the wall mirrors. "The police were asking about me?"

"Yes."

"What did you tell them?"

"Nothing." Dr. Ruth's voice sounded tight. "Whatever you've said to me is privileged communication, doctor/patient. I confirmed what they already knew, that you saw me regularly. Beyond that I couldn't tell them anything about you."

"They think I killed the man."

"Did you?"

"Of course not."

"You might have thought he was another a.s.sa.s.sin, coming for you."

"It was a possibility." She stood in the middle of the studio floor. From this position she could see herself from three angles. Automatically she pulled her shoulders back. "If he had come to me last night, I think . . . I would have let him do . . . whatever he had come to do." She took first position, second position, sur les pointes, then flat, then on her toes again. "I was ready. I was waiting. I waited all night for him to come."

"To kill you?"

"Maybe," she said. She began to dance, a practice cla.s.s adagio, slow, measured steps. "Because I'm tired of waiting. It takes its toll. I have trouble sleeping. I try drinking myself to sleep: that doesn't work. I tried those pills you gave me, they make me stupid and slow and I still don't sleep. I am always looking behind me, beside me."

"I can't do anything for you, Anya, until you're ready to tell me."

"I came to this town because I had no reason to come here," she said. "It was a place on a map." She moved the phone to her right hand and stepped to the barre on demi pointes, began to work through the basic exercises, the foundation. "Anyone who followed me here would have done hard work to find me."

"I have to go, Anya, I can see you tomorrow. I have an hour in the morning. I think you should come in."

"And someone did. Someone found me. So I say, okay, that is enough now, I give up."

"Come and see me tomorrow morning, ten o'clock. Okay?"

"I was very good, you know," Anya said. She watched herself in the long mirrors as she lifted her leg. "I might have been a ballerina."

"You were."

"In the old sense of the word. Over here it just means a dancer, but in the Mariinsky, it is different, it is a t.i.tle. It means something."

"Anya? Will you come?"

"It means something," she said.

She wouldn't come in, the doctor knew it, she could hear it in the woman's voice. She'd been spooked. The shooting of the detective would be all the proof she needed that a.s.sa.s.sins were in town, watching her, waiting for her in the shadows. It was unfortunate. So close to a breakthrough, so very close.

The road to Omemee was clear, traffic was light. Stacy drove, Adele leaned against the window staring out at acreage blotched with patches of old snow, muddy cattle pens, livestock gathered around broken bales of hay. "You like it up here?" she asked. "All this . . . scenery."

"It's okay," Stacy said. "I'd rather be down in the city, doing what you do. But I'd probably have to start all over."

"Maybe not. The Chief thinks a lot of you. He'd back you."

"He doesn't want me to leave."

"Would he stand in your way?"