overflowing with the debris of numerous cigarettes. These items seemed at odds with the carefully placed furniture and an antique mantel clock over the wood-burning fireplace. This morning, the fireplace was cold and cheerless.
A haze of tobacco smoke hung in the air, causing Neil’s eyes to smart. He was tempted to open a window and let some fresh winter air in, but he didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Quantz’s words.
An inch-long ash fell from Quantz’s cigarette. Neil planted his boot on it, smearing the ash into a black smudge on the rug.
He glanced at his watch and touched Quantz’s arm to get his attention. “Can you tell me when you last saw your wife?” Quantz had told him yesterday in the church but he had been barely coherent at the time. He wasn’t much better now.
The widower looked up at Neil blearily. If there had been a window of rationality between the drugs Ed Reiner gave him yesterday, and this morning’s bottle of whisky, Neil had missed it.
“I saw her yesterday,” Quantz said, and erupted in another flood of tears. His chest heaved and for a second Neil thought the man might vomit. He moved out of the way and removed the cigarette from Quantz’s hand. He had been puked on plenty, and had learned to heed the signs. A collective murmur of dismay rose from the kitchen.
He had dispatched Bernie to keep the visitors in the kitchen, but the unflappable officer was losing the battle. Half a dozen women pressed against him in the doorway, and his outstretched arms wouldn’t be effective for long. Neil stood with his back to the kitchen, shielding Quantz from their view. He addressed the man again.
“Mr. Quantz. I know this is difficult for you, but we need your help to determine what happened to your wife.”
“Somebody killed her and she fell off the fuckin’ choir loft, that’s what happened. Now she’s dead and I don’t know how I can live without her.” He threw himself back in the chair and sobbed.
“What time on Saturday did you last see her, sir?” Neil was damned if he’d leave without some answers.
Quantz hiccupped and reached for his glass. Neil itched to take it away and tell the man that liquor wouldn’t help, but he wasn’t the morality police, damn it.
“After dinner. I went to my studio to do some work. I’m a graphic artist. I must have worked until two, three in the morning. Then I crashed on the cot in there. I woke up late and had to rush to shower and change for the service. Sophie had already left for the church. That’s what I thought, anyway. When I got to the church — I always go in the front entrance with everybody else, but it was locked, so me and the ladies had to go in the back. That’s when we found … we found …”
He bent over in another paroxysm of grief. Neil didn’t have much time. The throng of worried parishioners was going to break past Bernie any second.
“What time did you go to your studio after dinner, Mr. Quantz?”
“Don’t know. Maybe seven o’clock or seven-thirty.” He threw back the liquid in his glass and poured the remainder from the bottle. He drank half of that down, and his body began to shudder.
Neil took the glass from his fingers. “I’m very sorry for your loss, sir. Try to get some rest now.”
In the kitchen, he asked the ladies, “Does Mr. Quantz have any family in town?”
A middle-aged woman in a navy exercise suit answered. “He only has a mother, Chief Redfern. She’s in the nursing home in Blackshore. Poor Kelly is quite alone now.” Assenting murmurs surrounded him, almost drowning out the sorrowful sobs from the living room.
“I’m going to call Victim Services,” he said. “Someone needs to check on Mr. Quantz and help him through this.”
“We’ll make sure Kelly is looked after.” The navy-clad woman looked around at the others for support. Everyone nodded.
“Mr. Quantz is lucky to have such good friends. However, in situations of sudden death, it’s routine to ask a crisis intervention expert to look in on the victim’s family.” If Kelly Quantz decided to swallow a bottle of pills with his whisky, he didn’t want anyone pointing a finger at his department. He stood back as the women stampeded around him to minister to Quantz.
He let Bernie get behind the wheel of the 4 X 4. “Where to, Chief?”
“Hang on a minute.” Neil called the high school to ask if Earl Archman was available.
He listened to the principal’s secretary, then thanked her and rang off. “We’re going to the hospital, Bernie. Earl Archman slipped on some ice and is in the emergency room.”
He wasn’t having much luck with interviews this morning. Kelly Quantz was drunk and seemingly grief-stricken. It remained to be seen if Earl Archman would be able to talk, let alone recall an event from so long ago.
“Do you think Reverend Quantz fell over the railing by herself after she was shot, Chief?”
“Seems that way. The autopsy will determine any pressure bruising from fingers, but I don’t think anyone would bother to drop her over when she was obviously dead from the bullet to the forehead.”
Bernie turned into the hospital’s freshly ploughed and sanded parking lot. They parked, then stepped out of the car, a cold wind from the west, off the lake, blowing loose snow and sand into their faces.
Neil glanced up at the building. His wedding anniversary was coming up. He and Debbie had been married on December 23, thinking it romantic. She had teased him he would have a hard time forgetting a date so close to Christmas. He shook off the black memories that engulfed him. Hospitals always generated a feeling of depression in him.
Bernie stomped through the automatic emergency doors ahead of him. “Whoa.” He grabbed Neil’s arm and pointed.
Neil had spotted them already. Bliss sat on an orange plastic couch and held a bloody wad of tissues to her nose. A man wearing a red parka leaned over her, his arm draped across her shoulders. A mane of dark curly hair hid his face from view, but he seemed familiar.
Neil strode over to the pair. “Cornwall! What happened to you?”
The curly-haired man yanked his arm away. Glasses encircled his alarmed, round eyes. Bliss pulled the tissues away from her face. Her nose was puffy and small scratches criss-crossed her upper lip and cheeks.
“Hey, Chief. Hi, Bernie! Nice of you boys to check on me, but I just took a tumble in the parking lot at Canadian Tire. Somehow, my face got mashed into the ice. The ambulance swept me up along with another victim of Chico’s safety violation. The doctor twisted my nose and said it wasn’t broken. Then he threw a box of tissues at me. Apparently, I was bleeding on the floor. I’m supposed to stay here until it stops.” She sounded like she had a bad cold.
Bernie blinked and opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again after catching Neil’s warning glance. Bliss was slightly battered, but essentially fine. She was wearing high-heeled boots, but Neil knew better than to comment on their impracticality. Instead, he turned his attention to the guilty-looking man. “And you are?”
Bliss answered for him. “This is Chico Leeds. We went to school together. He owns Canadian Tire now.”
Charles Leeds: another face from the
