These non-detectives proceeded to ask Ted a lot of questions about his and Karin’s movements and about what signs he had found that the house had been broken into and burglarized, questions that had already been asked by the uniformed officers and were to be repeated by the detectives when they arrived.
By this time, someone had brought Ted a cup of hot coffee, and he was feeling less chilled. He didn’t want to meet more functionaries. He just wanted to be left alone. It seemed the best way to be with Karin if he couldn’t be at her bedside. Dearest Quirk . . .
The detectives introduced themselves as James Nelson and Tracy Rodriguez from the Major Crime Unit. They wore dress slacks, golf shirts and fanny packs. The man was tall and black, the woman well-muscled with dark, rippling hair. Both sporty—basketball and track respectively would be good fits—but not jockish. They’d got Karin’s and Ted’s names from the patrol officers, so Ted didn’t have to spell them out again.
Ted changed his mind about being alone. These were the people, he thought, to ask if he could go to the hospital now.
“We just need to ask you some questions first,” said Nelson, busy at the computer terminal in the front seat.
“It shouldn’t take all that long,” said Rodriguez.
After an initial interrogation in the close confines of the police cruiser, Nelson suggested they adjourn to an interview room at the divisional station.
Ted refused. He was going to Karin. While the detectives were bargaining with him for more time, his cellphone rang. A Dr. Hassan at the Credit Valley Hospital already had doom in his voice while identifying himself and confirming that he had Mr. Boudreau. Still, Ted waited until the words had actually been spoken. Karin was dead.
“I’ll be right over,” Ted blurted out, as if his prompt arrival would make possible some transplant of vitality from his body to Karin’s.
The detectives exchanged glances. Ted was certain they had already heard, but not told him.
“I’ll have your wife laid out in a room then,” said the doctor, “instead of being taken to the morgue right away.”
“Which—?” The simple decency of this provision undid Ted. No more words would come.
“Just ask at the information desk, Mr. Boudreau. Have me paged if I can be of any further help.” Dr. Hassan now plainly wanted to get on to his next patient, with luck a live one.
Ted stammered a thank you and ended the call. The cruiser’s back seat had no inside door handle.
“Let me out of here,” he said. “I have to call my father-in-law. I’m meeting him at the hospital.”
“I got it.” Nelson sprang out of the front seat and opened the door.
“We’ll have someone drive you over,” said Rodriguez, on her feet now too and beckoning the nearest uniformed officer.
“No, thanks. I’m good to drive.”
“We really don’t think that’s a good idea, sir. We’re sending a constable anyway. It’s no trouble.”
“Am I under arrest?” Ted asked.
Nelson raised his open hands. “No, sir! Which car were you planning to take?”
Ted glanced at the Corolla in his driveway, inside the perimeter of yellow tape.
“That vehicle is part of the scene. It can’t be driven anywhere until it’s been processed.”
Before Nelson finished speaking, Ted had spotted an empty taxi among the onlookers’ cars and was making for it. The driver, wearing a white beard and purple turban, caught his eye and nodded.
The two detectives kept pace at Ted’s side.
“We understand Ms. Gustafson’s father has a local residence,” said Rodriguez. “Would you be able to spend a few days with him?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t discussed it.” Ted gave the hospital name to the driver, who slid behind his wheel.
Nelson leaned casually against the middle of the passenger side of the cab. With him there, neither front nor rear door would open.
“Could we have your father-in-law’s name and city phone number?” Rodriguez asked.
“Markus—with a K—”
Ted got no further before Nelson interrupted.
“Not Markus Gustafson, the anger manager?”
“You know him?”
“I was at a workshop he did last spring.” Nelson was smiling at the memory, but quickly recovered his sense of decorum. Moving away from the taxi, he took down Markus’s contact information in his notebook as well as Ted’s cell number. “We’ll get your witness statement on tape tomorrow. We’d just ask you not to say anything to the media before that. Sorry for your loss, Mr. Boudreau. We’ll be in touch.”
Slumped against the back seat, cellphone in his hand, Ted barely heard the cabbie’s questions as to what had happened that night at his house, questions to which he did not respond. He was trying to feel Karin’s arms wrap around him the way they had this morning, yesterday morning. She: No need to tell you not to wait up. He: Wake me. He begged Karin to deliver him from the nightmare of her death—but woke instead to the need to share the nightmare with Markus.
When Markus answered his cell, Ted asked where he was.
“The 400, south of Barrie. What is it?”
“Pull off and call me back.”
Ted’s ringtone sounded the instant he ended the call. Markus wasn’t pulling off.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“A doctor phoned to say Karin’s dead.”
“I don’t believe it.”
Ted didn’t argue. Lucky Markus if what he said were true. Ted’s own beliefs were cloudier, vacillating and inconsistent, painfully confused, yet profoundly despairing.
“What kind of doctor is that?” Markus barked.
No answer was going to help him. Still, Ted felt that sooner or later he had to say something. “An ER doctor. He sounded kind.”
“Kind? Christ, Ted!”
“My taxi’s just pulling into the hospital. I’ll see you when you get here.”
At the hospital, Ted was directed to a private room, where Karin was laid out on a bed. A uniformed policeman, who had been sitting by the window, rose when Ted came in. The constable asked that Ted not touch the white bandage encircling Karin’s head, then went out to wait in the corridor.
Alone with Karin’s body in that clinical room, Ted seemed to forget for a moment how to breathe. He put a hand out to the door frame to steady himself, then let himself slide to a sitting position on the floor. What were you supposed to do to keep from fainting? Sit with your knees up, your head down between them, he distantly recalled. He did that and didn’t faint.
There was an armchair by the head of the bed. Ted climbed into it. After the chair got feeling safe, he tried looking again at Karin. His darling.