LITMIR.BIZ

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few feminine touches. The parquet floor was typical of the apartment buildings built in the eighties, now in vogue again. The oak furniture was solid, functional, but not pretty. His dad kept piles of documents and textbooks on the floor and scattered across the dining room table where he worked on his computer in front of the balcony window. An anemic vine had taken over one wall, surviving god only knew how on sporadic watering and inattention. His dad’s ten-speed bicycle leaned against the wall behind the couch, put out to pasture until the cast came off his foot.

      “How long have you lived here?” she asked him, lifting her glass.

      “I moved into an apartment near the university campus after Jacques took his first job in Ottawa. What was that, son, twenty years ago now? I moved into this condo when it was built a few years ago.”

      Rouleau’s phone rang in his pocket. He reached for it, saying, “One minute, Dad. I should get this.”

      It took a few seconds to assimilate the facts from the dispatcher. A young woman had been called in dead in an apartment just off campus. He was needed on site as soon as he could get there. It was certainly murder. Gundersund would meet him there. She rhymed off the address and repeated it to be sure.

      Rouleau slipped the phone back into his pocket and looked at Kala and his father. Both sets of eyes watched him expectantly, one set liquid black and the other a crystal blue. They’d overheard his side of the conversation. There was no point hiding his destination.

      He stood. “A murder just off campus. I have to go.”

      “Should I come along, sir?” Kala asked. She’d already pushed herself to her feet. “It might help me decide to come on board.”

      Rouleau thought about it for a nanosecond before he nodded. Perhaps all wasn’t lost with Stonechild after all. This case could very well tilt her decision in his favour.

      Chapter Six

      Kala followed closely behind Rouleau in her truck. Taiku sat in the passenger seat, his nose through the open window. She reached across the console and ruffled the fur on his back.

      “So what do you think, boy? Is this a town you’d like to spend time in or should we keep moving?”

      Taiku pulled his nose from the window and turned his head toward her, his pink tongue lolling to the side of his mouth. He stared at her as if considering her question.

      Kala laughed before turning back to the road. Sometimes she thought Taiku was a human disguised as a dog. He was smarter than most people she knew and was considerably more dependable.

      They were heading east, but only for a short distance before Rouleau turned north on Gore. The grey limestone houses dated back to Sir John A. Macdonald’s time. It was a pretty city with mature oak trees and wide streets flanked to the south by Lake Ontario. This felt like a town you could breathe in. She was surprised to find herself looking forward to a few days at her friend’s place.

      Rouleau pulled left onto Sydenham and she followed a few car lengths behind. A busy scene greeted them a few blocks in. Police cars and an ambulance with red lights flashing filled the street. The target house was toward the far end of the street and they had to park and walk a short distance. Kala left Taiku locked in the truck parked under a shady oak with the window open and an order to stay. He immediately lay down on the seat, his shaggy head resting against the passenger door, his black eyes watching her walk away.

      Rouleau stood waiting for her on the sidewalk next to his car. He looked tired, his eyes sadder than she remembered. The connection she felt to him was odd. Uncomfortable and uncharacteristic. She’d felt it in Ottawa the short time they worked together. It was the reason she’d detoured on a last-minute whim off the 417 to find him. She’d been surprised that he’d sought her out for this job. She hadn’t decided yet whether to trust him.

      Rouleau filled her in as they walked. The house was divided into apartments and rented as student housing. The woman’s body was found in the basement by the upstairs tenant. Apparently there was a lot of blood. They passed a couple of beat cops in navy uniforms on their way inside the limestone house. The officers appeared to know Rouleau and let her inside only because she was with him. One cop directed them to the basement.

      Rouleau introduced Paul Gundersund, who met them at the bottom of the stairs. She felt dwarfed by the size of the man. He was over six foot, close to two hundred pounds, and appeared slightly out of shape. A scar marked the left side of his face, giving him the look of a street fighter. His blue-grey eyes were surprisingly pretty for a guy with a face like his. She shook his outstretched hand, his fingers long and slender.

      “It’s not good, boss,” he said as he led them down the dark hallway. Kala’s eyes lifted to the unlit bulb hanging from the ceiling socket, obviously not working. It would have given the attacker cover as they waited, if that’s what they’d done. She made out the squat shapes of a washer and dryer angled deeper into the gloom. Gundersund stopped and handed them white suits and covers for their shoes. Kala stepped into the suit and shivered as the cool dampness seeping from the basement’s concrete walls wrapped itself around her bare arms. She quickly pulled the suit up over her shirt.

      The apartment door stood open, the putrid smell of death getting stronger as they approached. Down the length of the hallway, the forensics team in white suits worked in the bedroom. She could see a trail of dark blood on the floor, pooled in spots, where the woman looked to have dragged herself toward the apartment door.

      Kala stepped closer and saw that the blood trail detoured left. She carefully negotiated the blood splatter as she followed behind Rouleau and Gundersund into the living room. They stepped aside to make some space for her. She looked from their grim faces to the floor near the coffee table where the coroner kneeled next to a woman lying face down, one of her arms stretched in front of her as if she’d been trying to swim away using the front crawl. A purse had spewed its contents onto the carpet; a blood-covered cellphone lay near the woman’s curled fingers.

      Kala swallowed back the urge to gag. Congealed blood covered the woman’s face and matted the long, dark hair on the back of her head. It had seeped from her body and surrounded her in sticky globs. It had spread from her midsection in a circular pool. The smell of rotting flesh and blood and feces was overpowering.

      Rouleau touched Kala’s shoulder and motioned her to take a few steps closer. A photographer who’d been taking pictures of the body signalled that she’d gotten enough. The coroner looked from her to Rouleau.

      “I’m ready to turn the body,” he said.

      Rouleau’s eyes swept the scene, ending with a long study of the woman. Finally, he nodded and the coroner rolled the woman onto her back, her one arm remaining awkwardly extended above her head. Kala looked past the bruising, discoloured skin and dried blood and saw that the girl had been attractive: late twenties, masses of black hair, medium height, with a muscular physique. Someone had gone to great lengths to disfigure her beauty. The coroner held up the palm of one hand.

      “Her fingers are broken.” He traced upward along the underside of her arm. “Cigarette burns.” He turned to the photographer.

      “Make sure you get close ups.”

      “How long…?” asked Rouleau.

      “It’s a guess, but I’d say twenty-four hours based on the rigor mortis. I couldn’t say how long she was tortured in the bedroom, but I think it went on a while, judging by the burns and wounds. Her attacker used a knife.”

      Kala saw Rouleau’s jaw clench. Her own felt as tight as a fist.

      “Can you isolate the wound that killed her?” he asked.

      The coroner pointed to her stomach where blood had stained her shirt almost black. “The assailant drove a weapon into her mid-section. I can’t say with complete certainty until we do the autopsy, but she almost definitely bled out from there.”

      They stood quietly for a moment, contemplating the strength of will it had taken for the dying woman to drag herself this far. Kala glanced

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