He hesitated, convenience and duty struggling together in his mind, and I glanced at my watch. It was now twenty past two. Early that morning, I'd flown from Halifax to Toronto, and then May and I had come on to Windsor, the small Canadian city across the border from Detroit. For two hours now, we'd been shuffled from office to office in the Beaubien Street headquarters of the Detroit police, waiting, answering questions, filling in forms, waiting again. To begin with, May had stood up to it well, but finally she'd broken down. No tears, no hysterics: she simply couldn't take any more and had lapsed into a sort of blank listlessness. A policewoman had now taken her off and a doctor was supposed to see her. As for myself, I was naturally distressed for her, but I was also feeling considerable frustration and resentment — mainly at my own impotence. When May had first called me in Charlottesville, I hadn't thought there'd be anything to do; then, in Halifax, I thought I really was doing something. And now, no matter what I did, it didn't make any difference.
Wearily, I watched Katadotis' face. He was about fifty, somewhat old for his rank: a patrolman who'd made it onto the detective squad at the very last moment. His fingers, short and stubby, seemed uncomfortable among the papers on his desk, and his three-piece suit was a shade too tight. As he shrugged, finally making up his mind, his shirt collar pressed into the flesh of his neck.
"I don't think it makes much difference, Mr. Thorne. I wouldn't want to sound crude, but he took both barrels of a twelve-gauge shotgun right in the face, so there's not much left to identify. I don't see that we need trouble Miss Brightman. All I need is someone to go through the motions and sign my form."
"All right. I can do that."
"There's no doubt, you see. It's him… and it's suicide."
Yes. He was right on both scores. There weren't any doubts — none in their minds at least, and by this time I was even ready to set mine aside. What I'd discovered in Halifax was moot, relevant only to the motivation of an act whose details themselves were indisputable. The Savage-Stevens shotgun that had killed Harry Brightman had been purchased at a Grosse Pointe sporting-goods store with his Visa card. There was no doubt about his signature on the form, and no doubt too about the note he had left. Written in his own hand, it had been addressed to May. You know how much I love you, but I can't go on. For me, this really is easier. Your loving father, Harry. He had left this, neatly folded, on the dashboard of the car, and must then have maneuvered himself and the long gun into a practical posture of self-annihilation — the gun braced against the door on the driver's side, his body half reclining on the passenger seat. Finally, overcoming the difficulty faced by all shotgun suicides (Hemingway used his toes, I believe; my father, a stick), he had jabbed a tightly rolled copy of the Detroit News against the gun's trigger. Death — obliteration — must have been instantaneous.
Taking a breath, I asked, "Will there be an inquest?"
"That'd be routine, Mr. Thorne."
"What about May? Would she have to attend?"
"You understand, that wouldn't be for me to decide. I'd guess they'd want her to, but probably they'd be satisfied with a deposition." He shrugged. "She's Canadian, remember. The M.E. can issue a subpoena, but we can't enforce it."
I nodded.
He cleared his throat. "Of course, there'll be one or two other formalities as well."
"Such as?"
"Well, there's the matter of Mr. Brightman's remains, to begin with. Pending the inquest, we hang on to them, but once he's done we release them."
"How long would that be?"
"That'd be hard to say. I just wouldn't want her making arrangements — setting a date — till she's all clear with us."
Arrangements. For a second, I didn't understand what he was talking about. But of course he meant the funeral; and of course I'd have to support May through it.
"Another point, Mr. Thorne, just so there's no misunderstanding. We only release Mr. Brightman's remains here in Detroit, so she'll have to get them over the line on her own. I know there's a certain procedure to go through, but you'd want to talk to Canadian customs."
I closed my eyes: I could just imagine the bureaucratic niceties involved in transporting a corpse across an international boundary. But I nodded. "I'll look after it, Lieutenant." This promise was a penance: an apology to May, and Brightman's shade, for my uncharitable thoughts — and for not having found him before he died. "Is there anything else?"
Katadotis shuffled papers on his desk, his eyes screwing into a frown and his lips making small, compressive movements as if he was trying to determine some taste. At length, he selected a form and peered at it, holding it a little away from himself: he needed glasses but was too proud to wear them. He said, "That's about everything, except for the car."
"What about the car?"
"According to this, they're done with it. We could release it right now and you could take it straight back with you."
"Lieutenant, I sincerely doubt that Miss Brightman wants to return to Toronto in that particular vehicle."
His frown was full of understanding. "I guess not. I was just thinking that it'd save you a trip."
Brightman, it had turned out, had killed himself in the front seat of his Mark VII Jaguar saloon — a model, if I remembered correctly, that was about as large and conspicuous as the Queen Mary. In a way, the car was now a mystery all on its own. How could May have forgotten about it? The police had found one car, a Buick, in the garage of Brightman's house, but May had never mentioned the Jaguar. She claimed he never drove it and garaged it miles from his home — it had just slipped her mind. Now I cursed the thing under my breath. "Couldn't one of your men drive it back?"
"We wouldn't want to take that responsibility, Mr. Thorne. It would go against policy." Then he brightened. "But supposing you did want to take it back, I'd probably be able to detail a policewoman to go with Miss Brightman. That is, if a doctor would sign she couldn't travel alone."
Or she could hire someone in Toronto to come and fetch it… except I knew I wouldn't let her; in the end, I'd get it myself. I sighed. "Perhaps I should discuss it with her."
He drew the telephone toward him, his huge hand almost swallowing up the receiver. He dialed very deliberately, his stubby fingers carrying each numeral through to the stop, then releasing it with great care. He made three calls: the last of these — a source of satisfaction rather than embarrassment— determined that May was sitting right outside his door. We rose. His office was merely a cubicle within a larger partition, its walls formed from varnished wood and frosted glass like the principal's office in an old-fashioned high school. Six desks took up most of the space. At one of them, feet up, arms spread wide, a detective was reading a newspaper, while a uniformed patrolman scribbled away at another. I crossed the room. There was a wooden bench in a corner for visitors and May was waiting there. Her face was terribly drawn. She was wearing an ancient navy blue suit, and this, combined with her long hair — like a pretense of youth that has failed — made her look all the more haggard and old. I sat down beside her. On the far side of the wall, someone laughed heartily. In the distance, a phone began ringing. Then stopped. I took her hand and whispered, "How are you doing?"
She managed a smile. "Better. I let him give me something. I'm sorry. All of a sudden…"
"That's okay. Just take it easy. We're almost finished, but there are still one or two details. I'm going to have to identify your father's body."
She looked at me, then glanced at Katadotis, who was pretending to be busy on the far side of the room. "You can't," she whispered. "You never met him."