Forty Words for Sorrow

by Giles Blunt

  Cardinal called the Peel Regional Police and established that none of the boy's parents or friends had heard from him in the past two months. Missing Persons gave him the name of a relative in Sudbury, Clark Curry.

  "Mr. Curry, this is John Cardinal, Algonquin Police."

  "I imagine you're calling about Todd."

  "What makes you say that, sir?"

  "The only time I hear from the police is when Todd is in trouble. Look, I'm just his uncle, I've done all I can. I can't take him back this time."

  "We haven't found him. We're still trying to track him down."

  "A Mississauga boy is being sought by the Algonquin Bay police? He's really turning into a federal case."

  "Has Todd contacted you since December? December twentieth, to be exact?"

  "No. He was missing all through Christmas- his parents were frantic, as you can imagine. He called me from Huntsville – this was the day he took off- called from Huntsville and says he's on the train, can he stay with me. I told him he could, but he never arrived, and I haven't heard anything since. You have to understand, this is one messed-up kid."

  "In what way, sir? Drugs?"

  "Todd got his first sniff of glue when he was ten and hasn't been the same since. Some kids can mess with drugs; other kids, they get one whiff and it becomes their vocation. Todd's one joy in life is getting high- if you can call that joy. Mind you, Dave and Edna say he's gone completely clean, but I doubt it. I doubt it very much."

  "Will you do me a favor, sir? Will you call me if you do hear from Todd?" He gave Curry the number and hung up.

  Cardinal hadn't taken a train in years, although he never passed by the station without remembering the long trip out west he and Catherine had taken on their honeymoon. They had spent practically the entire trip sequestered in their narrow, rocking bed. Cardinal checked with the CNR and learned that Huntsville was still the second-to-last stop on the Northlander before Algonquin Bay. There was no way to tell if Todd got off in South River or Algonquin Bay or not. He could have stayed in Huntsville, he could've continued north to Temagami or even Hearst.

  Cardinal took a run over to the Crisis Center, at the corner of Station and Sumner. Algonquin Bay had no youth hostel, and sometimes runaway kids ended up in the center, which was just two blocks from the train station. The place was meant for domestic emergencies- mostly battered wives, but it was run by a lanky ex-priest named Ned Fellowes, and Fellowes had been known to take in the occasional stray if he had room.

  Like most of the houses in the center of town, Algonquin Bay 's Crisis Center was a two-story, red-brick affair with a roof of gray shingle, steeply pitched to slow the buildup of snow. Some workmen repairing the roof of the verandah had covered the front of the house with scaffolding. Cardinal could hear them cursing in French overhead as he rang the bell-tabarnac, ostie- taking their swear words from the Church, unlike the Anglos, who wield the usual sexual lexicon. We swear by what we're afraid of, Cardinal mused, but it was not a thought he wanted to dwell on.

  "Yes, I remember him. That's not a good likeness, though." Ned Fellowes handed the faxphoto back to Cardinal. "Stayed with us for one night, I think, around Christmastime."

  "Can you tell me exactly what night that was?"

  Fellowes led him into a small front office in what used to be a living room; a fireplace of painted brick was filled with psychology texts and social-work periodicals. Fellowes consulted a large maroon ledger, running his finger down lists of names. "Todd Curry. Stayed the night of December twentieth, a Friday. Left Saturday. I remember I was surprised, because he had asked to stay till the Monday. But he came in Saturday lunchtime and said he'd found a cool place to stay- an abandoned house on Main West."

  "Main West. There's a wreck of a place where St. Claire's used to be. Is that the one? By the Castle Hotel?"

  "I wouldn't know. He certainly didn't leave a forwarding address. Just wolfed down a couple of sandwiches and left."

  THERE was only one empty house on Main West. It was not in the downtown area, but a couple of blocks beyond it, where the street turned residential. St. Claire's convent had been torn down five years before, exposing a brick wall with the faint outlines of a sign exhorting one to drink Northern Ale- a product of a local brewery out of business for at least three decades. After the convent, other houses had fallen one by one, making way for Country Style's ever-expanding parking lot. Surrounded by overgrown weeds and stumps of long-dead trees, the house leaned in its corner lot like one last rotten tooth waiting to be pulled.

  It made sense, Cardinal considered, as he drove down Macpherson toward the lake: The place was just a block from D'Anunzio's- a teen hangout- and a stone's throw from the high school; a young drifter couldn't ask for a better address. A slight humming sensation started up in Cardinal's bloodstream.

  The Castle Hotel came up on his right, and then he parked in front of a jagged, tumbledown fence tangled in shrubbery. He went to the front gate and looked through bare overhanging boughs at the place where the house used to be. He could see clear across the block to D'Anunzio's over on Algonquin Avenue.

  The acrid smell of burnt wood was strong, even though the ruins were covered with snow. They had been bulldozed off to one side in a heap. Cardinal stood with hands on hips like a man assessing the damage. A charred two-by-four pierced the thin coverlet of snow, pointing a black, accusing finger at the clouds.

  12

  DELORME wondered if Cardinal was making any headway. It was irritating as hell to go back to this small stuff when there was a killer out there. Wasting half the morning with paperwork on Arthur "Woody" Wood, Delorme came to realize how badly she wanted to nail Katie Pine's killer. Perhaps only a woman could want to punish a child killer as badly. Delorme was thirty-three and had spent many hours fantasizing about having a child, even if she had to raise it herself. The idea that someone could snuff out a young life put her in a rage that she could barely control.

  But was she allowed to go out and work on tracking down this sick, this disgusting, this grossly evil thing? No. She got to interview Arthur "Woody" Wood, the poster boy for petty crime. Delorme had been following him along Oak Street in an unmarked car. After he sped up to make the light, she had pulled him over for "burning an amber," only to see a vintage MacIntosh all-tube amplifier on the seat beside him. She had read the description to him from her notebook there on the street, right down to the serial number.

  "Okay," Woody said now, as she led him out of the cells. "Suppose by some freak of nature you get me for one little case. I can't exactly see that putting me away for life, can you, Officer Delorme? You're French, I guess. They tried to teach me French all the way through grade school, but I don't know, it never stuck. Miss Bissonette- man, was she a Nazi. Are you married, by the way?"

  Delorme ignored it all. "I hope you haven't sold the rest of your haul, Woody. Because in addition to going to Kingston for ten years, you might have to make restitution, and then where will you be? It would be a nice gesture if you gave the stuff back. It might go easier for you."

  Engaging criminals are a rarity, and when one comes along, police tend to be overly grateful. Arthur "Woody" Wood was a hopelessly amiable young man. He had unfashionably long sideburns that gave him the look of a fifties rockabilly singer. He had a bounce in his walk and a rangy slouch to his shoulders that put people at their ease- especially women, as Delorme was finding out. She was right now having an argument with her own body: No, you will not react this way to the physical attractions of this silly little thief. I won't allow it.

  As she led him toward the interview room, Woody yelled a greeting to Sergeant Flower, with whom he proceeded to carry on a lively conversation. Sergeant Flower only stopped gabbing when she registered Delorme's high-intensity scowl. Then Woody had to say hi to Larry Burke, just coming in. Burke had apprehended him six years before with a car radio in his fist-installing it, Woody had claimed.

  "Woody, listen to me," Delorme said in the interview room.
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  Someone had left The Toronto Star on one of the chairs, and Woody snatched it up. "The Leafs, man. I can't believe this team. It's like they have this appetite for self-destruction. This craving. So unhealthy."

  "Woody, listen to me." Delorme took the paper with its two-column headline: NO LEADS ON THE WINDIGO KILLER. "That bunch of burglaries down Water Road is giving me hives, okay? I've got you cold for the Willow Drive job, but I know you did the others, too. So why don't you save us both a lot of time and energy- confess to one, we'll maybe forget the others."

  "Now, hold on."

  "Confess to one, that's all I'm saying. And I'll see what I can do. I know you did the others, too."

  "Hold your horses, there, Officer Delorme. You don't know I did them." Woody's grin was beatific; it held no trace of guile or suspicion or malign intent. Honest men should have such grins. "You're indulging in exaggeration, plain and simple. If you suspect me of some old burglary, well, I can understand that- I have been known to keep company with objects not my own, after all. But suspect is not know. You could drive a Mack truck between suspect and know."

  "There's another count, Woody. Suppose somebody actually saw you? Then what? Suppose somebody actually saw a blue ChevyVan pulling away from the Nipissing Motor Court?" The proprietor of the motel hadn't in fact got a decent look at him, but he had seen someone driving off in a van just like Woody's. Three thousand dollars' worth of TVs missing. No jewelry.

  "Well, if the guy saw me, I guess you'd put me in a lineup. Ms. Delorme, you're single, aren't you?"

  "Suppose they saw your van, Woody? Suppose we have a license plate?"

  "Well, if they give you the license plate, I guess you better hang me for that one. You look single to me. You have the air of a single person. Officer Delorme, you ought to get married. I don't know how I'd get through life without Martha and Truckie. Family? Children? Why, it halves the sorrows of life and doubles the pleasures. It's the single most important thing there is. And police work involves a lot of pressures."

  "Try and pay attention, Woody. A blue ChevyVan was seen driving away from the job on Water Road. You say you were home, but other witnesses say your van was not parked in your driveway. Add that to the one who saw your van at the scene, and what do you come up with? Ten years."

  "How can you even say that to me? Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. Hell, you know as well as I do, nobody ever sees me. I like to go about my work undisturbed. God's sake, ma'am, I didn't get into this business to meet people."

  Sergeant Flower knocked on the door. "His wife's here. She paid his bail."

  "I'm going to nail you for the whole bunch, Woody. You can make a plea, now, or you can make me catch you. But I'm going to nail you for the whole bunch."

  "If I wanted to meet people, I'd be a mugger."

  ONE ability Delorme prided herself on was a knack for putting anything that wasn't immediately essential out of her mind. When, later that afternoon, she drove along the winding south branch of Peninsula Road, Arthur Wood had left her thoughts entirely, and she was once more in the murky waters of Corporal Musgrave's suspicions.

  The road got narrower and narrower, until tree branches heavy with snow scratched at the roof of the car. The white woods reminded her of a sleigh ride long ago. Thirteen-year-old Ray Duroc and she had lain among the heap of juvenile bodies and kissed with closed mouths until her lips were bruised. Last she heard, Ray was living on the other side of the world- Australia or New Zealand or some damn place- where the trees were green instead of white and the sun actually put out some heat.

  She noted the names on the mailboxes, then took a sharp left, and then she was almost past the driveway before she saw it. There was no name nailed to the tree. She parked the car on the side of the road and went down the driveway on foot. There was a big brown Mercedes at the end of the drive. Delorme didn't even want to think what it had cost.

  After Corporal Musgrave, former senior constable Joe Burnside was pure oxygen. Joe Burnside was blonde, six-foot-four in his socks- where does the RCMP find this species? Delorme wondered- and happy as a clam. "You're working Special? I know you. You're the one that bagged Mayor Wells! Come in! Come in!"

  Delorme shed her boots and joined him in the kitchen, where he poured her a steaming cup of coffee. She revised her estimate: six-foot-six if he's an inch.

  "Man, you gotta get out of police work and into the money," he was telling her ten minutes later. They were sitting in overstuffed armchairs that faced a blinding white view of Four Mile Bay. "With your background? Your achievements? You're perfect! Look at me- eight years a corporal in the Commercial Crimes Unit and now I've got my own business- me! Joe Burnside! Trust me, I'm the last guy I would have thought could do it, and I'm telling you I'm turning offers away. There's more work than we can handle. And you know where it's not going? It's not going to the RCMP. Excuse me a second." He crossed to a couch where a bony old collie was curled up asleep. He bent down close to its head and yelled, loud enough for it to hurt Delorme's ears: "Get offa there, you lazy-ass good-for-nothing mutt!"

  The dog opened a glassy eye and regarded him calmly.

  "Deaf as a post," he muttered, and pulled the dog from the couch by its collar, leading it like a pony to the fireplace, where it lay down once more and returned immediately to its canine dreams. "Everybody says I should put him down. Well, people that don't have dogs say put him down. They don't cost you a dime for fifteen years, then the minute they get sick, people say kill 'em. Sorry, you want to talk business. Puts me off, though. People have no loyalty. How long you been doing white-collar?"

  "Six years."

  "You see what's happening? With cutbacks? I don't know about you guys, but I'll tell you the Mounties are just toothless. Toothless. They're taking everybody off white-collar and putting them on the street, you know why? Because street work is visible and white-collar isn't. People like to see their tax dollars at work. And with the Mounties going out of business, that means someone's gotta take up the slack. Good ol' private enterprise. Which- I'm happy to say- is me. A two-month investigation on copyright infringement? Piracy? Forty thousand bucks. And Corporate America is happy to pay it- it's mostly U.S. companies that hire us- and the great thing about Americans, they don't trust you unless you ask for a lot of money."

  He's born-again, Delorme thought. He should be a preacher. But all she said was, "Kyle Corbett."

  "Ohhh," Burnside groaned theatrically. "Don't remind me. Kyle Corbett. That one really hurt."

  "You had the background sewn up. You had solid stuff. It was you and Jerry Commanda all the way."

  "We had a source. Good source, too. Guy named Nicky Bell worked with Corbett for years, but happened to be facing an unrelated charge on computer porn that Corbett didn't know about."

  "And he gave you a time and a place."

  "A time? A place? No, no, no, Nicky Bell was the best singer since Gordy Lightfoot. He gave us months of stuff. Me and Jerry picked that bird clean. But the big windup was gonna be at the Crystal Disco out behind Airport Road, and for that we needed one of your guys. We got John Cardinal- smart guy, but always depressed it seemed to me."

  "What happened then?"

  The affable manner disappeared. Burnside's face- formerly as bright and wide open as Four Mile Bay – suddenly darkened. It was like an eclipse. "You know what happened," he said. "Or you wouldn't be here."

  "You hit the club. You came up empty."

  "Bingo."

  "What went wrong?"

  "Nothing. That's just the point, isn't it? Everything went right. Everything went exactly according to plan. It was like watching the insides of a Swiss watch. Except for the ending. Corbett was tipped off. You know it, and I know it. But if you're expecting me to say who I think did it, you're barking up the wrong tree. There's no proof of anything."

  "What did your source tell you?"

  "Nicky? If you think anybody's ever going to see Nicky Bell again, you're in the wrong line of work. Wife co
nfirmed there was a suitcase missing from his house, some clothes were gone, but I think that's just cover. I think Kyle Corbett fed him to the fishes."

  The dog was back on the couch, but Burnside didn't seem to notice.

  As Delorme was putting her boots on, he looked her up and down. She got a lot of that, but for once she didn't think it was sexual. "You're working that Windigo thing, too, aren't you? Well, I know you are."

  "Yeah, I am. I'm moving out of Special."

  "Windigo's an ugly case."

  "Uh-huh."

  "A real ugly case, Ms. Delorme. But investigating your own partner, well, there's a lot of cops- Mounties, OPP, you name it- a hell of a lot of cops would say investigating your own partner's a lot uglier."

  "Thanks for the coffee. I needed warming up." Delorme did up the snaps of her coat, put on her gloves. "But I never said who I was investigating."

  13

  D'ANUNZIO'S was still a magnet for teenagers, just as it had been when Cardinal was growing up. Part fruit store, part soda fountain, at first glance D'Anunzio's had always been an unlikely hangout. But Joe D'Anunzio, with the manners of a monk and the girth of an opera star, numbered everyone who came into his store among his friends. He looked after his soda fountain with the expertise of an old-time bartender and treated his young patrons like his old ones, letting them linger for hours in the wooden booths at the back over their Cokes and chips and chocolate bars. As kids, Cardinal and the other altar boys had always trooped over from the cathedral after Mass, and later, when they had grown out of their surplices and soutanes, they would come to D'Anunzio's instead of Mass- substituting Rothmans and Player's for the frankincense, ice-cream floats and Aero bars for the bread and wine.