Forty Words for Sorrow (11 page)

“That’s correct. What about the male?”

Fortier hit a pause button. “He’s too far from the mike to place with any certainty—definitely not French, or even francophone. Ottawa Valley’s out too. Southern Ontario, though, that’s possible. He doesn’t have those terribly round vowels you get up north. Not a lot to work with there, I’m afraid. He’s just too far from the mike.”

When the tape was done, Fortier spoke quickly as if afraid he might forget something if he stopped to breathe. “First thing: this was made on a pretty good machine with a pretty good microphone.”

“Begins to sound like a professional again.”

Fortier shook his head impatiently. “No way. Placement of the microphone is grabbing a lot of air, lot of noise. A professional gets as close to the source as possible.”

“Can you tell us anything about the place?”

“Let me put it through again. I had it set to bring up the voices. Let me set it for the background.” He lowered some of the sliders on the console and raised others. His index finger sat poised over the play button. “Just for the record, Detective: those are the ugliest sounds I’ve ever heard.”

“I’d be worried if you didn’t think so.”

Almost immediately, Fortier hit the pause button. “Something I can hear that maybe you can’t: this is a small room, quite bare. Hardwood floor. I can hear the reverberation off his heels. Hardwood floor … leather soles—big heels, possibly cowboy boots.”

Even Katie’s voice sounded thin and far away now. But the footsteps, the rustling of cloth, the slaps—these pressed themselves into the dark studio.

“Not much traffic outside. One car, one truck in the entire, what, fifteen minutes? You’re not near a highway. It’s an old house—you can hear the glass rattle in the window when the truck goes by.”

“I can’t,” said Delorme.

“I can. Blind as a bat and hearing to match. He’s taking photographs now.” He hit the pause button. “Random thought for you: do a soundprint of the shutter and winding mechanism. Then you can record other camera models until you get a match.”

Delorme looked at Cardinal. “It’s a good idea,” she said.

Fortier was still focused on what they’d heard. “I’m no camera buff, for obvious reasons, but the technology on that camera is old—no servo-motor, no auto advance, and you can hear the click is mechanical, not electronic. Puts the technology—at the latest—somewhere in the mid-seventies. The shutter is slow, which tells me he’s in a low-light situation, arguing again for nighttime, right?”

“Good thoughts, Mr. Fortier. Keep ’em coming.”

He restarted the tape. “I’m out on a limb here, but I think you’ve got an upstairs situation. The car and the truck sound like they’re coming from below, slightly.”

“Can you really tell that?”

“Listening for the internal combustion engine is one of the first things a blind person learns to do.”

“What about the music? We know the approximate date. If we can find out which radio station played those songs in that order, we’ll know what day and time Katie was killed.”

“Uh, sorry to disappoint you, Officer Delorme, but I don’t think that music was coming from a radio.”

“But it was by all different performers.”

“Yes, I can name them: Pearl Jam, the Rolling Stones and Anne Murray. I’m sure you know the Stones album, and I can tell you the others if you like. But two things: first, it’s an odd selection of music. The first two selections might be played together on the air, but it would be very peculiar to follow the Rolling Stones with Anne Murray. I doubt if any broadcaster would do that. And second, there was too long between cuts for that to be a radio station. No radio station—even up north—is going to give you that much dead air.”

“But there’s no sound of records being changed. He walks over, hits a switch and the music comes on.”

“My guess—well, it’s more than a guess—is that it’s a home recording.”

“He might have borrowed the record, you mean, from a library?”

“It’s a CD. Even through two tape players I can hear that electronic sheen they have—a sort of brassy veneer over everything. Not to mention the lack of tics and pops. Yes, lots of people borrow music from the library and tape it. Drives the copyright folks mad.”

“But if he’s already using the tape recorder to record what’s going on in the room …”

“Right. He would have to have two tape recorders.”

16

T
HE
S
UNDIAL RESTAURANT JUST
outside Orillia on Highway 400 is as circular as its name suggests. The dining room is bright and cheerful, surrounded by high, curved windows, and the waitresses are friendly. Cardinal always stopped here on his way home from Toronto.

Delorme came back from the ladies room, threading her way through the pink vinyl banquettes. She had a distracted look on her face, and when she sat down, she muttered something about getting back on the road before the snow turned into a real blizzard.

“Can’t go yet,” Cardinal said, “I just ordered the coconut cream pie.”

“In that case I’ll have more coffee.”

“Personal tradition of mine: stop at the Sundial, have the coconut cream pie. It’s the only place I ever eat it.”

Delorme nodded vaguely, staring out the window. In a mood, apparently. Cardinal debated whether to ask her about it. Instead, he studied the paper placemat decorated with Canadian prime ministers.

The waitress brought the pie and coffee, and Cardinal pulled out his notes. “I’m not convinced the radio stations are as dead an end as Fortier thought. Anyway, it’s not like we’ve got twenty stations.”

“I’ll check out the library, if you want.”

“You sound a little depressed.”

Delorme shrugged. “When we first heard the tape I thought for sure we’d nail this guy quick—tomorrow, the end of the week, soon. I mean, how often do you actually have a murder on tape? But we take it to an expert and what do we come up with? Nothing.”

“You’re jumping the gun, Delorme. Fortier may come up with something more by the time he’s finished his digital enhancement. If he can bring up the killer’s voice—”

“But he said he couldn’t do that.”

“Well, there’s still the camera angle to follow up.”

“I admit I got excited about that in the studio. It sounds so scientific: soundprints. But think about it. Even if we can say for sure that it’s the sound of a 1976 Nikon or whatever, how’s that going to help? Might be different if it sounded like something manufactured last year—might actually lead to a sales slip, a credit card. But an old camera? An old camera could have gone through ten different owners by now.”

“God, you are depressed.”

Delorme was half-turned in the banquette, looking out at the tiny flakes of snow that had been drifting down steadily since Toronto. A Pop Shoppe truck was pulling out of the parking lot, wipers flapping. After a few moments she said, “When I was a little girl, I used to think this place looked more like a spaceship than a sundial.”

“I thought so too. I still think so.”

In the space where the truck had been, a father was helping his tiny daughter with the zipper of her parka; she was wearing a bright green toque with a bobble that hung down to her waist. Their breath joined together in a mist, and Cardinal became aware of the cupboard in his heart where fear and regret were locked away. A crimson thread of fear ran through a father’s love for his daughter, he reflected; that’s why we’re so protective.

“You have a kid at university, don’t you?” Delorme’s train of thought seemed also to be travelling in the direction of daughters.

“That’s right. Her name’s Kelly.”

“What year’s she in?”

“Second year grad school. Fine arts. Straight As, too,” he couldn’t help adding.

“You could have stopped in to see her. We had plenty of time.”

“Kelly’s not in Toronto. She’s studying in the States.” As you very well know, Detective Delorme, despite the innocent act. Run your Special Investigation on me if you must, but don’t expect me to help.

“Why’d she go to the States? Is that where your wife’s from?”

“Kelly’s mother is American, but that’s not why Kelly went there. Yale’s about the best art school on the continent.”

“Such a famous university. And I don’t even know where it is.” It was just possible Delorme wasn’t faking. Cardinal couldn’t be sure.

“New Haven. Connecticut.”

“I don’t know where that is, either. New Haven, I mean.”

“It’s right on the coast. Ugly place.” Go ahead, Delorme, ask me how I can afford it. Ask me where I got the money.

But Delorme just wagged her head in wonder. “Yale. That’s great. What did you say she was studying?”

“Fine art. Kelly’s always wanted to be a painter. She’s very talented.”

“Smart girl, sounds like. Doesn’t want to be a cop.”

“Smart girl.”

As they headed north through the snowstorm, the atmosphere in the car was tense. One of the wipers squealed every time it crossed the windshield so that Cardinal wanted to rip it out. He turned on the radio and listened to exactly one verse of Joni Mitchell singing “Both Sides Now” and switched it off again. As they approached Gravenhurst, the first rocks of the Precambrian Shield reared up on either side of the highway. Cardinal usually felt he was truly heading home when he reached that first rock cut, but now he just felt smothered.

At Forensic that morning, Cardinal had telephoned Dyson to bring him up to date. Before he could say anything, the detective sergeant broke in: “I have two words for you, Cardinal.”

“Which two?”

“Margaret Fogle.”

“What about her?”

“I am holding in my hand—hot off the press, so to speak—a fax from Vancouver PD. Turns out Miss Fogle is not, as some may have thought, a victim of murder in our fair city. Turns out Miss Fogle is alive and well and having a baby in Vancouver.” The glee in Dyson’s voice came over the phone line loud and clear.

“Well, that’s good,” Cardinal said. “Alive is definitely good.”

“Don’t feel too bad, Cardinal. We all make mistakes.”

Cardinal had let that pass, relating as drily as possible the news from Forensic.

As they drove by Bracebridge, where the turnoffs were little more than vague outlines in the whirling snow, Delorme brought up the music angle again, and as they tossed theories back and forth, they both began to cheer up. Cardinal became aware that Delorme’s good opinion mattered to him. Must be something to do with those sharp features, those serious eyes. There couldn’t be any other reason; they didn’t know each other well enough.

Okay, Cardinal thought as he opened an inner debate with himself, you have the distinct sensation that your partner is investigating you. What’s the best way to handle this unpleasant state of affairs without coming off too badly? He decided he would do whatever he could to help her. Without being too obvious, he would give her every opportunity to get on with it—let her have a go at his locker, his desk (if she hadn’t already). Hell, he would let her have a go at his house. Yale was the most damaging thing against him, and she already knew about that. There was little chance of her finding anything else, not at this point.

Once they were past Huntsville, Cardinal began to feel he was really on home territory again. It was always good to work with the folks in Toronto; he liked the snappy professionalism down there. But he liked the north: the cleanliness, the rocky hills and forests, and the deep clarity of the skies. Most of all he liked the sense of working for the place that had formed him, the sense of protecting the place that had protected him as a kid. Toronto provided a wider variety of career opportunities, not to mention more money, but it could never have been home.

Home. Suddenly Cardinal wished Catherine were here beside him. He never knew when it would hit, this ache. Hours would go by when he thought of nothing but the case he was working, then he would notice a pressure building in his chest, a hurt and a hunger. He wished Catherine were with him—even Catherine mad, even Catherine with delusions.

It was getting darker now, and the snow was flapping around the car like lace curtains.

The snow was still coming down the next day as Cardinal and Delorme sat in Dyson’s office while he read to them from the RCMP’s profile of the killer. How the detective sergeant had got Ottawa headquarters to respond so quickly was a mystery to Cardinal. The fax wires must have been humming. And now—this was so like Dyson, it verged on self-parody—he was making fun of the document he had gone to so much trouble to secure.

“Analysis of site photographs is hampered by the fact that only one is the site of a murder. The island mine shaft is a dump site only
. Oh, really. That’s wonderful,” Dyson addressed himself to the report he was holding. “Tell me something else I don’t know.”

He didn’t look up, just flipped through a couple of pages, breezing his way through a paragraph here, a paragraph
there. “Differing causes of death … asphyxiation … blunt trauma …
Blah and blah and again blah.
Boy attacked while seated … facing attacker, indicating knew attacker and to some degree trusted …
Well, we know all this.”

Cardinal said, “What I don’t understand is why you tapped the RCMP profilers so soon. I would have waited till we had more to give them.”

“And when might that be?”

“You should have kept me informed. We all know the horsemen can destroy a case faster than you can say ‘musical ride.’ I mean, look at Kyle Corbett, for God’s sake. I don’t even want to speculate how they screwed that one up. But their profilers are a different story, and Grace Legault—who we may as well call Miss General Public—called me last night and wanted to know when we’d be calling them in. I told her we had no need, at this point, to call in RCMP profilers, OPP profilers or any other damn profilers and now I’m going to look like an idiot.”

“Look, it was the chief’s idea, and it was a good one. You should be thanking him. Haven’t you ever heard of a preemptive strike? This’ll keep the media off our backs with this call-in-the-feds crap. And it gets us points with our brothers and sisters in red, always a good thing.”

“But there’s nothing here Toronto Forensic can’t handle—”

Dyson didn’t wait to hear the further thoughts of John Cardinal. He plowed on,
“Girl taken from crowded place … no visible struggle … again indicating degree of familiarity …
”

“Children, even teenagers, will trust anyone if they’re approached the right way,” Delorme said. “Remember, we had that molester a few years ago who would pretend to be from the hospital and tell them their mother was in Emergency.”

“I’m just amazed that they call this a service.” Dyson tapped the report.

“One dump site and thirty seconds with some photographs,” Cardinal said. “No profiler’s going to come up with much under those circumstances.”

“Suddenly you’re in love with the horsemen? How many murder scenes has this so-called profiler worked, that’s what I want to know.”

“That’s Joanna Prokop. She profiled Laurence Knapschaefer right down to the type of car he drove. She’s got more brains than the entire O Division put together.”

Dyson flipped to the last page and glared at the summary he found there.
“Nature both sites indicates loner … Knowledge of mine shaft indicates local resident …
Ah, here we are:
This killer shows characteristics of both the organized and disorganized type. He’s not afraid to face intended victims head-on. Has requisite social skills—surface ones—to entice a young person into dangerous circumstances. The abandoned house, the mine shaft, the tape recording, all indicate careful planning. Careful planning suggests attacker probably holds a steady job. May be an obsessive cleaner or neat freak, a list-maker. May hold a job that requires a high degree of organization
. Todd Curry didn’t look very neat to me, but no doubt we have different housekeeping standards than the horsemen. Or horseladies, sorry.

“On the other hand,”
he read on,
“evidence of frenzy in the Curry murder indicates explosive personality … Killer will be someone who is missing more and more days of work, getting more and more out of control
. Really, what they expect us to do with this I can’t imagine. According to this, you’re looking for Jekyll and Hyde. Which is all very well if he happens to be in Hyde mode. But how do you know him when he’s Jekyll?”

“Not by sitting in here all day.” Cardinal got up and left.

Delorme would have followed, but Dyson stopped her. “Hold on a second. Was it my imagination or was he a little too touchy?”

Delorme could not miss the change in tone. They weren’t talking about Pine–Curry now. “I think he’s just pissed off that you didn’t keep him informed.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right. How’s he doing in your own—”

“Fine. Nothing so far.”

“Finances?”

“Nothing back yet. The banks don’t like to part with information. But my impression, I don’t think—”

“I don’t want your impressions, Delorme, and neither does the chief. We all have the impression that Sergeant John Cardinal is a first-class detective. We all have the impression that he’s straight as an arrow. So, thank you, but I don’t need any more impressions. What I need is a few solid facts—and not just rumours—that will explain to me how Kyle Corbett can slip through our fingers three separate times. Cardinal wants to lay it off on Corporal Musgrave and his merry men. Fine. But how does an Algonquin Bay cop afford a house on Madonna Road? And how does an Algonquin Bay cop send a daughter to Yale? Do you have any idea what the tuition is at Yale?”