Crime Machine

41

“LOOK AT THIS CONDENSATION.” Cardinal drew his forefinger down the foggy surface of his picture window and added a dot underneath. He added a question mark next to it. “You think I should move again?”

“Back out to the lake? You’d lose a ton of money, wouldn’t you?” Delorme was lying on his couch in blue jeans and a red Christmas sweater. She had her left leg, in its plastic and foam cast, propped up on the back of the couch. Her honey-coloured hair flowed over the cushions beneath her head. “Don’t move again. I’d miss having you just down the street.”

I would too, Cardinal nearly said, but didn’t. Then he wished he had. And then it was too late. Instead, he told her about Sam Doucette. She and her mother were back in town. He had stopped by to tell them about developments. “I met her father too.”

“He finally came back from the Yukon or wherever he was?”

“Said he’s trying to get Sam a sponsorship deal with a crossbow manufacturer. I’m not sure, but I think he was joking. You ready for more coffee?”

Delorme picked her mug up from the floor and held it out in a languid hand. “I could get used to this, having a man wait on me hand and foot.”

“Shane doesn’t do that?” Cardinal took the mugs into the kitchen and picked up the coffee pot and started to pour.

“Shane and I broke up.”

Cardinal put down the pot and went back to the doorway. Delorme was twisting a lock of her hair, examining it in the light as if it were far more interesting than her romantic fortunes.

“He dumped me.”

“Then he’s an idiot.”

“Yes,” Delorme said, still contemplating the lock of hair. “I think so too.”

“Are you upset about it?”

She held the hair still, then let it fall back to the cushions. “Yes.”

“But you weren’t too excited about him, you said.”

“It always hurts to be dumped—even though I have a lot of experience at it. I don’t like being on the other end of it either, but it beats being the dumpee.”

Cardinal went back to the kitchen and finished pouring the coffee and handed her her mug. Delorme sat up awkwardly, bad leg out to one side.

“You want to sit in the recliner?” Cardinal said. “You’d be more comfortable.”

She sipped her coffee and shook her head. “That’s your spot.”

Cardinal was about to sit down when the phone rang. He talked to McLeod for the next few minutes, aware that Delorme was watching his face, reading his reactions.

“So?” she said when he hung up.

“You remember our fur protester—Chad Pocklington? OPP just figured out that’s who they swooped down on with their SWAT team.”

“Wow. I bet they’re pissed. Any news about the girl—Nikki?”

“They still haven’t tracked down her parents. They may not want to be found. She’ll be stuck in detention for now. Kreeger apparently doesn’t want to press charges, but the Crown is not going to ignore kidnapping and false imprisonment even if she did let the old guy go.”

“What do we hear from Forensic?”

“DNA from the Scriver cottage matches Curtis Winston. There’s no criminal record under either name, but he’s now the chief suspect in several gruesome murders in the States—all of them where he has a slight connection but no obvious motive.”

“People annoy him, so he cuts their heads off.”

“He has his so-called children do it. The guy who attacked you was one Jackson Till. He’s done time in the Texas state pen for rape, manslaughter and aggravated assault. Are you okay? How are you holding up?”

Delorme had gone pale. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Seeing it. Over and over again.”

“You didn’t have a choice. You know that.”

“I do know that. It doesn’t seem to make any difference.”

“If it’s any comfort, SIU’s initial take is they believe you killed him in self-defence. The final report’ll take weeks. Same for me and Donna Vaughan.”

A wave of nausea or something like it passed through Cardinal and he sat down on the couch beside her. Neither of them spoke for a long time. Finally Cardinal said, “I never thought I’d see the day I’d shoot a woman.”

“Like you say,” Delorme said, “it’s not as if you had a choice.”

Another silence.

Eventually Cardinal said, “You know, I spoke to the real Donna Vaughan. She’s a freelance journalist in New York who covers fashion and has no interest whatsoever in the Russian mob. She also had no idea that Christine Rickert borrowed her identity about two weeks after she got out on parole. I’m telling you, Lise, sometimes my own idiocy takes my breath away. I can’t believe I didn’t see through her.”

“Why, John? You had no reason to suspect her of being anything other than an aggressive journalist.” Delorme placed a warm hand on Cardinal’s shoulder. “And it’s not so long ago your wife died. You were vulnerable.”

“Stupid, you mean.”

“You broke a major case. Two major cases. I don’t think that qualifies as stupid.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “You want to watch a video tonight? Do the popcorn thing?”

Cardinal shrugged. “I don’t know …”

“Come on. What do you feel like? An old classic? A comedy?”

“I really don’t mind,” Cardinal said. “Something without monsters.”