Crime Machine

5

WHEN CARDINAL GOT BACK to the station, Ident’s walls were covered with photographs. Images were tacked to the bulletin board, to the shelves, and taped to the windows, making their cramped quarters even more claustrophobic than usual. The pictures showed every conceivable angle on footprints and tire prints. And the arrangement didn’t make much sense to Cardinal until Paul Arsenault started explaining.

“The fresh snow gives us a pretty clear picture of who’s who,” he said. “We’ve got tire tracks from two vehicles.” He pointed to a photograph. “These were there first. We’re checking the databases, but for now we know that it’s a mid-size car, not too heavy. The second vehicle is smaller and lighter, pretty new treads. Its tracks are on top of the other car’s, but we can’t say anything more than that in terms of timing.

“Now, shoe prints. Again, the initial sorting is easy because we were able to take moulds from the shoes of the two victims. The woman’s boots—tiny triangular front, small square for the heel, size fives. The man’s are size twelve galoshes—note the shallow tread. Hers are Manolo Blahniks, his are Cole Haan—didn’t have to look those up, obviously, since they were still at the scene. Took some fibres off the tread of the man’s galoshes, but fibres, you know—that’s out of our league.

“Which leaves our headhunter. Same size, but a totally different kind of boot. Look at that: deep tread on heel and toe. We’re talking serious outdoor footwear here, and I’d say they’re pretty new. We should be able to get a make on those pretty quick.”

“Tell him about the master bedroom.” Collingwood spoke from his desk without looking at them.

“Well, we’ve got the broken window and the blood. And we’ve got clear prints from the sill and the chair. Blood type is different from the other room.

“Under the bed, even more interesting. Good layer of dust under there, and look at this. We lifted the bed out of the way to shoot these. You can see where someone’s hands were—not the kind of prints you might make pulling something out from under the bed.”

“No, looks more like someone slid under there to hide.”

“Handprints this end, facing out. And this way you’ve got leg and toe. Yeah, we think someone was hiding. Picked up some hairs from the top of the bed. A couple of them short, brown. Another one long, black. Now, I’ve met the Schumachers—they came in right away to give prints—so I know these hairs have nothing to do with them. We also know that some of the prints on the bedside tables are theirs and some of them are not. One set matches whoever broke out the window, the other set matches some we found on the front door but nowhere else—not on the table or the glasses.”

“Let me get this straight,” Cardinal said. “You’re saying we’re looking at five different people now, not just four?”

“Looks that way.”

“We’ve got all these prints but nothing that matches any criminal record?”

“Not yet. Could still happen, though. Problem for me and Bob is too much evidence, not too little. For example, we pulled a whole bunch of blue fibres off the top of the bed. No big deal, except we didn’t find any blue blankets—we photographed the linen closets and the other beds, you can see for yourself. Plus, I asked the Schumachers and they say they don’t own any blue blankets.”

“I’m still trying to get my head around five people,” Cardinal said. “One of them hiding under the bed.”

Collingwood spoke from his desk. “Tell him about the wood.”

Arsenault pointed to another photograph. A boot print. Beside it, an extreme close-up. The short dark line that appeared in the heel of the first image showed in the second image as a fragment of something. Cardinal leaned closer. When he stepped back, he bumped into Arsenault, who was holding up a small plastic Baggie with the fragment in it.

“This’ll have to go to Toronto too. It’s a splinter—not big enough for us to figure out what kind of wood, but take a sniff.” He held the Baggie open and Cardinal sniffed.

“It’s pretty faint. Gasoline? Or maybe oil?”

“Yeah, something like that. We figure maybe someone who works in a garage.”

“Really? It’s not like we had all sorts of grease stains at the scene.”

“Szelagy’s got that warehouse arson—maybe this guy is connected with that. Not that we got any boot prints from that scene.”

“I’m going to have to think about it,” Cardinal said. “We can’t just be looking for someone who wore boots in a garage.”

Loud voices and the scrape of furniture. Sounds of an altercation out front.

Cardinal left Ident and went to the front desk. Delorme was already there, along with McLeod and Dunbar, watching a street cop struggling to hold on to a man of about fifty who was handcuffed at his side.

The man was yelling over and over again, “You’re arresting the wrong guy. I’m not the one committing the crimes. Do you have any idea what they do to those animals?”

The uniformed cop wasn’t letting it ruffle him. “Act your age. You’ll get your say in court.”

“Let me go. You’re holding the wrong person, for Chrissake.” The man twisted around and kicked at the officer.

“All right, that’s it. You’re going in the cell now.”

Two other street cops took hold of the man and dragged him away, still shouting. “It’s not even real blood! It’s paint—just paint, you Neanderthal. Haven’t you ever heard of free expression?”

The Neanderthal took off his parka and tossed it on a chair while he gave his information to the duty sergeant. He looked around at the audience. “Chad Pocklington. Every year he stomps right over to the fur auction and throws paint on the cars. Every single year. Guy’s got a serious case of Noone’s.”

This was a reference to an ancient line of graffiti that had long decorated the men’s room in Algonquin Bay’s former, now demolished, police station: Sparky Noone is full of shit.