Forty Words for Sorrow

28

DELORME DIDN’T HAVE A LOT of close friends on the force. Working in Special Investigations didn’t exactly encourage camaraderie, and Delorme had never been the sort to put herself forward, insert herself into a group. For friendship she relied on old high school friends, and a lot of the time it was tough going. There were those who had gone away to college and come back changed or married, usually both. There were those who had not gone on to college, whose horizons lay no further away than their high school boyfriend and a baby at the age of eighteen.

Most of them had kids now, meaning Delorme did not share the central concern in their lives. Even when she did see old friends, she sensed in their eyes that they saw a change in her. Working around men all the time, around cops, had hardened her, made her more guarded and, in some way she could not quite fathom, less patient with women.

It all added up to a lot of time alone, which was why, unlike practically everyone else on the force, she had a quiet dread of the end of shift. So when Cardinal suddenly suggested—in the middle of a sup-writing marathon—that they go out to his place to brainstorm that evening, a flock of confused feelings took wing in Delorme’s heart like swallows round a barn. “Don’t worry,” Cardinal had said before she could reply, “I won’t inflict my cooking on you. We can order in a pizza.”

Delorme, stalling, had said she didn’t know. By the end of the day she’d be pretty tired; she wouldn’t bring much brain to the storm.

“Fehrenbach checked out, right? There’s nowhere else to go with that.”

“I know. It’s just …”

Cardinal had looked at her, frowning a little. “If I was going to make a move on you, Lise, I wouldn’t do it at home.”

So they had driven their separate cars out to Cardinal’s freezing little cottage on Madonna Road, and Cardinal had built a fire in the wood stove. Delorme was touched by how friendly he was. He showed her some carpentry work he’d done in the kitchen, then a huge landscape painted by his daughter—a view of Trout Lake with the NORAD base in the background—when she was twelve years old. “She gets the artistic genes from her mother. Catherine’s a photographer,” he said, pointing to a sepia-tinged photograph of a lonely rowboat on an anonymous shore.

“You must miss them,” Delorme had said, and immediately regretted it. But Cardinal had just shrugged and picked up the phone to order the pizza.

By the time it arrived, they had begun tossing out ideas. The ground rules of brainstorming were that you couldn’t laugh at anything the other person suggested; you couldn’t say anything inhibiting. Which was why it was a good idea to do it away from headquarters: they could zing out some really wild ideas and not feel too foolish.

They were just getting warmed up when the telephone rang. Cardinal’s first words into the receiver: “Oh, shit. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He tossed the phone onto the couch and started putting on his coat, patting his pockets for keys.

“What? What’s going on?”

“I forgot, we have a press thing at six. R.J. arranged it, so Grace Legault doesn’t get her knickers in a knot. Sorry. You know, it’s one of those deals where we tell them things we don’t really want them to know, so that they don’t say things we don’t want them to say. That’s the idea, anyway.”

“Whose idea?”

“Dyson’s. I went along with it, though.”

“Well, I guess I should go, then.”

“No, no. Please. Don’t let the pizza get cold. Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

Delorme had protested, Cardinal had insisted, and in the end she stayed, nibbling half-heartedly at the pizza in the sudden silence of his departure. It seemed so—what was the word—orchestrated. Inviting her all the way out here. “Forgetting” his press meeting. The pizza arriving just so. It was as if he wanted her, for the space of an hour at least, to have his house to herself: go ahead and look—I’ve got nothing to hide.

Was this Cardinal’s way of saving her (or Dyson, or the department) the embarrassment of a search warrant? Or was it a pre-emptive strike, designed to take the wind out of her sails? A guilty man would never give her free access to his home. But then again, it was the same as with his desk: a guilty man might well leave it wide open precisely so you would think him not guilty.

Delorme wiped pizza grease from her fingers and telephoned Dyson. This press thing Cardinal was going to, was it for real? It was most certainly real, Dyson assured her. R.J. was very high on it and Cardinal had better get his ass in there toot sweet (his French sent a shudder down Delorme’s spine) or Dyson would personally see him writing traffic tickets before the week was out.

“He’s on his way.”

“How do you know that? Are you at his place? What are you doing at his place?”

“I’m having his baby. But don’t worry, I can still look at things objectively.”

“Ha, ha. The fact is, you have an opportunity here, just like we discussed.”

“What I can’t figure out is why he’s giving it to us—unless he’s innocent.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice.”

Delorme stood up, brushing crumbs from her lap. Above the fireplace there was a black-and-white photograph of Cardinal, dressed in old work shirt and jeans, planing a piece of wood, leaning over it like a pool player. He had a three-day stubble and sawdust in his hair, and he looked kind of sexy for a cop. Well, sexy or not, first he leaves his desk drawer open and now he was giving her the run of his house. As far as Delorme was concerned, that was asking for it.

The Algonquin Bay police department does not have rules for surreptitious searches for the very good reason that its officers are not supposed to conduct them. Delorme had never relied on clandestine methods to collect evidence, nor would she now. Any clandestine search was of necessity in the nature of a reconnoitre, a preview of what might be available to those (armed with a warrant) who might come after. The only thing the Ontario Police College at Aylmer teaches about such searches is that they are illegal and their fruits inadmissible. What Delorme knew of this unsavoury art, she had taught herself.

She had an hour—say forty minutes to be on the safe side. It was essential to be highly selective. She ruled out all the places she’d seen cops search in the movies: the hard-to-get-at places like tops of cupboards, the attic space—anything requiring something to stand on. Also off the list: any spaces that required moving furniture. There was no way she could lift up rugs or check under couch and chairs without Cardinal seeing the disruption, and in any case she did not believe that, if Cardinal had anything to hide, he would hide it in such places. She would not be lifting the lid of the cistern, either.

No, within minutes of Cardinal’s departure Lise Delorme had decided she would search only the most obvious place for incriminating material: Cardinal’s personal files. These he kept conveniently labelled (and unlocked) in a two-drawer metal cabinet, much dented. In no time at all she learned exactly what he earned from the department (with all the overtime, it came to a lot more than she had expected) and that his charming but sub-zero lakeside house was not paid off. The monthly payments were high, but manageable on Cardinal’s income, unless he had other major expenses—such as a daughter attending an Ivy League university.

Delorme was more interested in Catherine Cardinal’s income. If she had some private source, Cardinal might be off the hook.

She pulled out tax returns.

Last year’s filing, a joint one, was in Cardinal’s handwriting and showed that he had told Revenue Canada exactly what he earned. It also indicated that Catherine Cardinal made little more than pocket money as a part-time photography instructor up at Algonquin College. But there was a second file that was of considerably more interest, a return for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. It was for Catherine Cardinal, but filled out in Cardinal’s messy but intense hand. You’d never hire an accountant, would you? Far too vain about your mental faculties. The form showed that Catherine Cardinal had earned eleven thousand U.S. dollars in rental income from a Miami condominium. Apparently, it was vacant for most of the year.

“Date of purchase,” Delorme whispered aloud, flipping through the unfamiliar form. “Come on now. Date of purchase. You claim depreciation, somewhere you’ve got to say when you bought the damn—” She sat back on her haunches, gripping the blue-and-white form. Catherine Cardinal had bought the condo in Florida three years ago, with a down payment of forty-six thousand dollars U.S.—just six weeks after the first Corbett fiasco.

Careful, now, Delorme’s inner voice said. You don’t know anything. You keep looking and you keep your mind open. We are in collecting mode here, not judging.

Cardinal had claimed a portion of his homeowner’s insurance policy as a deduction. Delorme found the file marked Insurance. The amount of the policy seemed low at first glance, but then she remembered that it was the property, not the house, that was expensive. The file contained receipts for large purchases—Cardinal’s Camry, a new refrigerator, a table saw—but then Delorme came upon a receipt that made her catch her breath. It was from the Calloway Marina in Hollywood Beach, Florida, in the sum of fifty thousand dollars for a Chris-Craft cabin cruiser. Dated October, two years ago. That would put it just two months after the second Corbett raid went bad.

Again Delorme made an effort to calm her beating heart, told herself not to jump to conclusions. Jumping to conclusions turned you into a danger to everyone who got near you. But that amount, and on that date—well, it was damaging, no question.

From the rear of Cardinal’s bottom drawer she pulled out a file marked Yale. She scanned the contents swiftly, correspondence from Yale on expensive letterhead that confirmed what she already knew: John Cardinal was paying a damn fortune to send his daughter to a famous school. Over twenty-five thousand a year in Canadian dollars, not including living expenses, and then there were travel costs and art supplies on top of that. Cardinal had said Kelly was in her second year of grad school, so he was looking at close to seventy-five thousand dollars, and she was not even done yet.

Delorme put the papers back and closed the drawer. Stop while you’re ahead, she told herself: the boat, the condo—they’re more than enough to follow up on.

She put Cardinal’s half of the pizza in the fridge, washed her plate and put on her coat. She switched off the light, wondering why on earth her partner would allow her to search his place when there was so much incriminating evidence around. It didn’t make sense.

Driving into town, she called Malcolm Musgrave on her cellphone. “I’ve been looking at some very interesting receipts—large purchases right after your Corbett raids. But I can’t tell you where I found them just yet.”

“He’s your partner, I understand that, but you’re not running this investigation alone. How much money are we talking about?”

“Ninety-six thousand dollars U.S. That’s in addition to a kid at Yale.”

“Probably our exalted commissioner makes that much, but I don’t and you don’t and neither does your partner.”

“It looks bad, I know. But he doesn’t live high. He doesn’t spend a lot of cash.”

“You’re forgetting there’s a considerable stick here as well as the carrot. Once someone like Kyle Corbett gets his pincers into you, you don’t just decide you’re tired of the game. You do what he wants, or he’ll get you where you live. You might want to interview Nicky Bell on that subject. Oh, that’s right, he’s dead. Silly me.” Musgrave told her to hang on a minute.

While she was waiting, she saw John Cardinal driving back out to his place. She raised her fingers off the wheel to wave, but he didn’t see her. Suddenly Delorme regretted making the call. Then Musgrave came back.

“Look, I’m gonna need to know more about these receipts. We don’t have time for prima donnas here, sister.”

“Sorry. I don’t think I can do that. Not yet, anyway.”

Musgrave pressed her, gave her his you’re-playing-with-the-big-boys-now basso aria.

“Look, I’m doing my job, all right? I’m investigating the guy. That’s all you have to know right now.” Musgrave started in on her again, but Delorme clicked off the phone.

When she got home, she remained in her car with the motor running, leaning her head on the steering wheel. She tried not to identify the feelings that flowed inside her. Delorme had come across a lot of larcenous men in her six years with Special. And in that time she had come across motivations that rivalled the northern woods in their richness and variety. Some men steal for greed; those are simple and easy to nail. Then there are other men, more complex, who steal out of compulsion. Still others steal out of fear. Delorme thought these last were by far the most common: the middle-aged manager who sees the spectre of a penny-pinching retirement. Delorme didn’t think Cardinal could be any of these. And so she wasn’t dwelling on that fancy cabin cruiser, or even that Florida condo. The objects that shone clearest in her mind were the letters from Yale. She could feel the expensive weave of the stationery in her hand, the embossed seal, the enormous cost of an Ivy League education. Some men, she was realizing, might steal for love.

“John Cardinal,” she said aloud, “you are such a stupid fool.”