Forty Words for Sorrow

51

THE ADDRESS, ACCORDING TO TROY’S records, was 675 Pratt Street East. They were heading there now, without sirens. The radio had been predicting a snowstorm, but the warm patch had held, and rain hammered on the roof of the car. The wipers squawked on the windshield. Cardinal had already called for backup, plain dress, but there were no cars in sight when they got to the corner of Pratt and MacPherson.

“I didn’t know there was anything after the five hundred block,” said Delorme. At the end of the five hundred block the ONR tracks crossed Pratt Street, and after that the road wasn’t even paved and the small, ratty houses on the far side were hidden behind a rock cut.

The radio sprayed static, and Mary Flower’s voice filled the car. “Could be a wait for backup. Jackknifed tractor-trailer on the overpass’s got traffic backed up for two miles.”

“Acknowledged,” Cardinal said into the mike. “What’s the computer say about Eric Fraser?”

“Nada. Zero locally on Eric Fraser. Nada.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Cardinal said. “Troy says he can’t be more than twenty-seven, twenty-eight.”

“Also zero for nationwide,” Flower said. “Clean as a whistle.”

“What about juvie? That’s where we’ll find him, if he has a record.”

“Hold on. Juvie’s coming.” They heard Flower scream to someone to bring her the printout sometime before next Christmas. “Bingo on juvie. You ready?”

“Cruelty to animals,” Cardinal said to Delorme. “Bet you anything. Go ahead, Mary.”

“Age of thirteen, break and enter. Age of fourteen, break and enter. Age of fifteen, cruelty to animals.”

“That’s our boy,” Delorme said.

A faint electrical charge tingled along Cardinal’s fingertips. If he had to resign, this was the way to go: stop a serial killer in mid-career. You couldn’t ask for a better exit.

McLeod pulled up at the corner by MacPherson, wipers flapping. Cardinal had warned everyone to stay away from the house till he got there. When McLeod saw them, he got out of the car and came sprinting across the intersection, holding his hood up with one hand against the rain. He climbed in the back with Collingwood, cursing. “Fucking February, I ask you. Who ever heard of a fucking monsoon in February? It’s the fucking pollution from Sudbury doing it. Whole fucking town’s melted.”

Flower said, “Fraser also did a stint at St. Bartholomew’s Training School. Two years less a day.”

“Assault I bet,” Cardinal said into the mike.

From the radio, “Aggravated assault. Had a disagreement with his shop teacher concerning the whereabouts of certain equipment.”

“And he did some carving on him, right?”

“Nope. Right there in class. Went after him with a blowtorch.”