The Delicate Storm

18

THAT WAS WEDNESDAY. On Thursday, Cardinal was sitting at the breakfast table finishing his second cup of coffee when the local news came on the radio. The lead item was the murder of Winter Cates.

“Isn’t that your father’s new doctor?” Catherine said.

Cardinal leaned across the table and turned the radio up. The newscaster didn’t have a lot of information. Dr. Cates, thirty-two, had been raped and strangled sometime Monday night in a wooded area north of the city. Police had no suspects.

“My God,” Cardinal said. “I can’t believe it. We just saw her on Monday.”

“It’s horrible,” Catherine said.

“I only met her the once, but I liked her right away. And she seemed like a first-class doctor.”

Cardinal picked up the phone and dialed Delorme’s home number. When the answering machine picked up, he put the phone down again.

On the drive into town, Cardinal thought about the young doctor who had handled his father so well and gotten him treatment so fast. She had seemed so smart, so intent on helping.

It was still early when Cardinal got to the squad room, but Delorme was already there.

“I just heard about Winter Cates on the radio,” Cardinal said. “I still can’t get over it. She was raped too?”

“There were signs of sexual assault, but no—the pathologist is pretty sure she wasn’t raped. Somebody sure killed her, though,” Delorme said. “And I don’t have a clue who it is.”

“I thought you were focusing on Corporal Simmons. How’d Musgrave take that, by the way?”

“Musgrave was fine. Told me where to find him, in fact. Also told me Simmons was not the guy, which turned out to be correct.”

“He has an alibi? What is it?”

Delorme winced. “I’d rather not say—I made a promise—but believe me, it wasn’t in the corporal’s interest to tell me about it.”

Delorme brought Cardinal up to date. She laid particular emphasis on Dr. Cates’s office. “The assistant is certain that paper on the examining table was used after they closed Monday night. Of course, we’re waiting for DNA results, but the blood we found is AB-negative, which is rare.” She finished by voicing Cardinal’s own thought. “You know, two bodies in the woods in the space of three days—you have to think they’re probably connected.”

“It does seem likely. But what’s our link? Let me tell you where I’m at with Matlock, and maybe we can come up with something. His name is not Matlock, for starters. And he wasn’t any chartered accountant, either.”

Cardinal was interrupted by the phone.

“Cardinal, CID.”

“Ed Beacom, Beacom Security. Looks like we’re going to be working together again.”

“Wonderful. What are you talking about, Ed?” Ed Beacom was a former cop who would never have made it up the ranks. It wasn’t incompetence; Beacom just had a grudge against the world and it made him annoying to work with.

“The Mantis fundraiser?”

Cardinal covered the mouthpiece. “Did Chouinard tell you about this fundraiser we have to work security on?”

“The Conservative thing,” Delorme said. “Yeah, he told me. Just what I want to be doing in the middle of a murder case.”

“Listen, Ed,” Cardinal said into the phone, “we’ve got everything hitting the fan just now. Can I call you back?”

“Oh, sure. I know how important you guys are. Wouldn’t want to hold up the wheels of justice.”

“Are you going to give me your number?”

Beacom gave it to him and hung up.

“Where were we?”

“You were telling me that Matlock’s not Matlock.”

Cardinal told Delorme about Squier’s deception, about Shackley’s real background and about his own trip to New York. Delorme’s attention was intense; her brown eyes fixed on him the whole time.

“Quebec? 1970?” Delorme said when he was done. “That was like a thousand years ago. You really think that’s going to lead anywhere?”

“The minute I have any other leads, I’ll follow them.”

“And this Squier character,” Delorme said. “Why did he lie about who Shackley was? Why does CSIS want to keep Shackley’s identity a big secret? Why actively mislead you?”

“Clearly, CSIS wants this case to stay buried.”

“Yes, but why?”

“An excellent question. I suggest we put it to Calvin Squier.”

As they passed the front desk, Mary Flower yelled to Cardinal, “Come here, Detective. I need to talk to you.”

Cardinal waved her off. “Be right back.”

He and Delorme headed back toward the cells.

“I think we should start by zeroing in on how CSIS knew to look for Miles Shackley at the airport,” Cardinal said. “On why Miles Shackley was Code Red. It could be something totally simple that’ll rule out a connection to Algonquin Bay, or it could lead somewhere that brings us to Dr. Cates.”

They passed the pink cell where a drunk was drying out, the cell that had recently suffered a flood and stank of mildew, the cells that had held Paul Bressard and Thierry Ferand until they made bail, and then they were in front of the last cell on the right, where Calvin Squier of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was housed. It was empty.

“Must be in an interview room with an attorney,” Cardinal said. “Let’s go back out front.”

They went back to the desk.

“What’s up with Squier?” Cardinal asked Mary Flower. “He’s not in his cell.”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Flower said. “Calvin Squier is gone. Calvin Squier has vamoosed. Calvin Squier is free as a bird. The Crown attorney sprung him last night about two seconds after you left.”

“Tell me you didn’t cave in to the Crown on this,” Cardinal said to Chouinard. “Tell me you didn’t hide under your desk the minute CSIS whimpered.”

“Don’t give me that, Cardinal. They had the chief in on this, the Crown, you name it. This wasn’t up to me, not that I objected too strongly. Playing by the rules doesn’t make anybody a wimp. And breaking them doesn’t make you a hero.” They were in the Detective Sergeant’s office. He had hung up a large Montreal Canadiens calendar behind his desk.

“Talk to Calvin Squier about breaking the rules,” Cardinal said. “Calvin Squier completely derailed a murder investigation by implying he had interviewed the next of kin and investigated background when he hadn’t done any such thing. Calvin Squier invented a completely fictitious story involving the CADS base and American terrorists. And Calvin Squier also failed to share a crucial piece of information with both us and the RCMP, namely, the victim’s true identity. If that doesn’t qualify as obstruction of justice, I don’t know what does.”

“CSIS is an intelligence operation. You know that. It does not operate under the same rules as everybody else.”

“Not in Algonquin Bay, obviously.”

“You arrested an agent of a federal institution without consulting me or the chief or the Crown. Reginald Rose is absolutely livid, and if I were you, I’d avoid the chief too. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get hit with some charges yourself. I’m telling you, Rose was furious. And he had every right to be.”

“That doesn’t give Squier the right to mislead investigators. If he had his way, we’d still be trying to figure out who killed Howard Matlock, who is not dead, instead of Miles Shackley, who is.”

“All right. Squier withheld evidence. That is not a crime for which you pull a civil servant off the street without a warrant. Why didn’t you go to the Crown first?”

“Because it was late. Calvin Squier was withholding information relevant to my investigation.”

“That makes him a witness, not a criminal. Cardinal, you and I have worked lots of cases together. Frankly, I’m surprised.”

“Likewise.”

“Oh, really?” Chouinard stood up, and for a moment Cardinal thought he was going to hit him; his predecessor would have. But Chouinard merely gripped the edge of the desk and took several deep breaths.

“So who’d they bring down on you?” Cardinal said. “I’m assuming somebody pretty heavy.”

“It’s not a matter of who, it’s a matter of who’s right.”

“Who’d they bring down on you?”

“You were out of line arresting a CSIS agent, and the Ottawa office saw fit to point that out to me.”

“Ottawa. Well, that should tell you something. Squier works out of Toronto. Which makes you wonder what Ottawa is trying to hide.”

“They’re preserving their jurisdiction over cases that involve terrorism. It’s not just their right, it’s their duty. You’re forgetting about the CADS base.”

“I told you: CADS security has no record of any breaches. Squier made all of that up. And I don’t believe Shackley was connected with any American groups. If there’s any terrorism involved in this case, it happened in Quebec more than thirty years ago. Surely our duty to catch murderers trumps that one.” Cardinal opened the door. “If I rush, I might be able to arrest him again before he gets out of town.”

“Don’t even think of it, Cardinal. I will come down on you from a very great height if you do! Do the words ‘false arrest’ mean anything to you?”

Cardinal could hear the detective sergeant’s voice all the way to the ground floor.

He actually had no intention of chasing Squier down again. He drove to the nearest Country Style and bought himself a coffee, then sat in his car, sipping it, while he tried to calm down. Last night’s rain had added another layer of ice to everything it touched. All the cars in the lot looked laminated, except where scrapers had been applied to scratch out some visibility.

A barrel-chested man with no hair whatsoever got out of a four-by-four and headed for the Country Style entrance. Cardinal thought for a moment it was Kiki B., and all his reflexes went on high alert. But the man turned slightly as he opened the door, and Cardinal saw that it was not Kiki. He tried to forget his fear—and his anger at Chouinard—and to focus instead on the things that needed to be done.

Delorme was writing up her report on Craig Simmons. The difficulty was how to word it so that the corporal was thoroughly cleared without mentioning the sexual angle.

“Boo!”

“Very funny, Szelagy. One day you’re going to do that and you’re going to get shot.”

“You looked so intense, I couldn’t resist.” Szelagy hung his coat over the back of his chair and sat down heavily. Delorme liked Szelagy, but sometimes she wished his desk was in another room.

“Just wanted to tell you,” he said. “I’m striking out big time on Dr. Cates’s neighbours. I swear everybody in that building is either on vacation or away on business. Pretty upscale place, I guess. Super tells me it’s owned by Paul Laroche.”

Delorme swivelled around to face him. “Really? Paul Laroche?”

“Yeah. Why ‘really’?”

“Well, Laroche is a pretty big deal—in the francophone community, anyway. Did anybody talk to him yet?”

“You think we should? It’s not like he lives there.”

Delorme dialed Cardinal’s cellphone number. When he answered, she said, “Are you still feeling sorry for yourself?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, why don’t we go talk to Paul Laroche? He owns the building Winter Cates lived in.”

“That doesn’t mean he knew her.”

“We won’t know till we ask.”

“You forget—I’m not working the Cates case, remember?”

“No, but you’re working security for Laroche’s fundraiser. Can’t hurt to talk to the guy.”

They met outside Laroche Real Estate, which was located in a beautifully restored Edwardian house on MacIntosh with porthole windows and an ornate L-shaped veranda.

A glossy young woman directed them to the Mantis campaign headquarters a few doors down, in a converted storefront that had been vacant for years. The interior was furnished with old metal desks and what looked like a hundred phones. Many of these were manned by middle-aged housewives, but there was also a platoon of eager-looking young men in shirt sleeves. It was one of these, a kid no more than eighteen, who went to fetch Laroche. So young, Cardinal thought, and so conservative.

“Detective Cardinal,” Laroche said when he came out. “How nice to see you again.” He handed a stack of paper to his pimply assistant and said, “These are fine.”

Cardinal introduced Delorme.

“The notorious Detective Delorme,” Laroche said with a smile. “I’ll have to watch what I say.”

He led them back to an ugly little cubicle with cheap pine panelling and metal bookshelves full of videotapes. One wall was dominated by a huge poster of a smiling Premier Mantis standing in front of the Ontario flag. On the windowsill, a combined TV/VCR was playing a tape of Mantis joking with reporters outside Queen’s Park; the sound was off. A snapshot on a bookshelf showed Laroche and Mantis dressed in hunting gear, grinning amid brilliant fall foliage.

The only seating consisted of task chairs rolled up against a table with three computers and telephones on it.

“Have a seat,” Laroche said. “I don’t imagine you’re used to such luxury.”

“I feel right at home,” Cardinal said.

“You’ve met with Ed Beacom, I take it. Have you worked out the security arrangements?”

“We’ll be meeting with Ed soon,” Cardinal said. “That isn’t actually what we came to talk about.”

“Oh?”

Cardinal looked at Delorme: It’s your case.

“Mr. Laroche,” Delorme said, “did you know Winter Cates?”

“The young woman who was murdered? I assume the reason you’re asking is because she lived in one of my buildings.”

“Did you know her?”

“I met her once. I happened to be at the Twickenham the day she moved in. Lovely young woman. Good doctor, too, from what I hear. It’s a terrible loss.”

“When you met her, was there anything about her that gave you cause for concern?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Perhaps there was something unusual on her rental application. Or maybe there was someone with her …”

“Just a couple of moving men, I think.”

“And you never saw her again?”

“I own a lot of buildings. I don’t manage them day-to-day.”

“I know,” Delorme said. “I used to be one of your tenants.”

“Really?” Laroche said. “Which building?”

“The Balmoral, over on MacPherson. Not for long, though.”

“Well, I’m sorry we didn’t keep you.”

“Too expensive. The city doesn’t pay me enough.”

Laroche laughed. He said something in French that Cardinal didn’t catch, and Delorme said something back. Cardinal sensed that she found Laroche attractive, even though he must have had twenty-something years on her. Perhaps it was the dark good looks, greying at the edges. Or perhaps it was the self-assurance that wafted around him like expensive aftershave.

“I’m glad you came by,” Laroche said. “I was going to call R.J. and run an idea by him. It’s the first time one of my tenants has been murdered, and I have to say I don’t like it one bit. I was wondering if a reward would be any use. Understand,” he said, touching Delorme’s sleeve, “I don’t want to blunder in where I’m not wanted. I know sometimes rewards can help, and if that’s the case with this matter, then I’d be prepared to put up twenty thousand or so.”

Delorme looked at Cardinal. Cardinal just shrugged; it was her call.

“It’s very generous of you,” Delorme said. “But it’s early days yet. What makes you think we wouldn’t catch the killer without a reward?”

“I don’t doubt your competence, Detective. After Mayor Wells—not to mention the Windigo case—who could? It’s just that Dr. Cates was a young woman, full of promise.”

“And she was your tenant.”

“This would be entirely anonymous, of course. But as I say, I don’t want to interfere if you think it won’t help.”

Delorme glanced at Cardinal and back to Laroche. “My feeling is, it’s too early. This isn’t a case where we suspect a group of people. If it was a gang thing, or a drug thing, I would say go for it. You get one of them to turn on the others, it’s the fastest way to make your case. But we’re looking at a one-off crime here. So I don’t think it would do much good—unless you’re offering the reward to the killer for turning himself in.”

Laroche smiled. “Not what I had in mind, Detective. It must serve you well in your line of work, that sense of humour.”

Delorme shrugged. “You asked my opinion,” she said. “That’s it.”

“Well, let me know if you change your mind,” Laroche said. “It’s an open offer.”

“Do you think it was odd, him offering a reward?” Cardinal said when they were outside.

“Not really. That’s the kind of guy he is. He’s a real force in the francophone community—very active in the church and charities and so on. What I like about him, he never takes credit for anything.”

“You just think he’s sexy,” Cardinal said.

“You have no idea what I think,” Delorme said. But she didn’t deny it, Cardinal noticed.

When he got back to the station, Cardinal went straight to the evidence room, where he signed out the box of Matlock–Shackley’s personal effects that had been removed from the cabin at Loon Lodge. He took it back to his desk, where he proceeded to remove items in no particular order. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for; it was just that, now that the dead man’s identity had changed, the things he had left behind might look different, perhaps lead in new directions.

Cardinal pulled out a shaving kit, a compact silver case that unfolded into a mirror. A small metal handle screwed into separate razor or toothbrush heads. It had a pleasing precision about it, like the parts of a gun. He wasn’t sure if the kit was expensive or not; he’d never seen one like it. The manufacturer’s logo was engraved into the case, above the words, Made in France. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean Shackley bought it there.

The question of price made him take a closer look at the clothes. He pulled out a Brooks Brothers blazer, shiny at the elbows, frayed at the cuffs. The two shirts also had good labels and were exceedingly worn, as if Shackley hadn’t bought anything new in twenty years. Cardinal pulled out a sock with a hole in the heel. Apparently the CIA’s retirement plan was stingy.

He wished once again that they would find the damn car. There could be something crucial there. In fact, Shackley might have been murdered in the car. Why else would the killer take so much trouble to hide it or destroy it? Red Escort? Avis sticker? Why hadn’t it turned up yet?

He pulled the dead man’s plane ticket from the box: New York return to Toronto, American Airlines, five hundred dollars. Shackley had booked the flight a month ago, lots of advance notice; why did he pay so much for a coach fare?

Cardinal looked at the codes. Ah yes, no restrictions. Shackley wanted to be able to change his return date. Which suggested he hadn’t been sure how long he was going to be here. Whatever he was working on, the outcome hadn’t been certain.

And why had he been calling Montreal? Was there a connection there that had led him to Algonquin Bay?

Cardinal rubbed his forehead. He had the feeling there was some important deduction to be made here, which someone with a faster mind would be able to make right away, but it was beyond him. “I don’t know,” he muttered.

“Talking to yourself again?” Delorme said. She sat down next to him.

“Yeah. And it’s not helping.”

“What about the phone bills? You said he made some calls to Montreal?”

“They’re all unlisted. The only number I got through to was something called the Beau Soleil Daycare Centre.”

“A sixty-year-old New Yorker, he’s calling a Montreal daycare centre?”

“I know. Musgrave’s got their Montreal guys tracing the others.”

He was telling Delorme about the negative he had found in Shackley’s apartment when Paul Arsenault came in. Cardinal called across the squad room, “Hey, Arsenault. Did you develop that negative?”

“What’s the matter? You don’t check your inbox?” Arsenault grabbed a manila envelope out of Cardinal’s inter-office mailbox and tossed it onto his desk. “And before you ask: no, there were no fingerprints on the negative.”

Cardinal undid the clasp of the envelope and slid out two eight-by-twelve prints of the same photograph, handing one to Delorme. Black and white. A group shot of four young people: one woman, three men. Two of the men had long sideburns and moustaches; the third had a full beard. Cardinal held it up to the light. They looked happy, confident, grinning broadly for the camera, posed in front of two curtainless windows. Outside the windows, a view of trees and a church spire glinting in the sunlight.

“Pretty long hair,” Delorme noted. She was peering nearsightedly at her copy. “And look at the shirts on the guys, those collars.”

“Could be from the seventies,” Cardinal said.

“They look like a bunch of lumberjacks, except for the girl.”

“Hey, everybody.” Ken Szelagy stuck his head in the door, yelling over the top of the cubicles. He was holding a cellphone to one ear. “Time to saddle up. Sounds like we’ve got the car.”

The red Ford Escort was at the bottom of a disused quarry just off Highway 17. It had been found by a hiking enthusiast named Vince Carey. He had a completely shaved head, and a small tattoo of an eagle at the top of his neck.

“I was disgusted,” he told Cardinal. “I mean, you can’t just dump a car in the middle of the forest, even if it is a former quarry.”

“What made you come hiking through here in the middle of winter?”

“Well, it’s so beautiful with the ice over everything. And this area used to be kinda cool, you know? Last time I was through here—must’ve been about three years ago—runoff had formed a natural reservoir, almost a tiny lake, up to about there.” He pointed to a moss green line in the side of the granite cliffs.

“Did you see anyone else in the area today?”

“Not a soul. Nice and quiet.” Carey ran a hand over his scalp. “When I saw the water was gone, I thought I’d climb along the side of the cliff. Didn’t expect to see a damn car at the bottom. Pissed me off. So when I climbed back up to the highway later, I called Natural Resources to tell ’em about it, but they told me if it was a vehicle, I should call you guys. Which is what I did.”

“Okay, thanks for your help, Mr. Carey,” Cardinal said. “We’ll call you if we need anything more.”

“My pleasure.” He looked down the cliff to where Szelagy, Arsenault and Collingwood were crawling around the overturned car, then back to Cardinal. “Sure are a lot of you for one abandoned car, aren’t there?”

“We like to be thorough.”

Cardinal made his way down the rocks with extreme care, wary of the icy glaze, thinking, this could be a gold mine. Finally the luck might be turning his way.

The car lay on its back, nose-first in about three feet of water. Most of the roof had been crushed level with the rest of the body, and one wheel was missing entirely.

“Looks promising,” Arsenault said. “We can see an exit mark where a bullet went through the passenger-side door.”

“What about the interior?” Cardinal said. “Has the water destroyed everything?”

“Way it stands now, the water’s barely into the cabin. We don’t want to get too close, though, in case we shift the weight and tip it over. Water may have washed away some hair and fibre, but if there’s any blood by that exit mark, it should still be dry. The hard part’s going to be getting the car out. Tow truck’s not going to work.”

Cardinal looked from the wreck up to the top of the cliff, a distance of at least seventy-five feet that consisted almost entirely of jagged granite. “Don Deckard,” he said. “He’s the only guy.”

They heard the crane before they saw it. First there was a rumble in the earth, and then the grinding of gears, and finally the sound of a massive combustion engine straining to conquer a hill. Then the machine itself appeared, a colossal vehicle consisting almost entirely of huge wheels. On its back it carried the steel columns of the crane, now folded up like a boy’s construction toy. It stopped at the crest of the hill and Don Deckard jumped down from the cab.

He looked like a dinosaur from the 1960s who had somehow been propelled against his will into the next century. He wore black jeans with studs up the outside seams and a beaded buckskin jacket with an elaborate fringe. His greying hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his eyes were bright red as if he’d just smoked a joint.

“Hey, man.” He gave Cardinal a high-five; they’d worked together a few times over the years. “Long time no see. What have you got for me?”

Cardinal led him down toward the car.

“Where does he live?” Szelagy said to Arsenault. “Woodstock?”

“You don’t know Deckard? This guy’s a legend. See that little item there?” Arsenault pointed to the crane. Even folded up, the thing looked the length of a small high-rise. “It’s worth about half a million dollars. Sank in Lake Superior ten years ago—I forget what they were doing with it. Anyway, the company that owned it wrote it off as a complete loss. Even the insurance company wrote it off. But Deckard went out there with about six guys and a barge and hauled that thing out of three hundred feet of ice-cold water.”

It took Deckard just under an hour to get his crane set up and in position. Then the beam swung out over the quarry and lowered a steel cable with a canvas sling on the end. Giant air bags intended for use in raising sunken vessels were wedged between the car and the rocks and then inflated to stop the car from shifting. The sling was slipped into position and a few moments later the car was pulled high into the air above the gorge.

In the cab of the crane, Deckard pulled his levers and spun his wheels until the car settled, still upside down, on the back of a flatbed truck.

Deckard stepped out of his cab, and all four cops applauded. He bowed deeply and jumped down from the crane. He gave Cardinal another high-five. “Piece of cake, man. Piece of cake.”

Arsenault and Collingwood were already on the back of the flatbed. Using a “jaws of life” machine they pried open a space between the crushed roof and the seats.

“Windows were all open when it went over,” Arsenault said. “Clearly, the guy thought he was going to sink it. Probably came here at night and sent it over the cliff, thinking the water was deeper.”

Arsenault and Collingwood found several items of limited interest: a blurry rental agreement in the name of Howard Matlock, a pair of aviator clip-on sunglasses, and an empty Coke can still lodged in the cup holder. These and the entire car would be fumed for prints when they had dried off.

“It’s actually the passenger we want to focus on,” Cardinal said. “We know a fair bit about the victim and nothing about who killed him.”

Collingwood was going over the back of the passenger seat with a pair of tweezers. He turned to Cardinal and emitted a single word: “Blood.”

“On the passenger side? You’re sure?”

Collingwood didn’t reply. He pulled a carpet-cutter from his tool kit and peeled away the seat cover, exposing the padding. There was no mistaking the brownish stain beneath.

“We don’t want to wait ten days for DNA results,” Cardinal said. “Is there any way in the meantime we can be sure this is from the passenger and not the driver?”

“We can type them right now,” Arsenault said. “It’s possible they’re the same type, but it’s worth a shot, no?”

Arsenault retrieved a hand-held device from the ident van. For the next fifteen minutes he and Collingwood laboured over the stains. Cardinal waited, staring across the lake at the leaden sky. Mountains of cloud were massing on the horizon, threatening even more rain, which would mean even more ice.

Arsenault came up behind him, footsteps crunching on the ice. “Driver’s O-negative,” he said.

“And the passenger?”

“We’ve got the passenger too. AB-negative.”

Cardinal whipped out his cellphone and called Delorme. “Didn’t you tell me the blood you found in Dr. Cates’s office was AB-negative?”

“That’s right. We got it off the paper from the examining table.”

“This could link the two cases,” Cardinal said. “The killer shoots Shackley, but he gets shot too. The bullet’s still in him, but he can’t go to a hospital because they have to report gunshot wounds. So he grabs Dr. Cates and forces her to treat him.”

“Then kills her to keep her quiet. It’s looking good. And I’ve got some other news for you.”

“Oh?”

“Musgrave stopped by. You’re not gonna believe who Shackley was calling.”

Chouinard listened to Cardinal’s proposal with no sign of excitement or even of interest. When Cardinal had finished laying it out, he responded in the tranquil tones that made him sound so much more intelligent than he was.

“Clearly, you have to go to Montreal, no question about that. I’m not so sure about Delorme, though.”

“Detective Delorme,” Cardinal said, “how would you rate my French?”

“What French? I’ve heard you, and it’s not French. It’s more like a kind of Frankenstein sort of—”

“What are you so worried about, Cardinal? Everybody in Montreal speaks English, you know.”

“That’s not true,” Delorme said. “That’s not even close to true.”

“Well, maybe it’s changed since the last time I was there. Take a dictionary with you. I’m just not persuaded your two cases are the same killer.”

“D.S., think about it,” Cardinal said. “Cates is the second dead body in the woods in three days. Shouldn’t we assume it’s tied to the Shackley murder until there’s some reason to think otherwise?”

“We’ve got lots of reasons to think otherwise,” Chouinard said. “One body’s a man, the other’s a woman. One’s eaten by bears, one not. One’s a visitor, one lived here in town …”

“Wait a minute,” Delorme said. “What are the chances of two killers in a town this size having AB-negative blood?”

“Blood type is not a positive ID.”

“Suppose he shoots Shackley and gets wounded himself,” Cardinal said. “A small wound. There wasn’t much blood on the passenger side.”

“I get that. He needs a doctor. But why feed Shackley to the bears and not the doctor?”

“There’s a number of possibilities. Number one: I think we can agree it’s unlikely that Dr. Cates was murdered because of any mob involvement. If she was killed by the same person, that means Bressard wasn’t hired by Leon Petrucci to dispose of Shackley’s body, he was hired by someone else pretending to be Petrucci. Petrucci’s well known in this town. A lot of people know he can’t talk, that he writes notes. It all came out when Bressard was on trial for assault years ago—it was all over the Algonquin Lode. Maybe our killer figures he can’t fool Bressard twice. Maybe he doesn’t want to pay him twice.”

“In any case,” Delorme said, “he gets wounded Saturday night in the altercation with Shackley. Maybe he thinks he can tough it out. Maybe he thinks he can live with it. By Monday it’s hurting like hell, or maybe it’s still bleeding. Now he knows for sure he needs a doctor.”

“Why Dr. Cates?”

“We don’t know that yet,” Delorme said.

“But you’ve checked out her patients. You’ve checked out her colleagues.”

“Which is why I should go to Montreal with Cardinal. Two of us will be able to follow up on those phone numbers faster than one. And if we find out who Shackley was after, we’ll know who the killer is.”

“God, I hate decisions,” Chouinard said. “Wait till you have to worry about budgets and you’ll know how it feels.”

“So I go too, right?”

“Don’t you dare spend one minute longer than necessary.”