Giles Blunt - Forty Words for Sorrow

"It arrived empty?" Cardinal took the manila envelope from her.

"Not empty." This time she didn't look at the floor. Her serious blue eyes looked directly into his.

Cardinal tore off the top sheet of his desk blotter pad and emptied the contents of the manila envelope onto a fresh sheet. The smaller, enclosed envelope was postmarked three days ago, Algonquin Bay. Using tweezers, Cardinal opened the flap, saw the yellowish, dried contents, and closed it again. He folded it into the clean blotter sheet and put both back inside the manila envelope.

In the brief silence that followed, Cardinal was certain of two things: Every word this young woman had told him was true, and- if he were not already dead- Keith London had very little time left to live.

He dialed Jerry Commanda's number, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. "When did this arrive?"

"This morning."

"And you came straight here?"

"Yes. It didn't occur to me for one moment that Keith did it. But he did address the envelope. I know his handwriting. I'm right to be frightened, don't you think?"

Jerry Commanda was on the line, now. "Jerry, this is important. I need to helicopter something down to Forensic. What are my chances?"

"Zero. If it's desperate, I might be able to weasel something out of the flight school. How urgent are we talking?"

"Very. I think our boy just mailed us a sample of his semen."

ALGONQUIN Bay's government dock is a quiet place on a winter evening. The only sounds are likely to be the sawtooth buzz of a passing snowmobile, or a sudden quake in the ice as massive plates shift against each other, emitting an otherworldly sigh, a slow-motion squeal, sometimes a horrendous gasp.

Eric Fraser and Edie Soames huddled side by side in a corner of the wharf out of the wind. Lake Nipissing stretched out into the gray like some bleak Nordic vision. Eric wasn't saying anything, but Edie was luxuriating in the thrill of knowing another mind so well that no words were necessary. In fact, she knew what Eric was going to say- he would say it any minute now. He'd been restless and irritable all morning and into the afternoon. And now, although taking the photographs was calming him a little, Edie knew where things were headed, even if Eric didn't. Any minute now, he would say it.

But Eric moved away to stand below the Chippewa Princess, a tour boat that had been turned into a restaurant- at least, during summer it was a restaurant; in winter, it hung clear of the ice like a white whale on a hoist. Eric adjusted a lens, cursing the cold. Edie fussed with her hair, trying to get it to hang across one eye like Drew Barrymore's in a movie she'd seen. Some hope, she thought bitterly. But at least it would hide some of her face.

Watching Eric in his long black coat, she wished they could sleep together. The problem was Eric didn't like it. His entire body would go stiff as a board when she touched him- not with desire, but with revulsion. At first she had thought the revulsion was directed just at her, no surprise there. But Eric seemed revolted by sex in general. Sex is for weaklings, he always said. Well, she could live without it, especially now that they shared this other, deeper excitement. He would say the word within the hour, she was sure.

"Move over." Eric motioned her to her left. "I want to get the islands in."

Edie turned to look. Out there, where the sky and the lake met in mutual shades of ash gray, lay the islands. That island. Windigo. Who would have thought such a tiny island could have a name? Edie remembered the dead girl, the curve of her spine against Eric's duffel bag. So momentous it had seemed at the time, the murder, such a grim weight to that word. But it was amazing how little it mattered, the actual event, when you got right down to it. A human life had been extinguished, but no pillar of flame had descended from the sky, no maw of hell had opened. The cops and the newspapers got a little excited, but essentially the world went on exactly as before, minus Katie Pine. I wouldn't even remember her name, Edie thought, if they hadn't yammered about it day in and day out on the news.

She moved a little to the left, just as the ice shifted with a squeal like tearing metal. Edie let out a cry. "Eric, did you hear that?"

"The ice moved. Give me a smile, now."

"I don't want to smile." Cameras were no friend to Edie, and the ice had rattled her- as if the island had spoken her name.

"Look grumpy, then, Edie. I don't care."

She gave him her biggest grin, just to spite him, and he clicked the shutter. Another one for the record.

They'd started their photographic expedition out at Trout Lake, up near the reservoir. Eric had snapped one of Edie making an angel in the snow right over the spot where they'd buried Billy LaBelle. With all the snow, there wasn't the slightest trace of anything untoward. The hill with its view of the lake, the deep blue sky, would have looked good on a postcard.

Then they'd driven down to Main Street and taken a few shots in front of the house where they'd killed Todd Curry. One of Edie, one of Eric, and then one of the two of them (Eric had used the timer for that one). A man had seen them- a man walking his big woolly dog, and Edie had imagined for a moment that he had glared at them. But Eric had reassured her: just a young couple playing with a camera, what's the old fart going to care?

They moved to the lee of the bait shop so Eric could light a cigarette, cupping his hands around the match. He leaned against the wooden wall and looked at Edie through narrowed eyes. She could hear the words he was going to say before he said them, as if she had already dreamed the scene, as if she had created Eric, constructed the dock and the cold and the smoke all in her own mind. She sensed the same dark thrill running in his blood as was running in hers, now. She could smell it, like the metallic smell of ice that quivered on the frigid wind. Seeing the house again had set her nerves humming. Seeing the island. She was shivering with cold but said nothing. She didn't want to spoil this moment.

They got back in the van and turned the heat up full blast. It felt so good that Edie laughed out loud. Eric dug a book out of the glove compartment and handed it to her. It was a large paperback, very grimy, with a used sticker on it.

She read the title. "Dungeon. Where'd you get this?"

He told her he'd picked it up last time he was in Toronto. It was a historical document he'd been looking for. A catalog of torture devices used in the Middle Ages. "Read it to me," he said. "Read page thirty-seven."

Edie flipped through the glossy pages of photographs and drawings. The photographs showed the chair, whip, or restraint; the drawings illustrated the device's use: hooks to yank out guts, iron claws to tear the flesh, saws for splitting a human in two. The illustration for that one showed a man hanging upside down, while two others sawed him from crotch to navel.

"Read page thirty-seven," Eric said again. "Read it to me. I love it when you read to me. You read so well."

Oh, he knew how good his praise felt. Like coming home to a roaring fire after freezing half to death. Edie found the page. It showed a sort of helmet that was fixed over a wooden bar. Above the helmet was a huge screw.

"Skull crushers," she read. "The accused's chin is braced against the lower rod. As the screw is turned, the iron cap is forced downward, smashing the teeth together and gradually into the upper and lower jawbones. As more and more pressure is exerted, the eyes are pushed from their sockets. Eventually the brain itself is forced through the splintered cranium."

"Yes. The brain squirts through," Eric breathed. "Read another one. Read about the wheel."

Eric had his hands deep in his pockets. Edie was sure he was touching himself, but she knew better than to mention it. She flipped through the pages, the pictures of old iron instruments, the funny little woodcuts with their cartoonlike expressions of horror.