Giles Blunt - Forty Words for Sorrow

"D. S., Algonquin Bay is not that big. A missing child, you get a million leads, everyone wanting to help. Someone pulls a knife in the movies, you have to check it out. Someone sees a young hitchhiker, you have to check it out. Everyone in town thinks they've seen Katie Pine somewhere: She's at the beach, she's at the hospital under another name, she was in a canoe in Algonquin Park. Every one of those leads had to be followed up."

"So you told me at the time."

"None of it was unjustified. That's got to be obvious by now."

"It was not obvious then. No one saw Katie Pine with a stranger. No one saw her get into a car. One minute she's at the fair, the next minute she was gone."

"I know. The ground opened."

"The ground opened and swallowed her up, and you chose to believe- without evidence- that she was murdered. Time has proved you right; it could just as easily have proved you wrong. The one incontestable fact was that she was g-o-n-e gone. A genuine mystery."

Well, yes, Cardinal thought, Katie Pine's disappearance had been a mystery. Sorry- I had a fantasy that policemen were occasionally called upon to solve mysteries, even in Algonquin Bay. Of course the girl was Native, and we all know how irresponsible those people can be.

"Let's face it," Dyson said, inserting his letter opener precisely into a small scabbard and laying it neatly beside a ruler. "The girl was Indian, too. I like Indians, I really do, there's a calmness about them that's practically supernatural. They tend to be good-natured and they're extraordinarily fond of children, and I'd be the first to say Jerry Commanda was a first-rate officer, but there's no point pretending they're just like you and me."

"God, no," said Cardinal, and meant it. "Different people entirely."

"Relations scattered to hell and gone. That girl could have been anywhere from Mattawa to Sault Sainte Marie. There was no reason to be searching boarded-up mineshafts in the middle of the bloody lake."

There had been every reason, but Cardinal didn't phrase it like that; he didn't have to. The point was nestled inside a more important one. "The thing about the Windigo mineshaft is that we did search it. We searched it the week Katie Pine disappeared. Four days after, to be exact."

"You're telling me she may have been kept stashed away somewhere before she was killed. Held prisoner somewhere."

"Exactly." Cardinal suppressed the urge to say more; Dyson was warming up, and it was in his interest to let him. The letter opener emerged once again from its scabbard; an errant paper clip was speared, hoisted, and transferred to a brass holder.

"Then again," Dyson continued, "she could have been killed right away. The killer could have kept the body somewhere else before moving it to a safer place."

"It's possible. Forensic may be able to help us with place- we're shipping the remains to Toronto as soon as the mother's been informed- but this is shaping up to be a long investigation. I'm going to need McLeod."

"Can't have him. He's in court with Corriveau. You can have Delorme."

"I need McLeod. Delorme has no experience."

"You're just prejudiced because she's a woman, because she's French, and because, unlike you, she's spent most of her life in Algonquin Bay. You may have put in ten years in Toronto, but you're not going to tell me her six years as Special Investigator amounts to no experience."

"I'm not putting her down. She did a fine job on the mayor. She did a fine job on the school-board scam. Keep her on the white-collar stuff, the sensitive stuff. I mean, who's going to look after Special?"

"What do you care about Special? Let me worry about Special. Delorme is a fine investigator."

"She has no experience at homicide. She came close to ruining an important piece of evidence last night."

"I don't believe it. What the hell are you talking about?"

Cardinal told him about the Baggie. It sounded thin, even to him. But he wanted McLeod. McLeod knew how to hustle, how to keep a case in play.

There was a silence as Dyson stared at the wall just behind Cardinal. He was utterly still. Cardinal watched the snow flurries that swirled past the window. Later, he couldn't be sure if what Dyson said next had just popped into his boss's head or if it was a planned surprise: "You aren't worried that Delorme is investigating you, are you?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Then I suggest you brush up on your French."

IN the 1940s, nickel was discovered on Windigo Island and was mined there, on and off, for twelve years. The mine was never very productive, employing at its peak a mere forty workers, and its location in the middle of the lake made transport a problem. More than one truck had plunged through the ice, and there was talk that the mine was cursed by the tormented spirit for which it was named. A lot of Algonquin Bay investors lost their money in the venture, which closed forever when more accessible lodes were discovered in Sudbury, a city eighty miles away.

The shaft was five hundred feet deep and continued laterally for another two thousand, and the Criminal Investigation Division heaved a collective sigh of relief when it was established that only the shafthead and not the shaft itself had been disturbed.

By the time Cardinal and Delorme arrived at the island, it wasn't nearly as cold as it had been the previous night, not much below freezing. In the distance, snowmobiles buzzed among the fishing huts. Sparse snowflakes drifted down from a soiled pillow of cloud. The work of freeing the body was almost complete. "Ended up we didn't have to saw right through," Arsenault told them. Despite the below-freezing temperature, there were beads of sweat on his face. "Vibrations did the trick for us. Whole block came away in one piece. Moving it's going to be a little work, though. Can't put a crane in here without destroying the scene. Just gonna have to pull it over to the truck on a sled. Figure the runners'll do less damage than a toboggan."

"Good thinking. Where'd you get the truck?" A green five-ton with black rectangles covering its markings was backing up to the shafthead. Dr. Barnhouse had reminded them in no uncertain terms that, no matter how badly they might want a refrigerated vehicle, the use of a food distribution truck for transporting a dead body would be against every health regulation known to man.

"Kastner Chemical. They use it to transport nitrogen. Was their idea to black out the markings. They wanted it to look more respectful. I thought that was pretty classy."

"It was classy. Remind me to send them a thank-you."

"Hey, John! John!"

Roger Gwynn was waving at him from behind a roped-off area. The amorphous shape beside him, face masked by a Nikon, would be Nick Stoltz. Cardinal raised a gloved hand in return. He was not really on a first-name basis with the Algonquin Lode reporter, even though they had been more or less contemporaries in high school. Gwynn was trying to get the jump on the competition, exaggerating his connections. Being a cop in your hometown had its advantages, but sometimes Cardinal felt a pang of nostalgia for the relative anonymity of Toronto. There was a small camera crew jockeying for position around Stoltz and behind them a diminutive figure in a pink parka, its hood trimmed fetchingly with white fur. That would have to be Grace Legault from the six o'clock news. Algonquin Bay didn't have its own station; it got its local news from Sudbury. Cardinal had noted the CFCD van parked on the ice beside the police truck.

"Come on, John! Give me three seconds! I need a quote!"

Cardinal took Delorme with him and introduced her. "I know Ms. Delorme," Gwynn said. "We met when she was incarcerating His Worship. What can you tell me about this business?"

"Adolescent dead several months. That's it."