Giles Blunt - Forty Words for Sorrow

"Yeah, but if this is the same guy, we're just going to be-"

"Let me finish, please." The voice was soft, still thoughtful. "You've got more than enough to do, as I say. But why don't we do this: You take the Woody case for the time being. It's your case so long as nothing comes up that definitely disconnects it from Our Local Maniac. Moment that happens, and I mean instantly, it's McLeod's case. Understood?"

"Understood. Thanks, Don," Cardinal said, and flushed a little. He never used the detective sergeant's first name, it was just the excitement of the moment. Before he opened the door, he turned back and said, "Sudbury TV got ahold of the thing on Margaret Fogle."

"I know. That was my fault. I apologize."

Dyson apologizing. One for the record books. "Didn't exactly help. I don't even see why it would come up."

"Grace Legault is not Roger Gwynn. That woman is not going to linger long on Sudbury's esteemed Channel Four. That's a Toronto-bound bitch if ever I saw one. Knows what she's doing. Somehow, she got ahold of a bunch of Missing Persons and- well, it doesn't matter- she caught me off guard. Obviously, I should have kept you informed. My mistake. Now I think we're done here, aren't we?"

As he came out of Dyson's office, Cardinal bumped smack into Lise Delorme. "I've been looking all over for you," she said. "Woody's wife is out front. She wants to report him missing. We'll have to take her up to the O.H. to identify the body."

"Don't jump the gun here, Lise. I don't want to tell her right away."

Delorme looked shocked. "You have to tell her. Her husband is dead, for God's sake. You can't keep that from her."

"The moment we tell her, you can forget about getting any information out of her. She'll be too upset. I'm just saying we don't tell her right away."

MARTHA Wood hung her coat on a rack in the hall and beside it her son's tiny down parka. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans- an outfit that on her tall, lean figure looked like something out of Vogue. She sat in the interview room where both cops had interviewed her husband numerous times over the years. Her toddler, like his mother, dark-haired and dark-eyed, sat quietly on the chair beside her, squeezing a plastic Yogi Bear that from time to time emitted a nasal moan.

Martha Wood twisted her wedding ring as she spoke. "When Woody left the house, he was wearing a blue V-neck sweater, Levi's 505s, and cowboy boots. They're black. Lizard skin."

"Okay. It was cold on Saturday. What kind of coat did he have on?" The body with its nine bullet wounds had been found naked. Woody's clothes might turn up somewhere else.

"A blue down parka. Shouldn't I be filling out a form or something? A Missing Persons form?"

"We're taking it all down," Cardinal assured her.

"You need his height and weight, right?"

"We have that," Delorme said.

"Oh, right. I forgot about his arrest records. It's weird, all this time I go around thinking of cops as the enemy. Now Woody's disappeared, I feel different."

"We do, too," Cardinal said. "Was Woody driving that old ChevyVan of his?" They had already put out an all-points for the van, license plates and all.

"Yes. I should give you the license plate number." She reached into her purse for keys.

"I have the plate numbers from before," Delorme said. "His van, it's still blue?"

"Still blue, right." Mrs. Wood paused with her hand in her purse. "But he liked to change the license plates sometimes when he went on a job. I don't know if he did that or not this time. The sign is new: It says COMSTOCK ELECTRICAL REPAIRS on the side."

"You knew he was going out on a job?"

"Look. Woody's an electronics repairman. That's what he tells me, okay? I long ago learned to stop asking questions. He's a loving father and a dependable husband but he's never going to change his line of work- not for you, not for me, not for anyone."

"Okay. Do you know what area of town he was going to… work in?"

"He never tells me things like that. Look, the operative word here is 'dependable.' Woody said he'd be back by six o'clock. That's a day and a half ago, and I'm fucking scared."

"It may help us find him," Cardinal said gently, "if you have any information about the likely area of town to look in." He ignored Delorme's hard stare.

"I don't know. He did mention the old CN station the other day. He'd only just noticed they'd boarded it up. Maybe he was in that neighborhood, but I don't know." Suddenly she stood up, her purse spilling open on the floor. "He's in some kind of trouble, I'm telling you. Just because he steals things doesn't make him evil, you know. This is the first time he's ever not come home without phoning. Ever. The only time that happens is when he's under arrest- and if you're holding him, you'd better tell me, or so help me, I'm going to have Bob Brackett on your case until you're bounced off the goddam force." Bob Brackett was Algonquin Bay's best defense attorney. There wasn't a cop on the force he hadn't humiliated.

"Mrs. Wood, would you sit down, please?"

"No. If you haven't arrested my husband, I want to know why you aren't doing anything to find him!"

Her little boy stopped squeezing Yogi Bear and looked up at his mother with a worried expression.

"John, would you give me a minute alone with Mrs. Wood?"

Delorme took him by surprise- this wasn't in the script, and he didn't like it.

"Why?" Martha Wood wanted to know. "Why does she want to talk to me alone?"

"John. Please."

Cardinal went down the hall and into the monitor room. He put some coins in the Coke machine before he realized it was sold out of diet. He bought a Classic and sat down at the table, watching the video monitor, which was turned on but without sound.

From its high, corner angle, the video camera looked down pitilessly on Martha Wood. Both she and Delorme were absolutely motionless. Mrs. Wood was still standing, hands slightly away from her body, absorbing the blow, not yet feeling the pain, her face a picture of pure inquiry. The full lips came together as if to speak, but she said nothing.

Delorme reached out and touched her arm, but the woman still stood, swaying slightly. One hand came down slowly to touch the table, steadying her. Slowly, she lowered herself to the chair, covered her face with her hands, and folded forward.

The little boy started poking at her shoulder with Yogi Bear.

"WHY haven't we seen the goddam truck?" McLeod was unloading his Beretta as he spoke, neatly setting nine rounds nose up on the conference table. It looked like an exaggeration to Cardinal; he was so used to six rounds. "I've searched that ChevyVan myself- probably we all have at one time or another. It just boggles my mind that it hasn't been spotted yet."

"If we're right that Woody made the mistake of burgling the maniac's place, then the killer's probably stowed the thing somewhere. All he's gotta do is park it indoors and how're we gonna find it?"

Dyson put in, "Narrows the field a little, if we can assume the guy has a garage."

"I don't think we can assume that just yet. Woody's only been dead twenty-four hours. We've got an all-points out with the OPP. We'll find the truck."

The phone rang and Cardinal by prearrangement picked it up. "Okay, Len- I'm going to put you on the speaker. There's me and Delorme, Detective Sergeant Dyson's sitting in with us, and also Ian McLeod."

They were assembled in the conference room- a first, as far as Cardinal could remember. The conference room was usually reserved for commission meetings, state visits from the mayor- in short, for very special occasions only.

But this was the biggest investigation the Algonquin Bay police department had ever handled, and now all eight detectives on the force were assigned bits and pieces to follow up.