Giles Blunt - Forty Words for Sorrow

"Collingwood," Cardinal said at last, "tell McLeod to keep it down so we can think. Have them argue in the car."

Cardinal opened dresser drawers one after another: socks stacked like missiles, T-shirts folded into crisp squares, sweaters that looked as if they'd never been worn. Just their luck the guy had to be a neat freak. Even the wastebasket was empty. Cardinal picked up the yellow legal pad again and riffled the pages. Nothing fell out. He held up the top page like a screen against the window. Faint impressions took on shape, a list of some sort.

"What do you suppose 'P.H.' stands for?" he asked in the blessed quiet that filled the place, now. Somewhere a cat was meowing.

"P. H. Maybe some victim we don't know about?"

"No, it says Trout Lake P.H. We know this guy likes to move around: the mineshaft, the empty house. And we know he's familiar with the Trout Lake area because Woody was found near the marina. And look what he's planning to take with him: duct tape, pliers…"

"I think the next one is 'crowbar.' What else does it say?" Delorme was practically climbing over his shoulder. He felt her moist breath on his neck. "Then it's 'battery' lower down."

"What's P.H. on Trout Lake, though? What's on Trout Lake that begins with P.H.?"

"Public housing! There's that housing development past St. Alexander's. That's it, John. Another empty house- a house that isn't finished!"

"Except that's not public housing out there. Port Huron? No, there's no Port Huron around there, either."

"P.H. on Trout Lake…" Delorme touched his sleeve. "We can check the city directory, find who's got those initials on the roads out there."

"That'll take too long. It's got to be something simple. I keep thinking 'public beach,' but that's P.B. What else is out there? There's the reservoir and the marina and what else?"

"Well, there's the reservoir itself. I mean, that's pretty big. Pretty isolated."

In following days, there would be a lot of discussion around the department about who said it first. Some said Delorme, some Cardinal. Collingwood changed his mind about it several times and he was there. But Cardinal would always remember Delorme's wide brown eyes looking at him, how beautiful they were with the beauty of sure knowledge. In the end it didn't matter who first uttered the words "pump house." Cardinal, to his later shame, immediately dismissed the idea. "Can't be the pump house. It's not on Trout Lake."

"No," Delorme said. "But it used to be."

CARDINAL had two calls to make before they could move. He called headquarters and had a patrol unit dispatched to cruise by the old pump house. Normally, his next call would have been to Dyson, but with Dyson out of the picture, he called the chief at home.

"We know where he's planning to kill the London kid. He could be there already."

"He has the boy with him?"

"We think so. We believe he's still alive. I need eight men, shotguns, and body armor."

"You want OPP on this?"

"Chief, there isn't time."

"Go, then. Take what you need."

Delorme came back from the unmarked, beads of rain glistening in her hair. "Flower says the patrol unit went by the pump house. Fraser's Windstar is parked outside."

"They got close enough to see. Let's hope they didn't get close enough to tip him off."

"Flower says no. They're sticking nearby in case he comes out of there, though."

"We've got him, Lise. We've got the bastard cold."

In the car, Delorme said, "I ordered up the truck- hope that's okay."

"It's okay. It's good. But next time, ask."

"You were on the phone."

"You should have asked. I might have wanted cars only. I might have wanted OPP. You ready for this?"

"I'm ready."

With sirens, it took less than seven minutes to reach their agreed assembly point, the marina at Trout Lake. Other cars arrived moments later. There was McLeod, Collingwood, Burke and Szelagy, other uniforms. The rain had stopped, but the heavy clouds were a deep gray, almost purple at the edges. It was three o'clock; the gloom made it look like seven.

"All right, Trout Lake Road and Mathiesson provide the only access to Pump House Drive. You and you." Cardinal pointed to two of the uniformed men. "I want those points blocked. He isn't getting out of there. And no one's going in."

"What about the lake?"

"No one's going on the lake, not on that ice. Burke and Szelagy, you stay at the top of the drive to keep away neighborhood onlookers, and pen the guy in if he busts out of the pump house. McLeod, Collingwood, and Delorme will come with me. Everyone clear?"

Everyone was clear.

"Eric Fraser is armed. Eric Fraser is dangerous. And Eric Fraser deserves to be dead."

"You're not kidding," someone- probably Szelagy- muttered.

"But Eric Fraser also has a hostage- an eighteen-year-old boy- and we don't want to get that boy killed. If anyone's life comes under immediate threat, you take Fraser down. But only then. Are we clear?"

They were clear.

"All right, then." Cardinal opened the car door. "Let's get it done."

Cardinal raised the unit already staked out at the top of Pump House Drive. Nothing was happening. No movement of any kind. Gripping the wheel, he realized he was shaking. It felt like fear, but it was pure adrenaline. He breathed deeply to steady himself. He didn't want to be shaking when he pulled out the Beretta, wishing yet again that he'd put in those hours on the range.

The two lead cars plowed through the slush at the turnoff and jounced along the road toward the pump house. As planned, Larry Burke and Ken Szelagy stayed to guard the entrance.

Burke and Szelagy had been the first cops to see Katie Pine's body in the shafthead on Windigo Island, and, ever since, Burke had found it frustrating to watch Delorme and Cardinal from a distance and not be part of the action. He wanted to be a detective himself someday.

A car slowed, and a man in his fifties- an executive, Burke guessed- leaned out the window. "What's going on? What's with all the cops out here?"

Larry Burke waved him on. "Keep moving, sir. We need this area clear."

"But what's going on?"

"Just keep moving, please, sir." He gave the man a first-class, Aylmer-regulation dose of cold-cop authority, and it worked; it usually did. The man drove on.

Cardinal had asked for him and Szelagy to be in on this final stage of the case, and Burke appreciated it. Pine-Curry was the case of the century as far as Algonquin Bay was concerned. Cardinal had the pick of the force, but he asked for Burke and Szelagy, and Larry Burke cheered himself with this thought.

Another car rolled up. A woman driver, not attractive, Burke decided.

"You'll have to move along, ma'am."

The woman didn't even glance at him. Kept her eyes fixed on that downhill grade toward the pump house. "What's going on? What're all these cars doing here?"

"Police business, ma'am. Just move along, please."

To Burke's considerable irritation, the woman did not drive away. She just pulled to the side of the road and continued staring down the hill as if Christ himself were about to rise from the icy depths of Trout Lake. Burke sauntered over, rapped on her window, and pointed a gloved finger up the road. According to the Aylmer training manual, a silent gesture, if authoritative enough, will be just as effective as your voice. It wasn't.

"Move it out," Burke said, louder this time. "We need this road clear."

Although the rain had long stopped, the woman's wipers were still flapping; or rather, one of them was still flapping, there was no wiper on the passenger side. She had some kind of scaly thing happening with her face. Hell of a bandage over one ear, too. Intolerable, the way she stared beyond PC Larry Burke and down the hill, totally ignoring him. No way Larry Burke was going to let her get away with that. Larry Burke was not about to screw up now, no matter how tiny his role in this production might be. "Hey, lady!" Yelling now. "Are you deaf?"