Giles Blunt - Forty Words for Sorrow

Forty-five minutes later, the sky was darkening, the hills becoming indistinct. A shout went up, and the back end of Fraser's van emerged from the lake. Slowly, the rest of the vehicle appeared, mud and water streaming from the joins of doors and windows. The team steadied it, tugging on other cables the divers had attached. The spool on the back of the twelve-ton started to turn.

The divers' helmet lamps looked bright as headlights now, and someone told them to switch them off. The team labored under floodlights that swayed on small tripods. Suddenly the van pitched to one side, and the body of Eric Fraser slid half out of the open side door, water streaming from one black sleeve.

"Shit," said Jerry Commanda. "Nearly dropped him in the drink again."

Slowly, the spool creaking with every turn, the van was winched backward across the ice. Cardinal was remembering that first night when Delorme had called for him and they had traveled like explorers to view the frozen remains of what had once been a little girl. It began on ice, Cardinal thought, and it's ending on ice.

The body was pulled from the van and laid out on the dock like a fish. The skin was gray except over the prominent bones- forehead, jaw, nose- where it was stretched to an impossible white. A coroner examined him, not Dr. Barnhouse this time, but a young man Cardinal had never worked with before. He went about his business in a calm, thorough way, without Barnhouse's bluster.

Cardinal had always thought he would have some telling remark to make over the dead body of Eric Fraser- because, yes, it was a sight he had imagined more than once. But looking down at the frail, vanquished body, Cardinal found he had nothing at all to say. He knew what he was supposed to feel. He was supposed to feel that the monster had gotten off easy. He was supposed to wish the monster was still alive, so he could not escape earthly punishment. But everything about the body- the pale skin, the narrow wrists- said that this had been a human being, not a monster. So Cardinal's feelings were a confusion of horror and pity.

No one spoke for a long time, and then it was Lise Delorme who summed the moment up. "My God," she said in a voice barely audible. "My God, he's so small."

Finally, the coroner said to cover him up.

As Cardinal turned, he caught a glimpse of the first headlights rounding the bay. Soon it would be rush hour. Thank God they had managed to pull this off without too many onlookers. You always get one or two, no matter what, so as he turned from the body of Eric Fraser and headed back up the hill toward his car, Cardinal was not surprised to see a lonely figure- a short, plain woman- standing at the roadside, staring down at the activity below, clutching a handkerchief in one mittened hand as though she were grieving.

CARDINAL'S mind had been possessed by the Pine-Curry case for so long that he could not get used to thinking of other things. The hours weighed heavily. Thinking of the future made him depressed and anxious. Part of him wanted to talk to Catherine, part of him was afraid to- at least until she was home from the hospital.

In one afternoon he had replaced a cracked pane of glass, defrosted the fridge, done his laundry, and fixed the hot-water pipe. Now he was in the garage, fixing the hole that gave the raccoons access to his garbage. He had cut a piece of plywood to size, and now he set about removing the old one that had rotted away.

Anxiety gnawed at him. The chief was in Toronto for a meeting, but no doubt he would be calling soon enough. Cardinal realized he was working at trivial chores mostly to keep panic at bay. He felt on the verge of becoming altogether lost, his future a trail that suddenly vanishes in the deep woods.

And what about the rest of the money, down to just enough for Kelly's final semester? What to do with it now, give it back to Rick Bouchard? Bouchard had been convicted only of trafficking, but his list of achievements was long, including assaults sexual and otherwise, robbery with violence, and at least one attempted murder. "Rick Bouchard," his Toronto lieutenant had been fond of saying, "is a subliterate ratfucker. They'll have to add a special extension onto hell just to house that creep."

In the middle of installing the plywood panel, Cardinal discovered that he hadn't the heart to shut out the raccoons. If this was their only source of warmth and food, then fixing the hole might kill them. Instead, he trimmed a smaller square out of the panel he was inserting and put hinges on it, making a door for the raccoons. Brilliant idea, Cardinal. Really thinking now. If he was still here in summer, he would close the hole then.

If he was still here. It seemed increasingly unlikely. He'd been with the Algonquin Bay police department for ten years; any job he could get- assuming he could get one, and assuming he was free to do so- would be unlikely to pay the mortgage. Let alone the heating bills.

He went inside and brewed himself a fresh pot of decaf. It was time to distract himself from his own problems and address himself to the anguish of Billy LaBelle's parents. With Fraser dead, the chances of finding their son's remains seemed remote. The LaBelles had written a letter to the Lode complaining about the police having killed the perpetrator instead of capturing him. How were they supposed to ever find peace?

Delorme and Cardinal had divided the box of books and papers they had retrieved from Fraser's room. Notes, maps- they were on the lookout for anything that might give them a clue to the whereabouts of Billy LaBelle's body. There were paperback porn books with sado-masochistic themes and lurid covers. There were several works of the Marquis de Sade, heavily underlined. Cardinal flipped through an encyclopedia of torture devices. Then there was a book of martyrs and their torments. The contents made him queasy, and he found nothing useful.

He examined the stack of books remaining. Wedged among the paperbacks was a fat college edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Cardinal seemed to remember that some of the stories were a little raunchy, but still- Chaucer seemed worlds away from Eric Fraser's interests.

The phone rang and after the usual search for the handset Cardinal picked it up and heard Lise Delorme shouting at Arsenault to be quiet. "Sounds like chaos over there," he said.

"Some people, when there's no one in charge, you know. I can't wait till R. J. gets back and things get a little more organized."

"I'm trying to figure out where he buried Billy LaBelle. Why don't you come out here and we'll go through this stuff together, toss some ideas around."

"Sounds good to me. Anything to get away from Arsenault. I swear, that guy, he's high on his own work."

"Why? What's up?"

"John, you aren't going to believe this. Are you sitting down?"

"What's going on, Lise?"

"John, they found another set of prints in Fraser's van. All over Fraser's van. Passenger side, steering wheel, all over the rear. It's someone who was in that van a lot. And get this, John. They've got the murder weapon. We're ninety percent sure it's the hammer that killed Todd Curry, and those second set of prints are all over it, too."

"Oh, my God. The son of a bitch had help."

"There were two of them, John. Two of them."

There was silence over the line as Cardinal took in this information. He could hear Delorme breathing. Finally he asked, "What have we got back from records?"

"Nothing. So far we don't have a clue who this new guy is. He could be anybody. I already called Troy and Sutherland. They never saw Fraser with anyone."

"Well, why don't you come out here and go through this stuff with me. Maybe we'll find something."

Delorme promised to leave in a few minutes and hung up.