Giles Blunt: The Delicate Storm

Delorme unzipped the knapsack and pulled out a plump manila envelope with Federal Trust stencilled in one corner. She opened it wide and showed the contents to Cardinal.

Cardinal gave a low whistle of appreciation. ‘Quite a haul there, Robert. Why, it looks like you made off with tens of dollars.’

After Wudky was safely booked and in his cell, Cardinal went back to his desk to type up his supplementary reports.

The amount of money Wudky had made off with was minuscule. If he’d stolen it from a cash register, he wouldn’t be likely to get more than probation, but Cardinal knew the Crown would insist on a charge of bank robbery and wrote his report accordingly.

He was almost finished when Duty Sergeant Mary Flower called out to him, ‘Hey, Cardinal, I think you better talk to Wudky.’ She was coming out of the doorway that led from the cells to the front desk.

‘Wudky?’ Cardinal said. ‘How important can it be?’

‘He says he has information on some murder.’

Cardinal looked over at Delorme, several desks away. She rolled her eyes.

‘Do you know how unlikely that is?’ Cardinal said.

Flower shrugged. ‘Tell him. Don’t tell me.’

Cardinal and Delorme went back to the holding area. There were eight cells that formed an L between Booking and the garage. Wudky was in the second-last cell, the only one occupied at the moment.

‘I ain’t telling nothing for free,’ Wudky said, trying to sound tough. He looked as forlorn a creature as Cardinal had ever seen, with his hangdog eyes and his smelly sweatshirt. ‘I want to like make a deal. Like so’s I can get out on bail maybe?’

‘Chances aren’t great on that score,’ Cardinal said. ‘But it depends what you have to tell us. I can’t make any promises.’

‘But you’d put in a good word for me? Tell them I did my duty as a citizen? I helped the police?’

‘If you give us some valuable information, I will tell the prosecutor that you have been helpful.’

‘And apologetic too, eh? Tell him I’m sorry about the bank. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

‘I’ll tell him. What have you got, Robert?’

‘I mean, I feel bad, you know – especially since you’re always telling me to stay out of trouble – and I appreciate that. I don’t want you to think I don’t listen. I do listen. I just forget. You know, an idea gets in my head and it kinda worlds around in there like a clothes dryer.’

‘Robert?’

‘What?’

‘Just tell us what you’ve got.’

‘Okay. Day before I pretended to rob the bank?’

‘You took money,’ Delorme said. ‘That isn’t pretending.’

‘Okay, okay. Day before. I’m down in Toronto visiting my girlfriend.’

Cardinal made a mental note – when he had a lot of time – to hear more about this girlfriend. She would have to be either a lunatic or a saint.

‘I’m down in T.O. to see my girlfriend, and I decides to go out one night to a bar. You know, just a night out on my own. So I goes over to Spadina – you know the Penny Wheel?’

‘All too well.’ Before Algonquin Bay, Cardinal had spent ten years on the Toronto force. Every Toronto cop knew the Penny Wheel. It was a dank basement on Spadina, the kind of red-vinyl dive that only a criminal could love. The remarkable thing was that, unlike practically every other square foot of Toronto, this particular dive had managed to remain utterly unchanged.

‘So, I’m over at the Penny Wheel, when who comes in but Thierry Ferand. You know Thierry – he’s like a trapper and shit.’

‘I know Thierry.’ Ferand was indeed one of the local fur trappers. Twice a year he came in out of the woods to sell his wares at the fur auction. Every time he did, he was arrested for drunk and disorderly, and often some variation of assault. There were rumours he occasionally did some work for the local version of the Mafia, but nothing had ever been proved. He was a small guy, but mean with it, and sneaky. When he was upset, his filthy little hand would sprout brass knuckles.

‘Well, me and Thierry go way back.’

‘To Kingston Pen if I recall correctly.’

‘Wow! How’d you know that? You guys’re amazing. Anyways, I see Thierry sitting in a corner by himself, so I go over and we start shooting the breeze. And Thierry is really drunk, eh? I mean really drunk. And he starts telling me things.’ Wudky stepped right up to the bars of his cell and peered both ways along the corridor. Then, in a tone implying information of national import, he said, ‘Big things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Oh, nothing. Just a little murder. Would you be interested in that?’ Whatever else Robert Henry Hewitt may have been, he was easily the world’s worst actor. Cardinal had difficulty keeping a straight face. He was afraid even to glance at Delorme in case they both broke up.

‘Why, yes, Robert. We would be interested in murder.’

‘And you’ll tell the Crown guy I helped you out?’

‘That’s it, I’m leaving.’ Cardinal started for the door.

‘Wait! Wait! Okay, okay! I’ll tell you. You’re such a hard-ass. I’ve met guys in stir that’re more calmer.’ As if to clear Cardinal’s impatience from his brain, Wudky inserted a finger into his own ear and reamed it out. ‘So, what I was saying: Thierry is really drunk and he starts telling me this stuff he knew about that like really scared him, you know? He finishes like his tenth beer or so, and he’s leaning all over the table and he tells me what happened to a friend of his. Guy named Paul Bressard. He’s another trapper, eh? Turns out Paul Bressard got himself murdered. Some guy from out of town he owed money to. Could be Mafia, maybe, a godfather or something. You ever rent that movie?’

‘Could we just stick with the story here, Robert?’ Bressard had indeed, though long ago, been charged with aggravated assault after half killing a man who owed money to Leon Petrucci. Perhaps it was the chilling sound on the tapes from the wiretap of Petrucci’s voice synthesizer (legacy of a fondness for Cuban cigars) telling Bressard he’d be well rewarded for ‘explaining their position,’ but the jury had got cold feet and neither Bressard nor Petrucci served a day. It was just possible his mob connections had somehow come back to bite Bressard.

‘I’m telling you. This guy – some bad guy – comes up to Algonquin Bay from out of town and kills Bressard, and Thierry says he knows where the body is.’

Cardinal turned to Delorme. ‘We receive any missing persons report on Paul Bressard?’

‘Not that I know of. I’ll go check the board.’

‘Okay, Robert, where’s the body?’

‘Do I have to know that before you help me out?’

‘Let’s just say it would add to your chances. And how did Thierry Ferand happen to know where the so-called body was buried in the first place?’

‘I don’t know! I didn’t ask!’ Wudky cocked his head to one side like the RCA dog and scratched his scalp. ‘Well, maybe he did tell me, only I can’t remember. I had a few beers myself. But I’m telling you about a murder you didn’t know about, right? The Crown’ll like take that under consignment, right?’

‘I’ll check it out,’ Cardinal said. ‘But I hope you’re not wasting my time.’

‘Oh, no. I would never do a thing like that, eh?’

Cardinal drove out past his father’s place to the northern limit of Algonquin Bay, where he made a left onto Ojibwa Road. There were only three houses on Ojibwa – two decrepit bungalows and Bressard’s brick split-level. Even in the mist it looked like any other middle-class suburban residence; there was nothing about it to tell the passerby that the owner made his living the way generations of his forefathers had, by trapping animals for their fur.