Delorme’s phone rang. She picked it up and began talking in hushed tones to Larry Burke about the boy who killed himself in the laundromat. Cardinal had heard the news report on the radio driving in. It would be the most pressing piece of business on Delorme’s calendar this week, but she hadn’t mentioned it to him; she wouldn’t want to upset him with talk of a suicide. Cardinal was not sure he liked being treated with kid gloves.

  He continued flipping through his calendar. Every few minutes someone would come by with some variant of, “Cardinal! Good to see you back!” and Cardinal would say again, “I’m not here.”

  He went through his file drawer, thumbing back the tabs one after another. So many names, so many felons and miscreants, and yet very few seemed likely candidates for the position of card writer, let alone murderer.

  If she was murdered. Everyone else saw suicide; despite the fact that she gave no warning. And even though her note had apparently been written months before, it wouldn’t be enough, Cardinal knew. It wouldn’t be enough to sway even Delorme, let alone the coroner, a judge, a jury, and doubts were eating away at his own heart too.

  He pushed them out of his mind and reached into what he called his Halfway-In Box, which was where he put material that had to be dealt with that he never had time for. Among the notices of policy changes, upcoming conferences, court paperwork, there were Department of Corrections notices of recent releases. These were not just Cardinal’s cases, but all criminals from the jurisdiction.

  He could hear Delorme talking quietly into the phone. “Larry, it wasn’t your fault. You should talk to someone about this. You’re allowed to be human.”

  Delorme sounded impossibly far away, as if Cardinal were underwater. He felt like a drowning man, his lungs filling with grief. These released felons and miscreants were just so much wreckage to cling to as he waited for rescue, and what would rescue consist of?

  Catherine alive.

  Still, he carried on, and by the time he was done he had a short list of three candidates. All were living in Algonquin Bay, all had been released in the past twelve months, and all had served at least five years in prison thanks to John Cardinal.

  14

  ALGONQUIN BAY HAS A lot of churches, and some of them are quite attractive, but St. Hilda’s Catholic Church is not one of them. A ghastly red brick structure on Sumner Street, St. Hilda’s has not been improved by the addition of a corrugated tin roof that is painted, unconvincingly, to look like weathered copper. Still, it is one of the benefits of the city’s ever-shrinking congregations that the church lots provide acres of free parking.

  Cardinal parked in St. Hilda’s shadow and walked along Sedgewick Street. This area was known as a “mixed” neighbourhood, meaning among its shabby bungalows and bony-looking duplexes you could find elementary school teachers, young cops or the likes of Connor Plaskett.

  Connor Plaskett had conceived an interest in glue sniffing while still in short pants. Later on he developed an affection for marijuana and alcohol in all its forms, although bottles of cheap port became a favourite, perhaps because of the sugar content. At one point, following a nasty altercation with a city bus, he had seen the light and joined AA.

  He got sober, he started a business in Web design, he got married. His business grew to the point where he could support his new young wife and child quite comfortably. Then the Web bubble burst, he rapidly went broke and alcohol provided a ready anaesthetic.

  Plaskett was coming out of a two-week bender when he took it into his head to rob a local convenience store. And he did it with the help of a gun. He had the presence of mind to take the videotape out of the security system, not realizing that the tape he took away with him was a dummy set up for precisely this purpose, so that the prospective thief would not take the tape that mattered.

  So it was that Connor Plaskett appeared on the six o’clock news demanding that the teenager behind the counter hand over all the day’s receipts.

  It was one of the easiest cases that Cardinal had ever had to clear.

  Plaskett was then unlucky in his prosecutor and his judge, not to mention his wife. He was sent up for five years, and while he was away, his wife discovered that she had in fact been lesbian all her life and left him (taking the child with her) for a woman who climbed hydro poles for a living.

  Plaskett took it badly, contriving while in prison to become re-addicted to old substances and even to add some new ones. He emerged after serving his full five-year sentence in worse shape than he had begun it.

  Shortly after, Plaskett had accosted Cardinal one night outside the Chinook Tavern. Cardinal had just finished arresting someone else entirely—someone he could not now even recall—when Plaskett came reeling out of the tavern and recognized Cardinal.

  “Fucker,” he had said, spraying spit and beer fumes into the cool night air. “Motherfucker. You totally destroyed my life.”

  “No, Connor,” Cardinal had said. “I think you deserve the credit for that.”

  “I had a family before you came along. I’m gonna fix you good.”

  Plaskett had staggered over and taken a pathetic swing at Cardinal before collapsing right there in the middle of the parking lot. Cardinal had taken his car keys off him, pushed him into the back seat of his clapped-out pickup and shut the door, dropping the keys off with the Chinook bartender.

  Number 164 was a tiny brown and white bungalow that leaned noticeably into the wind, as if it too were sniffing intoxicants. Number 164B turned out to be the door to the concrete block addition that had been cemented onto the house in a misguided attempt at improvement.

  Cardinal pressed the bell but heard nothing from inside. He rapped on the door, onto which a picture of a Christmas wreath had been stencilled some years before.

  A harsh voice, possibly female, answered, “Just a minute!” This was followed by a crash, as of a tea tray falling from a great height, and a series of unimaginative curses.

  Slattern, although well within his vocabulary, was not a word that occurred frequently to Cardinal. But it certainly did when the door opened.

  The woman looked as if she had been rolled to this address across a field of mud and broken glass some months before and had not yet had a chance to clean herself up. Her eyes were red, her knuckles scabbed, her hair an unnerving tangle and possible wildlife habitat.

  “Whaddaya want?” A lot of that broken glass had got into her voice.

  “I’m looking for Connor Plaskett.”

  “Good,” she said. “So am I.”

  She opened the door, and Cardinal stepped into what had apparently been intended to be a kitchen but looked like a rag-and-bone shop.

  “Excuse the mess,” she said. “Got no cupboards.”

  In the murky light that slipped through the tiny window Cardinal could make out a sink against one wall, a hot plate sitting atop a half-size fridge, and some apple crates that formed makeshift cupboards which moisture and overuse had reduced to wreckage.

  Cardinal followed the woman into the next room, which was even murkier. She sat on an unmade sofa bed so low that her chin was barely above her knees. Cardinal leaned against the door frame. The place stank of old cigarette smoke and wet carpet.

  “Where’s Connor?” he asked.

  “Damned if I know. Cigarette?”

  “No, thanks. What’s your relationship to him?”

  “Fuck-buddy.” Seeing his look, she gave a snort and said, “What didja think? Financial adviser?”

  “And you don’t know where he is right now?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Well, if you don’t know, I suspect his parole officer doesn’t know either, and that would put Connor in breach.”

  “Really,” the woman said. After many tries she had finally got her lighter to work and was sucking avidly on a DuMaurier. She released a stream of smoke in Cardinal’s direction. “Bummer. Whaddaya want him for?”

  “It’s in connection to a recent death.”

  “Connor couldn’t kill anybody. He can barely tie his boots.”

  The hellish surroundings were eloquent testimony to that. While it might have made a reasonable lair for someone capable of stalking a woman and murdering her, it didn’t look the home of someone who could get it together to buy a card, type it out and mail it from Mattawa or Sturgeon Falls.

  But Plaskett’s words rang anew in Cardinal’s ears: I’m gonna fix you.

  “Where does Connor hang out these days?” Cardinal said. “I’m going to need addresses.”

  “Christ, Connor doesn’t go nowhere—that’s what’s so weird. He sits in front of that TV watching football all day and all night. I can’t get him to do a damn thing. I’m going to have a beer. You probably don’t want one.”

  “No, thank you.”

  She went to the fridge and pulled out a can of Molson Canadian. She popped the top and drank most of it in one go. When she went to sit back down on the bed, she misjudged and knocked over an end table, sending the phone clattering to the floor. She squinted at it for a few moments as if trying to recall its name.

  “That reminds me,” she said finally. “Had a funny phone conversation last night.”

  “Who with?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. I didn’t know the guy. Said he was a friend of Russell McQuaig, who’s like a drinking buddy of Connor’s, and Russell tole him to call. Him and Connor take off to Toronto every now and again. Hit the big lights, you know. Personally, I couldn’t give a shit about Toronto. Too dirty. Anyways, this guy tried to tell me that Connor wasn’t coming back.”

  “What do you mean, not coming back? He took off to Toronto and some stranger called you to say he wasn’t coming back?”

  “Yeah. I think so. Something like that.” She rubbed at her filthy hair. “Actually, now that I think of it, he even tried to tell me Connor was dead. Yeah.”

  “You seem to be taking it pretty well.”

  “Well, yeah, ‘cause like I didn’t know this guy from Adam. Why should I believe him? And second of all, if Connor was dead, the police and that would have had to call me, right? The hospital or whatever. They would’ve had to call me and like notify the next of kin.”

  “‘Fuck-buddy’ isn’t generally recognized as next of kin,” Cardinal said. “They would have called a blood relative first, or even his former wife, before they would call you. A hospital might not even know of your existence.”

  “Well, I don’t know.” She brushed a web of hair away from her face as if it were fog. “You think Connor’s dead?”

  “I don’t know,” Cardinal said. “It should be easy enough to find out.”

  “Shit, I hope he’s not dead,” the woman said. She tipped her head back and poured the last of her beer down her throat. She crushed the can and tried to stifle a belch. “I really couldn’t face moving again.”

  15

  SERGEANT MARY FLOWER CAME into the squad room and sat on Delorme’s desk. That was what she did when she wanted you to drop everything and pay attention to her. Annoying but effective.

  Delorme was on the phone with the coroner’s office, trying without success to determine the whereabouts of his evidence concerning a case of domestic murder that was coming to trial in two weeks. She put her hand over the phone and cocked an eyebrow at Flower.

  “We got Mrs. Dorn outside, mad as hell,” she said. “She wants to speak to you, I don’t know why.”

  “It turns out I know her daughter.”

  “Good. She’s here too. I love that top, by the way, is that Gap?”

  “Benetton. Tell them I’ll be right out.”

  Delorme found them in the waiting area. A woman in her fifties was standing under the clock, arms folded across her chest, one foot tapping furiously as if she were counting every split second of justice delayed. Her daughter, Shelly, was seated in a chair behind her. Shelly was an amusing red-haired friend of Delorme’s from the health club. They often took treadmills next to each other and chatted to pass the time. Delorme liked her, but Shelly was married with two kids, and this was the first time Delorme had seen her outside the club. She stood up when she saw Delorme.

  “Lise, I know we shouldn’t show up unannounced.”

  “That’s all right,” Delorme said. “I’m so sorry about your brother. He was so young.”

  “Yes, he was young,” the older woman said, and even in those first few words Delorme could hear the agony that was coming out as fury. “He was hardly more than a boy. He was still a student, a brilliant student. He was accepted at McGill, he had every reason to live, and he didn’t have to die.”

  “Lise, this is my mother, Beverly Dorn.”

  “Mrs. Dorn, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “But are you going to help us with it? That’s what I want to know. What are you going to do to help us right this terrible wrong? Perry was a smart person, a sensitive person, and now he’s dead and it didn’t have to happen. There should be an inquest, an investigation. We deserve answers.”

  “Mom, Lise will do whatever she can. Just take it easy.”

  “Why don’t you come with me,” Delorme said. She showed them into a room that was often used for families under stress. Unlike the other interview rooms, it had carpeting and an almost comfortable couch. There was a scratchy-looking artwork of a mother and child on one wall, a blackboard without chalk on the other. Delorme closed the door behind them.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Delorme said.

  “I don’t feel like sitting,” Mrs. Dorn said. “I’m too angry.”

  “Mom, you don’t have any reason to be angry at Lise.”

  “There was another officer in that laundromat with Perry. What about him? He was right there when it happened. He was there before it happened. Why did he not disarm him, can you tell me that? Why didn’t he do something?”

  Delorme gestured once again toward the couch and waited until Mrs. Dorn sat beside her daughter. Her eyes were red and raw from the kind of crying that brings no relief, her hyper-agitation that of one whom sleep has abandoned.

  Delorme sat across from them and spoke softly. “Yes, there was a police officer at the laundromat. He was in the coffee shop next door, off duty, when the man beside him saw your son entering the laundromat with a shotgun. After calling for backup, the officer followed your son inside.”

  “Why didn’t he take the gun away from him? That’s what I want to know. Why didn’t he tear that gun right out of his hand? He just stood by and let it happen!”

  “The officer’s first concern was the safety of everyone in the laundromat. There were other people there. He focused on getting them to safety as quickly as possible.”

  “Perry has never been a danger to anyone but himself. It’s obvious when you look at him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. That is literally true, by the way. He’ll go to enormous lengths to get an insect out of the house without injuring it.”

  “The officer did not know your son. All he saw was a distraught man, armed, in a room full of people. He got the others out first, which was the appropriate action.”

  “And he lets my obviously distraught son kill himself. Bravo. Give the man a medal.”

  “Mom. Let her talk.” Shelly put a hand on her mother’s forearm, but Mrs. Dorn jerked it away.

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “Nobody’s patronizing you. You asked a question, and Lise is answering it. Let her finish.”

  “The officer then tried to—”

  “The officer, the officer—does this person have a name? A badge number?”

  “He does. And you’re welcome to that information, but it won’t change the facts. He tried to calm your son down. He spoke quietly with him and encouraged him to put the gun down. Your son refused.”

  “He was just a boy! You have a trained police officer, and he can’t stop a boy from killing himself? Why didn’t he grab that gun!”

  Delorme let the question—accusation, rather—hang there in the air for a minute.

  “I think you know the answer to that question, Mrs. Dorn.”

  Mrs. Dorn shook her head tightly.

  “The officer did not want to upset Perry any more than he already was. And he didn’t want to get shot himself. I repeat, he was unarmed.”

  “It’s a policeman’s job to take risks. He should have talked calmly to him, and got himself close enough to get that gun away from him.”

  “And I’m sure he would have done so, had it been possible. He was trying to talk him down, to calm him, just as you say. They were talking, and then Perry suddenly turned the gun on himself and fired.”

  “And nobody stopped him.”

  “Mrs. Dorn, from the time your son was seen entering the laundromat to the time he pulled the trigger took less than eight minutes. It took three or four minutes to get the other people out. That gave the officer and your son at most about five minutes to work things out.”

  “Time enough to save his life. Why didn’t he stop him? Dear God, why didn’t he stop him, he was just a boy!”

  “He did his best, Mrs. Dorn. There simply wasn’t time.”

  “Could I speak to this officer, please?”

  “Mom—”

  “He isn’t here today,” Delorme said. “The reason is, he’s devastated by what happened. No police officer enters into a situation like that without wanting the best possible outcome. At that moment, believe me, Mrs. Dorn, no one wanted your son to live more than that police officer. Had he succeeded in talking Perry out of it, he would be here today and he would be on top of the world. But he isn’t, he’s miserable.”

  “Maybe because he feels guilty. Maybe that’s why he’s miserable. Maybe because he didn’t do his job.”

  “I hope when you’re calmer you’ll see it differently.”

  Mrs. Dorn sniffed. She looked at the picture on the wall, then back to her daughter.

  “Well, we certainly plan to demand an investigation.”

  “There’s no longer a Special Investigations officer up here, but I’ll give you their number in Toronto. If they feel it’s warranted, they’ll investigate.”