richness and variety. Some men steal for greed. Those are simple, and easy to nail. Then there are other men, more complex, who steal out of compulsion. Still others steal out of fear: Delorme thought those were by far the most common: the middle-aged manager who sees the specter of a penny-pinching retirement. Delorme didn't think Cardinal could be any of these. And so she wasn't dwelling on that fancy cabin cruiser, or even that Florida condo. The objects that shone clearest in her mind were the letters from Yale. She could feel the expensive weave of the stationery in her hand, the embossed seal, the enormous cost of an Ivy League education. Some men, she was realizing, might steal for love.
'John Cardinal,' she said aloud. 'You are such a stupid fool.'
29
ERIC had brought him the soup- it was all they'd been feeding him for the past two days, despite his protests- and sat at the end of the bed to make sure he finished it. He didn't say a word, just sat and stared at Keith like a crow. Then he'd smiled that ferrety smile of his, as if they shared some secret, and left the room.
Keith went straight to the bathroom and made himself throw up. He was not bothered by nausea anymore, but he was sure they were drugging him with something that made him sleep all the time. He wanted his wits about him, now; he wanted to know what was going on.
Afterward, exhausted and hollow, he sat on the edge of the bed, listening to their voices upstairs, droning on and on. They were directly overhead, but he couldn't make out any distinct words, just the voices.
Throwing up had made his eyes water. He wiped them on the corner of the sheet, and now with his cleared vision, he saw that there was a new addition to the furniture in the room. In the corner, where the camera and tripod had once stood, was a small TV and a VCR. Christ, how long were they expecting him to stay down here? It was clothes he wanted, not a bloody television.
But his clothes were not on the back of the chair. Not under the bed. Not hanging in the bathroom. And his duffel bag was missing, too.
He tried the door, but it was locked from the other side. For the first time, a thread of fear flowed into his bloodstream. He wrapped himself in a blanket and sat for a long time, thinking. At some point, he wasn't sure when, he heard Eric and Edie go out, heard the car starting up in the drive.
His head was still not clear, but he tried to assess how much trouble he was in. The door was locked, his clothes were gone- definitely bad signs, but he simply could not assess how bad. Eric and Edie just didn't seem all that scary. Worst case, he thought, what's my worst case: They think I'm rich and they're going to hold me for ransom.
He came to a decision. Next time they opened that door he'd be out in a flash, no hesitation. I may be wrong, they may be harmless, but it doesn't matter. I'm out of here.
There was a buzzing sound from overhead. He looked up just as the single bulb flickered and burned out. The room went dark. Slats of daylight, thin and pale, framed the boarded-up window.
Darkness had never frightened Keith London before, but it did now. He switched on the television. In such utter gloom, even this cold harsh glow was welcome. There was no aerial, no cable; the reception was hopeless. On one channel the ghost of a newscaster stared earnestly out at him, but no voice penetrated the static.
Keith pushed the eject button on the VCR, and a tape popped out. Handwritten on the label were the words, Life of the Party. Eric's film, he remembered, either that or home movies. He pushed the tape back in and pressed play.
The scene was badly lit, atrociously lit, in fact. There was a hard circle of light in the center of the screen, and around this, blackness. A boy was sitting in the patch of light, a skinny kid with long hair. He didn't look any too swift, sipping from a beer and grinning a stupid grin. He belched a couple of times, goofing off for the camera.
Then a woman entered the scene- Edie- and sat beside him. Here we go, Keith said to himself. Amateur porn time. God, they grow them kinky up here in the North.
The lighting did nothing to flatter Edie's complexion. Her skin gave off a dull glare as she reached over, felt between the boy's legs, and rubbed at him. The boy laughed, looking nervous and embarrassed. 'You guys are too much,' he said.
Music was switched on in the background, a boom box, it sounded like, Pearl Jam distorted by cheap speakers. Edie kept rubbing the boy's crotch mechanically. He opened his fly and she reached inside.
Then another figure entered the scene. It was Eric, pretending to be the outraged husband, shouting the most ridiculous phrases. 'You do this to me? After the way I've treated you?' It was even worse than he had imagined.
Eric pulled the woman away, still shouting inanely.
The kid, for his part, did a terrible job of acting- holding up his hands in the hammiest way. He looked ridiculous with his pants half-down.
Then Eric struck a theatrical pose in the foreground, raising a hammer. 'You try to screw my wife behind my back! I'm going to kill you!'
'No, please,' the kid pleaded, laughing of course. 'Please don't kill me! I didn't mean it! I'll make it up to you!' Then, hopelessly out of character: 'Sorry. I can't help it. It just feels so stupid, you know?'
'You think it feels stupid?' Eric stepped forward, the hammer high. 'I'll show you what feels stupid.'
The hammer came down on the boy's head, changing everything. Even with the bad quality of the sound, Keith knew instantly that the crunch of bone was real. Also real was the sudden emptiness in the boy's face- the open mouth, the vacant, astonished eyes.
Eric swung again. 'You bastard, you scum, who do you think you are?'
There was another minute and a half of video. As it played on the screen before him, Keith remained utterly still in the flickering pool of light. Then he raised his head and howled like a dog.
30
OUTSIDE, someone was stuck in the snow. The futile whine of tires could be heard even in the interview room, where Cardinal was listening to a sad young woman named Karen Steen. It had been an unhappy morning altogether. First, he had stopped off at the O.H., only to find Catherine sullen and uncommunicative. He had cut the visit short when he felt himself getting angry with her. His first phone call of the morning had come from Billy LaBelle's mother- crying, her speech slurred under the influence of too much of whatever her doctor had prescribed to dull her pain. Then Mr. Curry had called (only out of concern for his wife, of course), and Cardinal had had to tell him he was still no closer to catching whoever had beaten his only child to death. Then Roger Gwynn had called from the Lode, asking in his halfhearted way if there was any progress. When Cardinal responded in the negative, Gwynn had lapsed into an ode to their days at Algonquin High, as if nostalgia would make Cardinal more forthcoming. This was followed in short order by calls from The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and Grace Legault from Channel Four. The newspapers were no problem, but Grace Legault had somehow got ahold of the tidbit about Margaret Fogle. Was it true they had thought she was also a Windigo victim? And she had turned up alive and well and living in B.C.?
Cardinal summed it up for her: Margaret Fogle had been a missing person. She had in some ways fit the killer's profile. However, now she was found and no longer of interest to the Algonquin Bay police. The call rattled him because it meant someone was talking to Legault without keeping him informed. The thought of having this out with Dyson made him very, very tired.
Cardinal wanted to devote his time to footwork. He and Delorme had split the camera and clock leads. They had rerecorded the sounds from the tape, making multiple copies that they would send to camera and clock repair experts in Toronto and Montreal. Delorme would have run through twenty camera repair shops by now, while Cardinal had got nowhere. Instead, he had got caught up first on the phone and now in person with this sincere young woman who was telling him about her missing boyfriend.
Cardinal was angry at Sergeant Flower for telling Miss Steen he would see her. Especially when it turned out
