that boat receipt.'
'Which boat receipt was that?' Cardinal placed the question between them with a coolness he did not feel. Brazen as a professional thief, Delorme went straight to his file cabinet. She half knelt to open the drawer, and then her pale fingers were riffling through his papers. Cardinal was citizen enough to feel outrage at the invasion, cop enough to feel admiration, and man enough, he noted with annoyance, to find it slightly erotic. Delorme pulled out the receipt: One Chris-Craft cabin cruiser, fifty-thousand dollars. 'When I saw that date, my heart went like the Titanic. Boom. Straight down.'
'It's right after we raided Corbett.' Cardinal held the thing to the firelight, looking for- well, he wasn't sure what for. 'It's not mine.'
'You know what saved you? The three Fs saved you.' She proceeded to explain about Florida and French Canadians and how that peculiar combination had allowed her, from her location nearly a thousand miles north, to run down the purchase of that cabin cruiser. 'I fax Sergeant Langois the receipt number, he goes over there, and this guy, he's very good-looking, okay? This poor Florida girl working in the back office she'll do anything for him. I mean, his accent, everything about the guy is charming.'
The willing Florida girl, it turned out, had dug up the records of the sale. And because the boat was going to be delivered out of state (as much to avoid sales tax as anything else), they had required a photo ID. 'Sergeant Langois sent me the fax this afternoon- not downtown, of course- a fax with a picture of Detective Sergeant Adonis Dyson.'
'So until this afternoon you thought I was working for Kyle Corbett.'
'No, John. I didn't know what to think. This setup, it was really because I wanted to rule you out as a suspect. I didn't know it would bring down Dyson. I didn't have that fax when I set it up.'
'He must've known we'd be able to trace the receipt. What was he thinking?'
'There was no name on it. And he didn't know they had photocopied the ID in the back office and kept it on file. Anyway, these past couple of weeks, he's probably not been able to think. He's trapped between Kyle Corbett and Malcolm Musgrave, and he's scared. He probably just panicked.'
'But you're saying he placed that receipt in my personal files, in my home. I can't believe he'd try to frame me. I mean, we weren't exactly friends, but… What about the condo? That must've looked pretty bad.'
'I tried not to jump to conclusions. I know your wife is American. Her parents must be retirement age. A condo in Florida is not out of the question. I had my vacation friend check that out, too. By then, I of course have your wife's maiden name. She gets a condo from her parents, it's supposed to make you a criminal? I don't think so.'
Cardinal could not begin to sort out the tangle of his emotions. 'So does this mean you're finished investigating me?'
'Yes. It's over. Me, I'm out of Special, and you, you're in the clear.'
Cardinal didn't feel ready to believe, either. And there were things he wanted to know: 'Why'd Dyson do it? I mean, Corbett was a disaster from beginning to end. Absolute disaster. It was obvious someone was tipping the guy off, but I always assumed it was one of Musgrave's crew. When I ran that by Dyson all he said was, 'If you want to start investigating Mounties, do it on your own time.' Then Katie Pine disappeared, and Corbett was off my radar. Why'd Dyson do it? I don't love the guy, but I never pegged him for anything like this.'
'Few years ago, he's feeling his retirement fund isn't everything it should be. He takes most of it and puts it into mining stocks. One of my finance teachers used to say, 'A mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar.' In this case, he turned out to be right.'
'Dyson sunk his money into Bre-X?'
'A lot of people did, John. Just not so much of it.'
'Jesus.' He gave it the briefest of pauses, then: 'You searched my place, Lise. I wasn't sure you'd actually do that.'
'Sorry, John. You have to see what position I was in: either search your place or get a warrant. When you told me to stay that night you had to go back to the office, I took it as your permission. I'm sorry if I was wrong.' Those brown eyes, bright with flecks of firelight, searching his face. 'Was I wrong?'
Cardinal waited a long time before answering. It was after four o'clock, and suddenly exhaustion hung about his shoulders like a leaden cape. Delorme was still wired from her triumph; she'd be running on the high octane of victory for hours to come. Finally, he said, 'It may have been permission. I'm not really sure. That doesn't mean you had to take advantage of it.'
'Okay, look, it wasn't nice. Every once in a while, I remember that a good cop- like a good lawyer or a good doctor- is not necessarily a nice person, or pleasant to be around. So, you and me, we don't have to work together if you don't want. You can take me off Pine-Curry and I'll understand. But me, I think we should finish out this case together.' Togedder, she pronounced it, and Cardinal was so tired it made him smile.
'What?' she asked him. 'What are you smiling about?'
Cardinal got up stiffly and handed Delorme her coat. She did up the snaps, looking at him the whole time. 'You're not going to tell me, are you.'
'Be careful driving home,' he said softly. 'That slush could freeze again anytime.'
46
ERIC was getting on Edie's nerves. For several days he'd been completely serene, cheerful even. But now he was bossing her around all the time. First he wants her to make his dinner. Where the hell did that come from? Usually he couldn't stand to have her watch him eat. Suddenly he wants sausages and mashed potatoes, and she has to hustle out to the supermarket through a sea of slush to get them, soaking her feet. Then he eats in the living room by himself while she and Gram eat in the kitchen. Two days previously she had written in her diary: I love Eric with a terrible passion, but I don't like him. He's mean and selfish and cruel and a bully. And I love him.
Now they were in the basement with Keith tied to that chair with the hole in it and the pot underneath. First thing she'd had to do was empty his damn pot. She hated coming down here now, it was like changing a litter box. Eric would never do it, he just complained until Edie took care of it. And she was feeling horrible to begin with, hollowed out inside, the way she did when the eczema came back. It was crawling over her face up from underneath her jawline, her skin was cracked and red and weeping. When she had come out of the supermarket some louts driving by had rolled down their windows to make barking noises at her.
She came back from the little bathroom just as Eric was explaining his reasoning to Keith. Eric seemed to take pleasure in this talking in front of the prisoner, but it was making her edgy.
'See, prisoner, we don't want to worry about bloodstains anymore. You reach a certain point, you start to feel like you shouldn't have to clean up after yourself, know what I mean?'
The prisoner, taped into immobility and silence, did not reply; he'd even given up making pleading eyes at them.
'I've found the perfect place to kill you, prisoner. It's a locked-up, bricked-up, fucked-up former pump house. How often do you think people go there? Once, twice every five years, maybe?' Eric put his face six inches away from the prisoner, as if he would kiss him. 'I'm talking to you, honey.'
The red-rimmed eyes shifted away, and Eric grabbed the prisoner's chin, forcing him to look.
Edie held up the pad of paper. 'You wanted to do the list, Eric.' Thinking, he'll kill him right here, if I don't get us upstairs pretty quick.
'We were considering going back to the mineshaft, weren't we, Edie. They'd never expect us to show up at the mineshaft again.'
'You're not getting me on that ice,' Edie said. 'It's been above freezing three days in a row.' She pointed to the pad. 'What about a tub of some sort? Catch the blood.'
'I'm not gonna lug a tub around, Edie. The whole point of going out to the fucking pump house is that we don't have to worry about the mess. A table would be nice, though. Something a comfortable height. Right, prisoner? Right. Prisoner number zero-zero-zero agrees.' Eric unfolded The Algonquin Lode and spread it out on the bed where the prisoner couldn't help but see his own high-school graduation picture along with the subhead: SEARCH FOR TORONTO YOUTH AT A STANDSTILL.
