treatment for Catherine south of the border.
Cardinal had given in. What galled him even now, fifteen years later, was that he knew that treatment in the States would be no better. He knew they would have the same drugs, the same enthusiasm for shock treatment, the same lack of success. And yet he had caved in. He couldn't bear to have Catherine's parents think he was not doing his best for her. ('Don't worry. We know the fees can be pretty steep. We'll contribute.') But they could not contribute much, and the bills at the Tamarind Clinic in Chicago quickly mounted into the thousands, and over the months, into the tens of thousands.
In a matter of weeks, Cardinal had known he could never pay the bills; he and Catherine would never own a house, never get out of debt. And so, when the opportunity presented itself, Cardinal had taken the money. It had paid off the bills, with almost enough left over for Kelly's very expensive education. The trouble was, he found when he crossed that ethical line, he had left his true self stranded on the other side.
I have no excuse, he wrote. Every penny of that money was for my benefit, to keep up appearances in my in- laws' eyes, to buy the love and respect of the daughter I spoil. For now, the most important thing is that Pine-Curry be pursued without the risk of the department's credibility being destroyed.
He wrote that he was sorry, tried to improve on that statement and found he couldn't. He printed the letter out, read it over, and signed it. He addressed the envelope to Chief Kendall, marked it Personal, and dropped it in the interdepartmental mail.
He had planned to join Delorme in the boardroom, but, suddenly exhausted, he sank back down in his chair with a deep sigh. Katie Pine's bracelet glittered dully in its plastic cocoon. Katie Pine, Katie Pine- how he would love to get some measure of justice for her before he left the department. The tiny gold instruments seemed out of character for her- or at least for the idea he had of her- of Katie the little math whiz. The tiny gold bass fiddle, trombone, snare drum, and guitar- they would be more in character with Keith London. Miss Steen had said he had a guitar with him. And Billy LaBelle had taken lessons at Troy Music Center, which Cardinal might not have recalled but for the fact that Troy Music Center was the last place Billy LaBelle had been seen alive.
'And what about Todd Curry?' Cardinal said it aloud, though he hadn't meant to.
'Are you talking to me?' Szelagy's head appeared over the top of another computer, but Cardinal didn't answer. He pulled the file across the desk; it was woefully thin.
'Billy LaBelle, Keith London, and Katie Pine were all into music. What about Todd Curry?'
He recalled vividly the boy's suburban room in his suburban house, his devastated father hanging back in the doorway. He recalled the games in the closet, the map on top of his desk- but music? What sign had there been of music? Yes, there it was in the sup on the interview with the parents: Todd Curry had belonged to music newsgroups on-line. Alt.hardrock and Alt.rapforum. That's right, he had thought it strange that a white kid was so into rap music.
Then something else fell out of the file, a scrawled note that made Cardinal's heart begin to pound. Someone, he couldn't be sure who, had taken a call from the teacher, Jack Fehrenbach, who was reporting a stolen credit card. 'Szelagy, is this your handwriting?' Cardinal waved the note at him. 'You take a call from Jack Fehrenbach?'
Szelagy looked at the note. 'Yeah. I told you about it, remember?'
'Jesus Christ, Szelagy. Don't you realize how important this is?'
'I did tell you about it. I don't know what else you want me to…'
But Cardinal wasn't listening; he was staring at the note in his hand. An unusual charge on Fehrenbach's statement had alerted him. On December 21, the night after Todd Curry had visited him, someone had charged two hundred and fifty dollars at Troy Music Center, apparently for an elaborate turntable.
Cardinal ran down the hall to the boardroom where Delorme was on the phone, scribbling notes onto a yellow legal pad.
'It's music.' Cardinal snapped his fingers at her. 'Todd Curry was into rap music, remember? Wanted to be a DJ, Fehrenbach said.'
'What's going on, Cardinal? You have a funny look on your face.'
Cardinal held up the Baggie in which Katie Pine's bracelet floated like an embryo. 'This little item is going to break our case.'
49
'MCLEOD, where's your sup on the Troy Music Center? Didn't you interview them when you were working LaBelle?'
'Why you asking? It's in the file somewheres.'
'It's not in the file. I'm looking at the file. You remember who works there?'
'Two guys. Alan Troy- he's the main guy- and some other guy, some guitar geek been there forever. He's the one taught Billy LaBelle.'
'You remember his name?'
'Fuck, no.'
'McLeod, we're trying to nail a killer here.'
'I wasn't. I was just tracing Billy LaBelle's steps, for Christ's sake. We weren't working a homicide back then. We were working a routine missing kid, so don't come on like I'm Mr. Dereliction-of-Duty, all right? I think our late lamented leader Detective Sergeant Dickhead Dyson takes that title. Carl Sutherland, that's the guy's name. Carl Sutherland.'
'You have a middle initial?'
'F for Fucking. Try the file, Cardinal.' McLeod left the boardroom, muttering to himself.
Cardinal wasted another ten minutes riffling through folders from the previous fall. 'Delorme, why don't you feed Troy's ID into the computer and see what it spits out.'
'I did. We're waiting.'
McLeod came back in. 'Carl A. Sutherland,' he said, shoving a report into Cardinal's hand. 'Some asshole stuck it in the Corriveau file by mistake. If people would stop second-guessing my work for a change- and maybe stop fucking with my stuff for five minutes- maybe I could get some work done around here.'
Delorme took the report over to the computer and typed the information into it. She tore a sheet from the printer. 'Negative on Alan Troy. No record in local or national.'
Cardinal was reading McLeod's report on his interview at the music store four months previously; it was one page, single-spaced. The first paragraph stated the positions of the two men- Troy the owner, and Sutherland the assistant manager- and how long they'd been working there. Troy had been running the place, at various locations in the city, for the past twenty-five years. Sutherland had been with him for ten, joining just before the store moved into the mall.
The second paragraph discussed Billy LaBelle. Both men knew him and were concerned (where concerned, McLeod had written) about the boy's disappearance. Sutherland was the one who actually taught him guitar. The boy had come in for his usual Wednesday evening lesson and left without incident. The next night, Billy LaBelle disappeared from the Algonquin Mall parking lot.
Cardinal stared out the boardroom window at the filthy meringue of slush in the parking lot. The snowbanks looked like slag heaps, and black puddles glittered in the sunlight. What about Katie Pine? Troy and Sutherland hadn't been asked about Katie Pine; the cases hadn't been connected then.
Delorme stepped in front of him with a sheet of computer paper. 'I don't know about you, but Carl Sutherland just jumped to number one on my hit parade.'
Cardinal took the printout from her. Carl Sutherland had been arrested in Toronto two years previously for public indecency.
Seeing this, Cardinal suddenly felt that he was moving through the slow, inevitable motions of a dream. Seeing this, he knew, even though no one had told him and he could not prove it, he knew that Katie Pine had been in the Troy Music Center and had met Carl Sutherland. Then the ground had opened.
Reading his thoughts, Delorme said, 'We have to close the circle. We have to put her in Troy Music.'
Still moving in the dream, Cardinal reached for the phone. Delorme watched him as if she, too, were caught in
