'You have the date?' he asked without looking at them. 'The date the girl disappeared?'
'September twelfth, last year. She bought the charm two days before.'
'Fine. Now, I need the item number.' He consulted a printout the size of a telephone book, flipping through the double-sized pages until he found what he wanted. He typed in the number. 'This should tell us how many we sold in the past year.' He drummed his fingers on the desk as he waited. 'Seven. Okaaay…' He typed in another command, the monthly breakdown.
'September tenth.' Delorme pointed at the screen. 'Two days before.'
Sutherland moved the mouse and clicked. The screen filled up with a copy of the register receipt. He tapped the long fingernail of his right hand on the upper right corner. 'You see that number three? That's the salesperson. One is Alan, two is me, three is Eric.'
'Eric who?'
'Eric our part-timer. Eric Fraser. Mostly he helps with the stock, but busy times- lunch hours, after-school rush- he helps with the cash, too. If you look at the top left there you can see the time of the transaction: four-thirty P.M. If you look at our calendar, it's going to show you I was teaching a lesson at that time. I think you want to talk to Eric Fraser.'
'Mr. Sutherland, is there anything around here that Mr. Fraser touched recently? Something nobody else touched?'
Sutherland thought for a minute. 'Follow me.'
Alan Troy dodged around Collingwood, finger jabbing the air, demanding to know what was going on. Sutherland cut him off. 'Alan, did Eric polish the Martins yesterday?'
'I'm calling the chief of police on this. My employees do not get treated in this way. These people have to-'
'Alan, for Chrissake, just tell them. Did Eric polish the Martins yesterday?'
'The Martins?' Troy squinted first at Sutherland, then at Delorme, then at Cardinal, and back to Sutherland. 'You want to know if Eric polished the Martins. Suddenly the urgent question of the moment is, did Eric Fraser polish the Martins? All right, then, yes. Eric did polish the Martins.'
Cardinal asked if anyone else had touched the guitars. No. Business had been slow, Martins are expensive, no one had touched them.
Cardinal, still wearing his gloves, reached up for the guitar hanging against the wall. 'He'd have to hold it at the bottom to put it back up there, right?'
Mr. Troy, his anger giving way to fascination, nodded. Cardinal held the guitar out toward Collingwood.
Collingwood, silent as ever, dusted a small amount of powder along the top of the soundboard, then blew it off. Two perfect thumbprints took shape. He pulled the Forensic card from his pocket, the thumbprints lifted from Arthur Wood's throat.
'Perfect match,' Collingwood said. 'Perfect match, plain as day.'
50
ERIC and Edie had been right about duct tape. It was even more effective- and less trouble for them- than the drugs. Strain as he might, Keith London could not get the tape to give even a sixteenth of an inch. Each wrist, each ankle was securely fastened. The only tape he had managed to loosen at all was the tape on his mouth. By wetting it, he had gradually loosened it so he could actually make audible sounds now.
But there was some give in the wooden chair to which he was fastened. Rocking from side to side, he could feel the joints loosening.
Whenever Eric and Edie were out of the house, as they were now, Keith rocked from side to side, feeling the joints widening, the screws chewing their way through the wood. They hadn't fed him for a couple of days now, and his efforts were exhausting. He had to stop every few minutes to catch his breath.
Eric and Edie would be moving him soon. They would inject him with a sedative and haul him to some isolated place and- He tried to banish from his mind the memory of the videotape.
He had been rocking for over an hour this morning, ever since he had woken up; his wrists and ankles were chafed raw; his wounded leg was pure agony. But there was some progress, he could feel some give in the chair. It leaned about twenty degrees to either side when he shifted his weight.
He paused, listening. Footsteps crossed the ceiling, and then there was the sound of chairs scraping. Eric and Edie were directly overhead. Keith started rocking again, despite his terror that they would hear him. No, he told himself, the chair is on concrete, the noise won't travel, they won't be able to hear.
He leaned again, side to side, side to side, rocking the chair and straining at the tape. Once. Twice. Three times. Yes, the chair back was definitely looser. He could twist it a little now. If he could just put strain in the right place, shift his weight over just the right spot, put stress where the chair back joined the seat, it could be broken.
UPSTAIRS, Eric opened the duffel bag- Keith's duffel bag- and emptied it onto the floor. He felt no sense of trespass, exposing another's personal belongings: the pairs of socks, neatly folded, the long underwear slightly stained. There were sunglasses and suntan lotion- Christ, was he planning to take up skiing?- a Frommer's guide to Ontario and a dog-eared paperback of The Glass Bead Game.
Eric stood up and brushed off his jeans. 'I'll read from the list. You put the stuff in the bag.' He took the list from his back pocket and unfolded it. 'Duct tape.'
Edie pulled it from the drawer beside the fridge and put it in the duffel. 'Duct tape.'
'Rope.'
Edie picked up the tight coil of clothesline, purchased in Toronto, and put it into the bag.
'Screwdriver, flat head…'
'Screwdriver, flat head.'
'Screwdriver, Phillips head…'
'God, Eric. Who else would make a list of screwdrivers? Whole categories of screwdrivers.'
Eric looked at her coolly. 'Someone else would get caught. Pliers…'
'Pliers.'
'Blowtorch…'
'We'd better test it, first. Make sure it works.' Edie pulled a box of kitchen matches from the drawer. Eric opened a brass collar on the blowtorch, and the nozzle started to hiss. Edie struck the match and held it out; the torch lit with a pok. She turned the collar and the blue bullet-shaped flame nearly caught Eric's sleeve. 'Oo,' she said. 'This'll be incredible.' She turned the collar, and the flame slipped back into the bottle like a tongue.
'Crowbar…'
'We don't have a crowbar.'
'I left it here after the island. It's down in the basement, beside the stairs.'
Edie left the table and headed for the basement.
'Check on the prisoner while you're at it.'
Eric took a filleting knife out of his knapsack. He unsheathed it and tested it with his thumb. He turned toward the basement and called, 'Bring a whetstone, too, if you have one!'
He pulled the shrink wrap off a package of PowerUp and laid out six pills along the edge of the table. He found a glass in the cupboard and ran the water until it was cold and clear. Then he sat at the table and took the tablets one by one, shaking his head each time to help them go down. A shiver ran up his spine.
'Edie!' He yelled again at the doorway. 'Bring a whetstone!' He listened for a moment, one ear cocked toward the basement. Then he set down his glass of water, very deliberately, not making a sound. He sheathed the filleting knife and stuck it in his front pocket. He moved to the top of the stairs. This time, he spoke quietly, 'Edie?'
'Come and get her, you pathetic prick.'
Eric stepped softly down the stairs. He could get around this, he could handle it. Everything depended on conquering emotion. At the bottom of the stairs he picked up the crowbar and hooked it on his belt behind his back. It felt heavy and it dangled precariously, but it would not be visible from the front- unless it fell from his belt.
