“Don’t even think about it,” Papa said. “No reluctance. No hesitation. And most of all, no tears.”
He unplugged the television. It was a flat panel like the one upstairs, forty inches at least, and he picked it up like it was made of Styrofoam.
“Aw, not the TV,” Jack said.
“She has to learn.” Papa set it down in front of the fireplace and plugged it in again. He clicked through channels until he found the kind of image he wanted-a man and woman reading the news. No sound.
“Shoot the man,” he said.
“You want me to shoot the TV?”
“Nikki, this kind of hesitation will kill you. Shoot the man now.”
Nikki took aim and put a hole through the man’s left eye. His mouth kept moving, head bobbing behind a pool of blackness that fanned out from the hole like black blood.
Jack let out another whoop. “Watch out, people. Nikki the Kid’s in town!”
“Shoot the woman,” Papa said, and Nikki did.
27
Cardinal put in the call to Peel Regional and spoke to Sergeant Rob Fazulli, who headed up airport security. They had worked together briefly on Toronto vice “back in the Jurassic Period,” as Fazulli put it, but he wasn’t happy to hear from Cardinal again. “We already sent you guys the parking video. Do you know the kind of effort that took?”
“Car stolen from your airport-you would have had to do that anyway.”
“And now you want us to match a face from the parking lot to U.S. arrivals?”
“Just within the hour previous to the car theft.”
Now he’s going to tell me about the thirty million, Cardinal thought.
“Cardinal, Pearson handles thirty-two million passengers a year.”
“And at least one of them decapitated two people in my town. If you’ve got more gruesome murders to deal with, by all means handle them first. Otherwise, you know…”
“Consider it done,” Fazulli said, and rang off. Consider it done was a phrase they used to employ in Toronto vice when they had no intention of doing whatever was being proposed. Cardinal, not by nature an optimist, in this case chose to think Fazulli was kidding.
His phone rang as he was hanging up. Toronto Forensics getting back to him on the sawdust. The analyst sounded suspiciously youthful.
“I’m actually just an intern. I’m working on my doctorate in botany,” he told Cardinal. “When I saw we had a sawdust sample, I took a personal interest and put it under the scope during my lunch hour.”
“I’m already impressed. What did you find?”
“White pine and birch. That’s it.”
“No cedar?” Cardinal said. “No mahogany?”
“No, no. Just the two-white pine and birch.”
Cardinal thanked him and hung up. “Hey, McLeod, what do you make of this?”
McLeod’s face rose like a bloodshot moon above the divider. Cardinal told him the results.
“The Highlands manager said they were doing all kinds of work out there, right? Cedar and mahogany, et cetera? So where did Irena Bastov pick up white pine and birch on her hem? We haven’t had a lumber mill in town must be twenty years. And somehow I can’t see a couple like the Bastovs dropping into Home Depot while they’re here for the fur auction.”
“Home Depot, you’d get all sorts of cedar.”
“So where are two visitors going to pick up white pine and birch sawdust?”
“As it happens, you’re asking the right guy, Sergeant Cardinal.” McLeod addressed him in the tone of mock formality he always adopted when feeling particularly smug. “I can think of two places. You know Kabinet Kreations out on Cartier?”
“The unfinished-furniture joint? They must handle more than pine and birch.”
“Nope. Reason I know, I just ordered an entertainment unit from them. I asked for oak-like I could afford it- and he told me no, they only do pine or birch. I went for birch.”
“You think the Bastovs arrive in Algonquin Bay and the first thing they do, they head out to Kabinet Kreations?”
“No, I do not. You know what your problem is, Detective?”
“No. Please tell me.”
“Your problem, Detective Cardinal, is that you don’t drink enough. If you drank more often, you would go to bars more often. And if you went to bars more often, as I do-purely in the interests of law and order-you would know that the floors of the Chinook roadhouse are covered with sawdust.”
“Okay. Why would it be just pine and birch?”
“An excellent question, Detective Cardinal, and once again I can satisfy your curiosity. You know who owns the Chinook?”
“That Greek guy-Jimmy Kappaz.”
“Jimmy Kappaz. And guess where he gets his sawdust.”
“Kabinet Kreations? McLeod, how would you know a thing like that-assuming it’s true?”
“Kabinet Kreations is owned and operated by one Leon Kappaz-Jimmy’s older brother. He’s got the identical moustache-Greeks, as you know, are born with them. Same hound dog face. I got to asking him about Jimmy, about the Chinook, and he happened to mention that’s what he did with his sawdust.”
“I always hoped you’d be good for something,” Cardinal said, “but you’ve exceeded all expectations.”
“Thank you, Detective-and congratulations, by the way. Delorme tells me you’ve cleared the Scriver case.”
–
The Chinook had been through many different incarnations-from inn, to cabaret, to oyster bar-but for the past ten years it had been a roadhouse, meaning the music was always live and loud, the food was down-home (and surprisingly good) and the beer tended toward the more powerful concoctions of the Quebec microbreweries. It had a sizable dance floor, now dark and deserted. Smells of stale beer and sawdust.
Jimmy Kappaz was sitting at the end of his bar with a morose expression on his face, punching numbers into an adding machine. When Cardinal showed him the pictures of Lev and Irena Bastov, he recognized them at once.
“Sure. Exotic couple. Both with huge fur coats. Not my usual customer.”
“Why didn’t you call us?” Cardinal said. “Their pictures have been all over the newspapers.”
Kappaz shrugged. “Who reads the papers?”
“You didn’t hear about a double murder just up the road?” McLeod said. “What are you, retarded?” Cardinal gave him a look, and McLeod corrected himself. “Sorry. Are you developmentally impaired? These people had their heads chopped off.”
“Sure, I heard people talking about it. But I didn’t pay much attention. Like I say, who cares about the news?”
Cardinal asked him if the Bastovs had been with anybody else.
“Sure, yeah. One guy. Nobody I recognized. Guy maybe late fifties. Short hair.”
“Think about it. Can you describe him better than that?”
“Not really. I was crazy busy.”
“Did they meet him here, or did they arrive with him?”
Kappaz shrugged and shook his head. “Don’t know. They were sitting far end of the bar, I was down this end, making a million drinks for the waiters.”
“Did they look like they were friends, the three of them?”
“No. The couple left, and the other guy, he looked pissed off.”
“Short hair. Late fifties. What else?”
