no-he’s not comfortable with the door open-so he pushes it closed.
“You come out from under the bed. You stand outside the bathroom door and fire once. Did you use a silencer? You fire once and hear him fall. While he’s still on the floor, you open the door-he wouldn’t have locked it- and you put one in his skull.”
Cardinal went back to the bed. Mendelsohn slept in the other one and used this one as a desk. Papers were stacked in eight neat piles. Cardinal stood over them, scanning the headings. He tried to judge if any one pile was messier than the others, but the arrangements gave no clue.
Ident arrived with their cases of equipment. Cardinal asked them to pay particular attention to the space under the bed. “I’m taking this,” he said, holding up a tiny notebook by the corners. He had just removed it from Mendelsohn’s coat pocket.
Arsenault dusted it, but it wasn’t of a texture that would hold prints. He stuck a tented number card in the coat pocket and photographed it and then he stuck an evidence tag onto the notebook with the same number, the time and his signature. He handed it to Cardinal. “You’re responsible for getting it to the evidence room.”
–
The hotel lobby was already full of reporters. There was Nick Stoltz from The Algonquin Lode, Brian Murtaugh from the local cable station, even Grace Legault from the CBC. Donna was beside her, looking at Cardinal with expectation but nothing more.
They clamoured around him. Do you have a positive ID? Do you have any suspects? Is it the same killer?
“We have a deceased middle-aged male, not local, obviously the victim of foul play. I can’t give you anything more right now.”
Donna didn’t throw any questions at him. He had been dreading she would say something like, “Is it true he was with the FBI?”-something that would drive the others into a frenzy, and also raise suspicions that she might have a special contact inside the investigation.
In the parking lot, the snow glare made his eyes water. He got into his car and started it. His cellphone rang and he had to slot the shift back in park to answer.
“Mendelsohn had an interesting contact.” It was Donna’s voice. She was standing beneath the hotel marquee looking out toward the parking lot but not at him.
“How’d you know it was Mendelsohn?” Cardinal said.
“I didn’t. Thank you for confirming.”
“Where’d you get the name?” Cardinal said, angry at himself now.
“Come on-I do have more than one source, you know.”
“Do you use the same technique with all of them?”
“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”
“All right. Okay, I’m sorry. Who’s this contact?”
“A guy who works in New York Homicide. He and Mendelsohn worked together on something a couple of years ago. His name’s Stuart Nathan-he’s probably a lieutenant by now. Does this mean I’m not going to see you later?”
“Well, it means I’m looking at long hours.”
“Call me when you can,” she said, and clicked off.
Cardinal drove by the entrance on his way out of the lot. They didn’t wave to each other.
–
Back at his desk, Cardinal called the New York field office and spoke to the special agent in charge, Wesley Walker. Chouinard had already informed him of Mendelsohn’s death, and Cardinal assured him they would do everything possible to catch his killer. He asked for a complete copy of the file Mendelsohn had brought with him.
“You don’t have it? Mendelsohn made a complete copy just before he left-we don’t let the originals out of the office.”
“We have his copy. But here’s my thinking: Mendelsohn couldn’t have had any enemies from up here. Whoever killed your man likely knew he was going to connect our murders up here with his other cases.”
“How would this person know? You’re saying he was recognized by someone from a previous case?”
“We’ve had a lot of press on this one, a lot of coverage. I just did a quick check, and there are pictures of Mendelsohn with me on two local news sites. Whoever killed him didn’t take the whole file, because that would give the motive away-he probably took some specific thing. And if we figure out what that was, it may lead us right to him.”
“You make big leaps. You and Agent Mendelsohn must’ve got along well.”
“I liked him.”
“You’ll have the file as soon as possible.”
Cardinal hung up and started leafing through Mendelsohn’s notebook, a catch-all item in which Buy new socks appeared next to Run Divyris US database, and Check Canuck military weapons was under Fix bathroom sink. On the last page he had written, Interview fur biz old-timers.
32
Lloyd Kreeger figured he had about twenty minutes, thirty at the most. The one called Papa was out hunting with the girl. The one called Jack had gone out about an hour ago; Lloyd had heard the Rover start and drive away.
His most important asset right now was not his property, not his interests in the fur business, not his mining stocks. His most important asset was a broken wood chisel that a workman had left behind. Lloyd had tossed it in a wastebasket that had subsequently filled up with paper. His captors had overlooked it when they checked his room.
The chisel’s blade was not sharp enough to cut butter. Where the handle used to be, there was a stub of steel armature. Lloyd was trying to pry apart the manacle that held the tether to his ankle, but it was hard to get any leverage because he couldn’t immobilize the chain. He upended the wastebasket and held the chain across it with his left foot. The links shifted too much for him to get any purchase.
He adjusted the chain so that the link was half off the wastebasket. He thought he had widened the gap a little. He looked around for something else to use as a tool. In the top drawer of the dresser he found a twelve-inch ruler. It was maybe three-eighths of an inch at the thickest part, tapering to the metal straight edge that ran under the measurement units.
He pressed the straight edge into the tiny opening in the link. He placed his foot over it and pressed down, raising himself a little on one leg. That wedged the ruler into the link. He tried to force the chisel in beside the ruler. It was not difficult to work the tip of the blade into place, but it was hard to do much more with the broken handle.
He reached down and lifted the chain, gripping it on either side of the link. He moved as carefully as he could, but the chisel toppled and fell. It took several tries to get it wedged into place again. His back was hurting from bending over from the bed. He raised his right foot, holding the chisel steady with his fingertips. The chain had just enough play for him to get his foot on top of the chisel handle. He put his weight down, and then, with a sudden movement that risked the whole operation, he put all his weight on it, rising an inch from the bed.
He felt the chisel give beneath him. When he took his foot away, the blade was lodged firmly between the ruler and the link. He lifted the whole delicate array back onto the upended wastebasket. He pressed down with his left foot to hold it in place. He pushed the chisel handle to the right and felt the link give a little. He adjusted the chain under his foot and pressed again.
The ruler toppled and the chisel came away in his hand. The gap was wider. He positioned the next link over the gap and stepped on it, pulling up on both sides of the chain. The link gave and he fell backwards on the bed.
He moved quickly to the living room and looked out the front window. Papa and the girl would almost certainly come back the way they had gone. The tracks of their snowshoes led into the woods on the far side of the
