“You don’t sound excited.”
Delorme shrugged and transported a handful of popcorn from bowl to mouth. “I’m not.”
“I imagine you end up talking shop a lot of the time.”
Delorme made a face. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think Shane’s all that good a lawyer. Doesn’t seem to get his clients off very often.”
“That’s because of the uncanny skill of the local police.”
“I don’t think so, unfortunately.”
“Well, he must have something, or you wouldn’t keep going out with him.” It amazed Cardinal that he could talk to Delorme about her love life. It would have been unthinkable a year ago, but now it seemed natural.
“Shane is someone to have dinner with,” Delorme said. “Go to a movie with. Not much more than that.”
“That’s too bad.”
“You should talk. You don’t go out with anyone. You don’t even seem to consider it.”
Cardinal hit the remote and the MGM lion roared.
The first few minutes of the movie were amusing, even to Cardinal, though he didn’t normally like science fiction. The chubby friend of the main character had just been yanked offscreen by an extremely slimy tentacle when the phone rang.
–
They drove out to Trout Lake. Out past the frozen beach, past Natural Resources and the marina. Out past Madonna Road, where Cardinal and Catherine and their daughter used to live. A few more kilometres and they made a right onto Island Road, passing the Chinook roadhouse on the left. Delorme took it slow on all the hills and curves, neither of them saying anything, almost as if they were holding their breath.
Island Road, so called because when you reach the end of it, there’s just one last house and then the water of Trout Lake-ice, now-and, about half a kilometre out, a pretty island that sits at the end of this peninsula like the dot over an i.
White birches flashed by in an endless palisade. Moonlight on cedar and blue spruce. Not what you’d normally call disturbing, but when Delorme stopped at the driveway to the last house in front of the yellow strip of crime scene tape, Cardinal got a bad feeling. And not just the regular bad feeling you got at the scene of a murder. Delorme looked pale and grim, and Cardinal knew he looked the same.
They got out of the car and nodded at the young cop standing just inside the yellow tape. He introduced himself as PC Rankin and pointed with his flashlight at the left side of the driveway. “Those are my tracks,” he said. “PC Gifford’s by the house. I walked back up here and figured best to walk where no one else had. Whole mess of tracks further down.”
“Where’s your squad car?”
He pointed with a fat mitten down the curving drive.
They had driven right over tire tracks that might prove crucial later on, but Cardinal couldn’t blame them. They hadn’t known what kind of situation they were coming into.
He ducked under the tape and continued down the driveway, following the beam of his own flashlight, Delorme right behind. They walked single file to minimize any more damage, both of them looking at the tire tracks. The tread marks cast deep shadows in the snow.
The driveway was long, really its own separate road. And it had enough dips and turns that they couldn’t see the house until they reached the last crest and could look down the final slope toward the lake. It was set there in a wash of moonlight that lit the trees, the frozen lake.
Cardinal had never seen the house from this side, although he had often admired it from the lake when he was out in the boat. The owners would have a spectacular view, being at the tip of the peninsula that divided Four Mile Bay from the main body of Trout Lake. It was a long and low bungalow, constructed of brick and stone and lengths of cedar. He didn’t know who lived there. All he knew was they had a bright red canoe that was tethered to the dock all summer. Cardinal stopped and Delorme stopped too and looked at him, her breath turning to steam.
“What’s the first thing you think of when you look at this?” Cardinal waved his arm to include the woods, the lake, the island.
“Isolation.”
“Me too,” he said, and continued down toward the house. The snow squeaked with each step.
A young policewoman standing in front of the house raised her flashlight to look them over. Cardinal had noticed her around the station before.
“PC Gifford,” she said. “I know who you guys are.”
Cardinal pointed to the kludge of footprints on the stoop. “I hope none of those are yours.”
“No, but those are.” She pointed to footprints beneath the plate glass window. “I was trying to see if there were any survivors. I thought I should go in-the back door lock has been jimmied and there’s a broken window-but Staff Sarge said no, keep it secure and wait for you guys, so that’s what I did.”
“Who called it in?”
“Couple of boys out for a hike along the shore. They swear they didn’t break the lock or the window, and I believe them.”
“A hike in the pitch dark?” Delorme said.
“I know. They’re like thirteen, parents away for the weekend, and I’d guess the older brother is the world’s worst babysitter.” She said their names and that they lived on Water Road, which was on the far shore, back toward town. “I put ’em in the squad car.”
Delorme stepped up to the front window of the house, holding her flashlight to the glass.
“Take a deep breath before you look,” Gifford said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Delorme stepped back from the window, and turned away.
Cardinal went next, also holding his flashlight to the glass. The bodies were toward the back of the house, little more than silhouettes at this distance. “Jesus,” he said, and stepped back.
He started toward the back of the house, Delorme following.
“We probably should have left the car back at the road,” Gifford said. “But far as we knew, it could’ve been anything from a prank call to a hostage situation. I tried not to run over those, though.” She pointed to the tire tracks between the house and the squad car. “Those were already here.”
“Two vehicles,” Cardinal said. “Clear tracks, too.”
“Should I come with you inside?”
“We need you to stay here and make sure no one steps on that porch,” Cardinal said.
–
Sandy and Doug were thirteen and fourteen years old. Best friends. A lot of people might have expected them to be traumatized by what they’d seen, but Cardinal knew they’d be bright-eyed with excitement. He and Delorme took separate statements from them, the only difficulty being trying to slow them down. They had been walking along the south side of the peninsula, not on the ice but on the shore. They weren’t up to any mischief, just out for a hike around the shore. But curiosity got the better of them and they decided to take a peek in the windows of this house on the tip of the peninsula.
As soon as the boys had looked in the back window and “like finished puking our guts out,” they had called the police. Constables Gifford and Rankin had arrived, checked out the window and made them wait in the car.
Cardinal pointed his flashlight at the tracks leading from the lake to the house, the tracks leading back. “Were any of those tracks here before you went up to the house?”
The boys looked at each other and shook their heads.
“The back door lock has been jimmied and there’s a broken window,” Cardinal said. “Would you know anything about that?”
Again they shook their heads.
After a few more questions Cardinal gave them his card. “Did you tell anybody about this yet?”
“Nope,” the younger boy said.
“Good. Don’t tell anyone until tomorrow-we don’t want the bad guys to hear anything until it hits the news. You did the right thing calling it in. Wait in the car and we’ll have someone drive you home.”
The boys looked disappointed. “We’d kind of like to stay and watch the CSI guys, if that’s okay,” the older one said.
