The conversation turned to Ronnie’s own work. Delorme mentioned the photographs that had been coming back from Mars, how Marti, the peripatetic robot, had lasted longer and travelled farther than anyone had expected. Cardinal realized she must have read up in preparation for the party, a courtesy that would never have occurred to him.
“You must worry all the time,” she said. “All those billions at stake.”
“Our test protocols are stringent,” Ronnie said. “We put ’em through hell before NASA even gets a peek at ’em. And I mean hell.”
“Does NASA get a warranty?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Well, there’d be rolling guarantees, I imagine.”
“You know about contracts?”
“Lise is our white-collar-crime specialist,” Cardinal said. “Don’t let her near your tax return.”
“There are various time frames with various liabilities,” Ronnie said. “We’re way above water on this one.”
“Yes, I’d imagine so.” Delorme raised her glass. “To Marti.”
They toasted the robot, and then someone said, “A wife gets murdered, it’s always the husband. And David Flint’s known as a total bastard around the Senate.”
“For Christ sake,” Ronnie said. “They can’t talk about it.”
“Yes, but we can.”
It was late when they said their good nights and stepped outside into the cold. Cardinal handed his car keys to Delorme, and she accepted them without comment. She took the slow route, along Lakeshore, probably because the lighting was better.
“I really enjoyed that, John. Thanks for taking me.”
“I’m glad you came. I wouldn’t have gone on my own.” That didn’t sound quite right to Cardinal’s ear, he wasn’t sure why. He reached over and turned down the heater a notch.
“Ronnie Babstock’s so down-to-earth. Kinda cute the way he wouldn’t let people make us talk about work. Like we were celebrities or something.”
“Uh-huh.” Cardinal was still trying to figure out what it was he had meant to say.
They drove the rest of the way to his apartment building in silence. Delorme parked in his spot and handed over the keys.
“I’ll walk you home,” Cardinal said.
“Don’t be silly. It’s two minutes.”
Cardinal went with her. They walked uphill side by side, both with their hands in their pockets. A thin dusting of snow glittered in the street lights. Distant sound of a freight train heading south.
When they reached her house, Delorme stopped at the front path and started to thank him again, but Cardinal found himself speaking over her words. “I just have to say this,” he said. “I’m really happy when I’m with you. That’s all. Simple, true, and it’s not champagne talking. I’m really happy when I’m with you.”
Delorme squinted at him. Gave him the full Clint Eastwood he’d seen her use on thugs and lawyers, not to mention those colleagues whose commitment to honesty was imperfect. “What did you just say?”
“Nothing. I’ll see you Monday. You’re in Monday, right?”
“John, wait.” Her voice softened. Her hand-gloved, small-alighted on his forearm, a touch barely perceptible through his parka. “I’m just not sure I heard what you said.”
“I just said I’m happy when I’m with you, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all.”
“It just seems to be a fact. I guess it’s obvious. It just suddenly struck me, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all,” she said again. Those skeptical eyes looking up at him, those lips slightly parted.
Cardinal takes hold of her shoulders and kisses her. In the cold of the night, the sudden heat of her mouth responding to him. Her hand reaching up and coming to rest on the back of his neck. And the whole time they’re kissing, he has the feeling he’s just stepped out of an airplane at thirty thousand feet.
In the course of her police career, Delorme had come across any number of paranoids. Her egregious colleague Ian McLeod was a prime example. But before meeting Senior Detective Vernon Loach, she had never encountered a reverse paranoid. Loach seemed to cherish the delusion that people were out to do him good behind his back.
“No, I was talking to a producer at CBC,” he was yelling to someone on the phone, possibly even his wife, poor woman. “And I think they’re going to do a whole profile on me… like an actual biography thing.”
Only if they’re developing a satire, Delorme thought, and scanned an entry in Marjorie Flint’s e-mail address list for the third time. Earlier, Loach had suggested to some unfortunate that Judge Roselyn Tate, the newest-and certainly the prettiest-member of the Superior Court, had a crush on him.
Loach was not bad-looking. Delorme could allow him that much. But he was one of those people who have regular features, a good build, a reasonable wardrobe, and no sex appeal whatsoever. Put him beside Cardinal and it was like he wasn’t even in the room-except for his ego.
She thought again about that kiss. No telling where that was going to lead; they had ventured into uncharted territory. But she was feeling an excitement she hadn’t experienced in a long, long time. It worried her a little-more than a little-and she told herself to focus on work.
She put her hands over her ears to block out Loach and tried to concentrate on the lists of contacts-names, numbers and e-mail addresses-that had once been the private property of Laura Lacroix and Marjorie Flint.
The senator’s wife had lived in Ottawa, Laura Lacroix in Algonquin Bay’ the chances of their having many people in common were slim. She did a search for 613 in Lacroix’s address book and came up with three Ottawa phone numbers: a couple named Sal and Jackie Gottlieb, Club Risque and Leonard Priest. None of these showed among Marjorie Flint’s contacts.
Delorme worked her way through the entries one by one, marking off each one with an asterisk. Every now and then she’d get a flutter when there was a match between the two address books, but so far these had turned out to be national concerns such as Air Canada, the Bank of Montreal or Fairmont Hotels.
She tried to cheer herself up by remembering that even if she ruled out common connections, it was valuable information. Valuable, but not exciting. She kept wishing Cardinal would show up. They hadn’t spoken since the party, and over the rest of the weekend she’d found a ridiculous anticipation building up. Sunday evening she’d called an old friend, Claire Nadeau, and told her what had happened.
Claire’s enthusiasm was complete and unhesitating-surprising, since Delorme herself was far from certain this was a positive development.
“We work together,” Delorme reminded her. “What if it doesn’t work out? It’ll be horrible.”
“Don’t be such a pessimist. Ever since the day you moved back to Algonquin Bay, you’ve been talking about this guy.”
“As a colleague, not as a-”
“Bullshit, honey. You’ve always had this tone about him, how if only he wasn’t married.”
“I have not.”
“Oh yes you have.”
“I have not.”
“Lise. Listen to your voice-you’re totally thrilled. It’s wonderful. Are you going to screw it up now by getting all negative?”
Delorme had tried to make Claire see that she was just being reasonable. Cautious. It’s not like she was twenty-one, for Pete’s sake. And yet here she was checking the clock every ten minutes.
At twelve-thirty, she put on her parka and went outside. Sunlight bouncing off the snowbanks made her eyes water. She was halfway across the parking lot when Cardinal called her name. He was at the side entrance, in shirt sleeves.
“Lise, where you headed?”
“I was just going to pick up a sandwich and bring it back. You want me to bring you something?”
“Hop in the car. We’ll pick up something on the way.”
“Way where?”
“Astor Bay. Arsenault came up with something good.”
