He told her about it on the way out to Astor Bay. Arsenault had finally managed to pin down the piece of snowmobile cowling. It matched an Arctic Cat 660 Turbo model produced between 2007 and 2009.
“Turbo. That’s where the rb lettering came from?”
“Right.”
“And how’d he get the date range?”
“In his words? ‘Easy. They changed the font.’ ”
“Love that database.”
“Actually, it’s called Dents ‘n’ Dings. Place out on 63 sells scrap snowmobiles. He just went out there with that piece of plastic and browsed till he found a match. I’ve spent the morning going through reported snowmobile thefts.”
“Are we sure it’s stolen?”
“No, but it’s a good bet.”
“Where were you doing this?”
Cardinal looked at her. “Where?”
“You haven’t been at your desk. I didn’t even know you were in.”
There was an odd tone in Delorme’s voice. It made Cardinal a little nervous.
“I stayed in Ident,” he said. “Collingwood’s out, so I just sat at his desk and started running through what we had. Why?”
“Nothing. There must’ve been a ton of snowmobile thefts.”
“Not of that model, not in black and silver. And I focused on a week either side of the day Marjorie Flint was abducted. That gives us three possibles. Printout’s in my briefcase, top folder. I love it when footwork pays off, don’t you?”
“You’ve got True North dealership as our first stop? If you want to steal a snowmobile, why would you go to a place that’s well lit and has alarm systems and video cameras?”
“It’s closest. We’ll rule it out and move on.”
The showroom of True North, with its gleaming Yamahas and Ski-Doos, was deserted except for the manager himself. Apparently the snow-poor season was raising his stress levels. When Cardinal and Delorme identified themselves, he put on an elaborate show of being surprised to see them.
“Two weeks ago I called. Two weeks, and now you show up? Guy could’ve driven the thing out to B.C. in that time.”
Cardinal didn’t want to get into it. “Your statement of complaint says the suspect took it out for a test drive. How’d he manage that? We haven’t had any snow.”
“Actually we had about four inches two weeks ago,” Delorme said.
“Not that it stayed,” the manager added with bitterness.
“Did you get some ID before you gave him the keys?”
“Two pieces. I can show you, but one’s fake and the credit card’s stolen. Believe me, afterwards I checked.”
Cardinal pointed to the security camera above the counter. “You have the security tape?”
“We gave you the security tape. Two days after it happened. What’s wrong with you people?”
The initial complaint had been taken by Ian McLeod. McLeod was a good investigator, except when a case bored him, which this one clearly had.
Cardinal apologized. “There was no note of it in the file, unfortunately.”
“Typical. I love paying taxes, don’t you? Luckily, I kept the original. You can watch it in my office.”
He took them to his office and opened the safe. He pulled out the photo ID and handed it to them. Cardinal could see right away that a new picture had been rephotographed over the original. The manager put a disc into a player.
They watched a squarish, chunky man talking with a salesman, pointing to the window, the lot outside.
“He took the Arctic Cat, right?” Cardinal said. “Silver and black?”
“Silver and black. A 2008 model with barely a scratch on it.”
Cardinal turned to Delorme. “Did you have any questions?”
“I think we have what we need.”
It wasn’t like Delorme to be so quiet during an investigation. Cardinal found it a little unsettling. He thanked the manager and promised to be in touch if they found anything.
When they were back in the car, Delorme said, “I can’t see anyone who plans a murder of this kind putting his face on a security camera. I hope we don’t have to go visit his phony address now.”
“Let’s get Sergeant Flower on it.” Cardinal pulled out his cellphone and dialed.
Delorme shook her head.
“What? Flower loves stuff like this.”
“Loves doing it for you, maybe. If I tried that, she’d snap my head off.”
Cardinal was already speaking into the phone. He gave the address and a couple of parameters to follow, made a joke, and rang off.
He could feel Delorme getting annoyed. Whether it was at him or not, he wasn’t sure. He thought again about their kiss of the other night. Exciting, yes, but he knew they had to talk about it. Probably she did too and it was making her edgy.
He wasn’t used to being nervous with Delorme, and he was aware of his own peculiar reaction. It made him chatty, not at all his usual style, rattling on about what a great job Ident was doing, about the “snowmobile database,” about the Ottawa people running down everything they could find on that tree house. “They’ve even got some cryptography guys at the RCMP looking at the number 25, seeing if they can relate it to anything to do with Marjorie Flint. You know, it occurs to me her table number at that fundraiser was 25.”
“I’m sure that’s the key, John. Take a week off. Your work is done here.”
Cardinal glanced at her, but she kept her eyes on the oncoming traffic.
“Hey. It’s called brainstorming, Lise.”
“If you say so.”
“You’re usually the one with the hare-brained ideas-”
“Thanks.”
“You didn’t let me finish. The hare-brained ideas that turn out to be really smart. Are you annoyed about something? About the other night?”
“You seem hyper, that’s all.”
“You’re right. I’ll shut up. What’s the number on Beachfront?”
Delorme glanced at the printout. “Twenty-five.”
“No, it’s not.”
“One thirty-nine.”
The woman who answered the door was holding a calico cat in her arms. “She runs out if I don’t hang on to her,” she said. “She’d kill every bird in this province if she had the chance.”
To Delorme, the cat looked as if she had just swallowed three Valium, the way she was drooped all over her owner’s chubby arm.
Cardinal asked about the stolen snowmobile.
“It’s back,” she said. “Returned of its own accord, believe it or not.”
“I’ll need a little more information than that,” Cardinal said.
“In a way, it wasn’t even stolen. My son took it. He’s supposed to be studying journalism at Ryerson, but no, he just quit going and came back early. Didn’t get around to telling us about it till a week later. In the meantime, he snuck into the boathouse and took the snowmobile for a wild time with his girlfriend.”
Cardinal asked her for the exact date.
“Just a minute,” she said, and closed the door. When it opened again, the cat was gone. “He brought it back January twelfth. Or rather, we brought it back-had to go pick it up at his girlfriend’s place, other side of the lake. Some little skanky thing can’t even spell college. Guess they had a great time till it run outta gas.”
“Why didn’t you let us know it had been returned?”
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t think you cared.”
“We’ll need to see it.”
