Forty Words for Sorrow

by Giles Blunt

  "Len, what the hell happened? Where's our dental report?"

  "Fucking dentist, I can't believe this guy. Keeps putting us off, screens his calls, doesn't show up, etcetera. Finally, I get ahold of the creep personally and we go in. Know why he's putting us off? Turns out he's been overbilling like crazy."

  "What do you mean, Len? What's on the chart?"

  "It's full of fillings the guy never did. Makes it look like the kid had enough fillings to pave Lake Ontario. Patient in the morgue, on the other hand, shows only five small fillings."

  "But those five, Len, those five. Do they match?"

  "Luckily, the work this crooked bastard really did was marked in a different color. Five little fillings marked in red pen: perfect match. Our patient is Todd William Curry."

  24

  TODD Curry's parents lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Mississauga, a vast sprawl on the western edge of Toronto that ranges from charmless malls and high-rises to a leafy wood shot through with rivers and streams. They did not live in the leafy part. The Currys had been told to expect the two detectives from Algonquin Bay and consequently had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare; smells of Windex and Mr. Clean hung heavy in the air. There was not a cushion out of place.

  "They told us you'd be coming." Mrs. Curry greeted them at the door. "My husband stayed home from work."

  "Hope that won't upset your boss too much," Cardinal said to the man who rose energetically out of a well-padded armchair.

  "I'm not worried about it. Place owes me about a year's worth of vacation days." He shook hands forcefully, as if to prove that grief could not dent his manly vigor. He even managed a broad smile, but it lasted no longer than a camera flash, and then he sank back into his chair.

  Cardinal turned to the mother. "Mrs. Curry, did Todd have any relatives in or around Algonquin Bay?"

  "Well, there's his uncle Clark in Thunder Bay. But that's hundreds of miles away."

  "What about friends. Maybe someone he met at school?"

  "Well, I wouldn't know about that. But there were certainly no friends that we knew of from Algonquin Bay."

  The father roused himself out of reverie. "What about that young man who came to stay last summer? The one with the mismatched sneakers."

  "You mean Steve? Steve was from Stratford, dear."

  "No, no. I'm talking about someone else altogether. I'm talking about a different boy."

  "Well, the one with the mismatched sneakers was Steve, and he was from Stratford. You know my memory's better than yours. It always has been."

  "I guess that's true. I guess your memory was always better than mine."

  Once in Algonquin Bay, Cardinal had been at the scene where a gas line had exploded, removing the whole front of an apartment building and collapsing three floors. Husbands and wives had drifted through the smoke and ashes like souls in purgatory. Now, their family having been exploded by grief, Mr. and Mrs. Curry were trying to recognize each other through the smoke and ashes.

  "Did Todd have any other reason to stop at Algonquin Bay that you know of?"

  "No. None. Boyish curiosity. Maybe someone he met on the train. Todd's an impulsive boy. Was." Mrs. Curry's hand drifted up to her mouth as if it would push the past tense back. Her face was a picture of confusion.

  Then Mr. Curry was at her side, his arm around her shoulder. "There, there, girl," he said in a low voice. "Why don't you come sit down on the couch?"

  "I can't sit down. I haven't even offered them any tea. Would you like some tea?"

  "No, thanks," Delorme said gently. "Mrs. Curry, we know Todd got into trouble with drugs at least once. Do you remember anything to do with drugs- maybe a name that came out in his court hearing- that might have led him to Algonquin Bay?"

  "Todd was over his drug problem. He didn't use drugs anymore. There, I said it: was, didn't- they're just words, aren't they." She managed a ghastly smile. "Are you sure you won't have some tea? It's no trouble."

  It was a new art form for Delorme, picking shards of fact from the exposed hearts of the bereaved. She looked to Cardinal for help, but he said nothing. He thought, Get used to it.

  "I didn't know Todd at all, Mrs. Curry, but- well, let me put it another way, I mean- the thing is…" Delorme bit her lip, then said, "You know. A cup of tea would be very nice. Can I help you make it?"

  Cardinal said to the father, "You mind if I look at Todd's room, meanwhile?"

  "What? Todd's room?" Mr. Curry scratched the top of his head. In another context, the cartoonlike gesture would have been comical. He gave a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry. I just don't know how to act. Todd's room, yes, that makes sense I guess. You need to know more about him, yes, I can see how you do. All right, you go ahead, Detective, you do your work and don't let me get in your way."

  "It's this way?"

  "Oh. Yes. Sorry. Second on the right. Well, I'll show you." He led Cardinal down a short hall. There were two bedrooms on the left, closets on the right, bathroom at the end; that was the whole apartment. Mr. Curry opened the door and gestured for Cardinal to enter, then stood leaning against the door frame, as if his son's bedroom were located on an exalted plane he was not worthy to enter. His eyes flicked nervously back and forth, death having infused the most mundane objects- the half-deflated basketball in the corner, a broken skateboard on a shelf- with the power to utterly undo him in front of this intruder.

  "Mr. Curry, you don't have to watch, if you don't want."

  "I'm all right, Detective. You just go ahead and do what you have to do."

  Cardinal stood in the middle of the room and said nothing, just absorbed the relationships of various objects. There was an elaborate boom box on top of the dresser and small towers of tapes. Posters of pop stars were tacked to the wall: Backstreet Boys, Tupac Shakur, Puff Daddy. There was a small desk, the surface of which was a map of the world. A small Macintosh computer sat on top of Africa. Bookshelves were neatly fitted into either end of the desk. Cardinal was certain Mr. Curry had built them. He ran his hand along the edge of Antarctica. "Nice desk," he said, and knelt to examine Todd's books.

  "Yes, I built that. It was easy really. Still, you know, a project like that takes more than a few hours. Todd hated it, of course."

  "Oh, they're hard to please, teenagers."

  "Todd and I didn't get along very well, that's the truth of it. I didn't know how to handle him, I guess. Tried being lenient, tried being tough. Nothing seemed to work. Now, I just wish he was here."

  "I'm sure the two of you would have made it up," Cardinal said. "Most families do." The titles on the shelves: Treasure Island, Catcher in the Rye, several Hardy Boys installments, all dusty. The rest of Todd's library consisted of science fiction paperbacks with garish covers. He was tempted to tell Mr. Curry about his own daughter, how in her teens she used to tell him regularly she hated him and now they got along just great. Wrong tack to take, though.

  "Todd and I won't ever get the chance to make it up, now. That's the terrible thing." Mr. Curry took a sudden step into the room, pushed by the urgency of his thought. His grip on Cardinal's forearm felt like a claw. "Detective, whatever you do in this world, don't postpone your life. Anything important that you keep putting off? Anything you keep telling yourself you'll just wait for the right moment? I mean, anything important you've been meaning to tell some loved one, or anyone- don't put it off, you hear me? Don't postpone your life. Say the words, whatever they are. Do the thing, whatever it is. All that stuff you hear on the news- I don't care if it's tornadoes or the so-called Windigo Killer- any kind of disaster, you never think it applies. But the fact of the matter is, you never know. You never know when people are just going to get up and go out that door and never come back. You just don't know. I'm sorry. This is terrible. I'm babbling."

  "You're just fine, Mr. Curry."

  "I'm not. I don't have much experience with this kind of thing," he said, then added as if pleading a handicap, "I'm in reinsurance."

  "Tell me, Mr. Curry,
did Todd use that machine a lot?" Cardinal pointed at the Macintosh. There were software manuals and video games piled under the desk, and he had noticed the line connecting the computer to a phone jack in the wall.

  "Todd wasn't a hacker, if that's what you mean. He used it for homework, mostly. When he did his homework. Thing's a mystery to me. We use IBMs where I work."

  Cardinal opened the closet and looked at the clothes. There was one suit, one blazer, two pairs of dress pants, not the things a boy like Todd would wear often. On the shelf above, there were stacks of board games: Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit.

  In the dresser, Cardinal found- besides the usual torn jeans and ripped T-shirts- a tangle of copper and tin bracelets, bits of chain, studded leather collars and cuffs. It didn't mean anything; a lot of kids wore them now.

  "My wife's in pieces," Mr. Curry said. He had retreated to the doorway again. "That's the worst thing. It's hard to see someone you love in so much pain and not be able to-" He had spoken of grief, and now, like a demon hearing its name, it burst its bonds and pounced, possessing him utterly. Mr. Curry was transformed from robust father into a pale, crooked figure shrinking in a doorway, crying.

  Cardinal didn't ignore him, exactly, but he didn't say anything, either. He looked at him briefly, then looked away out the window at the high-rise next door. From the parking lot between them came the mechanical hysteria of a car alarm. In the distance, Toronto's CN Tower glittered in the morning sun.

  After a few minutes, the sobbing behind him eased, and he handed Mr. Curry a twenty-cent pack of Kleenex he had bought at the Pharma-City on Queensway. He opened Todd's dresser drawers one by one, feeling the undersides.

  "Sorry about the wailing. Must feel like you've walked into a soap opera."

  "No, Mr. Curry. It doesn't feel like that at all."

  Cardinal could feel the magazine behind the bottom drawer. He pulled it out, mentally apologizing to the boy as he did so, knowing it was probably more secret and personal than glue sniffing or marijuana. He remembered his own stack of Playboys from youth, but the magazine now in his hand showed a naked man.

  Mr. Curry stopped breathing for several seconds, Cardinal heard it. He reached in and pulled out three more magazines.

  "Shows how well I know my own son, I guess. I would have never guessed. Not in a million years."

  "I wouldn't put too much stress on a few pictures. Looks like curiosity to me. He's got Playboy and Penthouse here, too."

  "I would never, never have guessed."

  "Nobody's an open book, Mr. Curry. Not you, not me…"

  "I'd like to keep this from his mother."

  "Certainly. There's no need to tell her, at least not now. Why don't you take a break, Mr. Curry? There's no need for you to watch."

  "She's a very strong woman, Edna, but this-"

  "Maybe you better go see how she's doing."

  "Thank you, yes, I'll do that. I'll just go see how Edna's doing." It struck Cardinal that, to a teenager, Todd's father must have seemed a mother hen.

  From the desk, the Macintosh was staring at him with its cool blind eye. Cardinal knew enough about Macs to boot it up and find the list of programs; it only took him two minutes, but he didn't recognize anything. He went out into the living room and signaled to Delorme, who was next to Mrs. Curry on the couch, going over a family album.

  Delorme was no computer specialist, either, but just that morning Cardinal had watched her put Flower's Mac through its paces. It made him feel old. It seemed like anybody under thirty-five was comfortable with computers, which frustrated Cardinal at every turn. Delorme whipped that mouse around like a slot car.

  "Can we see what he's been tapping into?"

  "That's what I'm doing right now. Threader, here, is a useful program. You set it up to stop in at your favorite ports of call. It visits them all at top speed then clicks back off, so it saves connect charges. Only someone who goes on-line a lot would have it."

  The screen changed, showing a list of newsgroups. Cardinal read them aloud: "Email, HouseofRock, House-ofRap- rap music? That's gotta be unusual for a white kid."

  "Boy, are you out of date."

  "Okay, what's this Connections thing?" He tapped an icon of a kissing couple on the screen. "That a talk-dirty outfit?"

  "Not necessarily. Let's log on and see what we get."

  Delorme moved the mouse and clicked. There was a dialing sound, then the raspberry noise of modems shaking hands. The screen flashed, scrolled at blinding speed, and clicked off.

  "It's like trolling in your favorite bays," Delorme said. "Now let's see what we hauled in."

  She clicked through the messages. There was a lot of computer chat about new games for Mac users, none addressed specifically to Todd. Then there was a discussion about buying tickets for an Aerosmith concert at the Sky-Dome.

  "Ah," Delorme said. "Here's his mail basket. Oh boy, he liked his e-mail hot."

  "Jesus," Cardinal said. He was glad he was standing behind Delorme, because he wouldn't have been able to look her in the eye.

  "See, it's all anonymous," Delorme said, pointing. "He called himself Galahad in this newsgroup."

  "Well, it certainly goes with the Blueboy magazines. Looks like he's got ten different correspondents, there."

  "Oop, look here. This guy knows his real name."

  Todd, Cardinal read. I'm sorry things didn't work out between us. You seem like a good kid and I wish you well, but I don't think we should meet again. Probably not even talk again, but I'm open on that point. – Jacob

  "John, look at the date."

  "December twentieth. The night Todd Curry showed up at the Crisis Center. Hey, we could be getting warm, here."

  Delorme flipped through several screens, flashing through previous "letters" from the same Jacob. The sex was explicitly detailed. There were repeated invitations to come and visit, to stay the night.

  "What a perfect setup," Cardinal said. "Size up your victims over the computer lines. Reel them in, long-distance."

  They read more. Not all the messages were explicit sexual fantasies. Some were more thoughtful discussions about the problems of accepting oneself as gay. Well, that's right, Cardinal thought, put the kid at ease. Next to alcohol, sympathy was probably the most potent weapon in the seducer's arsenal.

  "Is there any way we can get this guy's real name and address off this?"

  "Address, I doubt. Name, maybe. I'm a little rusty, though. It could take a while." Delorme set the mouse moving in circles again, while Cardinal knelt on the floor, going through the boy's collection of video games. After about ten minutes, Delorme touched his shoulder. "Look at this."

  Cardinal stood up and looked over her shoulder.

  "This is his sex group listing, the Jacob guy. And his e-mail address." She read out: " 'Top, body-building, oral, hot E-mail…' So far, so good. In one of his discussions he mentions Louis Riel- you remember your history?"

  "Small rebellion out west, right?"

  "Not that small. Anyway, I figure maybe he's into history, so I click on the history newsgroup, right?" Delorme clicked the mouse, and the screen changed. "Next stop: history newsgroup, membership directory. Put in a search for Jacob's e-mail address…" She typed in as she talked. "And look what comes up! Same address."

  "That's Jacob?"

  "That's Jacob. Only in this group, he's using his real name." She tapped the screen with her index finger. Cardinal read, Jack Fehrenbach, 47: e-mail (French or English). Algonquin Bay.

  "Fehrenbach's a teacher at Algonquin High. We sure that's his real name?"

  "Not a hundred percent, no. But it's probably the name the account is under."

  "Kelly had that guy one year. It could be someone just using his name, right? A pissed-off student, maybe."

  "Could be. But the Internet service bills your credit card, so it would have to be a pretty big scam."

  "This is first-class work, Lise. First-class."

  Delorme grinned. "It's not too bad,
I have to admit."

  25

  THE nausea had finally lifted. For days it had hung over the bed like smog, so that the slightest movement made his head whirl and the bile climb in his throat. A few bites of food, and the bed had begun to feel like a boat pitching headlong from crest to trough.

  At other times- usually just before Eric or Edie brought in his tray- the nausea would recede a little, and he began to think he would soon be out in the sunlight and fresh air. Then strange fancies would take hold of him: The bedposts dissolved into minarets, his feet beneath the covers formed distant dunes, a dripping tap became a tambourine. He would imagine he was in some exotic locale- Bahrain, Tangiers- where he had been laid low with exotic fevers. His eyes felt webbed; his muscles were dead as meat.

  The figure on the edge of the bed blurred and shifted. Keith tried to focus. The smell of toast and jam was overwhelming. When was the last time he'd kept anything down? "God, I'm so hungry." He spoke to where the figure had been, but it had shifted again.

  "Take it." Eric was holding the plate under Keith's nose. The smell nearly made him faint.

  Keith ate four pieces of toast. He began to feel solid again, as if he could get up and do things. "Eric. I need to use the phone. I need a phone."

  "Sorry. Edie doesn't have a phone. I have one, but I live across town."

  "She doesn't have a phone?"

  "No. I just told you."

  "Karen will be worried. We arranged to call regularly. I've been sick for, what- three days?"

  "Four."

  Keith started to sit up. His muscles were achy from being in bed so long.

  "You're too sick to go out, Keith. Why don't you write her a letter?"

  "She lives in Guelph. It would take days to reach her. She'd be so pissed off by then she probably wouldn't read it. Do you guys have e-mail?"

  "No," Eric said. "Why don't you give me her number? I'll call for you."

  "Thanks, Eric. But I think I'd better get to a doctor anyway. I shouldn't be sleeping like this. I'll call Karen from the hospital."

  "All right. Why don't you stand up and give it a try?" Eric got off the bed and sat in the broken chair. Keith made a great effort to lower his feet to the floor. Slowly, fixing his gaze now on the radiator, now on Eric, he straightened. He swallowed hard and forced his right foot toward the door. He gave up and fell back down on the bed with a groan. "Why am I so exhausted?"