by Giles Blunt
Eric pulled the woman away, still shouting inanely.
The kid, for his part, did a terrible job of acting- holding up his hands in the hammiest way. He looked ridiculous with his pants half-down.
Then Eric struck a theatrical pose in the foreground, raising a hammer. "You try to screw my wife behind my back! I'm going to kill you!"
"No, please," the kid pleaded, laughing of course. "Please don't kill me! I didn't mean it! I'll make it up to you!" Then, hopelessly out of character: "Sorry. I can't help it. It just feels so stupid, you know?"
"You think it feels stupid?" Eric stepped forward, the hammer high. "I'll show you what feels stupid."
The hammer came down on the boy's head, changing everything. Even with the bad quality of the sound, Keith knew instantly that the crunch of bone was real. Also real was the sudden emptiness in the boy's face- the open mouth, the vacant, astonished eyes.
Eric swung again. "You bastard, you scum, who do you think you are?"
There was another minute and a half of video. As it played on the screen before him, Keith remained utterly still in the flickering pool of light. Then he raised his head and howled like a dog.
30
OUTSIDE, someone was stuck in the snow. The futile whine of tires could be heard even in the interview room, where Cardinal was listening to a sad young woman named Karen Steen. It had been an unhappy morning altogether. First, he had stopped off at the O.H., only to find Catherine sullen and uncommunicative. He had cut the visit short when he felt himself getting angry with her. His first phone call of the morning had come from Billy LaBelle's mother- crying, her speech slurred under the influence of too much of whatever her doctor had prescribed to dull her pain. Then Mr. Curry had called (only out of concern for his wife, of course), and Cardinal had had to tell him he was still no closer to catching whoever had beaten his only child to death. Then Roger Gwynn had called from the Lode, asking in his halfhearted way if there was any progress. When Cardinal responded in the negative, Gwynn had lapsed into an ode to their days at Algonquin High, as if nostalgia would make Cardinal more forthcoming. This was followed in short order by calls from The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and Grace Legault from Channel Four. The newspapers were no problem, but Grace Legault had somehow got ahold of the tidbit about Margaret Fogle. Was it true they had thought she was also a Windigo victim? And she had turned up alive and well and living in B.C.?
Cardinal summed it up for her: Margaret Fogle had been a missing person. She had in some ways fit the killer's profile. However, now she was found and no longer of interest to the Algonquin Bay police. The call rattled him because it meant someone was talking to Legault without keeping him informed. The thought of having this out with Dyson made him very, very tired.
Cardinal wanted to devote his time to footwork. He and Delorme had split the camera and clock leads. They had rerecorded the sounds from the tape, making multiple copies that they would send to camera and clock repair experts in Toronto and Montreal. Delorme would have run through twenty camera repair shops by now, while Cardinal had got nowhere. Instead, he had got caught up first on the phone and now in person with this sincere young woman who was telling him about her missing boyfriend.
Cardinal was angry at Sergeant Flower for telling Miss Steen he would see her. Especially when it turned out she was from Guelph, a largely agrarian community some sixty miles west of Toronto. "If your boyfriend's from Toronto," he told her, "you should be talking to the Toronto police."
Karen Steen was a shy woman- girl, really, not more than nineteen or so- who tended to stare at the floor between sentences. "I decided not to waste a lot of time on the telephone, Officer Cardinal. I thought you'd be more likely to pay attention to me if I came in person. I believe Keith is here in Algonquin Bay."
All young women made Cardinal think of his daughter, but- except for her age- Ms. Steen had nothing in common with Kelly. Kelly was the epitome of the hip and casual- in Cardinal's eyes at least- whereas the young woman seated across from him in the interview room had a kind of girl-next-door look. She was wearing a business suit that was too old for her, and silver wire-frames that gave her the air of a scholar. A very serious girl next door.
Miss Steen looked at the floor again- at the little puddle of melted snow at her feet. Cardinal thought for a moment she was going to cry, but when she looked up her eyes were clear. "Keith's parents are away on a dig in Turkey- they're archaeologists- and it's going to be impossible to reach them. I didn't want to wait for them to tell me what to do. I've read about the murders you've had up here. They weren't just murders- the people were missing for some time before they were killed, I think."
"That doesn't mean everyone who disappears has been abducted by this lunatic. Besides, your boyfriend's hitchhiking across Canada- it's a big piece of real estate to be missing in. You say he was expected in the Soo on Tuesday."
"Yes. And it isn't like him to just not show up somewhere. One of the things I love about Keith is he's very considerate of other people. Very reliable. He hates to cause trouble."
"It's out of character, you're saying."
"Way out of character. I'm not hysterical, Mr. Cardinal. I didn't come here lightly. I have reasons."
"Go on, Miss Steen. I didn't mean to imply anything, except- Well, go on."
The young woman drew a deep breath and held it a minute, staring into the distance. Cardinal suspected this was a habitual gesture of hers, and it was an attractive one. There was a pleasing gravity to Miss Steen. He had no trouble imagining a young man in love with her.
"Keith and I are opposites in many ways, but we're very close," she said finally. "We were going to get married after high school, but then we decided to put it off for a year. I wanted to go straight on to university, and Keith wanted to see the world, so to speak, before settling down to study again. Anyway, we thought it wouldn't hurt us to wait another year. I'm only telling you this so you'll understand that when Keith said he would write to me, and e-mail me when he got the chance, he meant it- it wasn't casual. We even arranged the timing of our letters to make sure they wouldn't cross."
"And has he written? The way he said he would?"
"His letters haven't exactly come like clockwork, but yes- one letter a week, and one phone call and sometimes, if he was near a computer, I'd get an e-mail. Every week. Until now."
Cardinal nodded. Miss Steen was not just a serious young woman, she was also- and this was not a judgment Cardinal made very often- a good person. She had been well brought up, probably strictly, to respect other people and the truth. She looked Dutch, with her wheat-blond hair cut short as a boy's, and her eyes the deep blue of new denim.
"Keith's last phone call was Sunday the fifteenth- a week and a half ago. He sounded fine. He was in Gravenhurst, staying at a hideous little hotel and not having a particularly good time, but he's basically a cheerful person, Keith- the kind who makes friends easily. He's a pretty good musician- lugs his guitar everywhere. People tend to take him in. That's partly what worries me."
Lucky Keith, Cardinal thought, to have someone like Miss Steen worrying about him. She pulled a photograph out of her purse and handed it to Cardinal. It showed a boy with long curly brown hair, sitting on a park bench. He was playing an acoustic guitar, frowning with concentration.
"He just hasn't got a suspicious bone in his body," she continued. "He's always getting cornered by pamphleteers and people like that because he always believes their opening pitch, you know what I'm saying?" Her denim-blue eyes- dark, and slightly turned up at the corners- implored him to understand. "Which is not to say he's stupid. Far from it. But the others who disappeared, they weren't stupid, either, were they?"
"Well, two of them were very young, but no- none of them were stupid."
"Keith was planning to head for the Soo on Monday, but he wasn't really looking forward to it. He's not really big on seeing relatives, but…" She looked away, took a deep breath again, and held it.
Kei
th, my man, Cardinal thought, if you let this young woman get away, you are truly an idiot. "What is it?" he asked gently. "You're hedging, now."
The breath was let go in a long sigh. The serious blue eyes held him once more. "Detective, it's only honest to tell you that Keith and I had a- a bit of a quarrel, as well. A couple of weeks ago when he called. I guess I was feeling kind of lonely and vulnerable. Anyway, we went over a lot of old ground about how we're spending our respective years. He's lugging his guitar cross-country- I mean, really, if I have a rival for his affections it's that Ovation of his- but I'm not as spontaneous as he is. I just want to get on with my education. It wasn't a serious fight- please believe that. We didn't hang up angry or anything. But it was a quarrel, and I wouldn't feel right not telling you."
"But you don't think this quarrel is the reason for Keith's… sudden silence."
"I'm sure it isn't."
"I appreciate your telling me. How were things left, exactly?"
"Keith said he would probably stop off in Algonquin Bay- he'd call me when he got here."
"Miss Steen, Keith didn't want to go to the Soo, didn't want to see his relatives. Now, you say he wasn't angry with you, and I accept that, but why should we assume he's in trouble when he doesn't show up at a place he said quite clearly he didn't want to go to?"
"On its own, I agree, it wouldn't be alarming. But no letter? No phone call? No e-mail? After being so reliable about it? And you have these unsolved abductions here, these murders, right?"
Cardinal nodded. Miss Steen was holding her breath again, working her way to another thought. Cardinal waited for her to reach it. Lise Delorme leaned in the doorway, but Cardinal shook his head, warning her off. Miss Steen resolved whatever hesitations she had; when she spoke, her voice was louder. "I told you there was no letter this past week, Detective."
"Yes. You made quite a point of it."
"Well, that isn't quite true. And that's really why I'm here." Miss Steen reached into her purse and pulled out a manila envelope. "The letter's in here- the envelope, I mean; it isn't a letter. It's Keith's handwriting on the address, but there wasn't any letter inside."
"It arrived empty?" Cardinal took the manila envelope from her.
"Not empty." This time she didn't look at the floor. Her serious blue eyes looked directly into his.
Cardinal tore off the top sheet of his desk blotter pad and emptied the contents of the manila envelope onto a fresh sheet. The smaller, enclosed envelope was postmarked three days ago, Algonquin Bay. Using tweezers, Cardinal opened the flap, saw the yellowish, dried contents, and closed it again. He folded it into the clean blotter sheet and put both back inside the manila envelope.
In the brief silence that followed, Cardinal was certain of two things: Every word this young woman had told him was true, and- if he were not already dead- Keith London had very little time left to live.
He dialed Jerry Commanda's number, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. "When did this arrive?"
"This morning."
"And you came straight here?"
"Yes. It didn't occur to me for one moment that Keith did it. But he did address the envelope. I know his handwriting. I'm right to be frightened, don't you think?"
Jerry Commanda was on the line, now. "Jerry, this is important. I need to helicopter something down to Forensic. What are my chances?"
"Zero. If it's desperate, I might be able to weasel something out of the flight school. How urgent are we talking?"
"Very. I think our boy just mailed us a sample of his semen."
31
ALGONQUIN Bay's government dock is a quiet place on a winter evening. The only sounds are likely to be the sawtooth buzz of a passing snowmobile, or a sudden quake in the ice as massive plates shift against each other, emitting an otherworldly sigh, a slow-motion squeal, sometimes a horrendous gasp.
Eric Fraser and Edie Soames huddled side by side in a corner of the wharf out of the wind. Lake Nipissing stretched out into the gray like some bleak Nordic vision. Eric wasn't saying anything, but Edie was luxuriating in the thrill of knowing another mind so well that no words were necessary. In fact, she knew what Eric was going to say- he would say it any minute now. He'd been restless and irritable all morning and into the afternoon. And now, although taking the photographs was calming him a little, Edie knew where things were headed, even if Eric didn't. Any minute now, he would say it.
But Eric moved away to stand below the Chippewa Princess, a tour boat that had been turned into a restaurant- at least, during summer it was a restaurant; in winter, it hung clear of the ice like a white whale on a hoist. Eric adjusted a lens, cursing the cold. Edie fussed with her hair, trying to get it to hang across one eye like Drew Barrymore's in a movie she'd seen. Some hope, she thought bitterly. But at least it would hide some of her face.
Watching Eric in his long black coat, she wished they could sleep together. The problem was Eric didn't like it. His entire body would go stiff as a board when she touched him- not with desire, but with revulsion. At first she had thought the revulsion was directed just at her, no surprise there. But Eric seemed revolted by sex in general. Sex is for weaklings, he always said. Well, she could live without it, especially now that they shared this other, deeper excitement. He would say the word within the hour, she was sure.
"Move over." Eric motioned her to her left. "I want to get the islands in."
Edie turned to look. Out there, where the sky and the lake met in mutual shades of ash gray, lay the islands. That island. Windigo. Who would have thought such a tiny island could have a name? Edie remembered the dead girl, the curve of her spine against Eric's duffel bag. So momentous it had seemed at the time, the murder, such a grim weight to that word. But it was amazing how little it mattered, the actual event, when you got right down to it. A human life had been extinguished, but no pillar of flame had descended from the sky, no maw of hell had opened. The cops and the newspapers got a little excited, but essentially the world went on exactly as before, minus Katie Pine. I wouldn't even remember her name, Edie thought, if they hadn't yammered about it day in and day out on the news.
She moved a little to the left, just as the ice shifted with a squeal like tearing metal. Edie let out a cry. "Eric, did you hear that?"
"The ice moved. Give me a smile, now."
"I don't want to smile." Cameras were no friend to Edie, and the ice had rattled her- as if the island had spoken her name.
"Look grumpy, then, Edie. I don't care."
She gave him her biggest grin, just to spite him, and he clicked the shutter. Another one for the record.
They'd started their photographic expedition out at Trout Lake, up near the reservoir. Eric had snapped one of Edie making an angel in the snow right over the spot where they'd buried Billy LaBelle. With all the snow, there wasn't the slightest trace of anything untoward. The hill with its view of the lake, the deep blue sky, would have looked good on a postcard.
Then they'd driven down to Main Street and taken a few shots in front of the house where they'd killed Todd Curry. One of Edie, one of Eric, and then one of the two of them (Eric had used the timer for that one). A man had seen them- a man walking his big woolly dog, and Edie had imagined for a moment that he had glared at them. But Eric had reassured her: just a young couple playing with a camera, what's the old fart going to care?
They moved to the lee of the bait shop so Eric could light a cigarette, cupping his hands around the match. He leaned against the wooden wall and looked at Edie through narrowed eyes. She could hear the words he was going to say before he said them, as if she had already dreamed the scene, as if she had created Eric, constructed the dock and the cold and the smoke all in her own mind. She sensed the same dark thrill running in his blood as was running in hers, now. She could smell it, like the metallic smell of ice that quivered on the frigid wind. Seeing the house again had set her nerves humming. Seeing the island. She was shivering with cold but said nothing. She didn't want to spoil this m
oment.
They got back in the van and turned the heat up full blast. It felt so good that Edie laughed out loud. Eric dug a book out of the glove compartment and handed it to her. It was a large paperback, very grimy, with a used sticker on it.
She read the title. "Dungeon. Where'd you get this?"
He told her he'd picked it up last time he was in Toronto. It was a historical document he'd been looking for. A catalog of torture devices used in the Middle Ages. "Read it to me," he said. "Read page thirty-seven."
Edie flipped through the glossy pages of photographs and drawings. The photographs showed the chair, whip, or restraint; the drawings illustrated the device's use: hooks to yank out guts, iron claws to tear the flesh, saws for splitting a human in two. The illustration for that one showed a man hanging upside down, while two others sawed him from crotch to navel.
"Read page thirty-seven," Eric said again. "Read it to me. I love it when you read to me. You read so well."
Oh, he knew how good his praise felt. Like coming home to a roaring fire after freezing half to death. Edie found the page. It showed a sort of helmet that was fixed over a wooden bar. Above the helmet was a huge screw.
"Skull crushers," she read. "The accused's chin is braced against the lower rod. As the screw is turned, the iron cap is forced downward, smashing the teeth together and gradually into the upper and lower jawbones. As more and more pressure is exerted, the eyes are pushed from their sockets. Eventually the brain itself is forced through the splintered cranium."
"Yes. The brain squirts through," Eric breathed. "Read another one. Read about the wheel."
Eric had his hands deep in his pockets. Edie was sure he was touching himself, but she knew better than to mention it. She flipped through the pages, the pictures of old iron instruments, the funny little woodcuts with their cartoonlike expressions of horror.
