"Yes. I should give you the license plate number." She reached into her purse for keys.

"I have the plate numbers from before," Delorme said. "His van, it's still blue?"

"Still blue, right." Mrs. Wood paused with her hand in her purse. "But he liked to change the license plates sometimes when he went on a job. I don't know if he did that or not this time. The sign is new: It says COMSTOCK ELECTRICAL REPAIRS on the side."

"You knew he was going out on a job?"

"Look. Woody's an electronics repairman. That's what he tells me, okay? I long ago learned to stop asking questions. He's a loving father and a dependable husband but he's never going to change his line of work- not for you, not for me, not for anyone."

"Okay. Do you know what area of town he was going to… work in?"

"He never tells me things like that. Look, the operative word here is 'dependable.' Woody said he'd be back by six o'clock. That's a day and a half ago, and I'm fucking scared."

"It may help us find him," Cardinal said gently, "if you have any information about the likely area of town to look in." He ignored Delorme's hard stare.

"I don't know. He did mention the old CN station the other day. He'd only just noticed they'd boarded it up. Maybe he was in that neighborhood, but I don't know." Suddenly she stood up, her purse spilling open on the floor. "He's in some kind of trouble, I'm telling you. Just because he steals things doesn't make him evil, you know. This is the first time he's ever not come home without phoning. Ever. The only time that happens is when he's under arrest- and if you're holding him, you'd better tell me, or so help me, I'm going to have Bob Brackett on your case until you're bounced off the goddam force." Bob Brackett was Algonquin Bay's best defense attorney. There wasn't a cop on the force he hadn't humiliated.

"Mrs. Wood, would you sit down, please?"

"No. If you haven't arrested my husband, I want to know why you aren't doing anything to find him!"

Her little boy stopped squeezing Yogi Bear and looked up at his mother with a worried expression.

"John, would you give me a minute alone with Mrs. Wood?"

Delorme took him by surprise- this wasn't in the script, and he didn't like it.

"Why?" Martha Wood wanted to know. "Why does she want to talk to me alone?"

"John. Please."

Cardinal went down the hall and into the monitor room. He put some coins in the Coke machine before he realized it was sold out of diet. He bought a Classic and sat down at the table, watching the video monitor, which was turned on but without sound.

From its high, corner angle, the video camera looked down pitilessly on Martha Wood. Both she and Delorme were absolutely motionless. Mrs. Wood was still standing, hands slightly away from her body, absorbing the blow, not yet feeling the pain, her face a picture of pure inquiry. The full lips came together as if to speak, but she said nothing.

Delorme reached out and touched her arm, but the woman still stood, swaying slightly. One hand came down slowly to touch the table, steadying her. Slowly, she lowered herself to the chair, covered her face with her hands, and folded forward.

The little boy started poking at her shoulder with Yogi Bear.

36

"WHY haven't we seen the goddam truck?" McLeod was unloading his Beretta as he spoke, neatly setting nine rounds nose up on the conference table. It looked like an exaggeration to Cardinal; he was so used to six rounds. "I've searched that ChevyVan myself- probably we all have at one time or another. It just boggles my mind that it hasn't been spotted yet."

"If we're right that Woody made the mistake of burgling the maniac's place, then the killer's probably stowed the thing somewhere. All he's gotta do is park it indoors and how're we gonna find it?"

Dyson put in, "Narrows the field a little, if we can assume the guy has a garage."

"I don't think we can assume that just yet. Woody's only been dead twenty-four hours. We've got an all-points out with the OPP. We'll find the truck."

The phone rang and Cardinal by prearrangement picked it up. "Okay, Len- I'm going to put you on the speaker. There's me and Delorme, Detective Sergeant Dyson's sitting in with us, and also Ian McLeod."

They were assembled in the conference room- a first, as far as Cardinal could remember. The conference room was usually reserved for commission meetings, state visits from the mayor- in short, for very special occasions only.

But this was the biggest investigation the Algonquin Bay police department had ever handled, and now all eight detectives on the force were assigned bits and pieces to follow up.

"Okay, here's the deal," Len Weisman said. "There are nine bullet wounds on the body. Clearly, they were not fired in a frenzy, they were too carefully placed. He was shot in both shins, both thighs, both forearms, and both upper arms. That gives you all the major bones of the human body- and I believe the killer was trying to break them all. He succeeded with both tibias. These were contact wounds, by the way- muzzle against flesh- inflicted at leisure, when the victim was totally helpless."

"I make that eight bullets, Len. Not nine."

"Aren't you sharp. He was shot in the back first- it's the only one that wasn't a contact wound. It was from maybe ten feet away, with an upward trajectory- Dr. Gant's note: She says a stairway would be consistent with the damage, killer shooting from below. Oh, and there's residue from duct tape around the mouth."

"Jesus."

"There's blood on him other than his own but I can't match the type to the semen that was in the envelope- whoever that belongs to, he isn't a secretor. We won't know if it's the same guy until the DNA test comes back- that's gonna take another week."

"A week! We've got kids being murdered up here, Len."

"It takes ten days, that's just the reality. Now, the facial injury: At first, we thought the facial injury was the result of a fall- you know, the guy gets shot, falls facedown and breaks his nose. But we found traces of gun oil in the wound."

"He was hit with a pistol?"

"Exactly. What's amazing is, this victim has nine bullet wounds in him, but he was killed by a broken nose. With the tape over his mouth, he couldn't breathe- aspirated a ton of blood trying."

"What have you got from Ballistics- Beretta? Glock? Gotta be something that shoots nine rounds, right?"

"The microprint is in my fax. He used a regular Colt thirty-eight."

"Can't be, Len. Colt only holds six rounds."

"Like I say, we're not dealing with a man in a frenzy. Bastard takes his time to reload so he can have a little more fun."

"Guy's an animal," McLeod muttered.

"Genital mutilation was postmortem. Dr. Gant thinks the guy tried to literally kick his balls off."

"That links it to Todd Curry, boss."

Dyson nodded sagely, as if he had thought so all along.

Weisman said, "I've told Ballistics to call you direct, soon as they have more on the slugs."

"All right. Thanks, Len."

"I'm not done yet."

"Sorry. Go ahead."

"Fingerprint section picked up partials. Both thumbs."

"You couldn't have. Our body was found nude- not even a belt to lift a print from."

"They lifted them from the body itself."

"You're kidding me. Our guys didn't get anything."

"Little something we picked up at the Tokyo forensics conference last year: soft-tissue X ray. We X-rayed the subcutaneous tissue of the neck- if you get it within twelve hours you can do that and get a decent print. Looks like he tried to choke the guy- maybe before he decided to aerate him. It's on the fax, too."

"Jesus, that's great, Len. Tell 'em we said, 'Thanks, guys.' "

"Better not. Those guys happen to be women."