45

IT was three-thirty in the morning, and Cardinal had the photographs pinned up on a shelf above the stereo, where a Bach suite was playing. He was not a classical music buff, but Catherine was and Bach was her hero. Listening to his wife's favorite music made the house seem less lonely, as if he might step into the living room and find Catherine curled up on the couch, reading one of her detective novels.

Katie Pine, Billy LaBelle, and Todd Curry stared at Cardinal from across the room like a very young jury who had found him guilty. Keith London- who might yet be alive- was abstaining from the vote, but Cardinal could almost hear his cry for help, the accusation of incompetence.

There had to be some connection between all four victims; Cardinal did not believe a killer could be entirely random in singling out his prey. There must be some thread, however slender, that united the victims- something that later would turn out to be obvious and he would curse himself for not seeing sooner. It would exist somewhere: in the files, in the scene photographs, in the forensic reports, perhaps in a stray word or phrase, the import of which had been missed at the time.

A car prowled by on Madonna Road, its motor muffled by the banks of snow. A moment later, footsteps sounded on his front steps.

"What are you doing here?"

Lise Delorme was on his doorstep, rain sparkling in her hair, her cheeks pink. Her voice was full of excitement. "It's a ridiculous hour, I know, but I drove past on my way home and saw your light was on and I have to tell you what just happened."

"You drove by on your way home?" Madonna Road was three miles out of her way. Cardinal held the door open for her.

"Cardinal, you aren't going to believe this. You know the Corbett case?"

DELORME sat on the edge of the couch, hands flying every which way as she told Cardinal everything, from Musgrave's first appearance to Dyson's laying his head on the bar like a man about to be guillotined.

Cardinal leaned back in his chair by the woodstove, countercurrents of dread and relief flowing across his belly. He listened as she outlined Musgrave's suspicions, Dyson's ambivalence, her own moments of doubt when she discovered the Florida condo, the boat receipt.

"You searched my place without a warrant," Cardinal said with as little inflection as possible.

She ignored him, small hands moving in the light, her accent stronger than he'd ever heard it. "For me, the worst moment." Hand on heart, small round breast momentarily emphasized. "Worst moment absolutely was finding that boat receipt."

"Which boat receipt was that?" Cardinal placed the question between them with a coolness he did not feel. Brazen as a professional thief, Delorme went straight to his file cabinet. She half knelt to open the drawer, and then her pale fingers were riffling through his papers. Cardinal was citizen enough to feel outrage at the invasion, cop enough to feel admiration, and man enough, he noted with annoyance, to find it slightly erotic. Delorme pulled out the receipt: One Chris-Craft cabin cruiser, fifty-thousand dollars. "When I saw that date, my heart went like the Titanic. Boom. Straight down."

"It's right after we raided Corbett." Cardinal held the thing to the firelight, looking for- well, he wasn't sure what for. "It's not mine."

"You know what saved you? The three Fs saved you." She proceeded to explain about Florida and French Canadians and how that peculiar combination had allowed her, from her location nearly a thousand miles north, to run down the purchase of that cabin cruiser. "I fax Sergeant Langois the receipt number, he goes over there, and this guy, he's very good-looking, okay? This poor Florida girl working in the back office she'll do anything for him. I mean, his accent, everything about the guy is charming."

The willing Florida girl, it turned out, had dug up the records of the sale. And because the boat was going to be delivered out of state (as much to avoid sales tax as anything else), they had required a photo ID. "Sergeant Langois sent me the fax this afternoon- not downtown, of course- a fax with a picture of Detective Sergeant Adonis Dyson."

"So until this afternoon you thought I was working for Kyle Corbett."

"No, John. I didn't know what to think. This setup, it was really because I wanted to rule you out as a suspect. I didn't know it would bring down Dyson. I didn't have that fax when I set it up."

"He must've known we'd be able to trace the receipt. What was he thinking?"

"There was no name on it. And he didn't know they had photocopied the ID in the back office and kept it on file. Anyway, these past couple of weeks, he's probably not been able to think. He's trapped between Kyle Corbett and Malcolm Musgrave, and he's scared. He probably just panicked."

"But you're saying he placed that receipt in my personal files, in my home. I can't believe he'd try to frame me. I mean, we weren't exactly friends, but… What about the condo? That must've looked pretty bad."

"I tried not to jump to conclusions. I know your wife is American. Her parents must be retirement age. A condo in Florida is not out of the question. I had my vacation friend check that out, too. By then, I of course have your wife's maiden name. She gets a condo from her parents, it's supposed to make you a criminal? I don't think so."

Cardinal could not begin to sort out the tangle of his emotions. "So does this mean you're finished investigating me?"

"Yes. It's over. Me, I'm out of Special, and you, you're in the clear."

Cardinal didn't feel ready to believe, either. And there were things he wanted to know: "Why'd Dyson do it? I mean, Corbett was a disaster from beginning to end. Absolute disaster. It was obvious someone was tipping the guy off, but I always assumed it was one of Musgrave's crew. When I ran that by Dyson all he said was, 'If you want to start investigating Mounties, do it on your own time.' Then Katie Pine disappeared, and Corbett was off my radar. Why'd Dyson do it? I don't love the guy, but I never pegged him for anything like this."

"Few years ago, he's feeling his retirement fund isn't everything it should be. He takes most of it and puts it into mining stocks. One of my finance teachers used to say, 'A mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar.' In this case, he turned out to be right."

"Dyson sunk his money into Bre-X?"

"A lot of people did, John. Just not so much of it."

"Jesus." He gave it the briefest of pauses, then: "You searched my place, Lise. I wasn't sure you'd actually do that."

"Sorry, John. You have to see what position I was in: either search your place or get a warrant. When you told me to stay that night you had to go back to the office, I took it as your permission. I'm sorry if I was wrong." Those brown eyes, bright with flecks of firelight, searching his face. "Was I wrong?"

Cardinal waited a long time before answering. It was after four o'clock, and suddenly exhaustion hung about his shoulders like a leaden cape. Delorme was still wired from her triumph; she'd be running on the high octane of victory for hours to come. Finally, he said, "It may have been permission. I'm not really sure. That doesn't mean you had to take advantage of it."

"Okay, look, it wasn't nice. Every once in a while, I remember that a good cop- like a good lawyer or a good doctor- is not necessarily a nice person, or pleasant to be around. So, you and me, we don't have to work together if you don't want. You can take me off Pine-Curry and I'll understand. But me, I think we should finish out this case together." Togedder, she pronounced it, and Cardinal was so tired it made him smile.

"What?" she asked him. "What are you smiling about?"

Cardinal got up stiffly and handed Delorme her coat. She did up the snaps, looking at him the whole time. "You're not going to tell me, are you."