53

BEYOND the railroad tracks, the old house leaned against the storm. A piece of the eaves trough hung slackly from the porch, weighed down by melting icicles. At one corner of the roof, a piece of tar paper flapped like a shot bird. Horns from traffic on the overpass honked in the distance.

McLeod remembered the place from his days in uniform. "Had to boom their door in practically every Saturday. Old Stanley Markham- Cardinal, you remember Stanley- old Stanley used to go on a toot and come home and tear the place to bits. Strong son of a bitch, too. Broke my arm in two places. That little maneuver cost him three years. Few years back, his liver finally killed him and, boy, do I ever not miss him. Goddam house always stank of cat piss."

Cardinal asked, "Who lives there now?" They were watching the house through flapping wipers as if it might at any moment hoist up its foundations like a tattered skirt and haul off into the freezing rain.

"Who lives there now? Sweet Celeste lives there now, Stanley's loyal widow and one of nature's true troglodytes. Three hundred pounds, voice that can peel paint, and tough as her bastard of a husband, too. If her IQ was any lower you'd have to water the bitch."

"Fraser drives a Ford Windstar," Delorme said quietly. "I don't see it in the driveway."

"Fraser also has a hostage. I'm not going to wait around to find out if he's home or not."

"Hold on, now. How about a little backup before we waltz in there?" McLeod said. "We ain't exactly a SWAT team, here." He didn't say so, but the implication was, We're lumbered with a woman and a scene guy- we're asking for it.

A brown UPS truck was lumbering to a stop behind them. Ancient brakes howled in protest.

"Give me a minute," Cardinal said. Splinters of rain stung his face as he got out of the car. He showed the driver his badge and climbed in on the passenger side. The driver was an Indian named Clyde. Under the peaked brown cap his wide cheekbones made him look like a Mongolian soldier.

"Clyde, I need your help with a police matter. I need to borrow your uniform."

Clyde kept his gaze out the window, as if he spoke to the rain, the heaps of dissolving snow. "You going undercover?"

"Just for about ten minutes. It'll save us pulling out weapons. Don't want gunfire on a residential street in the middle of the day."

"How about a trade. You get my uniform, I get your badge." Still speaking to the rain.

"It doesn't work that way, Clyde."

The Indian turned and grinned, displaying the most perfect teeth Cardinal had ever seen. "You can borrow my uniform anytime you want. Hate wearing the thing anyways."

Cardinal took off his coat and struggled to put on Clyde's brown jacket. It was tight across the shoulders, but it would pass.

"What kind of gun is that?"

"Beretta."

"Use it much?"

"Never. Brand-new issue. How do I look?"

"Like a cop in a UPS outfit. Take a couple of parcels, there, it might get you in the door."

"Good thinking, Clyde. You should be a cop."

"I can't stand cops," Clyde said, speaking once more to the weather. "You about ready? I got deadline issues."

"I need the truck, too, Clyde. Can you wait somewhere else? Two guys in a UPS truck looks funny. You guys don't drive around in pairs."

"That's true." He grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the dashboard. "I'll be in Toby's. Store on the corner." The Indian swung down out of the truck. "Second gear's a bastard. Just rev like hell and shove her straight into third. Sure you don't want me to drive?"

"Thanks. I'll manage." Cardinal nearly stalled the truck right on the railroad tracks- oh, smart move, he thought. Get creamed by a freight train before backup even gets here- then he revved it like Clyde said and threw it into third. The truck juddered, then caught, and he drove through a swamp of slush to the unmarked. Delorme rolled down the window.

"I'm going to go straight up to the front door like this," Cardinal told them. "Give me exactly three minutes after she opens the door. Soon as I'm in, McLeod deals with her, and you follow me. We straight?"

"You're in. McLeod takes her. I follow you."

"Collingwood heads straight for the basement."

McLeod leaned forward from the backseat. "Watch out for Celeste. She's got kind of a negative take on law enforcement."

Cardinal steered the truck up to the front of the house. He selected a medium-sized parcel that would cover the Beretta in his hand. He was wishing he had his thirty-eight. I should have spent time on the range, he scolded himself. I'm not used to this weapon. It felt long and unwieldy in his hand.

Celeste Markham opened the door, and Cardinal nearly gagged at the corrosive odor of cat piss. The woman's eyes, two black buttons nearly lost in the dough of her face, emitted twin beams of boredom and hostility. A filthy flower-print robe hung half-open over massive collapsing breasts. On her upper lip, a mustache of fine blond hair glistened. "Wrong house," she said sullenly. "I didn't order nothing."

"Mrs. Markham, I'm a police officer and I have business with Eric Fraser." Stairs to the right, living room to the left. The basement door must be under the stairs.

"He ain't home. You ain't coming in here." She started to close the door. Cardinal blocked it with his foot. When Delorme and McLeod were on the porch stairs, he pushed his way past the woman, his elbow disappearing into the humid depths of her belly.

He heard her cursing McLeod as he took the stairs two at a time. He flew past a bedroom where a television was blaring with a game show. Cardinal glimpsed what looked like a dozen cats sprawled around a two-liter bottle of Dr Pepper and an immense bowl of Chee-tos.

There was a blackened bathroom and, at the end of the hall, a closed, new-looking door. "Police!"

The door was locked. Cardinal kicked at it, and Celeste Markham screamed from downstairs, "You better not break nothing!"

The door was cheap, hollow-core, and it splintered easily. Cardinal reached through and unlocked it from the inside, and stepped in with the Beretta in his hand, Delorme behind him.

After the stench and filth of the rest of the house, the room was shockingly clean. Instead of cat piss, it smelled faintly of soap. The bedcovers were drawn tight, with hospital corners. The window, although ancient, offered a pristine view of the overpass; someone had cleaned it carefully, and Cardinal did not suspect Celeste Markham. Cars rippled in the old glass. Something Cardinal had often noted in people who'd done time, even juveniles: They kept their rooms neat as Marines.

The closet contained four shirts, all pressed, all on hangers. Two pairs of pants, also ironed, also on hangers. One pair of boots with Cuban heels, well worn, spit-shined.

The desktop was empty. The small drawer contained a ballpoint pen and a yellow notepad, with no writing on it. Underneath the desk, they found a box of maybe thirty books, neatly stacked.

"So empty," Delorme said, voicing Cardinal's thought. "It's like no one lives here at all."

Collingwood filled up the doorway behind them. "Nothing in the basement. Big Mama says he just uses this room. Doesn't have the run of the house."

"Where's he eat, even?" Cardinal asked of the room at large. "It's like the guy's not human."

"Something under here." Delorme's voice was muffled; she was down on her knees, checking under the bed. She dragged out a guitar case. Careful not to smudge fingerprints, she pressed open the latches. It was an Ovation guitar, in good condition.

"Keith London plays guitar. I'm pretty sure Miss Steen said an Ovation. We'll seal this room and let Arsenault at it later."

The search proceeded in silence for the next few minutes. The guitar was solid; it might link Fraser conclusively to Keith London, but it didn't lead anywhere now. Cardinal was getting increasingly frustrated with the neatness of the place. He pulled a file box out of the closet. Nothing but neatly filed receipts. He twisted the lid from an old candy tin. Nothing but paper clips and rubber bands. Then he opened a shoe box- it was bound with a piece of blue velvet ribbon as if it might contain precious mementos. Cardinal was expecting photographs, perhaps a diary. But what he found there was worse than coming upon Todd Curry's body.