Forty Words for Sorrow

"It was the only place she could get the charms for it. She'd go back every month or so and buy a new charm. She got a tuba last time, just like two days before she went away. Before she, uh…"

"Which mall, Mrs. Pine?" Tell me, now, he thought. You're going to say the words. The same dream that's pulling me and Delorme is pulling you, too, and it's pulling the words from your throat. He wanted to scream Which mall, Mrs. Pine? Which mall?

"Was the big one out on Lakeshore there. The one with the Kmart and the Pharma-City."

"The Algonquin Mall, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Mrs. Pine, thank you."

Delorme tossed him his down coat. She already had hers on.

"Grab Collingwood. I want a scene man with us."

EVEN a place the size of Algonquin Bay has a rush hour, and rivers of slush made the going even more mucilaginous than usual. It was not quite six o'clock, and they had to use the siren on the bypass, and then again on Lakeshore. Collingwood sat in the back of the car, whistling under his breath.

Cardinal tried to look nonchalant as they went through the mall, but there was a rush hour here, too, and he found himself pushing people aside outside Pharma-City to get to the music store.

"Mr. Troy, is Carl Sutherland here?"

"He has a pupil at the moment. Can I help you with something?"

Cardinal headed to a series of doors past the counter and beyond the shelves of guitars. "Which room?"

"Wait a minute, now. What on earth is this about?"

"Collingwood, stay here with Mr. Troy."

The first door was a supply closet. In the second, a startled woman looked up from the piano where she was counting aloud to a metronome. In the third room, Carl Sutherland was shaping the little fingers of a ten-year-old boy around a guitar chord. He looked up sharply.

"Are you Carl Sutherland?"

"Yes?"

"Police. Would you come with us, please?"

"What do you mean? I'm in the middle of a lesson."

"Would you excuse us?" Delorme said to the boy. "We have something to discuss with Mr. Sutherland."

When the boy was gone, Cardinal shut the door. "You gave Billy LaBelle guitar lessons, didn't you?"

"Yes. I already talked to the police about-"

"And you also knew Katie Pine, didn't you?"

"Katie Pine? The girl who was murdered? Absolutely not. I saw her picture in the paper, but other than that I never saw her in my life."

"Our information is different," Delorme put in. "Our information says Katie Pine was in here two days before she disappeared."

"If she was, I didn't see her. Why are you coming to me? It's a big mall out there. Everybody in town goes through."

"Everybody in town doesn't get picked up for public indecency, Mr. Sutherland."

"Oh, God."

"Everybody in the mall doesn't get arrested for exposing himself in the back seat of a porno theater."

"Oh, God." Sutherland swayed slightly in his seat, his face utterly white. "I thought that was over and done with."

"You want to come down to the station and tell us about it? Or maybe we should ask your wife."

"You can't bully me like this. I was acquitted on that charge." Sutherland's voice was now harsh, indignant, but his face was still white. "I'm not proud of what happened. But I don't see why I have to be humiliated over it, either. A pitch-dark theater is not public. It's not public, and the judge agreed. Besides which, what went on was entirely between consenting adults and it's none of your business."

"Billy LaBelle is our business. You were one of the last people to see him alive."

"Well, what does this have to do with Billy LaBelle?"

"Why don't you tell us?" Delorme said. "You were his teacher."

"Yes, I was Billy's guitar teacher. I've already discussed all this. Billy left the store one Wednesday night- the same as every other Wednesday night- and I never saw him again. It's very sad. Billy was a really nice kid. But I didn't do anything to him. I swear I didn't."

"Are you telling us you don't know this boy?" Cardinal produced the photo of Keith London playing guitar.

"I don't. I don't know every kid that happens to play guitar."

Sutherland hadn't been phased at all by the picture. He was scared, yes, he was shaken, but the picture of Keith London did not seem any particular threat. Cardinal's certainty began to slip. He pulled out the picture of Katie Pine.

"That's the girl who was killed. I recognize her from the papers. Other than that I don't think I've ever seen her."

"She was in here two days before she disappeared. She bought a musical charm for her bracelet. You sell them out front."

"She could have got it somewhere else."

"She bought it here."

"I never saw the girl, I'm telling you. Look in the inventory, and you'll see."

"Inventory?"

"We've had computerized inventory for years, now. It'll tell you who sold the thing to her. It's not like we sell a million of them. Three or four a month, I'd say."