Forty Words for Sorrow

"Okay," she said, when he told her Katie's body had been found. Just the one word, "Okay," and she started to shut the door. Case closed. Her only child was dead. Cops- let alone white cops- could be of no assistance here.

"Mrs. Pine, I wonder if you'd let me in for a few minutes. I've been off the case for a couple of months and I need to refresh my memory."

"What for? You found her now."

"Well, yes, but now we want to catch whoever killed her."

He had the feeling that, had he not mentioned it, the thought of tracking down the man who killed her daughter would never have entered Dorothy Pine's head. All that mattered was the fact of her death. She gave a slight shrug, humoring him, and he stepped past her into the house.

The smell of bacon clung to the hallway. Although it was nearly noon, the living room curtains were still drawn. Electric heaters had dried the air and killed the plants that hung withered on a shelf. The place was dark as a mausoleum. Death had entered this house five months ago; it had never left.

Dorothy Pine sat down on a circular footstool in front of the television where Wile E. Coyote was noisily chasing the Roadrunner. Her arms hung down between her knees, and tears plopped in miniature splashes onto the linoleum floor.

All those weeks Cardinal had tried to find the little girl, through the hundreds of interviews of classmates, friends, and teachers, through the thousands of phone calls, the thousands of fliers, he had hoped that Dorothy Pine would come to trust him. She never did. For the first two weeks she telephoned daily, not only identifying herself every time but explaining why she was calling. "I was just wondering if you found my daughter, Katharine Pine," as if Cardinal might have forgotten to look. Then she'd stopped calling altogether.

Cardinal took Katie's high-school photograph out of his pocket, the photograph they'd used to print all those fliers that had asked of bus stations and emergency wards, of shopping malls and gas stations, Have You Seen This Girl? Now the killer had answered, oh yes he had seen this girl all right, and Cardinal slipped the photograph on top of the television.

"Do you mind if I look at her room again?"

A shake of the dark head, a shudder in the shoulders. Another tiny splash on the linoleum floor. Husband murdered, and now her daughter, too. Eskimos, it is said, have forty different words for snow. Never mind about snow, Cardinal mused, what people really need is forty words for sorrow. Grief. Heartbreak. Desolation. There were not enough, not for this childless mother in her empty house.

Cardinal went down a short hallway to a bedroom. The door was open, and a yellow bear with one glass eye frowned at him from the windowsill. Under the bear's threadbare paws lay a woven rug with a horse pattern. Dorothy Pine sold these rugs at the Hudson Bay store on Lakeshore. The store charged a hundred and twenty bucks, but he doubted if Dorothy Pine saw much of it. Outside, a chainsaw was ripping into wood, and somewhere a crow was cawing.

There was a toy bench under the windowsill. Cardinal opened it with his foot and saw that it still contained Katie's books. Black Beauty, Nancy Drew, stories his own daughter had enjoyed as a girl. Why do we think they're so different from us? He opened the chest of drawers- the socks and underwear neatly folded.

There was a little box of costume jewelry that played a tune when opened. It contained an assortment of rings and earrings and a couple of bracelets- one leather, one beaded. Katie had been wearing a charm bracelet the day she disappeared, Cardinal remembered. Stuck in the dresser mirror, a series of four photographs taken by a machine of Katie and her best friend making hideous faces.

Cardinal regretted leaving Delorme at the squad room to chase after Forensic. She might have seen something in Katie's room that he was missing, something only a female would notice.

Gathering dust at the bottom of the closet were several pairs of shoes, including a patent leather pair with straps- Mary Janes? Cardinal had bought a pair for Kelly when she was seven or eight. Katie Pine's had been bought at the Salvation Army, apparently; the price was still chalked on the sole. There were no running shoes; Katie had taken her Nikes to school the day she disappeared, carrying them in her knapsack.

Pinned to the back of the closet door was a picture of the high-school band. Cardinal didn't recall Katie being in the band. She was a math whiz. She had represented Algonquin Bay in a provincial math contest and had come in second. The plaque was on the wall to prove it.

He called out to Dorothy Pine. A moment later, she came in, red-eyed, clutching a shredded Kleenex. "Mrs. Pine, that's not Katie in the front row of that picture, is it? The girl with the dark hair?"

"That's Sue Couchie. Katie used to fool around on my accordion sometimes, but she wasn't in no band. Sue and her was best friends."