Forty Words for Sorrow

He called the duty sergeant, horse-faced, good-hearted Mary Flower, to dig up some statistics. It wasn't her job, but he knew Flower had a minor crush on him and she would do it. She called him back just as he was getting undressed to take a shower. Naked and goosebumped, he gripped the phone in the crook of his neck and struggled back into the sleeves of his bathrobe.

"Last ten years you said?" Mary had a piercing nasal whine of a voice that could peel paint. "You ready?"

For the next few minutes he was scribbling numbers onto a pad. Then he hung up and called Delorme; it took her a long time to answer. "Hey, Delorme," he said when she finally picked up. "Delorme, you awake?"

"I'm awake, John." A lie. Fully awake, she wouldn't have used his first name.

"Guess how many missing persons- adolescents- we had year before last."

"Including ones from out of town? I don't know. Seven? Eight?"

"Twelve. An even dozen. And the year before that we had ten. Year before that, eight. Year before that, ten. Year before that, ten again. You getting my drift?"

"Ten a year, give or take."

"Give or take exactly two. Ten each year."

Delorme's voice was suddenly clearer, sharper. "But you called to tell me about this past year, right?"

"This past year, the number of missing adolescents- again, including those from out of town- came to fourteen."

Delorme gave a low whistle.

"Here's how I see it. A guy kills a kid, Katie Pine, and discovers he's got a thing for it. It's the biggest thrill of his life. He grabs another kid, Billy LaBelle, and does it again. He's on a roll, but by this time the entire city is looking for missing children. He gets smart, he starts going after older kids. Kids from out of town. He knows there won't be the same uproar over a seventeen-year-old, an eighteen-year-old."

"Especially if they're from out of town."

"You should see. The open cases are from all over the map. Three from Toronto, but the rest are from hell and gone."

"You have the files at home? I'll come right over."

"No, no, we can meet in the squad room."

There was the briefest of pauses. "Jesus Christ, Cardinal. You think I'm still working Special? You think I'm investigating you? Tell me the truth."

"Oh, it's nothing like that," he said sweetly, thinking, God, I'm a good liar. "It's just, I'm a married man, Lise, and you're so all-out attractive, I don't trust myself with you."

There was a long pause. Then Delorme hung up.

9

THEY had the files spread out over three desks and were getting on the nerves of Ian McLeod, a red-haired, knobby, over-muscled cop with a well-nursed persecution complex. He was trying desperately to catch up on the backlog caused by the Corriveau case- a double murder at a hunting lodge. A good investigator, yes, but even on his best days, McLeod was a bad-tempered, foul-mouthed hard-ass; Corriveau had made him just about unbearable. "Can you guys maybe keep it down a little? Like not shout down the entire fucking building?"

"So sensitive these days," Cardinal said. "Have you been taking one of those New Male workshops?"

"I'm trying to catch up on anything that isn't Corriveau, okay? Some normal stuff. Believe it or not I had another fucking life before the Corriveau Brothers decided to murder their no-good stinking father-in-law and his no-good stinking partner. I still have another life- I just don't remember what it is right now, owing to the fact that I wake and sleep in this pathetic little butthole of a police station."

Cardinal tuned him out. "None of these cases has been cleared," he said to Delorme. "Let's divide the stack in two and run them down as fast as we can. Pretend they just landed on our desk. I mean, it doesn't look like anything was done."

"I heard that," McLeod yelled across the room. "I don't need my so-called brothers- oh, excuse me- my so-called brothers- and sisters-in-arms second-guessing me. You try chasing after runaway teenagers when His Majesty Judge Lucien 'N'-for-Numbnuts Thibeault has taken over your life. It's like he considers himself personally responsible for the legal rights of Corriveau Le Prick Incorporated."

"Nobody was talking about you, McLeod. You're getting paranoid in your old age."

"Detective John 'The Undead' Cardinal tells me not to be paranoid. That's when I really get paranoid. Meanwhile Judge Lucien 'A'-for-asshole Thibeault visits me in my dreams howling about chains of evidence and fruit of the goddam tainted tree. Fucking frogs all stick together."

"Watch your mouth, McLeod." Delorme wasn't that big, but she had a glare that could freeze your blood.

"I'll say what I want, thank you very much. My mother was as French as you- except, unlike you, she wasn't a closet separatist."

"Oh, boy."

"Leave it alone," Cardinal said to Delorme. "You don't want to talk politics with him."

"All I said was the Quebecois have some legitimate grievances. What the hell is he talking about?"

"Can we not get into it, please?"