Forty Words for Sorrow

Home. Suddenly Cardinal wished Catherine was here beside him. He never knew when it would hit, this ache. Hours would go by when he thought of nothing but the case he was working; then he would notice a pressure building in his chest, a hurt and a hunger. He wished Catherine was with him- even Catherine mad, even Catherine with delusions.

It was getting darker now, and the snow was flapping around the car like lace curtains.

THE snow was still coming down the next day as Cardinal and Delorme sat in Dyson's office while he read to them from the RCMP's profile of the killer. How the detective sergeant had got Ottawa headquarters to respond so quickly was a mystery to Cardinal. The fax wires must have been humming. And now- this was so like Dyson it verged on self-parody- he was making fun of the document he had gone to so much trouble to secure.

"Analysis of site photographs is hampered by the fact that only one is the site of a murder. The island mineshaft is a dump site only. Oh, really. That's wonderful." Dyson addressed himself to the report he was holding. "Tell me something else I don't know."

He didn't look up. Just flipped through a couple of pages, breezing his way through a paragraph here, a paragraph there. "Differing causes of death… asphyxiation… blunt trauma… Blah and blah and again blah. Boy attacked while seated… facing attacker, indicating knew attacker and to some degree trusted… Well, we know all this."

Cardinal said, "What I don't understand is why you tapped the RCMP profilers so soon. I would have waited till we had more to give them."

"And when might that be?"

"You should have kept me informed. We all know the Horsemen can destroy a case faster than you can say Musical Ride. I mean, look at Kyle Corbett, for God's sake. I don't even want to speculate how they screwed that one up. But their profilers are a different story, and Grace Legault- who we may as well call Miss General Public- called me last night and wanted to know when we'd be calling them in. I told her we had no need to call in RCMP profilers, OPP profilers, or any other damn profilers and now I'm going to look like an idiot."

"Look, it was the chief's idea and it was a good one. You should be thanking him. Haven't you ever heard of a preemptive strike? This'll keep the media off our backs with this call-in-the-feds crap. And it gets us points with our brothers and sisters in red, always a good thing."

"But there's nothing here Toronto Forensic can't handle-"

Dyson didn't wait to hear the further thoughts of John Cardinal. He plowed on, "Girl taken from crowded place… no visible struggle… again indicating degree of familiarity…"

"Children, even teenagers will trust anyone if they're approached the right way," Delorme said. "Remember we had that molester a few years ago who would pretend to be from the hospital and tell them their mother was in Emergency."

"I'm just amazed that they call this a service." Dyson tapped the report.

"One dump site and thirty seconds with some photographs," Cardinal said. "No profiler's going to come up with much under those circumstances."

"Suddenly you're in love with the Horsemen? How many murder scenes has this so-called profiler worked, that's what I want to know."

"That's Joanna Prokop. She profiled Laurence Knapschaefer right down to the type of car he drove. She's got more brains than the entire O division put together."

Dyson flipped to the last page and glared at the summary he found there. "Nature of both sites indicates loner… Knowledge of mineshaft indicates local resident… Ah, here we are: This killer shows characteristics of both the organized and disorganized type. He's not afraid to face intended victims head-on. Has requisite social skills- surface ones- to entice a young person into dangerous circumstances. The abandoned house, the mineshaft, the tape recording, all indicate careful planning. Careful planning suggests attacker probably holds a steady job. May be an obsessive cleaner or neat freak, a list-maker. May hold a job that requires a high degree of organization. Todd Curry didn't look very neat to me, but no doubt we have different housekeeping standards than the Horsemen. Or Horseladies, sorry.

"On the other hand," he read on, "evidence of frenzy in the Curry murder indicates explosive personality… Killer will be someone who is missing more and more days of work, getting more and more out of control. Really, what they expect us to do with this I can't imagine. According to this, you're looking for Jekyll and Hyde. Which is all very well if he happens to be in Hyde mode. But how do you know him when he's Jekyll?"

"Not by sitting in here all day." Cardinal got up and left.

Delorme would have followed, but Dyson stopped her. "Hold on a second. Was it my imagination or was he a little too touchy?"

Delorme could not miss the change in tone. They weren't talking about Pine-Curry, now. "I think he's just pissed off that you didn't keep him informed."