Forty Words for Sorrow

Dr. Barnhouse began in a formal voice: "We are looking at the frozen remains of an adolescent- Damn." He rapped sharply at the microcassette in his gloved paw. "Always acts up in the cold." He cleared his throat and began again in a less declamatory manner. "We're looking at the remains of an adolescent human- decay and animal activity preclude positive determination of sex at this time. Torso is unclothed, lower part of the body is clothed in denim jeans, right arm is missing, as is the left foot. Facial features are obliterated by animal activity, mandible is missing. Christ," he said. "Just a child."

Cardinal thought he heard a tremor in Barnhouse's voice; he would not have trusted his own. It wasn't just the deterioration- all of them had seen worse: victims of hunting accidents, drowning victims- it was that the remains were preserved in a perfect rectangle of ice perhaps eight inches thick. Eyeless sockets stared up through the ice into the pitch dark over their heads. One of the eyes had been pulled away and lay frozen above the shoulder; the other was missing entirely.

"Hair is detached from the skull- black, shoulder length- and pelvis shows anterior striations which may indicate a female- it's not possible to say without further examination, precluded at this time by the body's being fixed in a block of ice formed by conditions peculiar to the site."

Jerry Commanda swung his light up to the rough boards overhead and back down to the depressed concrete platform below them. "Roof leaks big time. You can see the ice through it."

Others swung their lights up and looked at the stripes of ice between the boards. Shadows leapt and darted in the eyeless sockets.

"Those three warm days in December when everything melted," Jerry went on. "The body probably covers a drain, and when the ice melted, the place filled up with water. Temperature dropped again and froze it right there."

"It's like she's preserved in amber," Delorme said.

Barnhouse resumed. "No clothing on or near the remains, except for jeans of blue denim that- I already said that, didn't I? Yes, I'm sure I did. Gross destruction of tissue in the abdominal region, all of the viscera and most major organs missing, whether due to perimortem trauma or postmortem animal activity impossible to say. Portions of lung are visible, upper lobes on both sides."

"Katie Pine," Cardinal said. He hadn't meant to say it aloud. He knew it would provoke a reaction, and it came at full volume.

"I hope you're not telling me you recognize that poor girl from her high-school yearbook. Until such time as the upper jaw may be matched with dental records, any identification is out of the question."

"Thank you, Doctor," Cardinal said quietly.

"There's no call for sarcasm, Detective. Remission or no, I'm not putting up with sarcasm." Barnhouse turned his baleful eye once more upon the object at their feet. "Extremities, those that remain, are nearly skeletonized, but I believe that's a healed greenstick fracture in the radius of the left forearm." He stepped back from the edge of the depression and folded his arms belligerently in front of his chest. "Gentlemen- and lady- I'm going to remove myself from this investigation, which will clearly require the services of the Forensic Center. As Lake Nipissing falls under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Provincial Police, I'm officially turning the investigation over to you, Mister Commanda."

Jerry said, "If this is Katie Pine, here, the investigation belongs to the city."

"But surely Katie Pine is one of yours? From the reserve?"

"She was abducted from the fairground by Memorial Gardens. That makes it a city case- has been since she disappeared. Cardinal's case."

"Nevertheless," Barnhouse insisted, "pending positive identification, I'm turning it over to you."

"Fine, Doctor," Jerry said. "John, you can run it. I know it's Katie."

"You can't possibly know. Look at the thing. " Barnhouse pointed with his recorder. "Except for the clothes, it barely looks human."

Cardinal said softly, "Katie Pine fractured the radius in her left arm when she was learning to skateboard."

FIVE of them were scrunched in the ident van. Barnhouse had gone, and the two uniforms were waiting in the stake truck. Cardinal practically had to shout over the roar of the heater. "We're going to need rope: As of now, the whole island is our perimeter. There was no blood and no sign of struggle in the shafthead, so this is probably not the murder scene, only a dump site. Even so, I don't want any curious snowmobilers zipping through the evidence, so let's get it good and secure."

Delorme handed him the cell phone. "I've got Forensic. Len Weisman."

"Len, we've got a body here frozen solid in a block of ice. Adolescent, probable murder. If we cut the block of ice and ship it to you entire in a refrigerated truck, can you handle something like that?"