Forty Words for Sorrow

"I won't beat around the bush, Mr. Fehrenbach." Cardinal pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and read the words he had copied there. "Five-four? Hundred and twenty pounds? Good things come in small packages, Galahad, and you certainly sound like the kind of package I'd love to receive."

Fehrenbach's response was surprising. Instead of shock, a look of disappointment crossed his face. Almost sadness. Cardinal read a little more: "In fact, I'll even pay the postage, if you'd care to mail yourself to me…"

"Where did you get it?" Fehrenbach took the paper from Cardinal's hand and scrutinized it through his bifocals. The corners of his mouth had gone white. The bifocals came off again, the eyebrows drew together over the hawkish nose. He would be stern in the classroom. "Officer, this is private correspondence, and you have no right to it. Have you heard of improper search and seizure? We happen to have a constitution in this country."

"Galahad is dead, Mr. Fehrenbach."

"Dead," he repeated, as if Cardinal were a student who had volunteered a wrong answer. "How can he possibly be dead?" A fine sweat had broken out on his upper lip.

"Just tell us about your meeting with him."

Fehrenbach folded his arms across his chest, a movement that threw muscles into sharp definition. You wouldn't want to piss him off, Cardinal thought, the man could do damage. "Look, I didn't know he was a kid- he told me he was twenty-one. Come in and I'll show you- it's still on disk. I can't believe he's dead. Oh, my God!" A hand flew to his mouth- a gesture egregiously feminine in a figure of such heroic proportions. "He's not the one that was found in that house, is he? The one who was…?"

"What makes you think that, Mr. Fehrenbach?"

"Well, the newspaper said that boy was from out of town. And he'd been dead a couple of- I don't know. Your manner suggested it."

Nothing about him betrayed guilt, but Cardinal understood that the person who had killed Katie Pine and Todd Curry could be anyone. He had planned his killings and he had tape-recorded at least one of them. That spoke of control. The profile had said the killer would be able to hold down a job, and he might well prefer employment that kept him near kids.

"Look, Officer Cardinal. I'm a high-school teacher, and Algonquin Bay is a small place. If this gets out, I'm finished."

"If what gets out?" Delorme put in. "If what gets out, Mr. Fehrenbach?"

"That I'm gay. I mean, this is not just a local case anymore- even the Toronto Star's going on about the Windigo, now. And the e-mail- how's that going to look on Channel Four? You have to understand something: From the gay perspective, e-mail is safe sex. It's infinitely preferable to cruising bars or-"

"But you weren't going to leave it at e-mail," Delorme insisted. "You arranged for Todd to come up here. To stay with you."

"You know what my first words were to that boy when he showed up on my doorstep? Oh, no. God's truth. I looked at him standing there- a little runt of a thing, and I said to him, Oh, no- this will never do. Not a chance. You're far too young. You can't stay here."

Cardinal had telephoned Kelly the previous night, sending roommates scurrying in search of her, finally dragging her out of the studio where she had been working late. Her take on Fehrenbach: "Jack Fehrenbach is a world-class teacher, Daddy. He gets you involved in the material, gets you thinking about history. Yes, he makes you learn your dates and numbers, but he also forces you to think about causes and effects. He's enthusiastic as hell, but he doesn't try to be your buddy, know what I mean? He was kind of aloof, when you get right down to it." In response to Cardinal's observation that the man was gay: "Every student in Algonquin High knows Mr. Fehrenbach is gay- and not one of them cares. That should tell you something. You know they'd be merciless, if he gave them any reason. He never did. He's just not the kind of guy students give a hard time to." In short, Jack Fehrenbach was one of the three best teachers Kelly'd ever had- and she didn't even like history.

Cardinal wasn't about to let his only suspect know any of this. "You'll appreciate, Mr. Fehrenbach- having read what we've read- that it's a little hard to believe you decided to turn this kid away. Suddenly you were so concerned about correct behavior."