Forty Words for Sorrow

"Keith said he would probably stop off in Algonquin Bay- he'd call me when he got here."

"Miss Steen, Keith didn't want to go to the Soo, didn't want to see his relatives. Now, you say he wasn't angry with you, and I accept that, but why should we assume he's in trouble when he doesn't show up at a place he said quite clearly he didn't want to go to?"

"On its own, I agree, it wouldn't be alarming. But no letter? No phone call? No e-mail? After being so reliable about it? And you have these unsolved abductions here, these murders, right?"

Cardinal nodded. Miss Steen was holding her breath again, working her way to another thought. Cardinal waited for her to reach it. Lise Delorme leaned in the doorway, but Cardinal shook his head, warning her off. Miss Steen resolved whatever hesitations she had; when she spoke, her voice was louder. "I told you there was no letter this past week, Detective."

"Yes. You made quite a point of it."

"Well, that isn't quite true. And that's really why I'm here." Miss Steen reached into her purse and pulled out a manila envelope. "The letter's in here- the envelope, I mean; it isn't a letter. It's Keith's handwriting on the address, but there wasn't any letter inside."

"It arrived empty?" Cardinal took the manila envelope from her.

"Not empty." This time she didn't look at the floor. Her serious blue eyes looked directly into his.

Cardinal tore off the top sheet of his desk blotter pad and emptied the contents of the manila envelope onto a fresh sheet. The smaller, enclosed envelope was postmarked three days ago, Algonquin Bay. Using tweezers, Cardinal opened the flap, saw the yellowish, dried contents, and closed it again. He folded it into the clean blotter sheet and put both back inside the manila envelope.

In the brief silence that followed, Cardinal was certain of two things: Every word this young woman had told him was true, and- if he were not already dead- Keith London had very little time left to live.

He dialed Jerry Commanda's number, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. "When did this arrive?"

"This morning."

"And you came straight here?"

"Yes. It didn't occur to me for one moment that Keith did it. But he did address the envelope. I know his handwriting. I'm right to be frightened, don't you think?"

Jerry Commanda was on the line, now. "Jerry, this is important. I need to helicopter something down to Forensic. What are my chances?"

"Zero. If it's desperate, I might be able to weasel something out of the flight school. How urgent are we talking?"

"Very. I think our boy just mailed us a sample of his semen."

31

ALGONQUIN Bay's government dock is a quiet place on a winter evening. The only sounds are likely to be the sawtooth buzz of a passing snowmobile, or a sudden quake in the ice as massive plates shift against each other, emitting an otherworldly sigh, a slow-motion squeal, sometimes a horrendous gasp.

Eric Fraser and Edie Soames huddled side by side in a corner of the wharf out of the wind. Lake Nipissing stretched out into the gray like some bleak Nordic vision. Eric wasn't saying anything, but Edie was luxuriating in the thrill of knowing another mind so well that no words were necessary. In fact, she knew what Eric was going to say- he would say it any minute now. He'd been restless and irritable all morning and into the afternoon. And now, although taking the photographs was calming him a little, Edie knew where things were headed, even if Eric didn't. Any minute now, he would say it.

But Eric moved away to stand below the Chippewa Princess, a tour boat that had been turned into a restaurant- at least, during summer it was a restaurant; in winter, it hung clear of the ice like a white whale on a hoist. Eric adjusted a lens, cursing the cold. Edie fussed with her hair, trying to get it to hang across one eye like Drew Barrymore's in a movie she'd seen. Some hope, she thought bitterly. But at least it would hide some of her face.

Watching Eric in his long black coat, she wished they could sleep together. The problem was Eric didn't like it. His entire body would go stiff as a board when she touched him- not with desire, but with revulsion. At first she had thought the revulsion was directed just at her, no surprise there. But Eric seemed revolted by sex in general. Sex is for weaklings, he always said. Well, she could live without it, especially now that they shared this other, deeper excitement. He would say the word within the hour, she was sure.

"Move over." Eric motioned her to her left. "I want to get the islands in."