There was a noise from out front, and Delorme turned back to face her own desk. Low voices, laughter, a slamming locker. Delorme lifted the handset on Cardinal's phone and hit the automatic redial button. While waiting for it to pick up, she stared at a snapshot pinned next to Dyson's memo. It was a felon, obviously- a huge man with a flat head made flatter by a brush cut. He was leaning back, apparently at ease, on a car, his weight seriously depressing the vehicle's springs. Cops often kept pictures of their favorite collars, men who had shot them, that kind of thing.
Delorme's reflections were interrupted by a voice she recognized. "Office of Forensic Medicine."
"Oh, sorry. Wrong number."
Cardinal's top drawer was open, hardly the habit of a guilty man- on the other hand, possibly the calculated gesture of a man who was very guilty indeed.
The door banged open and a voice called out, "Well, well. Imagine my surprise to find the office of Special Investigations taking her own private inventory."
"Give me a break, McLeod. I work here now, remember?"
"On Sundays, too, apparently." McLeod was carrying a big cardboard box labeled CANADIAN TIRE. He eyed her suspiciously over the top through red-rimmed lids. "Thought I was the only dedicated bastard in this place."
"You are. I was just moving some of my stuff over," said Delorme.
"Fine. Welcome. Make yourself at home." McLeod slammed the box down on his desk. Something inside it clanked. "Just stay away from my desk."
CARDINAL called Vlatko Setevic in Forensic's Micro section. They had taken hair and fiber from Katie Pine's thawed-out body.
"Quite a few fibers we found. Indoor/outdoor stuff. The kind they use in cars or basements. Fibers are red, trilobal."
"Can you narrow it down to makes? Ford? Chrysler?"
"No chance. It's very common, except for the color."
"Tell me about the hair."
"Exactly one hair we found- other than the girl's own. Three inches long. Brown. Probably Caucasian."
Delorme looked disgusted when Cardinal told her the results. "It's no use for anything," she said, "unless we get another body."
Cardinal spent the next two days on the phone, chasing down the out-of-town cases: calls to originating police departments, calls to parents or others who made the initial complaints. Delorme helped out, when she wasn't following up on old robberies. They cleared five more cases. That left two that looked like they might have finished up in Algonquin Bay: a St. John's girl who had been seen in the local bus station and a sixteen-year-old boy from Mississauga, near Toronto.
Todd Curry had been reported missing in December. The notice was just the standard fax sent to all police departments in such cases; the photo was not high-definition. One thing caught Cardinal's eye: The kid's size was listed as five-four, ninety-five pounds. To a killer with a taste for runts, Todd Curry might look like prime prey.
Cardinal called the Peel Regional Police and established that none of the boy's parents or friends had heard from him in the past two months. Missing Persons gave him the name of a relative in Sudbury, Clark Curry.
"Mr. Curry, this is John Cardinal, Algonquin Police."
"I imagine you're calling about Todd."
"What makes you say that, sir?"
"The only time I hear from the police is when Todd is in trouble. Look, I'm just his uncle, I've done all I can. I can't take him back this time."
"We haven't found him. We're still trying to track him down."
"A Mississauga boy is being sought by the Algonquin Bay police? He's really turning into a federal case."
"Has Todd contacted you since December? December twentieth, to be exact?"
"No. He was missing all through Christmas- his parents were frantic, as you can imagine. He called me from Huntsville – this was the day he took off- called from Huntsville and says he's on the train, can he stay with me. I told him he could, but he never arrived, and I haven't heard anything since. You have to understand, this is one messed-up kid."
"In what way, sir? Drugs?"
"Todd got his first sniff of glue when he was ten and hasn't been the same since. Some kids can mess with drugs; other kids, they get one whiff and it becomes their vocation. Todd's one joy in life is getting high- if you can call that joy. Mind you, Dave and Edna say he's gone completely clean, but I doubt it. I doubt it very much."
"Will you do me a favor, sir? Will you call me if you do hear from Todd?" He gave Curry the number and hung up.
Cardinal hadn't taken a train in years, although he never passed by the station without remembering the long trip out west he and Catherine had taken on their honeymoon. They had spent practically the entire trip sequestered in their narrow, rocking bed. Cardinal checked with the CNR and learned that Huntsville was still the second-to-last stop on the Northlander before Algonquin Bay. There was no way to tell if Todd got off in South River or Algonquin Bay or not. He could have stayed in Huntsville, he could've continued north to Temagami or even Hearst.
