air of the well laid. Then he backed out of his space and drove off.
‘Well, at least Cynthia wasn’t in there. That’s something,’ Feckworth said. ‘Maybe I should just head home now and hope for the best.’
The door to Room 12 opened again and an attractive woman peered out for a moment before closing the door behind her. She buttoned up her coat against the chill night air and headed toward the exit.
The mayor jumped out of the car and ran to block her path. Cardinal rolled up his window, not wanting to hear. His cell phone buzzed.
‘Cardinal, why the hell don’t you answer your bloody radio?’
‘I’m in my own car, Sergeant Flower. It’s too boring to explain.’
‘All right, listen. We got a caller says there’s a dead one behind Gateway condos. You know the new building?’
‘The Gateway? Just off the bypass? I didn’t even realize it was finished yet. Are we sure it isn’t a drunk sleeping it off?’
‘We’re sure. Patrol on the scene already confirmed.’
‘All right. I’m just a few blocks away.’
The mayor and his wife were quarrelling. Cynthia Feckworth had her arms folded across her chest, head bowed. Her husband faced her, hands extended, palms out, in the classic gesture of the pleading mate. An employee was outlined in the doorway of the motel office, watching.
The mayor didn’t even notice as Cardinal drove away.
The Gateway building was in the east end of town, one of the few high-rises in an area that was breaking out in new strip malls every day. In fact the ground floor of the building was a mini-mall with a dry cleaner, a convenience store, and a large computer-repair concern called CompuClinic that had moved here from Main Street. The businesses had been open for a while, but many of the building’s apartments were still unsold. Road crews were working on a new cloverleaf to accommodate traffic to and from the burgeoning neighbourhood, if it could be called a neighbourhood. Cardinal had to drive through a gauntlet of orange witches’ hats and then detour by the new Tim Hortons and Home Depot to get there.
He passed a row of newly built ‘townhomes’, most still unoccupied, although lights were on in a few of them. There was a PT Cruiser parked in front of the last one, and Cardinal thought for a second that it was Catherine’s. Once or twice a year he had such moments: a sudden worry that Catherine was in trouble – manic and somewhere dangerous, or depressed and suicidal – and then relief to find it was not so.
He pulled into the Gateway’s driveway and parked under a sign that said RESIDENT PARKING ONLY; VISITORS PARK ON STREET. A uniformed cop was standing beside a ribbon of crime-scene tape.
‘Oh, hi, Sergeant,’ he said as Cardinal approached. He looked about eighteen years old, and Cardinal could not for the life of him remember his name. ‘Got a dead woman back there. Looks like she took a nasty fall. Thought I’d better secure a perimeter till we know what’s what.’
Cardinal looked beyond him into the area behind the building. All he could see were a Dumpster and a couple of cars.
‘Did you touch anything?’
‘Um, yeah. I checked the body for a pulse and there wasn’t one. And I searched pockets for ID but didn’t find any. Could be a resident, I guess, went off one of those balconies.’
Cardinal looked around. Usually there was a small crowd at such scenes. ‘No witnesses? No one heard anything?’
‘Building’s mostly empty, I think, except for the businesses on the ground floor. There was no one around when I got here.’
‘Okay. Let me borrow your flashlight.’
The kid handed it over and let Cardinal by before attaching the end of the tape to a utility pole.
Cardinal walked in slowly, not wanting to ruin the scene by assuming the kid’s idea of a fall was correct. He went by the Dumpster, which seemed to be full of old computers. A keyboard dangled over the side by its cable, and there were a couple of circuit boards that appeared to have exploded on the ground.
The body was just beyond the Dumpster, face down, dressed in a tan fall coat with leather at the cuffs.
‘I don’t see any of the windows or doors open on any of the balconies up there,’ the young cop said. ‘Probably the super’ll be able to give us an ID.’
‘Her ID’s in the car,’ Cardinal said.
The young cop looked around. There were two cars parked along the side of the building.
‘I don’t get it,’ the young cop said. ‘You know which car is hers?’
But Cardinal did not appear to be listening. The young cop watched in astonishment as Sergeant John Cardinal – star player on the CID team, veteran of the city’s highest profile cases, legendary for his meticulous approach to crime scenes – went down on his knees in the pool of blood and cradled the shattered woman in his arms.
Normally, Lise Delorme would have been irritated at being called in on her day off. It happened all the time, but that didn’t make it any less annoying to be hauled out of whatever you were doing. She had been at a pub, enjoying a particularly pungent curry with a new boyfriend – a very good-looking lawyer only a year or two her junior – whom she had met when he unsuccessfully defended a long-time thug Delorme had nabbed for extortion. This was their third date, and even though the concept of sleeping with a lawyer was extremely hard for her to accept, Delorme had been planning to invite him in for a drink when he took her home. Shane Cosgrove was his name.
It would have been sexier if Shane had been a better lawyer. Delorme actually thought his thuggy client should have gotten off, considering the meagre pile of evidence she had managed to put together. But still, he was good looking and good company and such men, single, were hard to come by in a place the size of Algonquin Bay.
When she returned to the table, Shane asked her if she needed to lie down, she had turned that white. Detective Sergeant Chouinard had just told her that the victim was John Cardinal’s wife and that Cardinal himself was at the scene. A patrol unit had called Chouinard at home and Chouinard had in turn called Delorme.
‘Get him out of there, Lise,’ he had said. ‘Whatever else is going on inside him right now, Cardinal’s been a cop for thirty years. He knows as well as you and me that until we rule out foul play, he’s suspect number one.’
‘DS,’ Delorme said, ‘Cardinal’s been absolutely loyal to his wife through a lot of –’
‘A lot of shit. Yes, I know that. I also know it’s possible he finally got fed up. It’s possible some little straw just broke the camel’s back. So get your ass over there and make sure you think dirty. That place is a homicide scene until such time as we rule out foul play.’
So there was no irritation in Delorme’s heart as she drove across town, only sorrow. Although she had met Cardinal’s wife
