Until the Night (13 page)

He doesn’t understand a word, Wyndham said.

He’s Polar Inuit, I said, from the tip of Greenland. They don’t get out much.

That’s four hundred miles away. What the hell would he be doing out here? Vanderbyl said, warming his hands over the stove.

Lika-Lodinn, I said.

What?

In the Norse sagas, Lika-Lodinn collected the frozen bodies of adventurers and returned them to the people they came from.

Well, he’s making it pretty clear he wants nothing to do with us, so what’s he doing hanging around in our mess?

He’s waiting to be paid.

7

W
HEN THEY GOT TO
O
TTAWA
, it was grey and just above freezing, with a cold rain falling. Technical difficulties had delayed their takeoff, and by the time they arrived at the Forensic Centre on Vanier, the autopsy on Marjorie Flint was over and they had to have the pathologist paged.

Dr. Motram was a young man who chewed gum constantly while he listened to them and even between his own sentences. Cardinal had an irrational prejudice against gum chewers and had to remind himself that it didn’t mean a person lacked intelligence. In the pathologist’s case, it might represent a token defence against his sometimes fragrant clientele.

“She’s still on the table,” he said. “Would you like to see her?”

The autopsy suite was like all such places except a lot bigger. There were eight tables, though only one was occupied.

Dr. Motram pulled the sheet back. A moment you never quite get used to. Pitiless Y incision coarsely sewn. As Motram spoke, he pointed to various parts of the woman’s body, points of interest on a map.

“As you can see, we have frostbite to both hands, even the nose and ears. Those violet-coloured patches over the hip joint and over the knees are called frost erythema—probably caused by capillary damage from the
cold and plasma leakage. Ottawa’s one cold city, surrounded by rugged country, and we’ve got the same homeless problems as anybody else, but I’ve never in my life seen frostbite this bad. She was out there a long time before she died.”

“She went missing nearly two weeks ago,” Cardinal said.

Motram nodded. “There’s post-mortem damage as well, notably a skull fracture from freezing of the brain. Internally, we’ve got Wischnewsky spots on the stomach mucosa. Those, in combination with the frost erythema, make hypothermia the cause of death. The electrolytes get totally out of whack and you end up with a ventricular fibrillation. That’s finally what killed her.”

“What day do you think she died?”

“The freezing makes it impossible to be precise, but I’d say she’s been dead five or six days.”

“So she lived through the cold for several days,” Delorme said. “He left her food and coffee. He wanted to make it last.”

“Or maybe he didn’t really want her to die,” Motram said. “Maybe he thought someone else would come along.”

“You didn’t see where she was found.”

Motram folded his arms and chewed his gum for a moment. He pointed to the wrists and ankles. “Restraint marks obviously—padded restraints is my guess. They would have contributed to the advanced frostbite in the hands.”

“You see any signs of struggle?” Cardinal asked. The body—reddened here, blackened there—showed no slash marks, no scratches.

“She struggled against the restraints, certainly. But you mean a fight?”

“Yes, a fight.”

“On that score, I’d have to say no. No defensive wounds, no scratches. No sign of sexual trauma, or recent sexual activity of any kind for that matter. Nothing under the fingernails, what’s left of them. Clearly she was tearing at the restraints, whatever they were.”

“Cuffs,” Delorme said. “Padded steel cuffs.”

Motram regarded her, stopped chewing.
“C’est triste, non?”

Delorme nodded, looking at the thing on the table that had recently loved, wept, had hopes. Marjorie Flint heads home to make dinner for her senator husband, with no idea of what the night will bring.

Motram turned and snapped on the light box and pointed to one of the images that showed a clear fracture. “She was a skier. Couple of old
injuries to the ulna and clavicle, but this one—that’s the left tibia. She fractured her shinbone trying to break out of those cuffs.”

He gestured to the row of large glass jars, their organic contents suspended in fluid. “She was a healthy woman for fifty-five. Major organs disease free. Arteries, heart and lungs clear. You can see the hemorrhagic spots there. Stomach contents indicate her last meal was about twenty-four hours pre-mortem.”

“How accurate is that?” Cardinal asked. “She was pretty locked down.”

“I’m taking that into account. Twenty-four hours, give or take two hours. Digestion was long over. But I’m saving the best for last.”

He snapped off the light box and the three of them turned once more to the body. He pointed to the graceful region behind the clavicle where shoulder joins neck. “See those?”

Cardinal and Delorme leaned forward together.

“Needle sticks,” Motram said. “As you can see, whoever administered it was no expert. Took more than a couple of stabs at it. In fact, you asked about struggle, and I guess that could be a sign she was struggling when she was injected. Hard to tell. Anyway, subcutaneous residue shows traces of ketamine.”

“Is that long-acting?” Cardinal remembered the hospital room, the smells of plastic and disinfectant, his mother half devoured by disease.

“Not really. He’s not hitting veins, so he’d have to reinject. I have the report from toxicology in my office, and I’ll give it to you when we go up. The findings indicate it would have worn off long before she died.”

Cardinal and Delorme went to the evidence room, where Marjorie Flint’s clothes were spread out on a table.

“There was more than three hundred dollars in her wallet,” Cardinal said. “And there’s no sign of sexual assault. No robbery, no rape. What are your thoughts so far?”

“On motive? I don’t think the person who did this had any motive. The only motive is he wants her to die—slowly, painfully—and it makes me sick. A woman will kill you. A woman will have a rage and kill her husband, her child even, but something like this? Only a man would do this—it’s always men brutalizing women, and I just get so sick of it. You
see a crime like this, does it ever occur to you that maybe there are just too many men in this world? Not too many people—too many men.”

“Yes, it does, Lise. What can you tell me about the clothes?”

“The jacket we know—it’s a North Wind, goose down, of a very popular blue colour. Not the black cashmere she was last seen wearing. The blouse, sweater, underwear—all good labels. A senator’s wife, what do you expect?”

“You can give me more than that. I mean, the boots alone …”

“Exactly, John. The boots alone. What are the chances that a woman who wears Hermès, Holt Renfrew, a Patek Philippe watch is going to go walking around the nation’s capital in a pair of Kodiak boots?”

“I know,” Cardinal said. “If it wasn’t for the fact she was chained up, you’d think the guy was concerned for her safety.”

“Amazing what a difference a few chains can make. And no gloves?”

“Yeah,” Cardinal said, and picked up one of the rags—parts of a torn shirt that had been wrapped around the victim’s hands. “And where did she get these?”

“The Ottawa guys say the husband didn’t recognize the jacket or the boots. Someone went out and bought them for her, John. Went out and got outdoor clothes in her size. I don’t think it was out of kindness.”

“Lise …”

“What?”

“Take it easy. We’re in this for the long haul.”

“Forty below, John. Forty below.”

“I know. I get it. There’s a man out there who should not be at large. And a woman is dead who should not be. But there are things we can do—things for
her
, Lise—and if we do them right, we’ll come up with an answer here and an answer there and sooner or later those answers will put us on the right road. At the end of that road, we find our man and we get him off the streets for good.”

“And everything is wonderful and the world is a good place.”

“No. We lock him up and go after the next one. Anything else is just a one-way ticket to misery.”

Cardinal dropped Delorme off at the Ottawa police headquarters, where they’d been allocated a desk and not much else. The rain looked like it
was about to freeze. He drove through town to Rockcliffe Park, listening to the French-language CBC. He had been trying to learn French off and on for a couple of years now, something he had not mentioned to Delorme because he suspected she would laugh. The announcer was talking about climate change and sea ice, he could make out that much—but only because he’d read the same story in the
Globe and Mail
at the airport.

Cardinal had never been to Rockcliffe Park before. Right in the middle of town, and yet it had patches of what looked like a private forest. There were no sidewalks and lots of walls and many of the houses were not even visible from the road. He passed one that appeared to be constructed of glass and gold.

The Flint house was more modest, a three-storey mock Tudor with grounds the size of a small game reserve. Cardinal pulled into a semicircular drive and parked near a garage that was bigger than the house he used to live in. He switched off the car and picked up his briefcase and thought a minute about what he would say. Cardinal had talked to a few MPs in his time, but never to a senator. In the dark forests of Canadian politics, senators are mythical creatures rarely seen, their powers (if any) uncertain. Cardinal did not know what to expect.

He got out and went up the front steps in the cold drizzle and rang the bell. The door was answered by the senator’s daughter, who was on her way out.

“He’s expecting me,” Cardinal said. “I phoned ahead.”

“He’s in mourning, for God’s sake. He’s already talked to the Ottawa police. Can’t you come back?”

“Someone has done a terrible thing to you and your family, and I want to put that person where he belongs. I’m pretty sure your father will want to help.”

She scanned his face and opened the door wider. Cardinal stepped into a vast foyer composed entirely of oak panelling and works of art. She took his coat and Cardinal heeled off his galoshes.

“May I give you a little tip, Detective?”

“Please.”

“Despite my father’s manner, he’s not the tough guy he may appear. It’s easy to misread him.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

He followed her down a short corridor to a small room where her father was watching a flat-panel TV. A black-and-white movie.

The senator got up and shook hands. He was about Cardinal’s age, but he steadied himself on the arms of his chair as he sat down again. Hollowed out with grief, as if he might be blown away by the slightest breeze. Skin tone the shade of grey that speaks of extreme stress. White-collar criminals turn that shade after their first week in jail. And people who have lost what they most love.

The senator clicked off the TV sound but left the picture. Edward G. Robinson in a priest’s outfit, looking dyspeptic but caring.

“First, let me say I’m very sorry for what you’re going through, Senator.”

“Thanks.” The senator looked at him, the whites of his eyes webbed with red. “Siddown. And call me David.”

Some kind of western flatness in his voice. Cardinal remembered that Senator David J. Flint had grown up in the Yukon.

“I’ll tell ya, a time like this, whatever else it is, is utterly fuckin exhausting. I hope you don’t mind a little cussing.”

“You swear all you want, Senator.”

“Nobody’s got the least crumb of an idea what this is like. Not one fuckin micron. Couple of my friends, sure, their wives have
died
—but this is just a whole different … I just—this is not somethin a man can prepare for.”

“I know,” Cardinal said.

The senator closed his eyes, and Cardinal knew what he was thinking. Before he opened them again, Cardinal said, “My wife was murdered too.”

The senator opened his eyes. “Really.”

“A couple of years ago now.”