The Delicate Storm (2 page)

Cardinal had to take it slow up Algonquin. The fog that had been blanketing the region for the past few days was thickest at the bottom of Airport Hill. The end of January and it was as warm as April. Normally this time of year you’d expect blinding blue skies and temperatures so far below zero it didn’t bear thinking about. But the fog was beginning to have a permanent look.

“Of course, there’s no such thing as global warming,” Cardinal said, trying to shake his father out of his mood.

“She talked to me like I was six years old,” Stan said.

“She told you the truth. Telling someone the truth is a mark of respect.”

“Like you don’t have better things to do than drive me all over hell’s half acre.”

“Well, you’re always telling me I’m in a lousy line of work.”

“Which is true. Why you want to spend your time chasing lunatics and vagabonds is beyond me. Or those domestics you get? Husbands so drunk they can’t stand up? You and I both know the only reason anyone ever gets caught is because the crooks are even dumber than the—Where are you going, John? That was my driveway back there.”

“Sorry. Can’t see a thing with this fog.”

“Look, you can just make out the squirrel there.”

Stan Cardinal had a huge copper squirrel in his front yard, an ancient weather vane he’d salvaged years ago. The fog lent it a nightmarish cast. Cardinal made a careful U-turn and pulled into the drive.

“Give me a call tomorrow and we’ll get you to the cardiologist. If I can’t do it, Catherine will be happy to—Hold on.” His cellphone was buzzing.

“Cardinal, where are you?” It was Duty Sergeant Mary Flower. “We got a 10-47 at Main and MacPherson and we need everyone we’ve got.”

“I’m on it.” He clicked off the phone. “Gotta run,” he said to Stan. “Call Catherine later and let her know what time tomorrow.”

“Major crisis, is it? Another one of your domestics, I bet.”

“Actually, it’s a bank robbery.”

The Federal Trust was right downtown, on Main Street—a low, red brick structure that made no attempt to blend in with the century-old buildings that surrounded it. Cardinal didn’t bank there, but he remembered going inside with his father as a kid. By the time he pulled up in front, there were already three black-and-whites parked at crazy angles in the street and on the sidewalk.

Ken Szelagy, the size of a grizzly bear and by his own description a mad Hungarian, was at the door, jabbering into his cellphone. He raised a hand as Cardinal approached. “Guy’s long gone. We’re trying to get access to the security tape right now. Gonna be fun looking for him in this pea soup, eh?”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Nope. Shaken up some, though.”

“Delorme inside?”

“Yeah. She’s got things pretty much under control.”

Lise Delorme, in addition to being a first-class detective, had a calm, reasonable manner that was a real asset in dealing with the public. She had compelling physical qualities, too, but right now it was that reasonable manner that counted. Cardinal had handled several bank robberies, and usually it meant a scene of excitement verging on hysteria. But Delorme had got all the employees sitting quietly at their desks, waiting to be interviewed. Cardinal found her talking to the manager in his glass-fronted office.

The manager himself hadn’t seen anything of the robbery but led them to the young teller who just minutes before had been looking at the barrel of a gun. Cardinal let Delorme ask the questions.

“He was wearing a scarf over his face,” the teller said. “A plaid scarf. He had it pulled up like an outlaw, you know, in a western. It all happened so fast.”

“What about his voice?” Delorme said. “What did he sound like?”

“I never heard his voice. He didn’t say anything—at least, I don’t think so. He just stood there staring at me and passed a note over the counter. It was terrifying.”

“Do you still have that note?”

She shook her head. “He took it with him.”

Cardinal glanced around. There was a balled-up piece of paper at his feet. He picked it up and opened it by the edges, trying to preserve any fingerprints. There was typing on one side, and on the other, printed in pencil with idiosyncratic spelling:
Don’t make a sound or I’ll shot. Don’t press any alarms or I’ll shot. Hand over all the money in your droor
.

“I emptied the top drawer and put it in a manila envelope. That’s what we’re supposed to do in this situation, we’re just supposed to do what they ask. He shoved the money in his knapsack.”

“What colour was the knapsack?”

“Red.”

“Are you sure he said nothing at all?” Delorme said. “I’m sure it happened very quickly, but try and think back.”

“He said, ‘Just do it.’ Something like that. Oh, and ‘Hurry up.’”

“Did he have an accent?” Delorme asked. “English? French Canadian?” Her own accent was light French Canadian. The only time Cardinal noticed it was when she was angry.

“I was so terrified he was going to shoot me, I didn’t notice.”

“Oh my God,” Cardinal said, staring at the other side of the note. “It’s Wudky.” He stepped away from the counter and gestured for Delorme to follow.

“What the hell is a Wudky?” she wanted to know. Delorme had worked the mostly white-collar arena of Special Investigations for six years before moving to CID. There were gaps in her knowledge of the local fauna.

“WDC—or Wudky—short for World’s Dumbest Criminal. Wudky is Robert Henry Hewitt.”

“You’re saying you know this Hewitt’s the guy?”

Cardinal handed her the note. “Hold it by the edge, there.”

Delorme peered at both sides of the note, then caught her breath. “It’s an old arrest warrant. The guy writes a holdup note on the back of his own arrest warrant? I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t win the title of World’s Dumbest Criminal by half-measures. Robert Henry Hewitt is a real champ, and I happen to know where he lives.”

“Well, so do I. It’s right here on his holdup note.”

Robert Henry Hewitt lived in the basement apartment of a miniature, rundown house tucked into the crevasse of a rock cut behind Ojibwa Secondary School. Cardinal stopped the car in a grey swirl of fog. They could just make out the row of dented garbage cans at the end of the driveway. “Looks like we beat him home.”

“If he isn’t home by now, what makes you think he’s coming?”

Cardinal shrugged. “It’s the dumbest thing I can think of.”

“What kind of car does he drive?”

“Orange Toyota, about a hundred years old. Even the spackling is rusty.”

They heard the car approach before they saw it—a disembodied collection of sound effects for the Tin Man. Then it clattered past them, a dangling exhaust pipe scraping the sidewalk as it pulled into the driveway.

“Open your door,” Cardinal said. “Let’s be ready to move.”

“But he’s armed,” Delorme said. “Shouldn’t we call for backup?” She looked at him, those earnest brown eyes sizing him up. Cardinal thought about Delorme’s eyes more often than he would have liked.

“Technically, yes. On the other hand, I know Robert. We’re not in a hell of a lot of danger.”

The Toyota’s one good tail light dimmed and went out.

Cardinal and Delorme got out of the car and left the doors open so as not to make a sound. Stepping carefully on the wet pavement, they moved in on the Toyota.

The driver, a small man with frizzy ginger hair and a plaid scarf around his neck, got out and opened the trunk. He pulled out a bulging plastic FoodMart bag, slung a red knapsack over his shoulder and slammed the trunk shut with his elbow.

“Robert Henry Hewitt?”

He dropped the knapsack and the groceries and started to run, but Cardinal caught hold of his jacket and the two of them fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Then Cardinal hauled him up, and Algonquin Bay’s master thief found himself face down against the trunk of the Toyota, feet spread wide behind him.

“If he moves, spank him,” Cardinal said, and patted him down. He pulled a pistol from a jacket pocket. “Goodness me. A firearm.”

“That there is a toy,” Hewitt said. “I wasn’t gonna hurt nobody.”

“Wasn’t gonna hurt nobody where?”

“At the bank, for Chrissake.”

“Robert, what do I say to you every time I see you?”

Wudky turned to look over his shoulder. When he recognized Cardinal, he grinned, showing splayed front teeth in appalling condition. “Oh, hi! How you doing? I was just thinking about you, eh?”

“Robert? What do I say to you? Every time I see you.”

Wudky thought for a moment. “You say, ‘Stay out of trouble, Robert.’”

“Nobody listens to me, Sergeant Delorme,” Cardinal said. “It’s a real problem. Check the knapsack there. I’d say we have probable cause.”

Delorme unzipped the knapsack and pulled out a plump manila envelope with Federal Trust stencilled in one corner. She opened it wide and showed the contents to Cardinal.

Cardinal gave a low whistle of appreciation. “Quite a haul there, Robert. Why, it looks like you made off with tens of dollars.”

2

A
FTER
W
UDKY WAS SAFELY BOOKED
and in his cell, Cardinal went back to his desk to type up his supplementary reports.

The amount of money Wudky had made off with was minuscule. If he’d stolen it from a cash register, he wouldn’t be likely to get more than probation, but Cardinal knew the Crown would insist on a charge of bank robbery and wrote his report accordingly.

He was almost finished when Duty Sergeant Mary Flower called out to him, “Hey, Cardinal, I think you better talk to Wudky.” She was coming out of the doorway that led from the cells to the front desk.

“Wudky?” Cardinal said. “How important can it be?”

“He says he has information on some murder.”

Cardinal looked over at Delorme, several desks away. She rolled her eyes.

“Do you know how unlikely that is?” Cardinal said.

Flower shrugged. “Tell him. Don’t tell me.”

Cardinal and Delorme went back to the holding area. There were eight cells that formed an L between Booking and the garage. Wudky was in the second-last cell, the only one occupied at the moment.

“I ain’t telling nothing for free,” Wudky said, trying to sound tough. He looked as forlorn a creature as Cardinal had ever seen, with his hangdog eyes and his smelly sweatshirt. “I want to like make a deal. Like so’s I can get out on bail maybe?”

“Chances aren’t great on that score,” Cardinal said. “But it depends what you have to tell us. I can’t make any promises.”

“But you’d put in a good word for me? Tell them I did my duty as a citizen? I helped the police?”

“If you give us some valuable information, I will tell the prosecutor that you have been helpful.”

“And apologetic too, eh? Tell him I’m sorry about the bank. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I’ll tell him. What have you got, Robert?”

“I mean, I feel bad, you know—especially since you’re always telling me to stay out of trouble—and I appreciate that. I don’t want you to think I don’t listen. I do listen. I just forget. You know, an idea gets in my head and it kinda worlds around in there like a clothes dryer.”

“Robert?”

“What?”

“Just tell us what you’ve got.”

“Okay. Day before I pretended to rob the bank?”

“You took money,” Delorme said. “That isn’t pretending.”

“Okay, okay. Day before. I’m down in Toronto visiting my girlfriend.”

Cardinal made a mental note—when he had a lot of time—to hear more about this girlfriend. She would have to be either a lunatic or a saint.

“I’m down in T.O. to see my girlfriend, and I decides to go out one night to a bar. You know, just a night out on my own. So I goes over to Spadina—you know the Penny Wheel?”

“All too well.” Before Algonquin Bay, Cardinal had spent ten years on the Toronto force. Every Toronto cop knew the Penny Wheel. It was a dank basement on Spadina, the kind of red-vinyl dive that only a criminal could love. The remarkable thing was that, unlike practically every other square foot of Toronto, this particular dive had managed to remain utterly unchanged.

“So, I’m over at the Penny Wheel, when who comes in but Thierry Ferand. You know Thierry—he’s like a trapper and shit.”

“I know Thierry.” Ferand was indeed one of the local fur trappers. Twice a year he came in out of the woods to sell his wares at the fur auction. Every time he did, he was arrested for drunk and disorderly, and often some variation of assault. There were rumours he occasionally did some work for the local version of the Mafia, but nothing had ever been proved. He was a small guy, but mean with it, and sneaky. When he was upset, his filthy little hand would sprout brass knuckles.

“Well, me and Thierry go way back.”

“To Kingston Pen if I recall correctly.”

“Wow! How’d you know that? You guys’re amazing. Anyways, I see Thierry sitting in a corner by himself, so I go over and we start shooting the breeze. And Thierry is really drunk, eh? I mean really drunk. And he starts telling me things.” Wudky stepped right up to the bars of his cell and peered both ways along the corridor. Then, in a tone implying information of national import, he said, “Big things.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, nothing. Just a little murder. Would you be interested in that?” Whatever else Robert Henry Hewitt may have been, he was easily the world’s worst actor. Cardinal had difficulty keeping a straight face. He was afraid even to glance at Delorme in case they both broke up.

“Why, yes, Robert. We would be interested in murder.”

“And you’ll tell the Crown guy I helped you out?”

“That’s it, I’m leaving.” Cardinal started for the door.

“Wait! Wait! Okay, okay! I’ll tell you. You’re such a hard-ass. I’ve met guys in stir that’re more calmer.” As if to clear Cardinal’s impatience from his brain, Wudky inserted a finger into his own ear and reamed it out. “So, what I was saying: Thierry is really drunk and he starts telling me this stuff he knew about that like really scared him, you know? He finishes like his tenth beer or so, and he’s leaning all over the table and he tells me what happened to a friend of his. Guy named Paul Bressard. He’s another trapper, eh? Turns out Paul Bressard got himself murdered. Some guy from out of town he owed money to. Could be Mafia, maybe, a godfather or something. You ever rent that movie?”

“Could we just stick with the story here, Robert?” Bressard had indeed, though long ago, been charged with aggravated assault after half killing a man who owed money to Leon Petrucci. Perhaps it was the chilling sound on the tapes from the wiretap of Petrucci’s voice synthesizer (legacy of a fondness for Cuban cigars) telling Bressard he’d be well rewarded for “explaining their position,” but the jury had got cold feet and neither Bressard nor Petrucci served a day. It was just possible his mob connections had somehow come back to bite Bressard.

“I’m telling you. This guy—some bad guy—comes up to Algonquin Bay from out of town and kills Bressard, and Thierry says he knows where the body is.”

Cardinal turned to Delorme. “We receive any missing persons report on Paul Bressard?”

“Not that I know of. I’ll go check the board.”

“Okay, Robert, where’s the body?”

“Do I have to know that before you help me out?”

“Let’s just say it would add to your chances. And how did Thierry Ferand happen to know where the so-called body was buried in the first place?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t ask!” Wudky cocked his head to one side like the RCA dog and scratched his scalp. “Well, maybe he did tell me, only I can’t remember. I had a few beers myself. But I’m telling you about a murder you didn’t know about, right? The Crown’ll like take that under consignment, right?”

“I’ll check it out,” Cardinal said. “But I hope you’re not wasting my time.”

“Oh, no. I would never do a thing like that, eh?”