Forty Words for Sorrow Read Free Page A

everybody: we’re going to have to cull the snow.”
    “But she was killed months ago,” Delorme said. “The snow won’t tell us anything.”
    “We can’t be sure of that. Anybody have a good contact at Armed Forces?”
    Collingwood raised a hand.
    “Tell them we need a huge tent. Something the size of a circus tent that’ll cover the whole island—last thing we need is any more snow on the scene. Also a couple of their biggest heaters, ones they use to heat their hangars. We’ll melt the snow and see everything that’s underneath.”
    Collingwood nodded. He was sitting closest to the heater, and his glove was steaming.

3
    S ECURING A PERIMETER AND arranging a twenty-four-hour watch on the island took longer than anyone expected; everything about police work takes longer than expected. In the end Cardinal did not get home until one o’clock in the morning, too keyed-up to sleep. He sat himself in the living room with two fingers of Black Velvet straight up and made notes about what he would have to do next day. The house was so cold, even the rye couldn’t warm him.
    Kelly would be back in the States by now.
    At the airport, Cardinal had watched his daughter heave a suitcase onto the baggage scale, and before she could even lift the next one, a young man in line behind her had picked it up and placed it on the scale for her. Well, Kelly was pretty. Cardinal had the usual father’s prejudice about his daughter’s looks, and he believed any objective person would find his daughter as lovely as he did. But having a pretty face, Cardinal knew, was like being wealthy or famous: people were always offering to do things for you.
    “You don’t have to hang around, Daddy,” she had said as they descended the stairs to the waiting area. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”
    Cardinal hadn’t had anything better to do.
    Algonquin Bay’s airport was designed to handle about eighty travellers at a time, but it rarely had that many. A tiny coffee shop, boxes for The Algonquin Lode and the Toronto papers, and that was about it. They sat down, and Cardinal bought The Toronto Star , offering his daughter a section, which she declined. It made him feel as if he shouldn’t read either. What was the point of staying if he was just going to read the paper?
    “You’re all set for your connections, then?” he asked. “You have enough time to change terminals?”
    “Tons. I have an hour and a half in Toronto.”
    “That’s not too much. Not by the time you get through U.S. customs.”
    “They always put me straight through. Really, Daddy, I should go into smuggling.”
    “You told me you got stopped last time. Almost missed your connection.”
    “That was a fluke. The customs officer was a mean old battle-axe who wanted to give me a hard time.”
    Cardinal could picture it. In some ways Kelly was becoming the kind of young woman who annoyed him—too smart, too educated, too damn confident.
    “I don’t know why they can’t have a flight directly from Toronto to New Haven.”
    “It’s not exactly the centre of the universe, sweetheart.”
    “No, it only has one of the best colleges in the world.”
    And it cost a damn fortune. When Kelly had finished her BFA at York, her painting instructor had encouraged her to apply to Yale’s graduate program. Kelly had never dreamed she would be accepted, even when she put together a portfolio and hauled it down to New Haven. It had occurred to Cardinal to deny her, but not for long. It’s the art school, Daddy. All the big-name painters went there. You may as well study accounting if you don’t go to Yale. Cardinal had wondered if that could possibly be true. To him Yale meant indolent snobs in tennis outfits; it meant George Bush. But painting?
    He had asked around. Quite true, he had been assured by those who would know. If one wanted to be visible in the international art scene, which really meant the U.S. art scene, an MFA from Yale was the way to