23

NINE P.M., AND DELORME WAS IN THE last place she wanted to be, parked in an unmarked car in the darkest spot of an outdoor parking lot. She had spent the afternoon re-interviewing the two victims of the ATM mugger. They were both young, both women, and Delorme patiently coaxed every possible detail out of them. But in the end it had only served to upset them and she had come away with nothing new. From her dark corner of the parking lot she had a good view of the ATM across the street. It was in an area that used to be well lit, but the new building going up next to it now blocked the street light.

She and Chouinard had discussed at length which ATM would be most likely to be struck next. There weren’t all that many in Algonquin Bay, but even so, the police had nowhere near the resources to stake out every one. The two easiest targets had already been hit. The first was in a tiny strip mall at the top of Roxwell Street, a quiet area that made for a pretty soft target. The second had been more brazen, but also made tactical sense. It was downtown, but at the back of a bank rather than the front, beside an alley that ran the length of that particular block, which was where the robber had waited and where he had fled.

The security videos revealed nothing. He was too smart to set foot inside. He came up behind each of his victims as they stepped away from the machines, shoved a gun into their ribs and demanded money. Over in a matter of seconds. Young man, eighteen to twenty-five, they thought. Dark pants, dark hooded coat. The hood had been up, and he also wore a wool cap low on his forehead and a scarf over nose and mouth. No one would be able to identify him in a lineup.

Of the ATMs that remained, this location, central but dark, made the most sense. There was very little traffic around this corner after eight o’clock, which was why Delorme was sitting in an unmarked car with the snowflakes twirling slowly to the pavement around her. Of course, she had pointed out to Chouinard, the mugger could just as easily decide to target the first ATM again; he might figure no one would expect that. That’s true, Chouinard agreed. He could.

She shifted her position on the car seat. She was in the back because nobody notices the rear seat of a parked car. A backup unit was tucked discreetly in a driveway nearby. Cardinal and the others were chasing down one of the biggest murder cases ever to hit the province, and here she was stuck trying to trap some dork robbing ATMs. She knew it was important—people have to be able to go about their business without being mugged—but there wasn’t going to be any glory in catching this guy.

Only four customers had used the ATM in the entire two hours Delorme had been watching, and there was no sign of trouble, no sign of anybody else watching. She made a note every time someone went by: 9:14 lady walking dachshund wearing tartan coat; 9:36 juvenile about sixteen, skates slung over his hockey stick, hockey stick on shoulder like a rifle; 9:43 Stuart Cort (a homeless alcoholic well known to police) lurches by, clutching a Subway sandwich bag.

Algonquin Bay police service, she said. Be all you can be.

The radio squawked and she had to reach around the front seat to get it. “Get your ass up to Roxwell and Clement,” the duty sergeant told her. “He hit the first one again.”

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, Delorme said as she got into the front, started up and headed for the other side of town. She also employed several French Canadian curse words that she usually considered beneath her dignity. She was at the scene in under three minutes. A couple of cruisers were already there, and the whole front parking lot was taped off. She spoke to a female constable who directed her to one of the squad cars.

A woman was sitting in the back. Her name was Stella McQuaig, and she was in not too bad shape, considering, although there was a tremor in her voice as she told Delorme what had happened. The other two victims had been hysterical by comparison. Her description was no more useful than anybody else’s: young man, dark clothes, hood and scarf. She had seen the hood and scarf reflected in her car window.

“Do you think you could show me exactly how it happened?” Delorme said.

“You mean go over there with you?”

“You’re safe now.”

The woman looked from Delorme to the scene outside and back to Delorme. “All right. I mean, I guess. If you think it would help.”

Delorme led her back to the ATM, a free-standing machine outside a convenience store, and Ms. McQuaig showed her how she had put the money into her wallet and headed back toward her car. “He came out of nowhere, just as I was about to get into my car.”

“Did he come from a car? From the street? He must have been waiting somewhere.”

“I didn’t see where he came from,” the woman said, her voice edging up the panic scale. “There were no cars other than mine.”

“What about the phone booth?” Delorme pointed to a phone booth at the edge of the mall’s parking lot.

“Could have been. I don’t know. Like I say, I didn’t see anything. Then, just as I was getting into my car, I heard footsteps—fast steps—and before I could turn, I felt the gun in my ribs. Oh, God …”

“It’s all right. You’re doing great,” Delorme said. “You saw his reflection in your car window?”

“Just his hood and scarf. I didn’t see his face. Thank God. He probably would have killed me.”

“You heard steps. From which direction?”

“That way.” She pointed toward Clement Street. Delorme looked at the pavement. The parking lot had been well ploughed. No footprints.

“Then what happened?”

“He told me to hand it over and I did. I just handed him my wallet and he took off.”

“And you didn’t look at him then?”

“No. I didn’t want to see his face. Can I go now? I think I’m having a delayed reaction.” She covered her mouth with a mittened hand.

“Did he take off the same way he came?”

Still with one hand covering her mouth, she pointed in the other direction.

“Up Roxwell?”

She lowered the mitten. “That way. Back toward the buildings, but toward that way.” She was pointing beyond the ATM, toward the far end of the strip mall.

Delorme thanked her and walked her back to the cruiser, then she headed back past the ATM. They had set the perimeter too narrow. She ducked under the tape and stood on the other side. To her left was the edge of the parking lot, a high hedge and, beyond it, Roxwell Street. To her right was a small gap between an adjacent house and the end of the mall.

Light from the street and the parking lot didn’t reach back here, and Delorme called across the lot, “Hey, Benson, lend me your flashlight.” Benson brought it over and she shone it down the alley. She had gone barely ten feet when she found the wallet. She picked it up and flipped it open. The driver’s licence showed an unflattering picture of Stella McQuaig. No money. Delorme put it in her pocket and shone the light down the alley again.

Beyond a row of recycling bins, she could see the legs of a homeless man.

“Police,” Delorme said. “I need to ask you some questions.”

The man didn’t move.

She went up and tapped his foot with her boot. His clothes were too good for a homeless person, and he was wearing a hood. Delorme stepped back and trained her Beretta on him. He didn’t move, and his stillness was not the stillness of the living. Delorme bent down, and in the beam of her flashlight the small black hole in his forehead glistened. His eyes were only half closed, the crooked track of a tear straying down one cheek. The lips were slightly drawn back, as if he had been interrupted in the middle of speech, exposing a sizable gap in his front teeth. When Cardinal arrived, Delorme brought him up to speed. “No wallet, no ID, but we found the ten fresh twenties he’d just taken from the victim. Also a nine-mil Browning Hi-Power with at least one good thumbprint. Clothing labels are Gap, Guess?, Hilfiger. Coroner’s been and gone.”

Cardinal went over and spoke to Collingwood and Arsenault, who were taking prints from the body. A few minutes later the wagon arrived and the removal guys loaded it in back for the trip to the Forensic Centre in Toronto.

“So what do you suppose went down?” Delorme said to Cardinal. “A vigilante?”

“How would a vigilante know the kid was going to hit this particular ATM again? We didn’t.”

“We certainly thought it was possible. Maybe it was a chance thing.”

“Pretty slim chance.”

They left Ident in charge of the scene and drove back to the station. In the silence of the deserted meeting room, Cardinal slotted the security video into the player and sat next to Delorme to watch it. Grainy, dark in some frames, washed out in others. Stella McQuaig comes up to the ATM, makes her withdrawal, puts the bills in her wallet and turns to leave. No robber. No killer. Not so much as a shadow.

“Maybe it was a freak of timing. A good-Samaritan thing,” Delorme said. Her voice sounded loud in the quiet of the empty room. “Happens to be going by and sees a woman in trouble, chases the kid into the alley. Kid pulls the gun and boom—the guy drops him first.”

“But your witness didn’t see anybody else. Didn’t hear anybody else.”

“You’re right.” Delorme picked up the remote, pressed a button, and the monitor went dark. “Also, the way he was shot in the face, it looks more like he was stopped head-on. Like the person was coming the other way down the alley. Or waiting for him.”

The fluorescent lights went out and Delorme and Cardinal both yelled out, “Hey!” The lights came back on and someone down the hall yelled back, “Sorry!”

“If the killer was waiting for him,” Cardinal said, “that would seem to indicate someone who works with him. Maybe they had a falling-out.”

“Except none of the victims has mentioned an accomplice, and there’s no other evidence of one. It would help if we had some idea who the kid was. We don’t even know if he was local. Pretty hard to make any sense of it. What? Why are you looking like that?”

“Nothing,” Cardinal said. “I was just remembering what the Russian lady said—about not having to understand people.”

“That Russian lady,” Delorme said, “has Sparky Noone’s problem.”