“Also, they made similar reports about North America. We know that the Iroquois tortured Father Brébeuf horribly and cut his heart out. The Hurons performed similar atrocities on their enemies. And we know these accounts are true.”
“And the mutilation?”
“Oh, it’s ghastly. There are two elements involved. First, there is the desire to inflict as much pain as possible. The reason being, that if you have your victim screaming and begging for his life, then you can control his spirit in the afterworld. You can command him to go here and there for you, learn things for you, do things for you. It’s a belief common to many pagan religions.
“The mutilation follows from this. In order for the spirit to get around and do these things for you, he needs feet to travel, fingers to feel or grasp, perhaps even a brain to understand. So the shaman cuts these off and tosses them into a cauldron. In the case of Palo Mayombe, the cauldron is stirred with a number of sticks or palos in order to keep control of the spirit. After you have created it, it then needs fresh blood to keep working for you.”
“That’s not good news,” Delorme said. “You’re telling me there’ll likely be more sacrifices.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And yet a lot of people don’t see it as anything other than a harmless variant of Voodoo?”
“That’s right. Personally, I happen to think they are wrong. I believe the Jesuits on this one. And anyway, you have a mutilated body on your hands, you have the palos and you have the cowrie shells. So either you are dealing with a priest of Palo Mayombe who is following the ancient beliefs, or you’re dealing with someone who has hideously perverted those beliefs. Either way, you’ve got a monster on your hands.”
42
THE OFFICE WAS GETTING to Cardinal. McLeod was yelling at some lawyer on the phone. Across the room, Szelagy was whistling again, although he had been told twice already to can it. And someone else was pounding a fist on the photocopy machine as if that would encourage it to perform.
No wonder I like working with Delorme, Cardinal thought. She’s the only person in this room who is actually pleasant to be around. Except that Delorme wasn’t in the room just then; her desk was empty. She was chasing the hieroglyphics.
Cardinal had signed out a large crate of material from the evidence room, and was going through it piece by piece, pulling things out and setting them on his desk. Some were items found at the scene of Wombat Guthrie’s murder, which was also, he was beginning to suspect, the place where Terri Tait had been shot. There was the odd collection of straight sticks, now returned from the forensic centre, which had confirmed that the discoloured ends had been dipped in blood, both animal and human. DNA results were still incomplete. Then there was the plaster cast of the tire track from the Tilley scene. Collingwood had determined that it was from a Bridgestone RE 71, the kind of tire you’d put on a muscle car, possibly a Trans Am.
He reached into the box and pulled out the silver locket. He sprung the clasp and looked at the tiny photo inside. Handsome couple in their mid-forties, the man in uniform. Definitely military, but it was impossible to tell in this miniature black and white whether he was air force or not. Cardinal found a magnifying glass and held the photo under his desk lamp. He was pretty sure he could see a resemblance between the woman and Terri Tait.
“Cardinal!”
It was Detective Sergeant Chouinard at the door in his fedora.
“Someone out front to see you! Tell the duty sergeant when he gets back I’m not the damn doorman around here.”
Cardinal went out to the front desk, where the pale, boneless features of Dr. Filbert broke into a smile.
“I took a chance coming over without phoning. I figured homicide, someone has to be working late. I tried Detective Arsenault but he’s not around.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I have some DNA results for you.” He held up a sheaf of papers; they looked like a computer printout.
“DNA results? We didn’t leave you any DNA.”
“If you have a minute, I’ll explain.”
Cardinal led him into the squad room. He pulled over Delorme’s chair for Dr. Filbert to sit in.
Dr. Filbert perched on the edge of it, hands clasped on his lap.
“I believe I can now definitely link your second body to your first body.”
“With the maggot casing we left you? But it could have been tracked there from the site of a dead fox, a dead dog. A dead anything.”
“That is no longer true, Detective.” Filbert waved the printout. “We’ve now got the same DNA at both sites.”
“I don’t understand. Whose DNA?”
“The fly’s.”
Cardinal knew he was tired, but could he really be missing some obvious logic here? He restrained himself from banging on his temples. Instead, he just said, “You did a DNA analysis on the maggot casing we gave you? You can get DNA just from the casing?”
“Sure. You can get DNA from pretty much anything these days.”
“But why did you? We already have the species. We know it couldn’t have come from the second site. Why bother to determine the species all over again with DNA, when you’ve already done it with the—”
“No, no. I’m not talking about the species. I’m talking about the individual fly. The individual DNA from this casing matches the individual DNA from the first site. The maggot that came out of this casing has the same mother as dozens of other eggs at the first site.”
“You matched the DNA of individual flies?”
Dr. Filbert nodded vigorously, a motion that blurred his rubbery face. “It was easy. Well, it would have been a lot easier with an egg rather than a casing, but I managed to make do. I use a machine called an MJ Research Engine. Takes about twenty-four hours.”
“How can you do it that fast? We give DNA samples to forensics in Toronto, it takes them ten days minimum. We’re waiting for some right now.”
“I have a distinct advantage. I’ve spent the last six months doing nothing but building up a gigantic background dataset. I know the statistical variations for this area inside out. So my search is already narrowed down. Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, I’m looking for a needle in, I don’t know, a file drawer.”
“This is terrific work,” Cardinal said. “I had no idea you could do this.”
“Anyone could. Well, you know. A lot of people.”
“I doubt that very much, Dr. Filbert. Thank you so much for putting in the time.”
“Oh, it was my pleasure. It was fun.”
When Filbert was gone, Cardinal logged the vial into the evidence room and left the printout on Arsenault’s desk. If they ever brought in a suspect, this evidence would be courtroom gold.
He sat down at his desk and wrote a few lines about Filbert in his notebook, looking up at the clock to note the time. Nearly eight, and he still hadn’t had dinner. He wondered what Catherine had done about dinner, where she had gone. One of her favourite things about Toronto was the great variety of restaurants; she had a far more adventurous palate than Cardinal. He hadn’t managed to speak to her the last time he’d called. He hoped she had just been in the shower or out taking some night shots, but there was a small ache in his chest that always lodged there when he began to worry about his wife.
His phone rang, and for a split second he was sure it was Catherine, but then he saw the call was not on his direct-dial line.
“Cardinal, CID.”
“Oh. Hello. Um, I’m not sure how to proceed with this …”