Crime Machine Read Online Free PDF Page A

eighteen-year-old son Martin, who had been home for the weekend from his summer job on a deer census. All apparent victims of a drowning accident.
    Cardinal wrote in big letters on his legal pad,
Cleared—Alien Abduction
.
    The buzzer rang and Cardinal went to the intercom to open the door for Lise Delorme. One of the unforeseen benefits of moving to this apartment was that he was now just a five-minute walk away from Delorme, his favourite person at work. When he had first moved in, Delorme had come round to help unroll carpets and hang curtains. Pure kindness, Cardinal figured; she would have done the same for anyone.
    Now here she was at his door, tomboyish in flannel shirt and blue jeans, and clutching a DVD in one hand, a gigantic can of popcorn in the other. A less cop-like person would be hard to envision.
    “Monsters,” she said, holding up the DVD. The cover had a picture of giant insects. “Or do you think it’ll be too much like work?”
    Cardinal put the DVD into the machine and spent a few minutes fiddling with the remote, which never worked the same way twice.
    “Man, it’s so humid in here,” Delorme said. “They still didn’t fix your ventilation?”
    “Don’t get me started. Buying this place may have been one of the dumbest moves I ever made.”
    Delorme was looking at the pile of folders. “Hey, congratulations. I see you solved Scriver.”
    “Yeah. Turned out to be simple.”
    Cardinal on his recliner, Delorme on the couch. He kept a quilt folded up on the back, because Delorme always got cold—those huge plate glass windows facing the lake. She was still in her thirties, passionate in temperament and appealing in form, and it had occurred to Cardinal more than once to reach across the small table that separated them and touch her, but he hadn’t. They had fallen into this friendship and pretty quickly it had begun to feel as if it had always been like this and always would be.
    She was telling him about a hunter, the subject of two annoying grid searches, who had just been found near the Nipissing reserve, slightly frostbitten but otherwise okay. Hunters got lost two or three times a year and posed a considerable drain on department resources, not to mention on the patience of those who had to look for them. “What’s wrong with these people?” she said. “They haven’t heard of GPS?”
    “Lot of macho types pride themselves on not needing it. How’s Shane?” Cardinal muted the TV as they waited for the FBI warning and the previews to finish.
    Delorme hoisted the quilt around her shoulders, careful not to tip her bowl of popcorn. “We had dinner Wednesday night. It was okay.”
    “You don’t sound excited.”
    Delorme shrugged and transported a handful of popcorn from bowl to mouth. “I’m not.”
    “I imagine you end up talking shop a lot of the time.”
    Delorme made a face. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think Shane’s all that good a lawyer. Doesn’t seem to get his clients off very often.”
    “That’s because of the uncanny skill of the local police.”
    “I don’t think so, unfortunately.”
    “Well, he must have something, or you wouldn’t keep going out with him.” It amazed Cardinal that he could talk to Delorme about her love life. It would have been unthinkable a year ago, but now it seemed natural.
    “Shane is someone to have dinner with,” Delorme said. “Go to a movie with. Not much more than that.”
    “That’s too bad.”
    “You should talk. You don’t go out with anyone. You don’t even seem to consider it.”
    Cardinal hit the remote and the MGM lion roared.
    The first few minutes of the movie were amusing, even to Cardinal, though he didn’t normally like science fiction. The chubby friend of the main character had just been yanked offscreen by an extremely slimy tentacle when the phone rang.
    —
    They drove out to Trout Lake. Out past the frozen beach, past Natural Resources and the marina. Out past Madonna Road, where Cardinal and