Read The Delicate Storm for Free Online

all that effort—all those extra little touches that make a motel a special place, the kind of place people want to come back to—all of it comes to nothing. I might as well take down my shingle and declare bankruptcy.”
    Cardinal wondered how anyone as gloomy as Mr. Wallace would have had the optimism to open a motel in the first place, but he stuck to his original question. “Did Mr. Matlock say why he was in Algonquin Bay?”
    “Ice fishing’s what he told me.”
    “Little early in the year for ice fishing. Even without the warm spell.”
    “That’s exactly what I said. I told him no one’s going out on that lake for at least another two weeks, even without the warm snap. He said he was well aware of that fact. Said he was only up here scoping the place out for a bunch of buddies who were planning to come up with him late February.”
    “From New York?” Delorme said. “New York seems like a long way to come just to check out the ice fishing.”
    Wallace shrugged. “Americans.”
    He plucked a key from the rack behind the counter and they followed him outside past several cabins.
    “Never seemed like much of a sport to me,” Cardinal said to Delorme. “The fish are stunned with cold. They’re starving. Where’s the skill? Sitting over a hole in a dingy little shack.”
    “You’re leaving out the beer.”
    “Oh, don’t leave out the beer,” Wallace said. “You wouldn’t believe the cases these guys haul out there. I keep a toboggan in each unit, supposedly for the kiddies, but do you see any hills around here? They use ’em to haul their two-fours out on the lake.”
    “You say Mr. Matlock arrived on Thursday. When did you notice the car wasn’t here?”
    “I guess that’d be Saturday. Two days ago. Yeah, that’s right. Because I asked him to move it Friday morning. Had it parked in the spot for number four. Not that there was anybody in number four. Anyways, it definitely wasn’t there Saturday morning. Which made me think something was up. Car’s gone, and I haven’t seen any smoke coming from the stovepipe. Knocked on the door this morning, got no answer and figured I’d give him another few hours before I started to worry I’d been stiffed.”
    “Did he make any phone calls?” Cardinal asked. “Would you know if he had?”
    “Long-distance I’d know about—he didn’t make any of those. I don’t keep track of local.”
    “Thanks, Mr. Wallace. We’ll take it from here.”
    “Fine with me.” Wallace opened the door for them. “If there’s any cash in there, I figure I’m due a hundred and forty.”
    The inside of a Loon Lodge cabin hadn’t changed since the last time Cardinal had seen one. Double bed tucked in an alcove, a floral couch, and a kitchenette in the corner: mini-fridge, hot plate, aluminum sink. A memory assailed Cardinal—a shrieking woman hurling a frying pan at him when he had come to arrest her husband.
    There was a table covered with yellow oilcloth beside one window. A copy of the New York Times lay on it. Dated five days previously, Cardinal noted, and probably acquired on the airplane.
    The bed (slightly tattered chenille cover complete with the same Loon Lodge emblem that was on the key ring) was neatly made. Beside it lay a small wheeled suitcase containing enough clothes for a weekend and a paperback novel by Tom Clancy.
    “Here’s his wallet,” Delorme said. She retrieved it from under the kitchen table, nearly toppling a lamp (loon emblem on the shade) in the process.
    “Well, here’s a question,” Cardinal said. “The car’s gone. Why would you go out in your car and not take your wallet with you? You go out in the car, you take your licence, right?”
    “Maybe whoever killed him showed up at his door.”
    “Possible. And he loses his wallet in the struggle—although there isn’t much sign of a struggle in here.”
    Delorme opened the wallet. “In any case, I think we can rule out robbery as a motive. There’s eighty-seven dollars