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here, all American. Maybe he just went out to buy a pack of cigarettes. Didn’t need his wallet.”
    “He’s got cigarettes.” Cardinal pointed to a half-empty pack of Marlboros on the nightstand.
    “‘Howard Matlock,’” Delorme read from one of the wallet cards in a formal voice, “‘is a certified professional accountant in the state of New York.’”
    “Ice fishermen—I swear they’re all accountants.”
    “He is also a member of the New York Public Library, Blockbuster Video and carries a New York driver’s licence.”
    She showed Cardinal. The dead man stared out at him from the licence photo. He was wearing the same aviator glasses they had found in the woods.
    They both glanced around the room.
    “Except for the wallet on the floor, everything looks undisturbed,” Cardinal said. “And his room key was still in his pocket, but not his car key. Which makes me think the killer or killers made off with his car.”
    “If you’re going to steal a car, why pick a Ford Escort? And if you’re covering up a car theft, chopping the body up in the woods seems a little extreme.”
    “Maybe there was something incriminating in the car.”
    They went through the contents of the suitcase: three store-label shirts, three pairs of Hanes underwear, three pairs of socks, two with holes in them.
    “I thought accountants made decent money,” Delorme said. “But this guy looks like he wasn’t doing so well.”
    On the bathroom shelf they found a roll of Tums, and travel packets of Imodium and Ex-Lax. “Obviously a Boy Scout,” Delorme said. “Prepared for anything.”
    “Anything except hunting or fishing, you notice. No rod, no reel, no tackle. Nothing. I know he said he was just scoping the place out, but still.”
    “Maybe he kept it in the car. When we find the car …”
    They stood facing each other in the middle of the cabin. Waiting for an idea to descend, Cardinal thought. A theory.
    “This is a strange one,” Delorme said. “As far as we know, Howard Matlock, visiting CPA, came up here to check out the ice fishing. While here, he goes out for a drive—without his wallet—and gets himself killed. Maybe someone tried to rob him and killed him out of frustration because he wasn’t carrying his wallet.”
    “Thank you, Detective Delorme. That explains everything. Obviously, we can close this case right now.”
    “All right. So it has a few holes.”
    “I think we both find the ice-fishing business a little thin. And …”
    “And what? You look worried.”
    “I’m getting a bad feeling about this. My guru on the Toronto force used to say it takes three things to solve any case where the perpetrator isn’t readily apparent: talent, persistence and luck. Any one of those is missing, you don’t make your case. Call me egotistical, but I’m not worried about the first two.”
    “Come on, Cardinal. We’ve barely started.”
    “I know. The problem is, if we don’t believe Matlock came up here to check out the ice fishing, then we don’t have the first clue what he was doing here—or who he came to see—let alone who wanted to kill him.”

    The call went out to be on the alert for Matlock’s red Ford Escort, a rental from the Avis counter at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. The search in the woods went on until dark. All the body parts that could be found were gathered together and shipped to the Forensic Centre in Toronto. The aerial photographs were developed and tacked up on the bulletin board in the ident room. The Mylar balloons glittered amid the mist and trees, but there was no pattern visible in their distribution.
    Back at his desk, Cardinal spent a good two hours writing up the reports for the day and wishing he had a decent idea about how to proceed. He was tired and hungry and looking forward to being with Catherine, but he didn’t want to go home feeling that the case was at a dead end. He needed some time alone, away from the reports and the noise of his colleagues shouting to