Crime Machine by Giles Blunt Page B

were married a long time.”
    “Yes, you would be. You’re definitely the type. Stable. Steady. Secure.” She took a sip of her wine. “Tell me something. Your last name is Native American, right? Sorry—Native Canadian.”
    “In my case it comes from Scotland. My grandparents were from Fife, wherever the hell that is.” Cardinal pointed at the glass of red in her hand. “Should I order a bottle of that?”
    “Definitely.”
    DeGroot’s was busier than usual. It was a cold night, and diners had been drawn by the lure of comfort food, candles and a roaring fireplace. When the wine came, Donna told Cardinal how she had become a journalist. It had been a toss-up between politics and journalism, and since she couldn’t stand politicians, that had pretty much sealed her fate. After college she had worked at various small-town papers, and eventually got hired at the
Post
, only to get downsized out a couple of years later.
    Their salads arrived, and Cardinal told her how he had become a cop. He had been young, just finishing university, studying psychology. His life had then been touched, peripherally, by a murder—a friend of a friend—and the detectives handling the case did not seem to be very good. Cardinal became involved and helped them catch the killer.
    “Don’t tell me,” Donna said, holding up her salad fork. “There was a woman involved. A damsel in distress.”
    Cardinal smiled.
    “I knew it.” Candlelight glittered in her eyes, and something else Cardinal couldn’t quite place.
    He smiled. “We got married a year later.”
    Donna shook her head. “You are so Canadian.”
    The waiter whisked away their salad plates and replaced them with their steaks.
    “Why did you say that?” Cardinal said. “About being so Canadian?”
    “Because you do these amazing things, live this amazing life, and you don’t even realize how amazing it is. How rare. An American would be telling you the high points within five minutes. He’d have a ghostwriter working on his memoirs. He’d be a consultant on a TV show.”
    “In that particular case, I didn’t do anything that wasn’t completely obvious. I was still a kid, really. It’s just the detectives assigned to the case were substandard. Missed stuff they shouldn’t have.”
    “Yeah, but it’s how you met your wife. And then you’re married for the next God knows how long and you act like it’s just the most normal thing in the world.” She touched his hand. “Don’t ever change. Why are you looking at me like that?”
    “I’m trying to figure out if you’re always this friendly. Or if it’s because you’re a journalist and you think I can help you with your story.”
    “I’m American. We’re pushy.”
    Cardinal shook his head. “My wife was American and she wasn’t like that at all. But you seem to say what you’re feeling and the hell with it.”
    “Go ahead. Try it.”
    “Try what?”
    “Say something you feel and the hell with it. Don’t worry about being a cop or being proper or being whatever. What are you feeling right now? Just tell me without thinking about it.”
    “Nervous. Wary.”
    Donna sat back against the booth. “You mean about my motives? Okay, that’s fair. You’re right that I definitely want all the information out of you I can possibly get. But that’s always true. I could have just made an appointment to talk to you at the office, or cornered you again at the nextpress conference. So if you mean my motives in asking you out to dinner, well …” She shook her head. “You’ll just have to keep guessing.”
    Cardinal tilted his wineglass, studying the ruby light within. “This is the first time I’ve been out for dinner with a woman other than my wife in … decades. I don’t have a clue what to do or say.”
    “Nonsense. In fact, you seem suspiciously smooth.”
    “Also because you must be about a dozen years younger than me and you’re, I don’t know, radioactive or something.” Cardinal shrugged.