by Shaun Meeks
I walked around the building to the back. There were boarded windows and a door there too, and when I checked how secure they were, I found they weren’t at all. No wonder. It’s the reason I went back there too: it was out of the view of anyone passing by.
I struggled to get in, but once I managed to shimmy my body through space between the plywood and a door barely hanging on its hinges, I was greeted with the terrible, lingering smells, most of it probably from the plastics and other synthetics that burn in a fire.
I covered my mouth and nose with my shirt and pulled my cellphone out to give me some light. I checked each of the rooms on the first floor. There was some graffiti here and there, symbols carved and sprayed on the walls, but nothing I recognized as anything important or meaningful. They looked more like things a teen would do, thinking they were being edgy and Satanic. When I found nothing else of note, I walked down into the basement.
The stairs felt weak from water damage, so I walked down cautiously. Right away I could tell the basement had been the source of the fire. On the far side of the single room there was a small, broken window. This one was smashed inward, instead of being blown out by the flames. My guess was that was where the Molotov cocktail had come through. More symbols were down there too, many like the ones upstairs. Nothing that struck a chord with me, and again I started to feel that old familiar feeling that I was wasting my time.
The room wasn’t overly big, and there was little to note. The remains of carpeting, a couch, cots, books, and a few small end tables were all there was to see. There were areas of the wall where fresh, unburnt plywood had been nailed, but it was attached pretty secure and I didn’t have anything I could use to pull it off. I knocked on the boards, hoping for an echo that would indicate there might be a room, a chamber, something hidden and suspicious on the other side, but there was only a dull noise and it sounded as though there was just wall behind.
Not my lucky day.
It was another swing and a miss in my opinion, but at least I could cross Pastor Herb’s house of ill repute off my list of possibilities.
The night was fun. Rouge had made reservations for us at a local restaurant she’d googled she thought might be nice, and she was right. We sat in a dimly lit room, dressed in our best—no green track suit today—and ate food that was better than I’d ever had before. There was even a violinist playing by a huge window with a view of the Falls behind him.
“This is so nice,” I told her, and took a bite of my dessert, which was a Maple Crème Brule. She was right, they really did do it all with maple syrup here. “We should do nights out like this more often.”
“I don’t know. It’s nice, but there’s nothing wrong with snuggling on the couch with some Swiss Chalet, watching Grace and Frankie, and trying to ignore the pupper as she begs for a little more chicken.”
“You’re right there,” I laughed, and thought of the little dances her dog likes to do to get our attention. “I think we’ll be back there tomorrow night, or Monday morning at the latest. This all seems to be a bust.”
“No monsters?”
“Not that I’ve found. I mean, you should’ve seen the guy who hired me. He was a wreck. Looked like a mess. I should’ve just admitted right off the bat there was nothing to this, that it was all in his head, but I had to try.”
“So what are you going to do now? Are we just going to go? What about this guy?”
“I’m going to see him in the morning. I’m going to try and help him.” I then explained my idea of a fake ritual to make him think I’d fixed it all. It wasn’t guaranteed to work, but I was also planning on taking Ms Mittz aside and telling her the truth: I could only do so much. I was a monster hunter, not a therapist.
Sunday
We had a quick breakfast in our room before I got in my car and headed over to Chance’s office. I tried to call before I left, but there was no answer. I was going to leave a message, but the machine was full. I thought it was possible he wasn’t there, it being Sunday and all, but judging by how there’d been a cot in his office and his house had that smell they get when people aren’t living in them, I was positive he’d be right where I’d last seen him. I didn’t think he was in the right state to risk going outside and seeing more of those faces he’d described.
Without getting in touch with him, I made the decision to just head over to the office regardless. If nobody answered, I’d leave a note for him to call me ASAP. I wanted to be back in Toronto no later than nightfall. Realistically, there was little I could do to help Chance other than to offer him the idea of being safe. I’ve dealt with mental health cases in the past, and they’re never fun. It’s a delicate thing, and making sure I don’t make things worse is the most difficult part about it. You never want to treat someone with a mental illness lightly, just brush them off as some “nutjob” who isn’t worth your time. I’m not a doctor, but a sense of closure and relief can be a first step to them getting better. All I had to offer was a placebo, but if he swallowed it, there was a chance it would work for him.
The city was quiet on a late Sunday morning. Not unlike Toronto that way. In Toronto, people spend all night partying right until the very crack of dawn, so by the time Sunday morning unfurls, there’s little life left on the streets. Aside from the ever-decreasing number of churchgoers, and the unlucky few who have to work on the day traditionally set aside for rest, Sunday mornings usually give people a glimpse of what they expect a post-apocalyptic world might look like. I’ve seen what apocalypse can really look like, though, and quiet, empty streets is so far from reality.
When I pulled onto the street where Chance’s office was, I saw something was wrong. It was busier there, especially further up the road, right near where I wanted to go. There were lights flashing and cars blocking the way, and they were mainly emergency vehicles. That couldn’t be good.
A part of me considered turning around and getting out of there. Police cars had a way of doing that to me. After all, I was a stranger here, someone who’d just met Chance two days before, and if it was bad, if anything had happened to the office, or worse, to Chance himself, I would be suspect number one. It would be easy to pull a U-turn on the all-but-empty road, but I knew if I did, there was a chance someone would see it and I’d look just as suspicious. It was best to just drive up, get told to turn around, ask what happened as people often do, and then drive away and just forget about this whole case. That was, assuming this had anything to do with Chance Anderson or his office. As I got closer to the emergency vehicles, I could tell it did.
There were seven police cruisers, a fire truck and an ambulance there. I didn’t know what that meant, aside from the fact that when you dial 911 and ask for police, fire, or paramedics, you usually get them all showing up. I was able to see police tape surrounding the front of Chance’s office, so I knew it was serious. I slowed down and a cop stepped out into the street and held up his hands to tell me to stop. I did, and he walked over to my window.
“Sorry, road’s closed here. You’re going to spin around and use another one,” the woman told me, with more authority in her voice than was necessary. Cops have a way of doing that.
“Sure, no problem,” I told her, but had to add the usual line on the end, to keep up appearances: “What happened there? Was it a fire or something?”
“I can’t go into that, sir,” she told me with a huff, and crossed her arms. “Just turn around and—”
“Dillon? Is that you?”
The cop looked as surprised by that as I was. We both looked over to the sidewalk, and there was Ms Mittz, a wool coat wrapped around her, mascara dribbling swathes black down her face from the tears she no doubt had been shedding for whatever happened. If I wasn’t sure how bad things could’ve been there before, the condition of Ms Mittz gave me some confirmation to that end. I waved to her, and as I did the cop looked back at me.
“You’re Dillon?�
�� she asked and I nodded, even though I didn’t really want to. “Park right over there, and come with me,” she said. “The detectives need to ask you a few things.”
Great! There were detectives involved. The number of vehicles, the condition of Ms Mittz, and the involvement of detectives together equalled the one thing I’d been dreading since turning onto the street. Chance was dead, or badly injured. I doubted there’d be all these people for narcotics, fraud, or some sort of white-collar crime. This was going to be a long day. I was instantly full of regrets.
I did as I was instructed. I was slightly worried because I had my Tincher and my gloves on me, and if for whatever reason they wanted to take me to the station, they might be discovered and would be hard to explain. I thought about taking the blade off my belt, but the cop was watching me closely as I parked, so shifting to remove and hide it would arouse too much suspicion. I would just wear it, ensure my coat kept it covered, and hope for the best.
As I got out of my car, Ms Mittz was there and she threw her arms around me the way she had the day before: vice-grip tight. She was still sobbing, so I hugged her back and hoped she’d tell me something to offer enlightenment on the situation before the cops started in on me.
“What happened?” I whispered to her, still held tightly in her arms.
“It’s Chance. He’s…oh God, he’s dead.”
I’d figured as much. “How? What happened?”
“I came in this morning to make coffee and see how he was. He’d been sleeping in his office lately and…” she tried to say it all, but was wracked with a bout of heavy sobbing, and before she could continue, the female officer was right beside us.
“Come on. You two can talk later. The detectives want a word with you.”
“I’ll be right back,” I told Ms Mittz and pulled away from her, but she was reluctant to let go. I assured her I wouldn’t be gone long, and when I did, the cop chuffed and muttered something along the lines of yeah right, but I ignored that. This wasn’t the first time someone I worked for had died and I was questioned by the police. I would have to play things smart and safe, but seeing as there was no way I’d done anything wrong, I really had nothing to worry about. It also helped being in a hotel with cameras which would give me a good alibi, assuming this happened overnight.
The cop led the way towards Chance’s office and the police tape. Once there, we ducked under it and went inside. There was a weak smell of death, the early signs of which were mild decay and the expelled body fluids. There was also a strong smell of blood: a thick, coppery smell, so I knew whatever had gone down, it had to have been pretty bad and messy.
We started to walk to the back room where I’d met with Chance two days before, and for a second I braced myself, sure she was going to bring me in to the room where Chance had died. I’ve seen plenty of death over the years, enough so that I wasn’t likely to puke or have nightmares, but enough to know that if there was a way to avoid seeing it, I would. There’s a part of me that is fascinated by death, but for my own sense of well-being, I avoid my exposure when I can. I found it interesting to see a body, especially if there was trauma to it, but looking at a lifeless shell was something I preferred to avoid: it was the reason I never went to funerals and tried to steer clear of crime scenes. Luckily we stopped just before the doorway, and she cleared her throat before calling out to the detective.
“What is it?” a hoarse, male voice asked from inside the room.
“I have that Dillon guy here. The monster guy the secretary told you about.”
“Really?”
From the open door two people came out. One was a needle-thin man in a wrinkled suit, and the other was a sharp-faced woman in a suit that fit as well as anything I’d ever seen and looked expensive. The two of them seemed completely opposite in so many ways, but the way that each looked me up and down was a mirror of the other. The woman walked over to me first and held out a hand.
“Thank you for coming out. I’m Detective Winger and this is Detective Korkis. We just have a few questions for you.”
She said it as though someone had come and collected me instead of the fact that I had driven over to the office with no idea of what was going on.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help out, but there’s not much I can tell you. I only met him on Friday, and haven’t seen him since.”
“Anything you can do to help would be great. This isn’t a run of the mill homicide here. It’s, well, a new one for us. Now, first thing we need is your full name, date of birth, and where you live.”
I gave them the regular lie. I passed over my driver’s license to Korkis to jot down all the information and waited. I didn’t look around the room. I tried my best not to notice if there was anything out of place, or pick up on any details at all. Winger watched me like a hawk, so I just stared at Korkis as he wrote. I know from my own experience that looking around too much while under the lamp, so to speak, was a sign of nervousness, and that could be the type of thing they’d misread as guilt. Unlike the way it’s perceived on TV, police usually form an opinion of guilt within the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and then spend their time finding ways to make the evidence stick to their theory. The idea that most crimes are solved thanks to DNA and forensics, well, it’s not true, but it is a great scare tactic for the general public.
“Thanks,” Korkis said and handed my I.D. back. “So what is it you do for a living?”
“I’m a private investigator,” I told them. Cops in Canada tended to hate the term private detective, as though I was trying to put us on the same level. It’s the same reason they hate when security tries to use the term officer, instead of guard. They enjoy their elite status.
“And you were hired by Mr Anderson?” Winger asked with a quick look over at the room he was no doubt still in.
“I was. He contacted me in regards to an issue he had and hoped I would be able to help him in some way.”
“And what was the issue? Ex-wife, former employee, something to do with the bikers in town?” Korkis asked, and I took in a slow deep breath. This was going to have to come out, so best to play it all straight. I had no idea what Ms Mittz had already told them.
“Mr Anderson said he was being haunted by something. He contacted me because my specialty is finding things not of this world: ghosts, demons and monsters. He thought I might be able to find the source of his problem because he said it was ruining his life.”
Nothing from them. They just stared at me with deadpan expressions, and seemed to be waiting for a punchline. It’s to be expected. I think if I said that to anyone, but especially to people who are more straight-laced and who believe only what they see, they’d give me the same look. We’ve all seen it. It’s the same one a mom or dad have when their kid tries to pass off some tall tale as the truth; or when a cheating spouse gets caught red-handed in something, and they tries to spin it. They all get the look. It’s the one where nothing is said, but everything is being said.
“I’m sorry if I misheard you,” Winger started, and there was a snarky smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Did you say you’re a supernatural private eye? Is that what you mean?”
“Yeah, I am. And I know you’re not going to believe anything in that regard, but that’s why I was hired by Mr Anderson. He thought I could help him.”
“And I guess, judging by the state he’s in right now, you didn’t,” Korkis said. He actually sounded mad. I wasn’t sure why, but even his face had grown harder as my words sank in. “So, are you going to tell us some ghost or demon did that to him? Because if he hired you to help him before anything bad could happen, you did a piss poor job of it.”
“Actually, I was coming here to tell Mr Anderson that I’d hit a dead end. The way I figured it, there was no real sign of anything actually after him, nor was there any sign of what might’ve caused him to see the things he was seeing. It looked like
it might be in his head, a stress break down.”
“Really? Well, someone, or according to you something, came in here last night and killed him. He fired his gun five times. Hit nothing but the wall,” Korkis told me. “There’s no sign of forced entry, so it would appear whoever did this was known to the victim. Where were you last night?”
“I was at my hotel room with my girlfriend.”
“We’re going to need to speak to her too, then.”
“Or you can call the hotel, check security cameras and see I never left my room after we got back.”
“And what time did you get back to the hotel?” Winger asked me.
“Around ten-thirty, eleven at the latest. There should also be a record of when I used my room key at the hotel.”
“You seem pretty familiar with police procedures. Maybe you’re familiar enough to even set up an alibi for yourself.”
Unbelievable. Even though I was doing my best to show I was on the up and up, give them no reason to distrust me, I was already suspect number one. This was the first time I’d ever dealt with Niagara Police, so I had no idea what to expect, but after all my years of dealing with police as a whole, it wasn’t this. There have been a time or twenty where I’ve been a suspect in someone’s death or injury, but in those situations, suspicion was warranted. Once it was because I was in an elevator stuck between floors of a building, and when they finally got the door open, the guy who I was in there with was dead. It took some time and a lot of talking before they’d listen to my explanation that the guy had been dead for two weeks before he’d ever gotten into the elevator with me. Luckily, the coroner in Toronto is someone who knows me well enough that she actually listened to my story, checked the body for decay and found I was telling the truth. It’s not always so easy to convince people who only see things in black and white and ignore the spectrum of colours when in comes to the truth and reality. I knew, with these two, it wasn’t going to be an easy road.