Tell Anna She's Safe

by Brenda Missen

  Tears were streaming down my face by the end of the message. And then I wiped them away. Marc was in Thunder Bay. Where he was choosing to be. He wouldn’t come home. He couldn’t help me. I picked up the phone, pressed a now familiar sequence of numbers, and asked for my call to be put through.

  “What can I do for you, Ellen?” asked Quinn.

  He sounded so business-like I almost lost my nerve. Tears were still dangerously close to the surface. “Um, I wanted to ask for your help, but—”

  “Anything,” said Quinn. He somehow managed to sound jokingly flippant and dead serious at the same time.

  I pulled myself together. “I have more details now. About where Lucy may have been hidden. If we could find it, I think there might be some evidence.” I didn’t tell him what it might be. “I went down to the area this morning, and there are a couple of places that might have been it, but I lost my nerve. If I were a man—”

  “You don’t want to be a man; you just need a man,” said Quinn.

  He was so matter-of-fact, I ignored his proprietary tone. He was a cop. He had competencies I lacked. And, for this task, anyway, I needed someone with competencies. It was why I had called, wasn’t it?

  “But,” Quinn was saying, “it will be on my time off. We’ll go Saturday. And you will not say anything to Sergeants Lundy or Roach about my going with you.”

  “But what if we find something?”

  Quinn hesitated. I thought he was going to say, ‘we aren’t going to find anything.’ But he said, “It will be you that finds it and reports it.”

  *

  “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I’VE been trying all day. Where were you last night? You said you’d be home by six.”

  The assault in her ear was the last thing she needed after the drive she had just made, but his anger was understandable; she should have been home twenty-four hours ago. She pulled the bath towel around her more securely and kept her voice calm. “Tim, I’m sorry. I got delayed in Toronto. It was pouring rain yesterday; I couldn’t drive in that. I just got back half an hour ago. Listen I just got out of the bath, can you—”

  “Well, why didn’t you let me know? You could have left a message.”

  “I thought it had to be an emergency—”

  “I’ve been worried sick. I thought Curtis had come back, had done something.” His voice faltered.

  She was bewildered. “Tim? Are you alright? What in the world has Curtis got to do with anything? He’s not going to hurt me.”

  “But you said yourself, he abused you. I worry about you, Lu.” He sounded like he was fighting tears.

  She was starting to shiver. She descended the stairs to her bedroom to find her robe. “Listen, you really don’t have anything to worry about Curtis. He’s gone. And why would he hurt me? I never meant he was physically abusive. He just fucked with my brain. Anyway, he’s the one who wanted out.” She regretted those last seven words as soon as they were out of her mouth.

  There was a moment’s pause, then, in a different voice Tim said, “What do you mean, he wanted out? You said you kicked him out. You said you wanted the relationship to end. What are you saying? Do you want him back?”

  “Oh my God, Tim, slow down, you’re jumping to massive conclusions. Hang on a sec. I just need to put on my robe.” She put down the phone, knotted her robe around her waist and wrapped her hair in the towel. It wasn’t her hair towel, but under the circumstances, warmth won out over hygiene. She could hear Tim speaking before she got the phone back to her ear.

  “Don’t tell me I’m jumping to conclusions. You just said—”

  “First of all, this has nothing to do with Curtis. I was delayed by rain. Second of all, I had—I thought I had no way of letting you know.” They were going around in circles; this was anything but a constructive conversation.

  “Well, that’s all very well to say now,” Tim said. “I’ve been worried sick.”

  “Stop saying you’ve been worried sick—”

  “I have been worried sick. Do you know how frustrating it is to be on this end of the fucking phone? Not to be able to take calls or leave messages? Not to be there with you to know what’s going on?”

  His voice was getting louder. Lucy had to raise hers to be heard. “I do know—”

  “To hell you know. You have no idea. But I’ll give you—” He was past it now. Lucy held the phone away from her ear. There would be no reasoning with him. There was so much anger inside him. The so-called “therapy” he got in prison was useless. He couldn’t just learn to “manage” his anger; there was so much inside him already; it had to come out. It often did, now that their phone calls had become daily.

  Half the time he had to yell just to be heard above the din in the room. The whole prison seemed like it was a time bomb of anger. The narrow phone wires to loved ones seemed to be the only real outlet. That was the unfair part. Why should she be on the receiving end of it? She hadn’t done anything. She was trying to help him, for God’s sake. She had, in fact, just made this long stressful trip to Toronto for him. And this was what she got for her trouble—this earful of abuse. Goddamn it, she didn’t have to take this.

  She shouted back. It felt good to yell. A release of tension from the drive, from the weekend, from tiptoeing around her father and trying to bring him onside. She shouted until she was hoarse. She shouted until she heard a click in her ear, followed by the buzz of the disconnected line.

  She stared in disbelief at the portable in her hand. He had never hung up on her before. Their shouting matches were supposed to give them each a chance to vent. No one was supposed to take it personally. Hanging up was not part of the contract. But at least she could now get dressed. He would call back.

  She pulled on a sweatsuit, hung up the towel in the laundry room, and carried the portable back up to the kitchen. A glass of water from the Brita pitcher in the fridge soothed her throat.

  The phone rang. She grabbed it.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry, baby.” He sounded like he’d been crying. “I know I lose it. I can’t help it. I don’t mean to take it out on you. God, you’re the last person I should be yelling at. I was just upset and worried—not worried sick.”

  The sudden laughter from both of them broke the tension. “I know,” said Lucy. “It’s okay. I like you being worried about me—as long as you don’t make yourself sick about it.” Or yell at me about it, she thought, biting her tongue.

  They laughed again. “But,” she went on, “you have to trust me. I’m not going to screw you around. I was completely open with you about Curtis. You know that. I didn’t hide anything from you, even the uncomfortable stuff. And it’s over. One hundred and fifty percent over. I have no reason to lie to you. Give me one good reason why I would lie to you.”

  In her ear there was a sigh so deep it seemed to fill her own being.

  “Everything sounds so fucking rational when you tell me,” said Tim. “When you’re there, talking to me. It’s when I’m here alone and you’re not there, and the phone just rings and you don’t pick up. That’s when my brain starts going crazy. Everyone else has always lied to me, why wouldn’t you?”

  “But don’t you see? That’s exactly what I’ve been talking about. It’s an opportunity for you. Just like I’m starting to break my patterns, this is an opportunity for you to break yours. For you to stop your brain from going crazy with those thoughts. For you to learn how to trust again.”

  “Well, it sounds easy when you say it. You try being here inside my cell, inside my brain.”

  She couldn’t help laughing and was relieved when Tim laughed too. She was excited, almost giddy with relief. “I didn’t say it was easy. My God, I just drove to Toronto. Negotiated the 401. I’ve never been able to do that before. I’m breaking my fears. We can do this, Tim. We can help each other. I feel it. I don’t mind it when you l
ose it. I know you need to vent. I like that. We both get to vent. But … just don’t hang up on me, okay? I can’t take that.”

  “Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t fair. I’m sorry, Lu. I was just so scared for you, I had to let it out. How was it at your dad’s anyway?”

  “Well it’s about time you asked,” she said, with humour in her voice. The words almost tumbled over each other she was so relieved. Everything was fine. This was what it was about—communication, peace after a fight, personal progress. She told him about the weekend, about getting Anna and Doug to agree to write letters on his behalf. “And I know Dad’s going to come around,” she added. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Time,” said Tim, “I got plenty of.”

  She was afraid he was going to spiral down, but he added: “Lu?”

  “Mmm?”

  “I love you. You know?”

  Warmth spread through her chest. She did know. That was the most amazing thing of all.

  9.

  STEVE QUINN’S PLACE WAS A second-storey walk-up apartment in an Edwardian house not many blocks from the police station. I was nervous knocking on the door. Pleased by the smile in his eyes when he opened it. And relieved when he said he was ready and didn’t invite me in. Also slightly disappointed.

  I wasn’t surprised when he suggested we take my car and held out his hand for my keys. I handed them over without even thinking about it. “It’s not your Integra,” I warned him. I felt self-conscious about my battered old Escort.

  “Hey, it’s got a stick, that’s all that matters.” He sent an approving look my way and started the engine. “Most women don’t drive stick shift.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  Quinn laughed. “Okay, most women I know don’t drive stick shift. Where to, Boss?”

  I directed him to the end of Delta Drive. He stopped the car close to the place I had parked a few days before, where a path between two houses disappeared into the woods. He made no move to get out. He turned to me. The car felt very close. “Where are you getting your information from, Ellen?”

  “I told you, I’ve been having these dreams.”

  “But there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “That cop instinct at work again?”

  “Or maybe you’re just not very good at lying.”

  “Are you saying I’m lying?”

  He gave me an appraising look. “No,” he said, “not outright lying. But I think you’ve been editing the truth.”

  “And you want the whole truth.”

  “And nothing but the truth, preferably.”

  I smiled, I couldn’t help it. “Well, that I can’t guarantee. I don’t have a clue what’s true and what’s not true anymore.”

  “Okay, then, just tell me what you’ve been experiencing. Without censoring yourself. Call it a dry run for the court.”

  “The court?”

  “One day you’re going to be a witness, sweetheart, no doubt about that. So let’s start with those dreams you keep telling me about. What’s really going on?”

  My brain was racing. Doing a quick edit to see what I could still leave out without arousing suspicion. “Well, the dreams are true,” I said. “At least, I’m not sure their contents are true, but I have been having them. And, as you say, I’ve been editing the contents. They’ve been much more elaborate than I’ve made them out to be. It’s not just messages I’ve been getting but images. I’ve had to interpret the images. I was trying to simplify it, make it easier, more coherent, but….”

  “You said it was some anonymous voice giving you the messages. That’s not true, is it?”

  I looked out the window, prepared to watch until the buds opened on the trees. Quinn seemed prepared to wait with me. Why did he have to be so perceptive? Finally I turned back to him. “It’s Lucy who’s speaking to me.”

  Quinn’s expression didn’t change, but he breathed in, and out, a long breath. “I can see why you might have been reluctant to volunteer that information.”

  “Because it seems like the product of an overwrought mind?”

  It was Quinn’s turn to watch the buds on the trees open. “Let’s just say,” he said at last, “that I can see how you might think I might think that.”

  I laughed a bitter laugh. “It’s me who thinks that.”

  “Yet, you came to the police station at two in the morning.”

  “That was the hell of it. Not putting any credence in the dreams but feeling compelled. The crux was realizing Lucy might still be alive.” I was embarrassed to hear my voice choke up.

  Quinn put a hand over mine. It was a clichéd gesture, and that embarrassed me too. “I would have done the same,” he said. He took his hand away and leaned back against the door. “Why don’t you give me the unedited version of the dreams—word for word and image for image. If you can remember.”

  “Well,” he said, when I had finished giving him the description of each dream. “This is as good a place to start as any. Shall we go look for an outbuilding in a poplar grove and a candy bar with an incriminating fingerprint on it?”

  We did. It was a surprisingly pleasant walk, in the warm sunshine of a Saturday afternoon in early May. The green wash over the trees and shrubs was a shade darker here than it was up in Chelsea. We might have been friends out for a stroll. Or, yes, on a first date. We asked each other the kinds of questions you ask someone of the opposite sex you want to get to know better. He was easy to talk to. Receptive. I had misunderstood his attitude about Marc and me. He was nothing but sympathetic. And he was willing to reveal things about himself. His recent divorce after a lengthy and painful separation. His desire to get out of the city and buy a house in the Gatineaus once the finances had been sorted out. He wanted a house like mine. A partner with similar interests.

  “My wife—ex-wife—lives entirely in an emotional, and urban, world. She was never interested in doing anything outdoors. Just art galleries and theatre. Which is okay in small doses, but…. She doesn’t approach anything logically. She comes at things sideways. It was exhausting to deal with. I used to think that was the way all of you were. But I’ve begun to realize not all Ellens are created equal.”

  He was glancing down at me with a significant look.

  I started. “What d’you mean, ‘all Ellens’?”

  Quinn hesitated. Then shrugged. “I just mean all women aren’t the same. Some of you are rational.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ve been very rational lately.”

  “You’ve had very rational reasons to be irrational. But I can read you. Underneath.” He smiled. “Call my psychic.”

  I laughed. “Or psycho—like me.” But I was enjoying the idea of Quinn being able to read me. He certainly had an uncanny ability in that department.

  We turned around. There were no outbuildings in the woods, nothing out of the ordinary. Back at the car, Quinn looked at me over the roof before he unlocked the door. “Where to next, Boss?”

  I directed him to the cemetery. He turned in at the first entrance and parked on the roadway at the back. There was no one else in sight. “Shall I refrain from making jokes about the graveyard?”

  “Go ahead, get them out of your system. I already did.”

  The cemetery had a whole different feel to it with Quinn with me. Like the Greenbelt, it was an enjoyable stroll. Nothing sinister at all.

  We couldn’t get inside the storage building. It was locked up tight.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone else has got in here either,” was Quinn’s comment.

  “And there are no poplar trees,” I added. “But can we go down there anyway?” I nodded to the woods.

  We found a trail and wandered along the creek in the ravine. The only thing out of the ordinary was my feeling that Q
uinn secretly thought this whole exercise was pointless.

  We headed back to the car. Quinn paused beside me on the passenger side after he unlocked my door. “You’re pretty quiet. Disappointed?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you just humouring me?”

  He reached out and shook me by the shoulders. “I’m going to throttle you, woman.”

  He must have seen my stricken face. He let me go. “I’m kidding.”

  I laughed to hide the adrenalin rush and got in the car. “I know. Anyway, if you do, you’ll have a handy place to hide my body.”

  “That’s not,” said Quinn, “what I’d like to—” He cut himself off and shut the door after me.

  The drive back up Bank Street was a déjà vu. I could still feel Quinn’s hands shaking me. He’d been joking. I was being paranoid. I sat and stewed in silence.

  “I don’t think anyone will recognize us here.” I jumped at the sound of his voice. He had pulled into a small strip mall just north of Hunt Club.

  “What are we doing?”

  “We’re having dinner. Me taking you.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Mind?”

  I shook my head. Dinner in a public place. It was probably just what I needed.

  The tavern—a separate building in the corner of the parking lot—was dimly lit and starting to fill up. Quinn directed me to a table at the back.