[C. MacP #5] The Dead Don't Get Out Much

by Mary Jane Maffini

“Okay, Camilla, I knew you'd answer eventually,” Ray Deveau said cheerfully. “I've got a new plan.”

  “Bad time for me, Ray.” I jogged through the drizzle to keep up with Alvin, who had commandeered the keys to my car. “Can I call you back?”

  Ray paused, just briefly. “It will only take two minutes.”

  “Mrs. Parnell's absconded from the hospital. We've got to get to her place to see if she's all right.”

  Ray chuckled softly. “Absconded. She broke out? Just like her.”

  I hadn't thought of that. “I guess it is.”

  “Did you think she'd take being in hospital lying down?”

  “Don't laugh at your own jokes, Ray.”

  “Somebody has to. You know what, I hope we're capable of absconding when we're her age.”

  He had a point. “I guess.”

  “Just listen to the new plan. Can't you do that on your way?”

  “Yeah, okay, shoot.”

  “I talked to my sister. She'll stay with the girls whenever the time is right.”

  “She will? Well, that's great.”

  “Yup. I talked to my supervisor, explained the situation. No one else wants to book off time right now, so I can make arrangements on fairly short notice.”

  “Huh.”

  “It looks like I can get pretty good deals online no matter where we want to go. November's not the best travel month for most people, so that works in our favour.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, opening the passenger side door since Alvin had taken over the driver's side.

  “You make sure Mrs. Parnell is all right, and when you're good to go, we'll arrange our holiday. When you have a moment to think about it, give me a hint where you'd like to go and I'll get cracking.”

  This would have been a good time to say something lovey-dovish to Ray, something along the lines of how glad I was he was in my life. Too bad I was distracted by Alvin, who had turned on the hazard lights instead of the windshield wipers.

  “Thanks, Ray.”

  My neck jerked back as Alvin accelerated out of the lot, tossing ten dollars at the attendant.

  After another pause, Ray said, “You're welcome.”

  “Talk to you later, then,” I said.

  “Yup.”

  * * *

  In the apartment foyer, I shook my wet hair and jabbed the bell for Mrs. Parnell's unit repeatedly and without luck. Alvin and I both had keys to Mrs. Parnell's apartment, although I'd had to turn in my building key when I'd vacated against my will, and Alvin was too rattled to remember where his was. I buzzed a few other apartments at random. That usually worked. Not this time. The building management was on a security campaign, and it seemed to be working.

  Normally, I would think security was a good thing. Tonight it was a damned nuisance. To make matters worse, my grouchy former neighbour pushed past us as we were making a desperate attempt to gain access. I was pretty sure that jerk was the reason I no longer lived in this building. Some people have no understanding of a dog's need to bark from time to time. I dug deep into my politeness reserves to get the right tone and called after him. “You know me, I was your next-door neighbour. I need to get in to check on Mrs. Parnell. She's your neighbour on the other side of the hallway in 1608. She's supposed to be in the hospital and…”

  I was talking to the closed door by this time.

  Alvin gasped. “Can you believe that guy? What is our society coming to?”

  “You tell me,” I snarled and went back to jabbing Mrs. Parnell's bell and the Super's. Without result.

  “Are we wasting time here?” I said, “Maybe she's not even home yet. Maybe she's confused and wandering.”

  “Or, she is home, and she doesn't want us to see her.”

  “Don't even think that,” I said.

  “Here's our chance,” Alvin said. He took advantage of a nice girl who was leaving the building and grabbed the door before it closed.

  The elevator took about a year to get to the sixteenth floor.

  Alvin and I careened into each other getting out of the elevator, and we thundered down the corridor. We almost knocked over a somewhat startled man who was heading for the elevator balancing a hefty cardboard box. This guy's suit was already rumpled, and it looked like he was going to collapse before he got to the elevator.

  “Oops, sorry,” Alvin said.

  “It's all right,” the guy said in a wobbly voice, as the down elevator dinged.

  I didn't have time to worry about innocent bystanders.

  “Okay,” I said, as we reached her apartment, “if she's not here, we have to contact the Super, so that he can keep an eye out, and let us know if she shows up.”

  “The Super's not answering. And if she's not here, where could she be?” Alvin looked a bit more wild-eyed than usual.

  We both stopped abruptly. The door to 1608 stood open.

  “Oh,” said Alvin.

  “Great,” I said. “She's home.”

  “Violet!” Alvin barrelled through the door.

  No answer.

  “Violet?”

  “Mrs. P.?”

  Lester and Pierre, Mrs. Parnell's evil peach-faced lovebirds, screamed. Mrs. Parnell's place is neat, state of the art and minimalist. High-end stereo equipment and the latest in television, don't ask me brand names. The furniture was simple: black leather sofa and two chairs. Brushed chrome and glass coffee table and end table. Euro style lamps. There is a complete absence of doilies, knickknacks or clutter.

  “Lord thundering Jesus,” Alvin said. “Was there a tornado here? Her CDs are all over the floor. And look at the books!”

  I stepped toward the bedroom, my heart beating. “Mrs. P.? It's me, Camilla.”

  Alvin said, “And me.”

  “Silence implies consent.” I strode through the door.

  Nothing. And no one. The bed was made, military style. Aside from that, Mrs. Parnell's room looked like the contents had been dumped from an airplane.

  “What happened here?” Alvin said.

  I shook my head. “A burglar?”

  “The stereo's still in the living room, and so is her new plasma TV.” Alvin said. “Burglars love electronics. You should know that, you had enough clients who were burglars.”

  “Maybe we interrupted one.”

  Alvin mouthed, “Maybe he's still here.”

  “He'd have to be in the bathroom,” I mouthed back and pointed.

  “Or under the bed,” Alvin gestured.

  “Or in the closet.”

  “Behind the drapes.”

  “Cornered,” I whispered.

  “Whoops.”

  Alvin armed himself with the standing lamp, and I picked up a small metal chair. With his free hand, Alvin yanked open the bathroom door. I raised the chair over my head.

  Alvin shook his head.

  No one there. Somebody had emptied the medicine cabinet though, scattering toiletries into the sink and onto the floor. I reached over and whipped open the shower curtain. There was a crunch as I stepped on an empty container.

  “Closet,” I mouthed.

  No one in the closet either. A few items hanging. A couple of hangers lay on the floor. Together we checked behind all the drapes. As a last resort, I dropped to my knees and peered under the bed. I scanned the room again, trying to make sense of things. A large red suitcase lay in the middle of the bedroom floor, unzipped and open, with clothing strewn over it.

  “Violet has a set of this luggage,” Alvin said. “She just got it. We were thinking of taking some trips.”

  My mind boggled.

  He said, “There was a carry-on, with wheels, and a little toiletries case too. It had a place to hang her cane. The two cases hooked together, and they were lightweight, so that she could handle them. Although I would have helped her.”

  I said, “Well, there's only one here now.”

  Alvin checked my facts by peering into the closet.

  I said, “Do you think a burglar would steal suitcases?”
r />   “He could use them to stash stuff.”

  “Nothing's missing.”

  “Like you said, maybe he got interrupted.”

  “By us. Or by Mrs. P.”

  “But she's not here,” Alvin said. “Do you think she even came home?”

  I pointed to the open door of the closet. “Isn't that her uniform, hanging up there?”

  “Ohmigod, she was wearing it when she went to the hospital.”

  “Right. And naturally, she must have worn it home. Obviously, she changed her clothes, and she hung up the uniform carefully. And then what?”

  “She must have changed.”

  “Obviously, Alvin. But what explains all this mess in the apartment?”

  Alvin swivelled around. “I still figure a burglar. I can smell his aftershave. Can you?”

  “What is it? Not Old Spice.”

  “Well, hardly. No, something contemporary. Hugo Boss maybe.”

  “Okay, so we smell aftershave, and Mrs. P.'s not here. Where did she go?”

  “Why would she go anywhere? She couldn't have been recovered from seeing the dead man.”

  “We'll leave the dead man out of it. Dead men don't wear aftershave.”

  “She's been kidnapped,” Alvin said

  “That's just ridiculous. Why would anybody kidnap her?”

  “I don't know. It doesn't matter why. Somebody must have. Expensive aftershave. There's a type. You know what? I think that guy we passed had it on.”

  “Let's keep cool. It's unlikely that she was kidnapped. This is Ottawa. And that guy we passed didn't have her. She probably just went out. She's independent. Maybe she had to pick up something.”

  Alvin was on his way to the kitchen this time, flinging open the door to the fridge.

  “There's food in here. Cheese. Bread. Wait a sec. Yeah. Lots of frozen sweet and sour chicken in the freezer too. Her fave.”

  I headed back to the living room and checked the small modern cabinet where Mrs. P. keeps her Harvey's Bristol Cream. Three bottles stood waiting. A full carton of Benson & Hedges sat near the bottles.

  “It wasn't a trip to fetch booze or cigarettes. What else could it be?”

  Alvin loped back to the kitchen and flung open a door. “There's lots of bird seed. And it looks like she just fed them.”

  “No need to panic. We should think logically.”

  “If there were kidnappers, they must have had a van,” Alvin poked his head around the corner.

  “Why on earth would anyone kidnap Mrs. Parnell?”

  “Maybe she knew something that…”

  “Forget it. Let's operate on the principal that she simply went out, Alvin. Like anyone would do on any normal day.”

  Alvin's beady eyes watered. He put his hand in his leather jacket and pulled out the book. Another storm on the voyage to self-discovery.

  We both turned our eyes to the clock.

  “Okay, so it's after nine. Most stores will be closed. What's she doing out at this time of night? She'd hardly go to a concert in her state.”

  “We should have asked the doctor exactly when she left the hospital,” Alvin said.

  “I don't think he knew. He seemed quite shocked when he figured it out. Remember? We were hanging around when she was long gone.”

  “It's not like Violet to be inconsiderate, even if she did leave us sitting there in those miserable plastic chairs. Why would she do that?”

  “Let's chalk it up to shock.” I didn't want to suggest dementia. I couldn't bear the thought of Mrs. Parnell, sharp as a tack, as cunning as any field commander, slipping into nightmarish confusion.

  Alvin said, “Probably she didn't realize we were there.”

  I said, “More likely, she thought we'd object to her leaving the hospital.”

  “But why did she need to leave in the first place?”

  “That's the question, isn't it, Alvin? What? What's the matter?”

  “Wait a minute. How did she get home? Her car's here.”

  “Her car's here?”

  “Yeah. Someone picked her up to go to the meeting point for the march. A volunteer.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  Three minutes later, our elevator reached the garage level, and we walked briskly toward Mrs. P.'s parking spot.

  “Holy shit,” Alvin said.

  “I'll second that,” I said as we stared at the spot where Mrs. Parnell's new Volvo should have been.

  “Maybe the kidnappers took it,” Alvin said.

  “Are you residents?” a voice boomed behind us.

  I stared at an oversized, uniformed and unfamiliar security guard. “Not exactly,” I said. “We're looking for Mrs. Violet Parnell, Apt. 1608.”

  “Yeah, sure. Stay put,” he said. “Let's see what the cops have to say about that.”

  London, England

  March 14, 1942

  Dear Miss Wilkinson,

  It was a pleasure to meet you at the dance last night. I never imagined I would meet a Canadian girl over here in England. You certainly do have a way of putting your ideas across. I've never met a lady who could drive a truck before. If I had ever given such an unlikely circumstance a moment's thought, I never would have expected the same person to be charming and feminine and yet to have such strong opinions on politics and economics.

  I hope to have a chance to meet you again and to continue our discussion about the relative merits of Russian composers. I have quite a different take on this Shostakovich.

  I hope you will allow me to call you Violet.

  Sincerely,

  Walter Parnell

  Four

  It's about time,” I said.

  Sgt. Conn McCracken, my brother-in-law, joined the crowd scene in the garage. The cast of this comedy was now made up of the security guard, two police constables, and the Super, who had finally shown up in his pajama tops and chinos with pajama bottoms peeping out at the ankles. He smelled ever so slightly of bubble bath.

  I'd never seen the two constables before. They seemed impressed by the arrival of a detective from Major Crimes.

  Alvin and I were the criminal centrepieces.

  Conn gave me a dirty look.

  “It's not my fault. I told you Mrs. Parnell disappeared. Vanished. The police should be looking for her, not wasting time pestering us merely because we don't happen to live here.”

  “Let's finish up this business of your trespassing in a building you were recently evicted from before we move on.”

  “What a crock,” I said. “Sure, they asked me to move out of my apartment. So what? I did. It was a misunderstanding about a fire alarm, which I never pulled, and a neighbour complaining about Gussie, which was just plain petty. No one ever said I couldn't come back to the building. So what's this trespassing crap?”

  Alvin said, “We had to go into Violet's apartment to see if she was there. It's like when the cops showed up here, they didn't even care about where Violet was. I don't know what society's coming to.”

  I spotted a small spasm in Conn's jaw. “Please, tell me you didn't go into someone's apartment when they weren't there.”

  “We didn't know she wasn't there. How could we?”

  Alvin said, “Hey, I bet it was that neighbour. He closed the door right in our faces. He probably went back to his apartment and looked on the monitor and spotted us coming and called security. He knows we're not burglars.”

  “Is that what happened? That jerk made a complaint again?” I said to the super, who was standing around looking useless.

  The Super blushed. “I felt bad, eh, you getting booted out like that. It wasn't me. I would have let you guys in if I'd known.”

  “No hard feelings, although you might consider answering your doorbell in the future.”

  Conn said, “Let's just get this settled. You were searching for your friend who disappeared from the hospital. You went to her apartment because you were afraid she was in trouble.”

  “We tried buzzing the Super.”
>
  “I was in the bathtub,” the Super said, pinkly.

  “That's unlawful entering,” the guard said. “I know that. I'm taking Law and Security at Algonquin.”

  I said. “Even though the door was open, I have a key to Mrs. Parnell's apartment, and that's the equivalent of permission to enter.” I didn't bother to mention I had a perfectly serviceable law degree and a license to practice.

  The guard puffed up his chest. “Yeah, well, the guy in 1603 said you weren't supposed to be in the building. That sounds unlawful to me.”

  Conn shrugged. “This is a whole lot of crap about nothing,” he said to the two constables.

  “It's something all right. Mrs. Parnell is not where she should be, and she's in rough shape. Her apartment's been trashed, and now her goddam car is gone. Something's wrong, and I want to know what the hell the police are going to do about it.”

  * * *

  “So the short answer is they're not doing much besides sitting on their hands,” I said.

  Ray Deveau said, “There's not much they can do. She's a functioning adult, and she can come and go as she pleases. I'm sure you're aware of that, what with your law degree and all.”

  “Go ahead, mock. I'm looking for support here.”

  I had to admit, Ray was in a pretty supportive mood when I called. He always was. I wish some of that would rub off on my other friends and relatives.

  “Something's wrong. I know it. Conn wasn't much help.”

  Ray sighed. “Okay, we'll talk about the vacation at a more opportune moment. Where are you calling from?”

  “Mrs. Parnell's place. I'm waiting here in case she comes back. Alvin's out driving around in the rain looking for her. We're taking turns. Is there any way to light a fire under the police? Couldn't they be on the lookout for her?”

  “It's a bit early for a BOLO. The problem is, not much time has elapsed since she took off. Lots of people would have still been lying on a gurney in the emergency room corridor. The cops just think you are overreacting.”

  “Come on, Ray. The hospital staff were talking about heart attack. Add to that the weird talk of dead men and the fact she skipped out of the hospital, deliberately giving us the slip.”

  “Camilla, you don't have to convince me.”

  “Then there's the fact that her apartment has obviously been turned over by someone searching for something.”