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

by Mary Jane Maffini

  “You said that the officers checked that out.”

  “They didn't think it was such a big deal, but they don't know her. Her apartment is always in perfect order, like a showroom. She loves her music. She'd never scatter her CDs on the floor.”

  “Here are a couple of tips. Never mind telling them how well you know the person and how they wouldn't do this or that. I'm a cop, and I hear that all the time about so-called missing persons who just want to get away from the same someone who knows them too well. It's not even midnight. No wonder they're not doing backflips.”

  “She should be in hospital, under medical observation.”

  “I understand. Trust me, if you want the police to do something, you have to use whatever turns their crank. Dementia or Alzheimer's is a hot button for the media. They'll put out a bulletin. People will watch for her. Someone will spot her and call in.”

  “She doesn't have dementia. The doctor said she was…”

  “Don't quote the doctor when you're talking to the cops.”

  “I get your point, but if Mrs. P. heard that, she'd have a fit. When there was a false bulletin out for me, I was really pissed off. And frankly nervous too.”

  Ray chuckled. “I heard you did some crazy things. Now you're asking for advice, and I'm giving it. If you play the dementia card, mention medication needed and inadequate clothing for weather conditions. That'll ratchet up interest.”

  “Maybe we can just allude to it. Say fears for her safety, that kind of thing. At the very least, they'll track the vehicle.” I had a flash vision of Mrs. Parnell giving the cops a run for their money in a high-speed chase. I bet her Volvo could outrun those Crown Vics.

  The next step seemed obvious, if unpleasant. Unfortunately, as a rule, your previous relationships with the police can have a big effect on how they treat you later on. I was all too aware of this. I got voicemail hell on the police line for routine enquiries. I struck out with 911.

  I saw no choice. I picked up the phone and dialled Conn's cellphone. Luckily, I knew exactly where Conn was. I asked him to make the appropriate contact at Headquarters. I said I was sorry if I was interrupting whatever he was doing at the time and requested that he not indicate I was the one calling during the family dinner. I made a point of mentioning that his own wife had introduced this dementia worry, and if he had a problem with it, he should take it up with Alexa later. Like that would happen.

  * * *

  Alvin stomped through the door, shook his wet ponytail and slumped on Mrs. P.'s black leather sofa.

  “Still nothing,” I said before he could ask.

  “I went by your place like you asked and fed and walked Gussie.”

  “Thanks, Alvin. I appreciate it.”

  “I fed the cat too. You think we should bring them over here?”

  I glanced at Lester and Pierre. “Bad idea.”

  “I thought you said that if the police put out a bulletin about Violet, that someone would call in.”

  “Ray thought if we claimed dementia, that might speed things up. No guarantees.”

  “Someone should have seen her.”

  “This is Mrs. Parnell. She probably doesn't want to be seen. Maybe she's wearing a hat or something.”

  “They had the license plate number of the Volvo.”

  “Alvin, I'm getting a headache. Let's find something to do here instead of fretting.”

  “There's nothing to do. We've already searched the place twice.”

  “Let's search it again. Maybe instead of looking for something, we should concentrate more on what isn't here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what did she take with her. We think she took the two small red suitcases, and we know she left her uniform. We should have thought of this before.”

  “We're rattled, Camilla,” Alvin said. He certainly looked rattled. The ponytail was damp and bedraggled, the earrings drooped, and he slouched, paler than dust.

  “Agreed. And we have a right to be. Now, let's get moving. Her walker's here.”

  “What do you think that means?”

  “I don't know what it means. Where is her cane?”

  Alvin zipped from room to room. “Nowhere,” he said. “It's gone. She's got two of them, and they're both gone.”

  “So, maybe she was going somewhere where the walker wouldn't be necessary.”

  “Or maybe it wouldn't be convenient. Or it might be too noticeable.”

  “Like where, Alvin?”

  “I don't know. A bus?”

  “Why would she take a bus? She has the car. Okay. We need some kind of focus. Let's assume she's not just randomly driving around to clear her head. Why would she go anywhere in the first place?”

  “And not to tell us where she was going, that's not like Violet.”

  “You're right, it isn't. So either she's behaving irrationally, or she had a plan we don't know about and chose not to involve us.”

  “I hate both those options,” Alvin said.

  “Me too, but I think we have to face facts.”

  “What if someone took her away?”

  I felt a headache coming on. “We have no reason to believe that someone took her. Do you really think that Mrs. P. would just go off with someone without putting up a fight?”

  “She wouldn't.”

  “That's right. Now look around you.”

  Alvin narrowed his eyes and scanned the room.

  “Do you see any signs of a fight?”

  “I see mess. Remember we thought it was a burglar?”

  “No signs of a struggle, right? No chairs knocked over, no stuff broken, no phone off the hook? This is Mrs. P. She wouldn't go quietly.”

  “Maybe he had a gun.”

  “All right, before we explore the gun theory, let's work through the other much more likely reasons. First, that she was not thinking normally. What evidence do we have of that?”

  “Just the conversation with the dead guy.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Your sister said that probably means dementia. That's got me all nerved up.”

  “We were with Mrs. Parnell. She was upset, not demented.”

  “Yeah, but she was troubled.”

  “Deeply disturbed. Definitely rational, as usual.”

  Alvin seemed to take some comfort in this.

  I said, “So let's assume that she is her normal self, even if upset enough to give us the slip in the hospital. If she's gone somewhere under her own steam, the question is, why would she leave here in such a hurry?”

  “To find something out? Information.”

  “She's a whiz on that computer. She can surf the net as well as you can, and she's way better than me. I think if she just wanted information, she'd do it here on her own.”

  Alvin furrowed his brow. “True, I guess.”

  “She took suitcases, Alvin. Kidnappers wouldn't take suitcases. I think she's headed out of town, under her own steam and with some kind of plan we aren't privy to.”

  Alvin dragged himself into the bedroom and stared at the large, red unzipped suitcase in the middle of the floor. I followed.

  Alvin said, “Maybe she had something hidden in the suitcases. Maybe that's what the burglar was looking for. Or the kidnappers. Although it doesn't look like it had anything in it.”

  I agreed, although to be fair, we were grasping at straws here.

  He said, “It's hard to know what's missing if you don't know what was there in the first place. I have no idea what Violet kept in her suitcases.”

  “Me neither. You raise a good point, Alvin. Something is missing. Something's not quite right. Look around. What do we not see that we should see?”

  His eyes misted. “I don't know.”

  “We'll figure it out. Stay calm, that's our main tactic.”

  Alvin sniffed noisily. “If you can call it a tactic.”

  “It's what we have.”

  Minutes later, back in the living room, while I stood staring at the CD cases
with my mind a perfect blank, Alvin said, “That's it!”

  “What?”

  “The photos!”

  “Oh, right. Her war photos. Where are they?”

  We both pivoted around.

  Alvin said, “Do you think she just moved them?”

  “They're always right here on the bookcase, place of honour,” I said.

  “Maybe she was looking at them before the ceremony. Perhaps she wanted to honour her old friends, and she just put them down somewhere. Let's take a look.”

  It doesn't take all that long to comb through a one-bedroom apartment, particularly if you've already checked it out several times within the hour.

  “Not here,” Alvin said.

  “Okay,” I said, “thinking strategically, which Mrs. Parnell would want us to do, there's probably some connection with those photos and her departure.”

  “Sounds good,” said Alvin. “What do you think it is?”

  “No idea. We have to start somewhere. It's better to be off-base than to sit staring at our navels.”

  “So maybe she went to see someone in the photo?”

  “Yes. Let's operate on that principle.”

  “You're starting to talk like Violet,” Alvin said. “What's that about?”

  “I don't know. Back to business. Let's start with what we've almost got. Who was in those photographs?” I closed my eyes and tried to imagine them.

  “There was one of her husband. Two actually,” Alvin said. “There was another photo of some people in Canadian uniforms overseas, maybe in England. She never talked about them, though. I asked her once, and she changed the subject. She likes talking about the war, although it made her sad, I think, to talk about the people in the photos.”

  “I imagine that some of the boys in uniform never made it back from the war.”

  “Her husband came back, but he didn't live all that long after,” said Alvin. “She doesn't talk about him either.”

  “She talked to me once about being widowed and trying to move on with one's life. She was trying to help me, I think.” I didn't mention that a large quantity of Bristol Cream had preceded the discussion.

  Alvin said, “Okay, we still don't have much to go on.”

  “Hold on. Back to the photos. Either the person who broke in here took them, or Mrs. P. did.”

  “Who would leave electronics and take photos?”

  “Good point,” I said nicely. “We have to assume it was Mrs. P. Let's suppose she was going to see someone who was in the photo, and she just wanted it with her to show them.”

  “We still don't know who she was going to see.”

  “Right, so if we had even one clue as to who the people were, we could contact them to see if they've heard from her.”

  Alvin said, “She grew up in Chesterton, down past Kingston. Is that any help? I guess not, after all these years.”

  I slapped my forehead. “Of course, her address book. What is the matter with us?”

  Alvin said, “There's nothing wrong with me. I already thought of that. Violet keeps her address book by the phone. There's no sign of it.”

  “She must have taken it with her.”

  I narrowly avoided being knocked over by Alvin as he sprinted to the phone. “Last call redial!” he yelled, as he picked up the receiver. “Remember when Violet used that to find you when you were in trouble?”

  “I do.” It hadn't been the only time she'd used technology to save me.

  “Oh.” Alvin's face fell. “It's my number.”

  “Check the Caller ID to see if anyone has called her.”

  Alvin clicked away. “You. Me. You. Me. You. Me. Me. Me. And you. It's only us for the last twenty-five calls.”

  “Crap,” I said.

  “Agreed.”

  “Hey wait, the telephone book is sitting right there. Doesn't she keep that on the shelf as a rule?”

  “She does,” Alvin said. “She must have been looking up a number.”

  I flipped it open to see if any pages were marked or dog-eared. I checked on the tops of pages to see if she'd written anything. It was Alvin's turn to pace, while I worked my way through it. No luck.

  “Face it, Alvin. We're stumped. Okay, what else can we do?”

  Alvin slipped into the black chair. “We can't give up on Violet that easily.”

  “I'm not suggesting we give up. We can't stay stumped forever. So what would Mrs. P. do now?”

  “Soldier on,” Alvin said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Sometimes older people keep stuff in drawers or chests just to protect it or keep it safe. Not that I think of Violet as an older person. With my grandmother, the more important it was, the deeper it was buried. Her china tea set that I have, you know the one, well, it was in a box on the top shelf of her closet, wrapped in paper. It was her most precious possession.”

  “My father's like that with his medals. So let's go through everything. I'll start with the dresser drawers. You take the closets.”

  Alvin stopped and said, “You think we're violating her privacy?”

  “Like they say, Alvin, forgiveness is easier than permission.”

  “I like that.”

  I pulled open the first drawer and frowned. “Looks like someone already went through them. I don't think Mrs. P. kept everything in a jumble. I can't tell what's missing. All Mrs. Parnell's clothes are shades of khaki or taupe. They all look alike.”

  Alvin stuck his head out of the closet. “Let me check.”

  “This feels weird. What if she marches through the door with a smouldering Benson & Hedges and a tumbler full of Harvey's and says what the devil are you doing pawing through my belongings?”

  Alvin's eyes got misty. “That would be the absolute best thing that could happen.”

  “Right. Okay, let's think. Did she pack before the burglar or after?”

  “Before,” Alvin said. “She learned in the army that it takes less time to do something right than to rush through it. She would have straightened up her apartment if she'd come here after him. She wouldn't leave her place like this.”

  “Good point. Did she know someone would break in? How could she?”

  Alvin stepped down from the step stool he was standing on. “I don't know. Lord thundering Jesus, Camilla, I just thought of something. Where are her laptop and digital camera? Do you think the burglar made off with them?”

  “Or she took them herself.”

  Alvin said, “Unless they're with the stuff she sent over to my place yesterday.”

  I did not yell. “What stuff she sent to your place?”

  “Just a box. She asked me to take it home and not to disturb the contents.”

  I took a deep, soothing breath. “Did that seem strange? With all the empty space Mrs. P. has?”

  “She's my friend, so I was glad to do her a favour without being nosy. You would have done it too, no questions asked. So just don't start with me.”

  “Use your brain, Alvin. She didn't want someone to find it.”

  Alvin goggled. “That means she knew it might happen.”

  “Exactly. Let's go get the box, Alvin.”

  “What if we bring it back and whoever broke in is watching?”

  “Now that's just plain…” I stared at Alvin. “The guy in the hall.”

  “The innocent bystander,” Alvin said.

  I kicked the leather chair. “He was coming right down this hallway, carrying a goddam box. I never even gave it a moment's thought.”

  “Yeah, and his suit was all rumpled,” Alvin said.

  “Did you smell aftershave when he passed?”

  “Holy shit,” Alvin said. “He's the burglar! No wonder he looked like he was about to have a heart attack.”

  * * *

  Alvin lives in the tangle of narrow streets in old Hull, now called the Hull sector of the city of Gatineau. Downtown Hull had been off-limits when I was a teenager. With the seedy bar strip, the tangle of old streets, the availability of drugs and booz
e, it was no place for a nice Catholic girl from across the river in Ontario. Naturally, I've always liked it. Alvin chooses to live there, finding a campy charm in the area. No one could have followed us, as we looped around the old streets, changing direction every time we went over a hill. We gave it one extra whirl before we parked behind Alvin's latest apartment.

  “I'll stay here, in case he comes by and spots the car. Safer that way,” I said. I was avoiding any decorating innovations Alvin might have made to his apartment. Could be an autumn theme with crackling leaves, or maybe a simulation of Flanders Fields, with wall to wall poppies and a hidden bugler playing Taps around the clock. Whatever, I just wasn't up for it at the moment. “Bring the box, and we'll check it at my place. If we have to hide it, I have a zillion other boxes to throw someone off the scent.”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, we parked on Third Avenue in the Glebe and opened my front door. The house is new to me, as anyone could tell from the stacks of packing boxes from my apartment, the battered filing cabinets and the two government surplus desks from Justice for Victims which were squished into the living room. My old furniture was stacked on end in the hallway, so you had to inhale to get through. The living room was being converted to the new Justice for Victims office, which would solve my office eviction problem and keep me from rambling around in a house that had far more space than I needed. Since the upstairs was about the size of my former apartment, I planned to live there as soon as I got rid of the surplus furniture. I had a good, workable plan, but for a variety of reasons, I wasn't getting far. My favourite social activist, Elaine Ekstein, had located a battered women's shelter that needed the duplicate furniture, particularly the sofa stacked in the hallway, and the extra bed, chairs and dining room table. Too bad Elaine was at a women's issues conference in Australia, so that wouldn't happen until she got back.

  For the moment, Alvin and I perched on the sofa, tuning out the chaos around us and ogling an unassuming cardboard box, about the size of a toaster oven, which it had once contained. Gussie, the large and fragrant dog, who is with me temporarily until Alvin or one of the other Fergusons arranges a permanent home for him, was sitting on the floor between us. Mrs. Parnell's little calico cat, also a long-term visitor, paraded on the back of the sofa, her long, expressive tail swishing our necks. It would have been quite the homey scene if we hadn't both been so wrecked.