“I’m not sure I get you,” said Hazel.
“If I see smoke, I know I’m not imagining it,” he said. “But my taste for the here-and-now is what makes me what I am, right?”
“Does that mean you don’t look for what you can’t see, Officer?”
“It means we beat cops have enough on our hands with what’s right in front of us.”
“Well, that’s the difference, isn’t it?” she said, ignoring the little voice reminding her she’d gone into the backyard on a hunch. “We need both of us if we’re going to get the job done, though, don’t we?”
“Sure,” he said, and he sounded friendly, but she knew there were those police out there who saw the art of investigation as only one step above voodoo and she thought Hutchins was probably one of them.
“Anyway, speaking of the here-and-now, I better call in, see what’s going on back home.” She turned away from the other officers and made contact with the station house. Her nerves had been jangling ever since Childress had made the suggestion that she was here in Toronto in order not to be there, in Port Dundas. She got Wingate on the line. “Tell me it’s business as usual, James.”
“More or less.”
“Meaning?”
“The video changed again.”
“Shit.” Childress shot her a look. “What is it now?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s basically black. There’s a sound though.”
“A sound?”
“A scratching sound.”
“So you can hear now?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean by ‘basically black’?”
“It’s black, but there’s a small green triangle in the bottom left corner of the screen now. Like a ‘play’ button on a VCR.”
She wondered what that might mean and couldn’t come up with anything that calmed her guts. “Mute the mic, James.”
“Already done.”
“Now, what about Anonymice?”
“They’re in Grand Cayman.”
“Great.”
“I’ve made contact with the Royal Cayman Police Force. I’m waiting for a call-back.”
“You make sure they understand this isn’t about money laundering. We’ve got a crime in progress. A man’s life depends on their assistance.”
“Got it,” he said.
Childress was looking at her watch. “Detective Inspector, I can get in touch with the housing office on campus this afternoon. See if there’s a list of past tenants. Maybe something will crop up.”
“I’d appreciate that,” said Hazel. There was a strange hesitation, and then Hazel realized that Childress was waiting for her to pass her her card. She hoped she had one on her, but she didn’t. “Uh,” she said. “I’ll just tell you my number.”
“Okay,” said Childress, and she flipped her notebook open. “Shoot.” She wrote down the number and closed her pad. “Well… if we find anything…”
“Thanks,” said Hazel, and with that, another signal passed between the two cops, and they headed down the stairs. She and Andrew watched them drive off.
“I can’t tell if that guy was high-hatting me or just passing the time of day,” she said to Andrew.
“What do you care what he thinks?” he replied. “You’re in the right place and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“You’re just nervous because you’re off your turf, Hazel. But that doesn’t make them any less clueless.”
“I feel like I should try to get back in there. Look around without those beat cops’ eyes on me.”
“If there is a reason for you to snoop around again here, don’t you want to have the right paperwork? I get the feeling they could have given you trouble on a technicality if they wanted to, Hazel.”
“Fine. Then what do I do with this feeling?”
“Feed it sushi,” he said.
They sat at one of the tables in the back of the green-and-black restaurant on Bloor Street. The whole interior looked like the lacquered boxes they served the food in. Hazel had never been partial to Japanese food: she didn’t like its prettiness, its attention to the little detail. She preferred her food to take up the whole plate. Still, she had to admit it tasted good and they said it was good for you. She couldn’t think if she’d ever seen a fat Japanese person. It was just past one and the place was full of young people expertly wielding their little wooden sticks over plates full of bright squares of food.
The last time she’d shared a meal with Andrew, just the two of them, she’d been reduced more or less to begging. Here, too, he’d come to her aid, but at least it wasn’t as personal as before. She tried to think of the last time she’d ever done anything for him. That was something to store away.
“Five Japanese restaurants on a single stretch of road and the whole of Westmuir County can’t manage even one,” he said. He was holding a piece of salmon sashimi in the air on the end of a fork. In all his years of proclaiming himself a sushi aficionado, he’d never learned how to use chopsticks. It was this shameless confidence in himself that had long ago attracted her to him. He popped it into his mouth. “Fire was the worst thing that ever happened to fish,” he said.
She toyed with her avocado maki. “Maybe we call Martha and take her out for a coffee?”
“And let her call me Watson all afternoon? No thanks. Plus, I told Glynnis I’d be back in time to marinate some flank steak.” It was the first time her name had come up all day. Four hours and counting, Hazel thought. Progress, if she were foolish enough to think of it that way.
“I was expecting you to say you didn’t want to give her false hope. Seeing us together.”
His fork stilled, mid-air. “Is that how you see this, Hazel? A relationship-building exercise? I came because you asked me to help. Don’t make me think you had ulterior motives.”
“Moi?” she said, splaying a hand against her chest. “Never.”
He eyed her carefully, admitting the ghost of a smile. “I thought you did very well today.”
“Nothing happened.”
“I mean with your back. You drove almost two hours this morning and it’s going to be two hours back and you’re in tiptop shape. That’s an excellent sign.”
“You mean I’ll be moving out soon.”
“There’s that as well.”
“Maybe I’ll stub a toe and try to prolong my visit.”
He forked up a mound of white rice and dropped it into his mouth. “You are always welcome to stop by, Hazel.”
She felt the withdrawal symptoms still nibbling away at the edges: a faint sizzle behind the eyes, of worry, or dread. And then she realized it wasn’t the lack of Percs she was feeling: it was grief. And she permitted herself, at last, the thought in full that she’d only let flit on the periphery: that she wished the last three years had never happened. And not just because she missed him and still loved him, but because they were not done; they had not finished telling the great story of their lives. It was true that it had not always been great, but it was their story, and it was going to be the only story they had. Well, the only story she had. Of who she was with him, of who they’d been together and what they’d done. What she had of him and he of her made it impossible that anyone else could know them as they’d once been. Letting herself think this, a too-big space opened in her chest and she realized how much grief she had over losing this most important friendship of her life. And at the same time, she realized that he was happy and that there was nothing she could do, or should do, to change things between them.
“Hazel?”
“You have rice on your chin,” she said.
“Well, you don’t have to cry about it.”
“Wasabi,” she said. “It’s two o’clock. We should get ourselves home.”
Back in Port Dundas, she sat in her office with Wingate. The screen showed a black as solid as a moonless night with the little green arrow at the bottom. The scratc
hing sound was repetitive, like it was on a loop. They let it run with the mic off. “They serve a thousand warrants a year on the anonymizing services registered in the Caymans,” Wingate said. “There’s like eight of them down there and another five or six in the Seychelles. All the addresses are post office boxes and when they pick up the mail down there, they systematically challenge the warrants. The detective I spoke to said they’re still trying to get records from 1998.”
“Why don’t they just walk in and bust these people?”
“They have no idea where they are.”
“What about the ISPs? Don’t the providers know who’s using their service and where they’re located?”
Wingate had raised his eyebrows at her, like she’d grown a third head. “I guess Mr. Mackie gave you a crash course?”
“Well?”
“I asked the detective,” he said, a little defensively. “About the ISP. These companies are their own ISPs. They’re totally untraceable.”
She slapped the desk. “Then get in touch with the company directly. Do they have an email address? Tell them what their service is being used for.”
“Okay,” he said.
She turned the laptop screen back toward them. “So what is this now? Why is there sound? What is it?”
“It sounds like someone scratching a tabletop.”
“And this triangle. Is it possible there’s a link open now? Why would they want us to connect?”
“Tell them what we know.”
“Forget it. I want to get one step ahead of these people if I’m being asked to make contact. I want to have something they don’t think I have.”
“You know who the captive is.”
“They sent us his hand, James. They know we know. They wanted us to know.”
He was lost in thought, tracing the top of her desk with a finger. “What about we let slip we’re onto them through Anonymice? See if they react. Maybe we can catch them changing directions.”
“They might just go to ground, James. Turn off the feed and hit the road. Where are we then?”
“But they want us to see them,” he said. “To hear them too. Whatever we’re being asked to do by proxy can’t be done if they break off contact.”
“If they’re smart enough to cover all their tracks, aren’t they going to know their friends in the Caymans won’t give them up?”
“It’s worth a try.”
“Man,” she said. “I’m starting to understand what Hutchins was talking about.”
“Who?”
“ Toronto cop. He made a comment about the difference between beat cops and dicks. I didn’t much like it, but I see now why he thinks that way. Because we’re both sitting here throwing bones. Street cops see it differently.”
“Yeah,” he said, “they call in investigators when they get stuck and then stand around on the other side of the squad room mumbling about voodoo. Don’t listen to the beat cops, Hazel.”
But she was thinking that the searchers and prognosticators were too much like what bothered her about Glynnis. Never before had she worried that her work entailed any kind of blind faith, and yet it did. To her mind, spiritual investigation drew on the loosest of the goosiest presuppositions, beliefs that were, in fact, wishes. She’d always thought policework was not like that. And yet, this case was becoming more and more like an act of fortune-telling, an extended tea-reading. The risk, as it was in interpreting the unseen world, was that you’d pay attention to the wrong things.
“What about the backyard?” she said.
“At the house?”
“Doesn’t it make sense we should be digging back there? Why don’t we ask them if we should dig? See what they say.”
“I see where you’re going. Nick Wise has buried her in his backyard.” They both fell silent, working it through. “We need to know if Eldwin ever lived in that house, Hazel.”
“I agree.” She looked across the top of the keyboard for the button that would unmute the microphone. The laptop made a popping sound to indicate the connection had been reopened. Hazel leaned down toward it. “How do we save her if she’s already dead?” she asked, and although it was difficult to make out at first, they could both see the camera already pulling away from its black field.
22
The darkness resolved into a texture and then a field of cloth appeared and they recognized the weft of a black peacoat seen from the back. The scratching sound continued as the picture widened and shoulders appeared at the top of the screen. A chairback swam into the frame at the bottom. The figure was seated at a table, its head lowered. One of the shoulders juddered in time to the scratching sound: an arm moving like a mechanical toy. The figure was writing.
The surface of the table broadened and when its farthest edge drifted down they saw beyond it, into the gloom of the basement, to the wall with its dark message scrawled. When the camera had completed its zoom-out, Eldwin appeared in his chair, at the distant right edge of the screen, his back to the camera as well, his head also lowered. He was motionless. The image of the compulsively writing arm in the foreground and the still, slumped figure in the background made for a contrast that gave Hazel a cold feeling on the back of her neck.
The figure continued to work and paused to lift a scribbled sheet off the table, holding it up to read it, and then placing it face down to the right. “I’m wondering how this story is going to end,” said a woman’s voice. They waited silently. “I know you can hear me.”
“It’s going to end with you in handcuffs.”
The voice laughed softly. “Oh, I have no doubt about that. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we, Hazel?”
“Show us your face.”
“Soon,” said the voice. “But for now, let’s talk.”
“You talk,” said Hazel. “I’ll listen.”
The figure lifted its head slightly. “Who’s there with you right now?”
“I’m alone,” she said.
“That’s not true.”
“You going to cut off my hand?”
“Let’s deal plainly with each other, DI Micallef. We’ll get along better. Who is with you?”
Wingate spoke into the microphone. “This is DC James Wingate.”
“Hello, Detective Constable,” said the voice.
“Ma’am,” he said.
“Tell me, DC Wingate. Were you a part of the decision to cancel my appearance in the Record on Thursday? I was rather upset to see I’d been bumped from the paper.”
He gave Hazel a searching look, not sure how to answer. She said, “We don’t discuss procedure with the target of an investigation.”
“I think what you mean is you can’t discuss an investigation you’re not leading.”
“Oh I’m -”
“- just a second,” said the voice. She leaned down to write. “Had another idea. They come so fast and furious. Everything connecting.”
“Why don’t you tell us your ideas?” said Hazel.
The head rose again and seemed to be searching in the middle distance. There was a sharp inhalation of breath. “In every pause in a story, something enters. Like a radiowave full of invisible news. Most people can’t hear those pauses. Can you, Hazel?”
“I’m reading between your lines.”
“Yes, yes you are,” said the voice. “I’ve been very pleased. I think we’re doing very well together. Maybe the story will have a different ending than the one I’ve been planning.”
Wingate spoke. “What ending have you planned?”
“Now, now, Detective Constable. Do you read the end of a book before its beginning?” She began to write again. “I knew someone who used to do that. Couldn’t stand the suspense of not-knowing. Let’s just say the trajectory of a story has a natural end-point. We’re wired for it, did you know that? The shape of our lives imposes itself on the way we tell stories: a welter of possibilities at the beginning narrows and narrows and inevitabilities appear that obligate us to take certain turns. And then
the end is a foregone conclusion. However, twists are possible in such stories as the one we’re telling. Unexpected outcomes. In my experience, it happens only rarely. But we can see.”
“We’ve read chapters four and five -” he began.
“I know,” the voice said.
“How do you know?”
“You were at the house, weren’t you? How would you have known to go if not for those chapters? Excellent reading, by the way.”
Hazel felt her cheeks heat up. Where had this woman been this morning? Had she been in the house? “Is this Gail Caro?” she asked.
The figure put the pen down with a clack. “Oh, don’t be stupid now,” she said. “I’m counting on you to know a red herring when you see one.” She shook her head and muttered Gail Caro under her voice. “If I can find you through a computer screen, don’t you think I can see you out in the open?”
“Fine,” said Hazel. “How do we find you?”
“I’m not hiding,” she said. “Not exactly. You’ll have me when it’s time. But for now, forget about Anonymice, forget about tracing signals, forget about driving up and down the highways and byways of this great province looking for electronic signatures… you’ll just be wasting your time, and you know it.”
“Then why are we talking right now? What is it you have to say to us? Because I don’t feel like wasting any more of my time gabbing with a sick fuck like you. And I will find you, on my own time, not yours.”
The figure sighed and came to stillness. Then she turned in the chair and faced the camera. “You already found me,” said Gil Paritas, “and you let me go. What makes you think you can find me again, or keep me if you do?”
“Goddamnit,” said Hazel.
Paritas stared into the camera. “Great Scott, she thinks, I had her in my clutches. And I let her go. But of course you did. I’m presiding over more than one story at a time, Hazel. The one in the paper, the one you’re starring in, and the one that’s already been written.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for ID? That would have been a fine twist. Those two nice constables this morning thought to ask for yours. In fact, it was the first thing they settled: that you were who you claimed to be.”
The Taken Page 19