MacNeice wasn’t surprised, but before he could respond, Wallace spun around on Sadler. “Absolutely not, Lieutenant. MacNeice and his team will enter with me. You and your team will enter once we’ve exited the building.”
As Wallace passed Washburn at the door, the sergeant’s eyes opened wide. Under his breath he whispered to MacNeice, “That’s gotta sting — that and the haymaker you landed on his chin.” Before they moved on, he looked at the homicide team. “Brace yourselves, folks. It ain’t pretty.”
[67]
Even with the sounds of footsteps, rustling clothes, and heaving breathing, the farmhouse felt eerily quiet and empty. MacNeice and his team walked solemnly and hesitantly forward, knowing that whatever they were about to see, they wouldn’t soon forget it.
On they went through the kitchen, passing the open pantry that contained more firepower than what came with the tanks, until they stepped into a large room. Wallace froze in his tracks and was bumped by Vertesi, who in turn was bumped by Maracle. “Sorry” rippled comically down the line. Wallace chose to step aside rather than continue. Aziz, who was directly behind MacNeice, also hesitated.
In the dimly lit room, a light stand appeared to be positioned on a dark mirror. As he approached, MacNeice realized the mirror was a large and creeping pool of blood. A red light was blinking on the back of a video camera mounted on the tripod. It was positioned at one corner of the triangle. The stool MacNeice had been sitting on earlier was flipped on its side, its legs lying in the blood. High above and rotating lazily were the remains of Venganza.
He was naked but for his boxer shorts that were drenched with blood and gore. Above the waistband, Venganza had made a large incision that opened his abdomen. His entrails spilled out and down from a sagging flap of flesh that ran from hipbone to hipbone. His hands were locked on the handle of the sword driven deep into his stomach. Above, his head was forced violently to the side by a noose. His face was deep purple, in sharp contrast to his white teeth, which were bared in a grotesque open-mouthed grin.
Vennie had planned it so well that the viewer had to look up, just as Christ looked up to heaven. The rope was tethered to a tie beam supporting the roof; its length — three feet or so — was so short that Venganza could easily have saved himself if he’d wanted to.
MacNeice could hear the others gasping and swearing. He took a deep breath and turned to look for Aziz. She was standing directly behind him, horrified. He touched her arm and said softly, “Go. I’ll be right there.”
“No. I’m staying with you.”
Williams walked over to the camera, carefully avoiding the blood around the legs of the tripod. He rewound the footage. Turning to MacNeice and Wallace, he said, “Sirs, you should watch this.”
Wallace had been looking across the room at Wozinsky’s corpse. He glanced at Williams and shook his head. “I’m okay, son. I’ve seen enough.” He cleared his throat, turned, and left the room.
MacNeice and Aziz, Maracle, Vertesi, and Swetsky stood behind the camera as Williams pressed Play.
[Epilogue]
No one in that room ever spoke about the video, to each other or to anyone else. As with the generations of veterans unable to talk about their combat experiences, it would remain unspeakable. But occasionally, MacNeice suspected, just as it was for him, that small blinking red light would return to terrify them while they slept.
The video was entered as evidence, and, for all MacNeice knew, it would never be seen again. It was stored in the vault several floors below Homicide, where it shared a shelf with the portfolio of exhibition prints, police photographs, forensic and pathology reports, and the memory stick Venganza had entrusted to MacNeice.
Two weeks after they left the farmhouse, the homicide team was called before Deputy Chief Wallace and the head of the Police Union. Swetsky, Vertesi, Aziz, Williams, and Maracle were given official reprimands and three-day suspensions for insubordination. Considering the nature of the insubordination, Wallace said, it deserved to be longer, but doing so would greatly diminish the department’s readiness.
MacNeice was also reprimanded — for disobeying an order and for striking a fellow officer. His suspension was for a month. Upon his return, he was ordered to attend bimonthly sessions with Dr. Sumner.
With his suspension papers in hand, MacNeice returned to Division and the cubicle, where the only person waiting for him was Aziz. Ryan looked like an abandoned puppy, dreading perhaps that at any moment someone would walk in and tell him his services were no longer needed.
As they left the building together, Aziz said, “What now, Mac?”
“Now . . . Well, it’s a beautiful midweek morning with very little traffic. I’m going up to Kate’s hill, and I’d welcome your company.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to be alone?”
“I’m sure. I want you to join me. There’s country apple crumble and ice cream in it for you.”
“Am I that easy, Detective, to be wooed by sweets like a little girl?”
“You’re my hero, Aziz. I consider you one of the finest, most intelligent, most compassionate women I’ve ever met — but you do have a serious sweet tooth.”
“Tricky syntax, that. I’ll assume its most flattering interpretation.”
“Every word is true.”
As they were driving west on King Street, Aziz asked, “What will you do for your suspension month, Mac?”
Charles Mingus’s languid and sensual “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” played through the speakers. He let the main phrase slide by before answering. “I’m thinking about going to Paris.”
“Where you met Kate.”
“Yes, but that’s not why. I need to wander streets both familiar and unknown. I want to stay in jazz clubs till late at night and not think about murder all day. I want to sip hot chocolate in paper espresso cups, walk along the Seine, watch the change of light. I want to breathe foreign air. And I want to see Chanel Bourget’s gallery.”
“Sounds lovely, except for that last bit.”
“Not to worry; I won’t let it take over. I just have this nagging feeling that the images Venganza sent her to secure his exhibition are still there.”
“Did she see La Pietà?”
“Yes, I showed her earlier this morning. She wept but said nothing. That was an hour before someone from the French consulate arrived to take her to the airport.”
“Someday I’d like to see Paris.”
“Well, here we are heading north to visit a hill. Paris isn’t that much farther.” He glanced over at her as she turned sideways in her seat. “And I’m going to be there for a month.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“No, Fiza, I don’t think I am.”
[Acknowledgements]
* * *
First of all, I want to thank Shirley Blumberg Thornley, my partner for the last thirty years. She is my first reader and has known MacNeice from the beginning. I am deeply grateful to Scott Griffin for believing in these novels, and for his unwavering commitment to storytelling and poetry. Thank you, Krystyne Griffin, for believing in MacNeice, and me. Thank you, Sarah MacLachlan, president and publisher of House of Anansi, for recognizing the potential of these books and putting the firm’s resources behind them.
I especially want to acknowledge my editor, Douglas Richmond, for his wisdom, support, and patience during the creation of this novel. I also extend my gratitude to copy editor Gillian Watts, for her contribution to Vantage Point. I congratulate Anansi’s designer, Alysia Shewchuk, for bringing consistency to the covers of all four books. I’m grateful to managing editor Maria Golikova and senior publicist Cindy Ma for their support and enthusiasm.
I am fortunate on this journey to be represented by Bruce Westwood, Chris Casuccio, and Michael Levine of Westwood Creative Artists — champions from the start.
Some subjects are never done, while others ar
e left undone. I have long been fascinated by the subject of post-traumatic stress syndrome, especially as it applies to returning warriors or to the police and first responders on our streets. While Vantage Point is a work of fiction, PTSD is not. I am indebted to psychiatrist Dr. Dody Bienenstock for her reality check of the manuscript. Thank you to Drs. John Bienenstock, Gerry O’Leary, and Rae Lake for taking my many and likely strange questions seriously. Thank you to Roberto Occhipinti and Steve Wilson for sharing my enthusiasm for the music that we, and MacNeice, listen to. Thank you, John Michaluk, for keeping me in touch with the North End of our youth — you have the heart of a cat and the constitution of a bull. Thank you, Malcolm “Lew” Lewis, for taking my portrait
I am grateful for the support and understanding of our family — Marsh and Andrea, Daniella and Lucas, Ian and Tyler, and Sophia, Charles, and Kathryn — and Murphy.
Murphy the Wonder Dog
SCOTT THORNLEY grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, which inspired his fictional Dundurn. He is the author of four novels in the critically acclaimed MacNeice Mysteries series: Erasing Memory, The Ambitious City, Raw Bone, and Vantage Point. He was appointed to the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts in 1990. In 2018, he was named a Member of the Order of Canada. Thornley divides his time between Toronto and the southwest of France.
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