The Calling

by Inger Ash Wolfe

  9

  Wednesday 17 November, 6 p.m.

  Simon was in a place called Matapédia, on the southern border of Quebec, and night had fallen. He'd been noting, on his long drives from the west, how much shorter the days were now. It was dark at six in the evening here.

  He was due in Doaktown, in the middle of New Brunswick, the next afternoon. He was wearying now – the length of his journey was weighing on him as he came close to completing it. He recalled his stops in Quesnel, in Grimshaw, in Creighton, and the joy of meeting the people he had encountered in this country, a country he had only imagined could feel this vast. He had been on rivers, in towns of fewer than three hundred souls, on Indian reserves, on farms. He had been welcomed graciously everywhere he went, and he had conducted himself with ceaseless love. It felt to him as if his heart had tripled in size inside of him, a heart through which it seemed the blood of seventeen souls now pulsed.

  He readied a tincture of foxglove in his tent. Earlier on, the herb had rendered startling, fortifying effects, and he could see why those with illnesses of the heart depended on it. It had eventually failed his brother, but Simon took it in tribute, and he revelled in the small explosions of energy it gave. But now, the herb seemed to be failing him. His body was fighting it. He thought sometimes that he could feel air passing through his heart and he wondered if, in sympathy, his own heart was refusing the foxglove's balm. It occasionally made him feel weak. He prayed to God to spare the men and women under his care by letting him go on. He needed so little time now. After he was done, he would be like so much dust whether he was alive or not.

  He took out five foxglove leaves from a sleeve and macerated them. He made the tincture with chloroform water and sodium carbonate, then titrated it. The herb's bitter scent filled the inside of the tent. He took his time. It was pleasurable to do even the smallest tasks with complete attention. He loved to move slowly and watch himself work, the way the drippings of the freshly made drug fell into the glass through the cheesecloth. He recalled his brother's eyes patiently watching the drug being made. You are a blessing to me, he'd say, holding Simon's hand in his, that cold hand. Simon would try not to show his brother his deepening grief. He'd say to him, You will return to strength. You will walk among us again, and his brother would put his hand behind Simon's neck and draw him down to him, bestow a kiss on his mouth. Simon would smell the stale air leaking from his brother's body and try to take it into himself, to drink those poisons away. But his brother had died. No matter their ministrations, his own or those of his followers. And then they drifted away, those men and women with their false hearts, and Simon was alone. Thinking of their perfidy, he regretted his haste in Havre-Saint-Pierre. Mrs Iagnemma deserved better than he had time to give her, even if she had tried to meddle. She had, at least, given of herself. He'd had such fine ideas for her, his tongueless songbird. Instead he rushed her, gave her so little of the grace she had earned. His anger had been replaced by shame, but at the same time, he knew he could have done nothing else. The situation demanded dispatch, and dispatch he did.

  The tincture was ready after standing for an hour. He diluted it slightly with spring water, but not enough to mask the pain of the bitterness in the leaf. The Saxons had called the plant 'folke's glove' – the faerie's glove – and the spots on the foxglove blossoms were said to be the places where these small creatures of the forest had touched the flower with their tiny fingers. Without it, his brother would have left this world sooner than he did.

  His brother, Peter, was his only family. They'd never known their mother, and it had been hard for their father raising two sons alone. His father had been a quiet man, happier with books than with people. He'd grieved their mother for years after she'd left him, grieved her as if she'd died, and for all they knew, she had. And when he died, there was no one willing to take them. There were foster homes on the mainland, and they placed the brothers with the priests. No one wanted brothers. Eventually, a childless couple took in Peter, the docile child, the weak child, and took him away to another province. Simon, in his rage, had grown strong, and no one would have him. He took down the crucifix above his bed and replaced it with a picture of Peter. The priests didn't like it. 'Christ was meek in his faith, but not feeble,' said one of them angrily. 'Your brother's as helpless as a kitten. He couldn't save a penny.' Simon wrote his brother and begged him to hold on. When he reached sixteen, the priests released him. He heard his brother calling him. He found him in the middle of the country, chained like an animal to a bed, his adoptive parents cashing the government cheques. He smashed in their skulls like he was grinding meal and brought his brother home. He'd saved Peter. Peter never forgot it. But now he was gone and all that was left was Simon: Simon the survivor, Simon the saviour.

  He poured the drug into the back of his throat and he gagged, but held his mouth closed and made sure the tincture went down. He stretched out on the floor of the tent. It was important to take the herb on an empty stomach, but he had not eaten for a day now, and his entire system cried out for nourishment. He knew he would be nourished soon enough. He would make his meeting in Doaktown, then on Sunday he would be in Pictou and he would be on the ocean. He would celebrate his arrival on the other coast. Then there would be one left, and that one would be the most joyous of all.

  In the morning, he drove the two hours into the village of Doaktown. It was on the Miramichi, and driving down the main street, he could see the river flashing between houses and down the few side streets. He had purchased three organic eggs from a farm outside of Bathurst and stopped by a lake partway through his drive to eat them. There was now very little in the way of greenery that he could trust was still nutritious – he would have to eat foods that did not agree with him until he could get to the Atlantic and reward himself with meat. He pierced each egg with a hypodermic needle and drew out the insides. It was pleasantly comic to see an egg transmitted from one shell to another: inside the syringe, the egg was transformed into a column of swirling yellow and grey. It looked like a broken tiger eye. He squirted the contents of three syringes into his mouth and swallowed. Then he crushed one of the empty eggshells and ate it for the calcium.

  It was the end of the work week in Doaktown, and the town was fairly quiet. He found Prospect Street easily and parked at the end of it. It was ten in the morning; he was precisely on time. The house where the priest lived was halfway down the street, set back on a large yard. He knocked on the door and the old man opened it a crack. 'Simon?'

  'Father,' he said. 'I'm pleased to find you looking so well.'

  The priest admitted his guest. Simon stepped in and looked around the cedar-scented house. It was almost empty of furniture, a stark place, with varnished wooden floors. 'I've given most of my belongings away. The church has most of the furniture.'

  'Did they think it strange?'

  'Perhaps they think I'm planning on spending the last of my days in the church, surrounded by my own things. A right nuisance to everyone. I've earned it though, so let them complain.'

  'Let's find a place to sit down, Father,' said Simon. The old priest led him into the bare living room, where there still remained a set of chairs and a modest wooden table. The man sat with difficulty: there was cancer throughout his spine. 'How much pain do you have?'

  'Enough to remind me that I'm still here.' He watched Simon lower his heavy black bag onto the tabletop. 'How do we do this, then?'

  'Slowly, and with care. You're not expecting anyone?'

  'People drop in all the time. But I've drawn the curtains, and we can choose not to answer the door. I'd like to ask you for a favour, though.'

  'Anything.'

  'I'd like to pray.'

  'We will pray, Father.'

  'Not your way, Simon. I'd like to commend myself before committing what is, you must acknowledge, a sin.'

  'I'm sure God will allow you a transgression in honour of a great deed, Father.'

  'I'd like to be certain.' Simon thought for
a moment, then took his bag off the table and lowered it to the floor. He lay his arms on the table, palms up, and the priest lay his hands in Simon's and closed his eyes. 'Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.' He opened his eyes and looked up. '"Trespass" is an interesting concept, isn't it, Simon?'

  'It is.'

  'It was "debt" in the Old English. But "trespass" is more interesting to me. It suggests territory. The soul as a territory onto which someone might tread without leave. But we forgive them these trespasses.'

  'Are you afraid, Father Price?'

  'No.' The priest drew his hands off the table. 'Only that I am allowing you to trespass, and God must forgive us both.'

  'God is going to hear our call, Father. We will be made whole again; we will form a righteous council.'

  '''Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for your feet.'''

  Simon pulled his bag up to the tabletop again. He spread the mouth of the bag. 'We have no enemies, Father. Those who think they are against us will simply be left behind in the end. They'll live bereft of our truth. I pity them.' He took out his vials and laid them on the table. Father Price stared at them.

  'These are the agencies of my death, are they? Little bottles of dust and powder.'

  'This is belladonna,' said Simon. 'It will make you sleep.'

  'And then what will you do to me?'

  Simon got up from the table, taking the vials in his hand. In the priest's kitchen, there were two cups and a kettle already set out. Simon turned on the stove and boiled water. Through the kitchen door, he looked at the old man sitting slightly hunched at his table, and it came to him anew what cruelty it was to give a man a body only to make him witness its decline, its failure. When he and Peter were young, they would lie under their covers and compare their bodies. The taut muscle coming down over the shoulder and under the collarbone, the wreathwork of thin flesh below the eye, the blind moles of their penises. Each detail logged in the other, a repetition of life. He saw himself age in Peter, saw his life passing through his brother's, as a charge does through a wire, both of their lives a coil glowing in an airless glass, destined to burn out. That God had chosen for them their burdens was a blessing for them both, as through their weakness, Simon had found their calling.

  'I will break you in twain,' he said to the priest. 'Like crushing a seed to draw the oil out.'

  Father Price turned in his seat to look at Simon. 'Will I feel it?'

  'I promise you won't.'

  'Then let's begin, son.'

  The kettle boiled and Simon prepared Father Price's tea. The priest drank it slowly, smiling over the rim of his cup at his visitor, his saviour. His eyes began to droop. 'This morning,' Father Price said slowly, 'I dispatched a small bottle of Holy Water to your brother. I hope he will receive it soon.'

  'My brother appreciates your kindness, Father, as do I.'

  'I did wonder, when I took it to the post office, what he would do with it. It's a strange gift. Have all your ... friends sent religious articles?'

  'Oh, no,' said Simon. 'It doesn't matter what it is. I just ask that it be something from the heart. A tribute as it were. Also, these gifts tell him how far along I am. For instance, now he will know I've been to see you. He'll know how close we all are to our goal.' Simon smiled at Father Price. 'Have I answered you well?'

  'Of course. I didn't mean to question your—'

  'Not at all,' said Simon. 'Now tell me: are you strong enough to stand?'

  The priest stood carefully, and Simon, apologizing, undressed him. The older man stood, shivering slightly, under his guest's gaze. 'You've been left almost untouched by the storm of life,' said Simon. 'I'm very pleased.' He helped Father Price back into his clothes, and then pulled his chair out for him to sit again.

  'I will have another small dram of that,' said the old man, his arm almost too weak to lift his cup. 'But doesn't it have a wee kick, now?'

  'It does,' said the one who called himself Simon, and he filled the priest's cup. 'Let us pray.'

  10

  Tuesday 16 November, 12 p.m.

  Greene came in triumph with Ken Lonergan in cuffs in his passenger seat. 'Christ,' said Hazel, throwing her arms around him, 'I thought you were dead.'

  'He's got no right to arrest me!' said Lonergan through the open window. 'Take these cuffs off me, Hazel.'

  She released Ray Greene and pressed her face into Lonergan's. 'You're damn right you're cuffed, you bloody fool. You discharged a firearm in a street full of people!'

  'Twice,' said Greene. 'I wouldn't have arrested you, Ken, if you'd laid it down when I told you to.'

  Lonergan muttered something and kicked the dash under the glove compartment. 'Just write him up and let him go,' said Hazel. 'Let me see this poor thing now.' Greene unlocked his trunk and the two of them stared at the sad, dead form of the cougar lying on its side.

  'Imagine having your life ended by Ken-fucking-Lonergan,' Greene said. 'What a beautiful animal. I've called Wildlife Services. They're going to come and take it away.' He opened the passenger door and Lonergan stepped out, ignoring Greene's hand. 'Be grateful I went for a live capture in your case, Ken.'

  'Shut up, Ray. That thing ate three dogs before I stopped it. What do you think it was going to go after when all the dogs were gone?'

  'I'm sure you were safe, Ken. I get the feeling it didn't like its meat stringy.'

  'Get done with him,' said Hazel, 'then come and see me.'

  Greene pushed his prisoner in through the doors of the station house, and after one last look at the cougar, Hazel closed the trunk on its motionless form.

  When Greene was caught up on the DNA reporting from Toronto, he sat back in the chair opposite Hazel and tried to figure out the answer to her question. It was beginning to look like they had worked out the Belladonna's modus operandi. Wingate had located what looked like a fourth victim after lunch, in Gimli, Manitoba. Here, too, the victim was terminally ill, a woman in her forties named Ruth Maris dying of ALS. They found her headless body lying under the covers in her bed. The head they found in Maris's freezer, split in half down the middle and turned around so the victim was looking herself in the eye. The crime scene was so gruesome that it had made the news in Regina, more than five hundred kilometres away. This was 3 November, and if the death in Pikangikum six days later was the next killing, then of course no one would ever have linked the two deaths. It was still uncertain if the Atlookan killing in Pikangikum was his – the reserve police were being unco-operative with Wingate, asking for a warrant for release before they showed Port Dundas anything. They were still stuck in second gear.

  Hazel's question had been this: given that they had no way to predict where the killer was going to strike next, was it a good idea to put out an APB for all points east of Ontario? It could warn the killer that the law was aware of his presence, but it might also cause him to make another mistake. And they needed him to make more mistakes. The argument against it was simply that they didn't have enough pieces of the puzzle to know, exactly, what to warn people against. The side effect that many thousands of terminally ill people east of Ontario might begin doubly fearing for their lives wasn't worth the exercise in awareness. And what, exactly, should people and law enforcement be on the lookout for? A man driving the countryside with a bucket of blood in his trunk?

  Ray Greene was staring at the ceiling. 'Well, I know the RCMP would have had a bulletin out by now.'

  'If they'd ever clued into the fact that a serial killer was at large.'

  'We could clue them in,' he said.

  She laughed softly. 'You want to take a back seat to the Mounties in your own town, Ray? They've had fourteen chances to pick up this guy
's scent. They have a deeper network than we do and, clearly, they don't have any idea what's going on in any of their jurisdictions.'

  'How can you be sure of that?'

  'I thought we were talking about our next move here.'

  'Anyway,' said Greene, 'an APB is the same as alerting the RCMP.'

  She thought about that for a moment. 'Then we don't do it.'

  'Someone's going to say this stinks of Central Canadian arrogance. The OPS going it alone.'

  She looked him in the eye. 'This is a big case, Ray. And I've got the RCMP asleep at the switch on one side of me and Ian Mason on the other, so unless you're absolutely sure we can't handle our own shit, maybe you should get onside. We're the last thing standing between this guy and his remaining victims, and if Central Canadian arrogance gets the job done, I'm all for it.'

  Greene had come to complete stillness, lost in thought. With me or agin' me? she wondered. She'd never made Ray Greene for anything but an ally, but for a moment here, her faith was being tested. Then he ran his hand through his hair and put his cap back on. 'So no RCMP and no APB,' he said. 'For now.'

  She felt her shoulders fall back into place. 'Right. For now. We have to think like hunters in a blind here. We don't show ourselves until we absolutely have to. We're going to get one chance to catch this guy. We have to find who his other victims were, figure out how he found them, and get to him before he's finished what he's doing. Because if he finishes, he's done. He'll disappear.'

  'Fine.' He looked at his palms. 'You said this guy had to get to Pikangikum by boat, right?'

  'That's right.'

  'So he's an unfamiliar non-native face crossing over twice in one day.'

  'We presume. Maybe he crossed at two places, though. If I was as smart as he seems to be, that's what I'd do. And anyway, who says he isn't native?'

  'Do you think he's native?'

  'No, but any assumption that cancels out another possibility is a dangerous one.'