The Calling

by Inger Ash Wolfe

  Exactly one week ago, 11 November, she'd been on the phone in this very office arguing with Patti Roncelli, who with her husband, Steve, was the owner of the town's main pizza joint, and she had been telling Patti if she didn't want kids congregating in the parking lot in front of the pizzeria at midnight, revving their engines and smoking, that she should consider closing earlier. Patti had wanted her to come down and issue some warnings, but apart from annoying the hell out of Patti Roncelli, these kids weren't doing anything wrong.

  It had been the height of excitement the week of 8 November. When she'd hung up the phone that Thursday one week earlier, the Belladonna was completing his drive from Pikangikum and was almost in central Ontario. The next day, he'd keep his appointment with Delia Chandler, and the present would change shape for them all. Hazel doubted that there were many kids cluttering the Roncellis' parking lot this week.

  She drained her coffee and looked down at her notes. She was going to remind these people what their supposed jobs were. There was a knock at the door. 'Come,' she said.

  PC Eileen Bail popped her head in. 'Can I have just a moment?'

  Hazel sighed. 'What is it, Bail?'

  Her community liaison officer crept around the door and closed it behind her. 'Inspector? Listen, I know you're awfully mad about the paper this morning—'

  'Are they here?'

  'Yes, but—'

  'Is Sunderland here?' Bail, one finger in the air, paused and said nothing. 'Fine. What were you going to say, Eileen?'

  'We have a slightly larger crowd than you did on Monday, but Sunderland is not here. Not yet. I just wanted to say, Detective Inspector, that you have every reason to be upset, but I don't feel, necessarily, that you need, that this press conference, which I think is a very good idea, that you need—'

  'That I need what?'

  'It's not the right place to make your feelings known.'

  'I see,' said Hazel. 'And what is it the right place for, Eileen? If I were to ask you?'

  'Well, Ma'am, maybe you should give them something. A bit of information. How the investigation is coming.'

  'Why would I compromise our investigation by telling that pack of dogs what we're doing?'

  'If you told them something that wasn't entirely untrue, I think they might go away and write something less damaging than what was in today's Record. That's all I'm thinking.'

  'Well, thank you, Eileen. I'll take your views into consideration.'

  PC Bail seemed to bow slightly and then she walked backward to the door and left. Hazel looked down at her notes again. She counted nine exclamation points and there were six words underlined. With a grunt of disgust, she swept the papers off the desk and into the garbage can.

  * * *

  At nine o'clock, she stood at the front of the conference room. They'd taken away all but the table she stood behind for the purpose of meeting the press. About thirty people had piled into the room. She saw most of her staff, including the officers seconded from Mayfair, as well as a number of faces she didn't recognize, which she presumed were members of the Westmuir County's fifth estate, if not beyond. She scanned the room for Gord Sunderland's face, but he had not yet arrived. Coward.

  She nodded to Eileen to close the door at the back of the room, and then Hazel brought up that morning's edition of the Westmuir Record and held the front page up for all to see. Eileen locked eyes with her, and then Hazel put the paper down on the podium in front of her. 'Good morning, everyone,' she said. 'I'm sorry it's taken this long to have a proper Q&A, but judging from this morning's paper, the time would seem right to correct some misperceptions. First off, we don't know what the person who perpetrated these two crimes wants. It's not drugs, however. He left a bathroom full of sedatives and painkillers in Michael Ulmer's house. I'll tell you a few things we do know.' Several of the reporters opened their notebooks. 'The victims are not related in any way. We don't know why the killer chose either of them. And we don't know where the killer is or where he or she is headed.'

  A reporter from the Hoxley monthly raised his hand. She thought his name was Aaron. 'Excuse me, Inspector, but is there anything you do know? I mean, was the cause of death the same in both murders?' There was a low murmur from the rest of the room and Hazel shot a glance at Eileen.

  'Well, Aaron—'

  'Actually, it's Geoffrey. The Hoxley News.'

  'I apologize. Michael Ulmer was attacked with a hammer, but the killer cut Delia Chandler's throat. So in both cases, the victims were violently assaulted, but not the same way.'

  'Were the injuries the victims sustained from these assaults the cause of death in both cases?'

  'We're still investigating these matters, Geoffrey. I can't comment any further about that.'

  'Well,' continued the reporter, 'is it true that both victims admitted the killer, and that there was no sign of a struggle at either scene?'

  They'd done at least some of their homework, she thought. It was impossible to tell what this one already knew and what was based on hearsay. She cleared her throat. 'As you all know, crime scenes are complex. We collect a lot of information, not all of which is pertinent, and it can take time to figure out what happened. It may seem as if there wasn't a struggle in a crime scene, for instance, but then you have to consider did the perpetrator clean up after himself? Did he attack the victim too quickly for a struggle to take place? Was the victim restrained in some way? At this stage, we still can't say what happened in these two houses.' She saw Bail nodding imperceptibly.

  Patricia Warren put her hand up. 'Is it true that Delia Chandler was sexually assaulted?'

  Hazel's attention snapped back to the room. 'What? Who told you that? That isn't true.' She watched the young woman writing. 'Miss Warren?'

  'Yes?'

  'I don't want to see in the Beaton Examiner that DI Micallef denied the victim had been sexually assaulted.'

  'Of course not,' said the young woman.

  'Who told you that Delia Chandler had been sexually assaulted?'

  'No one. I wanted to see what you would say.'

  Hazel laid her hands on the podium. 'This press conference is over, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming.' More hands shot up, but Bail and Jamieson began to herd the dozen or so reporters out of the room. As the crowd was filing out, Hazel noticed Gord Sunderland trying to get into the room. 'Let him in,' she said. 'He can stay.'

  In a moment, the room was empty and Sunderland turned to watch Bail close the door silently behind him.

  'I missed the festivities.'

  'Just some of your future scriveners airing their brilliant theories.'

  'I have a couple of my own.'

  'Oh, I know,' she said, coming out from behind the podium with the paper in her hand. She gave it to him. 'If you suffer from pain,' she said, 'lock your doors. Bar them, too. Depression? Anxiety? Board up your windows: there's a killer on the loose. Are you an elderly person suffering from arthritis? Keep your phone handy to call for help. And if you have cancer? Maybe a brain tumour? If you're dying and already in fear? Arm yourself. If you hear someone at your door, shoot first and ask questions later. He might be after your Vicodin.'

  'It's nice to talk at last,' said Sunderland.

  'Where do you get the balls to call yourself a newsman, Gord? You're just an old lady talking over a fence.'

  Sunderland folded his paper in half and tucked it under his arm. 'Let's see now. Delia Chandler was killed in the morning or afternoon of 12 November. Michael Ulmer two days later. It is now 18 November. In the intervening week – probably the most terrifying week in living memory for the citizens of this county – not only have you failed to address the public once, but you have conducted an investigation that falls well outside of your jurisdiction entirely on your own, and in secret. It's not me you're going to have to answer to, Inspector, it's the East Central OPS and probably the RCMP, but I'll get to write about it. I'm not worried about the future of my institution.'

  She walked out around
the front of the table. 'If you publish a word on Monday that isn't about pieeating contests or the best way to deep-fry a turkey, I'm going to have you charged with interfering with police business. Anyway, shouldn't you people be hard at work on your annual Christmas story? Everything you published in today's paper was wrong except for my bloody phone number.'

  'Have you checked your messages yet?'

  'There's a switchboard here. People know how to reach me if they need to.'

  'If you want to be reached, you mean.' She stared daggers at him. 'You don't get to tell me what I can publish, Hazel.'

  She took a step toward him. 'Let me fill in some of the numerous blanks for you, Gordon. He's a serial killer. Port Dundas and Chamberlain were just two stops on the tour. He's killed at least sixteen people from British Columbia to Quebec, and he's smart. He's put space between his bodies, and he's chosen his victims carefully. Or I should say, they've chosen him.' She reached out and snatched his notebook out of his hand. 'He doesn't give a shit about their drugs, Gordon. He has all the drugs he wants. He's after something much harder to get.'

  'What?' said Sunderland quietly.

  'I'm not telling you that.' He flicked a look at his notebook, and she tossed it over her shoulder. It flapped like brief applause and hit the ground behind the table. 'There's no one to warn. He's issued some kind of invitation and they've accepted it. The only person who's going to benefit from your shots in the dark is him. All it's going to take is one red flag, and this guy goes to ground. Do you want to be responsible for that?'

  'You can't run this thing alone, Hazel. Not from a frigging station house in the middle of nowhere.'

  'We're getting help.'

  'From where?'

  She dug her cellphone out of her vest pocket and turned it on. It sang its hello and then went into a cacophony of alarms. She had fifty-eight messages. She dialled a number. 'Can you come to the conference room, please,' she said and put the phone away, then limped behind the desk and retrieved Sunderland's notebook. Sevigny entered the room. 'Here's some of my help,' she said. She handed Sevigny the notebook and watched the reporter take in all two hundred and ninety pounds of the newest member of her temporary force. 'Doesn't "adjutor" mean "judge", Detective?'

  'Yes,' said Sevigny.

  'I was just giving Mr Sunderland an exclusive. And I wanted a witness to hear me say that if he publishes a word of it, he can expect to hear your rebuttal.'

  Sunderland's eyes were shuttling back and forth between the two cops. 'You can't threaten me, Hazel.'

  'I'm not threatening you, Gord. Publish whatever you want. Detective Sevigny, show Mr Sunderland out, please.'

  Sevigny held the door open and Sunderland left, casting a look over his shoulder.

  When Hazel was sure Sevigny had frogmarched Sunderland out of the station house, she went back down the hall toward her office. Wingate was waiting at her door. 'Jane Buck is real.'

  'You're kidding me.'

  'No.'

  'Come in.'

  He closed the door behind him and consulted a couple of sheets of paper in his hand. 'She's a housecleaner. She lives in Port Hardy, but she's on a local route. Which means she gets her mail delivered to her house. This postal box is nearly ten kilometres from where she lives.'

  Hazel thought about it for a moment. 'Well, that would fit. Whatever these people are shipping to her, she doesn't want her neighbours seeing it.'

  'But who is she, then?'

  'That's the million-dollar question.' Sevigny knocked at the door. 'Come,' she said. 'Did you take our friend back to his offices?'

  'He is not scared of you,' said Sevigny.

  'How about you?'

  'He is scared of me very much.' He smiled, faintly. Sometimes complex threats didn't work at all. She was liking this Sevigny more and more every minute. 'Can I just say, Chef, of your press conference—'

  'No, you may not,' she said. 'Jane Buck is real. Let's focus on her.'

  'She exists?'

  'Fancy that: a real clue,' said Hazel.

  James repeated to Sevigny what he'd told her. Sevigny nodded, listening. 'Then we have to go out there,' he said.

  'How fast do you walk, Detective?'

  'I will fly,' he said.

  'I have no budget.'

  'Thank God,' said Wingate.

  Sevigny was holding up his hand to show he would brook no debate. 'My mother goes to Fort Lauderdale every winter for the past twenty years,' he said. 'She gives me the flight points every Christmas. I have two hundred and ninety thousand air miles.'

  Hazel whistled. 'It sounds like she could use them.'

  'She flies Boxing Day every year. They accept only cash or credit on Boxing Day. I will use the points. I will fly to British Columbia.'

  Hazel was shaking her head in wonder. 'You're far from home, son. This is a hell of a thing to offer another jurisdiction, you know.'

  'I am in no hurry to return to my hometown of Sudbury.'

  She traded a look with Wingate. 'Well, thank God for blackout periods, then,' said Hazel, and she rose to shake his hand. 'How quickly can you set this up?'

  'I'm going back to my hotel to pack now. I'll call you from Vancouver Island.'

  They watched him turn on his heel and leave the room smartly. Wingate was still watching when the door clicked shut.

  'He's not afraid of flying,' she said to him.

  'He's not afraid of anything,' said Wingate.

  Hazel lowered herself carefully into her chair. 'We're about to turn the corner on this thing, James. I can feel it.'

  There were thirteen crime-scene pictures. Dead faces set in grimaces and shouts. Faces howling, whistling, moaning, crying, hissing. They pinned them to the wall and stood back. It was a silent opera of ghosts.

  'Let's start talking about these faces,' Hazel said to the room. Her assembled forces stood before her, looking from one terrible image to the next. 'What is happening in these pictures?'

  One of the officers from Mayfair raised her hand. 'They just seem scared to me. Rigor mortis sets in faster when people are frightened at the time of death.'

  'Jack Deacon says these people didn't die with their mouths like this. The killer did it after the fact.'

  'Is it possible the perp has put something in their mouths?' said PC Forbes. He shrugged after he said it, worried about being wrong. 'I mean, to hold their mouths in these positions?'

  'It's possible,' said Hazel, 'but I'm not sure the method is as important as the meaning of his actions. These mouth shapes are the only thing that links these killings, except for the fact that everyone he killed was terminally ill. And we know these people invited him to their homes.'

  'How?' said the same man.

  'We don't know that yet, but—' Wingate had entered the room. She returned her attention to the force. 'James Wingate went to a reserve near Dryden and got confirmation that the victim knew the Belladonna somehow, but until we know how the killer communicated with his victims, all we have are these pictures.'

  'Communicating,' said Ray Greene. He was standing behind her, beside the pictures. 'Whatever is happening in these pictures, it's obvious these people are making a sound.'

  'If they are, then most of them are making different sounds,' said Hazel. She went over and pointed to the victim from Fort St John in British Columbia. His mouth was in a loose, open O. 'This is Gary Dewar, discovered by his son on 11 October. He was hanging from a chandelier with a plastic bag over his head. Look at him. Then look at this woman' – she pointed at the victim from Wells, B.C., named Adrienne Grunwald – 'her mouth is puckered, like she's blowing a kiss. These two were killed four days apart. And then, this man, Morton Halfe, he was killed on the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth of October in Eston, Saskatchewan, and his mouth is identical to Dewar's. Why? What do these two victims have in common? Do they have anything in common? Is this a code? Come on, people, think out loud!'

  There was silence from the room.

  'If they are sounds, Inspec
tor,' said the dispatcher, PC Peter MacTier, 'then how do we find out what they are?'

  She looked out onto a small sea of faces unconsciously making the puckers and dead grins on the wall behind her, and a thought came to her.

  15

  Friday 19 November, 10 a.m.

  Her name was Marlene Turnbull and Howard Spere had driven her from Upper Watertown. He brought her into the conference room against her will, it seemed, and she hung back, looking behind herself, an ankle-length green parka swirling around her boots. She'd done nothing wrong, but some people act guilty in the presence of the law, and Hazel marked it. Howard pulled a chair out for the girl, and she sat at a table with the pictures of the Belladonna's victims splayed over the tabletop. Her black hair covered her face so they couldn't see what she was thinking, but she had one hand over her mouth and the other wrapped around the Styrofoam cup of coffee she'd been given when she came in.

  'These are thirteen pictures we've been able to track down over the last couple of days,' said Hazel. 'These people were all killed in the last six weeks or so all over the country.'

  'My God,' said the girl behind her hand. With the other, she was gingerly pushing the pile of pictures apart with a single fingertip, trying not to touch them. She was no older than twenty-five, her round, open face pinched at the temples where her tiny glassframes fit too tightly. 'Who did this?'

  'We don't know. But I think you may be able to help us,' Spere said. Turnbull looked up, her face white. Whatever she was feeling culpable for, Hazel thought, this was the moment she thought it was going to be named. She hated Howard for pausing. 'You work with the deaf,' he said at last. 'We think these people are making sounds with their mouths.' The young woman nodded absently at the pictures. 'Can you figure out what they are?'