The Calling

by Inger Ash Wolfe

  Wingate shut the fridge, and the head contracted back onto the frame of the napkin. 'Why do I think he's not going to like that very much?'

  'Because he won't,' said Hazel. 'But he's my problem, not yours.'

  'Forget Spere, come sit,' said Greene, patting the seat beside him. 'You gotta get a load of what this lady can do.'

  Hazel screwed the cap off the beer and, glancing around with a look of suspicion, she sat in the chair. Jill Yoon picked up a digital camera from the tabletop. 'I need three pictures of you, Inspector. One with your mouth closed, one with your mouth open wide, and one of your tongue.'

  'Just do it,' said Greene. Hazel self-consciously did as she was told. When the pictures were taken – three quick flashes – Yoon connected the camera to her laptop. 'Now we read a little,' she said. She handed Hazel a thick book and a microphone.

  'You want me to read poetry?'

  'The computer needs to know how you make sounds,' said Yoon.

  Hazel read:

  'I, who erewhile the happy Garden sung

  By one man's disobedience lost, now sing

  Recovered Paradise to all mankind,

  By one man's firm obedience fully tried

  Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled

  In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,

  And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.'

  Ray clapped robotically. Hazel put the book down. 'We're going to catch this guy with poetry?' Wingate swept the book off the table and went to put it back on his shelf. 'That's yours, James?'

  'Previous tenant must have left it here,' said Wingate.

  Jill Yoon sat down at the computer. She typed something into her keyboard. There was a kind of high tension in the room. 'You ready?' she asked Hazel.

  'She's not,' said Greene, 'but show her anyway.'

  Hazel turned to face the fridge and as she did, an image of her own mouth blinked into existence on the hollow green head, across its eyes. It was almost as wide as the head. She heard Yoon clicking behind her, and the mouth shrank and began to move down the ligature until it reached the zone where a human mouth would normally be seen. It seemed to snap into place. Yoon stabbed a button on the keyboard and the head with Hazel's mouth breathed in. She narrowed her eyes at it. 'What the hell?'

  'Watch.'

  'Today is the twentieth of November, a Saturday,' said Hazel's mouth in her own voice. Her lips had moved as if she'd been filmed speaking the words. Her own mouth fell open. Jill clicked a few more keys and Hazel's mouth breathed in again. 'Aujourd'hui, c'est le vingtième novembre, un samedi.'

  'Holy shit!'

  'That's just a silly computer trick,' she said, 'the French. I can borrow the English phonemes for it.'

  'How did you do that?'

  'The three pictures I took establish tongue-size, lip-width and -length, and the volume of your oral cavity.'

  'Yuck,' said Greene.

  'The program works out all the other measurements.' Yoon got up and flipped on the kitchen lights. 'It's called digital visetics. The program translates phonetic units of speech into visual ones: visemes. Usually we use it to train the deaf for speechreading. But it can go the other way, too.'

  'You can take our victims ...' said Hazel.

  Jill Yoon nodded. 'Come,' she said.

  Hazel went to stand behind Yoon. On her computer screen was an array of characters, beside which was a rudimentary mouth shape. She explained that each symbol corresponded to an English phoneme, and that each phoneme had its own viseme. Yoon clicked on a series of these characters, and they appeared in a window at the top of the screen. 'Look on the fridge again,' she told Hazel, and Hazel turned. She heard a click, and her computerized mouth went into a silent spasm.

  'What was that?'

  'I typed in a random collection of phonemes and uploaded them to the ligature as visemes. Do you want to hear what you said?'

  'Sure,' said Hazel.

  The face on the screen breathed in. Then it said, 'Aah-haay rrrrr lemmbebepp gyuh.' Yoon fiddled with her settings, and then the face said, 'Aahhaay? Lemmbebepp GYUH!'

  'That's the most sensible thing she's said all week,' said Greene.

  Hazel turned back to Jill Yoon. 'How long do you need?'

  'A while. I presume your pictures aren't lit for the kinds of measurements I need. I have to scan and clean them to make sure I get accurate readings. And then it's going to take time for me to make sense of the results. The computer knows about fifty thousand words in English, so I can get it to search for words that use those visemes in some order. But the program doesn't have any use for grammar. It knows words, not sentences.'

  'But I just spoke a sentence,' said Hazel. 'In English and in French.'

  'The program didn't know it was a sentence. It thinks it's just a series of sounds. You're going to give me some pictures, correct?' Hazel looked over at Wingate and he nodded. The pictures were in the room. 'As Marlene told you I'm sure, a lot of visemes could be more than a single phoneme. Like, if you say, "Where there's life, there's hope," to a deaf person, he might think you said, "Where's the lavender soap?" There's context in real life, so that a person should know if you're talking about taking a shower or taking your life, but my program is going to translate your fifteen pictures into a lot more than fifteen phonemes, and then it's going to have to strip them for possible word units, and then after that, someone's going to have to figure what kind of order they should go in.'

  'How's twenty-four hours?' said Hazel.

  'It's a start.'

  'It's probably all the time you're going to get. James, give her what she needs.'

  Wingate came forward with a thick departmental envelope. 'We just added Winston Price. The priest from Doaktown. So that's sixteen in total now.' Yoon took the envelope in her hand and unwound the string. She pulled the pictures out and laid them on the table. Already all three officers were getting their coats. 'Take whatever you need for food,' said Wingate. 'The fridge is full.'

  Yoon was shaking her head.

  'You shoulda saved your money,' said Greene. 'She just lost her appetite.'

  16

  Sunday 21 November, 3 p.m.

  Sevigny had spent the last of Saturday afternoon in a rented car parked at the side of Sewatin Road on the outskirts of Port Hardy. He'd flown there from Vancouver and spent the entire flight over the water in a state of bliss. The whitecaps below had appeared as dustings of sugar from that height, and it had put his mind off what could lie ahead of him.

  In Port Hardy, he rented a car and went to his motel, a tiny wooden structure off the main drag. His accent seemed to prove to the lady at the desk there that he'd come a long way for some sportfishing, and he let her believe that. He was in plainclothes to keep the curiosity factor at a bare minimum.

  He showered and went into town to buy some food, and then drove north out of the townsite. Four kilometres down Sewatin Road, he pulled over and watched, choosing a spot about a hundred metres away from a bank of gleaming postboxes that lined the road like a scale model of an industrial warehouse. He was unlikely to catch anyone checking their mail on a Saturday afternoon, but there was no point in delaying. He'd likely be in this spot all day tomorrow and Monday as well. The box assigned to 'Jane Buck' was one of the ten oversized ones along the bottom of the array, and in the five hours he sat in the car sipping coffee and eating apples out of a paper bag, he saw all of two people come and go. Every half hour he turned on the motor for ten minutes to reheat the car; it was six degrees outside. No one unlocked box number 31290. When it got dark, he went back to the motel, ate two large garden salads, and went to bed.

  He returned to his spot at six the following morning. By two in the afternoon, not a soul had come by the postal array. He was freezing and running out of fruit. Then, at three, just as he was beginning to think he was wasting his time, someone came and unlocked 31290. It was a woman. There were two packages in her mailbox. She took them to her car and drove off farther down Sewatin Roa
d. He followed at a comfortable distance, and she eventually turned north onto an unpaved road, followed that for four kilometres, and then turned onto a private lane where the grass had grown up through the carpath. From the road, he could see a small structure in the trees, a rough shack no bigger than a hunting cabin. He pulled his car over and got out in time to see her go behind the house. He went into a crouch and ran through the brush beside the driveway and up over the still-thick lawn to the side of the house. His heart was pounding. He pressed the side of his gun against his leg as he sidestepped the length of the house. When he reached the end of the wall he could see the woman was keying the door to a small shed at the back of the property. She entered the dark space with the two packages and a moment later reappeared empty-handed. He twisted around into the open and drew a bead on her. 'Arrête!' he shouted, forgetting himself, and the woman screamed. 'Stop!' he said. 'Step away! Keep your hands up front!'

  The woman's hands flew into the air, and he rushed to her and spun her around, pushing her back against the shed wall, where he kicked her legs apart. 'Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!' she cried over and over as he patted her down.

  'I'm the police!' he said. He'd forgotten in the midst of his anxiety that he was in plainclothes.

  She was clean. He spun her to face him. 'Please! What have I done?'

  'What's your name?'

  'Jane! My name is Jane! My ID's in the car—'

  'You show me.'

  She walked in front of him, looking over her shoulder, and when she lowered one of her arms, he reached forward and slapped her under the elbow and she put the arm back over her head. At the car, he saw her purse sitting on the passenger seat and, keeping his gun level on her, he opened the door and took it out. 'Show me,' he said, handing her the purse. She fumbled in it and removed a cloth wallet. Her driver's licence was registered to Jane Buck. He looked at her and then at the picture. 'This is really your name?'

  'Who are you?'

  'I'm asking the questions.'

  'But who are you? Why are you doing this?'

  'Jesus Christ,' he said and he noticed her wince. He dug his badge out of his back pocket and flipped it to her. She examined it and then looked up at him again and she seemed even more frightened of him. 'Okay?' he said. 'Now tell me who lives here.'

  'I just bring him his mail,' she said, her whole body shaking.

  'Who?'

  'His name is ... his name is Peter.'

  'Goddammit!' Sevigny shouted, throwing her things to the ground, 'I'm not playing twenty questions, woman. Who lives here, and what have you got to do with them?'

  'Peter Mallick! His name is Peter Mallick! I bring him whatever's in the mailbox. That's all.'

  'The mailbox is registered to you.'

  She narrowed her eyes at him. 'How do you know that?'

  'I'm the police, lady, I showed you my badge. I know what I know. Open that shed again.'

  She hesitated but started back toward the rear of the house. 'He'll be very upset if we wake him,' she said. 'He's sick. He needs his rest.' She put the key back in the door and opened it on a shallow, dark space. Despite the cold, he could smell the sourness of the little shack. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and then he could see that there were upward of twenty unopened packages on the floor. He leaped at the nearest one. It had been sent on the seventh of October from Wells, British Columbia, from a woman named Adrienne Grunwald. The one beside it had the name of Morton Halfe and a return address in Eston, Saskatchewan. Then his eye fell on a small box with Gladys Iagnemma's name on it. It had been sent two days before her death. None of them had been opened. 'Fucking hell,' he said under his breath. 'Why are all these packages here?'

  'I told you, I just—'

  'Do you speak to this man? To Peter?'

  'He mustn't be disturbed.'

  'Says who?'

  'His brother.'

  He couldn't help it; he shook her violently. 'Give me a name!' She stared at him in terror, and Sevigny turned her by the shoulder and pushed her back out into the daylight. The back door to the house was twenty metres away. The two windows on either side of it were obscured by curtains. He pulled Buck by her purse strap toward the house.

  'No,' she said in a hoarse, frightened voice. 'We're not to go in the house.'

  'What is the name of the man whose brother lives here?'

  'Please.'

  'Then I will ask the man inside this house.'

  'I don't have a key to the house.'

  'You have a key. Open the door.'

  'Please—' she said, and she opened her arms. He tried the door. 'Simon,' she said, 'his name is Simon. If he knew we were here—'

  'What? He would kill us?'

  'Please,' she said. 'I vowed—' He didn't wait for her to finish. He took a step back and smashed the door open with the flat of his boot. The door exploded against the wall on the other side. There was the smell of dust, and then, gusting in under it, a sickening death reek. They both recoiled from it.

  'When was the last time you saw the man who lives here?' said Adjutor Sevigny.

  'Peter must not ... be disturbed,' she said, her voice suddenly querulous as she stepped back from the broken door. Then she turned suddenly and puked on the step. He grabbed her under the armpit and muscled her back out onto the grass.

  'Stand up straight.'

  'You don't know what you've done—'

  'Give me your car keys,' he said. She meekly put them into his hand. 'Sit down and don't move.' He got out his cell and flipped it open. There was no signal. 'Goddammit. You have a phone?'

  'In my purse.' He grabbed the purse off her shoulder and rooted around in it for her phone. He flipped it open. There was a signal. He dialled Port Dundas. Someone answered in the station house. 'Get me Hazel Micallef right away.'

  'She's not here,' said the voice. 'Who is this?'

  'Detective Adjutor Sevigny! I'm calling from the fucking Pacific!'

  'Hold on, hold on, I'll forward you to her cell, hold on.' He waited through a series of clicks, and then Detective Inspector Micallef picked up before it even rang.

  'Hello?' she said, sounding bewildered. 'Sevigny, is that you?'

  He could hear voices behind her. 'I'm here,' he said. He was short of breath. 'There is something bad happened here ...'

  'Where's "here"?'

  'I follow the woman after she pick up the mail. After she picked up the mail. I mean, I followed her. I'm at a cabin in the woods, maybe it's ten kilometres from the town site. There is a man here, she says, Jane Buck.'

  'You're with her right now?'

  'I broke the door.'

  'Hold on, Detective, just slow down. Where are you exactly?'

  'I told you! North of Port Hardy. In the woods. I followed her, I followed Jane Buck here. There is a house. A shack. If there is someone in there, they are not alive.'

  'How do you know?'

  'I can smell it.'

  'Have you been in?'

  'Not yet. But there is absolutely for certain something dead in this house.'

  She said nothing for a moment. 'Do you have something you can soak with water? A cloth or something?' He opened Buck's purse; there was no Kleenex or hankie, but he saw something he thought would work and reluctantly took it out of its plastic wrap. There was a connector for a garden hose beside the back door, and he turned it on and ran water over the thing and pressed it to his nose and mouth.

  'What are you doing?' said Jane Buck, looking at him in disgust.

  'Shut up,' he said.

  'Now go back in,' said Hazel. 'Stay on the line.'

  He looked at the frightened woman squatting in the grass and unsnapped his flashlight from his belt. The moment he crossed the threshold to the house, the smell penetrated his makeshift mask. 'Shit,' he said.

  'What is it?' said Hazel.

  'I'm in ... a small ... it is a small room,' he whispered, choking on the air and taking shallow little breaths. He was trying to hold the cellphone to his head an
d the mask to his mouth with one hand. 'There is nothing here. Cold and dark. Two chairs and a table.' His feet crunched on grit. He lifted his flashlight and swung the beam over the room. 'One door in the wall. Over there,' he said.

  'Open it. I'm here with you, Sevigny. Open the door.'

  He crossed the room, the smell driving at him, and put his hand on the knob. It was cold, stiff. He forced it to the right and the door opened. He lifted his flashlight. 'Christi tabemac—'

  'Adjutor ...'

  'My God.'

  There was a small bed against the wall across the room, nothing more than a pallet of straw. On top of it, his face a maze of maggots, lay the body of a man, his arms hanging down. A black, roughhewn stone pillar was standing on his crushed chest, as if it had fallen out of the sky. Sevigny looked up, expecting to see a hole in the roof, but it was solid. He looked back down at the ruined body. It was a man who, in life, would have weighed well over three hundred pounds. The body was suppurating a thick black fluid.

  'Detective?'

  'I find a body,' said Sevigny hoarsely. He tried to describe what he was looking at. His voice seemed to issue out into a huge silence. 'I am going to be sick,' he said.

  'Hang in there, talk to Ray.' She passed Greene her phone.

  'Whose body is it?' said Greene.

  'Peter Mallick. Jane Buck says Peter Mallick. Brother of Simon Mallick. I find an unopen package in a shed in back of the house with the date of October seven on it. There are others. He has been dead ... a long time.' He turned and ran, unable to contain himself any longer, and heaved violently onto the floor beyond the doorway. 'I have never ... in my—'

  'Easy, Detective.'

  'I have a woman on the back lawn ... there is something I don't like about this woman—'

  'You better call in the locals,' said Greene.

  'I know what to do,' he snapped. He tried to settle himself, and he stepped back into the room and approached the bed. He could only imagine the smell in here had it been ten degrees warmer. 'I am trying to look at his mouth.' He leaned down, overwhelmed by the stinking cloud of decay that hung over the body, and used the edge of the flash-light lens to brush the lace of maggots away from Mallick's mouth. The light turned the inside of the body's head a sickly dark orange. Sevigny spun and vomited again, then turned back. The mouth was closed in a thin line.