by Ross Pennie
The tallest member of the brigade, the unit commander, gathered Natasha and the others on the front steps. His name, d’Onofrio, was emblazoned in large, luminous letters on his helmet and on the front and back of his heavy jacket. Natasha shivered when she realized the reason for such clear identification. She pictured a well-toned body collapsed on a heap of flaming debris.
Officer d’Onofrio cleared his throat and asked, “Which of you is the homeowner?”
Zol put up his hand and said meekly, “I am. And, sorry to say, the inattentive chef.”
D’Onofrio chuckled. “Except for some charring inside the oven, there appears to be no harm done.”
“Not even smoke damage?” Hamish asked. He seemed disappointed by the clean bill of health delivered so swiftly.
“The place will smell smoky for a few hours, but I don’t think it’ll be permanent,” said the officer. “But I gotta warn you, that fire extinguisher made one right mess of your kitchen, and your drapes will need a good dry cleaning.” He turned to Zol. “Is that your pipe I saw in the room that looks onto the Escarpment, sir?”
“Yes,” Zol said. “Afraid so.”
“So you’ll be used to the smell of smoke in your house.” D’Onofrio paused, coughed into his fist, then added, “You don’t ever smoke in bed, do you, sir?”
“Never,” Zol said. “Only in the sunroom. Where you found my pipe.”
The officer turned to Max and Travis. “Video games and smoking don’t mix, boys. We see a number of fires started when cigarettes are left unattended by distracted gamers.” He chuckled again and his eyes twinkled. “Especially gamers who play Fortnite. It’s particularly absorbing.”
The boys’ eyes grew huge. Travis shook his head vigorously, and Max said, “We don’t smoke, sir.” The earnest tone in his voice seemed a little forced.
“Well, that’s good then.” The look in the officer’s eye made Natasha wonder if he’d found smoking materials in one of the boys’ rooms. Cigarettes? Weed? Or had Max borrowed one of his father’s pipes? It wasn’t her business, and she certainly wouldn’t push the issue. She was, however, going to keep her eyes open.
The last two firefighters came out through the front door, each with a small device in his hand. Officer d’Onofrio stepped to the side, conferred with them briefly, and turned to Zol. “It’s safe to go back in now. My men have verified that carbon monoxide has not accumulated in any of the rooms.” He looked at Hamish hugging his chest against the cooling night air. “They closed the doors and windows, so you’ll warm up fairly quickly.”
As Hamish and the boys dashed into the house, Officer d’Onofrio said to Zol, “Do I recognize you from the . . . from the news, sir?”
“Perhaps,” Zol said, reluctant to elaborate.
“Regarding the, um . . . the polio epidemic?”
“Guilty as charged,” Zol said, looking around us as if worried this incident at his home might also make the news and perhaps further complicate his relationship with the public and the media.
“My sister’s nanny was diagnosed with the polio and is fighting for her life in intensive care at Caledonian Medical Centre,” said d’Onofrio.
“Goodness,” Zol said, “I’m sorry to hear that.” He gestured toward Natasha and continued, “We at the Health Unit are doing everything we can to bring this outbreak to an end.”
“I don’t mind telling you,” the officer replied, “our entire family is terrified. Blessica attends all our family functions. Any of us could come down with it next. My sister has two little kids and I’ve got three.”
Zol looked at Natasha and lifted his eyebrows. He turned to the officer. “The good news is, we haven’t seen any polio transmission between family members. As far as we can tell, the micro-organisms causing this infection are not capable of being passed from one person to another.”
“That sounds a bit weird,” said d’Onofrio, frowning. “So how did Blessica come down with it?”
“That’s the big question we’re working on,” Zol said. “Day and night.”
“Which explains the salmon dish catching on fire,” Natasha said. “We were so busy reviewing some exciting new information we collected today that we forgot about our dinner baking in the oven.”
“Well,” d’Onofrio said. “Tiffany has been going crazy cleaning her house with bleach and Lysol ever since the ambulance took Blessica to the hospital.”
“Tiffany?” Natasha said. “That’s your sister?”
“Yeah, Tiffany Fonseca. She married a guy from the Azores. My Italian parents weren’t too happy at first, but he’s turned out to be a good guy.”
Natasha was suddenly struck with how cold she’d become. They’d been standing outside for going on half an hour wearing only indoor clothing. “Let’s go inside, officer. I’m freezing, and I’d like to ask you a few questions. If I may.”
“Good idea,” Zol said. He took Natasha by the arm and added, “I’m sorry, Officer d’Onofrio, I should have introduced you earlier. This is Ms. Natasha Sharma. She’s our chief investigator on the polio file.”
Inside, Zol led the officer into the sunroom. Natasha grabbed her coat from the front-hall closet where she heard Hamish running the water in the adjacent bathroom. She pulled on her coat and joined the two men. She found her pen and notebook lying where she’d dropped them on the coffee table.
“We’ve been unable to get hold of Blessica’s friends, family, or employer,” Natasha told the firefighter, who’d undone the top buttons of his jacket and was holding his helmet in his lap. “One of my colleagues visited the address associated with her health card a couple of times but was unable to find anyone at home.”
“That’s no surprise,” d’Onofrio said. “Tiffany’s husband commutes every day to Toronto and never gets home till late. He’s a lawyer on Bay Street. The Royal Bank. And Tiffany is busy at her shop. Ten hours a day, six days a week.”
“She has her own business?” Natasha asked.
“Yes, and as the wedding season approaches, things heat up for her.” He paused, looked down at his boots, then added, “She’s been feeling incredibly guilty that she hasn’t been able to visit Blessica in the hospital. It’s not that she doesn’t care.”
Natasha nodded empathetically then asked, “What sort of business is your sister in?”
“Sorry, I should have said. My sister is a florist. She owns Blossoms by Tiffany. It’s on Sydenham Street. In downtown Dundas.”
Really? A flower shop? She could tell Zol was also thinking about a connection to Vander Zalm Nurseries.
She grabbed a tissue and coughed into it several times before the harsh tickle in her throat settled. She couldn’t see any smoke in the air, but she could certainly smell it, and her breathing passages were rebelling.
“Where does she get her flowers from?” she asked him.
D’Onofrio shrugged. “From all over the world, I guess. Why? Is it important? Does this polio thing have something to do with flowers?”
“Not directly,” Zol said, “but it’s important we talk to the families swept up in this outbreak. We have to piece a lot of information together if we’re going achieve the results everyone expects of us.”
D’Onofrio nodded and fished a cellphone from deep inside a trouser pocket. He tapped the device a few times and held the screen for Natasha to see. “Here’s Tiffany’s number and the address of her shop. I know she’ll want to help you as much as she can. And it can’t hurt to tell her you were talking to her big brother Vince.” He looked over at Zol and winked. “You don’t have to mention the incinerated salmon.”
After they’d said their goodbyes at the front door, d’Onofrio paused at the threshold and looked serious. “So, it’s okay to tell my wife to lay off the Lysol? She’s been —”
“Yes,” Natasha told him. “No need to go crazy with the disinfecting. I’ll tell your sister t
he same when I visit her tomorrow.”
They waved the officer off, and as Zol was closing the door, Hamish came out of the bathroom. His face looked freshly scrubbed and his hands glowed bright pink. They’d been subjected to fifteen minutes of hot water and soap. A ritual cleansing usually put him a good mood.
“What are we going to eat?” he asked. “I’m starving.”
“It’ll have to be takeout, I’m afraid,” Zol said.
“Fine with me,” Hamish said. “Do you want me to call that Thai place on Upper James? My treat?”
“Thanks, Hamish,” Zol said. “We love Thai. And please order enough for five.”
“Five?” Hamish said. “You’re that hungry?”
“The boys love pad Thai,” Zol said. “And I think they earned it tonight, don’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hamish answered absently. “Sure thing.”
Feeling almost warm again, Natasha hung up her coat and removed the scarf from a pocket. She draped it over her shoulders and secured it around her neck with a quick knot. She turned toward the stairs. “If you excuse me for a few minutes, I have a phone call to make before the food comes. And don’t worry about choosing for me. I like everything that place has on the menu.”
As she climbed the stairs and headed toward the privacy of their bedroom, Natasha’s mind was full of questions raised by the revelation that Blessica Velasquez’s employer owned a busy flower shop smack in the middle of downtown Dundas.
Had Blessica acquired Zika virus infection because, like the school kids, she’d visited Vander Zalm Nurseries? And if so, had she gone on a tulip-buying trip with her employer, who may also have acquired the infection? And had Tiffany’s children gone with them?
Or, had Tiffany Fonseca unwittingly introduced a few Zika-infected Aedes albopictus mosquitoes to Dundas in a shipment of tulips from Vander Zalm Nurseries? If so, had Blessica been bitten at the flower shop? Or had Tiffany brought an arrangement of mosquito-infested tulips to her house, and that’s where Blessica — and potentially other family members — had acquired the Zika virus?
How close were Blessica and the other Filipina nanny also hospitalized with the polio, Emmalita Pina? Had Emmalita acquired her Zika infection the same way Blessica had?
Of course, tulip-mediated Zika might not be limited to Tiffany Fonseca and her household. If her Dundas flower shop was infested with Aedes albopictus, who amongst her many customers had been bitten? And what about Vander Zalm Nurseries’s other wholesale customers? How far afield from Virgil, Ontario, did the nursery ship its tulips? Natasha felt nauseated at the thought of Zika-infected mosquitoes breaking out of tulip buds everywhere from Sarnia to Shawinigan, Windsor to Waskesiu.
The more questions she asked herself the faster her heart thumped against her chest. At the top of the stairs, her stomach queasy and her lungs gasping for air, she whipped off her scarf to fend off escalating claustrophobia. She had a phone call to make.
And tomorrow, she would be standing on the doorstep of Blossoms by Tiffany the moment it opened. But before that, a stop at a drugstore for a bottle of insect repellent containing plenty of DEET. There was no way she was going to let herself get bitten by any hungry Aedes Tigers lurking inside Tiffany’s tulips.
Not in her condition.
Chapter 34
After that exhausting and emotional Tuesday morning at the hospital, Hosam retreated to his desk in the afternoon and tried working on his studies. His mind was in such a whirl that he was unable to concentrate. Nothing stuck. He read one full chapter of his Toronto Notes and could remember none of it. In the late afternoon, while Leila was still working on her clients, and Omar was social-networking on his laptop, Hosam gave up trying to study. He closed the text, descended the stairs, and put together a light supper for the three of them. None of them had appetites, and much of the modest dinner went to waste. Omar quickly retreated to his room, and while Hosam cleared the table, Leila set to Facebooking on the tablet that had consumed six months of their savings.
He had once hoped Leila’s nightly Facebook ritual might defend her from the loneliness Hosam could see was draining the life from her soul. He saw little evidence of it working. Before the war, she’d been a lively, confident professional with a vast network of friends and admirers. In the aftermath of Farah’s death and their flight to Gaziantep, she’d gradually regained her smile and her confidence. In the refugee camp, her skills as a professional, a networker, and an organizer found many outlets. But here in Canada, the long hours she worked in their windowless garage were robbing her of the opportunity to make the friends and connections that were the foundation of her vitality. The vicious attack in the barbershop and the Caliph’s ensuing threats and demands had her terrified that their lives in Canada would never be happy or fulfilling.
“Habibi,” she said as she dried the dishes he had stacked on the rack, “I never expected to feel this way, but I wish we were back in Gaziantep. Life was not easy there, but I had plenty of friends, and I was able to continue my profession without hiding like a criminal.” A string of sobs racked her shoulders. “And . . . Omar was not . . . living under a sentence of death . . . after an innocent school trip.”
“Omar is going to be okay, Habibti. The woman from the health department assured me that all the polio cases had the misfortune of catching two rare viruses simultaneously. The chance that our son —”
“But what is to say he has not already caught that second virus? He sat beside poor Jamila Khateb during that entire bus trip.”
Having no rational answer, Hosam said nothing. Omar had visited the health department this afternoon, and now it was the stressful matter of awaiting the result of the Zika test. Hosam opened his arms and embraced his wife with as much encouragement as he could muster. With nothing left for either of them to say, she returned to her laptop and he went upstairs to his desk.
He opened his Toronto Notes to the chapter he had tried and failed to absorb this afternoon. It covered a subject to which he had paid little academic attention during those years he was qualifying as a surgeon: “Assessing the Patient with Anxiety and Depression.” He tried reading the opening paragraph, but again the words danced meaninglessly in front of him. The incriminating appointments in Jamila’s calendar, which he’d found so easily on her phone during the bus ride home from the hospital, pawed relentlessly at his conscience. But as he and Leila had discussed while they were setting the table for supper, the procedures she’d performed on Jamila could have nothing to do with the girl’s polio. The mosquitoes transmitting Zika virus were an hour’s drive away in Niagara, and Leila’s equipment was brand new, including the sterilizer she used without fail. There was no denying that his decision to cover up Jamila’s four recent appointments at Leila’s office was dishonest. But it was a white lie that would keep Leila out of jail and allow the family to prosper in this expensive and complicated land.
He heard the kitchen telephone ring four times before Leila answered it and called up to him, “Hosam, it is for you. Ms. Sharma from the health department.”
His hands were slick with sweat by the time he descended the stairs and took the receiver from his wife.
“Hello . . . Hosam Khousa here.”
The competent young woman he had met earlier today introduced herself and wasted no time in getting to the matters at hand.
“Yes,” he told her in response to her first query, “Omar, he did have the blood test today. The people at your health department were quite helpful. When will the result be available?”
“I will put a rush on it, which means we should get the result by Friday. How does that sound?”
He glanced at Leila, who was leaning against the counter wringing her hands. “Thank you, Ms. Sharma. My wife wishes it could be processed instantly, but we are not expecting the impossible.”
“Did you have any luck with Mr. and Mrs. Khateb?”
; His tongue turned to parchment.“L-luck?”
“I mean, were they able to give you a detailed account of Jamila’s movements over the past three or four weeks?”
“She . . . she does not lead a complicated life. The parents are rarely leaving the house without her. She must navigate every situation for them.”
“Yes, a lack of English must make this new life of theirs quite difficult.”
Hoping to find encouragement, Hosam looked into Leila’s eyes. He saw only distress. “Jamila’s movements were only involving her school, her job at the pet store, and grocery shopping trips with her parents, Ms. Sharma.”
“What about her doctor’s appointment?” she asked.
Hosam knees threatened to fail him, and he sank onto the nearest chair. “Sorry?”
“You see, Dr. Khousa, Jamila’s supervisor at the pet store said the girl called from her mobile to say she’d been held up at a doctor’s appointment and would be fifteen minutes late for work. That was only a few days before she became ill.”
“I did not find any such appointment listed in her phone.”
“And her parents mentioned nothing about visiting a doctor?”
“They did not. As I said —”
“I need you to check again because this is important. We do need the name of that doctor. Jamila’s appointment could have an important bearing on her case.” She paused, then said, “How familiar are you with smartphones, Dr. Khousa? Perhaps you need someone to help you with Jamila’s calendar.”
Hosam’s heart threatened to leap out of his chest. He pictured himself in the operating theatre, forcing himself to maintain a steady hand while the patient on the table threatened to bleed to death. Now, as then, he took long, slow breaths in through his nose. “It is similar to the model I used every day in Aleppo. I am thoroughly familiar with the calendar application.”
He forced himself to take three more slow breaths. Even if Dr. Szabo or Miss Sharma insisted on having a look at Jamila’s phone, they wouldn’t understand a word of what was on it. Everything was in Arabic. Well, everything except for one entry on Facebook where she told her friends what a difficult time she was having with her teeth.