Cut to the Bone

by Joan Boswell

  “I know Mary tries to rescue Aboriginal women from drugs and the street. I’m guessing she ran afoul of someone who did not want this to happen to one particular girl. Have you contacted her and do you know when she plans to return?”

  Hollis laid her BlackBerry on her desk, where she’d see the light flashing to indicate the arrival of a message. While she waited, she caught up on office filing. Minutes later the light alerted her.

  You’ve got it right. I talked to Mary, who contacted one of her boarders, Alice Meness, who was visiting family in Golden Lake. Mary told her not to return to the apartment. The threat still exists, so Mary will stay on the reserve. She asked me to thank you for looking after Crystal.

  Two women lived with Mary.

  What happened to the other woman? she typed.

  Hollis filed more papers while keeping an eye on her phone.

  Mary repeatedly called her cell phone and left messages. The last time she called she didn’t even get the answering machine.

  Hollis made the connection. This must be the woman the police had asked her about. The one on the security camera who seemed to be shouting for help.

  Tell me her name?

  Mary didn’t say. She told me nothing else. Are you watching your back, not taking risks?

  I am.

  Time to call Rhona Simpson.

  First she needed the number. She fumbled through a raft of business cards she kept in the top drawer of her office desk. As she thumbed through them, she wondered why she’d saved some of them. Why had she thought a company that sold restaurant equipment specifically geared to vegetarian restaurants would interest her? Or the card for skydiving. What had she been thinking?

  She located Rhona Simpson’s card near the bottom. Once she placed it on the desk in front of her, she had second thoughts. How would she phrase her call?

  First, she’d tell Rhona that Mary Montour in apartment 202 tried to rescue Aboriginal women from the streets and had two tenants and her eleven-year-old niece, Crystal, living in the apartment. Hollis could almost hear Rhona sizzle and demand to know why Hollis hadn’t given her this information earlier. Hollis would say Rhona should wait until she finished, and then she’d know. That would be part one.

  In part two she’d say that Mary and the two tenants had disappeared, left Crystal behind, and later Mary phoned, leaving a message asking Hollis to care for Crystal. Apparently, Alicia Meness and Mary were okay. Alicia had left to visit her family but someone had threatened Mary, who’d run away without the other tenant, who remained unaccounted for.

  “May I speak to Detective Rhona Simpson?”

  Voicemail, bloody voicemail. She couldn’t recite the story on voicemail.

  “It’s Hollis Grant. I have information that I believe might help you with your investigation.”

  That should do it. Now all she had to do was keep the girls and herself safe until Rhona and her sidekick arrived.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The two detectives headed back up Cherry Street, along the lakeshore, up University Avenue and Avenue Road, turning off into the maze of streets north of St. Clair. Inside 68 Delisle, they buzzed Hollis.

  “You got my message?” she said.

  “What message?” Rhona said.

  “I have information that might help you. I don’t think it’s related, but I’ll leave it to you to decide.”

  They collected in Hollis’s office. She waved them to the visitors’ chairs and plunked down behind the desk.

  “Information for us. How long have you been keeping it?” Rhona grumbled. “Tell us.”

  Hollis related the story of Mary Montour and her one-person campaign to save Aboriginal women addicted to drugs, and told Rhona about her disappearance.

  Rhona didn’t comment immediately. Instead she glowered at Hollis and pursed her lips. Finally she spoke. “Where is Mary Montour?”

  “She’s gone to ground but she’s okay,” Hollis said, and from the look in Rhona’s eyes, she wished she hadn’t decided to tell them.

  “How do you know she’s okay?”

  “As I said, she phoned and asked me to take care of Crystal until she returned.”

  “That was a couple of days ago. How do you know she’s okay now?”

  Hollis knew she mustn’t blow Norman’s cover. In his situation he didn’t need the police swooping down on his apartment, drawing attention to him. She shrugged. “A friend told me.”

  Rhona steepled her fingers and contemplated Hollis. “A friend. That’s the kind of information we like to get. A friend. Could you be a little more specific?”

  Crunch time. “No. I can’t reveal his name. He lives a very private life and found this information for me as a great favour. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  Rhona and Hollis glared at one other.

  “What about the unknown woman in the apartment?” Ian intervened.

  “I don’t know about the other woman. As far as I know, I never saw either one of them.”

  Ian’s phone rang. He listened. “I’ll come to the front door.” He stood up. “The photo’s here. I’ll collect it.”

  After he left, Rhona considered Hollis. “Why did you wait so long to share this information?”

  “As I said, I was afraid if I told you, you’d feel compelled to have Crystal taken into care, and I didn’t want that to happen. She’s had an unsettled life and Mary bolting upset her terribly. My foster daughter lost the foster mother she’d lived with for years, and since she’s only recently moved in with me, I wanted to give both girls stability and continuity.”

  Rhona’s expression softened. “I understand that, but you’ve got to stop making decisions that aren’t yours to make.”

  Hollis said nothing.

  Ian appeared and handed Rhona an envelope. She opened it and removed several photos.

  “Not a brilliant job. A half-blind person could tell that this woman is dead,” she said.

  “Very dead. Do you really think we should post it in the elevators?”

  “Here? In the elevators here?” Hollis said.

  Rhona nodded. “And go door to door.”

  Hollis reached for a copy. “My God, she looks awful. Why are you putting up her picture here?”

  “We saw her on the security tapes we ran yesterday. You saw them.”

  “I didn’t recognize her. Why don’t you freeze the frame from the tapes and make a photo from that? It would look like her and not like this gruesome thing,” Hollis said, waving the photo.

  Ian nodded. “Good suggestion. This photo,” he flipped it over, “belongs in the morgue.”

  “Don’t know why we didn’t think of that,” Rhona admitted. “Okay Ian, over to you, get it done as fast as you can.”

  “Many of the people who live here are out during the day. You’ll have better luck getting an ID when they arrive home from work or college,” Hollis said. She stared at the photo. “Do you know her name?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “It could be Veronica,” Hollis said.

  “Veronica? Where did that name come from?” Rhona asked.

  “The other woman living with Mary left a necklace on her dresser with the name Veronica on it, and Mary hasn’t been able to reach her.”

  Rhona rose. “Let’s see that apartment.”

  Hollis grabbed her master keys. In the elevator she said, “I checked it and it looked okay.”

  “Did you change anything?”

  Hollis sniffed. “I’m not stupid. Of course not. The apartment remains exactly the way I found it.”

  “You didn’t think to report this to the police?” Rhona said.

  Hollis heard the accusation in Rhona’s voice. Since she had considered it but had refrained because of Crystal, she understood the detective’s exasperation.

  “I didn’t have enough information to report anything. If I had I would have done it.” Hollis thought about her search through the apartment without wearing gloves and concluded she’d made a mistake.
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br />   After Hollis let them into the Montour apartment, she stood back as the two detectives slipped on gloves and booties. Rhona waved her dismissal. “We’ll deal with this,” she said.

  Hollis turned but didn’t leave. Instead she drifted along behind them. Going through the apartment, she watched them discover the same things that she had, particularly the difference between Mary’s two boarders.

  “This one, Alicia Meness,” Ian indicated the tidy side of the bedroom, “seems to have been on the road to a normal life.” He flicked through the methadone pamphlet as he spoke. They’d already spotted the drug in the refrigerator. “Anyone allowed a week’s supply is well on the way to conquering her addiction.”

  Rhona patted the top of the bureau. “Alicia Meness. Her clothes, her tidiness, and the methadone indicate recovery. The other bureau tells a different story.”

  Ian pointed to the necklace spelling “Veronica” that lay on the bureau.

  “If that belongs to her, we’ve moved a step closer to identification,” Rhona said as she went systematically through the contents of the half-open bureau drawers. She found many credit card receipts but no documents, nothing personal.

  “We can find out who she is using these,” Rhona said, holding up the slips of paper.

  Ian examined the cupboard contents. A pile of dirty or discarded clothes lay on the floor. He picked through them. “She was one messy lady,” he said.

  From his use of the past tense, Hollis realized he’d decided the police had found Veronica, the missing woman, in the harbour that morning. He reached up and checked each hanger’s clothes. He stopped at a black leather jacket, removed it from the hanger, and laid it on the bed to examine it more closely.

  “Look at this,” he said.

  Rhona noticed Hollis hovering in the hall. “Police business. This is a crime scene,” she said, waving a hand dismissively and shutting the door.

  Ian pointed to patches sewn on the jacket. “These indicate she was the girlfriend of someone in the Black Hawks,” Hollis heard him say as she left.

  “Living with Ms. Montour, she was trying to escape from him or from drug addiction or from both,” Rhona said.

  “This could be the reason for her murder, but it’s hard to believe. These men don’t like women leaving them, but I don’t think I’ve ever known a biker to kill an ex-girlfriend for that reason.”

  “Maybe he intended to rough her up and ended up killing her,” Rhona said.

  “There had to be more to it than that.” Ian picked up the jacket. “Do we have infiltrators in the gang who could tell us anything about the girlfriends? Usually they aren’t important.”

  “The force protects the identity of the undercover guys, but Frank could channel our questions.”

  “We have the security video. How did he get in? Hell of a lot of chutzpah to walk in, nab her, and walk out knowing the security tapes would record it.”

  Rhona nodded. “We need to take another look at the garage tapes and see if we see them leaving. If we don’t that means he walked her out the front door without anyone being any the wiser and without her screaming for help.”

  “A gun in your side gives you a big disincentive to yell,” Ian said.

  “Time to go downtown and check out the tapes, but first we’ll ask Hollis a few questions.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Dismissed by the detectives, Hollis returned to her office. She left both the office door and the door to her apartment open. The dogs settled on the other side of the baby gate. When she stood up to retrieve a document from the files, they also rose, and only when she returned to her chair did they sink back to the floor. Administrative work awaited her, but tenants appeared in the doorway one after the other, and she spent endless minutes reassuring them.

  Another confrontation with Cartwright rated last on the list of things she wanted. After an hour, she relaxed but she should have known better. Cartwright loomed in the doorway. No Fatima to run interference for her this time. Now, when she wanted visitors, none appeared.

  Cartwright, in his leather jacket and dark glasses, slid into the room and close to her desk. He leaned forward.

  Hollis smelled sweat and garlic overlaid with heavy expensive cologne. She leaned back in her chair, poked her hands under the desk and regarded him with a steady gaze.

  “What can I do for you?” she said.

  He tapped lightly on the desk with a manicured finger that looked strange on his heavy, meaty hand. The black hair made her think of gorillas, or maybe of the mythical mountain yeti, infrequently sighted beings reportedly covered in hair.

  He regarded her unblinkingly. The malevolence in his gaze unsettled her. “You know more than you’re telling me, don’t you,” he said.

  It was a statement, not a question.

  “I didn’t know what you were talking about last night, and I still don’t. Nothing has changed overnight,” she said.

  He leaned his full weight on the desk, bringing his face close to hers. “Women who lie to me regret it,” he said in a low, ominous voice.

  Hollis wanted to push her chair back, leap out, race into her own apartment, and slam the door. What use were dogs if they didn’t sense trouble and make a racket?

  As if she’d sent them a message, both dogs began to bark. Cartwright swivelled to face her apartment door. His body language told Hollis dogs frightened him, but this would do her little good unless she owned a dog trained to lunge, grab a man, and hang on — a pit bull, German Shepherd, or Doberman Pinscher.

  Rhona appeared in the doorway, trailed by Ian. “What’s up with the dogs?” she said.

  “You must have surprised them,” Hollis answered. She asked herself if Cartwright’s remarks could be taken as a threat and should be repeated, but decided that Rhona already knew Cartwright had threatened her and decided not to intervene.

  Cartwright, his face expressionless, regarded the two detectives.

  “We spoke yesterday,” Ian said.

  The man nodded.

  “We have more questions,” Rhona added.

  Cartwright didn’t twitch or frown or give any indication of nervousness. “Ask them,” he said.

  Hollis jumped to her feet, nearly upending her chair. “Feel free to use the office,” she said. Her wide eyes and quick reaction reflected her fear.

  Rhona remembered Hollis’s call reporting that Cartwright had threatened her. In the past little had frightened Hollis. In fact, she’d ended up in dangerous situations because of her lack of fear. Yet Cartwright, sitting in Hollis’s own office, clearly terrified her. She’d deal with this later.

  Hollis probably had work to do, and there were other empty rooms.

  “Thanks, but I think we’ll use the party room,” Rhona said.

  She and Ian accompanied Cartwright out of the office and down the hall.

  In the party room Ian placed three folding chairs in a triangle and told Cartwright to sit facing them.

  “You said business took you out of town,” Rhona said. “What is your business and where were you?”

  “Investments,” he said.

  “The name of the firm?”

  “I invest for various people.”

  “Do you have a record of your transactions?” Ian asked.

  “My accountant does.”

  “We’ll accompany you to your apartment and wait while you get a copy of your most recent transactions and the details of your Monday night business trip. Credit card slips, your boarding pass, anything to prove where you were.”

  Barney regarded them unblinkingly with eyes that reminded Rhona of alligators she’d seen in the zoo — cold eyes that focused on prey and judged to a millimetre the amount of speed and energy needed to kill. Presuming his business was Black Hawk business, she didn’t think he’d like revealing any details.

  “Don’t you need a search warrant?” he said, his tone mild but his eyes revealing his rage.

  Only a man with something to hide and a wish to delay an investigat
ion required a search warrant.

  “We thought we might need one and prepared accordingly. Coming right up,” Rhona said cheerily. Ian stood up and left the room. Cartwright waited in silence until he returned. “It’s in the works. Should be here soon,” Ian said.

  “Now we’ll see what you have to hide,” Rhona said and watched Cartwright suppress the rage her remark engendered.

  Cartwright and Rhona waited while Ian went to meet the courier bearing the search warrant. Rhona had spoken to Frank before they left and told him they would need one, so they didn’t have long to sit in silence before Ian returned waving the piece of paper.

  Cartwright said nothing. He lumbered to his feet and preceded them into the hall and to the elevator.

  “Strong, silent type,” Rhona murmured to Ian.

  Cartwright lifted his head and regarded her with a cold-blooded stare. Rhona knew he would have no qualms about taking her out if he thought he could get away with it.

  “You live alone,” Ian said as they followed him into his apartment.

  “I do. I rent it furnished. Moved in a couple of weeks ago.”

  Rhona looked around.

  The apartment, a combination of inoffensive neutral colours and textures designed to soothe, please, and offend no one, must normally rival a high-end boutique hotel in attractiveness. However, in a week or two Cartwright had turned it into a sewer. He’d strewn dirty and discarded clothes everywhere. Empty beer bottles and the remains of take-out meals and overflowing ashtrays covered all flat surfaces, including the floor. The apartment smelled of stale food and beer but most of all of an unwashed man who hadn’t changed his socks for too long.

  Rhona wrinkled her nose and breathed shallowly. They’d entered a predator’s lair and the stink revolted her.

  “We want to see a boarding pass or a hotel receipt for Monday night and what financial information you have,” Rhona said.

  “We have the authority to search everywhere,” Ian said.

  Cartwright didn’t move.

  “Well,” Ian said.

  Rhona suspected Ian loathed the prospect of burrowing through this man’s belongings as much as she did.