Dark Matter

by R. D. Cain

  Chavez held out his bloody stump. “Got any Band-Aids?”

  Saint Anthony, the patron saint of missing things, seized the stage with a quick stride, his arms in the air, waving to the sold-out audience. The Conservatory Room was not large by the day’s standards. The marble floor was Italian. Steam pipes had been built in to keep the flower beds warm in the winter. It was a beautiful place for an intimate audience of one hundred people. Most of the revenue would be coming from broadcast rights, both television and radio.

  The cameras were HD steady-cams, so they could be close to audience members, any one of whom could expect a reading this evening. They had all paid to come, so he had no need to convert anyone. They would all be receptive to what he had to offer. His reputation spoke for itself.

  After the applause waned, he began. “Thank you all for joining me tonight. We’re going to have a busy program. Now, just to get things started, I want to do a few readings, get in touch with our family members on the other side. It helps me get in the zone.” Anthony sipped water from a bottle on a stool near the edge of the stage. He was relaxed, warm under the lights, and surrounded by agreeable faces, excited by the possibility to reach loved ones from the other side.

  “If what I’m saying sounds like you, just stand up for me, please — that way I can feel my way though the audience so I find the right person here. Now, I feel a contact with a spirit named Emily. She died in her seventies, here in Toronto.” During a group reading, you couldn’t play on words like in individual readings, with rainbow ruses or Barnum statements. It was far easier to use the same manipulation techniques that had made insurance companies billions of dollars: statistics.

  He could have used Hazel, Ivy or Edith — with a crowd this big, any of these once-popular names would strike paydirt. One woman in the audience stood up, her face flushed red, an expression of surprise on her face as two different cameras pivoted to capture her. Middle-aged, with a large shoulder bag still in her arms, she set down her diet ginger ale and pushed her glasses up her nose.

  “Well, that was easy.” Anthony smiled. He stayed on the stage, moving as close to her as he could to engage her directly. The crewman was there in no time, a microphone at the ready.

  “Emily,” he said. “An aunt? Mother?”

  “My — my aunt,” the woman said, startled by the sound of her amplified voice.

  Anthony did a visual inventory, not just of her, but the woman on her left — a daughter, probably. He tapped the earpiece on the left side, a sign to drop the monitor volume.

  “She’s on the other side, but she’s here with us now, in this place. She says that she’s with someone, another relative, with a J in the name.” At first the woman seemed perplexed, but Anthony was confident. Everyone from an English-speaking country had a relative with the initial J.

  The reading went on. He provided her catharsis when she learned that the aunt was proud of her, proud that she had raised the children on her own — all generalities, no specifics. He used all of the classic techniques. It was good to feel alive again, to have his mojo back.

  An image of the Oracle cards ran through his mind. As if they were calling to him. It was perplexing, and stopped him momentarily. He looked up when he felt the weight of the audience’s gaze on him.

  “I’m sorry, I just drifted off there a moment.” Awkward laughter from the audience made him smile, though he was still thoughtful. The cards had never called him before.

  “Listen, I think it’s time I talk about my experience. In the advertisement material for this event, there was mention of a dream or vision that I had. That one night while I was sleeping, I was born into the next world.

  “I was walking backward, upstream in a gentle river. The warm water bathed my feet as I made my way over the smooth rocks and cool sand. I realized that I was looking back at my history — I could see everything that I had done during my life here, just not what was waiting for me. At that time I began to understand that it was a metaphor for how we live our lives here, stumbling the wrong way into our future.

  “I spent a lifetime in that world, speaking to the inhabitants. You see, on the land it was like being in a beautiful park: fruit trees, vegetables, fresh water, and cozy campfires. However, when it came to the river, we couldn’t see upstream and had to walk backward.

  “Well, after being there, I learned to see upstream. I could see what was coming toward us. And then I awoke here and realized that I could do the same thing in this world. I learned to turn my spirit to see the future as we can see our past now. And I have an important message for the world —” Anthony stopped in place, frozen. A feeling came over him, a mix of fear and excitement. It was as if he were on a ledge, ready to jump into a lake of fire. The moment of making magic was the turn. All of the help that Chavez had given had been to get him to this moment; the delivery had to be perfect.

  He looked up at the cameras with a credible expression of fright on his face. Pale from a lack of sun and sweaty from the heat of the lights, he let his breathing grow sharp, his heart race. “I’m sorry, just give me a minute.” He held a hand up to stop a non-existent stage hand from rushing to his aid. “I just had a vision of a case I’m working on. It was nothing I wanted made public; you see, I was hired to consult with a family to find their missing daughter.

  “I was just overcome with a feeling of where she is. I’m sorry, this has nothing to do with the show — I know we’re live, but I just have to say it as it comes or I might not remember everything. She’s alive. She’s in a park, across the river from the trail. It’s in the east end. I have a vision of — what’s the word? Military? Is it a Military Trail? No, it’s a park name. Damn, does anyone here have a map? Anyone?”

  A woman held up a smartphone and said, “I have GPS.”

  He rushed over to her, leaving the stage to enter the audience but watching to make sure the cameras followed him. “Bring up Toronto.” As if flipping pages on her iPhone, he moved farther and farther east. He zoomed in. “Military Trail! It’s the name of a road.” He zoomed in, then stopped abruptly. He handed the phone back to the woman, staring at her, his mouth hanging open in shock. Anthony waved a stage hand over to him, a thin young man with dark hair and square glasses. He covered his microphone and said something to the young man.

  The young man ran off stage and Anthony finally exhaled. He slumped forward, his hands on his knees and sucked air.

  He tapped his microphone to make sure it was on and slowly straightened up. “My god, I think we found her.”

  Anthony noticed a disturbance off stage: people moving down the far aisle and loud voices. There were uniformed cops there. Not the hired guys for security; these were street cops. And they had two detectives with them. Anthony felt his blood run cold. Only one was a detective, he realized. The other was Nastos.

  “Listen, everyone, we have a long night ahead. I am going to take a small break from the stage while a ten-minute video plays.”

  There was applause while Anthony left. The stage went dark, leaving the audience to turn their attention to the motion of the black curtains and the large screen dropping into position.

  Anthony strutted over to the officers, putting on a façade of self-confidence and delight in their attention. “Mr. Nastos, so happy to see you.”

  “Save the act for someone who might believe it, Anthony.” Anthony recoiled a little at the rudeness, which is what Nastos wanted him to do. It was the start of trying to make him angry and off balance; Anthony instinctively felt that it was best to play along.

  “Anthony Raines, I’m homicide detective Brian Dennehy. I have some bad news.”

  “Oh my god, is it Lindsay? I had a feeling she was going to be okay! I was just going to call the police with some information —”

  Nastos cut him off. “More like you were going to announce to your audience that you were going to give the police information.”<
br />
  Anthony ignored Nastos. “Is she okay, Detective?”

  Dennehy tried to feign concern. “Oh, she’s okay, we found her. I’m worried about you.”

  “About me?”

  Nastos played along with Dennehy. “Oh, yeah, Anthony, if I were you, I’d be changing my underwear.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, we found the place where she was being held, but the guy who had her got away, for the time being.”

  Anthony began to go pale under his stage makeup. He looked for something to lean against, finding nothing. “What?”

  Dennehy explained, “The guy who held her sawed his own hand off to get away from a pair of handcuffs. Some guy named Chavez. You know him?”

  This was going to be the critical question for Anthony. It was a yes or no, and either answer was damning. “I know a few guys named Chavez. One’s an accountant, one’s a carpenter.”

  Dennehy exchanged a look with Nastos, as if he’d seen all he needed to see. He added one more comment. “Well, if this guy is crazy enough to cut his own hand off and escape, I’d hate to be on his bad side. And you have to wonder, if he was that determined, that crazy, to saw through his own hand with a rusty saw, and if he felt that someone had screwed him over . . . Well, he might want to cut something off of that someone?”

  Anthony’s phony smile barely yielded. “Listen. I’m so happy that Lindsay has been found okay. As for this Chavez character, I can’t believe I have much to worry about there.”

  Nastos said, “Glad to hear it, Anthony. I guess you won’t need police protection then. So hey, good night, I hope we didn’t wreck your show.”

  Anthony ignored him. “Good night, Detective Dennehy.”

  Nastos smiled. “One more thing, Anthony.” Dennehy stopped his turn and waited for Nastos to continue. “Now, my feeling is that the last time you helped the police and found the body, you just got lucky. Soon enough, money started rolling in, you booked a lot of readings, but over the years the money dried up. This time you decided to make your own luck. You got Chavez to grab the girls, and rather than finding a dead one and making a modest living from it, you were going to find a live one. You were going to save her and spend the rest of your life cashing cheques and going on TV shows. Too bad you picked the wrong psycho to do the grunt work.”

  Anthony perked up, interested in what Nastos had to say to finish.

  “Because he’s got a taste for killing, Anthony, and I think he’s saving the best for last. Good night — have a good show.”

  Saturday, October 27

  Nastos sat in his and Carscadden’s office. Lindsay and Tara being home safe, and every cop in North America being on a Be On the Look Out, or BOLO, broadcast for Chavez made him think that the stress of the last week was worth it. He was at his desk, flipping through the crime scene pictures of Tabitha Moreau and talking on the phone to his old friend from the force, Jacques.

  “Well, Jacques, I’m glad you were able to find Darius in Toronto. I’m surprised he didn’t take off years ago.”

  “Yeah, I got lucky. Just like I got lucky that you noticed something suspicious in the pictures.”

  Nastos asked, “So what about this Chavez guy? What’s the latest with him?”

  “They found a stolen pickup truck in Cabbagetown, but nothing further. It’s been a few days, so he could be anywhere.”

  Nastos put the murder photos aside and flipped through the file, looking for something. He found the Ministry of Transportation return on the licence plate DRBRUCE. It was for Townler Veterinary Services. The address was in Cabbagetown.

  His front doorbell chimed to alert him that someone had opened it. Nastos heard footsteps in the front lobby. “Hey, I should go. Swing by for lunch when you have a chance.”

  “Sure thing, Nastos. Bye.”

  “See ya.” He pondered the address. If Anthony hung out with this vet, then maybe Chavez did too. And if I was running around with my hand hacked off and I didn’t want to go to a hospital, a vet would do just as well. Hell, Chavez is one rabid animal anyway.

  Carscadden came into the office, tossing his coat on a chair behind the door.

  Nastos asked, “How’s Hopkins?”

  “Fine. She’s taking Taylor to his appointment with Dr. Mills. She won’t be back in today.”

  “Sounds like a good idea.”

  Nastos was going to bring up the possible lead on Chavez, but paused to watch Carscadden, who was acting unusual. He almost ran to his desk and started flipping through the pages of brochures he had brought.

  Nastos asked, “Going somewhere?”

  “I’m taking Hopkins on a trip. We’re getting the hell out of here.”

  “I don’t recommend South America.”

  “Yeah, no kidding. I was thinking Paris.”

  “She’ll love that.”

  The front door chimed. Nastos, out of habit, expected to hear Hopkins’ voice but then remembered that she wasn’t in. He called out, “Hello?”

  Craig Bannerman opened the door to their room and came in with a broad smile on his face. Nastos stood to extend his hand; Bannerman shoved it aside and gave him a hug. “I owe you guys so much.”

  Nastos said, “Nothing that two minutes in a bank vault couldn’t clear up.”

  Bannerman reached a hand across to Carscadden before he sat down and threw a file on the desk. He had a smug smile on his face, giving them an I-know-something-you-don’t-know smile.

  Carscadden opened the file and flipped through the pages.

  Nastos nudged his arm. “You normally move your lips and mumble when you read. Speak up a little.”

  Bannerman slid his chair forward. “Steve, I’m a top executive in a sixty-billion-dollar bank. Every politician in the city has lined up to suck my ass a little. Now, in regards your civil matter with the police service — it turns out that one of my associates knows some people on the Police Services Board.”

  “Bunch of communist assholes.”

  “You might change your attitude on them a little. A story was told to them about a cop who had been through hell with his little girl, and been wrongly terminated as a result. I told them about the man who believed a lost, grieving father when no one else would and how he brought my girl back to me. When they saw the reasonable civil remedy your lawyer Mr. Carscadden was seeking in the courts, and heard about how the police service — the ultra-right-wing, totalitarian group of thugs that they are — were sticking it to you, they were very concerned.”

  Nastos tried to peek at the file, but Carscadden closed it up, agreeing. “Very concerned.”

  Nastos asked, “Did they finally make an offer?”

  Carscadden shook his head. “No.”

  Nastos exhaled, disappointed. Still, he found it unusual that both Carscadden and Bannerman were smiling.

  Eventually Carscadden opened the file to the last page and slid it over for Nastos to read. He read it three times, turning back a few pages, then to the last page again.

  Carscadden said, “Full back pay since you were fired, including pension adjustment. An amount — a little low if you ask me — for legal fees. And they are going to pay your salary until you qualify for pension. Everything we asked for.”

  Nastos asked, “What about the arrest records?”

  Carscadden went back a few pages and pointed. “Expunged. Hell, you could probably go back and work as a cop again.”

  Nastos shook his head. “And give up working for you?”

  Bannerman rose slowly. “I’d like to stay and have a drink with you guys — maybe we can reschedule for next weekend?”

  “Sure.”

  “Lindsay says she wants to meet you both and thank you personally.”

  Carscadden stood up to show Bannerman out. “No problem. Anytime.”

  Bannerman was quick to leave. There wa
s a bounce in his step that Nastos had never noticed before.

  Eager to share the good news, Nastos picked up the phone and dialed Madeleine’s number. There was no answer. She must be showing a house. He sent a quick text message: Good news. Call right away. After he put the phone down, he slid the MTO return for DRBRUCE over to Carscadden to read.

  Carscadden read it. “Yeah, so?”

  Nastos exhaled. “I was just on the phone to Jacques.”

  “You mean Polkaroo? Your invisible friend that I’ve never seen?”

  “Yeah.” Nastos had to laugh. “Polkaroo says that a burned-out pickup truck from the area of the shack was found in Cabbagetown. This asshole here lives in Cabbagetown. If I was Chavez —”

  “Yeah, I’d go there too.”

  35

  Carscadden drove east on Queen Street, then north on Parliament. In the passenger seat, Nastos hung up his cell phone and put it away. “Can you imagine if this asshole was staying right around the corner from us?”

  Carscadden agreed. “Good thing he’s feeling a little under the weather. He could have burst through the front door, guns a-blazing, and it would have been over.”

  Nastos was studying the building numbers and business names as they drove slowly up the street. When they arrived at Wellesley and Parliament, Nastos spotted a white, rectangular sign with simple blue lettering. Veterinary Clinic.

  “There it is. Just keep driving.”

  Carscadden examined the business as he drove past. “How long for Dennehy?”

  “He’s on the way now.”

  Nastos could see the conflict in Carscadden. Part of him wanted the SWAT team here, part of him wanted to handle this himself. Nastos added, “And we’re waiting for him. Don’t get any funny ideas.”

  Cabbagetown was a weird mix of run-down and upscale. For two hours, they watched the entrance to the clinic from the north, parked in a tow-away zone on Parliament Street. Dennehy and Byrne were south, barely visible through the street traffic and steady waves of pedestrians. Panhandlers, the ones too lazy to be squeegee kids, sat in alcoves or on steps. Nastos saw one guy, maybe a hundred years old, wrinkled and frail at ninety pounds, holding a creased cardboard sign that read Will Work for Sex. Carscadden pointed out four different hand-to-hand drug deals with all of the enthusiasm of a nine-year-old spying tree monkeys at African Lion Safari.